The Patriot Post Digest 5-3-2017

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 5-3-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Mid-Day Digest

May 3, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Months later, Hillary Clinton is still blaming everything but herself for losing.
Ecofascists destroy the environment to “save” it from oil pipelines. Brilliant.
If only communism had been implemented correctly, opine commie sympathizers.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808.)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Hillary Rides the Blame Train1

“I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off,” Hillary Clinton bitterly complained in an interview on Tuesday at the Women for Women International event. “And the evidence for that intervening event is, I think, compelling [and] persuasive.” If by compelling and persuasive she means pathetically wrong.

When has it ever been considered a virtue of leadership to reject personal responsibility and embrace the status of a helpless victim? Well, besides Barack Obama. While it may be human nature to blame others for our own failures, those individuals and leaders we most admire are those who refuse to fault others for the failings they experience. Unadmired and disliked Hillary Clinton has repeatedly refused2 to admit her own failings and rise above that childish instinct to point the finger at others.

“I take absolute personal responsibility,” Clinton insisted. “I was the candidate. I was the person who was on the ballot.” Except she went on to immediately shift blame to Comey and the Russian hack of John Podesta’s emails for her loss. “There was a lot of funny business going on,” she said. Yes, there was — it was called her private email server on which she illegally sent and received classified information. Comey didn’t make her do that. The Russians didn’t plant it. Clinton herself made that decision, and then she lied about it every step of the way. Even Comey’s last minute effort to exonerate her3 a second time failed because no one trusted her.

One thing to be gleaned from the interview is that Hillary still craves relevancy. Clinton stated, “I’m back to being an activist citizen — and part of the resistance.” And she gave yet more evidence that she has still not come to grips with the loss, asserting several times, “Remember, I did win more than three million votes [more] than my opponent.” There may not be a more ringing endorsement for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers' installation of the Electoral College than that. If Hillary, were truly interested in what’s best for the nation, she would own the loss and move on. Few liked her to start with, and no one likes a sore loser.

Environmentalists or Ecoterrorists? Pipeline Arsonists on the Rise4

The supposedly environmentally friendly crowd is doing an exceptionally atrocious job of proving it. The most recent example of actual environmental malpractice occurred last week in the Midwest, where criminal activists are still trying their best to disrupt the Dakota Access Pipeline. The irony, of course, is that they are wrecking the land they claim to cherish in the process. On Thursday, anti-pipeline knuckleheads in the vicinity of Newell, Iowa, caused a combined $145,000 in damage5. That’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This occurred right around the same time another episode of arson happened in southeast Iowa, and authorities are attempting to establish a link.

For Newell in particular, this is déjà vu. In November, saboteurs went on a multi-million-dollar blitzkrieg5. Additionally, this is a theme we’ve seen repeated over and over again. As John Sexton reports6, “Last October, fires were also set near Reasnor, Iowa, causing up to $2 million in damage. At the time, the company behind the pipeline offered a $100,000 reward for information on the arson. There had also been a previous arson incident in the same location in August. In March of this year, the company that built the pipeline reported two incidents of sabotage in which someone used a blowtorch to burn a hole in a shut-off valve. One of the incidents happened in Iowa, the other in South Dakota.”

And let’s not forget North Dakota — the epicenter of the ecoterrorists' rage. The recent theatrics in that state has Gov. Doug Burgum seeking $38 million7 from the federal government to alleviate the financial burden imposed by hypocritical activists. When a movement’s reactions are entirely contradictory to its purported goal, it’s not really a movement so much as it is a tyrannical mob. In other words, they’re quite literally ecofascists.

Top Headlines8

Insurer Aetna posts loss, considers exiting more ObamaCare exchanges. (Reuters9)

Trump administration delays ObamaCare calorie rule. (The Washington Free Beacon10)

Statement from the Chairman of Heritage’s Board of Trustees on Resignation of Jim DeMint. (The Heritage Foundation11)

U.S. taxpayers pay about $1.2 billion to incarcerate 41,528 illegal immigrants. (National Review12)

Underreported: How building a border wall changed San Diego. (The Daily Signal13)

Study indicates most U.S. homes worth less than before the crash. (Bloomberg14)

Trump campaign accuses CNN of “censorship” for refusing “First 100 Days” ad. (LifeZette15)

Iran is using $1.7 billion in Obama bucks to fund unprecedented, massive military buildup. (The Washington Free Beacon16)

China demands halt to US missile shield in S. Korea. (Agence France Presse17)

Middlebury students vote to protest discipline of Charles Murray protesters. (The Federalist18.)

Policy: How to solve the pre-existing condition problem. (National Center for Policy Analysis19)

Policy: Murder isn’t a nationwide problem. (Real Clear Policy20)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report21.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Other Than the Mass Murder, Communism Is Great22

By Louis DeBroux

Once again proving the human mind’s capacity for willful self-deception, the New York Times recently published an article lamenting the victims of 20th century Communism.

A rational, moral, historically informed person, hearing that description of the article, would assume they were about to read an account of the more than 100 million people murdered and hundreds of millions more who suffered systemic torture, starvation, imprisonment and rape at the hands of brutal dictators like Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and the like. One would assume that such lamentations focused on Mao’s “Great Cultural Revolution” in which teachers and other intellectuals were beaten and killed by the thousands, or the “Great Purge” under Stalin, which saw the deaths of several million Communist Party members who were declared enemies of the state.

But such an assumption would be wrong23.

No, the “victims,” according to Times' writer Vivian Gornick, were the thousands of American communists who “endured social isolation, financial and professional ruin, and even imprisonment” when sane Americans rebuked their murderous ideology for the unadulterated evil that it was and is.

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg (whose brilliant and insightful book, “Liberal Fascism,” outlines the history of the American progressive movement’s embrace of socialism and communism), summed it up perfectly24: “It seems to me a bit sad and pathetic, that she — and at least to some extent the New York Times — thinks the most important thing to remember from this sad chapter in American life are victims — not of Stalin’s mass murder or of Soviet espionage — but the victims of their own stupidity.”

Strange indeed. Less than three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union under the moral leadership of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II, a growing number of Americans, possibly ignorant of the horrors of Communism, embrace it in principle and in name.

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 5-3-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

The great irony is this: Only through the blessings of living in a constitutional republic which guarantees their right to hold these views, and of living in a free market economy that not only sustains their basic needs but affords them a level of luxury not even enjoyed by royalty of a half century ago, can they engage in such immoral, historically uninformed indulgence.

Thus we watch in disbelief as an angry, self-proclaimed socialist septuagenarian nearly secures the Democrat presidential nomination, bolstered by throngs of progressive snowflakes who protest and riot in favor of “LGBT rights” and against income inequality and the “evils” of the free market while tweeting from their $800 iPhones, sipping $8 cups of coffee, and sporting Che Guevara t-shirts as a form of virtue signaling.

Yet how many of these socialist/communist sympathizers know their beloved Che was Castro’s enforcer and executioner? He was nicknamed “The Butcher of La Cabana” for his brutal reign over the La Cabana prison, where political dissenters, including artists and musicians like the ones who idolize him today, were tortured and killed.

How many know Chairman Mao slaughtered 10 times more Chinese peasants than the number of Jews killed by Adolf Hitler? How many know that in Stalinist Russia, homosexuality was a crime punishable by imprisonment and hard labor, or that Stalin murdered tens of millions of people?

Why, with mountains of historical evidence documenting the atrocities of these sister ideologies, do we today have millions of Americans who openly embrace them? When faced with a recitation of its evils and failures, a common refrain is that communism/socialism is the ideal form of government; it just hasn’t yet been implemented properly.

To argue that the failures of communism/socialism — nearly 170 years after the publication of Marx’s Communist Manifesto — is a failure of leadership is to argue the movement has been led by crooks or incompetents for nearly two centuries. If so, what does that say about the followers?

Interestingly, it is the clear-eyed proponents of communism/socialism who are the most truthful about what the ideologies are and are not. Friedrich Nietzsche, the nihilist German philosopher who greatly influenced Hitler and his NAZIs (an acronym for the National SOCIALIST German Workers Party), declared, “Socialism is the fantastic younger brother of despotism, which it wants to inherit. Socialism wants to have the fullness of state force which before only existed in despotism.”

It would seem that a large number of the Americans who embrace socialism/communism are utterly ignorant of the misery these ideologies birth. According to a recent YouGov survey25, nearly half of Millennials were unfamiliar with Mao and Che (though they still wear t-shirts emblazoned with their images). A third were unfamiliar with Lenin and Marx. Of course, it doesn’t help when the nation’s “newspaper of record” has long been a journalistic fangirl for oppressive regimes26.

It is such ignorance that turns out tens of thousands of progressive idealists to rallies for Bernie Sanders, a self-avowed socialist who decries the evils of capitalism27 despite having recently bought his third home28, this one a $600,000 vacation home on the shores of Lake Champlain. One thing is for sure; he is living better in evil, capitalist American than he would in Venezuela, the socialist paradise he says we should emulate — a paradise where millions are starving and have no bread, medicine or toilet paper29.

In the meantime, oblivious to the irony, good little progressives march and riot against “fascists” in America (a term they define as “anyone who disagrees with them”), demanding free speech protections even as they beat up political opponents30.

We would do well to remember Thomas Jefferson’s words in an 1816 letter to his friend Charles Yancey: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Trump’s Agenda Is All the Things31 — The president has accomplished a lot in his first 100 days, but if everything becomes a priority, then nothing is.
USDA Trashes Onerous Lunch Standards32 — Good motives don’t excuse government overreach. Fortunately, the USDA is taking note.
Facebook’s Face-Plant33 — The social media giant’s “gender equality” champion isn’t practicing what she preaches. Big surprise.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Star Parker: Trump vs. Schumer on Taxes34
Michelle Malkin: A Thinking Mom’s Message for Jimmy Kimmel35
Jonah Goldberg: Columnist Stephens Stirs Up a Climate of Anger36

For more, visit Right Opinion37.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Star Parker: “Liberals think that you help Peter by taking from Paul. I think you help both Peter and Paul by creating the best possible conditions for opportunity for both of them. How do you create the best possible conditions for opportunity for both Peter and Paul? Freedom. Tons of data and studies show that countries that have the most economic freedom … are the most prosperous. And even the poorest in these countries are far better off than the poorest in countries without economic freedom. You don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to understand that a country that punishes success is going to be less wealthy than a country that rewards it. The last eight years under liberal control have been a disaster economically. From 1950 until 2000, on average the U.S. economy grew at 3.5 percent per year. Since 2008, it has grown barely 2 percent per year. What does this mean? Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane points out that average American income, adjusted for inflation, grew from $16,000 in 1952 to $50,000 in 2008. If the economy over this period grew at 2 percent instead of 3.5 percent, average income in 2008 would have been $23,000 instead of $50,000. Why the great economic slowdown after 2008? No, not because there was a recession when President Obama took over. … The great slowdown was because of the explosion of government, thanks to liberals. Explosion of spending, explosion of debt, explosion of regulations, explosion of taxation. Economies, like people, thrive when they can breathe, not when they are being strangled.”

SHORT CUTS

Spin machine: “Yes, I did support [Trump’s aerial attack on Syria]. … But I am not convinced that it really made much of a difference, and I don’t know what kind of … backroom deals were made with the Russians.” —Hillary Clinton

Vast right-wing conspiracy: “It wasn’t a perfect campaign, there is no such thing. But I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off. The evidence for that intervening event is I think is compelling, and persuasive.” —Hillary Clinton, who also asserted, “If the election had been on October 27 I’d be your president”

That’s sexist! “There is an underlying issue with women.” —CNN’s Christiane Amanpour

For the record: “The Clintons have taken victimhood to a new scientific height. They are sort of the experts. The entry in the dictionary should start with them.” —Charles Krauthammer

Alternative facts: “The public knows the government shutdowns are always caused by Republicans. I mean, it’s just fact. Over the last five, 10 years, whenever there’s a shutdown, it’s usually the Tea Party that pushes for it.” —Sen. Sherrod Brown

Non Compos Mentis: “If any those of you that feel like [climate change] is not a problem, I challenge you to go into your car in your garage, start your car, and see what happens there.” —Democrat House candidate Rob Quist (If Quist had put his thinking cap on, he’d know that it’s carbon monoxide, not carbon dioxide, from tailpipes that poses serious health problems. Word of advice: Don’t attempt his challenge.)

And last… “History is littered with the human wreckage of scientific errors married to political power.” —Bret Stephens

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.