The Patriot Post Digest 8-28-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-28-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Aug. 28, 2017 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/50963

IN TODAY’S EDITION

The Leftmedia’s use of Harvey to undermine Trump, a la Bush and Katrina.
Trump pardons an immigration ally in Arpaio.
The NFL and ESPN have a major problem, and it’s costing them viewers.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Harvey: History Repeats?1

George W. Bush Donald Trump completely botched the federal response to Hurricane Katrina Harvey, undermining confidence in the executive and permanently tarnishing his presidency. That’s the Leftmedia narrative2 already, and the hope for these leftist propagandists is clearly to hang Harvey around Trump’s neck the way they successfully did with Katrina and Bush in 2005. The fake news media falsely blamed Bush for failing in the response then, and subsequently continually referenced back to it the rest of his presidency so as to undermine him. Democrats swept the next two elections, taking control of Congress and the White House. If history can just repeat itself, Democrats hope…

Keep that in mind in the coming days as you see repeated human interest tales of individuals stranded amidst the rising flood waters, such as the elderly folks in a nursing home3, or people without food or possessions, and so on. The media’s even running ACLU propaganda4 about border checkpoints as real news. The plight of citizens in Texas and Louisiana, where the storm is now hovering, is real and help will come, but the media will politicize the stories to blame Trump.

What was it Rahm Emanuel once said about “never letting a serious crisis go to waste”?

Funny, though, that all Barack Obama had to do was show up in New Jersey and hug Gov. Chris Christie after Superstorm Sandy, and he was a competent hero.

And if it’s not Trump, it’s the usual culprit — global warming climate change. Various Leftmedia outlets breathlessly relayed how much worse storms are because of climate change, though there are two key things to bear in mind. First, category 3, 4 and 5 storms have hit the U.S. for decades, and second, it’s been more than a decade since the last one. Not every natural disaster is a result of burning fossil fuels. There have been stronger storms than Harvey; it’s not like this particular storm’s strength is anything unprecedented. What is rare is how slow it is. Landfall occurred Friday night and it could impact the same areas for several more days, but that’s because of a lack of atmospheric steering winds.

As Mark Alexander put things in perspective5 after Katrina in 2005, “Amid all of this rancorous debate about who’s to blame and who will foot the bill, the plight of those on the Gulf Coast who actually lost family members, homes and businesses somehow gets lost. Those at ground level are not worrying about political agendas. They’re busy trying to provide for their families. Or perhaps they’re searching through the rubble, trying to find fragments of family heirlooms and photographs. It is for them that we continue to pray every day.”

Justice for Sheriff Arpaio6

President Donald Trump on Friday pardoned former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the long-serving Arizona lawman famous for his tough stance against illegal immigration. Trump tweeted, “I am pleased to inform you that I have just granted a full Pardon to 85 year old American patriot Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He kept Arizona safe!” Arpaio had been recently found guilty of contempt of court charges for disregarding a judge’s orders. Several Republicans criticized Trump’s decision, including both of Arizona’s senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, who no doubt are making their own political calculations.

But Republicans criticized Trump’s pardon over concerns that it seems to contradict Trump’s law-and-order platform. House Speaker Paul Ryan’s spokesman, Doug Andres, said, “The speaker does not agree with the decision. Law-enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States. We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon.”

Arpaio may have crossed the line disregarding the court order, and his tactics of enforcement were at least arguable. But there is little doubt that the prosecution of Arpaio was a political witch hunt. The Left had been seeking to take him down for years, with the American Civil Liberties Union suing Arpaio in 2008 for racial profiling. After years of litigation, Arpaio’s department was exonerated, yet the Left was successful in sticking a contempt of court ruling against him. In any case, he lost his last re-election bid.

Trump saw the prosecution of Arpaio for what it was — an attempt to take down a prolific conservative lawman. There is little to support the notion that Arpaio was corrupt. He was simply a hard-nosed sheriff who worked to deal with one of the biggest problems of lawlessness in his county, illegal immigration. Trump simply sought to make things right, something George W. Bush failed to do after the Left took down Scooter Libby during the whole Valerie Plame affair.

Top Headlines7

Yes, Russian collusion — with U.S. Energy Development opponents. (Daily Signal8.)

Black-clad antifa attack peaceful alt-right demonstrators in Berkeley. (The Washington Post9)

Police investigate whether NBC affiliate was involved in monument vandalism. (KFYI10)

California threatens jail time for dissenters from the new transgender dogma. (National Review11)

Ninth Circuit blocks praying coach’s push to get high school job back. (The Daily Signal12)

George Soros floods local DA races with $1.7M in Philadelphia. (The Washington Free Beacon13)

Navy relieves admiral in charge of 7th Fleet in wake of deadly disasters at sea. (Paywall — The Wall Street Journal14)

Trump issues guidance on transgender military ban. (Fox News15)

Wasserman Schultz’s “Islamophobia” claim prompts angered Marine to go public on Awans. (News World TV/YouTube16)

Drowning in debt: The People’s Republic of Connecticut. (Reuters17)

Policy: How the smartphone affected an entire generation of kids. (Institute for Family Studies18.)

Policy: The change that must happen in higher ed. (The Daily Signal19)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report20.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Unsportsmanlike Conduct21

By Arnold Ahlert

The American Left’s determination to make everything about politics is proceeding apace.

The latest insanity emanates from the world of sports — or what used to be the world of sports until progressives decided everything can serve as a bully pulpit for lectures or demonstrations from the nation’s social justice warriors in the broadcast booth or on the field.

Thus, interim NCAA President Derrick Johnson wants22 to meet with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss unemployed quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Johnson asserts Kaepernick’s protest “is well within the National Football League’s stated bylaws” and that his failure to be taken by any team “is no sheer coincidence.”

Johnson misses the point — twice.

First, free speech is not “consequence free” speech. Whether leftists like it or not, people can be held accountable for the things they say and do.

And who’s kidding whom? When it aligns with their ideological sensibilities, leftists do like holding people accountable. People like former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, who was forced23 to resign six years after he contributed $1,000 to support the since-overturned 2008 same-sex marriage ban in California. Or former Harvard president Larry Summers, who lost his job for daring to suggest there might be minor differences24 in aptitude between men and women working in the STEM fields. Or Google engineer James Damore, who was driven25 from his job for decrying the company’s “politically correct monoculture.”

Second, no one is obligated to offer any quarterback a position on an NFL roster, much less one whose talent has declined to the point where he lost his starting position. That decline, plus his potentially fan-alienating assertion26 that he is “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” or one where cops are “getting paid leave and getting away with murder,” may not matter to the self-appointed doyens of politically correct racial politics, but for football teams, football — both as a sport and a business — is their primary focus.

Or as Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy puts it27, Kaepernick’s “situation is not good enough to have him on the team with all the attention that comes along with it.”

Such obvious realities also elude NAACP New York State President Hazel Dukes. She declares28 the NFL is putting league interests ahead of social issues. (Imagine that!) “Right now,” she insists, “the action of the league seems to imply to young black men that this league, which is comprised of 70 percent African Americans, only values Black lives if they are wearing a football uniform.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-28-2017
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Dukes, like so many leftists, loves to embrace logical fallacies. If Kaepernick isn’t hired, or the same kind of private business (according29 to the Supreme Court) as Mozilla, Harvard or Google decides to hold any other player accountable for his actions, those responses are inherently racist. And as Dukes herself implies, embracing the “value” of black lives means embracing #BLM and the requisite anti-police, white “privilege” dogma.

If the NFL were to #Resist? “There will be no football in the state of Georgia if Colin Kaepernick is not on a training camp roster and given an opportunity to pursue his career,” declared26 Gerald Griggs of the Atlanta NAACP at a news conference. “This is not a simple request. This is a statement. This is a demand.”

Granted, the NFL deserves zero sympathy. It could have nipped this nonsense in the bud, but chose instead to embrace the intrusion of progressive politics into football. And while Goodall denied30 it had anything whatsoever to do with the league’s plummeting31 ratings last year, a J.D. Powers survey revealed32 anthem protests were the number one reason for the decline. And it’s likely to get worse, because the number33 of players involved in these demonstrations is increasing.

The higher the visibility, the greater the fan alienation.

Leftists are also determined to maintain the narrative of Kaepernick’s folk hero status to the point of absurdity. “Free agent NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick will be featured in a Black Lives Matter collection at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, museum curators announced this weekend,” The Daily Signal reports34.

What else does it report? “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the nation’s longest-serving black justice, remains absent from the museum.” Thus, an America-contemptuous, second-string quarterback is an historical icon while a conservative Supreme Court Justice is an Orwellian-like non-entity.

A museum dedicated to African-American History and Culture? A temple of progressive propaganda is more like it.

Speaking of progressive propaganda temples — and more PC-motivated insanity — ESPN yanked35 Asian-American announcer Robert Lee off the William and Mary at University of Virginia college football game “because of the coincidence of his name,” the network announced in a statement. “In that moment it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play by play for a football game has become an issue.”

An issue for whom? The cadre of hypersensitive left-wing zealots engaged in the ISIS-like destruction of historical artifacts that “offend” them? People so IQ-challenged they would conflate an Asian-American college football announcer with a Confederate general who died in 1870?

ESPN President John Skipper was apparently feeling the self-inflicted heat, yet his attempt to clarify what occurred was even more ludicrous. Lee was not removed because network execs were worried about offending people. “Among our Charlotte production staff there was a question as to whether — in these divisive times — Robert’s assignment might create a distraction, or even worse, expose him to social hectoring and trolling,” stated36 Skipper in an internal memo. Skipper further insisted Lee expressed “some personal trepidation about the [Charlottesville] assignment” and that the “good intentions of our Charlotte colleagues have been intentionally hijacked by someone with a personal agenda.”

Since Skipper took over in 2012, ESPN’s agenda has been hijacked to the point where it has been force-feeding its audience a steady diet37 of social justice issues so politically correct, it even apologized38 for running a live fantasy football draft likened to a slave auction by leftists trolls.

And like the NFL, it is paying the price: Since 2013, the sports network has lost39 10 million subscribers.

Progressive writer Freddie deBoer illuminates40 the primary problem. “Go to any space concerned with social justice and what will you find? Endless surveillance,” he writes. “Everybody is to be judged.”

And therein lies progressivism’s Achilles Heel: all-encompassing and increasingly judgmental demands for “purity” that become impossible for even the most dedicated social justice warriors to meet.

Remarkably, neither the NFL nor ESPN seem to understand that most fans turn to sports to escape politics. Millions of people who tune in to watch football or sports reporting will tune out when confronted with virtue-signaling one-percenters demonstrating their “solidarity” with progressive America-bashers.

In short, Americans are getting disgusted with the unsportsmanlike conduct infesting the world of sports.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

The Election Results Are In … Now Govern41 — August recess or not, it’s time for the Republican majority in Washington to enact a real agenda.
Dreams of My Election42 — A rebuttal of Clinton’s bizarre assertions about Trump, groping, and the second presidential debate.
The Hater Chronicles, Domestic and Foreign43 — “Antifa is a radical, anti-America, anti-free market, communist, socialist, hard-left sensorial organization.” —Alan Dershowitz
Mr. Cuomo, Tear Down New York!44 — Andrew Cuomo says statues of “Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson will be removed.” Memo to Andy: Pick up a history book.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Peggy Noonan: Trump’s Tangle of Rhetorical Inadequacy45
Gary Bauer: More Left-Wing Insanity46
Todd Starnes: First-Grader Sent to Office for ‘Misgendering’ Fellow Student47

For more, visit Right Opinion48.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Peggy Noonan: “Slavery was not only a Southern sin, it was an American one. The Tear It Down movement is driven by the Left and is acceded to by some on the Right. This is the sophisticated stance. I do not share it. We should not tear down but build. When a nation tears down its statues, it’s toppling more than brass and marble. It is in a way toppling itself — tearing down all the things, good, bad and inadequate, that made it. Or, rather, everyone. Not all of what made America is good — does anyone even think this? — but why try to hide from that? When you tear down statues, you tear down avenues of communication between generations. Statues teach. … And once the tearing down starts, there’s no knowing where it will end. On this the president is right. Once the local statues are purged the Tear-Downers will look to Statuary Hall, and the names of military bases, and then on to the Founders, to the slave-holding Washington and Jefferson. Then, perhaps, to their words and ideas. In what way will that help us? Edmund Burke famously said we have a duty to the past, the present and the future. In the minds of the Tear-Downers only the present is important, and only their higher morality.”

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “The work of volunteer groups throughout our country represents the very heart and soul of America. They have helped make this the most compassionate, generous, and humane society that ever existed on the face of this earth.” (Hang in there, Texas!)

Dezinformatsiya: “How about the risk of deportation for those undocumented immigrants that could be in the way of the storm’s path, are they in the clear to go to some of these evacuation centers? Do they have to show ID?” —MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

Braying Jenny: “The Constitution does not say that a person can yell wolf in a crowded theater. If you are endangering people, then you don’t have a constitutional right to do that.” —Nancy Pelosi

Demo-gogues: “Make no mistake: the President said he will purposefully hurt American communities to force American taxpayers to fund an immoral, ineffective and expensive border wall. … Democrats will stand fast against the immoral, ineffective border wall and the rest of Republicans’ unacceptable poison pill riders.” —Nancy Pelosi (Would that be the border wall that Bill and Hillary Clinton supported49?)

The BIG Lie: “A reminder for the next few days: Hurricane Harvey is not a natural disaster.” —In These Times magazine’s Kate Aronoff, who further contends, “Fewer people would have their lives ripped apart by storms like Harvey if austerity hadn’t hollowed out the public sphere so thoroughly”

Alpha Jackass: “Hmm. Don’t see much denial of NOAA climate scientists who have predicted Hurricane Harvey’s devastating path into Texas.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson

And last… “Science predicted an eclipse. Technology revealed an approaching storm. But climate science didn’t predict 12 years without a major hurricane.” —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.