The Patriot Post Digest 10-28-2016

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 10-28-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Mid-Day Digest

Oct. 28, 2016

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Bill Clinton’s lucrative “charity” scheme gets another look.
Public unions around the country are pushing major tax increases.
Obama puts up another billboard for an anti-Islamic State attack plan.
ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber says everything is working as it should.
And more news, policy and opinion.

THE FOUNDATION

“There is perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of nations, than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For it is an observation as true, as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Hillary’s Piggy Bank: The Clinton Foundation1

The WikiLeaks document drip continues to reveal the degree to which the Clintons have conspired to enrich and politically position themselves. One of the memos released was written in 2011 by Clinton “errand boy” Doug Band, who worked simultaneously at the Clinton Foundation and was the head of his own consulting business, Teneo. The memo reveals a level of collusion between the Clintons, the Clinton Foundation, the State Department and Band as he boasts of raising money for the Clinton Foundation from top-tier companies who were clients of his firm. Those same donors also provided personal income to Bill Clinton — in fact, Band called it “Bill Clinton, Inc.” As The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel put it2, “The memo removes any doubt that the [Clinton Foundation] is little more than an unregistered super PAC working on the Clintons' behalf.”

Strassel may have summed up this latest email dump best when it reported, “It is astonishingly detailed proof that the Clintons do not draw any lines between their ‘charitable’ work, their political activity, their government jobs or (and most important) their personal enrichment. Every other American is expected to keep these pursuits separate, as required by tax law, anticorruption law and campaign-finance law. For the Clintons, it is all one and the same — the rules be damned.”

If Hillary wins the election, Americans can only expect more of the same, though this time it will be Clinton Administration, Inc.

Unions Just Keep Pushing Taxes3

From California to Maine and Oklahoma to Washington, public sector unions are pushing for new taxes and increases to existing ones. In California, a supposed “temporary” tax that’s set to expire is being put on the ballot for extension until 2030 — it’s “needed” to pay public school teachers even as the state’s revenue has grown by 40% since 2012. In Maine, in order to meet Medicaid needs, voters are asked to authorize an increase in the state income tax to 10.15% on households earning over $200,000 a year. This would put Maine’s state income tax rate second only to California’s 13.3%.

The teachers' union in Oklahoma is backing a constitutional amendment that would raise the state’s sales tax to 9.85% in order to raise public school teacher salaries by $5,000 across the board. This would make Oklahoma’s sales tax rate the second highest in the nation. And in Washington, a carbon-tax referendum is on the ballot. It has been designed to be revenue neutral by lowering the state sales tax in relation to carbon-tax percentage. It’s intended to promote environmentally friendly behavior, but state unions aren’t happy with the referendum because there would be no revenue created from it. They would rather see the new carbon-tax without any lowering of the state sales tax.

What all these public sector unions have in common is the leftist belief that the government is entitled to as much money from the private sector as it wants. These unions promote the concept that citizens work on behalf of the government, not that the government works on behalf of citizens. The concept of patriotic duty done in service to the American people rather than the pursuit of greater power in order take advantage of and control citizens' behavior should be the attitude and commitment of those in public office. Too often, however, we see the latter and not the former in our elected officials.

Exposing Your Military Strategy Is Not a Strategy4

According to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, the battle for the Islamic State’s so-called capital city of Raqqa “starts in the next few weeks.” He elaborated, “It’s been long a part of our plan that the Mosul operation would kick off when it did. This was a plan that goes back many months now and that Raqqa would follow soon behind.”

The strategy itself isn’t a bad one. In Mosul, the coalition’s offensive — backed by U.S. military “advisors” — is a tough but necessary one5, though the eventual outcome will be determined by our next president’s response in Iraq. We lost the country once; we can’t lose it again. Furthermore, two crucial attacks happening simultaneously could force ISIL to abandon Mosul and rally around its pre-eminent stronghold in Raqqa. And a fight there could significantly, perhaps even structurally, rupture its core.

As Ed Morrissey writes6, “If ISIS believes that the coalition has enough resources for a siege and ground assault on ISIS' last remaining significant city, they might be tempted to pull out of Mosul and dare the U.S. and its allies to try. At the very least, they will have to consider limiting losses at some point and shifting them back to their ‘capital’ rather than watch their strength bleed out hundreds of miles from where they could do some good.”

Good plan, right? Well, at least it was. If the Pentagon is wondering why the fight against the Islamic State hasn’t gone quite as smoothly or quickly as it had hoped, maybe one reason is because shouting your game plan from the rooftops isn’t a winning strategy. Yet that’s exactly what Obama’s military leadership has done repeatedly, primarily for Obama’s political gain — so he can be seen as tough. This week was no exception. Team Obama does a lot of talking, but some things are better left unsaid.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Jonah Goldberg: The ‘Transactional’ Nature of Clinton Inc.7
David Limbaugh: Media Bias Is One Thing; Its Complicity Is Another8
Charles Krauthammer: Is Obama Preparing a Parting Shot at Israel?9

For more, visit Right Opinion10.

TOP HEADLINES

2.9% GDP Biggest Gain Since 201411
Jury Acquits All Oregon Occupiers12
North Dakota Pipeline Protest Turns Violent13
FCC Approves Sweeping Privacy Rules14

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report15.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
More Gruber Hubris: ObamaCare ‘Working as Designed’16

By Michael Swartz

The last time ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber tried to defend his Frankenstein creation17, those who passed the law before they read it tried to deny he was even part of the team. “I don’t know who [Gruber] is,” said Nancy Pelosi at the time. “He didn’t help write our bill.” Nearly two years later, in the wake of new health insurance premium numbers that suggest the tab will rise an average of 25%18 — with some hapless souls staring at triple-digit increases — Gruber again defended the program he helped to create by saying, “The law is working as designed.”

Gruber’s only suggested “fix” is to make the penalty for non-compliance higher. “Experts would agree,” Gruber said, “that we need a larger mandate penalty.” (When an academic or a bureaucrat says “experts would agree,” hold tight to your wallet.) Gruber contended that the drastic rate increases wouldn’t affect most consumers because their federal subsidies would cover the cost. In other words, the rest of the American taxpayers would pick up the bill.

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 10-28-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Yet the program isn’t working as intended — if the intent was truly to make health care more affordable. The issue is complex, but ObamaCare isn’t getting the enrollment anticipated from younger and healthier workers, who were expected to pull the weight of older and sicker patients. Perhaps those weight-pullers have other priorities19: “Young people can do the math,” said Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini. “Gas for the car, beer on Fridays and Saturdays (or) health insurance.”

Meanwhile, those older and sicker people flocked to the program because they could get insurance at more reasonable rates thanks to price controls added with ObamaCare. In a natural reaction, insurers who can’t make this system profitable have withdrawn, leaving fewer competitors in many areas20. Five states have only one insurance company offering coverage. Another eight states have only one in a majority of counties.

This was the reason Barack Obama made the case last week21 for a “public option,” a government insurer that would eventually corner the market as its deep, taxpayer-funded pockets could undercut any competition. (After all, when did the government ever have to turn a profit?)

And while Gruber pointed with pride to the 20 million who’ve secured health insurance since ObamaCare came online, he didn’t add that many of those were new Medicare patients who qualified because states agreed to relax the income guidelines to increase eligibility. Gruber did take the time to chastise states that haven’t changed their Medicare eligibility rules: Those states receive full reimbursement from the federal government initially, but they eventually absorb an increasing share of the cost. He also contended that the recent surge in premiums is only the market catching up. “What you have to remember is that premiums in 2014 came in way below what we expected,” said Gruber. “In fact, where they are today is exactly where they thought they’d be today.”

So he realized there would be sticker shock at some point. And Democrats all lied about it.

In his remarks two years ago17, Gruber noted that people weren’t smart enough to catch on to the ruse. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever,” he infamously told a panel at the University of Pennsylvania, “but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass.”

Stupid voters or not, Gruber now seems elated with what he’s foisted on the public. Speaking Wednesday to CNN’s Carol Costello22, he double-dared Republicans to repeal ObamaCare: “Well, first of all [Donald Trump] won’t repeal it. Remember, the whole argument and public debate against this law is that people didn’t get to keep insurance they liked. Well, you’re going to have 20 million Americans or more who are now getting insurance that they like. You’re not going to take that away from them. And let’s be clear: There is no replace; there is only repeal. There is no Republican alternative to this law, and the reason is because this is fundamentally a bipartisan legislation that was originally drafted on Republican principles.” (Bipartisan legislation that zero Republicans voted for in Congress.)

It’s also a flat-out lie that Republicans have no alternatives. They have many, but because they don’t call for government mandates and public options, Democrats pretend these alternatives simply don’t exist.

While Trump has proposed the elimination of the individual mandate, we may not lose many of the federal regulations even if he wins on Nov. 8. Hillary Clinton will likely take Gruber’s advice to heart — don’t be surprised if penalties for non-compliance are drastically increased under her administration.

But remember, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Alas, that only seems to apply to those who made and supported the plan in the first place, not those who have to pay for it. The plans we liked are an ever more distant memory, with the sad reality being that nothing short of a miracle of voting, foresight, patience, and (particularly) backbone will ever put the system right again.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

How You Really Solve the Syrian Refugee Crisis23 — Both the Islamic State and Bashar al-Assad must be addressed.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jonah Goldberg: “For years I’ve been making the point that the Clinton Foundation’s charitable efforts are both real and misunderstood. They do good things. But … the good deeds were always a cost center, an overhead necessity like the light bill. Charity was the price the Clintons had to pay — to get Bono and Bill Gates to show up, and pay up. The real mission of the Clinton Foundation, including the Clinton Global Initiative, was to keep Bill a global celebrity and maintain the lifestyle to which he felt entitled. But there was a second purpose. ‘Clinton Inc.’ is the wrong term. House Clinton — like House Lannister in ‘Game of Thrones’ — is closer to the mark. The Clintons always wanted to get back into power, and for a self-styled royal family in exile, the foundation served as a brilliant way to keep all of the retainers, courtiers and henchmen employed — and the donors engaged — as they plotted their return. And, sadly, it appears to have worked.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “How many crimes are permitted simply because their authors could not endure being wrong.” —Albert Camus (1913-1960)

For the record: “We have been asking ourselves … for a year almost, ‘What exactly didn’t [Hillary Clinton] want people to see?’ Well now we know. As we speculated, the most plausible explanation was the rank corruption of the Clinton Foundation and its corrupt — I don’t know if it’s illegal — but corrupt relationship with the State Department.” —Charles Krauthammer

Friendly fire: “Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And has that person been drawn and quartered? Like [this] whole thing is f— insane.” —July 2015 email from Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden

Good question: “It’s one thing for conservatives to drone on about liberal media bias, which we’ve done for decades, but have we reached the point that it is becoming a threat to the republic as we have known it?” —David Limbaugh

The BIG lie: “There is a faction of people who are continually trying to root for failure, despite the fact that we keep on insuring people and folks continue to get help. So the bottom line is that most people are going to be pleasantly surprised at just how affordable their options are if we can just get them to see for themselves. … We’re going to have to kind of clear the bugs off the windshield so people can see the road ahead.” —Barack Obama

Non Compos Mentis: “People have to start living a life that’s commensurate with reductions in greenhouse gases to the extent they can.” —Gina McCarthy (Yes, let’s reduce a gas that’s necessary for life’s very survival.)

And last… “After this election, both parties owe their voters an explanation as to how they produced the worst of their party for the top office in the land — and their voters should reflect for a long time on the choices made.” —Ed Morrissey

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.