The Patriot Post Digest 11-8-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 11-8-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Nov. 8, 2016

IN TODAY’S EDITION

It’s finally time for the only poll that counts — your vote.
Elections today are so contentious for a simple reason: Too much power in DC.
Obama’s brother gets cursed for supporting Trump.
Seattle’s gun tax misfires big time.
And more news, policy and opinion.

THE FOUNDATION

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” —Samuel Adams (1781)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

The True Poll: America’s Vote1

Election Day has arrived… finally. And as seems to be the case with every election, the stakes are high. We’ve spilled enormous digital “ink” on the subject, analyzing both candidates and the issues that face our nation. The prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency means another four years of Barack Obama’s legacy of economic stagnation, the non-stop pushing of leftist social engineering agendas, and the continued weakening of America’s status as the world’s leader in protecting and defending freedom. The prospect of a Donald Trump presidency holds many unknowns, as he is arguably the truest political outsider in our nation’s electoral history. Trump’s promise of upending the status quo of Washington’s political elites has many Americans excited — maybe not so much in Trump the man as in Trump the force desperately needed to challenge growing corruption.

In light of all the genuine concerns and all the highs and lows brought about this election season, it’s important to remember that our nation was founded on the principle of limited government because, as our Founding Fathers recognized, we are a nation that ultimately rests under the sovereign hand of God.

So as you head to your polling station to cast your vote — and then maybe make a quick stop at the liquor store on the way back home — remember today’s ballot is the only poll that matters. And the good news is that after all the Leftmedia’s endless prognosticating and propaganda via polls, today, Americans, not professional pollsters, will decide who will lead our nation over the next four years.

Obama’s Brother Is Cursed2

A pox be upon you! Malik Obama, Barack Obama’s Kenyan half-brother, has been cursed by his relatives for his public support of Donald Trump3. The village of Kogelo, Kenya, the ancestral home of Barack Obama Sr., father of Malik and Barack, has taken great pride in the fact that Obama is the first black to hold the office of president of the United States. Thus many in the town have taken personal offense over Malik’s choice of Trump over Hillary Clinton. As Nicholas Rajula, an Obama family spokesman, said, “Since he [Malik] is a disgrace to this family, we have distanced ourselves from Malik’s relationship with Trump, whose utterances and threats against Muslims and Africans living in the U.S. have shocked the world.” Sounds just like the persecution conservative black Americans face.

Some have suggested that Malik’s favoring of Trump is more out of jealous spite over his brother’s fame rather than out of any genuine admiration of Trump. Malik, however, contends, “It’s my democratic right to choose the president I want. I can’t support Obama because he has done nothing for Africa, Kenya and his own family in Kenya. I will vote for Mr. Trump because he is honest.”

It may be advisable for Malik to stay in the U.S. after the election for his own safety. As a local taxi driver said, “We no longer need him [Malik] in this village. When he comes back from the U.S., we might be forced to attack him. He should live with Trump after the elections because he has been supporting him.” We’re also guessing Malik probably can’t count on being invited to the White House for Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Seattle Conceals ‘Gun Tax’ Debacle4

Welcome to Seattle, where a “gun violence” tax implemented in 2015 has predictably turned into an abject failure — though don’t expect city officials to admit it. We begin with one gun dealer’s experience and the tax’s harmful effects on business. Via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer5:

“Mike Coombs, owner of Sodo’s Outdoor Emporium, says he has laid off three employees and taken a $2 million hit in sales so far in 2016. His customer count, he says, is also down by 32 percent. Meanwhile, Coombs says his other store — Sportco in Fife — has seen a 10 percent to 12 percent increase in sales. He blames the Seattle gun violence tax, passed last year and implemented Jan. 1. The ordinance charges a $25 tax for every firearm sold in the city and 5 cents for every round of ammunition of .22 caliber or greater. Given that ammunition comes bundled in boxes, those nickels can add up.”

The tax hasn’t exactly been a boon for the city, either. The story goes on to note, “Coombs estimates he’s sent the city $60,000 through the third quarter from the gun tax, but says the city has also lost more than $600,000 in sales tax due to his plummeting sales.” Talk about misfiring. Despite several efforts by both gun advocates and journalists to force the city’s hand in revealing tax numbers, it isn’t budging. The Seattle Post Intelligencer notes the city pledged “to fund a program at Harborview Medical Center that aims to reduce the aftereffects of gun violence” by using increased tax revenue from gun sales. No wonder there’s secrecy — publicly exposing the lack of funds would only serve to irreparably tarnish the city’s conjured up narrative.

It would also create a firestorm among taxpayers. Even though gun tax revenue has fallen short, that hasn’t stopped city officials from robbing everyone else. As the report also explains, “Harborview Medical Center confirmed [last] week that because the ordinance remains contested in court, the tax revenue remains untouched and the hospital is instead getting the money for its gun violence program from the city’s general fund.” Sure, city gun sales are down — which is exactly what leftists wanted. But Seattle lost a serious cash flow too in its ridiculous pursuit to purge the city of guns. Even more damning, it didn’t exactly purge them from surrounding areas, as gun dealers are responding by moving business elsewhere. The more neutral suburbs are more than happy to revel in the windfall.

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BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Thomas Sowell: Painful Choices8
Stephen Moore: Hillary Clinton’s 5 Worst Ideas on the Economy9
L. John Van Til: John Podesta: The Clintons' Principal Political Operative10

For more, visit Right Opinion11.

TOP HEADLINES

Dem Voter-Intimidation Cases Falter in Three States12
State Dept. Wants 5 Years for Clinton Email Review13
As Killings Surge, Chicago Police Solve Fewer Homicides14

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report15.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Why Elections Today Are So Contentious16

By John J. Bastiat

It wasn’t that long ago when national elections were more perfunctory, less volatile and certainly less contentious. Those halcyon days are long gone! Today the bile and vitriol spewing over the airwaves mirrors that of society generally, and the seemingly innocent question, “Can’t we all just get along?”, is body-slammed with a resounding “Hell NO!!” So what happened?

To borrow a meme from infamous Clintonista James Carville, “It’s the power, stupid!” That is, it’s the tremendous power the American people have allowed (demanded, even) to coalesce inside the DC Beltway, and particularly at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Decisions that used to be made by individual states or local governments are now decided somewhere in Washington, DC, often by a single branch, or even worse — and more often the case — an unaccountable sub-entity within that branch. As a result, elections nowadays are “for all the marbles.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 11-8-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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We offer as a case-in-point the Supreme Court of the U.S. One facet of the current election is that it is effectively a referendum on who will replace the late, great Antonin Scalia17 and give the winning party a 5-4 majority on an otherwise (arguably) evenly divided bench. Less than a century ago, the Court was largely apolitical; now it’s an ideology-based “final arbiter” of national law. Instead of faithfully interpreting the plain text and intent of a given law, many justices skew their judgments to “outcome-based” jurisprudence, in which they decide the outcome they want and then “walk-back” their logic — and, unfortunately, their “law” — to support the desired result. Thus whichever party chooses the next justice “wins,” by-and-large, any issue arriving at the doorstep of SCOTUS. But the problem doesn’t stop there.

No, it worsens exponentially because every branch of the federal government has too much power, in one way or another. For example, the Executive Branch has arrogated to itself the power of all three federal branches, temporarily relenting only when checked by another branch of government. As His Worship is fond of saying, “If Congress won’t act, I will” or, alternatively, “I’ve got a pen and a phone.” Translation: “I don’t need the Legislature: I am the Legislature!” In any case, the current Occupation Force inside the Executive Branch does not consider the Separation of Powers doctrine as an impediment to its reach or effectiveness.

As for Congress, with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment morphing senator selection by state legislature into popular election, senators are no longer accountable to their states, but only to “the people.” That might sound good at first blush, but it crippled states' abilities to check federal government power. Moreover, Congress generally has too much power. The Constitution enumerates specific responsibilities for Congress, the president and the Supreme Court. Those not specifically granted to these branches are supposed to be reserved either to the states or to the people — the Tenth Amendment. Today, the Tenth Amendment is all but a dead letter. Like the Executive Branch, Congress — using the courts as well as the Executive Branch — has assumed far more power than “We The People” ever granted it under the Constitution.

The aggrandizement of power by the federal government was a primary concern of the so-called “Anti-Federalists,” who opposed ratifying the Constitution on the grounds that the federal government would eventually become all-powerful and too distant from those it governed. They were also concerned that the states would become mere conduits through which the federal government would exercise its overwhelming power. Fast-forward to today and the Anti-Federalists have been prophetic. An increasingly distant government brandishes immeasurable power over a vast expanse, over hundreds of millions of people with conflicting ambitions and needs. The input of the average American citizen to the federal Leviathan is so remote that the output — the federal government’s influence upon that individual in daily life — seems totally arbitrary. “No taxation without representation”? What about the case of “no representation,” period?

However, the real issue here is not “who’s right” in a national election, but rather the broader issue of “good governance.” Originally, the Founders viewed the states as individual “experiments” on how to “get along” as a people. The idea was that if a particular state went awry with respect to governance, people would “vote with their feet” and relocate to a better state. With the power of the federal government increasing and the power of the states diminishing over time, these “experiments” became less and less distinguishable: Today all is now “federal.”

Contentious elections are merely a symptom of a much bigger problem: Too much power amassing in the federal government and a discontinuity between its applied power and the will of the people who have no real say in its control. The solution to both problems is to again disperse the federal government’s power by redistributing it across all three branches of the federal government and among the states. But such an act won’t happen from any initiative within the Beltway, which has become so drunk with the mass-accrual of power that the vast majority of today’s members of Congress and senior Executive Branch leaders are millionaires — another clear indicator of the magnitude of the problem. No, it will only happen if the states and the people resolve to cage the tiger.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Leftists Demean Instead of Debate18 — Rule #5 from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
Obama-Clinton Economic Picture Not Worth Celebrating19 — Obama’s last chance before the election to show that Democrat policies work.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Thomas Sowell: “Nothing is to be gained by refusing to face the hard facts. What are those facts? First of all, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump has the qualifications, the track record or the personal character to be President of the United States. Most of us could probably think of a number of people who would be better in the White House. But here, as elsewhere in life, we can only make our choices among the alternatives actually available. … The issue before the voters … is not which of the two is the worse person. The issue is which is more dangerous to the future of America. … Donald Trump shows no such ideological agenda [as Hillary Clinton] and has no such automatic support from Congressional Republicans as to have them rubber stamp either his judicial nominees or whatever other agenda he has. More than that, Trump can be impeached if he oversteps the bounds, without either the Republicans or the media screaming loud protests. Trump seems to pose much less danger — which, unfortunately, is the most we can expect this particular election year.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “The press is hostile to the idea of liberty. Most people in the press are for big government. Most people think that the solution to anything, whether it’s health care problems, education, whatever it is — it’s got to be more government.” —Harry Browne (1933-2006)

The bottom line: “There is no conservative in the presidential race, which means that no matter who wins [today], conservatives will have to persuade the next president to see the value in our proposals over his or her own instinctive preferences. It will not be easy, but there isn’t really another choice other than surrender and political quietism.” —Kevin Williamson

Stopped clock: “The notion that somehow voter suppression is keeping you from voting — as systematic as Republicans have tried to make voting more difficult for minorities, for Democrats, for young people — the truth of the matter is, if you actually want to vote, then you can vote.” —Barack Obama actually debunking his party’s myth of voter suppression

Alpha Jackass: “You cannot just put Hillary with Republicans in Congress, who are already promising even more unprecedented dysfunction in Washington. … It has been a stated Republican strategy since I took office. And the only way to break it is to make those who engage in it pay a price by electing more Democrats.” —Barack Obama

Inconvenient campaigning: “We learned, breathtakingly, that middle-aged, non-college-educated white Americans' life expectancy is going down and is now lower than Hispanics, even though they make less money. And the gap between African-Americans and whites is closing, but unfortunately not because the death rate among African-Americans is dropping but because the death rate among white Americans is rising. Why? Because they don’t have anything to look forward to when they get up in the morning. Because their lives are sort of stuck in neutral.” —Bill Clinton in November 2015 remarks leaked via the Podesta emails

And last… “Fellow Dems, please be safe traveling to the polls, your ObamaCare deductible is now $38,000.00.” —Twitter satirist @weknowwhatsbest

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.