The Patriot Post Digest 4-6-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-6-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Apr. 6, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/55205-mid-day-digest

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Is “Christian privilege” even a thing? Yes, but not in the way this university means.
Correction: It’s liberals, not conservatives, who are crazy.
CFPB’s chief wants to rein in his own bureaucracy. Elizabeth Warrens wants to stop him.
As Trump faces Russia, China and North Korea, he’s using chaos to his advantage.
The thought police take out another conservative.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly.” —George Washington (1788.)

IN BRIEF

George Washington University Tackles ‘Christian Privilege’1

By Jordan Candler

Multiculturalism is rearing its ugly head at George Washington University (GWU), where students are being indoctrinated in 15 workshops ostensibly geared toward destroying various forms of “privilege.” We’re accustomed these days to hearing terms like “white privilege,” but GWU’s Multicultural Student Services Center is going even further by demeaning all God-fearing people with a workshop called, “Christian Privilege: But Our Founding Fathers Were All Christian, Right?!” The workshop was scheduled for Thursday.

Earlier this week, The College Fix reported2, “The event will teach that Christians enjoy a privileged, easier life than their non-Christian counterparts, and that Christians possess ‘built-in advantages’ today, according to its online description. The workshop will also discuss how Christians receive ‘unmerited perks from institutions and systems all across our country.’” In what alternate universe?

Interestingly, the Fix goes on to note, “By the end of the training, the organizers want participants to be able to name ‘at least three examples of Christian privilege’ and ‘at least three ways to be an ally with a non-Christian person,’ the website states.” As Christians already know, one core tenant of genuine Christianity is to show grace and mercy (i.e. “be an ally”) toward sinners and unbelievers. Meanwhile, some Islamists, particularly in the Middle East, systemically enslave women, rape them and treat them like garbage. They also kill or persecute “infidels” and perpetuate jihad. Where’s the denunciation of this extremely violent form of privilege?

The workshop could only redeem itself if it pointed out, as Peter Heck does3, that “Christians are privileged to join as heirs in a Kingdom that was not ours and that we’ve done absolutely nothing to earn.” But of course that’s not the angle George Washington University planned to take, and it’s a shame. As Heck notes, “You want to know what privilege is? True privilege? It’s that ‘while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ The truth is you can’t really know privilege unless you are a Christian.” What a refreshing and thoroughly Christian take on the subject.

In 1788, George Washington wrote, “The hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.” Something for the students at George Washington University to think about.

Correction: Turns Out Liberals ARE Crazy4

By Thomas Gallatin

The American Journal of Political Science recently issued a correction to a 2012 study that contained “an error.” And what was this error? Well, to put it succinctly, the Journal reversed its conclusion that politically conservative individuals exhibited traits most associated with “psychoticism,” whereas those of a liberal bent did not. The Journal explained, “The interpretation of the coding of the political attitude items in the descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed. The descriptive analyses report that those higher in Eysenck’s psychoticism are more conservative, but they are actually more liberal; and where the original manuscript reports those higher in neuroticism and social desirability are more liberal, they are, in fact, more conservative.”

That’s one heck of an “oops.”

The Journal insists that the correction matters little to the paper’s overall conclusion and downplays the new results, stating, “Personality traits do not cause people to develop political attitudes.” But professor Steven Ludeke of the University of Southern Denmark argues that the error “matters quite a lot.” Ludeke says, “The erroneous results represented some of the larger correlations between personality and politics ever reported; they were reported and interpreted, repeatedly, in the wrong direction.” We’ll go out on a limb and predict that the correction gets swept under the rug or ignored entirely by the mainstream media.

Our own Mark Alexander has long argued that, politically speaking, the true pathology resides on the Left5. As Alexander explained in 2007, “Generally, liberals tend to be mentally rigid and closed-minded because they are insecure, the result of low self-esteem and arrested emotional development associated, predominantly, with fatherless households or critically dysfunctional families in which they were not adequately affirmed. They exhibit fear, anger, and aggression — the behavioral consequences of arrested emotional development associated with childhood trauma (primarily rejection by a significant family member of origin as noted above). They display pessimism, disgust, and contempt for those who are self-sufficient for much the same reason. They believe that conforming to a code of non-conformity is a sign of individualism, when it is nothing more than an extreme form of conformism for those who are truly insecure.”

Long story short, a lot of liberals are kind of crazy.

Top Headlines6

103,000 jobs created in March, vs. 193,000 jobs expected (CNBC7)

U.S. trade deficit hits 10-year high (National Review8.)

Trump orders review of $100 billion more in tariffs on China (The Washington Times9)

U.S. sanctions billionaire Deripaska and other Russian oligarchs (Bloomberg10)

Democrats cry foul as GOP eyes move to cancel spending (The Hill11)

Facebook’s data crackdown has two winners: Facebook and Google (Bloomberg12)

Target’s $3.7M settlement in lawsuit alleging discrimination against blacks and Latinos (USA Today13)

Kamala Harris attempts joke about killing Trump, Pence, or Sessions: “Does one of us have to come out alive?‘ (The Washington Free Beacon14)

Colorado students hold pro-Second Amendment walkout (The Daily Signal15)

Humor: Fuming Rachel Maddow spends entire MSNBC show just pointing wildly at picture of Putin (The Onion16)

Policy: The implications of tariffs to combat unfair Chinese trade practices (American Action Forum17)

Policy: Trump’s pressure against North Korea is the best way to avoid war (Hudson Institute18.)

For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report19.

Do This Today

The Patriot Post team is asking for your help now. To protect our independence, we’ve never accepted advertising. And we’ve never charged a subscription fee in order to reach the largest audience possible. We’re a small, mission-driven organization that depends on many volunteers who graciously give their time and effort, while others receive only a modest salary. However, publishing and operations costs are substantial. There isn’t a special interest or parent organization financially backing us, so we rely completely on the generosity of you, our readers. Please make a secure online donation20 to the 2018 Patriots’ Day Campaign today so that our daily operations are funded into the summer. From all of us here, thank you for helping us to produce The Patriot Post for conservatives around the nation. — Christy Chesterton, Director of Advancement

FEATURED ANALYSIS
CFPB Chief Wants to Rein in His Own Bureaucracy21

By Brian Mark Weber

The head of a powerful government agency wants Congress to take action. But the action he wants may come as a surprise. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who’s also the Trump-appointed director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau22, wants Congress to reduce that agency’s power and make it more accountable.

That’s not a misprint. Call it "draining the swamp” or whatever you like, but clearly there’s a paradigm shift taking place in the nation’s capital.

But could a federal agency that’s only been around since 2010 really be out of touch with its mission? Recently, Mulvaney escorted23 a Daily Caller reporter “through a 2,660-square-foot athletic facility with two huge locker rooms, offices with electric height-adjustable workstations, a library with a sofa and lounge chairs but few books, a roof deck with spectacular views and motorized cantilevered umbrellas, and a courtyard with lavish fountains. The images recalled the familiar spectacle of triumphant soldiers touring a deposed dictator’s opulent palace.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-6-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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Actually, those palatial digs belong to a modern-day bureaucracy, but it’s not just the profligate spending that should worry Americans. The CFPB is an Obama-era creation, and it wields a tremendous degree of authority over American businesses and consumers. As The Washington Post reported24 in 2016, “The director unilaterally enforces 19 federal consumer protection statutes, covering everything from home finance to student loans to credit cards to banking practices. The director alone decides what rules to issue; how to enforce, when to enforce, and against whom to enforce the law; and what sanctions and penalties to impose on violators of the law.”

But Mulvaney recently asked Congress to make substantive changes to how the CFPB operates by requiring congressional approval for all major policy initiatives, changes to current policies and funding. Mulvaney’s report to Congress also gives the president unilateral authority to remove the director of the CFPB for any reason.

Change we can believe in?

It’s a bold move, and it reminds politicians that federal bureaucracies must be held accountable. Mulvaney suggested25 that “structuring the bureau the way it has, Congress established an agency primed to ignore due process and abandon the rule of law in favor of bureaucratic fiat and administrative absolutism.”

Essentially, what Mulvaney is asking Congress to do is ensure that the bureaucracy itself carries out its mission in the most efficient manner and in the interests of the American people. No government agency should be allowed to police itself, especially one that enjoys funding from the Federal Reserve and operates without having to answer to the very political body that created it.

In reality, however, that’s what Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats wanted when they created the agency. In 2010, they structured the CFPB with the belief that Democrats would rule the roost in DC for years to come. They gave the director broad, unchecked power because Democrats love to regulate. That’s what they do.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Hillary Clinton’s coronation, and suddenly Democrats were worried what Donald Trump’s new director might do with all that power. They claimed (and still do) that Mulvaney is sticking it to the American consumer in favor of large corporations. On the contrary, what he’s done is make the agency more accountable than ever before. Democrats know this. They just don’t want the American people to know it.

Mulvaney lamented of his own power, “I am the judge, I am the jury, and I am the executioner,” and “if you don’t like it, talk to the person who wrote the statute.” That person is Warren, who inspired the creation of the CFPB. But Warren isn’t interested in changing the agency, because doing so would create the very transparency and accountability that a federal agency should have.

Making the changes that Mulvaney wants is not a done deal. Any revisions to the CFPB structure or policies must come with congressional approval, and Democrats have vowed to stand in the way. Were Democrats to take back either congressional chamber this November, chances for reform would be slim. Mulvaney and Sen. Warren will come face-to-face next week when the director of the CFPB goes to Capitol Hill to make his pitch.

Other critics of Mulvaney’s approach include Mike Litt of the United States Public Interest Research Groups, an organization that ostensibly represents consumers. Litt said that Mulvaney “wants to take away the bureau’s independence and then make it harder for it to do its job.” Litt added, “Recommendations in [his] report, if implemented, would stop the agency from protecting consumers and prevent it from doing its job.”

Actually, keeping the CFPB intact would continue to hurt consumers by eliminating competition and preventing Americans from accessing financial services they need. And if no changes are made, there’s no telling what other schemes the CFPB will come up with in the name of “consumer protection.”

Let’s hope that Mulvaney convinces Congress to reform the CFPB. In the end, American consumers and our political system would benefit the most. And Warren’s dream of government policy by fiat would be dealt a severe blow — at least until Democrats retake control of the regulatory state.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Is Chaos the New World Order?28 — As Trump faces Russia, China and North Korea, his strategy is to shake things up quite a bit.
The Thought Police Take Out Another Conservative29 — The Atlantic fired Kevin Williamson after less than a week because of his views on abortion.
Dems’ Goal: Make Illegals a Legal Voting Block30 — Democrats in California are seeking to lead the way in working to eventually legalize all illegal aliens.
Video: Little Pink House31 — A new movie called “Little Pink House” tells the story of Kelo and eminent domain.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

David Limbaugh: Don’t Let the Left Do It to Pruitt32
Rich Lowry: Don’t Talk to Mueller, Mr. President33
Erick Erickson: The American Cultural Revolution34
Marc A. Thiessen: Trump Is Threatening to Repeat Obama’s Mistakes35
David Harsanyi: Democrats Finally Find Some Media Bias They Dislike36
For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion37.

OPINION IN BRIEF

David Limbaugh: “The Left’s crusade against Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt should be seen for what it is — a witch hunt. … This conspiratorially organized assault against Pruitt is precisely what Barack Obama and his friends mean by community organizing. It is vicious, relentless street fighting aimed at discrediting Pruitt and taking him down because he is one of the rare administrative officials who won’t put politics above the law and will stand up to those who do. … Leftist activists and their media co-pilots are hellbent on disgracing Pruitt and destroying his reputation to effect his removal, so they are throwing all kinds of phony scandals against the wall of public opinion to pressure the White House to give them Pruitt’s head. The energy they are expending on this should tell you how important progressives view unelected, unaccountable administrative agencies in implementing their draconian regulations, which have been choking our individual liberties and wreaking havoc on our economy. … The Left considers Pruitt a hill to die on. So should we.”

SHORT CUTS

Upright: “There’s an old saying — and you military people will, of course, nod your heads at this. ‘When you’re taking a lot of flak, you must be over the target.’ Well, I think Scott Pruitt is over the target38. … I really hope this guy does not get sidetracked. You know, it’s tough to hold up under this kind of assault. … And you just hope that he can hang on. You don’t know until you see these people under fire, and man is he under fire. … He’s being singled out for doing something that has always been done because that’s how [leftists] view the best way to go get the guy and discredit him, rather than to try to frighten people about what he’s doing with the regulatory side of things.” —Rush Limbaugh

For the record: “Before 2013, approximately one out of every 100 arriving aliens claimed credible fear, which is the first step in the United States asylum process. Today, more than one out of 10 do so. Why this matters is because this number unfortunately demonstrates and is indicative of the rising level of fraud that plagues our system. … Before 2011, over 90 percent of arriving aliens were single adult males. Today, 40 percent are families and children. The traffickers and smugglers know that if you arrive with a family under our current legal and court system, you have a much better chance of being released into the United States. We have seen the smugglers advertise this as an enticement, and we have seen traffickers unfortunately fraudulently use children to gain entry into our country.” —DHS Secretary Kristjen Nielsen

Braying Jackass: “I’ll gladly work with the president when his ideas aren’t stupid and detrimental to the United States.” —Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)

Village Idiots: “The people I care about are those young people who demonstrated. They’re the future. They know. They say, ‘We’ll remember in November.’ They’re the ones who feel the way we do. Not the way the gun lovers and the NRA do, with all that idiocy to the point of absurdity.” —actor Robert De Niro

And last… “We must always remember that all children are blessings from our Creator. They are endowed from conception with value, purpose, and human dignity. They are a source of unmatched joy, and they represent our Nation’s future.” —Donald Trump

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