The Patriot Post Digest 3-6-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-6-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Mar. 6, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

The Leftmedia continue to go after Trump full bore, this time for the wiretapping claim.
Interior Department undoes Obama’s final-day lead ammo ban.
Comparing transracialism with transgenderism is enlightening.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” —James Madison (1787)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Hypocritically Demanding Evidence1

On Saturday, Donald Trump released a series of tweets in which he alleged that Barack Obama had ordered “wiretapping” at his New York Trump Tower campaign headquarters. Trump’s allegation was met with a litany of Leftmedia finger wagging because he didn’t provide any evidence to back up his claims. The Washington Post news alert read, “Trump, citing no evidence, accuses Obama of ‘Nixon/Watergate’ plot to wiretap Trump Tower before the election,” and the New York Times headline likewise stated, “Trump, Offering No Evidence, Says Obama Tapped His Phones.” CNN did the least to hide its bias, running the headline, “Trump’s baseless wiretap claim.”

For months now Democrats and the Leftmedia have continuously promoted allegations of supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and to date no actual evidence of any collaboration has ever been presented. Yet the mainstream media has the gall to call out Trump for making an accusation without evidence. Kettle meet pot.

For the MSM to declare Trump’s claims as being “baseless” is a disingenuously dismissive statement, for there does appear to be some merit to his accusation. Andrew McCarthy of National Review notes2 that the Obama Justice Department in June 2016 sought to convert an FBI investigation into Trump associates, which had turned up nothing criminal, into a national-security investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). While an initial request was turned down by the FISA court, it appears that other requests were made and eventually in October some surveillance was granted. The extent of surveillance is unknown, as that information is classified.

The point here is that Trump’s accusation merits investigation, and the media’s blatant hypocrisy in demanding evidence from Trump while at the same time willingly pushing unverifiable allegations of its own smacks of partisan bias. Objectivity is fast becoming a distant memory.

Good News: Another Obama Power Grab Shot Down3

As we’ve noted previously, if Donald Trump wants to become Hitler as the Left claims, he’s doing a poor job of it4. Why? He’s doing little so far besides rolling back Barack Obama’s executive power grabs. The latest example is Obama’s final day parting shot5, in which he banned lead ammunition on federal lands. Trump’s newly sworn-in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wasted no time reversing that order. “It’s time to put ammunition back where it belongs; in the hands of hunters,” Zinke said.

The previous administration based its actions on “science” — naturally. “Exposure to lead ammunition and fishing tackle has resulted in harmful effects to fish and wildlife species,” claimed former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe. And the Humane Society complained, “There’s just no excuse not to make the transition, except for knee-jerk opposition from a segment of society that simply thinks it’s acceptable collateral damage for upwards of 15 million animals from more than 130 species to die of lead poisoning every year.”

As the Leftmedia likes to say about anything Trump says, these claims were made without evidence. That’s right, the science behind the ban is dubious at best6, despite the caterwauling of rabidly anti-gun leftists.

Big picture, Obama is simply one of those anti-gun leftists who would in one breath offer lip service to our “traditions” of hunting and sport shooting and in the next talk about why steps were needed to restrict the gun rights of law-abiding Americans. Ironically, Obama’s words and deeds made him the gun salesman of the decade. Liberty lovers can rest easier knowing that Trump’s administration is so quickly taking a better approach.

Top Headlines7

Democrats flip zero seats in four blue state special elections. (The Washington Free Beacon8.)

Pelosi says she never met Russian ambassador, as photo emerges of … Pelosi with Russian ambassador. (Hot Air9)

Supreme Court sends Obama’s gender-confused toilet10 case back to lower court after Trump alters order11. (Bloomberg12)

White House proposes steep budget cut to leading climate science agency. (The Washington Post13)

EPA to announce reversal on fuel economy standards next week. (The New York Times14)

Illegals cut 9,287 holes in Obama-era border fence. (CNS News15)

Father of victim murdered by illegal immigrant, gives heartbreaking plea on anniversary of son’s slaughter. (The Daily Signal16)

Black anti-Trump former ABC reporter charged with threats to Jewish Community Centers across country. (The Daily Signal17)

The new DNC chair’s email cover-up scandal. (Washington Free Beacon18.)

Policy: The 2017 index of U.S. military strength. (Heritage Foundation19)

Policy: ObamaCare’s popularity is a myth. (Investor’s Business Daily20)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report21.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Gender, Race and the Pursuit of Unassailable Power22

By Arnold Ahlert

Nkechi Amare Diallo is back in the news23. Nkechi who? One suspects only the most avid followers of the progressive movement’s labyrinthine efforts to alter the meaning of reality itself would be aware that Diallo was formerly known as Rachel Dolezal24, the former NAACP chapter head who decided to “identify” as black, despite being born to Caucasian parents.

Perhaps no other human being better reveals the monumental dishonesty of progressives who embrace the “standard” of self-identification — but only as they define it.

Thus, while these self-professed enlightened thinkers champion the idea one can simply declare to be a member of one sex “trapped” in the body of another — utterly irrespective of chromosomal reality — they thoroughly reject the notion that the same standard can be applied to “trans-racialism.”

The result? People like Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner25 are trumpeted as courageous pioneers and rewarded with both a Vanity Fair cover photo and Glamour Magazine’s “Woman of the Year” award — while Dolezal/Diallo remains a full-blown pariah. A pariah the UK Guardian describes26 as “jobless, and feeding her family with food stamps.” The paper further notes that Diallo “has applied for more than 100 jobs, but no one will hire her, not even to stack supermarket shelves.”

Progressive reaction to Diallo’s trans-racialist self-declaration? “African American commentators called her a ‘blackface,’ guilty of the worst extremes of cultural appropriation,” the Guardian explains. “She was ‘mentally ill,’ and had cheated black people out of positions that were rightfully theirs.”

Those would be the same progressives who utterly reject the possibility that gender dysphoria27, which forms the basis of transgenderism, is also a mental illness.

As for the appropriation of positions that “rightfully” belong to others, we turn to Texas, where female high school wrestler Mack Beggs finished the season 54-0. That impressive record is belied by the reality that Beggs has been taking testosterone since 201528, a steroid prohibited29 for use in professional sports, but one she needs to transition into the male she wants to be. Texas Education Code and University Interscholastic League rules also prohibit30 steroid use, but there is a “safe harbor” provision allowing steroids to be “dispensed, prescribed, delivered and administered by a medical practitioner for a valid medical purpose.”

Valid medical purpose? “Testosterone therapy can have significant physical and emotional side effects,” reports31 Livestrong. “Mood swings and increased anger are frequently reported. Because testosterone is metabolized by the liver, regular blood tests for liver function are important. The ovaries cease estrogen production in the presence of testosterone, so osteoporosis is a risk.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-6-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Engendering such wholly avoidable risks in children is apparently viewed as reasonable among progressives and their enablers in the medical community.

Such treatment flies in the face extensive data collated32 by Dr. James Cantor revealing “60-90% of trans-kids turn out no longer to be trans by adulthood” — meaning the medical community is proceeding with these transitions even when they know a substantial to overwhelming majority of the subjects themselves will ultimately reject them.

Valid medicine? Deplorable politics is more like it.

In fairness, Beggs wanted to wrestle against boys, but the Texas public school district superintendents had less “modern” ideas. In 2016 they voted 586-32 in favor of requiring state officials to refer to a student athlete’s gender as the one listed on his or her birth certificate. Thus Beggs was forced to compete against other girls, even as the steroids she was taking engendered the “imminent threat of bodily harm” to the girls competing against her, as attorney Jim Baudhuin, the parent of a wrestler on an opposing team, argued in a lawsuit filed against the University Interscholastic League (UIL).

Others suggest transgender athletes be given the opportunity to change their gender designation on their birth certificate. In Texas that requires a court order, and many judges are reticent to grant one.

Missing from the debate? It is apparently “transphobic” to suggest would-be high school athletes choose between competing or transitioning. The problematic alternative? Several girl wrestlers wondered why they can’t take steroids — to become more competitive.

Who will tip the scales one way or the other? Bet on the Left’s feminist constituency, smart enough to see shrinking opportunities for biologically female athletes. Athletes who eschew steroids to hold their own against self-identified competitors.

They have an uphill climb. “I want to know if you’re a man or a woman. I’m a scientist. How do I find out?” Fox News' Tucker Carlson asked33 DNC senior advisor Zac Petkanas in recent interview. “One’s gender identity is enough to show what gender they are, and so if you’re confused about that then I leave that to your level of enlightenment,” Petkanas initially condescended. Pressed further by Carlson, Petkanas revealed the essence of what this debate is really about, declaring, “Your gender identity determines your gender, period.”

But not your race. Diallo has written “In Full Color,” a memoir34 to “open up this dialogue about race and identity, and to just encourage people to be exactly who they are.”

Nonsense. Like her fellow progressives, Diallo is advocating that people be exactly who they want to be, irrespective of reality.

So why do those same progressives despise Diallo even as they man the ramparts for transgenderism? Because nothing matters more than the acquisition and maintenance of power by any means necessary, even if those means include embracing diametrically opposed positions on the same subject.

Thus, as columnist Thomas Lifson points out35, trans-racialism threatens “a huge racial grievance industry that keeps blacks voting at 90% levels for Democrat presidential candidates,” largely engendered by a spoils-system “of affirmative action, race-based government contracts, and racial intimidation of corporations and nonprofits,” while support for transgenderism enables the Left to “legitimize every permutation and combination of sexual activity, destroying biblically based norms.”

Again, it’s about power — period. And Americans must understand the Left’s insatiable appetite for it will not be limited to contemptible machinations surrounding race or gender.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Let’s Compare Disney’s Offenses36 — Advancing the “LGBT” agenda in a kids movie.
The Trouble With the Leftmedia’s Yemen Raid Narrative37 — The media continues its attempt to label the Yemen raid a failure.
Another ‘So-Called Judge’38 — The judge allegedly helped an illegal alien escape ICE.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Scott Powell: Obama, Organizing for Action and the Death Throes of the Democrat Party39
Gary Bauer: The Sessions ‘Scandal’40
Tony Perkins: Aaron and Melissa Klein Get Their Day in Court41

For more, visit Right Opinion42.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Scott Powell: “Unbeknownst to most Americans, Barack Obama is the first ex-president in 228 years of U.S. history to structure and lead a political organization, a shadow government, for the explicit purpose of sabotaging his successor — duly elected President Donald Trump. The primary vehicle of this campaign is Organizing for Action (OFA), legally founded in January 2013 by First Lady Michelle Obama and her husband’s 2012 campaign manager, Jim Messina, with input from David Axelrod. The modus operandi of OFA comes right out of Obama’s support and sympathy for Marxism and his background as a left-wing community organizer. It’s a combination of agitation and propaganda — much like old-style Soviet agitprop and Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. … Agitprop is synonymous with community organizing in that both focus on stirring up public grievance over an issue for the purpose of mobilizing that constituency to join like-minded people to protest and demonstrate, which provides made-for-TV drama scenes portraying ‘extemporaneous’ mass protests that in turn get transmitted to millions through the media. This feedback loop is a key driver of fake news. … Obama is no fool and he understands … that the U.S. is nearer collapse than at any previous time. And every Marxist knows that socialist transformation first requires collapse of the old order.”

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments.”

Upright: “Between Kennedy’s cavorting with communists and Obama’s appeasement of the ayatollah, I think it is pretty clear which party has done more to deliberately undermine America.” —Gary Bauer

Openly and shamelessly advocating illegal activity: “If you’re in IRS and have a certain president’s tax return that you’d like to leak, my address is: NYT, 620 Eighth Ave, NY NY 10018.” —New York Times' Nicholas Kristof

Hyperbole: “I know it’s a time of concern for people who see our rights being assailed, being trampled on and even being rolled back. I know that this is difficult. But I remind you that this has never been easy. We have always had to work to move this country forward to achieve the great ideals of our Founding Fathers. And it has been people — individuals who have banded together, ordinary people who simply saw what needed to be done and came together and supported those ideals — who have made the difference. They’ve marched. They’ve bled. Yes, some of them have died. This is hard. Every good thing is. We have done this before. We can do this again.” —Loretta Lynch

Non Compos Mentis: “If we fail to represent [Muslims in Hollywood], we are in danger of losing people to extremism.” —actor Riz Ahmed

Good question: “Liberals are constantly saying that people should have freedom regardless of ‘who they love.’ But what if that person is God?” —Tony Perkins

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.