The Patriot Post Digest 5-25-2017

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-25-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

May 25, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

    A new report says ObamaCare has doubled premiums, but media focus on GOP’s plan.
    So Obama’s was regularly spying on Americans…
    There are some troubling conflicts of interest in the Trump-Russia probe.
    Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.” —James Madison (1792)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Obama Doubled Your Health Care Premium1

The dumpster fire known as ObamaCare just keeps burning hotter. The Department of Health and Human Services released a report2 this week on the laughably named “Affordable” Care Act and, in what should come as a surprise to no one, it showed that the average cost of individual health care plans has doubled since 2013. That year, the average month premium was $224, but by 2017 it was $476.

In fact, we in our own humble shop can verify the HHS numbers. In 2008 — the good old pre-Obama years — our company health insurance premiums cost $382 per month per family (we’re a very small group). By 2013, as ObamaCare’s effects were beginning to be felt, our monthly premiums had risen to $554 per month. In the ensuing years, we’ve reduced coverage to keep costs under control, and yet to renew our plan in 2017 will cost a gut-wrenching $1,291 per month. We’re shopping other options.

Now let’s flashback to 2008 when Barack Obama was stumping for his health care plan. He promised, “We’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year.” And he didn’t just say this once but repeatedly. Then in 2012, after the passage of the onerous law, Obama made another promise: “You should know that once we [have ObamaCare] fully implemented, you’re going to be able to buy insurance through a pool so that you can get the same good rates as a group that if you’re an employee at a big company you can get right now — which means your premiums will go down.” Obama was lying, and his disastrous law is hurting more people than it has helped, by far.

Along with the rest of the nation, we obviously missed out on Obama’s health care utopia, because our premiums have tripled for less coverage (no, we couldn’t “keep our plan”) since he promised all these fantastical savings.

Meanwhile, from the world of leftist propaganda, the only story on health care being covered today is the newly released report from the Congressional Budget Office on its projection of the impact of the House Republicans' American Health Care Act3. The big news is that this plan could leave an estimated 23 million Americans without health insurance. But in a free society where individuals are not forced by government to purchase health insurance, there will be those who choose not to4, so of course there will be a decrease in the number of insured. The far bigger issue in a nation that prizes individual liberty is the cost of insurance and health care. But when the premise is “universal coverage,” we get stories about the millions without it.

Obama and the Democrats created this health care nightmare and foisted it upon the American people, and yet the Leftmedia-leading Washington Post has the gall to completely ignore the HHS report on what actually happened to premiums because they’re too busy blasting Republicans over a CBO projection on an ObamaCare repeal and replacement bill the Senate has yet to consider. Just a reminder: Republicans are the ones seeking to save Americans from this total mess. Maybe it’s journalism that dies in darkness5.

Obama’s NSA Illegally Surveilled Americans for Years6

More information has come to light revealing the degree to which Barack Obama and his administration violated protocols designed to protect Americans from unlawful government surveillance. Conveniently, in October of last year, just two weeks before the election, in a closed-door hearing before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Obama administration self-disclosed that since 2011 the National Security Agency had routinely violated Americans' privacy rights in failing to meet privacy protection standards.

This disclosure of protocol violations was significant enough that even the FISA court called it a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue.” So how bad was the problem? Well, according a story from Circa7, “More than 5 percent, or one out of every 20 searches seeking upstream Internet data on Americans inside the NSA’s so-called Section 702 database violated the safeguards Obama and his intelligence chiefs vowed to follow in 2011.” In 2011, Obama loosened privacy rules, which precipitated a three-fold increase in the number of NSA data searches as well as unmasking of Americans. In other words, Obama worked to make it easier to surveil and collect data on Americans, contrary to the claims of his former national security advisor, Susan Rice. (And she knows a thing or two about lying and unmasking8.)

On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) warned, “If we determine this to be true, this is an enormous abuse of power. This will dwarf all other stories.” Even the leftist American Civil Liberties Union blasted the report, with the ACLU’s legislative counsel Neema Singh Guliani stating, “I think what this emphasizes is the shocking lack of oversight of these programs. You have these problems going on for years that only come to the attention of the court late in the game and then it takes additional years to change its practices.” She continued, “I think it does call into question all those defenses that we kept hearing, that we always have a robust oversight structure and we have culture of adherence to privacy standards. And the headline now is they actually haven’t been in compliance for years and the FISA court itself says in its opinion is that the NSA suffers from a culture of a lack of candor.”

Forget Russia, maybe this latest revelation will open the door to truly delving into just how much lying and spying Obama and company9 perpetrated to interfere with the election.

Top Headlines10

    Here are the 66 programs eliminated in Trump’s budget. (The Hill11)

    Trump budget proposal completely defunds Planned Parenthood. (CNS News12)

    Latest undercover Planned Parenthood video: “I might … pull off a leg or two.” (National Review13)

    Manchester bomber’s father and brothers arrested, linked to ISIS, al-Qaida. (Fox News14)

    Bomb used in Manchester was “big and sophisticated,” almost impossible bomber didn’t have help. (NBC News15)

    Denver just tried to thwart ICE by reducing sentences for domestic violence. (Hot Air16)

    San Francisco creates legal office to defend illegal immigrants from deportation. (The Daily Signal17)

    Farmer faces $2.8 million fine for plowing his own field. (The Washington Free Beacon18.)

    Montana Republican candidate Greg Gianforte cited for misdemeanor assault for allegedly body-slamming reporter. (Washington Examiner19) (Alternate headline: GOP special election candidate slams media — literally20)

    Eastern Washington lawmakers file bill to secede and form a new state called “Liberty.” (Associated Press21)

    Policy: Memo to CBO: ObamaCare is unsustainable. (E2122)

    Policy: The dark side of paid parental leave. (The Week23)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report24.
Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read Fair Skies and Tailwinds, GBU Colonel Thorsness25. A tribute to a humble American Patriot and Medal of Honor recipient, Col. Leo Thorsness.

If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here26.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-25-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
A Genuine Investigation or a Witch Hunt?27

By Arnold Ahlert

America will now endure an investigation led by former FBI director Robert Mueller regarding “Russian influence” in the election and Donald Trump’s campaign. One driven by an overwhelmingly slanted28 Leftmedia campaign determined29 to shape a relentlessly anti-Trump narrative, one anonymous felony-committing30 source after another.

Yet what — exactly — is Mueller investigating? As former CIA director John Brennan told31 the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday, there was “information intelligence about interactions and contacts between U.S. persons and the Russians” — even as he admitted he didn’t have “sufficient information to make a determination whether or not there was cooperation or complicity or collusion.”

That’s the evidentiary “standard” for precipitating a special counsel-led investigation? Then why did Democrat exchanges with the Russians never precipitate one?

Bill Clinton was paid32 $500,000 for a 2010 Moscow speech by Renaissance Capital, a firm with ties to Russian intelligence. Uranium One, a company whose sale to the Russian government was approved by the Clinton-led State Department — giving them control33 of over 20% of America’s uranium supply — donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

Clinton campaign manager, John Podesta, enjoyed a relationship with Joule Unlimited, a Kremlin-financed company that employed him as a director and gave him 75,000 shares of stock. His brother Tony lobbied34 on behalf of Sberbank, an institution completely beholden to Vladimir Putin, and one accused by Ukraine’s Security Service of financing terrorism.

Couldn’t those contacts could be characterized as “cooperation or complicity or collusion” by law enforcement officials and a hysterical media — if it suited their purposes? If this investigation doesn’t examine Republicans and Democrats, it’s a sham.

Another element of these machinations that doesn’t pass the smell test is the appointment35 of Mueller himself, championed as a paragon of integrity and impartiality.

Impartial? “While Mueller technically reported to Comey as deputy attorney general, Comey, two decades his junior, treated Mueller as a close friend and almost mentor,” Politico reported36 last week.

If Mueller is the consummate straight-shooter we’re assured he is, why not recuse himself for this transparent conflict of interest? “The law governing the special counsel (28 CFR 600.7) specifically prohibits [Mueller] from serving if he has a conflict of interest in the case,” Fox News contributor and attorney Gregg Jarret explains37. “The rule has been interpreted to mean that even the appearance of a conflict is sufficient for disqualification.”

Jarrett presumes Comey himself is being investigated. Yet on Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz revealed38 Comey’s scheduled testimony was postponed — because he “wants to speak with” Mueller prior to going public. Thus, unless this is Comey-Mueller version of the Clinton-Lynch a “Tarmac Moment39,” we now know Comey is not being investigated.

Why not? In a masterful connect-the-dot piece of journalism, columnist Diana West explains40 a substantial part of the assertion the Russians hacked the DNC computers is based on statements made by security experts from CrowdStrike, the private cyber security firm hired and paid by the DNC.

The FBI? At a March 20, 2017 House Intelligence Committee hearing, Comey testified the agency “never got direct access to the machines themselves.”

At the same meeting, NSA Director Michael Rogers, another Obama administration holdover, was asked if his agency directly accessed the computers. “The NSA didn’t ask for access,” he stated. “That’s not in our job…”

Rep. Will Hurd pressed the issue with Comey. “So, director, the FBI notified the DNC early, before any information was put on WikiLeaks and when — you have still never been given access to any of the technical or the physical machines that were hacked by the Russians?” he asked. “That’s correct,” Comey answered, “although we got the forensics from the pros that they hired. … Again, best practice is always to get access to the machines themselves, but this, my folks tell me, was an appropriate substitute.”

Second-hand information provided by a biased source is an appropriate substitute? For what? What stopped Comey from getting a subpoena and seizing the machines?

By itself, this example of Comey’s seeming determination to avoid conducting a thorough investigation should warrant his investigation. Yet the FBI also allowed Hillary Clinton testify about her personal server without recording or transcribing the conversation. And the agency granted wholly unnecessary immunity deals to Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson that included two side agreements — one limiting the FBI’s scrutinization of documents to a time period before the most likely evidence about obstruction of justice occurred, and the other a promise to destroy the aides' computers after their examination. Even more egregious, Mills and Samuelson were allowed to function as part of Clinton’s legal team even though they were subjects of the same FBI investigation.

If all of that was done with Comey’s knowledge and presumed approval — how can he remain inviolate?

According to yet another unnamed source, CNN is reporting41 that Comey is sharing his Trump memos with Mueller. What about memos with regard to Obama, Clinton, or Loretta Lynch? The same Loretta Lynch whose meeting with Bill Clinton prompted Comey to assert42 the DOJ “could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without grievous damage to the American people’s confidence in the justice system,” in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee?

“If the massive intelligence capabilities of the NSA and the CIA are being used for internal political purposes, the United States of America, as we know it and the Founders envisioned it, no longer exists,” warns43 PJ Media’s Roger Simon. “We are a post-modern totalitarianism and the Russian collusion scandal was just an excuse to impose it — or, more scarily, to cement what was already there.”

[nChrist]

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 5-25-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

A bombshell report released yesterday — one so far avoided by every mainstream media outlet — reveals6 Obama’s NSA routinely violated Americans' Fourth Amendment-based privacy protections. Were Trump and/or his associates some of those Americans?

Either this blatant abuse of power now becomes an integral part of the investigation — or America has ceased being a constitutional republic.

And this investigation is a witch hunt.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

    Finally, a President’s No-Apology Tour44 — Donald Trump wraps up his first foreign trip, having sought to unite Muslims, Jews and Christians in the fight against terrorism.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Cal Thomas: Saudi Arabia’s Duplicity45
    Ann Coulter: Rome Burns — Nero Worries About Pyrophobia46
    Larry Elder: Great Moments in Fake News ‘Journalism’47

For more, visit Right Opinion48.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Cal Thomas: “Trusting Saudi Arabia to combat terrorists and extremists and ‘drive them out,’ as President Trump called on the kingdom and other Arab and Muslim nations to do in his Riyadh speech, is akin to forging an alliance with the Ku Klux Klan to combat racism and anti-Semitism. Saudi Arabia has for years promoted the very evil they now ‘commit’ to fighting through a newly established Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. Never forget that 15 of the 9-11 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. President Trump’s speech was written by Westerners, delivered by a westerner and based on a faulty western premise, namely, that radical Muslims can be persuaded to abandon their goal of establishing a worldwide caliphate. It is a central theological principle of Wahhabism, an austere form of Islam based on a literal interpretation of the Koran, which Saudi Arabia has for years promoted in children’s textbooks, in mosques and through its media. No reporter asked the central question that should have been put to Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir during his press availability with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: Since Saudi Arabia’s domestic and foreign policy is based on a theological worldview, have those views changed and if so, how did that ‘revelation’ come to you?”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Vote Labor, and you build castles in the air. Vote Conservative, and you can live in them.” —David Frost (1939-2013)

Alpha Jackass: “You have to understand that I like Ted Cruz probably more than my colleagues like Ted Cruz, and I hate Ted Cruz.” —Sen. Al Franken

Braying Jackass, part I: “If there is one element that holds together the dominant Republican worldview, perhaps it is a rejection of mercy. … Trump and his allies are only for the winners. If you are struggling to feed your family, you deserve almost no help. If you are an immigrant, you deserve even less. If you are sick, who cares? Trump offers the logic of the GOP in its purest form: a brutal mix of bigotry and cruelty.” —Matthew Sitman

Braying Jackass, part II: “I’m often asked what the secret is … to having a real impact on government. Well, it’s recently changed. I used to say, ‘Either run for office or get a degree from Harvard Kennedy School.’ With this White House, I’d say, ‘Buy Rosetta Stone and learn Russian.’” —John Kerry

Contortion: “It’s not normal for the leader of the country that invented the First Amendment to routinely degrade and even threaten journalists."—John Kerry (The First Amendment was not "invented”; in America, it’s enshrined.)

Non Compos Mentis: “[We] carry multiple concerns in both our head and our heart. Just listening to the concerns around education and climate change, women’s health, child marriage, access to technology, all of those are of course interconnected. We have to focus on each of them in their interconnectedness.” —Chelsea Clinton

Easy for him to say: “We can’t isolate ourselves. We can’t hide behind a wall.” —Barack Obama, who has the privilege of hiding behind a security detail the rest of his life

Late-night humor: “Trump just released his new budget proposal. And Bernie Sanders said his cuts to Medicaid are ‘just cruel.’ But Bernie will get his medicine the same way as always: finding an old pill in his suit pocket.” —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.