The Patriot Post Digest 10-9-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 10-9-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Oct. 9, 2017 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/51751

IN TODAY’S EDITION

News from the heartland….. Bowe Bergdahl, the traitor for whom Barack Obama traded five dangerous Taliban fighters, is set to plead guilty to desertion. So much for serving “with honor and distinction.” Meanwhile, Donald Trump released his DACA-deal immigration plan, complete with serious enforcement measures. Finally, it’s Columbus Day — at least in most of America. But too many leftist revisionists want to rewrite history. Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” —Joseph Story (1833)

IN BRIEF

Traitor Bergdahl to Plead Guilty1

In June 2014, Mark Alexander wrote2, “On 31 May, Barack Hussein Obama3 announced that he had exchanged five of the most dangerous Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay for the return of an America-hating Army deserter, ‘Sergeant’ Bowe Bergdahl, who has been held (or, as many military forward operators say, ‘hosted’) by the Taliban-Haqqani network for five years. This trade is yet another Obama political charade, this one to divert attention from his VA ‘death panel’ scandal4 and his highly politicized Memorial Day and West Point commencement remarks5, which were panned from Left to Right.”

Team Obama then went on to insist that Bergdahl had served “with honor and distinction,” even going so far as to hold a celebration in the White House Rose Garden.

Now, three years after Obama’s despicable “deal,” it is anticipated that Bergdahl will plead guilty6 to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. His trial was to begin later this month, but the guilty plea will spare him and the U.S. Army the drama. A military judge will now decide his fate — likely a life sentence.

Recall that at least three and perhaps six soldiers were killed in ambushes while searching for Bergdahl after the Army diverted resources and missions to find him. The number of military deaths has been disputed by those endeavoring to cover for Obama7. Indisputably, Obama’s actions denigrate the loss of these Patriots and is a permanent insult to their families and honorable memory.

And a footnote: It’s shocking that Obama commuted8 the sentence for Bradley Manning but did nothing more for Bergdahl after getting him back. We suppose he got bigger bang for his symbolic buck with Manning because the latter was both a traitor and transgender. If only Bergdahl had announced he wanted to be a woman…

The Renewed Call for Immigration Enforcement9

President Donald Trump sent his 70-point immigration enforcement proposal to Congress Sunday evening. If there were any fears that Trump was caving in to Democrat demands on a DACA deal — and there were10 — this immigration plan will quickly dispel them. Trump’s enforcement plan is arguably the toughest ever offered by any administration. The fundamental theme running throughout the plan is a renewed focus on the primary problem — closing illegal immigration loopholes.

The plan calls for Congress to comprehensively rewrite immigration laws in order to stiffen security enforcement on both the border and interior (remember, as much as 40% of illegals are visa overstays11). The plan also calls for changes to laws to cut the so-called migration chain, as well as funding for building the border wall and the hiring of more deportation agents. In brief, Trump’s proposal is a three-part plan that highlights border security, interior enforcement and merit-based immigration.

A senior White House official stated, “Anything that is done addressing the status of DACA recipients needs to include these three reforms and solve these three problems. If you don’t solve these problems, then you’re not going to have a secure border, you’re not going to have a lawful immigration system and you’re not going to be able to protect American workers.”

The Trump administration said that it designed the plan from the ground up after seeking input from the Justice, State and Labor Departments and agents on the ground. They were asked what tools they needed in order to finally get a handle on the problem. The details of this immigration plan are a direct result of that input.

Trump is rightly focusing on fixing issues of enforcement (or the lack thereof) that have allowed the problem of illegal immigration in the first place before addressing the secondary issue of how to handle the DACA problem12.

Top Headlines13

EPA to formally repeal so-called Clean Power Plan killing coal power plants (The Washington Times14)

Trashing Trump: ABC, CBS, NBC coverage of president 92% negative (PoliZette15)

DNC wins favorable headlines following announcement it’ll basically funnel Weinstein cash back to itself (Washington Examiner16)

The “Resistance” is raising big bucks and reshaping the Left (The New York Times17)

Shock diagnosis: Leftist declares Trump mentally ill! (Baltimore Sun18.)

VP Pence walks out of NFL game over players’ kneeling protest (NBC News19)

Iran’s IRGC: If Trump imposes sanctions, U.S. military bases should move outside our missile range (CNS News20)

Health insurers in Florida request premium rate hikes as high as 71% (The Washington Free Beacon21)

Christians booted from Seattle coffee shop: “I’m gay. You have to leave.” (The Washington Times22)

Humor: Nobel Peace Prize awarded to woman with “Coexist” bumper sticker (The Babylon Bee23)

Policy: Yes, tax cuts will mainly benefit those who … pay the most taxes (New York Post24)

Policy: The truth about Christopher Columbus (The Daily Signal25)

For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report26.

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Why Columbus Day Is Worth Celebrating27

By Robin Smith

If written today, the childhood poem about Columbus Day would look nothing like the original. You likely remember, “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He had three ships and left from Spain; He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain…” According to the historical revisionists of today, Columbus was neither brave nor bright, but was rather an imperialist and racist bigot.

For antifa malcontents28 who use violence to “speak,” their holiday today is “Deface Columbus Day.” The aim is to mark the day of the Italian explorer’s discovery of America by destroying and vandalizing statues and memorials of Christopher Columbus. So antifa thugs get to veil their faces with masks while they break out their soda cans filed with concrete, their bike chains and blow torches and mark a historical day by exhibiting their arrested development.

Meanwhile, if you live in any number of “enlightened” progressive cities, today is “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” According to Chrissie Castro of the LA Native American Indian Commission, “We need to dismantle a state-sponsored celebration of genocide of indigenous peoples. To make us celebrate on any other day would be further injustice.”

So by all means, let’s celebrate the natives who practiced29 slavery, cannibalism and human sacrifice, as well as perpetrated horrific genocide of their own. That’s so much better.

Moreover, it’s especially rich to have the open borders folks screeching from their sanctuary cities that indigenous people have rights that should be respected by immigrants.

Leftists are truly determined to destroy America’s remarkable discovery and founding. They use many tools to sully and rewrite history, one of which is called “presentism.”

What’s presentism? It’s the approach to events of the past that views them through the lens of modern morality, behavior and ethics. This method takes events of history, such as the many expeditions of Columbus, and deconstructs them into vile categories of invasion and barbarism as measured by biased and politically correct intellectuals devoted to self-loathing instead of guarding world and American history — the good, the bad and the ugly — for the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. Put simply, the morally superior elites of today judge all events — Columbus’ discoveries, the horrors of slavery, various wars, etc. — as if they happened within the last few days.

Let’s analyze a few facts about Columbus Day to truly appreciate the holiday in perspective.

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The Patriot Post Digest 10-9-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Cristoforo Colombo was born in the Republic of Genoa in 1451, an independent state on today’s boot-shaped nation of Italy. At 35 years of age, the navigator went to Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, after being rejected by the governments of Portugal, Genoa and Venice, only to be rejected a fourth time for sponsorship to find a new trade route to India. The goal was to sail due west rather than fight through the pirate-filled waters of the existing trade routes.

Nonetheless, Columbus prevailed on his fifth request and was financed with three ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina, departing Spain in August 1492 at the age of 41. By the way, one of the main reasons Ferdinand and Isabella, called the Catholic Monarchs, denied the explorer’s original request was the Spanish priority of war with the Muslims who were finally defeated in the Granada War in January 1492, ending any Islamic rule on the Iberian peninsula.

Whew, another reason to scratch this discover-America-stuff off the calendar. We can’t learn about Christians and Muslims at war in the 15th century…

Back on board the expeditionary ships, 36 days passed. Columbus and some of his crew stepped foot onto today’s Bahamas, declaring it the property of Spain. But remember, this crew believed they had landed in Asia, just from a different navigational approach. After the Bahamas, Columbus visited Cuba, thinking it to be China. Then, settling on Hispaniola, now known to be the shared island of Dominican Republic and Haiti, the explorers assumed they were in Japan.

Based on their projections erroneously cast upon different lands, Columbus returned to Spain aboard the Nina and the Pinta. The Santa Maria was wrecked off the coast of Hispaniola, and Columbus left 39 men to occupy the settlement.

The royal court of Spain received the explorer bringing glass beads, parrots, spears and other native items with tales that included gold-adorned jewelry worn by the islanders.

So, to commemorate the landing of Columbus in the Americas on Oct. 12, 1492, most Americans today appreciate the vision to pursue a dream and persist. Most honor the pursuit that led to the westernization of the New World, which includes our great nation.

Yet the presentists, who reduce all of history down to a vain attempt at moral superiority in the present, obsess on the forced labor of developing the New World, the diseases of one people group that spread among another people group, or the eventual destruction of one (barbaric and violent) culture by a new one.

Again, the ironies are endless, but even New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, of Italian descent like so much of the population of New York, has developed a commission to study whether Columbus was a racist slave-driver in his explorations. As a result, the Big Apple’s leader was left off the invitation list for the Bronx Columbus Day Parade. Event organizer Tony Signorile went so far as to label the hard-left mayor as “a fake Italian.”

De Blasio’s response was predictable: “I’m never surprised when people for their own political motivations do something. … I don’t think it’s something to politicize.” We might say, “Pot, meet Kettle,” but then we’d be racists or something.

Those whose only commitment to education is indoctrination of their revisionist tales are now subjecting all of history to a determination of its worth based on the Left’s current views and values.

A past president of the American History Association, Lynn Hunt of UCLA, wrote back in 2002, before Confederate statues30 were being “burqaed” and destroyed: “Presentism, at its worst, encourages a kind of moral complacency and self-congratulation. Interpreting the past in terms of present concerns usually leads us to find ourselves morally superior.”

History occurred. How we learn and apply that history reveals much about our moral capacity and worth. Revisionist leftists — and the children they indoctrinate — are poorer for missing it.

For more of today’s memes, visit the Memesters Union31.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

No One Glorifies Guns More Than Hollywood32 — Jimmy Kimmel’s assertion about “dirty business as usual” is quite apropos when it’s applied to his industry.
Dirty Old Harvey33 — Called out for decades of alleged sexual harassment, Harvey Weinstein pivots and attacks the NRA and Trump.
West Point Knew About Communist Cadet34 — When did the Army know? Several months before graduation.
Another ObamaCare Mandate Bites the Dust35 — Trump offers “religious or moral objection” to a wide range of organizations for the contraception mandate.
‘Woke’ Jeans?36 — “Saturday Night Live” nails it with this over-the-top parody of the social justice warriors’ desire to eliminate gender roles.

For more of today’s top cartoons, visit the Cartoons archive37.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Robert Steven Ingebo: Ending the Corruption in Washington38
Paul Kengor: New York Times: Communism ‘Made Life Better’ for Chinese Women39
Joe D'Aleo: What Made This Hurricane Season So Active in the Atlantic?40

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion41.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Gary Bauer42: “The Trump administration … fulfilled a key promise to values voters. It formally rolled back Obamacare’s contraception mandate by expanding the existing exemption granted to churches to other faith-based institutions, businesses and non-profit organizations. Just to clarify any fake news you may hear, Donald Trump did not ban birth control. The new rules simply state that any organization claiming a religious or moral objection cannot be compelled by the government to provide free birth control. Obamacare’s contraception mandate took a big hit in 2014 when Hobby Lobby and other closely held private companies won a major case before the Supreme Court. But a year later, the Obama administration still refused to accommodate the Little Sisters of the Poor. It was so committed to its radical pro-abortion agenda that it threatened to bankrupt Catholic nuns!”

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “The government is not the solution. The government is the problem.”

For the record: “Tell me why we’re celebrating ‘Indigenous People’s Day’ again? And we’re getting rid of Columbus Day to protest — what? The fact that one group of slavery-practicing violent people conquered another group of violent, blood-thirsty slavers? … There is, however, one key difference between the European Conquistadors and the Incas, Aztecs, and Iroquois who conquered the Americas before them: In addition to violence and greed, the Europeans also brought literacy, liberalism, and the scientific method, all of which would transform America into the greatest champion of human freedom the world has never known.” —Michael Graham

Upright: “We will not lift sanctions on the Cuban regime until it delivers full political freedom for the Cuban people. The same failed communist ideology that has brought oppression to Cuba has brought nothing but suffering and misery everywhere and everyplace it has been anywhere in the world. Communism is the past; freedom is the future.” —Donald Trump

Observations: “I have long wondered how those who are always railing for employment quotas in the workplace would react if the NFL and NBA, which are 70-80% black, were forced to begin fielding teams that are more in line with the nation’s population, which is only 13% black.” —Burt Prelutsky

Non Compos Mentis: “You know what the Republicans say in their platform? The right to bear arms precedes the Constitution. It’s a God-given, sort of theological right. They treat this like religion… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a religious, essential notion to them that everybody should have any kind of gun they want.” —MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

The truth slips: “No. He passed background checks registering for handguns and other weapons on multiple occasions.” —Sen. Dianne Feinstein when asked of the Las Vegas shooter, “Could there have been any law passed that would’ve stopped him?”

And last… “Perhaps the president should reissue his executive order and say that all immigrants and refugees coming into the country must undergo more severe background checks just in case they want to purchase a firearm. The Left would really be in a bind then!” —Gary Bauer

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.