The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Jul. 14, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“The authority, the interests, and the affections of the people at large are the only foundation, on which a superstructure proposed to be at once durable and magnificent, can be rationally erected.” —James Wilson

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Just How ‘Far Right’ Is the GOP Platform?1

Both The New York Times and NBC News have recently run stories on the GOP’s preparation for its upcoming national convention in Cleveland next week. In their “reporting” on the Republican platform and its field of speakers, two telling words were invoked — “far” and “extreme” — buzz words that the Left often uses in seeking to dissuade anyone from taking conservative ideas seriously.

“Rudy Giuliani … the far-right former mayor of New York City will also speak [at the GOP national convention],” reported NBC News. That was later redacted and replaced with the description that Giuliani is “extremely conservative on national security issues.” Giuliani is strong on national defense, but he’s also pro-gun control and pro-abortion. Hardly “far right.”

Meanwhile, The New York Times headlined, “Emerging Republican Platform Goes Far to the Right.” What are these “far” right and “extreme” conservative issues that make up the Republican Party platform? Four of the major planks of the party’s platform to be highlighted at the convention are: 1. a strong immigration policy, 2. support for traditional marriage and opposition to forced assimilation into the Barack Obama’s transgender bathroom directive, 3. support for a strong national defense, and 4. an “America First” policy when it comes to international trade agreements.

There is nothing novel about these Republican ideals — and most certainly no movement to the “far right.” In fact, was it not Obama who stated in October 2010, “I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understanding of the traditional definitions of marriage”? In other words, until just a few years ago, the Republican platform was what nearly all Americans believed. So exactly which party should more accurately be described as being “far” and “extreme”? Where Leftmedia outlets are concerned, if you’re not moving their direction, then you are the “extremist.”

Vindictive Hillary Warns of Presidential Abuse2

Hillary Clinton has a serious warning about Donald Trump: “Imagine if he had not just Twitter and cable news to go after his critics and opponents, but also the IRS, or for that matter our entire military. Given what we have seen and heard, do any of us think he’d be restrained?

Funny she should mention those things. What, indeed, would it be like to have a president who used the vast might of Washington against private citizens? Why, it might look like the last eight years.

Barack Obama used the IRS to target Tea Party conservatives for years leading up to the 2012 election, and it may never be known how much that boosted his re-election effort. Of course, he won’t ever be implicated, having skillfully covered his tracks so the only people ever to be blamed were obscure bureaucrats. This targeting also wasn’t known until May 2013, after Obama was safely ensconced in the Oval Office for his second term. And it was only last month that the total enemies list3 was revealed. The Leftmedia, of course, has been largely mum about the scandal, leaving Hillary free to issue such warnings about Trump with little challenge or comparison beyond media outlets like ours.

Or take the military. While once again Obama’s fingerprints would never be found, the U.S. Army once prepped for Tea Party "terrorists”4 — a scandal we broke. Or there was the DHS effort to train for and combat right-wing extremists5, as if American Patriots and not the radical Islamic terrorists Obama refuses to name are the real threat.

Did we mention Hillary Clinton keeps an actual enemies list6?

So yes, Americans should fear a power-hungry and vindictive president. But that’s not some theoretical warning for Clinton to bandy about — it’s the outrageous reality of the man she seeks to succeed and emulate.

The Toll of Transgendered Suicide7

Just last week, we noted8 the unfortunate number of veterans who take their own lives. But veterans aren’t the only people disproportionately represented in this terrible statistic. Transgendered people are far more likely to commit (or at least attempt) suicide than any other demographic. A recent example: Bradley Manning, the transgendered soldier who now calls himself “Chelsea” after winning a lawsuit against the Army last year to beginning hormone therapy on the taxpayers' dime, attempted suicide in his Fort Leavenworth prison cell, where he is serving a 35-year sentence for, er, mishandling classified information. Manning made the attempt just days after Barack Obama lifted the ban on transgendered service members.

Using feminine pronouns to describe him, Anne Hendershott, director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, writes9, “In her suicide attempt, Manning joins the more than 41 percent of those identifying as ‘transgender’ or gender nonconforming who have attempted suicide, compared with 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime suicide attempt. It is also higher than the 10-20 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who report ever attempting suicide.”

The reason is simple, profound and anathema to the Left’s agenda: People were created in God’s image, male and female. Gender-disorientation pathology10 is one manifestation of the fact we’re all marred and broken by sin. People suffering from gender dysphoria have deep issues that are difficult to sort out, but we live in a post-sexual revolution culture that tells them they ought to celebrate and flaunt what’s actually very wrong. Thus, many are left seeing no way out. They need help, not a month-long “pride” fest.

Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read The Left’s War on Cops11. In the Democrats' political playbook, fomenting disunity to rally constituencies is goal #1 — dead police are just collateral damage. Black Lies Matter!

If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here12.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Victor Davis Hanson: Enemies See America as Vulnerable Prey13
Joe Bastardi: Why a Warming World May Be the Cause of Less Weather Woes14
George Will: The Travesty of Teacher Tenure15

For more, visit Right Opinion16.

TOP HEADLINES

FBI ‘Gagged’ Agents in Clinton Email Probe17
Theresa May Picks Boris Johnson as Britain’s New Foreign Secretary18
Nuke Deal Turns 1: Six Reasons We Can’t Trust Iran19

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report20.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Resurrecting ObamaCare’s ‘Public Option’21

By Allyne Caan

Remember the early days of the ObamaCare debate, when many of us warned the Democrats' health care overhaul was the first step toward a single-payer system? Just as we predicted, leftists, including presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, once again have taken up the banner of the so-called “public option,” which is little more than a Trojan horse for single-payer health care. As predictable as each sunrise, Democrats always aim to expand government.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently published an article22 bylined Barack Obama, in which he revives the call for a public option: “Based on experience with the ACA, I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited. Adding a public plan in such areas would strengthen the Marketplace approach, giving consumers more affordable options while also creating savings for the federal government.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Clearly, JAMA’s peer-review standards have plummeted, as this statement was obviously written by either a professional prevaricator or a stand-up comedian.

For starters, Obama all but admits his signature health care law is a flop, as “based on experience” he now claims we need a public option. As Reason’s Peter Suderman notes23, “The article … serves as a tacit admission that the law is not working as intended. … Naturally, it proposes further government intervention in the health care sector.”

Point taken, though we’d argue the law is working exactly as intended. Democrats just lied about their intentions.

Another howler is Obama’s punchline about how the public option would “compete alongside” private insurance, as if the government is just another capitalist enterprise in a free market. “Consumers do better when there is choice and competition,” Obama sagaciously explained. “That’s how the market works.” As if he’s the greatest free-market economist since Milton Freidman.

One of ObamaCare’s many lies24 was that it would improve competition in the individual insurance market. To sell this point, Obama pointed to the 34 states in which “75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies.”

Insurance exchanges were supposed to be the grand savior of competition. They proved quite the opposite, as insurers have continued to pull out of exchanges. Suderman explains, “What this means is that in many rural areas, Obamacare’s exchanges will be served by one and only one insurer.” Wasn’t this one of the problems Obama promised to solve?

But never fear, statists have a plan to fix their failed government program. Another government program! If only we had a public option, Obama opines, it could “compete alongside private insurers” in places where competition is limited.

Of course, the government already tried a quasi-public option that, predictably, flopped. When the full-scale public option was rejected during the original ObamaCare debates, lawmakers set up pilot-program public options, or “co-ops.” These co-ops received billions of federal tax dollars and were supposed to operate just like regular insurance companies, compete alongside private insurers, and become self-sufficient. Yet of the 23 co-ops created, 16 have closed. As Americans for Tax Reform explains25, “Co-ops across the country have struggled to operate in Obamacare exchanges, losing millions despite receiving enormous government subsidies.”

This makes even more ludicrous Obama’s claim that a public option would “create savings for the federal government.” Again, as Suderman notes, given the co-ops failures, “there is little reason to believe that a full-fledged public option, entirely run by the government, would fare any better.” Instead, he correctly argues, it would be “much harder to shut down, and much more likely to be propped up by additional federal funding if it failed to completely cover its expenses on its own.”

And as for competition, even pretending that’s a goal is absurd. As The Wall Street Journal observes26, “Mr. Obama is re-endorsing what he had hoped in 2010 would be a way station for government-run single payer that would gradually wipe out anything resembling private insurance. Insurers can’t outbid a ‘free’ program that is open to all or most and has the unlimited access to the Treasury that Medicare enjoys. A market exodus would be inevitable.”

A single-payer system was the goal all along. ObamaCare was never about health care; it was always about control. And Obama’s obsession with fundamentally transforming America won’t be satisfied as long as any semblance of Liberty or constitutionally limited government remains.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

No Institutional Power Equals No Black Racism?27
ISIL on the Ropes?28
Setting the Record Straight on Religious Liberty29

OPINION IN BRIEF

Victor Davis Hanson: “As in the case of Islamic terrorism, America seems to have no answers to racial tensions. Half the country believes African-Americans are inordinately targeted by police and that inner-city violence can be attributed to a long history of racism, national neglect and economic stagnation. The other half blame disastrous social-welfare and big-government policies for creating dangerous dependencies and a dearth of jobs in America’s inner cities, as well as a popular culture that glorifies rather than discourages the excesses of many young black males. One America believes that the Obama administration genuinely tried, but so far has failed, to resolve the tensions. between inner-city residents and police. The other America thinks Obama sought to leverage those tensions for political reasons. Either way, most of America privately thinks that Islamic terrorist acts and racial tensions are going to get far worse — a perception that is probably shared overseas as well. … To be blunt, America’s vulnerable postwar global order may already seem to those abroad to be bloated carrion ready to be picked apart by opportunistic vultures.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” —Plato (429-347 BC)

Upright: “We’ve got to do better as black people. The cops have made some mistakes, but there’s a lot of blame to go around.” —former NBA player Charles Barkley

A blind squirrel finds a nut: “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling. Three times in the past week, Justice Ginsburg has publicly discussed her view of the presidential race, in the sharpest terms. … Just imagine if this were 2000 and the resolution of the election depended on a Supreme Court decision. Could anyone now argue with a straight face that Justice Ginsburg’s only guide would be the law? … Washington is more than partisan enough without the spectacle of a Supreme Court justice flinging herself into the mosh pit.” —New York Times editorial

You think? “On reflection, my recent remarks30 in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them. Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.” —Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Demo-gogues: “There will be more people killed by guns and people who ought not to have those weapons because a thorough background check was not in place to [stop] people who have mental incapacity, that have terrorist thoughts, who have criminal thoughts or records, or behavior that would lead law enforcement to deny them access to those weapons.” —Rep. Joe Crowley

Non sequitur: “Two black men were needlessly gunned down by police; 5 Dallas police officers were slain by a demented man, and on Friday I had to appear in federal court. … I’m not the first black elected official to be persecuted and, sad to say, I won’t be the last.” —Rep. Corrine Brown, who earlier stated, “[My indictors] are the same agents that was [sic] not able to do a thorough investigation of [Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen], and we ended up with 50 people dead.”

Late-night humor: “People are now saying that Hillary Clinton has narrowed her list of potential vice presidents down to five people. I’m sorry, she’s ‘deleted’ the list down to five people.” —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.