The Patriot Post Digest 2-28-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-28-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Feb. 28, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Promises kept. That’s what Trump wants voters to know with his budget.
A prime example of Leftmedia bias that would never get a “correction.”
With the rollback of executive power, Trump is making a pretty poor Hitler. Leftists most disappointed.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

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 True Message of Trump’s Budget1

Donald Trump delivers on his campaign promises. Ins and outs and details of his budget aside, that’s the overarching message the Trump White House wants to convey. Trump campaign on increasing defense and infrastructure spending, while cutting waste, fraud and abuse elsewhere and leaving entitlements alone. On the eve of his first address to Congress tonight, Trump released some details of his upcoming budget that would make good on those promises.

His outline includes boosting defense spending by $54 billion, or about 10%, while cutting the allocations for numerous other federal agencies to pay for it. (It’s worth noting that defense spending is now 3.2% of GDP, down from 4.6% eight years ago.) Trump pledged to leave the major entitlements — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — alone, despite the fact that they consume roughly two-thirds of the budget. That’s why Republicans, particularly House Speaker Paul Ryan, have argued for years that serious reform is necessary. Another possible spending increase could come for infrastructure. “We spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, and we have potholes all over our highways and our roads,” Trump complained. “We’re going to start spending on infrastructure — big.”

As with his inaugural address2, Trump promised to put “America first” in his budget. “We are going to do more with less and make the government lean and accountable to the people,” Trump said. “We can do so much more with the money we spend.” He’s certainly right about that.

Of course, in reality the budget is primarily up to Congress. The president’s budget is more or less a guidepost he hopes Congress will follow. But Trump understands how important it is to communicate over the heads of the media and Beltway operators that he intends to do what he said he’d do. That will provide leverage for him.

On a final note, the total federal debt is now just short of $20 trillion. When Barack Obama took office, it was just over $10 trillion. Thus, we must point out the predictable shortcoming with Trump’s initial numbers: Reducing our national debt — or even slowing its growth — is obviously not among his goals.

More Blatant Bias From the Leftmedia3

Deceit comes in a variety of forms, from the blatant lie to the subtle shading of the truth. Those in the high calling of news reporting hold a historically trusted position of delivering stories that are both factually correct and contextually accurate. The aim of the journalist should be seeking to inform the public, not to influence the public. In other words, a true journalist can never be an activist. This concept is something the mainstream media may espouse but in practice has utterly rejected.

Case in point. Last Friday, The New York Times reported4 thusly on Donald Trump’s CPAC speech: “Mr. Trump launched what was easily the most blistering attack on the media and corporate elites of his already bellicose and eventful presidency. His speech also included a promise to throw undocumented immigrants ‘the hell out of the country’ and a recitation of his law-and-order campaign promises.”

Did Trump say he wants to throw any and all illegal aliens out of the country, without any condition or caveat? That’s what any reader would conclude after reading the Times. But what did Trump actually say — in its complete context?

Trump stated, “We are also going to save countless American lives. As we speak today, immigration officers are finding the gang members, the drug dealers and the criminal aliens and throwing them the hell out of our country.” Clearly, the Times engaged in selective editing so as to insinuate that Trump was calling for the removal of all illegal aliens, period. This is defined as propaganda, or “fake news.”

Obviously, the Times seeks to paint Trump as anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic. Why? The Times favors Democrats, who seek to build a unified Hispanic voting bloc. Evidently, the Times doesn’t differentiate between those illegal aliens engaged in criminal activities and those whose only crime was crossing the border or overstaying a visa.

Trump has made a habit of calling out the biased reporting of the mainstream media, and The New York Times has been a consistent target of his ire. On Monday the Washington Post decided to run a circle the wagons story5, claiming that Trump had little evidence to back his arguments against the Times. The Post sought to paint the Times as having been unfairly criticized by Trump, pointing to the lack of meaningful corrections as evidence of accurate reporting.

But just because the Times got the wording of Trump’s truncated quote literally correct doesn’t mean they were even in the ballpark with accuracy. And they’d never issue a correction for that kind of bias, which makes it all the more insidious.

Top Headlines6

Trump effect? Illegal immigration dropped 27% in January. (The Washington Times7)

Deportation agency ignored 1.6 million visa overstays under Obama. (The Washington Times8.)

Report: Trump executive order could lead to $0 in net regulatory cost this year. (The Washington Free Beacon9)

Justice Department drops the case against Texas' voter ID law. (Associated Press10)

Rep. Nunes: “We still have not seen any evidence” of Trump campaign communicating with Russia. (CNS News11)

Billionaire Wilbur Ross confirmed as commerce secretary. (CBS News12)

International Polar Bear Day sees population jump 27% despite climate alarmism. (CNS News13)

Ecofascist protesters at Dakota Access Pipeline left behind freezing puppies. (National Review14)

Half of college students think their loans will be forgiven. (New York Post15)

Minimum wage effect: Wendy’s to add self-ordering kiosks at 1,000 locations. (Business Insider16)

Policy: How to turn off the Latin refugee flood at the source. (New York Post17)

Policy: SNAP: $15 billion on junk food. (Cato Institute18.)

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

Check out Hollywood Is in La La Land20.

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

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
If Trump Wants to Be Hitler, He’s Doing It All Wrong22

By Louis DeBroux

It’s amazing to see how the shocking election of a hard-charging, blustery, populist Republican as president can completely reverse the views of progressive Democrats on the issue of executive power.

Under Barack Obama, Democrats cheered when he proclaimed that he had a “phone and a pen” he could use to bypass a Republican Congress. Democrats defended him when he declared he had the right to determine when another branch of government — the Senate — was in session, and when it was not. After his failure to achieve “comprehensive” immigration reform, Obama created the DACA and DAPA programs to grant de facto amnesty to millions of illegals, something he previously repeatedly declared beyond his powers. He unilaterally rewrote sections of ObamaCare to fit his political needs, despite the fact that the Constitution grants all legislative power to Congress. He tried to force Catholic nuns to pay for abortion-inducing birth control, he trampled on free speech rights, and he negotiated a non-treaty with Iran and refused to submit it to the Senate for ratification.

And Democrats cheered.

In every facet of his administration, Obama used raw political power to force through his agenda, even in direct violation of the Constitution’s limits on executive authority. Yet Democrats yawned at such abuse of power, or openly encouraged, aided and abetted it.

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-28-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Yet now that Donald Trump sits in the Oval Office, Democrats have suddenly discovered the virtues of the separation of powers, and checks and balances on the use of power. Democrats go on TV and declare Trump a fascist and an American Hitler, claiming he is trying to crush free speech and rule as a dictator — apparently oblivious that their televised histrionics and condemnations of Trump disprove their own claims.

Ironically, despite Trump’s willingness to trade blow-for-blow with the media, his constant tweets, and his charged rhetoric, Trump’s actual governance has been the antithesis of dictatorial.

Trump has installed a cabinet of highly intelligent, accomplished, independent thinkers who often expressed disagreement during Senate confirmation hearings with certain aspects of Trump’s positions. His nomination of Judge Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court is lunacy if President Trump’s goal is to consolidate and expand executive power. Judge Gorsuch has a long record of opposing expansion of executive power, and he advocates even more vigorously for restricting the power of the presidency than the man he would replace, Justice Antonin Scalia.

When President Trump’s so-called travel ban was blocked by the oft-overturned Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, rather than follow Obama’s example and press forward anyway, or run to the Supreme Court, Trump criticized the ruling (and correctly so; it was a political ruling, not a legal one) but abided by it nevertheless.

And though his reversal of the Obama “transgender bathroom mandate” brought leftist wailing and gnashing of teeth, claiming Trump was stripping poor, vulnerable transgendered children of needed protections (when the truth is that it protects all children from sexual predators and deviants), all his action did was return that decision to the states, which are free to implement the foolish policy if they so choose.

President Trump has also issued several executive orders regarding federal regulations, with one directing executive agencies to begin looking to repeal two regulations23 for every one passed. Another EO calls for the appointment of a Regulatory Reform Officer within each agency, as well as a Regulatory Reform Task Force24, both charged with culling through the massive regulatory code with the goal of eliminating as many job-killing, burdensome regulations as possible. The end results of these actions are to reduce executive power, not increase it.

National Review’s David French, a Never Trump conservative in 2016, well captures25 the essence of the Trump administration thus far, arguing, “There’s no doubt that Trump has expressed on occasion authoritarian desires or instincts. In the campaign, he expressed his own hostility for the First Amendment, his own love of expansive government eminent-domain takings … and declared that he alone would fix our nation’s most pressing problems. But so far, not only has an authoritarian presidency not materialized, it’s nowhere on the horizon.”

“Instead,” French continues, “he’s facing a free press that has suddenly (and somewhat cynically) rediscovered its desire to ‘speak truth to power,’ an invigorated, activist judiciary, and a protest movement that’s jamming congressional town halls from coast to coast.”

Nearly every single cabinet position is now staffed by someone who promises to return federal power to the states, and to the people, and in the process reducing their own power. Yet screeching, weeping, whining, hand-wringing, protesting, hyperbolic snowflakes rage 24/7 about the dangers of President Trump’s power. They claim he is the new Hitler.

But if President Trump’s goal is to wield an iron grip on the levers of power, to crush free speech and dissent, and to silence his opposition, then he is going about it in the most baffling, backwards and incompetent way possible.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

America’s Troubled Youth Foreshadow a Troubled Future26 — They’re unprepared to discharge the duties and obligations of citizenship.
School Band: No More Music Composed by White Guys27 — “We made a commitment this year to only buy music from composers of color.”

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Dennis Prager: A Nation of Immigrants — Only if They Assimilate28
Cal Thomas: Toward Better Relations With the Press29
Stephen Moore: States Are Going Broke Because They Broke the Bank30

For more, visit Right Opinion31.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Dennis Prager: “In order to maintain a low crime rate and social stability, a country has only two choices: Do not allow immigrants into the country, or allow immigrants into the country, but be certain to assimilate them into the native population as quickly as possible. … If America becomes a nation of nonassimilating immigrants, or a nation consisting of nonassimilating ethnic, racial and national groups who are already here, it will cease being a glorious idea and become just another nation torn by conflicting interest groups. These various groups will fight one another — first verbally and then, perhaps, violently (and America will see more and more violence) — just as France, Sweden and Germany have seen since they began taking in millions of immigrants, many of whom have no intention of becoming Frenchmen, Swedes or Germans. Contrary to one of the Left’s more mendacious claims, diversity has not been America’s great strength. America’s great strength has been forging an American identity out of diversity. But the Left, with its identity politics and commitment to multiculturalism … is undoing that. If you want to understand the immigration crisis, just know that because the Left has undone the second choice, it has made the first choice … look tenable to many for the first time in American history.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” —George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Non Compos Mentis: “To the deniers out there, or to the extreme skeptics, I want you to think about what is called cognitive dissonance. … Instead of accepting that the climate is changing, deniers are denying the evidence and dismissing the authorities.” —Bill Nye (Submit, you peons!)

Upright: “New EPA Director Scott Pruitt has called for an open debate on climate science, rather than the name-calling and outright dishonesty of the past. Real science has nothing to fear from more openness and discussion, but everything to fear from more politicized dishonesty.” —Investor’s Business Daily

For the record: “The [DNC] election was not without some controversy and a lot of irony. Interim chairman Donna Brazile switched the voting process at the last minute from an electronic ballot to paper ballots, supposedly due to concerns about weak WiFi signals. But Brazile also insisted that she wanted to be able to ‘verify every name and signature.’ If a Republican governor demanded such standards in an election, Brazile would be leading the charge against him, yelling about racism and voter suppression.” —Gary Bauer

Alpha Jackass: “We’re trying to unite the country. And many of the president’s supporters are just not ready to accept the fact … that their judgement might not have been so great in voting for him. And by the time the case [for impeachment] is made, perhaps they’ll be ready to accept that.” —Nancy Pelosi

Late-night humor: “Apple is criticizing Trump after he overturned the rule that lets transgender students use the bathroom of their choice. Apple says that regardless of your gender, everyone should be able to drop an iPhone into whichever toilet they want.” —Jimmy Fallon

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.