The Patriot Post Digest 1-24-2018

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 1-24-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Jan. 24, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/53673-mid-day-digest

IN TODAY’S EDITION

While Mueller may want Trump for obstruction, Obama and Clinton are guilty.
Oh, now the NFL doesn’t want to get political and refuses vets’ pro-anthem ad.
Democrats look increasingly foolish as prosperity abounds after tax reform.
NAFTA negotiations are ongoing and worth keeping an eye on.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788.)

IN BRIEF

The Real Obstruction Conspiracy1

Attorney General Jeff Sessions was interviewed last week for several hours by Robert Mueller’s special council investigation into the Donald Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy. And now Mueller is reportedly seeking an interview with President Trump, which several of the president’s advisers legitimately fear is a perjury trap. Perhaps Mueller wants to catch Trump in a lie in order to charge him with obstruction. It’s a roundabout way to get Trump, since the Russian collusion conspiracy has thus far proven to be nothing more than tantalizing fiction. Trump has yet to agree to the interview, but his lawyers have been seeking to work out ground rules for any potential meeting.

The Mueller team reportedly is looking into Trump’s firing of both former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former FBI Director James Comey in order to ascertain if there is a “pattern” of obstructionist behavior. However, if Mueller is intent on investigating obstruction, he’s barking up the wrong tree. What was the actual crime for which Trump is being investigated? So far there’s nothing beyond innuendoes, much of which were based on the dubious opposition research “dossier” created by Fusion GPS and funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign2.

It was Hillary who actually did break the law and who was “investigated” by the FBI. We hedge that word because all indications are the FBI had been indirectly, if not directly, instructed to let her off the hook. This is where the real investigation into obstruction should be focused. Clinton’s illegal email setup was known by Barack Obama, who corresponded with her at her private address using a pseudonym himself. If she had been charged, it would have pulled him into the investigation, implicating him for likewise being “grossly negligent” in handling classified material. He had to prevent that from occurring, ergo the public declarations that he was confident Clinton would be cleared. Meanwhile, his Attorney General Loretta Lynch was behind the scenes making sure the FBI’s findings agreed with Obama’s public statements. As we have learned, months before Hillary sat for the FBI interview, she knew she was in the clear. She had no fears of incriminating herself because she knew the fix was in — and that Obama was the fixer3.

Trump is facing a deck that is stacked against him. If he pleads his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination and refuses the Mueller interview, the Leftmedia will scream that it’s evidence of his obstruction. If he takes the interview, unlike Hillary, he risks being caught in a lie, no matter how insignificant, hence the perjury and obstruction trap.

With the recent revelations of a “secret society4” within Obama’s Justice Department and the FBI, coupled with the all-too-convenient loss of months of text messages between key FBI officials and the aforementioned investigation fixing, this deep state corruption is starting to look more and more like Watergate on steroids.

NFL Rejects Veterans’ #PleaseStand Ad5

By Thomas Gallatin

The National Football League rejected an advertisement for Super Bowl LII from the nonprofit American Veterans (AMVETS) that featured the phrase “#PleaseStand.” NFL Vice President of Communications Brian McCarthy explained, “The Super Bowl program is designed for fans to commemorate and celebrate the game, players, teams and the Super Bowl. It has never been a place for advertising that could be considered by some as a political statement.” Huh, so allowing NFL players to kneel during the national anthem6 isn’t a “political statement?”

Joe Chenelly, the national director of AMVETS, said that he was “surprised and disappointed” by the NFL’s decision. “The NFL said it does not want to take a position on that. Really, by not letting us run an ad, we think they are taking a position,” he correctly observed. AMVETS National Commander Marion Polk noted7, “Freedom of speech works both ways. We respect the rights of those who choose to protest, as these rights are precisely what our members have fought — and in many cases died — for. But imposing corporate censorship to deny that same right to those veterans who have secured it for us all is reprehensible.”

This is the same NFL that has allowed two years of disgraceful kneeling, did nothing to correct players’ false “hands up, don’t shoot8” displays, and refused to let the Dallas Cowboys wear helmet stickers9 paying tribute to the five Dallas police officers who were ambushed and murdered in 2016 — a month before the kneeling protests began10.

Once again the NFL has fumbled the PR ball, all over fears of offending the Left. Never mind the fact that the league’s viewership ratings dropped 10% this season alone. If this attitude from NFL leadership continues, the league can expect to continue to see ratings get sacked for a loss. Nobody likes a double standard.

Top Headlines11

Search for “obstruction” heats up: Mueller seeks to question Trump about Flynn and Comey departures (The Washington Post12)

Sen. Ron Johnson: FBI informant says “secret society” held secret meetings off-site (PJ Media13)

Trump to Schumer: “If there is no wall, there is no DACA” (Fox News14)

Pelosi Armageddon update: Disney offers $1,000 bonuses to 125,000 employees (The Daily Wire15)

Lobby much? Realtors spent $22 million to defeat Republican tax reform in 2017 (Washington Examiner16)

“Fair share” update: Top half of taxpayers paid more than 97% of individual income taxes collected in 2015 (The Washington Free Beacon17)

Senate confirms Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chairman in 85-12 vote (The Washington Times18.)

An inconvenient truth: Hollywood snubs Al Gore as he misses out on Oscar nod (The Washington Times19)

The EPA has managed to bankrupt one of the biggest refineries in the northeast (Hot Air20)

Conan O'Brien flies to Haiti, invites Haitians to insult Trump (AV Club21)

Policy: Trump’s wall is standard practice in other parts of the world (Washington Examiner22)

Policy: Culture vs. economics: What causes poverty? (American Enterprise Institute23)

For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report24.

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Dems Look Foolish as Tax Reform Brings Prosperity25

By Louis DeBroux

If the recent GOP tax cuts are truly “Armageddon26,” as Nancy Pelosi and her socialist Democrat cohorts claim, then America’s response increasingly looks like an R.E.M. song title: “It’s The End of the World As We Know It, and I Feel Fine.”

Chicken Little Democrats claimed tax cuts — specifically cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% — would be a disaster for the American worker, but reality begs to differ. Following the passage of the GOP tax cuts, more than 200 American corporations27 have given or announced wage increases and bonuses of between $1,000 and $2,500 for their workers.

Walmart — the epitome of capitalistic evil to American progressives — announced it is investing a portion of its tax savings into a wage increase for employees, raising its corporate minimum wage to $11/hour, more than 52% higher than the federal minimum wage. Dozens of other corporations have announced they are expanding and creating new jobs due to the tax cuts.

Maybe nowhere are the effects of the tax cuts more noteworthy than with Apple, the proudly “liberal,” Donald Trump-hating corporation adored for its “wokeness” by idealistic progressives nationwide. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, announced that, due to the lower corporate tax rate, Apple is repatriating $250 BILLION dollars28 into the U.S. economy, in the process paying a $38 billion tax bill. Additionally, Apple is handing out $2,500 in stock grants to employees, and is investing an additional $350 billion in the U.S., creating 20,000 new jobs.

This economic windfall for American workers is what Pelosi calls “pathetic,” “insignificant” and “crumbs.”

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 1-24-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

To be fair, the tax bill is a disaster for progressive Democrats, who rely on suffering and envy to stay in power. Democrats need people to be dependent on government, and the tax bill is an incredible catalyst for economic prosperity, making Americans masters of their own fate, which is horrible for Democrats.

Multiple articles this week, including one from The New York Times, dismiss any correlation29 between the tax cuts and the bonuses and raises. Of course, one might ask why these bonuses and raises never materialized during the Barack Obama years, and only came to pass after a year of Trump’s pro-growth, pro-business, regulation-slashing agenda.

NYT writer Jim Tankersleyjan grouses that the majority of the corporate tax savings are being invested in capital upgrades, or higher dividend payments to shareholders, rather than directly going to rank-and-file workers. Apparently, Tankersleyjan doesn’t understand that higher dividend payments increase stock values. You know who holds huge quantities of stock, and will benefit from higher stock prices? Tens of millions of American workers with 401(k) retirement accounts.

He also seems ignorant of the fact that capital investments drive increased productivity, which in turn drives higher wages. Though this process is not instantaneous, the fact that workers ultimately see the majority of the benefits30 from a tax cut is historically proven.

Maybe the greatest irony is that, with his last line, the author proves what every conservative has argued for decades; namely, that it is competition that drives economic gains, not redistribution. Tankersleyjan writes that workers may see wage increases coming soon, but if they do, it is “Not because companies are dying to share their tax spoils with workers. But because they have to, or those workers will take a job with another company that will.”

Yes! Exactly so!

Though envious, high-tax, socialist redistributionists constantly attack the so-called “trickle down” theory of economic growth, no such school of thought exists. That moniker was a pejorative used to attack Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economic policies, which sought to stimulate business growth through lower corporate and capital gains taxes and reduced regulation. Job and wage growth was a beneficial and predictable result.

In other words, the American worker wins either way in a low-tax environment. Even if every corporation is not a Hobby Lobby (operating on Christian principles, paying a minimum $10/hour as a moral imperative), low corporate taxes lead to business growth. Business growth drives job creation. Job creation reduces available labor, which creates competition for that labor, which drives up wages.

So even if a CEO is the most heartless, greedy jerk on Earth, in a pro-growth business climate he is forced to increase wages to compete for labor. And that is a good thing.

For the leftists who dispute this, a question: If you say higher taxes on labor and capital have no negative impact on job and wage growth, then please explain why you support huge taxes on cigarettes and sugary drinks, with the stated goal of reducing their consumption. Corporations have fixed costs, and when you raise those costs they are forced to either raise prices and lose customers, or slash costs and hire fewer workers. High taxes hurt the very people leftists claim to be helping.

History proves this empirically31. Higher tax rates resulted in higher unemployment and lower tax revenues. Lower taxes led to an economic boom, with the end result that the rich paid a lower rate, but higher total taxes and a greater proportion of all taxes.

Keep that in mind the next time progressive Democrat politicians and Leftmedia talkingheads repeatedly make utter fools of themselves32, like they did by claiming the average worker would see no benefits from the GOP’s tax cuts.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

NAFTA Negotiations Bear Watching35 — Trade negotiators from the U.S., Canada and Mexico are meeting in Montreal this week.
Video: Saving Kids From Government Schools36 — Success Academy’s Eva Moskowitz has demonstrated that more choice in education yields incredible outcomes.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Ed Feulner & Virginia Foxx: Taming the Tuition Tiger37
Gary Bauer: ‘Secret Society’38
Star Parker: Trump Acknowledges National School Choice Week39
Jonah Goldberg: Trump’s Wall Should Be a Bargaining Chip on Immigration40
John Stossel: Keep It Closed!41
For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion42.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Ed Feulner & Virginia Foxx: “Easy access to federal student aid has enabled colleges to raise tuition profligately over the past several decades. When combined with generous loan forgiveness policies, which must be paid for by taxpayers, the result has been a three-fold increase in the cost of college since the mid-1980s. Economist Richard Vedder found that, had tuition and fees at colleges and universities grown at a rate similar to the growth prior to 1978 — before there was significant federal subsidization of tuition — college costs at state universities would be closer to just $5,000 today. … The Congressional Budget Office estimates that American taxpayers are set to lose $108 billion over the next decade due to loan forgiveness policies. Loan forgiveness unfairly shifts the burden of paying for college from the student to the taxpayer, more than two-thirds of whom do not hold bachelor’s degrees themselves. At the same time, such practices enable universities to raise tuition, knowing that students will have their loans forgiven in due time. … Although there is more work to be done to really cut college costs, consolidating student loans, eliminating loan forgiveness, and eliminating in-school interest subsidies provides a long-overdue step toward resetting college pricing. Encouraging private lending to re-emerge would also help.”

SHORT CUTS

Straight from the horse’s mouth: “Basically National Socialism and Marxism are the same.” —Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

For the record: “If [the FISA memo is] as bad as Republicans say, what the Intelligence Committee findings mean is that the FBI used unsubstantiated politically motivated opposition research paid for by one campaign as a pretext to spy on members of another campaign.” —Investor’s Business Daily

Braying Jenny: “45 years after Roe v. Wade, access to safe abortion services has changed the economic futures of millions of women.” —Elizabeth Warren (“Yep. 60M American men & women went from having an economic future to dead.” —Liz Wheeler)

Come again? “In a warming world where climate change knows no borders, climate justice is immigrant justice. We stand with DREAMers.” —350.org

Braying Jackass: “[The Founders] wrote a Constitution that would have checks and balances on a tyrannical president. They never, ever let their imaginations be darkened by the possibility of a compliant Congress in the face of a tyrannical president. But that appears to be exactly what we have in 2018.” —Joe Scarborough

Braying Jenny, part I: “There has never been a more single-minded politician than Paul Ryan. He cares only about eviscerating the social safety net, repealing the 20th century, all of the New Deal, the Great Society. He wants that gone. … He is pathetic.” —Joy Reid

Braying Jenny, part II: “[Republicans are] the North Korean army marching behind the Dear Leader.” —Joy Reid

Alpha Jackass: “Jane [Fonda] should have just said to [Megyn Kelly], ‘And how much [plastic surgery] have you had, b—h?’” —Joy Behar

And last… “Two-Part Plan to Reform Politics 1. Pass law that people in Congress are only allowed to talk when they have the talking stick. 2. Destroy talking stick.” —Frank Fleming

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. We also humbly ask prayer for your Patriot team, that our mission would seed and encourage the spirit of Liberty in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis

Nate Jackson, Managing Editor
Mark Alexander, Publisher