The Patriot Post Digest 12-6-2016

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 12-6-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Dec. 6, 2016

IN TODAY’S EDITION

    The Obamas vacation on the backs of the people — just like all socialists.
    DC violated the Fourth Amendment rights of an Iraq veteran.
    Facebook’s journey to becoming “Fakebook.”
    And more news, policy and opinion.

THE FOUNDATION

“The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808.)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

The Obamas' Extravagant Vacation Price Tag1

Barack and Michelle Obama have long treated taxpayers as their personal sugar daddies when it comes to vacations and travel. Judicial Watch has long tracked these expenses, as we have, and the group estimates2, “To date, Obama’s and his family’s travel expenses total at least $85,029,819.”

We’d emphasize the “at least” part. There are direct costs, which the administration may or may not entirely disclose (this is the Most Transparent Adminsitration in History™, after all), and there are indirect costs that aren’t reported. As the Washington Examiner explains3, “The [disclosed] expenses cover items such as security, flights and hotel rooms for staff and U.S. Secret Service. They do not include the price of prepositioning ships and aircraft in the area or much of the communications costs.” Indeed, largely because of the latter factors, we’ve estimated the Obamas' heritage tour to Africa alone cost between $80 and $100 million. That’s living rich and famous, Obama style4.

They routinely head for extravagant vacations in Hawaii (at $5 million a pop) or the glitzy Martha’s Vineyard. And they generally live higher on the hog than even billionaire Donald Trump — and the Obamas do it, like all socialists, on the backs of the people.

DC Violated a Vet’s Fourth Amendment Rights5

When a culture of hostility is created against Second Amendment rights, other constitutional rights will suffer as well. This was on clear display before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, as it ruled against the District of Columbia for violating the Fourth Amendment rights of an Iraq War veteran, 1st Sgt. Matthew Corrigan.

In 2010, Corrigan, who suffered from PTSD, intended to call a veterans counseling number but inadvertently dialed a national suicide hotline. When the hotline volunteer questioned him and learned that he had guns in his apartment, the volunteer further inquired if Corrigan intended to hurt himself or anyone else. Corrigan responded, “no,” hung up and went to bed. The hotline volunteer then informed the DC Metropolitan Police department of the call. A SWAT team was dispatched to the apartment. Corrigan was awoken and ordered to come out; he complied, but locked the door behind him to keep his dog inside and the police out. Police then demanded to go inside, which Corrigan refused. So the police broke down Corrigan’s door and performed a search, finding no dangerous or illegal items in plain view. Five hours later the police raided Corrigan’s apartment a second time, ransacking it and leaving a mess. Nothing illegal was found.

After this whole fiasco, Corrigan sued the city of DC and certain police officers for breach of his Fourth Amendment rights. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that his rights were violated. DC’s toxic anti-gun culture — the subject of the landmark Heller decision — has created a climate so fearful of firearms that it justifies trampling over individual rights in the name of safety. A culture that values safety over freedom will produce only greater oppression and, ironically, less safety.

Top Headlines6

    As Trump endeavors to stop flow of jobs overseas, Obama proposes deal to make fighter jets in India. (The Washington Post7)

    Obama administrators at Pentagon bury study exposing $125 billion in bureaucratic waste. (Fox News8.)

    Obama wishes America a Happy Holidays with $44 billion in midnight regulations. (Washington Free Beacon9)

    UN “Human Rights” Council commemorates murderous dictator Fidel Castro. (CNS News10)

    Joe Biden jokes about a 2020 presidential run. He must be kicking himself for not running this year. (The Wall Street Journal11)

    Al Gore just had “an extremely interesting conversation” with Trump on climate change — whatever that means. (The Washington Post12)

    North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory concedes election, though the state legislature remains strongly conservative. (Fox News13)

    Fake news on “settled” science: A widely reported study on the longevity of homosexuals was faked. (National Review14)

    The murder trial against North Charleston police officer Michael Slager ends in a mistrial. But the case isn’t over. (ABC News15)

    Policy: Five things Ben Carson can do right away to improve public housing and reduce government dependency. (City Journal16)

    Policy: Fracking-contaminated groundwater: The myth that failed. (Real Clear Energy17)

Don’t Miss Patriot Humor

Check out Obama Is Running Again18.

If you’d like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here19.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Thomas Sowell: The Left’s Gambles20
    Rich Lowry: To Kill a Pipeline — Again21
    Stephen Moore: The Progressive-State Depression22

For more, visit Right Opinion23.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Facebook’s Transformation to ‘Fakebook’24

By Paul Albaugh

It has been nearly a month since the election and most mainstream media outlets are still in angst over Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton. As the election result proved, most Americans didn’t buy into the grossly leftist bias of main stream media — what we have long called “dezinformatsiya,” or deliberate misinformation — and many Americans chose to get their news from alternative sources via the Internet. In fact, Facebook became the go-to news source this election year. This has caused a new level of concern for leftist thought police. In fact, they have stooped to a new low, decrying the high volume of “fake news25” that populated the pages of Facebook users' news feeds during the election, and now Facebook intends to make some changes.

Earlier this year, Facebook came under fire for de-emphasizing news26 from conservative sources in its “trending” section, choosing instead to push news sources that Facebook wanted users to read. Conservatives were rightly upset with this revelation, but of course, Facebook, as a private company has the freedom to push whatever news stories it wants to be “trending.” Equally, however, Facebook users have the freedom to deactivate their account or simply look to other news sources.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 12-6-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Leftists always seek to suppress and discredit conservative news and thought, so it should come as no surprise that Facebook would choose to push stories from media outlets it favors.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been hammered by leftists over the past several weeks for not doing a more thorough job of censoring “fake news” that supposedly helped propel Donald Trump to victory over Hillary Clinton. In other words, Leftmedia news outlets deem any news — especially conservative news — that is outside of the leftwing, socialist umbrella as unworthy to read.

But as National Review’s Jim Geraghty quips, “It’s a little rich to hear the sudden media-wide panic over "fake news.” Just ask Dan Rather about those memos. Or ask Brian Williams about his war stories. Or ask Rolling Stone about those ritualistic gang rapes on the University of Virginia’s campus.“ And the list goes on.

What to do to counter this pressure? Facebook is now gearing up to change how it pushes news to users. The company that was built by millions of Americans and billions of people worldwide is looking to use a tool that allows it to push curated articles27 from "valid sources” to the news feed of its users. The aim of this new tool is to cut back on the “fake news” in order to provide its users with “reliable and valuable content.”

Zuckerberg, who days after the election commented that he didn’t think “fake news” contributed to Trump’s success, has since changed his tune. He announced that there will be new policies coming forth to “help identify and crack down on the spread of fake news, including writing algorithms that can automatically detect false content, placing warning labels on news that may be fake, and allowing users to flag content they find suspicious on their own.”

Facebook’s new feature28 is called “Collections” and it will function similar to Snapchat’s Discover section, which “showcases” news stories, videos and other content by handpicked media outlets.

These handpicked outlets are of course full of leftist drivel, and they hope to use Facebook as a means of pushing their content and their content only. Advertising on users' news feeds will no doubt increase as well, which will in turn bring revenues to both Facebook and the major media outlets.

So instead of making any attempt to implement objective journalism that reports the facts, major media will be pimping social media to help spew propoganda. As discouraging as this may be to many readers who enjoy using Facebook and other social media, the reality is that the leftist propaganda machines are simply taking things to the next level. Meanwhile, we in our humble shop and those who fight on our side will continue to relentlessly counter this horrible ideology with the message of Liberty.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

    2016 Saw Both Major Political Parties Collapse29 — One is on the road to recovery. The other is doubling down on failure.
    BuzzFeed’s Backfire30 — Even a liberal homosexual calls out social activist journalism.
    New Missouri Gov. Praises Blue Lives31 — Don’t mess with a Navy SEAL.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Thomas Sowell: “Something as personal as what doctor we want to go to has been taken out of our hands by ObamaCare. What job offer, at what pay rate, someone wants to accept has been taken out of their hands by minimum wage laws. Sick people who are dying are prevented from trying a medication that has not yet completed all the long years of tests required by federal regulations — even if the medication has been used for years in other countries without ill effects. One by one, innumerable decisions have been taken out of the hands of those directly affected. This is not just something that has happened. It is a central part of the agenda of the political left, even though they describe what they are doing in terms of the bad things they claim to be preventing and the good things they claim to be creating. … In short, the left has been gambling with other people’s livelihoods — and the left pays no price when that gamble fails.”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “The blue states of America are in a depression. … Here is an amazing statistic courtesy of the just-released 2016 edition of ‘Rich States, Poor States,’ which I co-authored with Reagan economist Arthur Laffer and economist Jonathan Williams: Of the 10 blue states that Democrats won by the largest percentage margins … every single one of them lost domestic migration (excluding immigration) between 2004 and 2014. Nearly 2.75 million more Americans left California and New York than entered these states.” —Stephen Moore

Good question: “How can Trump’s chat with an ally [Taiwan] be more controversial than Barack Obama engaging in secret negotiations with the ayatollah of Iran while that regime was killing our soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan? How can Trump’s call be more controversial than Obama reaching out to Cuba’s Fidel Castro who was an ally of the Soviet Union?” —Gary Bauer

For the record: “Fake news is whatever people living in the liberal bubble determine to be believed by the Right.” —Washington Free Beacon’s Bill McMorris

Fake news: “An earlier version of this article, relying on information from Armstrong Williams, a close friend of Ben Carson, misstated a part of Mr. Carson’s childhood. Mr. Williams said Monday that Mr. Carson had never lived in government housing.” —New York Times correction

Non Compos Mentis: “It feels like women betrayed us. The percentage of women who voted for Trump was insanely high. … Women hate women. That’s what I think it is. Women’s nature is not to support other women. It’s really sad.” —Madonna

False equivalence: “This feels like Selma! It feels like Montgomery! It feels like a time when a group that nobody paid attention to, black folks in the South, stood up and the world stood with them, so it’s a very powerful, emotional moment, I think, for the tribal communities.” —Van Jones on the Dakota Access Pipeline ruckus

And last… “For the left, Dakota Access is a symbol. In reality, it is simply a means of moving half a million barrels of crude oil a day from Point A to Point B, an activity that shouldn’t be considered dastardly or untoward. Fortunately for Dakota Access, and everyone else in the energy industry, help is on the way.” —Rich Lowry

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.