The Patriot Post Digest 2-16-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-16-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Feb. 16, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Leakers took out Flynn and then turn around and warn about possible leaks from Trump.
Mattis puts NATO on notice: Pull your weight.
The Left is defining deportation criteria down in a dangerous way.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Dezinformatsiya 101 — Killing Flynn1

We noted yesterday2 that the political assassination of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was committed by Barack Obama’s hacks deep in the bowels of bureaucracy. CIA, NSA and National Security Council officials fed information to “cutouts” — friendly civilians or workers in other government agencies — who then transmitted it to the Leftmedia, which dutifully did its job to scalp Flynn and delegitimize Donald Trump.

This is a campaign of “dezinformatsiya.” The Patriot Post has employed that word for years to describe what the Leftmedia does to misinform the American public. As Jonah Goldberg succinctly explained in 20143, “We get the word ‘disinformation’ from the Russian ‘Dezinformatsiya,’ the name of the KGB division charged with propagating deliberate lies around the world.”

In the same week all that occurred, the same leakers played The Wall Street Journal, which headlined Thursday, “Spies Keep Intelligence From Donald Trump on Leak Concerns4.” In other words, this is a classic play — intelligence officials leaked hit material on Flynn and then leaked that they don’t give info to Trump because it might get leaked. We’ll certainly concede that Trump is rather loose-lipped and has an apparent blind spot for Russia, making such accusations somewhat believable. But Trump is the duly elected president and commander in chief. It is not the responsibility of anonymous spooks to decide whether he’s trustworthy. “It’s probably unprecedented to have this difficult a relationship between a president and the intelligence agencies,” said Mark Lowenthal, a former senior intelligence official. “I can’t recall ever seeing this level of friction. And it’s just not good for the country.” Since when has that been a concern for the Left?

Mattis Warns NATO5

America is losing its patience — that was the message Defense Secretary Jim Mattis communicated Wednesday at a meeting of defense ministers from NATO countries. Mattis warned, “America will meet its responsibilities, but if your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to the alliance, each of your capitals needs to show its support for our common defense.” Mattis statements echo those of Donald Trump when he warned during his campaign that NATO countries needed to pull their weight because doing otherwise is “very unfair to the United States.”

Currently only five of the 28 NATO countries pay the agreed upon 2% of each respective member nation’s GDP on defense. This isn’t a new problem either. Barack Obama also pushed for NATO members to increase their spending on defense (while cutting our own, we might add). What is new are the comments from Trump and Mattis that imply the U.S. might alter its commitment to NATO should those nations not meet their spending obligations.

Historically, NATO is the U.S.’s most important and significant alliance. The U.S. benefits just as much from NATO6 as do the other member nations. It proved to be highly beneficial both during the Cold War and since 9/11 with the resulting war on terror. Mattis’s statements couldn’t come at better time given Russia’s steadily increasing aggression. News just this week of Moscow violating a treaty by moving intermediate range missiles testifies to this reality.

Mattis is seeking to once again assert U.S. leadership in NATO, which has been sorely lacking under the Obama administration. He has pulled out the proverbial stick in seeking to prod NATO members into meeting their agreed upon obligations. If those member nations continue to shirk responsibility, then there should be consequences. This is the tricky balance Trump is having to strike.

Top Headlines7

What we said about the Benghazi cover-up8: Obama and Clinton knew immediately Benghazi was terror attack, not “protest.” (Judicial Watch9)

Leftmedia talking heads frustrated that Trump is not calling on them — well duh! (Washington Free Beacon10)

60% of refugee arrivals since judge halted suspension have come from five terror countries. (CNS News11)

Economist blasts Paris Climate Treaty $100T price tag: “Not a good deal.” That’s putting it mildly. (Newsbusters12)

Surprise: At the end, Obama administration gave NSA broad new powers. Now you know where those Flynn “leaks” are coming from. (PJ Media13)

Trump’s CEO pick for labor secretary drops out of consideration. Sad! (Business Insider14)

Four broken ObamaCare promises that town hall protesters should remember. (The Daily Signal15)

Boeing workers in South Carolina vote against union. (The Washington Post16)

Senate votes to repeal Obama administration gun rule meant to disarm the elderly. (CBS News17)

Far-Left Southern Poverty Law Center says American “hate groups” are on the rise, and they blame who else — Trump. (The Washington Post18.)

Policy: Skyrocketing prescription-drug prices are a more intractable problem than the White House realizes. (National Review19)

Policy: On science, the Left has its own “alternative facts.” (RealClearScience20)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report21.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Defining Deportation Criteria Down22

By Arnold Ahlert

“Drunk driving that does not lead to any other negative outcome, I could define as that.” —NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio explaining why illegals who commit “minor” crimes will be shielded from deportation.

“Rather than tracking down violent criminals and drug dealers, ICE is spending its energy deporting a woman with two American children who has lived here for more than two decades and poses a threat to nobody.” —Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton expressing his outrage over the deportation of Garcia de Rayos, an illegal alien convicted of felony criminal impersonation.

Remember when the American Left used to insist that deporting illegals whose only offense was being in the United States illegally was an affront to decency? As two Democrat mayors indicate, the bar has been lowered substantially. In fact, de Blasio studiously avoided the other component23 of reporter Jake Tapper’s question, namely whether or not grand larceny was sufficient grounds for deportation. Perhaps that’s because a 2014 sanctuary city law passed24 by the City Council and signed by de Blasio prevents the transfer of an illegal to ICE without a warrant, unless the suspect is on a terrorism watch list or has committed a violent felony.

NYPD Lt. Chris Czark, who insisted the city was “acting within guidelines and the scope of the law,” nonetheless revealed the utter lunacy of such a policy, noting that while “you could be detained for any felony” prior to the law’s implementation, now it’s only “certain felonies” that precipitate cooperation with federal immigration officials.

Not on that list? Crimes like sexual abuse, money-laundering, bribery, grand larceny and drunk driving. City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s response to critics who challenge the assertion that the law makes the city safe? “Any suggestion that our common-sense law does otherwise is nothing more than cheap political posturing,” huffed spokeswoman Amy Varghese.

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-16-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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New York progressives are hardly outliers. Alisa Wellek, executive director of the Immigrant Defense Project, reveals25 the mindset that animates the Left’s casual relationship with the Rule of Law regarding illegal aliens. “We see a ton of people deported for misdemeanors, probation violations, petty theft, shoplifting,” she states. “The federal government has these really overreaching laws on the books, laws that are very unforgiving for anyone who’s had any contact with the criminal justice system — even if you’ve never served a day in jail.”

The headline26 of a Denver Post editorial is equally absurd. “Trump should deport criminals, but let’s be reasonable,” it states. The editorial board offers up the boilerplate progressive rationale that crime thrives “in an environment where the threat of deportation prevents victims and witnesses from contacting law enforcement or even from seeking emergency medical attention.” So the paper concludes that Trump, who has “demonized immigrants in his climb to the White House,” should “reconsider his inexorable march to mass deportation.”

The Atlantic’s J. Weston Phippen is another hand-wringer upset27 with Trump’s executive order27 regarding illegals. “There is no priority anymore,” he laments. “The language in the order says that any unauthorized immigrant convicted of any crime can be deported.”

In other words, no illegal convicted of a crime should be deported if that deportation offends progressive sensibilities.

This sentiment is shared28 by “Monarca,” a group of Mexican legislators, governors and public figures whose name is the Mexican word for a butterfly that migrates throughout North America. Their strategy is straight out of Cloward-Piven29: overwhelm the immigration court system until it breaks down. “The backlog in the immigration system is tremendous,” said former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda. Monarca intends to double or triple the backlog, “until Trump desists in this stupid idea,” Castañeda adds.

The courts are already in chaos with a backlog of more than 500,000 cases. That number that has steadily increased30 over the last eight years, due to a shortage of immigration judges. The current number31 of judges is 296, and Human Rights First (HRF) estimates the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the DOJ agency that adjudicates immigration cases, needs to hire 524 immigration judges to eliminate the backlog by 2023.

That’s not soon enough. The Trump administration needs to make the hiring of judges a top priority to counter Monarca’s contemptible strategy, as well as the reality expressed32 in 2011 by former Miami immigration jurist Mark H. Metcalf. He explained that the current system is “built to fail” because deportation orders “are rarely enforced,” illegals don’t show up for court dates and immigration judges “can’t enforce their own orders.”

The message is clear: Progressives and their media enablers embrace orchestrated anarchy. Orchestrated anarchy that essentially defines criminal deviancy down to the point where leftists demand that people already here illegally be allowed to stay, even if they have committed additional crimes — including “acceptable” felonies. And if these would-be anarchists don’t get their way, they will attempt to crash the court system.

It remains to be seen if the GOP will abide the Left’s “by any means necessary” approach, or stand up for “deplorable” Americans tired of being told they are bigoted or xenophobic because they reject a de facto invasion — and the bastardization of the law necessary to facilitate it.

How this plays out is America’s ultimate litmus test. There is either national sovereignty and the Rule of Law — or there isn’t.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Pull the Plug; ObamaCare Is Dying33 — Insurers drop out, the IRS relaxes enforcement and the GOP prepares replacement.
Not Tied to Two-State Solution34 — Trump changes U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Jeff Jacoby: What ObamaCare’s Drafters Could Have Learned From a Hairdresser35
Richard D. Kocur: Crossing the Line on Health Insurance36
Victor Davis Hanson: The Three-Headed Hydra of the Middle East37

For more, visit Right Opinion38.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jeff Jacoby: “Lawmakers so often enact far-reaching rules with worthy intentions, but little awareness of how much harm government burdens can cause. Sometimes, belatedly, they come to understand how clueless they had been. As a congressman, New York’s Ed Koch routinely voted for liberal social and welfare proposals. Only much later, after leaving Congress and observing the practical impact of all those rules and programs, did the scales fall from his eyes. ‘I was dumb,’ Koch told an interviewer in 1980. ‘We all were. I voted for so much crap. Who knew? We got carried away with what the sociologists were telling us.’ Years later, an even more liberal Democrat expressed similar regrets. After a long career in Congress, former senator George McGovern tried his hand a running a business — a small hotel in Connecticut. ‘In retrospect,’ McGovern wrote after the inn went bankrupt, ‘I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business. … I also wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day.’ Government’s power to do good is limited, and heavy-handed regulation habitually proves counterproductive. If Bernie Sanders had operated a few hair salons before going into politics, he would know that, and he’d be a better senator as a result.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “You want to know what fascism is like? It is like your New Deal!” —Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)

Upright: “There is one easy way … to get a real sense of whether General Michael Flynn, the now-former national-security adviser, is a lying rogue who deceived every Trump administration official in sight, or the victim of an elaborate ‘deep state’ scam whose real objective is to destroy not merely Flynn but the Trump presidency. Let’s go to the audio tape.” —Andrew McCarthy

Braying Jackass: “In thinking of the larger problem, Trump doesn’t have time to help Americans because of all the scandals that are taking place, which is within just a three-week period. … This is not just about President Trump. This is about our Republican colleagues and the separation of powers and holding this president accountable for the lies that have been taking place in the White House that have made America less safe. That is what this is about.” —Rep. Joseph Crowley

Out on a limb: “This is bigger than Watergate.” —Democrat National Committee

The BIG Lie: “Watergate is the biggest political scandal of my lifetime, until maybe now. It was the closest we came to a debilitating Constitutional crisis, until maybe now. … And we may look back and see, in the end, that it is at least as big as Watergate. It may become the measure by which all future scandals are judged. It has all the necessary ingredients, and that is chilling.” —Dan Rather

A blind squirrel finds a nut: “There is an absolutely frenzied and concerted attempt to delegitimize, sabotage and destroy the Trump presidency before it’s even started. I think that is un-American. I don’t think it’s a patriotic thing that they’re doing. I think it’s nakedly partisan.” —Piers Morgan

And last… “Obama learned of IRS/VA scandals, AP spying, and HRC’s server from the news: COOL. Trump anything: WHAT DID TRUMP KNOW & WHEN DID HE KNOW IT.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor

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.