The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2017

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Mid-Day Digest

Jul. 14, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Major concessions aren’t enough for moderate Republicans to support ObamaCare repeal.
Sessions targeted by SPLC and Leftmedia for daring to speak to “hate group.”
Having a gender-reveal party for your baby? Leftists are none too pleased.
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

Senate Reveals Latest Health Plan; Is It DOA?1

Senate Republicans released their revised plan for replacing ObamaCare on Thursday, and it now awaits analysis by the Congressional Budget Office before a vote possibly next week. The questions began immediately — specifically whether it has enough Republican votes (hint: probably not). Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) guardedly offered support given that the legislation contains a version of an amendment they presented. The Cruz-Lee amendment2 would allow insurance companies to offer “bare-bones” plans that don’t meet the current “Affordable” Care Act’s comprehensive coverage requirements as long as they also offered plans that did. Cruz did warn, however, that the bill “will not have the votes to go forward if there are not meaningful protections for consumer freedom that significantly lower premiums.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) opposes the bill, calling it “ObamaCare Lite.”

Meanwhile, several centrist Republicans have threatened to pull their support even though their demands have been met. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), for example, always the thorn in conservatives’ sides, has declared her opposition. And several Republicans have begun discussions with Democrats on working toward a bipartisan health plan, which is sure to only increase the tension between conservative and centrist Republicans. Not to mention that Democrats have no intention of fixing anything, let alone repealing it.

So what’s in the plan, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA)?

Like the House Republicans’ plan, the Senate bill eliminates the ObamaCare mandate, freeing individuals to opt out of purchasing health insurance. Instead, it incentivizes people to retain an insurance plan or face paying higher premiums upon returning. It keeps guaranteed insurance for those with pre-existing conditions, a concession to political reality. It repeals taxes on prescription and over-the-counter drugs and medical devices, though in another concession to the moderates, it retains ObamaCare’s 3.8% tax on investment income — a tax-and-spend provision to fund subsidies. The Senate bill offers one particularly intriguing element: allowing Americans to pay health insurance premiums using pre-tax income via health savings accounts. Best of all, the GOP bill brings desperately needed reforms to Medicaid, granting individual states greater control over how to best spend federal funds, as well as addressing inequity concerns with federal payouts for the program. The Wall Street Journal argues3 that this reform is “the main reason it is still worth passing,” because the spending “discipline will save $772 billion over 10 years.”

It still looks like the tug-of-war to repeal and replace ObamaCare is far from over. Is it a perfect plan? By no means, but it is indeed a step in the right direction, out of that burning building known as ObamaCare. Once again — and it can’t be emphasized enough — Republicans are trying to clean up a Democrat-created disaster that has massively damaged the American health care system.

Leftmedia Blasts AG Sessions for Speech to ‘Hate Group’4

Religious liberty requires a robust defense of the freedom of conscience. And freedom of conscience is expressed in an individual’s right to either accept or reject various beliefs, ideas or behaviors as their own conscience dictates. In other words, an essential and foundational component of freedom of conscience is the right to be discriminating. For a society to espouse a commitment to protect individual freedom, that society must allow for individuals to choose to discriminate against ideals and behaviors they find objectionable, so long as they don’t prevent another individual from also engaging their liberty of conscience.

This week the mainstream media ran stories criticizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions for delivering a speech to a “hate group.” NBC News’ headline read, “Jeff Sessions Tells ‘Hate Group’ DOJ Will Issue Religious Freedom Guidance5,” and ABC News’ even more biased headline read, “Jeff Sessions addresses ‘anti-LGBT hate group,’ but DOJ won’t release his remarks.” So what was this dastardly “hate group” Sessions addressed? It was the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a civil liberties organization dedicated to defending Americans’ right to religious freedom. Hardly a “hate group.”

How did the Leftmedia come to libeling a long-respected civil liberty organization? The answer: the Southern Poverty Law Center6 (SPLC). That once-respected organization has taken a hard-left turn in recent years and has essentially designated every politically conservative organization a “hate group.” The SPLC has become so politically biased that to reference it as a credible and authoritative source is akin to referencing Joseph Goebbels as an authority on the accuracy of Allied news stories.

As for the claim by ABC News that the DOJ refused to release Sessions’ remarks, the full transcript of his speech was published7 by The Federalist. And it’s a good speech, well worth the read. Once again, this serves as yet another example of gross bias in the Leftmedia, as well as its sad state of journalistic integrity8.

Top Headlines9

Intelligence report warns of growing missile threats. (The Washington Free Beacon10)

CNN hired top al-Qaida propagandist for award-winning Syria documentary and wants to cover its tracks. (Salon11)

Trump’s VA secretary is off to a fast start reforming the agency. (National Review12)

Pentagon to keep paying for sex-change surgeries. (The Washington Times13)

Was the Trump Jr.-Veselnitskaya meeting set up to validate the phony dossier on Trump Sr.? (Dick Morris14)

Hillary Clinton’s charitable giving takes a dive in 2016. (The Washington Free Beacon15)

Once-powerful New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s 2015 corruption conviction16 is overturned. (The New York Times17)

Board urges more training after cop ID’d transgender woman man as male on traffic ticket. (Sun Sentinel18.)

Feminist geographers encourage colleagues not to cite research by white men. (The Washington Times19)

Turns out Republicans are the most generous tippers. (Bloomberg20)

Policy: Hitting the refresh button on net neutrality. (National Review21)

Policy: A climate roadmap for President Trump. (Washington Examiner22)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report23.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Rainbow Mafia Politicizes Gender-Reveal Parties24

By Brian Mark Weber

Is it a boy or a girl? It used to be such an innocent question. Now, mothers aren’t just politically incorrect for throwing a gender-reveal baby shower; they’re also considered by the Left to be a danger to their children. Even more troubling, the American medical community is starting to comply with the homosexual agenda.

Like everything else in the twisted ideology of progressivism, words no longer mean what they mean. Gender has been co-opted so that it no longer has anything to do with one’s anatomy. Instead, gender is a malleable political term describing how one feels about oneself, and it’s used to advance a political and cultural agenda.

On the surface it seems innocent. It always does. The notion that we shouldn’t force our children to think of themselves as boys or girls may seem harmless at first, but there’s a broader objective: to completely alter the social structure of our civilization and to undermine our values.

As a society, we used to believe that failing to properly raise children as boys or girls was emotionally and psychologically damaging. Now the Left is successfully turning that thinking on its head.

In an article for Cosmopolitan magazine, Diane Stopyra opines25, “My discomfort with the gender-reveal party goes beyond my standard objection to fanfare surrounding gestational markers — which is primarily that, because we don’t celebrate non-pregnancy-related milestones with the same enthusiasm, we’re reinforcing the archaic notion that a woman’s value rests squarely in her ability to grow tiny humans. The issue with gender-reveal parties in particular is: Aren’t they potentially damaging to said tiny humans?”

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Nicole Russell responds26 in the Washington Examiner, “A social construct has attempted to hijack gender into becoming the political statement they want rather than the basic anatomy that it is. The author cites a professor who says these parties just give in to gender stereotypes — boys want to be sheriffs and girls wear pink — which is just a shame. Yet for all their politically correct fanfare, both the author and the professor cited are forgetting: Stereotypes surrounding gender arose for a reason. Boys and girls often gravitate towards certain toys and behaviors because of their gender. That’s been going on for centuries.”

Russell is right. Gender-reveal parties don’t force boys to become firefighters or push girls to become teachers (or, God forbid, mothers). Boys naturally gravitate toward professions that are suited to their gender, but leftists want us to believe that a male construction worker is somehow the victim of child abuse because his parents allowed his gender to go unchecked.

Not that long ago, most Americans would think it laughable to suggest that a baby shower, er, gender-reveal party, is sinister and damaging to the fabric of our society. But this view is becoming more commonplace as the Left continues its total war on our culture.

If we accept this view, then women who value their ability to have children, let alone celebrate it, are not merely victims of an archaic societal structure but are responsible for inflicting psychological harm on their children. Progressives want mothers to look with disdain at their natural ability to give birth and to reject any parental influence as a threat to their child’s development.

And this movement goes far beyond politics. It’s also aided and abetted by the medical community. According to an official American Medical Association statement27, “Acknowledging that individuals’ gender and sexual identities do not always fit neatly into binary paradigms, delegates to the 2017 AMA Annual Meeting28 in Chicago took several actions that support broadening how gender identity is defined within medicine and how transgender patients are treated by society.”

Basically, the AMA is sanctioning transgenderism29, even though there is plenty of evidence showing that transgender youth and adults experience emotional and psychological problems. Data reveals, for example, that adults who consider themselves transgender have much higher suicide rates30.

That’s right. Billy may not have to suffer through the “oppression” of getting a toy dump truck for his birthday, but down the road he’s likely to face a wide range of complex and problematic thoughts and emotions. But not to worry; at least Billy’s parents can sleep at night knowing they saved him from a life beset by the dangerous idea that he’s a boy.

Years ago Hillary Clinton wrote, “It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us,” and progressives ever since have tried to diminish the roles that parents play in the lives of their children. Indeed, 20 years later it’s even more clear that the progressive plan was to subvert the way we think about children and parenting. Sure, everyone within a village has a role. That’s nothing new.

But the values of the village are often very different from those we want for our children. Indeed, some villagers are seeking to undermine nearly everything about child-rearing that we know to be best.

So go ahead and throw a gender-reveal party while you still can. But don’t let the neighbors find out. If word gets out that you’re celebrating motherhood and the gender of your child, the village idiots won’t be pleased. And don’t think for a second that they’re not watching.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

‘Free’ Abortion and Too Many Kids31 — Oregon creates an abortion free-for-all, while climate alarmists want fewer kids. The logical conclusion of leftist ideology.
Hype and Hyperbole About Trump’s Budget32 — The plan probably won’t live up to the president’s billing, but neither is it the pathetic effort the Leftmedia claim.
Dems Exploit Another Obstruction Tactic to Stall Judges33 — The masquerade is intended to protect Barack Obama’s leftist courts. And anything to obstruct Donald Trump.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Erick Erickson: Were Democrats Working With the Russians?34
David Limbaugh: Retaining Our Principles Includes Keeping Our Eyes on the Big Ball35
David S. Hogsette: Reflections From the Demilitarized Zone36

For more, visit Right Opinion37.

OPINION IN BRIEF

David Limbaugh: “Apart from whether it was wrong or inappropriate for Trump Jr. to take the meeting, there is still no evidence of actual collusion or, I would argue, even so-called attempted collusion. We can’t possibly know what he would have done with that information had it been forthcoming, because we don’t know — and he doesn’t know — what that information was supposed to be, much less what it was. To collude, you have to collude to do something. By attending the meeting to hear the lawyer out, what was Trump colluding to do other than hear her out? … My purpose here is not to litigate Trump Jr.‘s meeting. It is to underscore that Democrats have not been in good faith in their witch hunt against Trump, and that their actions are having devastating consequences on the nation. … No, diversion and rationalization are not my aims. I’m concerned about moving the nation back in the right direction, and that necessitates understanding the goals and tactics of the Democrats, who are pulling out all the stops to prevent such remedial action.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.” —Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

The BIG Lie: “The climate movement, not least in cities, is right now in the tradition of all the great moral causes that have improved the circumstances of humanity throughout our history. The abolition of slavery. Women’s suffrage and women’s rights. The civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. … All of these movements have one thing in common. They all have met with ferocious resistance and have generated occasional feelings of despair from those who knew the right direction and wondered whether we could ever get there.” —Al Gore

Braying Jenny: “Republicans should be ashamed. Instead of protecting the men and women who risk their lives to defend our freedoms, they are fighting to rip away the health care of thousands of brave service members. This cowardly Republican amendment targeting transgender men and women in uniform effectively bans these patriotic Americans from serving their country.” —Nancy Pelosi on Republican opposition to taxpayer funded for sex change operations for soldiers

Has Hillary filed for divorce yet? “Yeah, you have to win the election, but why in the heck are you running? … If you want to be president, realize it is about the people, not about you.” —Bill Clinton

And last… “It could just be a coincidence that the Obama administration let Natalia Veselnitskaya enter the United States to meet with Donald Trump, Jr. It could also be a coincidence that her client, Prevezon, hired Fusion GPS to help Russia at the same time Fusion GPS was compiling a dossier on Donald Trump claiming Trump was working with the Russians. And it could be a coincidence that the FBI considered hiring the man who helped Fusion GPS compile that dossier. It could all be a coincidence, or it could start to paint a new picture. The Russians could have been masterfully playing both sides so that whoever won, Russia came out on top. Mrs. Clinton, after all, claims she reset the relationship with Russia.” —Erick Erickson

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.