The Patriot Post Digest 2-24-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-24-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Mid-Day Digest

Feb. 24, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Steve Bannon heads to CPAC to lay out Trump’s agenda.
The drought in California isn’t going as climate alarmists planned.
What is presidential leadership and who displays it?
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“In the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” —James Madison, Federalist 14 (1787)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

CPAC: Bannon Lays Out the Agenda1

On Thursday, Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon sat down together for a center stage interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). That’s significant because the two are often portrayed as being enemies. Rush Limbaugh joked that the Leftmedia anticipated the event as if they “expect fisticuffs to break out.” No such luck — the two men first sought to put to rest rumors of a contentious relationship between them. But Bannon, who has not spoken publicly since the inauguration, also seized the opportunity to display his impressive acumen. Bannon usually looks like he just stepped off the shrimp boat and is clearly uncomfortable in a suit, but he’s also a former Navy officer, Harvard graduate and successful business man, so clearly he’s more than meets the eye. (Besides, Joe Biden once described Barack Obama as “articulate and bright and clean” — look what eight years of that got us.)

Bannon laid out three specific goals, reiterating that they were the very goals Trump campaigned on: setting foreign policy aright, rejuvenating the economy, and what Bannon insightfully termed the “deconstruction of the administrative state2.” On the economy, he elaborated, “We’re a nation with an economy — not an economy just in some global marketplace with open borders, but we are a nation with a culture and a reason for being.” And as for the immovable bureaucracy, the Leftmedia and leftists in general, he warned, “If you think they’re going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken. … Every day it is going to be a fight.” Charles Krauthammer may have summed up Bannon’s statements best, stating, “He sort of gave intellectual heft to Trumpism.” Bannon’s a mover and shaker, alright, but he’s not the bogeyman leftists make him out to be.

California Rains on ‘Settled Science’3

Californians are scratching their heads at a seemingly relentless deluge of rain — something that amounted to little more than wishful thinking this time last year. A multi-year drought hit the state’s agriculture system hard, but this winter, to everyone’s surprise, rainfall came. And came. And then came some more. According to this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor report4, “As of February 21, the daily Sierra Nevada snowpack was 186% of average for the date and 151% of the April 1 climatological peak.” Precipitation there is anywhere from 223% to 230% of average.

Do problems continue? Sure. Particularly in southern California, low water levels persist, as noted by the Drought Monitor: “Even though the reservoirs were responding quite favorably, they still have a long way to go before we can classify this area as drought-free.” Nevertheless, the report continues, “With the removal of … D3 [extreme drought], D2 [severe drought] is now the worst drought condition in the state; August 6, 2013 was the last time California had no D3.” Contrast this to last February, when NOAA reports that 61% of the state fell under extreme conditions. Californians waited a long time for this. And depending on who their source was for news, they thought it would never come.

For example, in June 2016, BuzzFeed ran this alarming headline: “El Niño Is Dead And California Could Be ‘In A Drought Forever.’” After underwhelming rains during last winter’s El Niño and the expectation of drier than average conditions typically experienced during La Niña (this season’s episode), the article dramatically foreshadowed what alarmists wrongly predicted was a perma-drought, not unlike what they prophesied for Texas. NASA climatologist Bill Patzert defeatedly stated, “We are in a drought forever. I can’t think of any scenario where we would have six wet El Niño years in a row, which would top out all the reservoirs and the ground water supply.” Apparently, we don’t need to. This year shattered expectations, once again demonstrating how much we still don’t know about the climate.

Of course, California could fall back into another expansive drought. Or maybe this summer’s predicted El Niño will behave like normal and keep the bounty coming for months and years to come. Only time will tell. But recent developments should teach us to expect the unexpected and not fall victim to ridiculous predictions that serve only to advance partisan interests.

Top Headlines5

Pence vows to end “ObamaCare nightmare.” (The Daily Signal6)

American Conservative Union executive strongly condemns the alt-right movement. (Washington Examiner7)

“Impeachment” talk dominates DNC chair candidate debate. (Washington Examiner8.)

New York Times' new ad theme is, “The Truth Is…” because you know NYT is the arbiter of truth. (The Washington Free Beacon9)

AFL-CIO cutting staff as union membership declines. (Hot Air10)

Many Texas Republicans prefer a mix of fencing and more personnel to Trump’s solid wall along the Rio Grande. (The Wall Street Journal11)

European welfare benefits help fund Islamic State fighters. (USA Today12)

Kim Jong Un kills Kim Jong Nam with UN-banned VX nerve agent. Korean dictator runs afoul of Chinese… (The Washington Post13)

Hundreds of scientists urge Trump to withdraw from UN climate change agency. (The Washington Times14)

Most scientists “can’t replicate studies by their peers.” But climate science is settled! (BBC News15)

Policy: Missing the Medicare forest for the ObamaCare trees. (Real Clear Health16)

Policy: Take back Al Gore’s Nobel and give it to the fracking industry. (Investor’s Business Daily17)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report18.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
What Constitutes Presidential Leadership?19

By Brian Mark Weber

Just ahead of Presidents' Day Washington’s Birthday20, C-SPAN released21 a ranking of U.S. presidents based on a survey of 91 presidential historians. They judged former presidents based on a range of leadership factors including “public persuasion,” “moral authority” and “relations with Congress.” But is this judgment of presidents really the best measure?

It’s interesting to look at the survey’s factors and consider how the rankings would be different if we added other categories to the list. In other words, if an “economic responsibility” score were included in the survey, would we give high scores to Democrat and Republican presidents who saddled citizens with trillions of dollars of public debt or who burdened American businesses with scores of job-killing regulations?

We could add a category called “expansion of dependency on government” and see what happens to the FDRs and LBJs in the rankings. Sure, some Americans benefitted from Roosevelt’s decisive actions during the Depression, but decades later are we freer and more prosperous now that we’ve been conditioned to depend on government for our sustenance?

One of the other interesting aspects of the C-SPAN survey is the lack of factors related to the very ideas upon which our country was founded. Imagine how categories for “support of individual liberty,” or “economic empowerment,” or “respect for states' rights” might change the way we think of presidential leadership.

There is no doubt that most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln22 a model of presidential leadership (he was ranked first, after all), but 11 of the nation’s 34 states at the time seceded because their citizens thought he was a tyrant who trampled on states' rights, did violence to the Constitution and destroyed the American republic. Since then, most Americans tend to give Honest Abe credit for dealing with a complex moral and political situation, and restoring the union.

If time has been good to Lincoln, then George W. Bush will need a few more decades. Like Lincoln, Bush was challenged to act swiftly during a time of national uncertainty, but Bush comes in at number 36. Bush seems to be an outlier, as most presidents who passed significant pieces of legislation or who led the country during times of war tend to rank higher.

Presidents who served during times of peace or didn’t manage to implement major initiatives or programs often rank lower. Calvin Coolidge, who didn’t do very much in terms of policies and programs, but who is often regarded as being utterly faithful to the Constitution and to the ideals of our founding, comes in below Jimmy Carter in the survey. That should tell you everything you need to know.

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-24-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Barack Obama, who ranked a ridiculously high 12th in this year’s survey, might have fallen a few spots if he were judged by an “economic empowerment” category — eight straight years of subpar economic growth.

And imagine how a “support of press freedom” category might determine where Obama or even Donald Trump rank in future surveys. In all likelihood, historians would give the current president a low score in this area despite the fact that Trump has done nothing to curb the freedom of the press while Obama’s administration wiretapped the Associated Press, went after the phone records of a Fox News reporter, threatened to imprison a writer for exposing a bungled CIA operation in Iran, and was dubbed by the New York Times' David Sanger as “the most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.”

Most importantly to us, had Obama been measured based on faithfulness to the Constitution, he might have been dead last.

When most Americans think of presidential leadership, we envision the likes of George Washington23, Lincoln, FDR and Ronald Reagan24. But Americans are educated about leadership as though it’s a skill one can acquire by attending a leadership conference or engaging in a role-playing leadership activity in one’s school or workplace. We’re obsessed with churning out the leaders of tomorrow without actually thinking about what real leadership entails.

Our modern concept of leadership seems to be all about making tough decisions, getting things done, and inspiring people to follow. But it doesn’t take long to come up with a list of so-called leaders throughout history who left death and destruction in their wake by following this model. So maybe we shouldn’t judge our presidents this way.

Although C-SPAN is arguably one of the best sources of unfiltered information, their historians for this survey are overwhelmingly left-leaning. And while the categories themselves may seem apolitical on the surface, there’s no way to keep one’s political, moral or historical biases out of categories such as “moral authority” or “vision/setting an agenda.”

Rather than judging presidential leadership on malleable categories prone to political bias and weighted toward activism, maybe it’s time to come up with a new system of grading presidents. Perhaps we should consider other categories that represent the ideals of our founding and judge former and future presidents on how well they upheld their oaths to “support and defend” the Constitution.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Wisconsin Is a Model of Success25 — Gov. Scott Walker has the Badger State headed in the right direction.
Abortion Is Too Big a Deal for Gag Gifts26 — 16-year-old Autumn rebukes Teen Vogue for a horrendous article.
Trump’s War on the Leftmedia27 — In order for his agenda to be successful, Trump must challenge their narrative.
Atheist Forces School to Ditch Ten Commandments Monument28 — What about the eleventh commandment? Thou Shall Not Tucketh Tail and Run.
Preschool Teacher Fired Over ‘Kill Some Jews’ Tweet29 — The University of Texas at Arlington is infested with an ugly strain of anti-Semitism.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

David Harsanyi: Stop Belittling the Holocaust With Your Stupid Nazi Analogies30
Jonah Goldberg: Press Is Not the Enemy, but Nor Is It Objective31
David Limbaugh: The Pouting and Shouting Left Is Just Being Itself32

For more, visit Right Opinion33.

OPINION IN BRIEF

David Harsanyi: “Even if the authorities — even the National Guard (which I think would be an incredibly horrible idea) — were to start deporting illegal immigrants, not one of those unfortunate people would ever be sent to anything resembling the ovens of Treblinka and Auschwitz. Not their children. Not anyone else in this country. Most often, in fact, deported illegal immigrants, who have broken the law, are going back to their home in Mexico, where they can often apply for legal entry into the United States. Every year, more than a million people become American citizens. So we are hardly in the early staging plans of ‘total measures.’ In fact, we function under immigration laws that were written by representatives of the electorate, and the constitutionality of those laws is weighed by a judicial system. If your argument is that all deportations are, in and of themselves, the actions of a proto-Nazi regime, then I would ask, why aren’t you comparing President Barack Obama, who deported 2.4 million people from 2009 to 2014, to Himmler? Or I would say to stop commandeering the horrors of history for short-term political gain and come up with a better analogy.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.” —Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

Upright: “Since the Kyoto Accord was struck in 1997, Energy Department data show, U.S. output of greenhouse gases plunged 7.3%, even though real U.S. GDP over that time has grown a whopping 52%. We’re greener today than we have been in decades. Go figure. For all this progress, we can thank the fracking business. … Here’s an idea: If the Nobel committee geniuses really want to reward those who’ve done the most to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they should give Gore’s Nobel to the U.S. fracking industry.” —Investor’s Business Daily

Braying Jackass: “I think that Donald Trump has already done a number of things which legitimately raise the question of impeachment … I think that we need to begin investigations, to not go after Donald Trump, but to protect our Constitution and the presidency of the United States to make sure that nobody can monetize the presidency and make profit off of it for their own gain.” —Rep. Keith Ellison (Good thing they felt the same way during Obama’s presidency. Oh, wait…)

Braying Jenny: “I’ve never seen such a demonstration [referring to the Women’s March] — both the numbers and the rapport of the people in that crowd. There was no violence, it was orderly. So yes, we are not experiencing the best times but there is there is reason to hope that that we will see a better day."—Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Bias? What bias? "I read The Washington Post and The New York Times every day, and I think that the reporters are trying to tell the public the way things are.” —Justice Ginsburg

Revisionist history: “This makes the Tea Party look like pre-school. I mean seriously.” —Michael Moore on Democrats' hijacking Republican town halls

And last… “Bias is being more upset at a Trump tweet than you were at Obama naming journalists as conspirators and going after them with the DOJ.” —Stephen Miller

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.