The Patriot Post Digest 12-5-2016

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 12-5-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Dec. 5, 2016

IN TODAY’S EDITION

    Trump takes a call from Taiwan, and the Leftmedia lose their minds.
    Castro’s funeral vehicle breaks down — a fitting metaphor if ever there was one.
    The Carrier deal: Cronyism is the same whether states do it or Trump does.
    And more news, policy and opinion.

THE FOUNDATION

“Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.” —George Washington (1796)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Taiwan Calling Trump1

Over the weekend, the Leftmedia was pulling out its collective hair over news that Donald Trump had accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-Wen. Once again Trump has rocked the Washington bureaucratic elites' boat by breaking with a long-running precedent. Since 1979, no president or president-elect has spoken with a sitting president of Taiwan, due to China’s “one China” policy — a policy the U.S. has acknowledged but never officially adopted.

On Sunday, VP-elect Mike Pence reacted to the media’s over-reaction by pointing to its blatant hypocrisy: “It’s a little mystifying to me that President Obama can reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba in the last year and be hailed as a hero for doing it and President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from a democratically elected leader in Taiwan and it’s become something of a controversy.”

While some have suggested that this is yet further evidence that Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing when it comes to foreign affairs, it’s a better bet that this was a calculated move aimed at challenging China over its recent power-plays2 in the East and South China Seas. As The Wall Street Journal stated3, “Mr. Trump shouldn’t concede Beijing’s power to intimidate the world’s democracies into isolating Taiwan. The U.S. has an interest in supporting Taiwan as a model for China’s future development. And adapting Taiwan policy could benefit the wider U.S.-China relationship.”

Barack Obama’s policy with the “People’s Republic” has done little to dissuade China’s growing expansionist appetite. A newer approach is needed to both encourage U.S. allies in the region and warn China that the U.S. stands committed to promoting its allies' continued independence and sovereignty. Clearly, Trump is not afraid to take the call.

Castro Vehicle Breaks Down, Just Like His Policies4

A fitting final metaphor for Fidel Castro’s puppet Soviet regime:

The Russian UAZ-469 light utility vehicle hauling Castro’s corpse in the state funeral procession experienced engine failure and had to be pushed by soldiers along the “Caravan of Liberty.” That was the ironic name Castro’s communist guerrillas gave their 1959 march from Santiago to Havana to topple the Batista government.

By the way, all the mainstream media are referring to this vehicle as a “Jeep.” Cease and desist! Jeeps were the primary light four-wheel drive vehicle used by the U.S. Army and our allies in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and are now a popular SUV. That broken-down piece of socialist junk pulling Castro’s carcass is not a Jeep!

And while we’re on the subject of hogwash, Fidel’s brother Raul declared, “The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult of personality and was consistent in that through the last hours of his life, insisting that, once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statues or other forms of tribute would never be erected.”

And why should he? He’s got plenty of help in the media’s cult of propaganda.

Top Headlines5

    Health care spending in the U.S. grew 5.8% in 2015, hitting a record high of $3.2 trillion. Thanks Obama! (Washington Free Beacon6)

    Trump taps Carson as HUD secretary. (Fox News7)

    The EPA’s regulatory blitzkrieg is now projected to cost Americans more than $1 trillion over a decade — a 75% increase under Obama. (Washington Examiner8.)

    The Obama administration fails to check immigrants against FBI databases, approves citizenship. (The Washington Times9)

    Howard Dean moves aside for Keith Ellison as DNC chairman10. Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!! (The Hill11)

    Traitor Bergdahl12 seeks pardon from his ideological mentor, Barack Obama. (Fox News13)

    Snowden14 is also begging for a pardon. (Hot Air15)

    The purpose of the Wisconsin recall? To force the Badger State to forfeit those Trump electoral votes. (Young Conservatives16)

    Jill Stein takes Pennsylvania recount, on behalf of Clinton, to federal courts. (USA TODAY17)

    Facebook’s “FakeBook” conservative news suppression, 2.0. (Business Insider18.)

    Ecofascist protesters win19. Obama orders halt work on Dakota Access Pipeline. (The Washington Post20)

    Abe to be first Japanese PM to visit Pearl Harbor. (The Washington Post21)

Why We Ask

December is quickly drawing to a close, as is our deadline for raising the remaining half of our annual operations budget. To protect the integrity of our content, we have never accepted advertising, which could influence objectivity. Nor have we ever charged a subscription fee, which would limit our ability to reach large numbers of students.

The reality is that our annual budget is sustained by only a small fraction of our readers. We’re a small organization that depends on over-worked and underpaid staff, a lot of volunteer effort, and a tired coffee pot. If you find The Patriot Post useful, please take a moment to sustain our mission22 into 2017. Thank you for all you do for Liberty. —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Ken Blackwell: Election Integrity Matters23
    Tony Perkins: Planned Prosecution for Planned Parenthood24
    George Will: The Sensitivity Police Strike Again25

For more, visit Right Opinion26.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Trump, Carrier and Cronyism27

By Robin Smith

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump became the voice of the forgotten working class. He clearly declared that the movement of American companies to Mexico and China, taking American jobs with them, was unacceptable, and he pledged to reduce corporate taxes and excessive regulation to aid U.S. workers in keeping their jobs. So it was no surprise that even before taking office Trump renegotiated a deal with Carrier, an Indiana-based subsidiary of United Technologies, to keep the company from moving 1,000 jobs to Mexico. Trump leveraged this event as a major campaign promise made and kept even before the Inaugural.

As for the details, the state of Indiana provided Carrier with a decade’s worth of tax incentives valued at $7 million. It was mighty handy to have VP-elect Mike Pence still serving as governor of the Hoosier state to facilitate such an incentive package. Generally absent from mainstream discussions, however, was the leverage that Trump-Pence had with parent company United Technologies. As a recipient of about $10 billion in subsidies to export aircraft engines via the controversial Export-Import Bank28, the government-run corporation that finances and insures foreign purchases, United Technologies likely understood that the air conditioning bone might be connected to the aerospace bone in Trump’s book of anatomy.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 12-5-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Carrier deal has opened the door for a healthy discussion on America’s tax policy and two questions that must be answered: Are America’s economic markets actually free? Is global trade free and fair?

Before tackling those questions, let’s stipulate that America’s tax policies are generally unfavorable for business. The federal corporate tax rate is 35% (with another average 4% tacked on by states and local governments), making it the world’s third highest. The global average is 22.5%, and all of our major competitors, from China to Germany to the UK, have rates between 20% and 30%. Ireland’s is just 12.5%. Team Trump-Pence has promised to reduce America’s corporate tax rate to 15%.

Now, to those two questions about free and fair markets and trade.

Unfortunately, much of the criticism of Trump’s Carrier deal is valid. Cronyism is still cronyism when Trump does it.

But any criticism of Trump’s deal should likewise be dealt to each and every state for similar deals. The incentives offered by the state of Indiana to Carrier are really no different from favors dealt by any other state, or sometimes by the federal government (Solyndra, anyone?). Incentives range from educational grants for workforce development and retraining to childcare to site development to actual tax credits per job created to the subsidized price of energy. That’s how our system works. It’s not ideal, but Trump’s only playing the same game.

According to Good Jobs First, which tracks corporate deals and state incentive packages29, for the last two decades, New York State has awarded in excess of $25 billion to businesses through more than 77,000 subsidies. Louisiana follows second in the ranking with $16 billion in subsidies in just over 8,200 awards. The top 10 is rounded out with Michigan, Washington, New Jersey, Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, Oregon and Missouri. But every single state and the District of Columbia incentivizes companies with taxpayer-funded deals.

What about the question regarding trade. Is the global trade market free and fair?

Did you know that 148 of America’s trading partners have tariffs by other names, such as a value-added tax (VAT) or goods and service tax, on their nation’s imports ranging from 2% to 27%? So while America generally refuses to apply tariffs to imports to meet the terms of trade deals, American products are taxed by our competitors. Is that fair?

It’s unfortunate that Trump threatened to use tariffs against American companies if they move jobs offshore. It could be that his threat will keep jobs here, but if it doesn’t and he carries through, it’ll just be a tax on American consumers.

Did you know that in China, more than $15 trillion in assets is produced by 150,000 state-owned enterprises (SOE) employing more than 30 million Chinese citizens? These SOE’s — or “zombie corporations” — have one boss: the Communist Chinese government. If market share is being lost, forced mergers occur. If overhead increases, wages are manipulated, as is their currency. The Chinese not only ignore intellectual property of competitors, once stolen, their communist companies reproduce at a fraction of the cost and send back to America. Is this free or fair trade?

Within America, our governments at the local, state and federal level have interfered with free markets. That’s the current system.

Within the realm of globalism and corporatism, trade deals have been crafted to operate on a sliding scale of variants that permit some to avoid any types of regulations or standards that match those applied within the U.S. That’s the current system.

Trump has announced to the world that these systems are going to be used to protect American jobs first as reforms occur to boost the economy for Americans, not the citizens of the world. Principled policy always looks good on paper, but in America and internationally, it’s not practiced. Trump promised to “drain the swamp” and to overturn the status quo. If Carrier’s any indication, he’s not off to a great start. Then again, the Americans who kept their jobs and anybody who’s rooting for other Americans to keep theirs won’t mind seeing Trump work the art of the deal.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

    The Bull in the PC China Shop30 — The 2016 election was all about rejecting leftist oppression.
    Obama’s Costly Forgiveness31 — Latest GAO report on the student loan forgiveness program.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Ken Blackwell: “In September the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) published a report detailing illegal voting in Virginia, a ‘purple’ state whose electors were eagerly sought by both major presidential aspirants. Some state races there have been incredibly close: The 2013 attorney general race was decided for the Democrats by 165 votes out of 2.2 million cast. Yet PILF discovered that in Virginia, too, some jurisdictions had more registered voters than eligible residents. … It found that in just eight of 133 jurisdictions more than 1,000 foreigners had registered and a fifth of them had voted before being dropped from the rolls. The Obama Justice Department has ignored the problem and even sued the state when Florida sought to clean its voter rolls before the 2012 election. At the same time, the department prosecuted plenty of people for other offenses. One suspects that Obama’s DOJ would have shown greater interest if it believed that illegal votes were being cast for Republican candidates.”

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “Government is like a baby. It is an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and a no sense of responsibility at the other.”

Magnanimity: “Don’t forget — I hit Mitt [Romney] pretty hard also, I mean, before the fact. And so I understand how it all works.” —Donald Trump on why he’s considering Romney for secretary of state

Demo-gogues: “I don’t think that people want a new direction. Our values unify us. And our values are about supporting America’s working families.” —Nancy Pelosi on winning the Democrat leadership post again (Boy did she miss the point of the 2016 election.

Color us skeptical: “I don’t think Hillary has any interest in running again.” —Gov. Terry McAuliffe (The Clintons are incapable of avoiding the spotlight32.)

Journalism: “Some Americans have found a new folk hero in a familiar face: Hillary Clinton, comfortably dressed suburban retiree.” —New York Times

And last… “To my knowledge, no one has ever burned a flag at a trade school. I wonder why that is?” —Mike Rowe

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.