The Patriot Post Digest 10-18-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 10-18-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Oct. 18, 2016

IN TODAY’S EDITION

A State Dept. official offered favors in exchange for the FBI changing Hillary Clinton’s email classification.
More leftist regulations are going to cost you money and mess up your AC.
The NAACP wants black children to remain in failing schools.
The NFL’s precipitous ratings decline is no mystery, though some ignore the obvious.
And more news, policy and opinion.

THE FOUNDATION

“For it is a truth which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger, when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Hillary’s Quid Pro Quo With the FBI1

News has surfaced of an attempted “quid pro quo” from one State Department official to an FBI agent involved in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Not just any State Department official, either. FBI documents state, “[Redacted FBI agent] indicated he had been contacted by Patrick Kennedy, Undersecretary of State, who had asked his assistance in altering the email’s classification in exchange for a ‘quid pro quo’… In exchange for marking the email unclassified, State would reciprocate by allowing the FBI to place more Agents in countries where they are presently forbidden.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan said this latest discloser “bears all the signs of a cover-up.” House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) wrote letters to Secretary of State John Kerry calling for Kennedy’s removal and an immediate investigation. They said, “We find Under Secretary Kennedy’s actions extremely disturbing. Those who receive classified intelligence should not barter in it — that is reckless behavior with our nation’s secrets. Someone who would try to get classification markings doctored should not continue serving in the State Department or retain access to classified information.”

This latest revelation only goes to further support what many have been speculating ever since FBI Director James Comey’s decision2 not to advise prosecution of Hillary Clinton — that Comey’s decision was influenced by political considerations rather than by the evidence of the investigation. Beyond Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s private meeting3 with Bill Clinton, one wonders what “quid pro quo” the Clintons presented to Comey in exchange for his compliance.

Memo to Florida Voters: Your AC Bill Just Went Up4

We’ve warned5 for some time that Big Government is coming for your air conditioner in the name of saving the planet. Well, on Saturday, nearly 200 countries, including China, agreed to take action in the next eight years on reducing the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in AC units and refrigerators. The legally binding deal was spearheaded by John Kerry, who thinks HFCs pose as great a threat to national security as jihadis do6. But EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy was equally involved. “In a nutshell, these HFCs cool our homes and chill our food, but they are turning up the temperature of our planet,” lectured McCarthy. “World leaders took a giant leap forward by agreeing to a global phase-down of these harmful gases.”

What do we get in exchange for this regulatory bonanza? The Washington Examiner reports7, “Secretary of State John Kerry said the deal … would put the planet on track to stop the Earth’s temperature from rising a half of a degree Celsius over the next two decades [emphasis added].” That goal is unprovable. No matter how much the temperature changes, these folks will say it would be half a degree Celsius worse had it not been for their intrepid work.

Furthermore, air conditioners were more efficient with the already-banned CFCs than they are with HFCs, and these regulations threaten to make that even worse. Stephen Yurek, the head of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, says, “After two phases of research, the most promising alternatives are currently classified as mildly flammable or flammable.” That sounds fun. So when our AC doesn’t work as well without HFCs, we’ll all be hotter, which has the advantage of “proving” the alarmists right about global warming.

McCarthy also crowed, “While we have seen many significant successes under President Obama’s leadership in fighting climate change, this day will unquestionably be remembered as one of the most important in our effort to save the one planet we have.” And you can bet that “important effort” — just like every other Obama regulation to that end — is going to cost you dearly.

NAACP Votes to Keep Students Enslaved8

Charter schools are one of the few bright areas of America’s otherwise floundering education system. Sadly, that’s one of the reasons they are also the subject of fierce opposition. The Left’s utter hostility to school choice was on full display this weekend when the NAACP agreed9 to ratify “a resolution … adopted by delegates at its 2016 107th National Convention calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice.” The board listed four conditions that must be met in order for it to retract its position on charter schooling:

(1) Charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools (2) Public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system (3) Charter schools cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate and (4) Cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.

The response from lower-income Americans should be nothing short of outrage. For many children — particularly minorities — charter schooling offers one of the few options they have of escaping the systemic problems associated with inner city public schools. But it seems leftists are more concerned with eliminating all options that don’t include public schools than they are on fixing the problems of their own making. As The Wall Street Journal editors put it10, “If these gentry progressives are waiting for urban schools to reform without competition from charters or vouchers they are consigning generations of children to diminished lives.”

Don’t Miss Patriot Humor

Check out Hillary’s No-Fly Zone11.

If you’d like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here12.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Thomas Sowell: The Left and the Masses13
Rich Lowry: The Insincere, Arrogant Clinton Campaign14
Cal Thomas: Corruption and Collusion15

For more, visit Right Opinion16.

TOP HEADLINES

Retired General Charged With False Statements17
Illegal Border Crossings Spike Again18
32% of Millennials Think Bush Killed More People Than Stalin19
Cuba Grows Worse Under Obama20

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report21.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
It’s No Mystery Why NFL Viewers Are Tuning Out22

By Paul Albaugh

The National Football League, a favorite of millions of Americans, has seen TV ratings drop precipitously this season. While this is certainly not a major concern for Liberty loving Americans, some of whom couldn’t care less about watching overpaid athletes give each other concussions, the reasons for this decline are worth pondering.

What is interesting is that many sports analysts and league personnel are looking at every possible reason — except for the foolish behavior of some players who have decided it’s in their best interest to “take a stand” by kneeling in protest to our nation’s flag and the national anthem.

The Washington Post notes23 that network and league executives are “scrambling to identify causes” for the drop in ratings that has been the trend up through week five of the regular season. The Post suggests the problem could be that it’s an election year. In 2008, ratings for the NFL dropped 2% for the year’s entirety while in 2000 ratings dropped 10%. “During the first five weeks of this [season],” the Post says, “ratings have declined 15 percent compared with the entirety of last year.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 10-18-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Post also suggests that ratings could be falling because — get this — there is a lack of stardom in the NFL. Players such as Peyton Manning, Marshawn Lynch and Tom Brady have either retired or been suspended from the game and their non-appearance on TV is allegedly causing viewers to lose interest in the game. What about the other stars, or rising ones who come on the scene every year? They don’t have an impact on viewers?

Some analysts point out that the market is fragmented by games being aired on Thursday, Sundays and Mondays and that many of the season’s matchups have been “uncompetitive or underwhelming.” While all of these reasons could cumulatively be causes for NFL ratings to drop, the Post failed to point out what’s likely the primary reason for it. Many viewers are outraged over the actions of some of the NFL’s player’s lack of patriotism and downright disdain for our nation.

Indeed, the actions of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, among others who’ve imitated his deplorable behavior, received no mention from the Posts sports analysts.

Writing for National Review, columnist Victor Davis Hanson lays out24 his view of Kaepernick’s behavior: “His fad of ritually trashing the United States has now saturated millions of living rooms. His anti-American tirades and adolescent stage act enraged viewers, even after the refusal to stand for the anthem spread throughout the league without criticism from the NFL hierarchy — odd, given the now fossilized red/white/blue star-studded NFL logo.”

He further notes that “the NFL has a long history of insisting that all political messaging and behavior remain taboo and absent from the turf, from expressing support for fallen police to patriotic demonstrations.” Apparently not anymore. The NFL and its executives have turned a blind eye to Kaepernick and little has been said and nothing has been done to thwart his un-patriotic, un-American behavior.

The NFL is actually in denial that player protests have anything to with the drop in ratings. In fact, as David French writes25, the league claims that “its own ‘data’ shows that player protests are not a factor, that fans aren’t tuning out because the league is relaxing its notorious restrictions on player self-expression so long as those players are social justice warriors.”

The league is alienating its fan base by refusing to deal with these social justice warriors, who are drawing attention to themselves and their political views instead of the game they are playing.

Fortunately, a huge contingent of the fans in Buffalo were having none of it, chanting loudly26, “USA! USA!” when the visiting Kaepernick decided to protest the national anthem by kneeling. After the game Kaepernick stated, “I don’t understand what’s un-American about fighting for liberty and justice for everybody, for the equality this country says it stands for.”

Actually, he doesn’t understand history. He doesn’t understand that the very flag and anthem he is protesting is the flag that millions of American Patriots have died for, to secure his right to express his contemptuous political views. Perhaps he should visit a third-world country or a communist country to see what no Liberty and no justice really looks like.

The NFL should consider making it a league rule that players will stand for the national anthem or not play. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones implemented that rule for his team and at least one hockey team in the NHL has done the same. It’s simple; if you can’t stand for the national anthem and pay respect to the flag and those who fought and died for it — and the Americans paying through the nose to watch you play a game — then feel free to sit on the bench. If the player doesn’t like it then they can find another career that pays them millions. Until then, TV viewers have better things to do.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Evangelicals Face a Difficult Choice on Nov. 827 — Christians and their leaders are fairly divided on the best course.
Comey: Biased Police Narrative Is Wrong28 — FBI directors says epidemic of police bias is false and calls for more data.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Thomas Sowell: “Many of the left’s policies to help blacks are disproportionately aimed at helping those blacks who have done the wrong thing — and whose victims are disproportionately those blacks who have been trying to do the right thing. … Moreover, the left is so invested in the idea that they are helping the disadvantaged that they seldom bother to check the actual consequences of what they are doing, whether that is something as specific as banning questions about criminal behavior or something as general as promoting the welfare state. In the vision of the left, the welfare state is supposed to be a step forward, in the direction of ‘social justice.’ … Examining hard evidence would mean gambling a whole vision of the world — and of their own role in that world — on a single throw of the dice, which is what looking at hard evidence amounts to. The path of least resistance is to continue going through life feeling good about themselves, while leaving havoc in their wake.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight from a tyrant: “The party … must not become a servant of the masses, but their master. … The unity of a nation’s spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual; and that the higher interests involved in the life of the whole must here set the limits and lay down the duties of the interests of the individual.” —Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

For the record: “The media is rigged, but it was rigged for Trump all damn year. He got more free media than the weather, dwarfing not just his primary foes but Hillary as well. If it wasn’t for the media who fell over Trump every time he sneezed we would have a different candidate. So, yeah, it was rigged and that rigging gave us Trump. He should be extremely grateful. Of course now he gets the same coverage but it’s soaked in opposition research. Was he set up? Could it be the media propelled him to the top of the heap knowing he would be easy to bring down later? Short answer, yes; long answer, hell, yes.” —Greg Gutfield

Belly laugh of the week: “Let me say for the billionth time: Reporters don’t root for a side. Period.” —The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza (“Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u. Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this.” —Politico’s Glenn Thrush obtaining approval from the Clinton campaign for a story)

Warnings: “For the ObamaCare of today to be transformed into the HillaryCare of 1993 and finally into a nationalized health-care system, a president is needed who has the willpower to impose the coercive details, nail down hard deadlines and unleash agencies to tighten controls and squeeze the life out of private insurers. In 1993 Hillary Clinton unapologetically proposed to do just that. If she is elected president she will have the unilateral power under ObamaCare to do it. The loss of what remains of Americans' health-care freedom is an election away.” —former Sen. Phil Gramm

Late-night humor: “Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager said that based on early voting they expect this election to have the largest voter turnout in American history. That’s right, more people than ever will go to the polls for their chance to say, ‘Ugh, I guess…’” —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.