The Patriot Post Digest 5-31-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-31-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

May 31, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

The glaciers are melting, the glaciers are melting! But why?
Another scalp claimed by the academic PC police.
What does food stamp reform look like, and how can we accomplish it?
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” —John Adams (1770)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Climate Alarmism Minus Perspective Equals Fake News1

Like any policy discussion, the field of science can be easily distorted and misconstrued when it lacks proper perspective and insight. The New York Times performed this masterfully in a recent climate piece, “Mapping 50 Years of Melting Ice in Glacier National Park2.” The article’s objective was to tug at Americans' heartstrings by highlighting the supposedly exceptional amount of ice melt occurring in northern Montana, where glaciers “shrank by more than a third between 1966 and 2015, according to new data from the United States Geological Survey and Portland State University in Oregon.”

To help readers understand how their carbon footprint is disposing America of its ice age relics, the Times publishes myriad images to visually (and emotionally) document the receding glaciers. The article then stipulates, “Glacier National Park’s eponymous ice formations have been around for more than 7,000 years, and have survived warmer and cooler periods. But they have been shrinking rapidly since the late 1800s, when North America emerged from the ‘Little Ice Age,’ a period of regionally colder, snowier weather that lasted for roughly 400 years. (At its founding in 1910, the park had at least 150 glaciers, most of which are now gone.) After the end of the Little Ice Age, glaciers across the Western United States, Canada and Europe lost ice as temperatures rebounded. But scientists have attributed more recent melting to human-caused global warming.”

By what objective temperature measurements? Well, the Times doesn’t say, and nefariously so. As Robert Tracinski observes, this form of climate deception has become a pattern3 at the Times. He writes, “There is no science without numbers. Science can’t get by on qualitative descriptions. If you say the average global temperature in 2016 was ‘higher’ than in 2015, that’s not science. It could be a lot higher or a little higher. It could be a number that is enormous, or it could be a number that is literally insignificant. (And if they don’t tell you the number, guess which of those it is likely to be.)”

The Times knows such disclaimers could jeopardize its message, which is the real motivation for its refusing to publish temperature minutiae. Why else would it neglect to report that regional temperatures around Glacier National Park have actually been flat for more than a century? Global warming is real — few dispute that. But if temperatures aren’t rising in tandem around GNP, there has to be more to the story for why glaciers are receding at an ostensibly faster rate because of human activity. None of this matters, however, because, as Tracinski opines, the Times is predisposed to believe that “nothing can be attributed to mere natural causes any more. It all has to be because of global warming.”

In January, The Wall Street Journal wisely editorialized4 that “nuances are important, because phrases such as ‘hottest year ever’ are waved around as a pretext for political action that usually involves giving more control over the economy to governments.” Sadly, the Times continues to borrow from the same playbook. After Donald Trump’s election in November, Times officials promised to “rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you.” In truth, they’re sticking to the same statist agenda5.

PC Culture Reigns at Duke6

The intolerance of free speech on America’s college and university campuses has seemingly reached epidemic levels. And the heart of the problem lies not with those fervent social justice warrior (SJW) students, but within academia itself. A telling example comes out Duke Divinity School, where a professor was forced out for essentially daring to speak his mind.

The issue that sparked the professor’s ouster began with a faculty-wide email sent by Anathea Portier-Young, a professor of Old Testament studies with expertise in “constructions of identity, gender, and ethnicity, and traditions of violence and nonviolence.” Portier-Young’s email invited the faculty to participate in the “Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training,” which states: “Racism is a fierce, ever-present, challenging force, one which has structured the thinking, behavior and actions of individuals and institutions since the beginning of U.S. history.” Clearly, there’s a leftist SJW agenda behind this training.

Professor Paul Griffiths chose to respond to this public email by sending his own faculty-wide email in which he encouraged his colleagues not to go to the training. “There’ll be bromides, clichés and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty,” he predicted, and the ideas taught would contain “illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies.” He concluded that the “definitively anti-intellectual … (re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and ignoble history.” He then dared to suggest that the school’s faculty would benefit more by focusing their time and energy to rededicating themselves to their scholarly pursuits.

Griffith’s email triggered a response from the dean, Elaine Heath, in which she said that she was looking forward to attending the training and issued a warning against “the use of mass emails to express racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry.” Then, after these emails were exchanged, a disciplinary procedure was initiated against Griffith for “unprofessional conduct” due to a complaint filed by Professor Portier-Young accusing him of “harassment” owing to his email counteroffer.

It wasn’t long before Griffith tendered his resignation. He sent the faculty one last letter in which he pointedly asserted, “Tolerance for intellectual pain is less than it was. So is tolerance for argument.” Once heralded as the nation’s greatest bastions of free speech and tolerance, America’s campuses have become little more than oblasts of leftist indoctrination.

Top Headlines7

Anticipated news: Trump is pulling U.S. out of Paris climate deal. (Axios8.)

More than 5,500 illegals registered to vote in Virginia in last decade; 1,852 actually cast ballots. (The Washington Times9)

49 shot in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend — and that’s a sign of progress. (USA Today10)

CNN’s Kathy Griffin poses with picture of a beheaded President Trump. (The Washington Free Beacon11)

What gap? Female CEO’s earn more than male chief executives. (The Wall Street Journal12)

Finally: HHS proposes rule change to end contraception mandate. (Hot Air13)

Kabul blast: Massive explosion rips through rush-hour traffic in diplomatic area, 80 dead, 350 injured. (Fox News14)

Iranian-backed forces amassing near U.S. training base in Syria. (The Washington Times15)

U.S. successfully intercepts ICBM in historic test. (ABC News16)

Hump day humor: Breathing classified as microaggression. (The Babylon Bee17)

Policy: Ten Thousand Commandments 2017. (Competitive Enterprise Institute18.)

Policy: How America can get its fiscal house in order. (The Heritage Foundation19)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report20.

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-31-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Time for a Food Stamp Diet21

By Lewis Morris

President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget suggests some serious changes to welfare in America. Let’s start with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a.k.a. food stamps. His proposal to trim the number of people on food stamps22 includes requiring able-bodied adults to work or train for work in exchange for benefits. He also wants the states to start taking a larger fiscal role in welfare. Those are common sense suggestions, which naturally have Democrats in an uproar.

The president’s budget proposals have been labeled a “horror” that will gut America’s safety net. That’s not what’s going to happen, but statists reflexively oppose any program that makes people more self-reliant. After all, how can the government control the masses without them being dependent on it for their every need?

Take the first part of Trump’s plan: worker activation. This means that people who apply for food stamps will have to work a regular job, prove they are physically incapable of work, or take part in community service or job training.

This is not an unreasonable stipulation. When Congress enacted welfare reform back in 1996, establishing a work requirement was one of the single biggest reasons the welfare rolls were dramatically reduced. It wasn’t until Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress loosened restrictions for applying for food stamps that welfare numbers started to rise again.

In 2013 and 2014, Kansas and Maine were able to reduce the number of able-bodied adults on food stamps with basic work requirements. In 2016, Georgia did likewise.

Trump’s call for getting the states more involved should also be a no-brainer. The federal government accounts for 75% of the $1.1 trillion in spending on means-tested aid. Almost all the money that the states chip in goes to Medicaid.

Trump’s budget proposal stipulates that the states start picking up 25% of the tab for food stamps as well. Democrats deceitfully claim that this accounts for a 25% cut in food stamps. That’s not the case. All that is taking place here is making sure states have “skin in the game,” as the saying goes.

The states will take whatever money the federal government gives them. In fact, they have a vested interest in having more people on food stamps because that means they get more money from the government.

In some twisted way, many state officials believe more money for food stamps actually helps the economy. Well, there are more people on food stamps than ever before in the history of the program. Is the American economy better for it?

The goal should be to reduce the number of people on food stamps. Obama, by loosening restrictions and making it seem patriotic to be on the government dole, drove the numbers above 46 million people23. That’s nearly one in every six Americans on food stamps. That travesty is what he had the audacity to call Hope ‘n’ Change™.

It’s important to have a safety net for people who are not as fortunate. When the food stamp program was first introduced in 1964, it was believed that it and other welfare programs could provide temporary assistance. But Lyndon Johnson’s so-called War on Poverty24 and Obama’s actions during his presidency ensured not a safety net, but a spider web people could not escape. Ever since the “Great Society25,” Democrats have offered a never-ending handout in exchange for votes. So far, their 50-year-old plan has worked perfectly.

Unfortunately for statists, to paraphrase the late Margaret Thatcher, they’ll eventually run out of other people’s money. The end is already near. The disability insurance fund, for which claims have risen three-fold since requirements were relaxed in the 1980s, would have gone dry last year had Congress not raided another fund to keep it solvent. This is but one pot that is nearly empty. If governments at the federal and state level don’t tighten restrictions for receiving food stamps and other aid, then the day will soon come when there won’t be any help for anybody.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Is Trump Really Proposing Cuts to Medicaid?26 — Not even close. Only in Washington, DC, could a budget increase of $146 billion dollars be considered a cut.
The GOP’s Agenda Is at Risk27 — All the distractions thrown in by the Leftmedia and abetted by Trump are putting real reform on the back-burner.
Obama Regulations Cost U.S. Economy $2 Trillion Annually28 — “If U.S. regulation was a country, it would be the world’s seventh-largest economy.” That’s not Liberty.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Ben Shapiro: How America Lost Its Head29
Marvin J. Folkertsma: America’s Entrenched Media Malpractice30
Ed Feulner: Searching for Self-Reliance31

For more, visit Right Opinion32.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Ed Feulner: “Americans have been sliding into dependency ever since the New Deal began federalizing everyone’s problems, and particularly since Lyndon Johnson launched his so-called ‘Great Society.’ What fell by the wayside was the previous American way of dealing with adversity, the era when people in need turned to the civil society around them — the safety net of families, friends, churches, local doctors, and politicians. All that changed with the proliferation of federal programs doling out benefits on an industrial scale. Federal involvement in everything from retirement (Social Security), health care (Medicare and Medicaid) and education grew by leaps and bounds, making more and more Americans dependent on faceless bureaucrats they never meet. It all adds up to a profound loss of the self-reliance that built this country and made it great. Many of our seemingly benevolent programs succeed only in weakening people and condemning them to endless dependency. This is why conservatives want to cut government down to size. As President Reagan said in his first Inaugural Address, ‘It is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work — work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride our back.’ Critics call that heartless. But to allow our present trajectory to continue unchecked is senseless.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.” —Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Observations: “Now that the great victories in these movements, civil rights, equal rights, have been basically won, [leftists] are looking for new fields to conquer, new grievances to work on. And now, we have them wanting to suppress speech in the name of diversity, in the name of tolerance and so on. It’s remarkable.” —Brit Hume

Friendly fire: “[College] protesters — some of them non-students — are involved in what’s called, to invoke a trendy term, ‘cultural appropriation.’ In this case, it is the culture of fascism. Benito Mussolini’s rise to power in Italy was facilitated by the steady use of violent protesters to break up meetings and silence opponents. The tactic proved successful, and in 1922 Mussolini became dictator of Italy. Hitler, on the other side of the Alps, took careful notes.” —Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen

Non Compos Mentis: “The [Trump] budget is downright mean-spirited, it’s dangerous. In my estimation, what he’s proposing is a threat to the future of America and maybe the future of the planet. That’s why we must resist.” —Rep. John Lewis

Braying Jenny: “Other governments [and] other leaders think [Trump’s] a clown, and they think we’re a clown by association.” —The View’s Sunny Hostin

Alpha Jackass: “I sincerely apologize. I am just now seeing the reaction to these images. I’m a comic. I crossed the line — I moved the line then I crossed it. I went way too far. The image is too disturbing. I understand how it affects people. It wasn’t funny, I get it. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career. I will continue. I ask your forgiveness.” —"comic" Kathy Griffin, who, before getting raked over the coals, thought a jihadi-level depiction of a decapitated president is humorous

And last… “#YouMightBeALiberal if crosshairs on a map were a violent threat to Gabrielle Giffords, but a pic of a decapitated president is no big deal.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor

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.