The Patriot Post Digest 5-18-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-18-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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Mid-Day Digest

May 18, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“If we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.” —Thomas Jefferson (1811)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Disunity Among Braying Jackasses

Despite being a terribly weak candidate and losing recent primary after recent primary, Hillary Clinton will most likely win the Democrat nomination. That’s opening a deep rift in the party. On Tuesday, Democrats in Kentucky and Oregon headed to the polls. Sanders won Oregon by a nine-point margin — less than expected, but still a win for the socialist candidate. Meanwhile, Bluegrass Country was supposed to be Clinton Country but at the end of the day, Clinton held a razor-thin 1,900-vote lead over Sanders. Just to show how weak Candidate Clinton has become, remember Clinton won Kentucky by 35% over Barack Obama in the 2008 primary.

Clinton would like nothing better than to unite the party behind her and enter the general election fight with her fellow repugnant New Yorker. But Sanders' supporters are angry over the party rules that ensure favorites like Clinton get the nomination. Clinton is close to clinching the nomination because superdelegates — party elites — support her. Some Sanders supporters are so angry that they erupted into violence at Saturday’s Nevada Democratic Convention and sent death threats to Nevada’s state party chairwoman.

When Democrat leaders like Harry Reid and Debbie Wassermann-Shultz told Sanders to control and apologize for his supporters, Sanders fired back. During a California campaign stop this week, Sanders said, “The Democratic Party is going to have to make a very profound and important decision. It can do the right thing and open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change. … Or the other option for the Democratic Party, which is a sad and tragic option, is to choose to maintain its status quo structure.”

After the violence over the weekend, Nevada State Democratic Party warned that the national convention may become violent as Clinton grasps the nomination and Sanders supporters are shut out. Just like grassroots Donald Trump supporters, Sanders backers are angry at the political elites and the rules they created to keep power. The GOP isn’t the only party experiencing a populist uprising, and Democrat disunity may prove a serious problem for them in November.

Obama the Rainbow Warrior

“On May 17, Americans and people around the world mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia by reaffirming the dignity and inherent worth of all people, regardless of who they love or their gender identity,” Barack Obama proclaimed in a White House statement. There was not a companion statement from anywhere in the Muslim world.

“There is much work to be done to combat homophobia and transphobia,” Obama said, and he’s certainly waging that combat — mandating school bathroom polices, suing North Carolina, social engineering the military, lighting up the White House in rainbow colors to celebrate same-sex marriage, etc.

In another recent example of Obama’s agenda, he appointed a man who identifies as a woman to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships. That man, former husband and father of three, now goes by the name Barbara Satin. Let’s just say we find his surname particularly … interesting in the context of a faith-based organization. “Given the current political climate,” Satin said in a statement, “I believe it’s important that a voice of faith representing the transgender and gender non-conforming community … be present and heard in these vital conversations.” This miniscule group suffering from gender disorientation pathology has a far outsized voice.

Often left not only unheard but shamed or silenced are the views of doctors like Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins, who says simply, “Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men.” Such scientific truth is considered “transphobic” by this administration.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Obama’s Army secretary, Eric Fanning, who is the first homosexual leader of any U.S. military service — just four short years after Obama ordered military “gay pride” celebrations.

On a final note of what we consider to be related news, a new study from Emory University concludes, “HIV infection is hyperendemic among MSM [men who have sex with men] in many areas of the United States, particularly in the South.” Indeed, in some cities, as many as four in 10 homosexual men have HIV, a rate that far outstrips their straight counterparts. Is it “homophobic” to point that out? You certainly won’t hear it from any Obama council.

Courts Shoot Down DC’s Gun Policies — Again

Building on the 2008 Heller decision that struck down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled the city’s latest policy limiting the right to bear arms. Specifically, the city restricted permits only to residents who could convince bureaucrats they needed a gun for protection. The court said that stymies Americans' “core right of self-defense.” Undeterred by Heller, DC has actively looked for ways to impede citizens from acquiring firearms. But the Supreme Court was clear: There is a right to self-defense and certain government policies infringe that right. Judge Leon wrote, “The District’s understandable, but overzealous, desire to restrict the right to carry in public a firearm for self-defense to the smallest possible number of law-abiding, responsible citizens is exactly the type of policy choice the Justices had in mind.”

This ruling comes on the heels of a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court, which took issue with a California county’s attempt to squeeze out gun stores from its jurisdiction through regulation. With these two rulings, perhaps DC will get a clue and realize a right is a right, no matter how much city leaders don’t like it. Or perhaps they’ll continue bull-headedly looking for new ways to infringe basic constitutional rights.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Star Parker: Time to Shut Down the Department of Education
Michelle Malkin: TSA’s Union Power Grab: Thousands Slowing Down Airports
Caroline Camden Lewis: Keep Marching Forward

For more, visit Right Opinion.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Feeling the Bern, Hillary Turns to Bill

By Louis DeBroux

Poor Hillary is feeling the Bern. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Struggling as Hillary Clinton is to put away socialist Bernie Sanders, her latest gambit came this past Sunday. Speaking before a group of voters in Kentucky, Hillary promised that she would put her husband, former President Bill Clinton, “in charge of revitalizing the economy, because, you know, he knows how to do it.” Party like it’s 1999?

This is an astonishing statement on a number of fronts. First, Hillary is declaring that she, as the first female president, is going to outsource the single most concerning issue for Americans today to a man, the clear implication being that she is just not up to it. This is a stark reversal from Hillary’s angry, indignant response when asked, as secretary of state, about Bill’s opinion on a foreign policy matter, snarling “My husband is not secretary of state, I am!”

Now that she is struggling to close the deal with Democrats, maybe she is a bit less hesitant to bring in her husband to pinch hit for her. After all, as The New York Times recently noted, “Mr. Clinton’s more emotive style appears to resonate with blue collar workers in ways that Mrs. Clinton’s has not.” Of course, it helps if, before you ask for their votes, you don’t go into blue-collar states like West Virginia and tell them you are “going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

The second damning aspect of Hillary promising to make Bill the nation’s economy czar is that if the need exists to “revitalize” the economy, then by definition it has been stagnant and underperforming. And who has been in charge for the last eight years? None other than her former boss, Democrat Barack Obama.

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-18-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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It must be tough to be a Democrat these days when contemplating the state of the economy. Are you Team Hillary, which says we need to elect her to continue the Obama policies that got us here (which seems to contradict the proclaimed need to revitalize the economy), or are you Team Bernie, which says that the economy is sluggish and that only the One Percent are benefitting?

The Obama economy has been marked by massive government spending increases, the stimulus, bailouts, enormous growth of the regulatory state, record numbers of Americans on food stamps, high unemployment and under-employment, and the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression. Obama has doubled the national debt, crippled the health care industry, and, as more and more jobs go overseas to escape the punishing business environment created by Democrats, he’s insisted the beatings will continue until morale improves. Barring a sudden reversal of fortune, Obama is poised to become the first U.S. president in history to leave office without achieving a single quarter of 3% or better GDP growth.

Is that what Hillary is promising more of?

During a Democrat debate in February, Hillary lamented, “I know a lot of Americans are angry about the economy, and for good cause. Americans haven’t had a raise in 15 years. There aren’t enough good-paying jobs, especially for young people. And yes, the economy is rigged in favor of those at the top.”

That is quite a damning indictment of the Obama years, and more than a bit ironic. If she brings in her husband to kick-start the economy, he will have to follow a much different model than Obama has, reverting back to the tax-cutting, deregulating model that was so successful in the 1980s and 90s. Back then Bill, having inherited a booming economy thanks to Ronald Reagan’s policies and victory in the Cold War, was able to slash government spending by gutting the military. He also raised taxes.

After being forced to deal with Newt Gingrich following the Republican Revolution of 1994, Bill switched tracks and reluctantly went along with the GOP’s pro-growth model of slashing capital gains tax rates, reforming welfare (adding work requirements and lifetime benefits caps), and introducing free trade measures. As a result the economy boomed and we saw federal spending as a share of GDP drop from 21% to 17.6%, with millions of jobs created, and four years of a balanced federal budget.

This puts Hillary in a bit of a pickle. The Democrat base has moved far to the left since her husband was president, and the measures that would revitalize the economy are now anathema to the Democrat Party base and Hillary’s own rhetoric. She has called for steep increases in the capital gains tax, massive increases in government spending, reams of new federal regulations, gutting GOP efforts to reintroduce work requirements for welfare, and opposition to free trade deals.

In short, the opposite of what her husband did.

Now, the key thing to remember here is that in America, our presidents are not placed in charge of the economy, nor do they “create jobs” (other than government jobs, which can only come at the expense of private sector jobs). The best they can do is create a tax and regulatory environment that incentivizes investment, which in turn creates jobs as a byproduct. Socialist paradises like Bernie envisions let their presidents run their economies, which always ends disastrously, as Venezuela has discovered.

One final thought: The New York Times article notes that Hillary wants to bring in Bill to “focus on places that have experienced substantial job losses and economic dislocation, like coal country and some inner cities.”

What do coal country and inner-cities, devastated by job losses and economic stagnation, have in common? They have been run by liberal Democrats for decades, who have implemented their high tax, heavy regulation, Big Government, pro-union, anti-free market economic models, bringing misery to their constituents.

Maybe it’s time to go back to what works.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: The Real Ferguson Effect
Pope Francis: You Know, Christians Believe in Conquest Too
Hollywood: ‘Empowering’ Women Through Nudity
A Point to Ponder
That’s No Way to Run a College — Or the Nation
Relax: Extensive Study Says GMOs Are Beneficial
Obama Repeating National Security Mistakes in Libya

TOP HEADLINES

Obama Extends Overtime Rule to 4.2 Million Workers
Senate Approves Sept. 11 Legislation Despite Saudi Threats
Bill Would Punish Countries That Refuse to Repatriate Criminal Aliens

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report

OPINION IN BRIEF

Star Parker: “It would be good news if the Department of Education just wasted the money it gets from our hard-earned taxes. But it uses the money to do real damage. Nothing could provide a better example than the newly issued guidance letter that the Department of Education, jointly with the Justice Department, just sent to public school districts across the country, threatening to cut of federal funds if public schools do not comply with guidelines for treatment of so-called transgender students. The first paragraph of the directive provides a toll-free phone number to call if you don’t know the English language well enough to read the letter and then serves up this same paragraph in six different languages. Our own Department of Education is apparently of the view that familiarity with the English language is not among the responsibilities of American citizens. … To repeat, the Department of Education is not just wasting the billions it controls. It does substantial damage by forcing its own left-wing views on the nation’s families. The Education department should be shut down and these funds should either be returned to taxpayers and or sent to parents with children in public schools to be used toward vouchers to allow them to choose where to send their children to school.”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “I believe that the bathroom-usage issue constitutes a far more intrusive assault on our traditional morés than same-sex marriage. Many Americans who have zero inclination toward homosexuality were willing to accept same-sex marriage on the grounds that what other people do is their business and not our own, and that two gay people getting married isn’t going to infringe upon one’s own personal space. The bathroom issue is obviously different: Going to the bathroom is one of the most personal and private acts a person does; it is a situation in which individuals can feel particularly vulnerable; and now the government wants to take away that feeling of personal privacy and safety.” —Mark Hendrickson

Non Compos Mentis: “It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.” —Pope Francis

A vast right-wing conspiracy: “It’s time people stop listening to Republican propaganda about the economy, education and health care.” —Hillary Clinton

Predictable: “There have been leaks from the Justice Department that willfulness has not been established and that there is scant evidence of any illegal conduct [by Hillary Clinton in the email scandal]. That is coming from the national security section of the Justice Department and that is a sign that the fix is in on any criminal case against Hillary and her aids.” —Joe diGenova, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia

And last… “One thing Trump isn’t is a ‘far-right populist’; he’s a centrist populist. This is going to make the attacks on him trickier than the usual paint-by-numbers attack on the typical Republican. (The match-up is going to be Trump, moderate in substance and outrageous in demeanor, vs. Hillary, left in substance and moderate in demeanor.)” —Rich Lowry

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.