The Patriot Post Digest 2-21-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-21-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Feb. 21, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Trump makes an upgrade in his national security advisor.
Comparing the confirmation times of the Trump and Obama cabinets.
What’s the deal with ocean levels and climate change?
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

A Better Choice for NatSec Advisor1

“A man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience” — that’s how Donald Trump described Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster in announcing his choice to replace Michael Flynn as national security advisor. McMaster will lead Trump’s national security team with interim acting advisor Keith Kellogg returning to his role as chief of staff to the National Security Council. McMaster stated, “I look forward to joining the national security team and doing everything I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.”

Trump’s choice has been met with high praise throughout Washington. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) gushed, “I could not imagine a better, more capable national security team.”

McMaster is known as a highly intelligent and fearlessly outspoken leader cut from the same cloth as Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis2. He was awarded the Silver Star for his leadership in the Gulf War at the tank Battle of 73 Easting. He is a brains-before-bullets kind of a commander, encouraging military leadership to be well read3. A scholar of military history, he wrote “Dereliction of Duty,” a treatise highly critical of uniformed leadership during the Vietnam War for their failure to stand up to Lyndon Johnson’s civil decision makers, which lead to the war becoming the very quagmire leftists wanted it to be. And McMaster’s prior tasking was to estimate future threats, which makes him a great fit for the NSA role. Trump’s greatest strength so far may be finding the right people for the right job.

Who Is More Obstructionist?4

“It is a disgrace that my full Cabinet is still not in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country,” Donald Trump tweeted earlier this month. “Obstruction by Democrats!” Is this typical Trumpian hyperbole, or are Democrats really blocking his nominees? Well, a month after his inauguration, there are still several cabinet picks awaiting confirmation. And by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s own admission, Democrats are “using everything we can to stop these awful nominees.”

Remember in 2014 when the Demo Congressional Campaign was complaining, “No president in U.S. history has faced the level of obstruction that Barack Obama has”? Good times. Here’s a rundown of confirmation times compared to those of the previous cabinet:

State: Rex Tillerson (13 days) vs. Hillary Clinton (2 days)
Treasury: Steve Mnuchin (25 days) vs. Timothy Geithner (7 days)
Justice: Jeff Sessions (20 days) vs. Eric Holder (14 days)
Education: Betsy DeVos (19 days) vs. Arne Duncan (1 day)
Veterans Affairs: David Shulkin (25 days) vs. Eric Shinseki (1 day)
HUD: Ben Carson (still waiting) vs. Shaun Donovan (3 days)
Energy: Rick Perry (still waiting) vs. Steven Chu (1 day)
Agriculture: Sonny Perdue (still waiting) vs. Tom Vilsack (1 day)
Interior: Ryan Zinke (still waiting) vs. Ken Salazar (1 day)

Mark Alexander called Trump’s nominees even better than Ronald Reagan’s5, and it’s past time to get them confirmed.

Top Headlines6

Supremes to decide if foreigners have constitutional rights. (LifeZette7)

DoD Secretary James Mattis argues for continued presence in Iraq. (Reuters8.)

Professional leftist protesters take to the streets for “Not My Presidents Day.” (USA Today9)

NBC “news” marks milestone: Trump can no longer be the shortest-serving president in American history. (Hot Air10)

Democrat Rep to file lawsuit to keep police-as-pigs painting in Capitol Building. (The Hill11)

“More paint and less hate”: Online petition calls for end to “black targets” at shooting ranges. (The Blaze12)

MSM videos enlist condescending kids to trash Trump. (CNS News13)

Suspicions as Russian ambassador to UN dies in New York. (Washington Examiner14)

Socialism at work: Venezuelans lost 19 lbs. on average over past year due to lack of food. (Fox News15)

Humor: Saturday Night Live mocks PC commercials in “Pitch Meeting.” (YouTube16)

Policy: Here’s why amnesty would harm black Americans. (The Daily Signal17)

Policy: A small HSA fix could produce big results. (Real Clear Health18.)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report19.
Don’t Miss Patriot Humor

Check out Not Going20.

If you’d like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here21.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Sea Level Rise: A Reason to Drown in Fear?22

By Jordan Candler

The quibbling over how much warming the world has actually seen is back in the news23 thanks to new allegations from Dr. John Bates, a former NOAA scientist who says the agency used bogus techniques to discredit the recent global warming pause. Given the long history of accusations against the agency — including longstanding charges of rewriting logbook data — these assertions should be investigated, regardless of what may or may not turn up. Perhaps the agency is guilty, or perhaps not.

But let’s set aside for a moment the wrangling over the magnitude of warming and lay out what everyone can agree on. We know unequivocally that global temperatures have gradually warmed for more than a century now. (This acknowledgment, by the way, reveals the Left’s slandering of conservatives as “climate deniers” to be all the more vindictive). We also know that periods of cooling or static measurements have occasionally interrupted this gradual warming, but it hasn’t been enough to reduce the overall upward trend. And finally, we know that global carbon dioxide emissions have risen to slightly more than 400 parts per million (ppm), an increase from 340 ppm in the early 1980s.

It’s what to extract from this information that results in harsh disagreement and even indignation. How much of the warming is natural? How much is cyclical? How much (if any) is driven by CO2? If it’s a mix of man-made and cyclical effects, which one is disproportionately to blame for meteorological changes? The Left, in addition to blaming climate change for what it says are worsening droughts and burgeoning heat waves, worries that sea levels, aided by the acceleration in ice loss, will wreak havoc on coastlines and nearby lowlands.

In truth, it’s admittedly a bad time for sea ice concentration. A few years ago, Antarctica was almost routinely, it seemed, breaking records in ice coverage. So it might come as a surprise today to learn that it’s now at a record low. In fact, both the North and South Poles are measuring historically low percentages. According to a large number of scientists, the continuation of global warming means coastal areas are in for a nightmare scenario. What does the data say?

Last June, NOAA reported24, “Sea level has been rising over the past century, and the rate has increased in recent decades. In 2014, global sea level was 2.6 inches (67 mm) above the 1993 average — the highest annual average in the satellite record (1993-present). Sea level continues to rise at a rate of about one-eighth of an inch (3.2 mm) per year, due to a combination of melting glaciers and ice sheets, and thermal expansion of seawater as it warms.” And according to a February 2016 USA Today report25, ocean levels overall increased by 5.5 inches during the 20th century.

Think about that. The rate at last check was one-eighth of an inch per year and mere inches when all added up. Assuming this is true — not to mention even accurate, considering these are such minuscule measurements for a vast swath of geography — that’s hardly what we would call a crisis, and it’s worth noting too that the way this stuff is measured has been revolutionized over time. That said, both poles are experiencing higher-than-average ice melt today, which presumably will affect this rate. But just how much?

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-21-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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In the same report, NOAA went on to estimate “that there is very high confidence (greater than 90% chance) that global mean sea level will rise at least 8 inches (0.2 meter) but no more than 6.6 feet (2.0 meters) by 2100.” And that’s taking into account rather extreme scenarios. Some people, particularly those along the coast, understandably worry about this (though a significant number of Americans actually enjoy26 the more pleasant effects of global warming, like milder winters). The question isn’t so much that global temperatures — and to a smaller degree the oceans — are rising, but why. Furthermore, how do we respond?

This is where policy disagreements come in. The bottom line is that this debate could come down to whether we want to adapt to climate change or instead attempt to mitigate its effects. NOAA says the rate at which seas are expected to rise “depends mostly on the rate of future carbon dioxide emissions and future global warming.” We contend there are very legitimate reasons to embrace CO2. Though for the most part temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions have risen in tandem, emissions alone can’t explain the periodic temperature drops and stagnations. And completely eliminating those emissions would be futile — and immensely expensive. But economic control, after all, is the real climate agenda27.

As The Daily Signal’s Katie Tubb observes28, “Climate sensitivity modeling used by the EPA shows that totally eliminating all carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. would reduce warming by only 0.137 degree Celsius by the end of the century, and only 0.278 degree Celsius if the entire industrialized world totally eliminated all carbon dioxide emissions.” Moreover, the greening of deserts and an abundance of food for trees and vegetation are surely welcome benefits.

Whether the globe is warming or cooling, there are benefits and setbacks to both, as history demonstrates. And humans who expect to have the ability to balance the climate are significantly less realistic than those who advocate adapting, like we always have, to what comes next. Americans didn’t abandon certain areas altogether because of earthquakes; they figured out how to create stronger and more flexible structures. The same goes for places prone to tornadoes and hurricanes. Remember, temperatures have not risen at the rate at which they were projected, and the future of sea levels are equally uncertain.

Game-changing global cooling didn’t happen like the CIA29 and Time magazine30 and others warned in 1974, nor will an ice age happen by 2021, as The Washington Post forecast31 in 1971. On the flip side, the New York Times' 1969 warning32 “that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two” didn’t happen either. So take predictions with a grain of salt.

In any case, even if the threat is real, adaption creates far more economic opportunities than forcing hundreds of millions into destitution through costly taxation and regulation. So go ahead and build your beachfront home. We’ll figure out, through innovation, how to protect it if we ever reach that point. Or maybe we could just get Barack Obama to finally cash in on his 2008 promise about the “moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow…”

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

The Trouble With High Drug Prices33 — The prescription is free market reform.
CPAC Blew It by Inviting Milo in the First Place34 — Yiannopoulos is a trolling provocateur, not a conservative.
Now Calhoun’s Replacement at Yale Under Fire35 — There’s no winning this politically correct charade.
The Media That Cried Wolf36 — The public’s lack of trust in the press is the fault of … the press.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Caroline Camden Lewis: Donald Trump and the Waterloo of the Protected Class37
Cal Thomas: Trump and the Media: Demolition Derby38
Dennis Prager: Why Professors Object to Being Recorded39

For more, visit Right Opinion40.

OPINION IN BRIEF

David French: “Let’s put this plainly: If Milo’s the poster boy for free speech, then free speech will lose. He’s the perfect foil for social-justice warriors, a living symbol of everything they fight against. His very existence and prominence feed the deception that modern political correctness is the firewall against the worst forms of bigotry. I’ve spent a career defending free speech in court, and I’ve never defended a ‘conservative’ like Milo. His isn’t the true face of the battle for American free-speech rights. That face belongs to Barronelle Stutzman, the florist in Washington whom the Left is trying to financially ruin because she refused to use her artistic talents to celebrate a gay marriage. It belongs to Kelvin Cochran, the Atlanta fire chief who was fired for publishing and sharing with a few colleagues a book he wrote that expressed orthodox Christian views of sex and marriage. Stutzman and Cochran demonstrate that intolerance and censorship strike not just at people on the fringe — people like Milo — but rather at the best and most reasonable citizens of these United States. They’re proof that social-justice warriors seek not equality and inclusion but control and domination.”

Read more…41

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “So long as [men] hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged ‘good’ can justify it — there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations.” —Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

Upright: “It has become fashionable in conservative circles to cheer every apparently right-leaning gadfly. But ‘trolling’ is not conservatism, and there is no virtue merely in upsetting campus Democrats. There are many conservatives who do regular battle with left-wing agitators — but who also are of high character, and advance conservative arguments and defend conservative principles with poise, wit, and good cheer.” —National Review

For the record: “Most professors objecting to being recorded know on some level that they are persuasive only when their audience is composed largely of very young people just out of high school. They know that if their ideas are exposed to adults, they may be revealed as intellectual lightweights. Students therefore need to understand that when professors object to being recorded, it is a statement of contempt for them.” —Dennis Prager

Stuck between a rock and a hard place: “I think we have to work with [Trump]. I’ve got people who — you know, I keep telling people, this is our president. He’s going to be our president for the next four years.” —Rep. Elijah Cummings, whose colleague, John Lewis, has stated, “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president”

And last… “Some reporters believe they have an obligation to hold leaders accountable, and they are right to a point, but they don’t appear to believe anyone should hold them accountable. … Few people would deny the right or even the obligation of journalists to be skeptical, but, in too many instances, skepticism has become cynicism. Just think of how the media characterizes all things conservative.” —Cal Thomas

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Managing Editor Nate Jackson

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