The Patriot Post Digest 1-30-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-30-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Jan. 30, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

GDP was sluggish again last quarter, but things are also looking brighter.
When it comes to immigration, there’s plenty of hypocrisy on the Left.
Trump’s travel ban on foreigners is not what the Left claims it is.
And more news, policy and opinion.

THE FOUNDATION

“I … place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Obama’s Failed Economic Policies1

GDP numbers are in for the final quarter of 2016 — Barack Obama’s last quarter — and they are unsurprisingly dismal. “The U.S. economy’s expansion slowed [to 1.9% growth] in the fourth quarter, and annual growth failed to reach 3% for an 11th straight year,” reports2 Market Watch. “For the full year, the U.S. grew just 1.6%, compared with its 2.6% clip in 2015. It was the weakest performance since 2011. The last time the U.S. topped 3% growth — the historical average is 3.3% — was in 2005.” It turns out that drastically increasing federal spending and taxes, and putting massive regulations on the economy, primarily in the forms of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank and climate standards, don’t translate into a booming economy. Who knew?

The good news, of course, is that Obama isn’t in office any longer, and Republicans control the White House and Congress once again. That means free market policies, including lower regulations and taxes, as well as ObamaCare repeal all have a chance. So it’s no wonder that, despite the anemic state of the economy right now, there are good signs. The Dow Jones Industrial average last week topped 20,000 for the first time ever, and according to3 Gallup, “Americans have viewed the economy more positively since President Donald Trump’s election in November than they did in the nine years prior.” It’s not quite true that there’s nowhere to go but up since we’re not technically in recession, but we fully expect to end that streak of sub-3% growth in the next couple of years if the right policies are implemented. And that’s a refreshing place to be.

That Time Clinton Got Tough on Illegal Immigration4

If Trump is a reprobate, what does that make former president Bill Clinton?

“All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more, by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.” —Bill Clinton, 1995 State of the Union

Compare Bill’s remarks to Hillary’s immigration platform5. Contrary to the Left’s narrative that accuses today’s Republicans of being hostile and unsympathetic, it’s liberals whose worldview is now unrealistic and, as Bill put it, ultimately self-defeating.

For the record, The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel points out: “Barack Obama put a pause for six months on refugees coming from Iraq back in 2011. I don’t remember protestors and I don’t remember lawsuits.” There’s hypocrisy alright — on the Left.

Top Headlines6

Trump will announce Supreme Court nominee Tuesday. (The Hill7)

Trump imposes lifetime ban on administration officials lobbying for foreign governments. (CNS News8.)

In Canada, at last least six killed, eight wounded in mosque shooting. (Fox News9)

SAG Awards 2017: Hollywonks can keep there wealthy liberal mouths shut. (The New York Times10)

ABC deletes Trump’s March for Life reference in its online transcript. (The Washington Times11)

FedEx driver saves American flag from protesters trying to burn it. (The Washington Free Beacon12)

Koch brother network emboldened yet wary about Trump. (Real ClearPolitics13)

Bill de Blasio struggles differing Trump’s immigration policy from Obama’s. (Washington Free Beacon14)

Ft. Lauderdale airport shooter indictment omits terrorism. (Judicial Watch15)

Humor: Forget the Sig Sauer — five deadly alternatives to the Army’s new pistol. (Task & Purpose16)

Policy: The places where walls work. (American Enterprise Institute17)

Policy: Is the U.S. going BAT-ty? (Investor’s Business Daily18.)

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Behind the Immigration Ban Hysteria19

By Thomas Gallatin

From references made by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the Statue of Liberty crying to CNN running the headline, “Trump bans 134,000,000 from the U.S.,” the Left and the mainstream media are jumping up and down in hysteria over Donald Trump’s Friday executive orders on vetting refugees. Adding fuel to the controversy were stories of green card holders being prevented entry, forcing the administration to offer a clarification, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly stating, “In applying the provisions of the President’s executive order, I hereby deem the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest. Accordingly, absent the receipt of significant derogatory information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare, lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.” Even The Wall Street Journal headlined a story that read20, “Donald Trump’s Immigration Ban Sows Chaos.”

So what’s the deal here? Are Trump’s actions as “extreme” as the mainstream media insists? Has the White House been taken over by a nativist? Is Trump Hitler 2.0? The facts reveal quite a different story from the hysteria currently being peddled by the Leftmedia.

First, motive. Trump maintained during his entire campaign that the safety of Americans would be a top priority. His actions on Friday are yet another example of him following through on his promises. Trump has correctly assessed that Washington’s politically correct attitude toward immigration has created a climate ripe for a Trojan horse-like infiltration taking advantage of the nation’s lax controls. His order is not an attack on a religion, ethnic group or region of the world.

Trump’s concerns or actions are not new or unprecedented, as both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton4 enacted similar temporary bans, and justified those bans out of concern for the safety of Americans.

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-30-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Second, the “extreme” adjective that has been bandied about by media pundits from all sides is quite simply absurd. A quick look at history and numbers confirms this. Trump’s capping of refugees at 50,000 per year is nothing new. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama averaged the same number until 2016, when Obama expanded the number significantly. In reality, Trump is simply bringing the numbers back down to previously established levels. If anyone is to be faulted for extreme actions on refugees, it’s Obama.

Third, the order will seek to revamp the refugee processing in order to prioritize those of minority religious groups fleeing the persecution of radical Islamists. This will specifically help Christians but also other minorities who have suffered from rising persecution over the last few years. This is a significant change from Obama’s policy that did not favor minority religions in the refugee processing.

Fourth, the ban is temporary — 120 days — as DHS determines the “information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.” And the ban has an exemption clause: “Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.”

In reality, the Leftmedia’s exasperation over Trump’s actions is a strategy aimed at delegitimizing Trump in a effort to subvert his unapologetic “America First” policy. The Left is committed to its globalist vision and will do everything it can to derail Trump.

In hindsight, Trump may have acted too quick, especially if he failed to fully vet the plan internally. This has allowed the Leftmedia to unleash a barrage of misinformation that is proving to sow confusion and creating the false perception of the order being extreme.

Mark Alexander’s perspective: “This and other Trump initiatives will come down to who wins the battle for perception, not the facts, and indeed, if the Leftmedia prevails in portraying the Trump administration as a ‘clown show,’ then the Trump experiment is not going to end well. Cabinet members of the caliber of Gen. Kelley at DHS and Gen. Mattis at DOD will not hang around indefinitely if they are repeatedly being bypassed on major issues like this. If Trump continues to formulate tweets and executive orders in a vacuum, as if he can control the media script as tightly as he did the script for his successful reality show, then he could do more damage to Republicans in four years than Obama did to Democrats in eight. Trump and company should not be burning capital on EOs that they’re going to need for much more critical issues — like the Supreme Court.”

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Restoring Borders, Law and Order21 — Trump is making good on his pledge to enforce immigration law. It’s about time.
Will the True Feminists Please Stand Up?22 — Of the two recent marches, only Friday’s truly stands for the rights of all women.
Teacher Stages Mock Assassination of Trump23 — Liberal educators across the fruited plain have gone slap crazy.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Peggy Noonan: Trump Tries to Build a ‘Different Party’24
Gary Bauer: March for Life25
Jeff Jacoby: Make SCOTUS Nominees Answer the Tough Questions26

For more, visit Right Opinion27.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jeff Jacoby: “Sonia Sotomayor … told an audience at Arizona State University [last] Monday that legislators have no business asking judicial nominees about their views and intentions. ‘Any self-respecting judge who comes in with an agenda that would permit that judge to tell you how they will vote is the kind of person you don’t want as a judge,’ she said. Instead of asking nominees about important public issues, Sotomayor suggested, senators should inquire into judges' character: ‘Do they treat others with respect and dignity?’ Or they should be asked to identify cases in which their rulings conflicted with their personal feelings — because that is a mark of ‘a judge who’s following the rule of law.’ Baloney. Supreme Court nominees should absolutely be required to provide meaningful answers to serious questions about legal and constitutional matters. They are seeking confirmation to a lifelong position of enormous power and influence. Their decisions will shape American life and law for years to come; the authority they wield on the nation’s highest court will outstrip that of any senator voting on their confirmation. They will be empowered to uphold laws or strike them down. When they issue a ruling, it will stand — there is no appeal from a Supreme Court decision. Given the stakes, it is reckless in the extreme to confirm a Supreme Court justice without probing his views. … For too long, judicial confirmation hearings have been treated as occasions for content-free equivocation and speechifying. Isn’t that a crazy way to conduct the most consequential job interview in American public life?”

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “Some may try and tell us that this is the end of an era. But what they overlook is that in America, every day is a new beginning. For this is the land that has never become, but is always in the act of becoming.”

For the record: “Barack Obama put a pause for six months on refugees coming from Iraq back in 2011. I don’t remember protestors and I don’t remember lawsuits.” —Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel

Dezinformatsiya: “Jihadist groups hail Trump’s travel ban as a victory.” —The Washington Post (“Yes, we should listen to the opinions of jihadists while crafting policy. That worked well for 8 years.” —Stephen Miller)

Sounds good to us: “As I’ve said before, I say again today, if there is a move to deport immigrants, I say then start with me.” —Gov. Andrew Cuomo

Defiance: “To anyone who feels threatened today, or vulnerable, you are safe in Boston… If necessary, we will use City Hall itself to shelter and protect anyone who’s targeted unjustly. They can use my office, they can use any office in this building. They’ll be able to use this building as a safe space.” —Boston Mayor Marty Walsh

Non Compos Mentis: “[Not being a sanctuary city] means we would betray the Constitution of this country. … The Constitution says that the president is coercing us.” —Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

Alpha Jackass: “So you put a religious test on Muslims, and you try to scrub reference to Jews in the Holocaust remembrance. This was horribly, horribly mishandled. … This is what Holocaust denial is.” —Tim Kaine implying Trump is anti-Semitic

And last… “Trump is being pressured to rescind temporary immigration ban concerning countries that hate us or risk having those countries hate us.” —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.