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« on: August 27, 2016, 07:14:53 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 8-25-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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Mid-Day Digest
Aug. 25, 2016
THE FOUNDATION
“The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language, habits and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them.” —George Washington (1794)
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
30,000 From Terror Hot Spots Crossed Border Last Year1
In March, Hillary Clinton assured us, “I think we’ve done a really good job securing the border. I think that those who say we haven’t are not paying attention to everything that was done the last 15 years under President Bush and President Obama.” That same month, Barack Obama declared the Islamic State is “not an existential threat to us.” Joe Biden echoed that statement this week, telling The Atlantic, “Terrorism is a real threat, but it’s not an existential threat to the existence of the United States of America.” Democrats keep telling us we have nothing to worry about. But the facts tell us otherwise.
Army Col. Lisa A. Garcia, a representative of the U.S. Southern Command, just revealed2, “Networks that specialize in smuggling individuals from regions of terrorist concern, mainly from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, the Middle East, and East Africa, are indeed a concern for SOUTHCOM and other interagency security partners who support our country’s national security.” Alarmingly, she added, “In 2015, we saw a total of 331,000 migrants enter the southwestern border between the U.S. and Mexico, [and] of that we estimate more than 30,000 of those were from countries of terrorist concern [emphasis added].”
To give this perspective, consider that a remarkable 11% of last year’s border-crossers are reasonably suspected by counterterrorism officials of being affiliated with militant groups. The fact that some 30,000 individuals — those who the Obama administration would deceptively call “lone wolves” — entered the country last year to possibly plot attacks is concrete evidence that we are not doing “a really good job securing the border.”
Those Chemical Weapons Assad Destroyed? He Used Them.3
In August 2012, Barack Obama warned Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, “A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” By September 2013, Obama was denying he set a red line, saying, “The world set a red line.” Translation: The line was gone. After reports that Assad had crossed that line, Obama simply didn’t want to enforce it. Yesterday, we reported why4: Iran was ready to nuke the nuclear deal if Obama messed with mullah-buddy Assad.
Recall also that Secretary of State John Kerry made an offhand remark in September 2013 about how Assad “could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week” in order to avoid a U.S. strike. Assad’s other enforcer, Vladimir Putin, happily took Kerry up on the foolish comment, offering a deal5 to oversee the destruction of all of Syria’s chemical weapons.
Predictably, that didn’t work out as Obama and Kerry might have hoped. Yesterday, a UN investigation concluded that the Syrian military conducted chemical weapons attacks on at least two occasions — after those weapons were supposedly destroyed. There were other attacks as well, but the UN couldn’t conclusively determine the perpetrators. Now Syria faces possible sanctions from the UN Security Council, though Russia has veto power. “It is essential that the members of the Security Council come together to ensure consequences for those who have used chemical weapons in Syria,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said in a statement. “We strongly urge all states to support strong and swift action by the Security Council.” Assad should stay tuned for a strongly worded letter of rebuke.
Who Spiked the EpiPen?6
Teddy Roosevelt the Trust Buster must be rolling in his grave over news of the recent spike in the price of the life-saving EpiPen. Mylan, the drug company that produces the popular treatment for severe allergic reactions, has steadily raised the price of the device by over 400% since 2008. A double pack of the device cost $100 in 2008, but will now set you back more than $600. The EpiPen has been around since the 1970s and has a low production cost, but due to the lack of competition Mylan has effectively cornered the market and taken advantage by increasing the price exponentially. The fault lies not with other companies attempting to compete, but with Food and Drug Administration regulations. As The Wall Street Journal notes7, “The FDA maintains no clear and consistent principles for generic drug-delivery devices.” As a result, competing drug companies have no standard by which to measure drug-delivery system compliance when seeking to produce a similar product. Effectively, the FDA has helped to secure Mylan’s monopoly on the EpiPen.
Hillary Clinton recently waded into the matter, saying she would require all drug makers to “prove that any additional costs are linked to additional patient benefits and better value.” Once again, Hillary’s socialist instincts have missed the mark — more regulations or price controls won’t work. Clinton conveniently blames “Big Pharma,” side stepping the real issue of government over-regulation in order to push for even more government involvement in and control of health care.
There is one other interesting angle to this story. Mylan’s CEO is Heather Bresch, who is the daughter of West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin. Manchin has been somewhat hesitant to give his full support to Hillary’s run for the White House, as she is no friend of his state’s coal industry. It’s a good bet that Hillary’s calling out of Mylan is more than just politically pandering — it could be a shot across the bow warning Manchin to stay in line.
Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column
Read The Clinton Crime Syndicate8. The essential facts about Hillary Clinton’s “ethical lapses” — corrupt activities that should render her ineligible for office, if not eligible for prison.
If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here9.
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
Larry Elder: Trump Speaks, Media Translates10
Victor Davis Hanson: Diversity: History’s Pathway to Chaos11
Michelle Malkin: Leo DiCaprio’s Dirty Dollars12
For more, visit Right Opinion13.
TOP HEADLINES
Kabul’s American University Attacked, Killing at Least 1214
U.S. Destroyer Harassed by Iranian Patrol Boats15
Clinton Foundation Rethinks Changes16
For more, visit Patriot Headline Report17.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
‘Born This Way’? New Study Debunks LGBT Claims18
By Louis DeBroux
Among leftists, it is at convenient times an accepted fact (“settled science,” you might say) that homosexuals and transgendered people are “born that way” — that their sexual attractions or gender identities are not the product of choice, but a matter of genetics. (When that’s not convenient, of course, it’s a perfectly acceptable “life choice.”) A new report, instantly controversial, torpedoes that understanding of homosexuality and gender dysphoria, the medical term for transgenderism.
The report, entitled “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” is co-authored by two of the most well respected experts on mental health and human sexuality. Dr. Paul McHugh, described as “arguably the most important American psychiatrist of the last half century,” is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and served for 25 years as psychiatrist in chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital. And Dr. Lawrence Mayer, Psychiatry Department scholar-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University, is a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University.
While, not surprisingly, many on the Left and in the LGBT “community” immediately raged against the report as anti-LGBT, it should be noted that Johns Hopkins was the first medical facility in the U.S. to perform sex-reassignment surgery, and did so for decades until a growing body of peer-reviewed studies, including an analysis of how Hopkins' own transgendered patients fared over time, led the hospital to end those types of surgeries. Furthermore, McHugh is no far right-wing ideologue or Bible-thumper; he’s a self-described “politically liberal” Democrat.
Yet it was his long-term experience with patients who suffer from gender dysphoria that led him to his conclusions, summarized in a report that analyzed more than 200 peer reviewed studies. McHugh and Mayer are also very up front about what the science does and does not show. They freely admit the gaps in the available research, which they argue underscores the need for more research before establishing medical standards, public policy guidelines, and laws, based on “settled science” that is not at all settled.
So what did the study find? A few excerpts19:
“The belief that sexual orientation is an innate, biologically fixed human property — that people are ‘born that way’ — is not supported by scientific evidence. |
