|
nChrist
|
 |
« on: March 24, 2018, 02:24:44 AM » |
|
________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 3-23-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________
The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Mar. 23, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/54944-mid-day-digest
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Trump’s affairs are cheap Leftmedia fodder, but they’re also consequential.
The next frontier in the assault on Second Amendment rights.
Six months late, Congress passes spendthrift $1.3T omnibus.
Trump taps Bolton and diGenova — the mustachioed duo.
Democrats are really getting tired of Hillary Clinton.
Climate-cost research lacks a critical variable — human adaptation.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.
THE FOUNDATION
“A good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.” —George Washington (1790)
IN BRIEF
Leftmedia Churn and the Cost of Trump’s Affairs1
By Nate Jackson
President Donald Trump is a man of low moral character. We know, “this just in.” Having led a very public life, nearly every American knows that Trump cheated on his first wife with his second and that he has generally been a philandering playboy. So in that sense it gets little more than a shrug when we hear that he had other affairs while married a third time. That was true of Stormy Daniels2, and it’s true of Karen McDougal, who told CNN3 Thursday of her consensual 10-month affair with Trump from 2006 to 2007, before he was president. If you want those details, CNN will be running them hourly for weeks. Or stay tuned this weekend for the CBS “60 Minutes” exposé on Daniels. We’re interested in bigger fish.
The Leftmedia’s 24/7 churn with these women and their stories is, first and foremost, a #MeToo-era effort to undermine Trump’s successful policy agenda4 and to anger female voters5 ahead of the 2018 and 2020 elections. It might work. And we all know how vigorously leftist feminists worked to oust Bill Clinton for his despicable treatment of women6. Oh, that’s right, they stood by their man.
On that note, let’s get one thing straight. There’s a huge difference between consensual affairs between peers and an affair with a young subordinate or flat-out rape. None of it is acceptable in any sense, but Clinton’s behavior was clearly far worse.
But Trump is president now, not Clinton. It’s 2018, not 1998. So conservatives and Christians must deal honestly and forthrightly with the fact that a dishonest and immoral man is our party’s standard-bearer.
In 2016, a record 14 million people voted for Trump in the GOP primaries, apparently deciding that character didn’t matter nearly as much as whatever their issue(s) happened to be. More than 16 million people — also a record — voted against Trump in those same primaries. Their votes, however, were divided among 16 other candidates, thus leaving Trump victorious. In the 2016 general election, just shy of 63 million Americans accounting for a winning 304 electoral votes chose Trump because they concluded he was preferable to the only alternative, Hillary Clinton7. Trump won despite his own gross character flaws — because of support for his agenda and opposition to Clinton’s. For millions of conservatives, his impact on the judiciary alone was worth the vote, and his defense of religious liberty was desperately needed.
Still, what many of Trump’s voters failed to realize, and what some Trump defenders are still refusing to acknowledge, is that a man’s private morality does affect his ability to govern. At a bare minimum, the bad press is a distraction; at worst, it reveals a deep untrustworthiness that plays out in policy and personnel decisions. Moreover, all the hush money and other legal wrangling over flings with porn stars could seriously jeopardize the president.
With Trump, chaos is part of his agenda, so perhaps this all serves his purposes somehow. But what does that say of our great nation, or the office whose precedent was set by a man of great character, George Washington8? Unless he loses in 2020, the problem with Trump’s character flaws and boorish style may not ultimately exact a toll on him. The price will, however, certainly be paid by the GOP and the nation9 in the years to come.
Citibank Joins Leftist Anti-Gun Brigade10
Citibank joined the leftist anti-Second Amendment virtue-signaling crowd by announcing Thursday its new business policy. The company’s website declared11, “Our new policy centers around [sic] current firearms sales best practices that will guide those we do business with as a firm.” Citibank will now require any company using its services to “restrict the sale of firearms for individuals under 21 years of age” and to not sell “bump stocks or high-capacity magazines.” There was no clarification by Citibank as to what constitutes a “high-capacity magazine.” Citibank further explained, “This policy will apply across the firm, including to small business, commercial, and institutional clients, as well as credit card partners, whether co-brand or private label.” However, Citibank noted that its new policy “doesn’t impact the ability of consumers to use their Citi cards at merchants of their choice.”
Trying to claim that the new policy decision was not designed to combat Americans’ Second Amendment rights, the company stated, “Today, our CEO announced Citi is instituting a new U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy. It is not centered on an ideological mission to rid the world of firearms. That is not what we seek.” Yeah, right. In fact, Citibank will actively seek to pressure other companies to follow its lead, saying that it hopes “to leverage collective action to encourage responsible practices by all who sell firearms” to not sell guns to those under the age of 21, in order to “keep guns out of the hands of those who wish to do harm.” So all those under the age of 21 are aiming to do harm?
No, this ploy by Citibank is the next frontier in the assault on Americans’ Second Amendment rights — all under the guise of “protecting Americans” from “gun violence.”
Finally, a couple of footnotes. First, recall that if it wasn’t for the $180 billion bailout from taxpayers in 2008, Citibank may not be in existence today. Second, come to think of it, maybe everyone under the age of 21 should be banned from owning a credit card. It would save many young Americans from loads of unnecessary and irresponsible debt.
Top Headlines12
Congress gives itself a bonus in omnibus (The Washington Free Beacon13)
Bolton replacing McMaster as Trump national security adviser (Associated Press14)
President Trump orders $50 billion in tariffs on China (NPR15)
China responds to Trump tariffs with proposed list of 128 US products to target (CNBC16)
Paris Climate Accord for the win: Global carbon emissions have hit a record high (New York Post17)
States take on welfare reform — with nod from Trump (Fox News18.)
State and local income, sales and property taxes all hit records in 2017 (CNS News19)
Six reasons why the AR-15 is actually ideal for self-defense (Bearing Arms20)
How the Las Vegas murderer planned a massacre, in seven days of video (The New York Times21)
Humor: Facebook algorithm mortified it has to deliver up so much embarrassing news about own company (The Onion22)
Policy: Trillion-dollar spending bill exemplifies dysfunctional Congress (E2123)
Policy: Restoring free inquiry on campus (National Affairs24)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report25.
FEATURED ANALYSIS
Six Months Late, Congress Passes Spendthrift Omnibus26
By Michael Swartz
Working to avoid the prospect of a third government shutdown this fiscal year, the House on Thursday passed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill by a 256-167 vote27. The Senate followed suit late Thursday night, 65-32. And yes, this bill covers only the remaining half of this fiscal year.
“For perspective,” notes28 Investor’s Business Daily, “until 1991, the entire budget of the federal government for the whole year was less than $1.3 trillion.”
While a majority of both Republicans and Democrats favored the bill, there was significant opposition from both parties for two vastly different reasons — in particular, progressive Democrats were rankled by the failure to address so-called “Dreamers” in this omnibus, while the GOP’s Freedom Caucus rightly complained about spending too much. Yet the centrists and the establishment prevailed, as their alacrity was further aided by the desire of some members to beat it out of town for junkets29 or to attend the Friday funeral of the late Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY).
If haste makes waste, though, there’s a lot of both in this 2,232-page behemoth30 — a measure Fox News host Laura Ingraham described31 as a “business-as-usual spend-o-rama.” |
