The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Apr. 18, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

    Taxes are due today, which we like to refer to as Income Redistribution Day.
    An alternative possibility for North Korea’s saber rattling.
    Trump was elected because of racism, says the Leftmedia. Again.
    Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“Excessive taxation … will carry reason and reflection to every man’s door, and particularly in the hour of election.” —Thomas Jefferson (1798.)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Income Redistribution Day1

Income Redistribution Day has arrived. It’s a day reminding all Americans that too much of our hard-earned money is collected by a behemoth government known for fiscal carelessness and irresponsibility. Just take a look at the ever-ballooning national debt2. And yet here we are again, feeding the beast whose appetite seemingly knows no limit.

It is indeed ironic that one of the biggest sparks igniting the fires of the American Revolution was the contentious subject of taxation3. While most celebrate the spirit of those Bostonians who famously protested the British crown’s Tea Act of 1773, many Americans today seem content to merely utter a few grumbles over our tax burden. And this is done while also wondering if everyone else has paid their “fair share” rather than challenging the government’s plunder for the express purpose of wealth redistribution.

In fact, the question of taxes has historically been one of the largest distinctions between the two major political parties. Democrats always demand more, believing that the government is entitled to as much money as it can get — in fact, they treat Americans' income as government’s money in the first place, with any tax cuts being something they simply can’t afford. On the other hand, Republicans continuously work to varying degrees of tax reductions. And with the election of Donald Trump, the fundamental party distinction has held true. Trump has called for tax cuts across the board, particularly lowering the world’s highest corporate tax rate. Unfortunately, the House Republicans' fumble on repealing and replacing ObamaCare has hindered Trump’s tax reform effort4.

Taxes are not merely a means of paying for the government’s many obligations and programs, they are a means of control. Leftists view taxes as a sort of punishment on the wealthy and successful for the crime of being wealthy and successful. The Left’s goal is not equal opportunity but equal outcome. Those who excel are deemed to have excelled by exploiting others, and therefore they should suffer by being forced to “contribute” more to all the government does to make things right. What an utterly distorted view.

In reality, we need a simple tax system that fairly extracts taxes without showing favoritism or deference to class distinctions, and constitutional restraints on the spending of that revenue. Anything less only creates opportunity for those in government to exploit various socio-economic groups for their own aims.

Chinese Chess5

Yesterday, we noted North Korea’s weekend saber rattling6 and Mike Pence’s warning shot in return. And last week, we explained why Donald Trump’s apparent flip-flop on labeling China a currency manipulator was a strategic calculation7 to ensure China’s cooperation on North Korea. Indeed, over the weekend, Trump tweeted, “Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? We will see what happens!”

But what if China is pulling some strings of its own? As political strategist Dick Morris wonders, “Is China using the threat of North Korea to derail Trump’s trade agenda?” He says, “You can never tell with North Korea how much of the threat is legitimate and how much of it is ginned up by the Chinese for their own purposes.”

The theory, of course, is that China has undervalued the yuan and overvalued the dollar, creating hundreds of billions of dollars of trade surplus with the U.S. Losing that surplus would be a huge blow to the Chinese economy, leaving them plenty of motivation for what Morris speculates — they’re using the North Koreans to get Trump off their backs.

Rest assured, Trump and his advisers are all over this, but the American media is not. The Trump administration was surely considering these countermeasures as soon as he mentioned China after the election. And the chess match bears watching.

Top Headlines8

    Tax Day comparison of property taxes for all 50 states and DC. (USA Today9)

    SCOTUS rejects new ObamaCare case. (Washington Examiner10)

    SCOTUS halts execution of Arkansas death row inmate. (ABC News11)

    Trump will use executive order to push his “hire American” platform. (The Washington Times12)

    DHS Secretary: Number of illegals crossing southern border down by almost 70%. (CNS News13)

    Unions spent $1.7 billion on politics in 2016, mostly for Dems. (The Washington Free Beacon14)

    UK Prime Minister Theresa May calls for surprise June elections to affirm Brexit. (BBC15)

    Syrian defector: Yep, Assad kept his chemical weapons stockpile. (The Telegraph16)

    Georgia election promoted as Trump political barometer. (USA Today17)

    Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation blasts “Communism for Kids18” book. (The Washington Free Beacon19)

    Policy: Tax Day facts: IRS paperwork generates 8.1 billion hours of paperwork, 1,000 forms. (American Action Forum20)

    Policy: Three steps to lower spending and taxes. (Economics2121)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report22.
Don’t Miss Patriot Humor

Check out Triggered23.

If you’d like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here24.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
For the 100th Time, It Wasn’t Racism25

By Paul Albaugh

It’s been three months since Donald Trump was inaugurated, and many Democrats and Leftmedia political analysts are still looking for reasons for why he actually won. How could America’s electorate choose Donald Trump, a man with no political experience, over Hillary Clinton, a woman — a woman! — who’d been around the levers of power her entire adult life?

According to a Washington Post “Monkey Cage” blog, written by Ohio State Professor Thomas Wood, the biggest motivator for Trump voters was, you guessed it, racism26. Seriously, this was Wood’s conclusion after conducting “research” on the Annual National Election Study (ANES).

Wood’s analysis took three popular narratives or motivators to determine people’s reasons to vote for Trump and compared them with previous elections. The three motivators were being low income, desiring authoritarianism, and racism. To test these motivators against the ANES data, Wood’s used white voters as his sample population and on the issue of racism he used a “symbolic racism scale.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Without belaboring the details, the result of Wood’s study supposedly reveals that racial attitudes made a bigger difference in electing Trump than authoritarianism or being low income.

National Review’s Ian Tuttle highlights27 three flaws with Wood’s analysis: (1) a symbolic racism scale that is not “airtight,” (2) the failure to mention that there was a greater shift in Democrat voters than Republican ones, and (3) an extremely narrow conclusion.

Put another way, this “analysis” from the Washington Post is a steaming pile of garbage28.

Consider that in 2008 the American electorate put the first (half) black president in office and then re-elected him again in 2012. For eight years, we had a black president and now all of a sudden because Trump defeated Clinton it was because of racism? Wood’s analysis and the eye-catching headline are not only flawed, but downright ridiculous.

What Wood’s and many other Leftmedia talking heads have completely dismissed is that Americans overall did not want more of the same policies that we experienced under eight years of Barack Obama. Americans were not happy with ObamaCare or with Obama’s immigration policies, and they were very much concerned about the direction of the Supreme Court and an activist judiciary in general.

Further, Americans weren’t happy with the U.S. military being weakened for the previous eight years, we were sick of the excessive regulations from the EPA and other bureaucracies, and we had experienced a socialist agenda that ran up the nation’s debt. These reasons barely scratch the surface for why Trump won the election.

Americans knew who Hillary Clinton was and that we would be getting more of the same — or worse.

Let’s look at Wood’s analysis another way. If Hillary Clinton had won, would it have been because of racism?

After all, it was Clinton who used the race card29 repeatedly during her campaign in order to make sure blacks didn’t leave the Democrat plantation. According to Democrats, blacks can only think a certain way without being traitors to their race. That’s racist.

Clinton’s effort to smear Trump as a racist clearly didn’t work. And neither did the policies she wanted to enact or continue. Here are some examples: Hillary’s policies would have pushed more blacks into welfare programs and increased the amount of people in urban poverty plantations30. Clinton was also a huge advocate of Planned Parenthood, which sells a vastly disproportionate number of abortions to black women and which was founded by the eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who wanted to use Planned Parenthood to eradicate black babies.

Recall that Democrat Lyndon Johnson boasted31 following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “I’ll have those n—ers voting Democrat for the next 200 years.” Yet we hardly ever hear any leftists condemning his remarks, or the attitude about blacks reflected by Democrats from Johnson to Clinton.

The Washington Post and Professor Woods should be ashamed of themselves for publishing such mendacious drivel. But being the shameless “progressives” they are, they’ll pat themselves on the back for their incredible depth of insight while smugly continuing to think they’re better than the rest of us.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

    Leftist Contempt for Illegal Immigration Crackdown32 — It’s a war between open-border “progressives” and law-abiding Americans who want illegal immigration under control.
    The Willful Subversion of Critical Institutions Threatens America33 — The justice system, the education system, and the information media are crumbling, undermining our republic.
    Trump Talks Turkey34 — Was his call motivated by admiration or the strategic need for cooperation with a dubious ally?
    With EPA in the Crosshairs, Hyperbole Ensues35 — Ecofascists in the Leftmedia and EPA are freaking out over pending regulatory cuts to one of the most burdensome agencies.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Jeff Jacoby: An Uncivil Income Tax System36
    Stephen Moore: Coal’s Colossal Comeback37
    Dennis Prager: Two Weeks of Great Clarity38

For more, visit Right Opinion39.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jeff Jacoby: “Some people claim they file their tax returns cheerfully. They approvingly quote Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s dictum that ‘taxes are what we pay for civilized society.’ I quote instead that eminent commentator Dave Barry: ‘It’s income-tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil and stab yourself in the aorta.’ … Our tax code’s lack of clarity — and the flood of special-interest giveaways and preferences that make it so cumbersome — has turned innumerable taxpayers into cynics. Americans conclude that the whole setup is rigged, and that only a sucker doesn’t bend the rules in order to pay less or finagle a bigger refund. How many people who wouldn’t think of ripping off a local charity or business don’t hesitate to cheat on their taxes? In such an environment, it isn’t only compliance rates that suffer. Some of the civic virtue so important to a healthy society is lost as well. Jimmy Carter was right in 1976 when he called the U.S. income tax ‘a disgrace to the human race.’ Thirty-six years later, it’s more disgraceful — and maddening — than ever.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.” —Reginald McKenna (1863-1943)

Upright: “We’ve been working 30 years to develop systems that would shoot down missiles upon launch, in the air, in the atmosphere, and on the way down — except for the fact that Democrats, since Reagan announced it in 1983, have assiduously tried to stop the program. They are going to have a lot to answer for.” —Charles Krauthammer

Blind squirrel finds nut: “We can’t just start having the government pay for everything.” —Sen. Claire McCaskill

Braying Jenny: “The English language is sexist; it has a long history of being sexist.” —University of Michigan professor Anne Curzan

Alpha Jackass: “Conservatives have dominated the Court for the last 50 years, and, knowing that, they feel they are more in power than liberals feel. Interruptions are generally considered an aspect of dominance, and the conservatives feel dominant over the liberals. With Gorsuch entering the Court, that’s going to reinforce that tendency. … If we know going in that he’s a conservative male, then we would think there’s a good chance that he would be an interrupter.” —law professor Tonja Jacobi

Non Compos Mentis: “Middle class and working people are filing their taxes. Many are struggling, paying 30 and 35 percent of their earnings — more percentage-wise than big corporations in America. What is Donald Trump paying? Nothing! Nothing! He is using every loophole, every trick, to avoid paying his fair share of taxes.” —Maxine Waters

And last… “You know a Republican’s in the White House when he fires missiles into Syria, drops a MOAB on ISIS, and Sunday’s big story is his tax returns.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Managing Editor Nate Jackson

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