The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Apr. 18, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/55427-mid-day-digest

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Pompeo’s meeting with Kim Jong-un makes clear Trump’s strategy is working.
Comey tees up Democrats’ 2018 “morality” play.
Barbara Bush, RIP.
Public employee pensions are fueling a fiscal crisis in many states.
“Little Pink House” movie puts the spotlight on government abuse.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.” —George Washington (1796)

IN BRIEF

Trump Makes Progress on North Korea1

It was recently revealed that CIA Director Mike Pompeo, nominated to serve as secretary of state, secretly met over Easter weekend with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un2 with the intention of laying groundwork for a potential meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim to negotiate denuclearization of the rogue nation.

“Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea last week. Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed. Details of Summit are being worked out now. Denuclearization will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!” Trump stated via a popular social media site. Speaking to reporters from his Mar-a-lago resort in Florida, where he has been meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump further elaborated, “We’ll either have a very good meeting or we won’t have a good meeting. And maybe we won’t even have a meeting at all, depending on what’s going in. But I think that there’s a great chance to solve a world problem.”

It was also announced that North and South Korea have agreed to talks aimed at finally ending the Korean War, which has never formally concluded, as both sides signed an armistice in 1953 but not a peace treaty. Trump offered his “blessing to discuss the ending of the war,” but an official end will require an agreement from the U.S.

What can be made of these developments? First, this is a further indication that Trump’s sanctions against North Korea are having the desired outcome and that Trump’s tariff threats against China are also reaping a desired effect3 — convincing Beijing to rein in Kim. Trump alluded to this while praising Chinese President Xi Jingping, stating, “He’s been incredibly generous. President Xi has been very strong on the border — much stronger than anyone thought they would be. … The goods coming into North Korea have been cut down very substantially.”

Second, while Trump would most certainly welcome North Korean denuclearization, he has no intention of entering into an Obama-like Iran deal4. It is clear that any deal will get done on Trump’s terms, for the benefit of America, or there will be no deal. And he is clearly not afraid to ratchet up the pressure. Finally, the fact the Pompeo has been strategically involved in this process speaks volumes to his competence for heading the State Department. He clearly is the right man for the job5.

If Trump is able to negotiate an end to North Korea’s nuclear threat as well as an official end to the Korean War, he will have achieved more diplomatically than any president since Ronald Reagan.

Comey Tees Up Demos’ 2018 ‘Morality’ Play6

In the now-infamous ABC News interview7 promoting his new book, disgraced former FBI Director James Comey pontificated on Donald Trump. The interviewer was George Stephanopoulos, former White House communications director for Bill Clinton, and he asked Comey, “You write that President Trump is ‘unethical,’ ‘untethered to the truth.’ Is Donald Trump unfit to be president?” Comey answered, “Yes, but not in the way I often hear people talk about it. I don’t buy the stuff about him being mentally incompetent, or early stages of dementia. He strikes me as a person of above-average intelligence, who’s tracking conversations and knows what’s going on. I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president.”

And there it is, the foundation Democrats and the Left are seeking to build as the core of their political platform for the 2018 midterms8: “Trump is not fit for office because of his lack of morality.” The plan appears to be using this not as a “get the vote out” message to a Democrat base that is already chomping at the bit to hit back at Trump, but it is instead designed to discourage conservatives from supporting Republican candidates. The mainstream media’s drum-banging on Trump’s lack of moral character has been especially aimed at conservative evangelicals. The question posed: “How can you willing give your support to such an immoral man and still claim to be committed to promoting morality? Isn’t that hypocritical?”

It may prove to be an effective campaign tactic; time will tell. However, it first presumes that Trump’s lack of high moral character was an unknown issue, when the fact is it has been well known since long before he decided to run for office. Second, it assumes that conservative evangelical voters are essentially cultish followers of personality rather than focused on the issues. Conservatives in general tend to be more issue-driven than emotionally driven in their politics, and evangelicals are no exception. In fact, many evangelicals who did vote for Trump made the decision by weighing the options between two heavily flawed and morally compromised candidates, looked at where they stood on the important issues, and chose accordingly.

Finally, Democrats and the Left have been engaged in this anti-Trump #Resistance ever since he won the election. Comey’s assertion that Trump is “morally unfit for office” is yet another salvo from anti-Trumpers in their ongoing fight to get him removed from office. But the Democrats have a problem. What is it that Democrats are offering the American people, other than more anti-Trump vitriol? So far, they have come out against the obviously beneficial Republican tax cuts, against securing America’s border, against legislation on DACA, against the Rule of Law (see California declaring itself state a sanctuary haven for illegal aliens), and against Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Instead, Democrats and their cohorts in the mainstream media have doubled down on riding the anti-Trump train, projecting that it will carry them on a blue wave back into congressional power. Will it work? They hope so, but of course if it doesn’t they can always blame the Russians.

Top Headlines9

Taxpayers are getting an extra day to file because of an IRS technical glitch (NBC News10)

Cruz introduces legislation to make individual tax cuts permanent (The Washington Free Beacon11)

Feds taxed and borrowed $4.47 trillion since last tax day; $12,737 for every man, woman, child in U.S. (CNS News12)

McConnell quashes Trump’s plan to claw back spending deal (The Hill13)

FBI agent faces prison after pleading guilty to leaking classified documents to media — Hillary Clinton and James Comey had no comment (The Daily Wire14)

Judge buys FBI’s bogus rationale for hiding leaked Comey memos (The Federalist15)

Starbucks to close 8,000 stores for an afternoon to give staff “racial-bias” training (ABC News16)

Philadelphia Starbucks customer: Supposedly racist manager “is an SJW feminist of the highest order’ (The Daily Wire17)

Dick’s Sporting Goods will destroy assault-style rifles pulled from shelves (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette18.)

Tennessee legislature removes $250,000 dedicated to Memphis in budget as punishment for Confederate statue removal (The Tennessean19)

Policy: How to rein in student mobs (National Review20)

Policy: Facebook’s use of data may annoy you, but IRS handling of your sensitive information is truly chilling (Reason21)

For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report22.

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Public Employees Resist Pension Reform Even as Crisis Looms23

Louis DeBroux

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” —Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

For years, state and local politicians have ignored a looming fiscal crisis24; namely, rapidly exploding deficits to public-sector employee pensions. Unfortunately, ignoring the problem does not make it go away, and now politicians, public employees and unsuspecting taxpayers face a brutal reality.

According to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, states face a collective pension funding shortfall of $1.4 trillion25. To put that into perspective, that amounts to roughly three times the annual budgets of California, Texas, New York and Florida … combined.

States must now choose among unpleasant options: cut back on other government services like education, public safety and parks to redirect funds to public employee pensions; raise taxes (angering voters and slowing economic growth); or reducing lavish public employee benefits (angering powerful unions).

The painful process is already underway. States like Arizona26, Oklahoma27, West Virginia and Kentucky face or have faced teacher strikes if demands for massive pay increases — as much as 20% immediately — are not met. Oklahoma’s teachers have been striking for more than a week, and West Virginia’s returned only after securing a 5% pay raise, even as state leaders warned of budget cuts elsewhere, including Medicaid, to pay for the raises.

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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Politicians have played a shell game28 for years, making contractual promises to public labor unions that are impossible to meet, using sleight-of-hand accounting gimmicks to hide the truth, even as they negotiated ever larger pensions with the unions with no way to fund them, hoping to be retired when it blew up.

For example, pension administrators used a baseline growth projection of 7.5% in 2016, but actual growth was only 1%. And while growth outlook for this year is significantly better, pension funds still face a massive and growing shortfall.

Pension reform is desperately needed. Illinois is rapidly spiraling toward bankruptcy, with fully 25% of general fund revenues allotted to public employee pensions, and state legislators fighting tooth and nail against Republican Governor Bruce Rauner’s efforts at reform. Due to fiscal mismanagement, overly optimistic growth projections and escalating costs, California faces a staggering $153 billion shortfall to CalPERS29, the state employee retirement system. The Los Angeles Unified School District alone has a $15 billion funding deficit30 to its health care plan, which covers both current and retired employees, who pay no premiums for their insurance.

Nationwide, states have just 66% of assets on hand needed to meet pension obligations, and many states have under 50%; Kentucky and New Jersey are worst off, with just 31% of needed funding.

The Pew study notes that even if pension funds had met 2016 growth estimates, there would be a significant shortfall because state governments are not providing enough funding. Efforts to require state employees to increase their own contributions to their retirement are met with fierce resistance, even as they enjoy retirement plans far superior to those of the private sector workers whose taxes fund these pensions. This despite the fact that taxpayers are paying twice as much31 into public employee pension plans as a share of state revenue than just a decade ago.

And many pensions are borderline criminal. Oregon’s lavish pension plan gives Joseph Robertson, the retired head of Oregon Health & Science University, a pension of $76,111 per month. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, an astonishing 58% of police and firefighters are on disability pensions, long before the normal retirement age. As reported by The New York Times, the average age of retired Scranton police officers is 44.9 years old.

Facing these daunting deficits, some politicians have turned to risky investments to try to rapidly make up the shortfall. That is a path fraught with danger, and could lead to an even greater collapse.

Democrat politicians and their labor union cohorts continue to resist meaningful reform, saying that the states made a deal with the unions, and if higher taxes and fewer services are the price, then so be it.

Other politicians look to the federal government — itself sporting a $21 trillion deficit — for a bailout. It’s hard to imagine legislators from fiscally responsible states agreeing to higher taxes on their constituents to bail out irresponsible states.

The most logical and fair path is to put all new state employees into a defined-contribution plan like a 401(k) and give them responsibility for their own retirement, ending pensions in future negotiations.

This, however, is far easier said than done. From 2010-2016, labor unions gave $1.1 billion to Democrat politicians32 and leftist advocacy groups, and they expect rewards for their payouts, including protection for their extravagant pensions. Unfortunately for taxpayers, the relationship between labor unions and Democrats is an incestuous one, giving the taxpayer no seat at the negotiating table.

Even Democrat hero FDR opposed public-sector labor unions33 as being unfair to the employer: the taxpayers. Of course, when it comes to Democrats and labor unions, they learned well the axiom of socialist playwright George Bernard Shaw, who smugly noted, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.”

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Barbara Bush, RIP36 — The former first lady and mother of another president died Tuesday at age 92.
‘Little Pink House’: Putting a Spotlight on Government Abuse37 — A new movie hitting theaters this week tells of the saga that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
AP U.S. History Textbook Promotes Leftist Bias38 — Textbook blames political differences in America on racism, bigotry and sexism.
Comey and the Lebron James Model39 — Attempting to make the MSM’s new poster boy lovable by portraying him as a neighborly sports fan.
Video: James Comey’s ABC Interview in 100 Seconds40 — Former FBI Director James Comey is clearly “untethered to the truth,” but this is funny.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Michelle Malkin: Return of the Feckless Chick-fil-A-Phobes41
Star Paker: Trump’s Vitally Important Anti-Poverty Initiative42
John Stossel: Hidden Taxes43
Walter Williams: A Mayor’s Most Important Job44
L. Brent Bozell & Tim Graham: Comey’s Pocket Stuffers in the Press45
For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion46.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Michelle Malkin: “Move over, Trump Derangement Syndrome. Another unhinged liberal pathology is back: Chick-fil-A-phobia. Perhaps, in the interest of public health, the CDC should launch a weekly C-F-A-P surveillance report to map the recurrence of this culturally infectious disease. Early-onset symptoms include fear of pressure-cooked poultry, allergic reaction to waffle potato fries and an irrational hatred of cow costumes. Anti-Christian prejudice and coastal elitism are common comorbidities associated with this debilitating progressive condition. Ground zero for the latest outbreak? The headquarters of The New Yorker magazine. This week’s issue online features the bigoted lament of writer Daniel Piepenbring, who decries the fast-food chain’s ‘creepy infiltration’ of the Big Apple and warns against the company’s ‘pervasive Christian traditionalism.’ Chick-fil-A opened its fourth location in the city last month. The largest franchise in the country, it seats 140, employs 150, and, along with the other NYC locations, donates an estimated 17,000 pounds of food to a local pantry for the homeless and hungry. The company is reportedly on track to become the third largest fast-food chain in the world. What are the Chick-fil-A-phobes so afraid of? … If leftists only want to eat and drink at a global fast-food company whose progressive CEO shares their Democrat-supporting, gun-grabbing, open-borders, gay marriage-boosting values, they should stick to Howard Schultz’s Starbucks cafes. Oh, wait…”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “Yesterday was the worst day of the year for many Americans — TAX DAY. But as you are slamming your fist on the table, keep in mind that the taxes you filed are based on the old Obama code with higher tax rates. Be certain to remind your friends and family members about this fact if they complain that the Trump tax cut didn’t make any difference for them. Next year, your tax situation will likely be significantly better thanks to President Trump’s historic tax cuts and tax reform.” —Gary Bauer

For higher taxes, vote Democrat: “We’ll look at some of those resources going to people who are not going to use them to grow the economy. … I think certainly we’ll look to have revenues as opposed to simply creating more debt.” —Democrat Minority Whip Steny Hoyer with a promise if Democrats regain congressional majorities

The consequences of nonconformity: “I think the Clintons were connected to [NBC News head] Andy Lack, connected at the hip. I think that they didn’t want anybody in their prime time or anywhere in their lineup supporting Bernie Sanders. I think that they were in the tank for Hillary Clinton, and I think that it was managed, and 45 days later I was out at MSNBC.” —Ed Schultz

Alpha Jackass: “Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal. … I’m happy the witch is dead. can’t [sic] wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise the way 1.5 million iraqis [sic] have.” —Fresno State University professor Randa Jarrar

And last… “Starbucks [is] shutting down all its stores to teach employees about racial diversity. The same employees ordered to talk to customers about race in 2015. This is overkill. Just treat everyone with the same respect as humans and customers.” —Charles Payne

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