The Patriot Post Digest 7-21-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-21-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Jul. 21, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788.)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

GOP Convention Highlights, Day 31

Vice presidential nominee Mike Pence: “At the very moment when America is crying out for something new and different, the other party has answered with a stale agenda and the most predictable of names. … The choice could not be more clear. Americans can elect someone who literally personifies the failed establishment in Washington, DC, or we can choose a leader who will fight every day to Make America Great Again. … In the end, this election just comes down to just two names on the ballot, so let’s resolve right now that Hillary Clinton will never become president of the United States of America.”

Ted Cruz: “I congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination. … We deserve leaders who stand for principle, unite us all behind shared values, cast aside anger for love. That is the standard we should expect from everybody. … Please, don’t stay home in November. … Stand and speak and vote your conscience. Vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”

Marco Rubio: “The time for fighting each other is over. It’s time to come together.”

Scott Walker: “Last August, I said that any of the Republicans running would be better than Hillary Clinton. I meant it then, and I mean it now. … President Reagan appointed Justice Scalia to the Supreme Court 30 years ago. … We cannot concede the Supreme Court to Hillary Clinton for 30 years. The consequences are too great. … [Hillary Clinton’s private email server] isn’t just another Clinton scandal. Hillary’s scandal put our national security at risk and that makes her unfit to be president of the United States." 

Newt Gingrich: "There have been many fascinating things to watch about the extraordinary, historic rise of Donald Trump. But the most significant has been Donald Trump’s courage to tell some important truths about our national security. For example: We are at war. We are at war with radical Islamists. They are determined to kill us. They are stronger than we admit and are greater in number than we admit. And there is no substitute for victory. In contrast to Donald Trump, our national security and foreign policy elites, led by Hillary Clinton, are incapable of speaking with such honesty. While they lie about the threat, we need to tell the truth about the danger.”

Laura Ingraham: “Today, we have stagnating wages, skyrocketing health care costs, doubling of the debt, the threat of ISIS and the rise of China, and the Democrats' answer to all that is to nominate the woman who helped orchestrate America’s decline. … Donald Trump respects us enough to tell us the truth about what has happened to our country. On things like immigration, trade, our status in the world. Even in the face of unfair criticism and sheer hatred.”

WaPo Defends Hillary’s Banana Republic2

If there’s one thing that summarily defines this week’s Republican National Convention, it’s a strong anti-Hillary Clinton sentiment. This was on full display during Tuesday’s speech from Gov. Chris Christie. At one point the stadium joined in a “Lock her up!” intonation, demonstrating the degree of frustration in the Clintons' uncanny ability to skirt the legal system. Meanwhile, “Hillary for Prison” clothing is a hot commodity3, and understandably so. Yet in the eyes of The Washington Post editorial board, this anger is not only unjustified, it’s akin to a mob mentality of some anti-democratic third-world nation.

The Post, in a piece titled “Memo to Republicans: Democracies don’t lock up political opponents,” says, “Mr. Christie, a former prosecutor and would-be attorney general, presumably knows that the U.S. legal system is meant to be insulated from politics. He should know better than to weaken that all-important separation.” Ironically, and evidently unbeknownst to the board, politicization is exactly what’s fueling Republican angst and what they strive to interrupt. The Clintons have spent decades getting away with gross negligence, including the FBI’s recent decision not to recommend charges against Hillary. And the Post wants to lecture us on how “the U.S. legal system is meant to be insulated from politics”?

The Post goes on to argue, “Even if FBI Director James B. Comey had recommended she be charged … there is essentially no chance she would have seen conviction and jail time.” If that’s the case, it’s because the system is rigged. As National Review’s Kevin Williamson argues4, “Mrs. Clinton couldn’t get indicted if she tried.” Meanwhile, try telling Rick Perry and Tom DeLay that politics had nothing to do with their indictments.

On a final note, the term “democracy” is a favorite leftist talking point, so let’s not miss the Post’s erroneously conflating America’s form of government. (We’re a republic.) The editors conclude, “When the critique of political opponents becomes so disproportionate and divorced from reality, democracy, which requires goodwill and compromise, cannot function.” As columnist Ben Shapiro writes5, “This is the whole point of the Constitution of the United States. There are certain rights that are inviolable, even by a majority. … Morality doesn’t follow the majority.” America has lost its way. The fact Clinton isn’t sitting behind bars is all the evidence one needs.

A Texas-Sized Voter ID Problem6

Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas’s voter ID law discriminates against minority voters. The court didn’t strike down the law entirely, however, instead sending it back to a lower court, ordering changes before the coming November elections.

Currently 33 states have some form of voter ID laws. Of these states, nine have a strict photo ID requirement. Not surprisingly, many of the states with no form of voter ID laws — like California, New York and Massachusetts — are not only Democrat controlled but are some of the most liberal in the nation.

The concern that Texas and many other states have is the very real problem of voter fraud, which has grown in part as a result of the unabated flow of illegal immigrants over America’s porous borders. Since the current administration has refused to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, many state governments have responded by enacting voter ID laws as a means of protecting their citizens.

Democrats like to repeat the mantra that they fear minority voters not being allowed to vote. In reality, Democrats are making a play for minority votes, all while sacrificing the integrity of the nation’s electoral process. Why? Democrats don’t think it’s a bad thing if illegal immigrants or felons (thanks to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe7) vote, so long as it keeps Democrats in power.

Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read To Honor Their Sacrifice8. This commander in chief has serially offended the sacrifice of all American military Patriots.

If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here9.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Victor Davis Hanson: The Dream of Muslim Outreach Has Become a Nightmare10
Jeff Jacoby: Failure of Turkey’s Coup Was No Victory for Democracy11
Caroline Camden Lewis: ‘Hillary’s America’: Everything You Need to Know but Didn’t Want to Hear12

For more, visit Right Opinion13.

TOP HEADLINES

Massachusetts AG Bans Sales of New ‘Assault Weapons’14
Hope ‘n Change? Cuba’s Human Rights Abuse Is Worsening15
Fuel Economy Standards Won’t Meet 2025 Targets16

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report17.

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-21-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Children and Cartoon Violence18

By Allyne Caan

When Wile E. Coyote debuted decades of road-runner targeted violence in the late 1940s, there was a national outcry that children would begin building copy-cat Acme contraptions to catapult boulders onto their unsuspecting neighbors. Even worse were Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam who used guns to target an innocent anthropomorphic rabbit, thereby modeling misbehavior with guns to children.

Ok, we kid. There wasn’t an outcry.

Back then, society still had something called a moral compass and children were, by and large, raised in two-parent families that generally taught them right from wrong and the difference between fantasy and reality. And kids therefore knew “Looney Toons” wasn’t reality.

How far we’ve come.

It’s not surprising that the latest attack on our constitutional right to bear arms is being pedaled as a “save the children” campaign.

Dr. Alan Delamater, the director of clinical psychology at the Mailman Center for Child Development at UHealth at the University of Miami Health System recently opined19, “Exposure to guns and violence is not good for optimal child development, nor is it good for public health. Research shows that repeated and excessive exposure to aggression and gun violence through movies, TV and video games increases the probability of children behaving aggressively toward others later.”

Sounds logical, right? Only, as The Truth About Guns founder Robert Farago writes19, “And yet tens of millions of American children grow-up to be law-abiding citizens. Gun owners, too! How in the world does that happen?”

Anti-gun activists will find any reason to blame guns (or, in this case, video games involving guns) for violence. But their thinking defies logic. As anyone of even mediocre intelligence knows, if you repeatedly conduct an experiment but consistently have different results, the variable — not the constant — is causing the change.

Guns, as we know, have been around and accessible for centuries. Guns aren’t the variable. And for decades, countless children have been exposed to video games yet have not grown up to be violent killers. Video games aren’t the variable, either.

Instead, we have to look beyond the video games and guns —a blasphemous thought for those who want to disarm Americans — and to the utter instability of the American family and the moral worldview now prevalent in our society.

More than 24 million children in America (33%) live in a home without their biological father, according to the National Center for Fathering20. Among black children, the percentage rises to more than half. In fact, economist Walter Williams writes21, “About 73 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers. By the way, that percentage was 25 in 1963 and 11 in 1938.” During the post-war generation, when kids knew not to imitate Wile, Yosemite and Elmer at home, more than 87% of children grew up with two biological parents who were married to each other. But that was before the “Great Society22.”

Statistics show that children — specifically boys — without fathers are more likely to become involved in crime.

It’s hardly surprising. Children who grow up in fatherless homes23 understandably suffer from anger over being fatherless. Unless they are adequately taught to work through this anger, they can become violent. As Psychology Today reported24 a few years ago, 85% of youth in prison for crimes, including violent crimes, have an absent father.

Couple this fatherlessness, anger and violence with a rejection of traditional morality, and voila, we have the variable. (Hint: It’s still not guns or video games).

Today, 57% of American adults believe that knowing right from wrong is “a matter of personal experience,” according to a Barna study25. Among Millennials, an astounding 74% strongly or somewhat agree with the statement, “Whatever is right for your life or works best for you is the only truth you can know.”

What else do we expect kids to learn from Democrat-run education industrial complex26 schools that reject God-given truth?

Yet, in the face of this crisis, what are leftists doing? They’re teaching kids that homosexuality27 — which defies all laws of nature, breeds deadly illnesses, and carries significantly high suicide risks28 — is normal. The supposedly kid-friendly Nickelodeon, just introduced29 the network’s first same-sex married couple in a children’s cartoon.

In other words, “progressives” are advocating the further destruction of the family while indoctrinating children to accept a behavior that leads to disease and suicide.

And they’re worried about video games corrupting the youth?

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Re-Evaluating America’s Relationship With Turkey30
Court Sinks Navy Over Whales31
Neither Consumers Nor Insurers Can Win Under ObamaCare32

OPINION IN BRIEF

Victor Davis Hanson: “When President Obama entered office, he dreamed that his hope-and-change messaging and his references to his familial Islamic roots would win over the Muslim world. The soon-to-be Nobel Peace Prize laureate would make the U.S. liked in the Middle East. Then, terrorism would decrease. … Yet Obama’s outreach was … interpreted by Islamists as guilt and weakness to be exploited rather than magnanimity to be reciprocated. Terrorist attacks increased. Obama blamed them on a lack of gun control or generic 'violent extremism.’ … In truth, religious intolerance, gender apartheid, illiteracy, autocracy, statism, tribalism and religious fundamentalism all guarantee poverty, economic stagnation and scapegoating. While much of Asia and Latin America progressed through reform, the Middle East blame-gamed its miseries on affluent Western nations and on Israel. More disturbing, millions of Middle Easterners fled to the safety of Europe and the United States — but on occasion, only to resist assimilation and show ingratitude once they got there. In short, the dreamy Obama approach to terrorism has proved a nightmare — and it is not over yet.”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “The truth is that … the GOP Congress … has achieved far more than the critics claim. Start with everything the GOP Congress has prevented. Universal pre-K, gun regulation, a $15 national minimum wage, an ObamaCare bailout for insurers, equal pay regulation, more disclosure of campaign donations, ‘free’ community college, a new ‘infrastructure bank,’ closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, among many others. President Obama proposed each of those, often more than once, but they vanished faster than Martin O'Malley’s presidential campaign thanks to the GOP Congress. But wait, didn’t Republicans promise and fail to repeal ObamaCare? That was never going to happen with Mr. Obama in the White House, but this year Congress did put a repeal on his desk.” —The Wall Street Journal

An omen? “I’m sorry to have to kinda be the buzzkill here so early on, but I think Trump is going to win. … It’s gonna be the Brexit strategy. The middle of England is Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. The total electoral votes of those four states in the rust belt: 64. All he has to do is win those four states. … More people … in the Michigan primary voted Republican than Democrat… That should be a disturbing thing for everybody.” —leftist filmmaker Michael Moore

Alpha Jackass: “I don’t care how many children Pat Smith lost. I would like to beat her to death.” —GQ Magazine’s Bethlehem Shoals

For consideration: “The lines that most offended the crowd were [Ted] Cruz’s advice to ‘vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.’ That they booed him for saying that is an indictment of them, not him.” —Ramesh Ponnuru

Observations: “I should note that if someone smeared my wife and accused my father of being complicit in murder of a president, I wouldn’t merely refuse to endorse that person, I would have a new favorite enemy. I’m sensitive like that. So I can imagine Cruz’s speech had something to do with this history. We’re human, after all.” —David Harsanyi

And last… “Hillary Clinton is the ultimate liberal Washington insider. If she were any more on the ‘inside,’ she’d be in prison.” —Scott Walker

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.