The Patriot Post Digest 7-13-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-13-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Mid-Day Digest

Jul. 13, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Trump’s FBI nominee pledges loyalty to the Constitution and Rule of Law, not one man.
Look who’s funding opposition to rooting out voter fraud — George Soros.
Will the GOP choose statesmanship and actually repeal ObamaCare?
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience.” —Thomas Jefferson (1782)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Trump’s FBI Nominee: Russia Investigation Isn’t a ‘Witch Hunt’1

Christopher Wray, Donald Trump’s nominee to replace James Comey as head of the FBI, testified Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing. Wray conducted himself well, as one would expect for an individual with his degree of career experience in both government and private sector employment. The most significant issue he was pressed to address was his ability to maintain political impartiality in an obviously politically partisan environment with the intelligence community plagued by leaks.

At one point, Wray was asked if a loyalty oath had been proposed to him, clearly a reference to Comey’s testimony2 that Trump requested he do so. Wray responded, “No one has asked me for any loyalty oath and I wouldn’t offer one. … My loyalty is to the Constitution, the Rule of Law and the mission of the FBI.” Good answer.

Wray was also asked what he thought about the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. He said, “I do not consider Director [Robert] Mueller to be on a witch hunt.” He continued, “I would consider an effort to tamper with Director Mueller’s investigation to be unacceptable.” While we do believe the special investigation is indeed a Demo/MSM witch hunt3, Wray doesn’t have the luxury of expressing his personal opinions. The FBI director’s job requires maintaining an independent position as strictly as possible, and that begins during confirmation hearings.

Comey utterly failed in maintaining that strict impartiality. And while he may not have been a partisan politician, he was overly concerned with the political impact of the FBI’s investigations into both Hillary Clinton and the Trump/Russian collusion conspiracy, which subsequently affected his impartiality.

All indications suggest that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were pleased with Wray’s testimony and therefore there is little reason to believe that he will not be confirmed.

Soros Joins the Anti-Election Integrity Crusade4

For the time being, Donald Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity will cease gathering voter information5 pending a judicial ruling. The Electronic Privacy Information Center recently petitioned for a temporary restraining order (TRO), and a decision should be issued in short order. In the meantime, “the Commission … sent the states a … communication requesting the states not submit any data until this Court rules on plaintiff’s TRO motion,” according to a legal briefing6. This is the latest development in The Resistance’s attempt to foil Trump’s voter fraud probe7.

So what exactly is the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)? It’s anything but neutral. In fact, its tentacles are attached to a devious fascist named George Soros8, whose billions of dollars go toward bankrolling various leftist grievance industries (like Black Lives Matter). Over at PoliZette, Margaret Menge reveals9 that EPIC, “like many others fighting to stop the release and review of voter roll data, is funded by George Soros through his Open Society Foundations.” She goes on to note, “The Open Society Foundations have a $940 million budget and a staff of 1,600 with 47 offices in 42 countries.” Suffice to say, every staff member is tasked with promoting the socialist and anti-American agenda of Soros.

After all, if voter fraud is non-existent, why else would leftists keep obfuscating? The Heritage Foundation’s John G. Malcolm and Jason Snead make this point in The Daily Signal, where they write10, “If voter fraud were as rare as the left contends, and if adequate procedures are in place to prevent it from occurring, you would think those who make this argument would be anxious to provide the data that would serve to verify their assertions. Could it be that they fear the data would refute their claims?”

The fact is, they continue, “The Heritage Foundation’s Voter Fraud Database has thus far tallied 848 documented criminal convictions in voter fraud cases spanning 47 states, with new cases being uncovered every week.” Yet Gov. Andrew Cuomo says, “New York refuses to perpetuate the myth voter fraud played a role in our election.” It’s anything but a myth. That’s why Soros, like Cuomo and other cohorts, wants to keep the ugly reality of voter fraud under wraps. Let’s hope the judge accepts this reality.

Top Headlines11

Rep. Gowdy to Trump officials: “Disclose every contact you have ever had with Russia.” (CBS News12)

Obama DOJ let Russian lawyer into U.S. before she met with Trump team. (The Hill13)

CIA director says Russia tried to “muck” with U.S. election — in 2012. (CNS News14)

How pathetic: House Dem introduces articles of impeachment against Trump. (Hot Air15)

Selective Second Amendment: Few concealed handgun permits given to Hispanics, blacks or women in Los Angeles County. (Crime Prevention Research Center16)

“Study” finds fewer children would help climate change — liberals applaud. (Washington Examiner17)

Antarctica “naturally” calves massive iceberg; alarmists blame climate change. (Newsbusters18.)

Feds use arts funding to subsidize billion-dollar nonprofits. (The Washington Free Beacon19)

Report: Medicaid reduces health care access and recipients may receive worse quality care. (The Washington Free Beacon20)

Humor: Trump vs. CNN using Braveheart footage. (YouTube21)

Policy: Confronting the temperature taboo. (The Washington Times22)

Policy: Putting nuclear regulatory costs in context. (American Action Forum23)

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

Read Al Gore, Al Jazeera and Al Qa'ida25. Al Gore sues Al Jazeera seeking windfall profits from the Islamist media propagandist.

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

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Better Health Care or Broken Promises?27

By Arnold Ahlert

“As Obamacare brought grief, Republicans fed on public hate for it for four election cycles. Today, they seem stuck with their original commitment to the health of the health insurance industry — as if maintaining the companies as public utilities and passing taxpayer money through them to lower patient out-of-pocket costs were a step toward freedom rather than another step toward socialism.” —Angelo Codevilla28, July 10, 2017

Sadly, the American electorate remains burdened by an out-of-touch political class whose most pressing priority is to convince us there are large differences between Democrats and Republicans, and that a vote for one side or the other will produce substantive change.

Democrats gave us ObamaCare. It was sold on a litany of lies29 by Barack Obama and his cadres, who assured us we could keep our doctors and our existing health care plans, and save $2,500 per year on premiums. Those lies were buttressed by contempt, eloquently espoused30 by ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber, who boasted about the “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” that enabled the bill’s passage.

Nancy Pelosi got the lion’s share of the blame for that contempt when, on March 9, 2010, she spoke31 about having to “pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

In reality, Pelosi’s contempt was dwarfed by that of Democrat Rep. John Conyers. “I love these members that get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” he mocked32 at a National Press Club luncheon on July 29, 2009, regarding the initial efforts to get ObamaCare through the House. “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

What good are elected representatives who disdain the fundamental responsibilities of representative government?

Americans were furious. In 2010, they handed the House to the GOP. In 2014, they added the Senate. If the first victory was a response to Democrats’ ham-fisted passage of the law, the second was largely fueled by its consequences — soaring insurance premiums, narrowing provider networks, and the ongoing implosion of ObamaCare exchanges. All of that was precipitated by a “health insurance industry” whose initial dreams of untold profits they thought the mandatory insurance requirement would engender instead crashed and burned when millions of sick Americans signed up for policies — and millions of healthy Americans needed to subsidize them, didn’t.

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-13-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Largely obscured was the ignorance and arrogance evinced by Democrats, who thought healthy Americans would be “stupid” enough to buy sky-high premiums, even when a relatively paltry fine for failing to do so — only collectible if one were getting a refund from the IRS — was a blatantly viable alternative.

Yet seven years after this debacle was enacted, what has changed, other than the party in charge? As Codevilla states, Republicans prop up ObamaCare rather than tear it down because “they are even more beholden to the insurance companies and hospital chains than the Democrats who passed it in the first place.”

Moreover, the cynicism and irresponsibility demonstrated Pelosi and Conyers is not exclusive to Democrats.

Unfortunately for Republicans, Donald Trump’s election changed everything. Like the rest of the ruling class and the mainstream media, they believed a Hillary Clinton presidency was a “sure thing” — one that would allow the GOP to once again assume its traditional long-faced, “we tried our best but can’t overcome a presidential veto” posture that served its interests for four election cycles.

Instead, the duplicitous nature of a party that voted to repeal or amend33 ObamaCare more than 50 times since its passage — knowing it could never happen — has been exposed.

“Both sides of the aisle in Congress have bought into three healthcare lies: big, bigger, and biggest,” writes34 Dr. Deane Waldman in a column for The Hill. “The big lie says health insurance is what we need. The bigger lie presumes that insurance leads to care. The biggest lie is that government-provided health insurance can provide timely medical care for all Americans.”

That the cost of health insurance remains the centerpiece of any bill is astounding, given the reality that price transparency isn’t an integral part of the discussion. How does one determine premium costs without first establishing the prices of what’s covered? Nothing is more frustrating than asking a medical provider how much something costs, only to get a question in return: What insurance do you have? Such nonsense is only possible in a system where all prices are “negotiable,” and where ObamaCare’s cap35 on insurance company profits incentivizes them to raise outlays in order to raise profits.

“To create an affordable system, Congress need only require that health care providers offer ‘legitimate pricing’: They can continue to set their own rates, but they cannot charge a different rate for each patient,” explains36 former hospital president Steven Weissman, who further notes “high-quality providers offering good value would thrive” in such a system, while “networks would be obsolete, along with the administrative burdens, tremendous costs and limitations on patient choice they impose.”

What we have instead? “Forty percent of U.S. healthcare spending — more than $1 trillion per year — produces no care,” Dr. Waldmen explains. Moreover, he adds, “government has only one method to control costs: medical rationing. It cuts reimbursement schedules to providers, limits payments to institutions, and denies authorization for expensive treatments.”

Thus, a government-centric system amounts to nothing more than Titanic deck chair re-arranging.

Yet the biggest problem of all … may be Americans themselves. As PBS’s Daniel Bush explains37, “Once Americans start receiving a new social service, it’s hard for lawmakers to take it away.”

No doubt. But there’s a word for doing something unpopular that ultimately serves the nation’s interests: statesmanship.

On the plus side, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has postponed38 part of the Senate’s August recess to work on the bill — in fact, version 2.0 may be released as early as today. On the minus side, Sen. Rand Paul insists39 the first version is nothing more than ObamaCare-lite, “keeping the Obamacare subsidies, keeping some of the Obamacare taxes, creating a giant insurance bailout superfund, and keeping most of the Obamacare regulations.”

Is Paul right? Will the so-called Small Government Party give us another version of the most virulent, national debt-busting, socialist enterprise in our nation’s history?

Here’s hoping Republicans ultimately discover the difference between statesmanship and salesmanship.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Liberty Is Not the Freedom to Use Violence40 — Our Founders emphasized the freedom to live ethically and peacefully, not the “freedom” to violate the rights of others.
Trump Sued Over Blocking Twitter Trolls41 — The group claims that Trump is trampling on their free speech rights by blocking them from his Twitter feed.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Victor Davis Hanson: West Can Neither Live With Nor Take Out North Korean Nukes42
R. Emmett Tyrrell: The American Left’s Downward Spiral43
Jeff Jacoby: What Rick Perry Really Said About Supply and Demand44

For more, visit Right Opinion45.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Victor Davis Hanson: “Kim Jong Un rightly assumes that wealthy Western nations would prefer to pay bribe money than suffer the loss of a city — and that they have plenty of cash for such concessions. He is right that the medicine of taking out Kim’s missiles is considered by Western strategists to be even worse than the disease of living with a lunatic regime that has nukes. No wonder that the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations had few answers to serial North Korean lying and deceit about its nuclear intentions. … Sanctions have in the past crippled Pyongyang. But this time around they should not be lifted despite the prospect of ensuing chaos in North Korea. It may be tragic that a captive population suffers for the lunacy of its leader, but such misery is still preferable to an all-out war. Nor should China be exempt from accompanying stiff trade restrictions. … Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the U.S. need to coordinate a massive missile defense project aimed at ending North Korean assumptions that even one of its missiles has a chance to reach its intended target. Such a Marshall Plan-like investment would also send a message to China that its own nuclear deterrent could be compromised and nullified by the defensive efforts of its immediate neighbors. … We are nearing an existential showdown, as failed efforts at bribery and appeasement have run their course. Only a tough, messy confrontation now can prevent a disastrous war later on.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “There are those who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American Dream.” —Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)

For the record: “We have a president that’s waiting to sign [health care reform]. … I will be very angry [if Congress fails], and a lot of people will be very upset. I hope that they do it. They’ve been promising it for years.” —Donald Trump

Belly laugh of the week: “The Senate leader and I are the voices for winning those races in [the] House and the Senate, and we’re ready.” —Nancy Pelosi

Irony alert: “Trump could murder a baby and his supporters would argue that the baby’s [sic] had it coming.” —Chelsea Handler

Demo-gogues: “It is my impression in meeting with Muslim Americans in my state — families and individuals — they are in the same state of mind today as Japanese Americans were during World War II when many were headed to internment camps.” —Sen. Dick Durbin

Braying Jackass: “This meeting46, and most especially Donald Trump Jr.‘s clear acknowledgment of the reason for it, is bombshell evidence of conspiracy and criminal intent.” —Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who lied about his service in Vietnam for political gain

Non Compos Mentis: “Having children is one of the worst things you can do for the planet. Have one less and conserve resources.” —feminist author and attorney Jill Filipovic

Get ready to speak to the Secret Service: “Trump is a half term president, at most, especially if I ever get within 10 feet of that p—.” —Maine State Rep. Scott Hamann

And last… “Man, if Kid Rock runs against The Rock, we’ll all be stuck between a Rock and a hard place.” —Ben Shapiro

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.