The Patriot Post Digest 6-30-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 6-30-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Jun. 30, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

While the GOP is working to protect Americans, San Francisco is paying an illegal.
With the media distracted by Twitter, Trump announced major energy policy changes.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has gotten rich off of hate.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but … I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it.” —Fisher Ames (1789)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

San Fran Rewards Illegals; GOP Protects Americans1

On Thursday, House Republicans along with 24 Democrats passed what has been popularly referred to as Kate’s Law, in memory of Kate Steinle, the young woman who was murdered in San Francisco2 by a five-time deported illegal alien with a criminal record. The law increases penalties on illegal aliens who illegally re-enter the country, including mandatory prison sentences.

Meanwhile, the taxpayers in San Francisco will be paying out a $190,000 legal settlement3 to an illegal alien. The illegal’s lawyer successfully argued that based on San Francisco’s official sanctuary city policy, the police violated the man’s rights by alerting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to his whereabouts. Documentation showed that the man had served two days in jail for a DUI in 2012 and had received a deportation order back in 2005.

Back in DC, House Speaker Paul Ryan touted the importance of passing Kate’s Law. He highlighted the obvious hypocrisy of Left and their twisted notion of justice, stating, “San Francisco is a so-called sanctuary city. But this sanctuary city was not a sanctuary at all — not for Kate it wasn’t.”

Also on Thursday the House passed a bill that denies federal funds to any municipality that enacts sanctuary city policies. The bill also includes a provision that requires ICE to take custody of any illegal alien who commits a crime resulting in the death or serious injury of a victim.

Hours before the House voted on these two bills, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly spoke to members of Congress and expressed his frustration with certain unnamed lawmakers. Kelly said that he was “offended” at certain members who had “often threatened me and my officers” for simply doing their jobs enforcing the laws of the land. He bluntly asserted that these lawmakers needed to “shut up” instead of criticizing him and his staff for enforcing laws that lawmakers themselves had written.

Finally, in a creative twist, Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) proposed tackling the problem of funding the border wall by transferring federal funds from sanctuary cities to the border wall budget. This way, sanctuary cities can still contribute to controlling the problem of illegal immigration. Sounds like a winning proposition.

High-Energy Trump4

President Donald Trump is at his best when he’s pushing for American greatness. Thursday, it was on energy policy. While the Leftmedia was distracted5 by his Twitter account, Trump was making a big speech6 announcing big energy initiatives. “My administration will seek not only American energy independence that we’ve been looking for for so long,” he promised, “but American energy dominance.” How? With a six-pronged approach.

Trump listed the steps: “First, we will begin to revive and expand our nuclear energy sector. … Second, the Department of the Treasury will address barriers to the financing of highly efficient, overseas coal energy plants. … Third, my administration has just approved the construction of a new petroleum pipeline to Mexico. … Fourth, just today, a major U.S. company, Sempra Energy, signed an agreement to begin negotiations for the sale of more American natural gas to South Korea. … Fifth, the United States Department of Energy is announcing today that it will approve two long-term applications to export additional natural gas from the Lake Charles [liquefied natural gas] terminal in Louisiana. … Finally, in order to unlock more energy from the 94% of offshore [area] closed to development … we’re creating a new offshore oil and gas leasing program.”

After eight years of obstruction and regulation of energy production, these changes are welcome indeed. It’s not that solar and wind energy aren’t worth pursuing, but they haven’t lived up to the hype7 and shouldn’t be chased to the exclusion of proven energy sources. And Trump’s attitude is especially welcome: “This vast energy wealth does not belong to the government,” he said. “It belongs to the people of the United States of America.”

Now there’s something you’d never hear from the previous “You Didn’t Build That” administration.

Earlier this week, Trump’s EPA rolled back8 Obama’s clean water power grab. At the beginning of June, he withdrew from the Paris climate accords9. And in March, he approved the long-obstructed Keystone pipeline10. America is already experiencing an oil boom11, and Trump’s market-driven energy policies are only going to expand it.

Top Headlines12

Why Trump’s vengeful tweeting matters. (National Review13)

GOP senator proposes Transferring Sanctuary Cities’ Federal Funds to Border Wall Budget (The Daily Signal14)

CBO: Treasury to run out of cash in next three months, leading to default or delay of payments. (The Washington Free Beacon15)

California’s gun control efforts suffer two legal setbacks. (ABC News16)

“Obamaphone” program stashes $9 billion in private bank accounts. (The Washington Times17)

Low-income families spend 40% of their money on luxuries. (Market Watch18.)

Iraq declares end of caliphate after capture of Grand Al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul. (Reuters19)

Twitter considering addition of a “fake news” button. (Hot Air20)

More fake news21: CNN trots out Elmo to spout leftist talking points about Syrian refugees. (Pajamas Media22)

Policy: Making high-quality career training central to American schooling. (City Journal23)

Policy: Government monopoly money vs. personal choice in currency. (Heartland Institute24)

Humor: Trump takes to Twitter to viciously attack White House step he stumbled over. (The Babylon Bee25)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report26.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Southern Poverty Law Center Got Rich on ‘Hate’27

By Michael Swartz

Back in 1971, a marketer and attorney co-founded a crusading legal organization that cut its teeth with a series of civil lawsuits that eventually all but dismantled the Ku Klux Klan. Had the organization rested on its laurels with that achievement, as well as other early work in the civil rights arena, perhaps the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) would continue to maintain a modest but solid reputation in the legal advocacy community for its impact on that movement.

But co-founder Morris Dees has always had bigger things in mind. So as the SPLC continued to move beyond its original focus on civil rights and issues common in the Southern U.S. to include a plethora of other leftist causes on a national scale, its ambition (and fundraising appetite) became larger as well. Dees once promised to stop the constant appeals for money28 when the group’s endowment reached $55 million, but as that marker drew closer the bar was raised to $100 million, and now the SPLC sits on a $302.8 million pile of cash29. Clearly, the “Poverty” is in name only.

Dees and company haven’t stopped looking for money either: a guitar that belonged to the late Grateful Dead founder Jerry Garcia was sold at auction last month30 for $1.9 million. After expenses, and with a matching donation from the sponsor, the SPLC netted a cool $3.2 million from the event. “[I could] indulge two passions of mine at the same time,” said winning bidder Brian Halligan, chief executive of HubSpot: “social justice and the Grateful Dead.”

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 6-30-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Meanwhile, since there isn’t much need to sue the KKK out of existence these days, the SPLC has turned its attention to advocacy, as in trying to define itself as the sole arbiter of what defines a “hate group.” One recent case in point: The GuideStar directory of charities ran into controversy31 when it adopted the SPLC’s definition of “hate group” and applied it to legitimate organizations such as those opposing same-sex “marriage”32 or otherwise promoting Bible-based Christian beliefs. “The ‘hate group’ list is nothing more than a political weapon targeting people it deems to be its political enemies,” states a letter to GuideStar33 that was signed by more than 40 people, many affiliated with these organizations or otherwise sympathetic to their views.

In fact, the conservative Liberty Counsel is suing34. Its founder and chairman, Mat Staver, said, “We want to stop the lies because this kind of reporting is defamatory, it’s reckless, and it’s dangerous.”

One of the supposed “hate groups” is the Family Research Council, which has its own history35 with the SPLC. In 2012, a deranged man, Floyd Corkins, walked into the lobby of the FRC offices and began shooting, wounding a security guard before being subdued. (A year later, Corkins was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the shooting.) Corkins later told police his attack was a protest against the FRC’s pro-traditional marriage stance, and he was inspired in part by the SPLC’s labeling of the Family Research Council as a “hate group.”

Behind the imposing, nearly prison-like façade of its six-story headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, the SPLC has more than 200 employees tasked mainly with a relentless study and definition of right-of-center organizations as purveyors of hatred36 merely for their stance on issues like immigration, religious freedom, social issues, and the welfare state. In its “Extremist Files,” the SPLC does have a handful of fringe leftist exceptions such as the Nation of Islam and a few black nationalists to provide a fig leaf of cover for themselves, but the SPLC seems to believe the hate comes almost exclusively from the intolerant Right — so much so that even the Obama administration backed away37 from using it as a resource.

Yet that mindset has moved into overdrive since the election of Donald Trump. It was made even worse when Trump appointed Alabama’s own Jeff Sessions as attorney general, a move Dees called38 “probably the worst mistake Trump could have made for the United States of America.”

There’s no question leftists are reeling from the 2016 election: The SPLC board was so confident Hillary Clinton had it in the bag that they were game-planning their next four years shilling for her when they met on the eve of the November election. They couldn’t envision a Trump administration, even if 63 million Americans could.

What the SPLC board lacked in vision, though, will more than likely be made up for with ruthless ambition. Once again, with the Right currently controlling all three branches of government, the SPLC will make Donald Trump a fundraising bogeyman. Maybe that wasn’t in the original plan 46 years ago, but the SPLC must now feed the beast of the intolerant Left. Indeed, it’s much more lucrative to build up those feelings of hatred before asking for that donation.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Do Twitter Tantrums Matter?5 — Do the words of the president of the United States matter? To ask is to answer.
VidAngel vs. Hollywood39 — There’s a service that helps edit movies and shows for explicit content. Guess who’s fought to make sure the smut stays?
Canadian Supreme Court Imposes Its ‘Authority’ Over the Internet40 — Canada orders Google to comply with its ruling world-wide. That isn’t exactly going to work.
Sweden’s Prosperity for Islamists41 — The Swedish government shows generosity to those they assume are former terrorists. What could possibly go wrong?
What Is Fake News?42 — Andrew Klavan for Prager University explains why various Leftmedia outlets produce almost nothing but fake news.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Tony Perkins: Defense Debate: Trans, Plans, and Auto-Repeals43
David Harsanyi: Masterpiece Cakeshop Is Fighting for the First Amendment, Not Against Gay Marriage44
Hans von Spakovsky: Don’t Be Fooled, the Supreme Court Handed the President a Big Victory45

For more, visit Right Opinion46.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Tony Perkins: “In a new paper, Peter Sprigg estimates (based on the Left’s own assumptions!) that opening the [military] doors to people who identify as transgender will cost a whopping $3.7 billion over the next 10 years for medical costs and lost deployment time. … With the price tag of $89,050 for female-to-male procedures and $110,450 for male-to-female procedures, taxpayers would be forking over hundreds of millions of dollars a year for people who are just using the military as their free ticket to elective surgery! And that’s just the surgery — not the cost of hormone treatment and counseling, which can run in the thousands per person. To put it in perspective, over the next ten years America would be spending roughly half of its annual ballistic defense budget on elective sexual reassignment surgery! While our troops are literally scavenging museums for jet parts, which would you rather pay for: hundreds of gender transitions or 22 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Planes? Obama’s extreme transgender agenda or 3,700 tomahawk missiles? Political correctness run amok or half of our annual cyber defense budget? I’m sure ISIS will sleep better at night knowing that we sacrificed 116 Chinook helicopters so that our troops could get radical makeovers.”

SHORT CUTS

Upright: “A conservative can fight for tax reform, celebrate military victories over ISIS in Mosul, and applaud Trump’s judicial appointments while also condemning Trump’s vile tweets and criticizing his impulsiveness and lack of discipline. A good conservative can even step back and take a longer view, resolving to fight for the cultural values that tribalism degrades. Presidents matter not just because of their policies but also because of their impact on the character of the people they govern. Conservatives knew that once. Do they still?” —David French

Observations: “We should all be concerned that the president seems very distracted by his war on the American press at a time North Korea, Russia, China, Iran, ISIS and more seem emboldened. But let us not pretend that the current hostility towards the American press is undeserved. People have finally had enough of the media’s liberal biases. The media’s response is to whine, play victim and engage in the same whataboutism and tit for tat they decry others engaging in.” —Erick Erickson

For the record: “It’s not fair to a working-class person who’s struggling to put food on the table for the federal government to double their premiums trying to work an indirect subsidy for others who are ill. Far better to have it through direct tax revenue.” —Ted Cruz

Alpha Jackass: “You find out in all these investigations that Jared [Kushner] was opening up a tunnel to Moscow so he wouldn’t have to deal with the State Department. So the son-in-law — you know, one good thing Mussolini did was execute his son-in-law.” —Chris Matthews

Late-night humor: “According to new research, a press-on patch for the flu vaccine works just as well as the flu shot. You just remove the adhesive backing and place it firmly over your co-worker’s mouth.” —Seth Meyers

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.