The Patriot Post Digest 3-27-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-27-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Mar. 27, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/54991-mid-day-digest

IN TODAY’S EDITION

U.S. expels Russian diplomats in response to Moscow’s belligerence.
Facebook is under investigation, but not for the right data breach.
The political party alignment isn’t always what you might expect.
Jimmy Carter’s anti-endorsement of John Bolton speaks volumes.
Our kids are being indoctrinated to support ethanol.
Barack and Michelle Obama want millions of clones of themselves.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it.” —George Washington (1793)

IN BRIEF

Trump Plays Putin With Expulsion of Diplomats1

President Donald Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia is certainly not reaping any benefits for Moscow. On Monday, Fox News reports2, Trump “ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian intelligence officers in the United States and the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle in response to the nerve agent attack on an ex-Russian spy in the U.K. earlier this month.” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders explained, “With these steps, the United States and our allies and partners make clear to Russia that its actions have consequences. The United States stands ready to cooperate to build a better relationship with Russia, but this can only happen with a change in the Russian government’s behavior.”

With this move the U.S. joins its European allies as well as Canada and Australia in issuing a strong rebuke to Vladimir Putin, the recently “re-elected3” Russian strongman. In fact, Trump’s response against the Kremlin has been the strongest of any nation including the UK. And it is the most sweeping expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War. Trump’s move follows his recent national security team shake-up — his team now includes Mike Pompeo4 heading the State Department and former UN Ambassador John Bolton5 as his new national security advisor. Both men are considered to be hardliners when it comes to dealing with foreign threats.

However, Trump’s move is by no means a sudden gesture or policy change, even though one may assume so given the incessant Democrat and Leftmedia narrative of a Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy. For example, in January Trump announced new sanctions against Russia for its involvement in helping North Korea evade UN sanctions. And he hasn’t shied away from facing off against Russia in Syria. As Reuters reports6, “The U.S. military killed or injured as many as 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked private military firm after they attacked U.S. and U.S.-backed forces.” Furthermore, the Trump administration plans on providing the Ukrainians with anti-tank missiles to fend off Russian-backed separatist attacks, something that Barack Obama refused to do in the face of Putin’s obvious aggression.

Recall just last week Trump was maligned by the mainstream media over his having called Putin to congratulate him on his “election” victory. It is clear that what Trump says and what Trump does are not always congruent. And as is often the case, his actions speak louder than his words.

Facebook Under Investigation for the Lesser Data Breach7

By Nate Jackson

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) confirmed Monday that it’s finally investigating Facebook for allowing the data of 190 million people to be scooped up by Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.

Just kidding. The FTC is investigating how the data of a quarter that many people ended up in the hands of a consulting firm that did work for Donald Trump’s campaign. According to8 The Hill, “Tom Pahl, the acting FTC bureau chief for consumer protection, said in a statement that the agency would be investigating whether the incident constituted a violation of a 2011 agreement that Facebook signed to settle charges over other privacy concerns.” Last we checked, the 2012 campaign came after the 2011 agreement, and Facebook was more complicit in Obama’s data mining than in the operation of Cambridge Analytica, the firm Trump used.

Meanwhile, there are reports that Facebook scraped call and text message data9 from Android phones for years. Google has some answering to do for that breach, too. So, again, this just in: Tech giants collect data on users because users are the product10.

There are congressional calls for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify after his lame apology11 last week for the data kerfuffle. Zuckerberg even offered that he’s open to some regulation of social media to protect user data. That would explain Facebook’s hiring spree for Washington lobbyists12.

Facebook shouldn’t be worried only about the FTC but also about the Federal Election Commission (FEC). As Hans von Spakovsky, who has served on the FEC, writes13, “Under a Federal Election Commission regulation, giving a mailing list or something similar to a campaign is considered an ‘in-kind contribution.’ So if Facebook gave the Obama campaign free access to this type of data when it normally does not do so for other entities — or usually charges for such access — then Facebook would appear to have violated the federal ban on in-kind contributions by a corporation. And the Obama campaign may have violated the law by accepting such a corporate contribution.” The Trump campaign paid for the data it obtained. It isn’t clear that Obama’s campaign did. Von Spakovsky wants the FEC and perhaps the Justice Department to investigate.

So while the Leftmedia focuses on making Facebook the scapegoat for Hillary Clinton’s defeat, blaming Trump for the data fiasco, the greater legal violation certainly seems to belong to Obama. Surprise!

Top Headlines14

FBI investigating suspicious packages sent to government offices (The Washington Times15)

House judiciary committee subpoenas 1.2M documents reviewed by DOJ IG (CNS News16)

The McCabe-Flynn double standard (The Wall Street Journal17)

California to sue Trump admin over citizenship question in 2020 census (Fox News18.)

Orlando nightclub shooter’s father was FBI informant, say lawyers for killer’s widow (NPR19)

House and Senate Dems introduce bill to require background checks on ammunition sales (The Hill20)

Democrat NC sheriff hopeful apologizes for joke about taking guns away from people’s “cold, bare hands” (Fox News21)

“Transgenderism” causing parents to choose unisex baby names (The New American22)

Stormy who? Trump approval rating surges to highest point in nearly a year (The Washington Times23)

Humor: Confirmed: 2018 spending bill includes $30 million for paying off Trump mistresses (The Babylon Bee24)

Policy: Lawmakers pile up massive debt, putting tax cuts at risk (The Daily Signal25)

Policy: Congress should get past ObamaCare, forget bailouts, and embrace real health reform (The Heritage Foundation26)

For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report27.

FEATURED ANALYSIS
The Changing Landscape of Political Parties28

By Lewis Morris

The surprising outcome of the 2016 election and talk about Democrat hopes of flipping the House and/or Senate in 2018 have a lot of people speculating about political party alignment. Will Donald Trump drive Republican voters away from the Grand Old Party? Are we looking at 2018 or 2020 to be a “wave” election for Democrats?

A recent study29 by Larry Bartels of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Political Science asked these questions and more about the current state of affairs. What he found suggests some points that confound the prevailing wisdom.

Bartels maintains that there have been no mass defections from either Republicans or Democrats. His research found that the splits within each party break out in contrasting ways. Democrats are, of course, more united in their belief in an active government, but somewhat surprisingly they find themselves less united when it comes to cultural issues. Republicans tend to have the opposite leanings, being more united in their view on cultural issues but more at odds with one another when it comes to the role government should play in peoples’ lives.

Hence the failure to repeal ObamaCare and budgets that keep the Democrat pace on deficits.

Surveys Bartels conducted in his research found that nearly 25% of Republicans were closer to the average Democrat on the role of government when compared to the average Republican, while only 11% of Democrats were closer to Republicans on that role when compared to the average Democrat. On the flip side, over 26% of Democrats were closer to the average Republican on cultural issues. This is likely due in part to the Democrat Party’s small tent, in which elected officials and voters are practically coerced to toe the party line on abortion, same-sex marriage and other topics.

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-27-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The one area that Bartels doesn’t go into but should cause concern among Republicans is the loss of Millennial women. A Pew Research report30 found that in 2014, Democrats held a 21-point advantage over Republicans with women in this group. By 2018, the number of women who self-identified or leaned Democrat rose to 70%. Nearly three-fourths of women in the Millennial age group now identify as Democrats. Certainly, the election of Donald Trump played a big role in this, but we cannot discount the fact that Hillary Clinton was not nearly as popular among young women as Bernie Sanders. But with Clinton no longer a factor, Republicans will need to work much harder to reach this voting bloc with the message of Liberty.

In fact, Democrats aim to exploit women voters31 to take down Trump.

This issue aside, if we accept Bartels’ numbers and the idea that a larger percentage of Democrats are growing closer to Republicans on cultural issues, then why does the Left appear to be winning the culture war? This is where the power of the media comes into play. With much of the media and academia leaning heavily to the left, it becomes easier for progressives to steer the message. Consider the point that Republicans have been labeled increasingly more radical in recent years even while their fundamental policy stances have not changed all that much.

That’s because if any party has moved its fundamental policy stance, it’s been the Democrats. Former Clinton adviser and political prognosticator Dick Morris observes32 that Democrats tend to move further left based on negative outcomes during election cycles. This happened throughout the 1980s, and continued during the midterm drubbings Barack Obama received while in office. It seems counterintuitive to move further in a direction that voters reject, but leftists’ strategy is to drive everything their direction so the very terms of debate change over time.

So, if more Republicans are finding common cause with Democrats about the role of government, and young women are leaving the GOP in droves, is there any good news? Yes, and that is that progressives have not necessarily moved the electorate to the left, they have only succeeded in moving themselves further to the left. And in doing so, according to National Review’s David French33, they are deceiving themselves about the impact they are having on voters. They are not changing many minds; they’re only browbeating people. And they are in fact illustrating to the rest of the country just how out of touch they truly are. The downside is that we can expect deeper polarization. The upside is wave elections are not born out of polarized electorates.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Jimmy Carter Endorses John Bolton?5 — “The worst mistake that President Trump has made since he’s been in office is his employment of John Bolton.”
Ethanol Indoctrination Enters School Studies38 — The Renewable Fuels Association is going to “educate” children about the wonders of ethanol.
A Million More Baracks39 — He hasn’t quietly retired. Instead, Obama’s aim is still all about pushing his leftist agenda.
Video: Blacks in Power Don’t Empower Blacks40 — Conventional wisdom would suggest that all these political gains would lead to economic gains.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Tony Perkins: Trump on Military: Readiness, Set, Go41
Cal Thomas: Budget Contributes to National Insecurity42
Stephen Moore: No, Hillary Clinton: It’s the Red States That Are Dynamic43
Dennis Prager: Trump, Adultery, Morality44
Gary Bauer: March Against the Second Amendment45
For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion46.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Stephen Moore: “What hasn’t been noted for the record is that Clinton had her facts wrong. For at least the last two decades, most of the dynamism and growth … has been fleeing from the once economically dominant blue states that Clinton won and relocating to the red states that Trump won. Here’s the evidence. Of the 12 blue states that Hillary Clinton won by the largest margins … all but three of them lost residents through domestic migration (excluding immigration) over the last 10 years. … Now let’s contrast the Clinton states with the 12 states that went to Trump with the largest margins. Ten out of them … were net population gainers. The outpouring of residents from blue to red states almost has been one of the biggest demographic stories in American history, with a thousand people making the move every day on average. … While it is true that the blue states of the two coasts and several of the Midwestern states are richer than the redder states of the South and mountain regions, she failed to mention the giant transfer of wealth from Clinton to Trump states. IRS tax return data confirm that from 2006 to 2016, Clinton’s states lost $113.6 billion in combined wealth, whereas Trump’s states gained $116 billion. … We need national economic policies that have been shown to work at the state level. Trump wants to make America look like Florida and Tennessee. Clinton wanted to make America look more like Illinois and Connecticut. Maybe that’s the real reason why she lost.”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “We do [education] all wrong. We put our kids in huge, locked compounds with lots of little, boxy rooms, and enslave them to a bell that has no concern for what they happen to be doing when it’s time to switch rooms. We take away all their responsibility for their behavior and learning, and are surprised when they lose interest in the business at hand. We turn schools into something resembling prisons and scratch our heads when our children come out of them ill-prepared for the adult world.” —Cheryl Magness

Tone-deaf: “The safety of students, families, and supporters participating in today’s #MarchForOurLives47 is our highest priority. BSO officers are onsite patrolling today’s march in Broward County. We join today’s marchers with a shared goal of keeping our schools and communities safe.” —Broward County Sheriffs Department, which bears some responsibility48 for the Parkland massacre, in a statement Saturday

That’s sexist! “Fundamentally, I think there’s just something [voters] find suspicious in a woman looking to succeed.” —former Hillary Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri

You realize most of those channels champion your policies, right? “It used to be that … there were three television stations. Basically, everybody watched the same thing, everybody got their news from the same sources, and so everybody had more or less a similar view of the world. But today because of, first, cable television and … now the Internet, people have 500 channels to choose from. And they are able to find the news that fits their views instead of fitting their views to the news, so that they are very biased in terms of how they see things.” —Barack Obama

Fantasy world: “We were able to negotiate with Iran, so that Iran would shut down its nuclear program. … Eventually Iran said to itself, ‘We will be better off if we’re able to trade, engage in commerce, sell our oil, import the parts that we need for our airlines.’” —Barack Obama

And last… “If you want to save millions of lives, ban abortion, not guns.” —Liz Wheeler

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