The Patriot Post Digest 2-16-2018

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-16-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Feb. 16, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/54205-mid-day-digest

IN TODAY’S EDITION

The gun and culture divide is made evident by two presidents.
Is Australia really a model for gun control? Leftists sure keep shouting it.
If only the murderer had been aborted instead of adopted, says a reprobate lefty.
Four immigration measures die in the Senate because Democrats don’t want a deal.
The Left’s loathsome indifference toward MS-13.
Mitt Romney is running for Senate in Utah, which has national implications.
Given how wasteful NASA has become, is it time to privatize space?
The FBI flip flop on Flynn is very curious.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?” —Benjamin Franklin

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Guns and Culture: Two Presidents Reveal the Divide1

By Nate Jackson

A study in contrasts. After the horrific mass murder in Florida2 Wednesday, the reactions from the two sides were predictable. Leftists opened their assault with the usual calls for gun control and vilely slandered those of us who disagree, while defenders of Liberty took a reasonable approach to rights, freedom and culture. Same as it ever was.

This contrast was highlighted particularly well by the current president and his predecessor.

“Caring for our kids is our first job,” Obama tweeted Thursday. “And until we can honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep them safe from harm, including long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws that most Americans want, then we have to change.” Obama’s clear message is that defenders of Liberty and the Second Amendment don’t “care for our kids,” and in fact that we’re preventing those who care from “doing enough” to keep kids safe. Notice too his subtle use of “gun safety laws” instead of gun control. Safety polls better.

We’d be more inclined to believe leftists want to keep kids safe if 1) their policies actually did so without infringing on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens and 2) they didn’t routinely exploit the blood of innocents3 to advocate those statist policies. Never mind their rabid defense of killing children in utero.

Reminder: Obama and his fellow Democrats had complete control of Washington from 2009-2011, and they did nothing to pass these supposed “common sense” measures.

Striking an entirely different and more appropriate note, President Donald Trump addressed the nation4 yesterday and said, “No child, no teacher, should ever be in danger in an American school. No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them goodbye in the morning. … In these moments of heartache and darkness, we hold on to God’s word in Scripture: ‘I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you.’ … We must also work together to create a culture in our country that embraces the dignity of life, that creates deep and meaningful human connections, and that turns classmates and colleagues into friends and neighbors.”

Leftists have destroyed our cultural embrace of the dignity of life because they prefer to advocate rampant and damaging immorality, which breaks families and aborts children. And they’ve broken “meaningful human connections” because they instead pit identity groups against each other for political gain.

Guns have always been a part of American culture and Liberty. Hate, vice and licentiousness are things the Left has cultivated in the last 50 years. Whether it’s a typical weekend in any inner city across American or a mass murder like the one in Florida, we’re witnessing the horrific results.

The Australian Gun Confiscation Debate5

By Mark Alexander

In the wake of last October’s mass murder by a sociopath in Las Vegas6, comes tragic news of another mass murder on a school campus2 in Florida.

Predictably, Democrats and their MSM propagandists7 re-warmed their latest lies about the murder of children8 to peddle their political agenda. The BIG lie this week, in order to bolster the Left’s calls for “gun control,” is that there have already been “18 school shootings” this year. Even The Washington Post has called foul on that claim, noting it’s “a horrifying statistic. And it is wrong9.”

Indeed, it is wrong10, but the Leftmedia never allows facts to impede their political agendas. There are many media myths about gun control11 being propagated by the Left this week, and by extension, all their lemmings who regurgitate those “facts.”

Most prevalent in social media forums are calls echoing the MSM’s solution: Enact the Australian gun confiscation model12. By way of addressing this claim, allow me to repost here a debate last night with a friend, who is also a deeply entrenched liberal from the UK, now living in the US. Here is an abridged summary of that debate…

Neville:

The time is now to talk about Gun Control! The maiming and death of these children is so pointless, unnecessary and PREVENTABLE. Get rid of the guns. No mass shootings in Australia13 for over 20 years and counting after a government gun ban.

MA:

The tragic murders in Florida were, indeed, senseless — as are the emotive “solutions” that, predictably, follow such tragic events. I share your grief for these victims and their families, but not your prescription to resolve the culture of violence.

As for your solution … as I am sure you are aware, the culture in Australia has not been conducive to violence in decades. Yes, there have been no mass shootings since the gun ban was enacted, but there were few before then. (In fact, at one time the culture in America was not conducive to violence. Not long ago, there were plenty of guns on high school campuses14, and yet no mass shootings.)

In fact, there are few murders in Australia, period. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1996, before enactment of the gun ban, Australia had had 311 murders, 98 by assailants with guns (including the 35 people killed in one mass shooting that prompted the confiscation). In the latest year of record, there were 238 people murdered, 35 by assailants using guns. Murders are down.

Of course, crime in the U.S. has actually dropped more over the last two decades15 than it has in Australia. At the same time, gun ownership in America has increased significantly16, homicides with guns have declined. Apparently more guns, less crime17.

Notably, Australia is not plagued with urban poverty plantations18 created by five decades of failed Democrat social policies19.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-16-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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As for the “gun problem,” if you are NOT a gang-banger or associated with drug trafficking (and I think you are clear on both counts), the probability of your being murdered in the U.S. falls in line with the probability of your being murdered in your beloved native UK homeland — where most types of guns have been banned for years.

Notably, however, Americans are at greater risk of being killed by a drunk driver than an assailant with a gun. I know you favor the finer labels of liquid libation and use it responsibly, but by your logic, the government should confiscate it because there are far more deaths associated with alcohol use than firearms — in fact, in many cases assailants using a firearm are alcohol impaired…

As for your sentiments about guns, I would be pleased to provide you with some “Gun-Free Household20” stickers so you can broadcast the fact that your home is the best neighborhood option for uncontested intrusion!

Oh, and to put tragic deaths into perspective, there were 6x the number of Oxy drug overdoses last year as there were deaths by gun. Have not seen a single post from you about that…

PS: Your Redcoats tried to seize guns in Concord in April of 1775, and look how the British empire contracted in the years that followed!

Neville:

The preventable death of just ONE child is too high a price to pay for a law, and an ideology, that is long past its sell by date in the modern world. When the right to bear arms was enacted in the 18th century even a well trained soldier could not fire his musket more than twice in a minute. A modern assault rifle can fire 600 times in one minute, which is the equivalent of being fired at by a rank of 300 redcoats. That sort of fire-power has no place in civil society.

MA:

We are too far apart on what ensures “preventable death” for reconciliation in this forum. But for the record, my views on this matter are not shaped by strong sentiments, but on having defended the lives of others at risk of my own. Thus, I am quite sure you place no greater value on the lives of innocents than do I.

As for “ideology,” there is one side of the ideological spectrum that is accountable for the slaughter of millions of innocents21 in the last century — but in every case only after that ideology had disarmed its citizens.

And that is why there is no “sell by” expiration date on the Liberty22 enumerated in our Bill of Rights23, most notably, the Second Amendment24, which, in the words of the esteemed jurist Joseph Story, is “the palladium of the Liberties of the Republic.”

And Neville, I know you are not familiar with firearms but point of record, the firearm used by the sociopathic killer in Florida was not an “assault weapon.”25 And recall that the most costly mass slaughter of school children in the U.S. did not involve a gun. In 1927, a sociopathic Bath Township, Michigan, school board member detonated a bomb that killed 38 elementary schoolchildren and six adults.

And a footnote: Tucker Carlson aptly summarized the Left’s call for “gun control”: “This vital conversation has been drowned out and made impossible by mindless screeching about gun control, led by blustery charlatans in the media … and in Congress, whose only real agenda is moral preening. They aren’t trying to solve the problem. The calls you’re hearing today for gun control have nothing to do with protecting Americans from violence. What you’re witnessing is a kind of class war. The left hates rural America, gun-owning America, the America that elected Donald Trump. They call it ‘gun control.’ It’s not. It’s people control. For the left, voters who can’t be controlled can’t be trusted.” (Or in Obama’s infamous words about those who Hillary Clinton26 called “deplorables27,” those who are “bitter and cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them28.”

No, Eugenics Isn’t the Answer to Mass Shootings29

By Jordan Candler

In a disgusting attempt to justify evil under the guise of mitigating another evil — mass shootings — a columnist who goes by the Twitter pseudonym Hoodie Rebecca is borrowing from the playbook of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. The latter would be proud of what leftists continue to advocate today. In Rebecca’s twisted and distorted mind, eugenics is justified and ought to be fully embraced if our goal is to stave off atrocities like what happened in Parkland, Florida2.

Rebecca unashamedly tweeted yesterday: “Woman puts baby up for adoption, he grows up to be a violent young man who will spend the rest of his life in prison for a mass murder. Tell me more about how abortions are wrong.”

The perpetrator in the Florida shooting is an adoptee whose non-biological mother passed away just a few months ago. One former neighbor reported to The New York Times that the shooter “had emotional problems and I believe he was diagnosed with autism,” adding, “He had trouble controlling his temper. He broke things. He would do that sometimes at our house when he lost his temper.” The neighbor also noted: “Kids were really picking on him and would gang up on him and beat him up a little. They ostracized him. He didn’t have many friends. His mother was his entire life and when he lost her, I believe that was it for the boy’s peace of mind.”

According to eugenics-advocate Hoodie Rebecca, these troubles could have been avoided altogether had his adoption never happened. In her mind, the perpetrator’s parents didn’t fit into the “acceptable in the eyes of the world” condition, which necessitates their child’s being aborted because there is no hope for him. Not from his biological parents, and not from his adoptive parents. The result is that 17 innocent children were murdered. In other words, Rebecca is absurdly arguing that abortion is a moral requirement.

Question for Rebecca: How many of those innocent children who died on Wednesday quietly suffered from some of the same struggles as the perpetrator? Everyone has different backgrounds, but everyone struggles to varying degrees. So if any of the children had, say, autism, would you argue in favor of their having been killed in utero? After all, if abortion is a moral requirement for those who face mental incapacitates or other severe trials, when is death by any means not moral?

There are myriad cultural and spiritual reasons for what happened on Wednesday. But adoption had nothing to do with it. Had the perpetrator’s parents carried through with an abortion, they too may have suffered irreparable mental and emotional upheaval. In this world, we must find the best solutions to tough problems. Pretending that adoption contributes to these problems and eugenics is the answer isn’t one of them.

Top Headlines30

Red flags missed: Cops sent to Cruz’s home 36 times, school expelled him, FBI was warned (Fox News31)

Police: No connection found between school shooter and white nationalist group (The Daily Wire32)

Here we go again: Former Playboy model claims affair with Trump (The New Yorker33)

CDC: U.S. fertility rate below replacement for 9th straight year (CNS News34)

Essentially calling Trump a bigot for legal purposes, Fourth Circuit Court strikes down Trump travel ban (The Daily Wire35)

Mitt Romney announces bid for U.S. Senate in Utah (NBC News36)

IRS still paying bonuses to tax cheat employees (The Washington Times37)

Trump’s gas tax would wipe out 60% of tax cut benefit for individuals, analyst estimates (CNBC38.)

Report: International relief charities have “institutionalized pedophilia” problem (Hot Air39)

Why random, meaningless sex is a bad idea for women (PJ Media40)

Policy: Six common media myths about gun control (The Daily Signal11)

Policy: To pay for highways, expanded tolls are better than higher gas tax (Washington Examiner41)

For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report42.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-16-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Immigration Reform Dies in Senate45 — Four immigration bills were defeated Thursday, sending lawmakers back to square one.
The Left’s Loathsome Indifference Toward MS-1346 — Those who ignore this bona fide criminal syndicate do so at the expense of innocent American lives.
Romney’s Run for Senate in Utah47 — That this worst-kept secret was national news for weeks prior to the announcement is telling in and of itself.
Time to Privatize Space?48 — The merits of keeping the space station operational are widely accepted, but there’s a hefty $100 billion price tag.
The FBI Flip Flop on Flynn49 — James Comey originally briefed lawmakers that Flynn had not lied to FBI; what changed?
Video: #MeToo: Movement or Witch Hunt?50 — AEI scholar Christina Hoff Sommers gives insight to how the movement should and shouldn’t proceed.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Gary Bauer: Another School Shooting51
Mona Charen: No Names52
David Limbaugh: I Wish I Were as Bad a Christian as Mike Pence53
Rebecca Hagelin: Soros vs. America54
Marc A. Thiessen: Despite the Olympic Glow, Half of Korea Remains in Darkness55
For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion56.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Gary Bauer: “To me an obvious thing is for schools to have armed and trained security guards. It is not unusual to see armed security guards at banks because we don’t want someone taking our money. Aren’t our children more valuable? Instead, we ‘protect’ them with ‘Gun-Free Zone’ signs. It makes absolutely no sense for our children’s safety to depend entirely on whether or not a maniac wakes up in the morning and decides to kill children in a ‘gun free zone.’ Guess what? Once the killer steps onto the campus of that school, it is no longer a ‘gun-free zone,’ and the only armed individual is the criminal. Why is this so controversial to the Left? Sadly, it is easier for a murderer to walk into a school with a gun than it is for a student to walk in with a Bible and attempt to give it away. The default position of progressives is to attack the Second Amendment and the availability of guns. Yet the percentage of households with guns has been declining for decades. Fewer Americans hunt today than did several decades ago. In fact, many schools used to have gun clubs on campus. Yet school shootings were rare. Logic suggests that something else explains this shocking trend.”

SHORT CUTS

Upright: “We must … work together to create a culture in our country that embraces the dignity of life, that creates deep and meaningful human connections, and that turns classmates and colleagues into friends and neighbors.” —Donald Trump

Preach! “Gun Control is not a policy. It’s a slogan.” —Ben Shapiro

For the record: “Thirty years ago, kids who brought their rifles to the high school shooting range didn’t wonder about evil and cultural decay. They simply lived in a time in America when right and wrong was more starkly defined, where expectations about behavior were clear, and wickedness hadn’t been normalized.” —J. Christian Adams

Re: The Left: “Abortionists kill more kids each year than mass shooters, but let’s talk about the latter and not the former.” —Erick Erickson

Yes, please: “Of the many national conversations we can and should be having, can we add to the list the question, ‘Is it moral to put a woman whose daughter was murdered in a mass shooting at school on television?’” —Bethany S. Mandel

Says the woman who botched numerous opportunities to enact gun control as House speaker: “[Gun control] is something where we have to have the public really demand — we need a majority to get it done, apparently. I wish that weren’t the case, and I have said over and over I’d rather push gun safety legislation than win the election, because people die from this.” —Nancy Pelosi

Says the man who botched numerous opportunities to enact gun control as president: “We are grieving with Parkland. But we are not powerless. Caring for our kids is our first job. And until we can honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep them safe from harm, including long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws that most Americans want, then we have to change.” —Barack Obama

Braying Jackass: “You can’t shoot up a school or a nightclub or a country music concert the way it was done in Parkland, Orlando and Las Vegas if you don’t have access to weapons of war that were designed for the battlefield.” —Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson

And last… “Liberal arguments on guns: ‘Outlawing them is dangerous.’ ‘No one likes them, but people should have access to them.’ ‘If you don’t like them, don’t get one.’ ‘Your body, your choice.” Oh, wait. My bad. That’s just on abortion. You know, the thing that’s ALWAYS intended for murder.“ —Allie Stuckey

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