The Patriot Post Digest 5-3-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-3-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
May 3, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/55745-mid-day-digest

IN TODAY’S EDITION

The Boy Scouts drop the name “Boy” after allowing girls to join.
Deputy AG Rosenstein remains defiant in the face of congressional oversight.
Should the government determine a life’s value? Here’s what happens when it does.
Homophobes, hypocrites and leftist favorite Joy Reid.
Facebook promises to police news “trustworthiness.” What could go wrong?
EPA sued for rolling back emissions requirements.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness.” —James Wilson (1791)

IN BRIEF

Don’t Call Them ‘Boy’ Scouts1

Nate Jackson

The Boy Scouts of America has long been the target of leftists bent on reshaping American culture. First, it was lawsuits to attack and obstruct the BSA. Then it became a strategy to undermine the Scouts from the inside. The latter has been far more successful, as the Scouts allowed homosexual2 boys in 2013 and leaders in 2015, and it wasn’t long before the ranks were opened in 2017 to girls3 and transgender4 kids. Now, after 108 years, the BSA’s Boy Scouts program is changing its name so as to eliminate “Boy” altogether. It will soon be rebranded “Scouts BSA,” though the parent organization will remain Boy Scouts of America.

At least until rebranding as the “Social Justice Warrior Scouts of America.”

“We wanted to land on something that evokes the past but also conveys the inclusive nature of the program going forward,” said Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh. “We’re trying to find the right way to say we’re here for both young men and young women.” For an organization founded to help boys become men, that’s quite a shift.

Even still, the integration won’t be total. The Associated Press reports5, “The program for the older boys and girls will largely be divided along gender lines, with single-sex units pursuing the same types of activities, earning the same array of merit badges and potentially having the same pathway to the coveted Eagle Scout award.”

One organization isn’t happy with the move. “Girl Scouts is the premier leadership development organization for girls,” Girl Scouts CEO Sylvia Acevedo insisted, while promising to add more badges and focus on outdoor activities, science, math and technology. Girl Scouts attributes some of its membership decline to the Boy Scouts allowing girls.

As Mark Alexander, a longtime BSA Council member, Scoutmaster and father to two Eagle Scouts, once explained2, the BSA’s transformation has been driven by its National Board, which is “under the ‘leadership’ of wealthy corporate-types completely out of touch with grassroots Scouting values.” In other words, these leftists are driven not just by achieving their social agenda but by corporate profits. The BSA’s Faustian bargain with these sponsors has allowed the once-venerated organization to rot from the inside.

Fortunately, many individual troops retain solid leadership and membership, as is the case with this author’s son’s troop. But that situation becomes less tenable with each crumbling pillar of morality and common sense at the national level. Membership rolls are already little more than half their peak of four million as boys opt for alternatives like Trail Life USA. And the BSA’s decline will no doubt continue as leftists destroy even the fundamental scientific truth that boys and girls are different.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/55741-dont-call-them-boy-scouts

Deputy AG Rosenstein Defiant in Face of Impeachment Threat6

Thomas Gallatin

The relationship between the Justice Department and Congress has become progressively strained. So much so that some Republican House members have drafted and threatened to issue articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if he continues to resist Congress’s demand that the department turn over documents related to the initiation of Robert Mueller’s special investigation and the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The DOJ has failed to meet several deadlines for turning over requested documents to Congress, which has generated complaints that the department has been intentionally slow-walking its compliance, if not stonewalling altogether.

Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus Mark Meadows (R-NC) explained, “There is really nothing to comment on there, but just give me the documents. … I have one goal in mind, and that is not somebody’s job or the termination of somebody’s job; it is getting the documents and making sure we can do proper oversight.” He added that there are “no current plans to introduce an impeachment resolution.”

Rosenstein reacted in a surprisingly defiant and personalized manner, arguing, “There have been people making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time. They should know by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted, and that any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job.” However, Congress is fully within its constitutionally granted oversight powers to demand that the DOJ turn over requested documents, so long as doing so does not pose significant danger to national security. Meadows pointedly replied, “If he believes being asked to do his job is ‘extortion,’ then he should step aside and allow us to find a new deputy attorney general.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) seemed to have a different opinion, asserting that he was “satisfied” with the DOJ’s cooperation. “I appreciate Rosenstein’s willingness to work with the committees,” he said, “and I have confidence in his leadership.”

The question here is why Rosenstein has chosen a course of subtle resistance. It’s clear that what he considers personal attacks have impacted his willingness to comply with congressional demands. It’s also quite apparent that Rosenstein doesn’t trust Congress. He insisted Tuesday that it would be dangerous to “just open our doors to allow Congress to come and rummage through the files.” The trouble is the DOJ has a serious image problem, most of it self-inflicted. It doesn’t help when the man responsible for giving the green light to the Mueller investigation — an investigation that has clearly strayed far from its original justification — appears unwilling to work with Congress to dispel legitimate concerns over politicization of the department. Americans’ trust is not a commodity easily regained once it has been squandered. Rosenstein’s defiance may prove only to push that trust lower.

Top Headlines7

North Korea releases U.S. detainees, bows to another Trump demand (The Washington Times8.)
Trump has all but decided to withdraw from Iran nuclear deal (Reuters9)
18 House members nominate Trump for Nobel Peace Prize (The Daily Signal10)
Donald Trump acknowledges Stormy Daniels payment, denies affair or use of campaign money (USA Today11)
Trump hires Clinton impeachment lawyer to handle Mueller probe (NBC News12)
Belly laugh of the week: Hillary Clinton says being a capitalist likely hurt her among socialist Dems (Fox News13)
Texas wins dogged fight for voter ID (National Review14)
Pro-Second Amendment students hold nationwide school walkout (Fox News15)
American University orders students to agree women can revoke consent after sex (The College Fix16)
Humor: Bigoted Boy Scouts welcome girls but still exclude all 49,247 other genders (The Babylon Bee17)
Policy: Gender and race shouldn’t define your politics (Independent Women’s Forum18.)
Policy: Can we make American education great again? Not with teacher walkouts (Investor’s Business Daily19)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report20.

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Should the Government Determine a Life’s Value?21

Caroline C. Lewis

What happens when the government determines a person’s value? Whether China’s one-(now two-) child policy or Great Britain’s government mandates to remove care from sick babies, the concept remains the same: Government, not family or God, determines whether a person deserves to live or die. And that’s wrong.

While some have framed China’s 2016 acquiescence to the two-child policy as the end of the Chinese government’s strict one-child policy, forced abortion and sterilization still occurs. Reggie Littlejohn, Founder and president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, an organization fighting against forced abortion and gendercide in China, writes22:

I believe the Chinese Communist Party will never abandon coercive population control, because coercive population control is keeping the regime in power. Although every couple is allowed to have two children, single women are still [being forced to abort their children], as are third pregnancies. Women of childbearing age still have to go in for mandatory pregnancy checks several times a year. Two Child Policy violators are still forcibly sterilized. All this instills terror. The Chinese Communist Party is a brutal, totalitarian regime, which reigns with terror. The Two Child Policy is social control, masquerading as population control.

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-3-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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China’s one-child policy, which the Chinese government enacted in 1980, yielded disastrous results. This has included “gendercide” — the systemic aborting of girl babies — due to the cultural preference of sons over daughters, as well as a marked increase in female suicides. China now has a huge gender imbalance and has suffered several issues such as kidnapped children and sex trafficking as a result.

China initially enacted the one-child policy in response to fears of overpopulation and food shortages. However, “overpopulation” tends to be the problem of a closed system, making closed communist countries, which prohibit the freedom of movement, the most susceptible. In a free society, population increases give rise to the “suburbs” when people move outside of the crowded cities to raise a family. An example of this would be the American “Baby Boom” following the end of World War II. Crowded cities and crowded countries do not tend to be as big of a problem in market economies because people have free movement — they can move if it starts feeling overcrowded. In communist countries, however, the government often prohibits movement without permission.

Further, the Population Research Institute notes that overpopulation is not equivalent to overcrowding. City planners, not population controllers (in the form of abortion and euthanasia), ought to solve the overcrowding problem.

In addition, populations worldwide have actually declined below replacement rate. According to a 2017 UN study23, almost half of the world’s population lives in countries below replacement rate (2.1 children).

In a market economy, people are assets. More people means more creativity and a greater increase in innovation, technology and research. By contrast, in socialist and communist countries, people are the problem. Why? Because the government has to take care of them. And if bureaucrats are deciding how many people are on the public dole, they will always choose fewer people.

While China’s forced abortion seems like a barbaric action of a far-away country, the premise upon which it rests has seeped into socialist countries, such as the United Kingdom. While the UK is not demanding the abortion of children based upon a quantifiable, mandated number, its actions are the same: Denying the dignity of the human person and denying the rights of parents to determine the best situation for their children.

The terrible story of Alfie Evans24, who died on April 28, illustrates the heartbreaking consequences of socialized “medicine.” The 23-month-old, diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative condition, had been on life support for almost a year. While his parents wanted to take him to Italy for treatment, the doctors and judges ruled that this would not be in the child’s “best interest.” But shouldn’t the parents decide what was in the child’s best interest? Instead, the judges ordered the hospital to take him off of life support, which resulted in his death.

Sadly, the story of the government determining the value of Alfie’s life to be worthless is not unique. Last summer, UK doctors denied treatment for Charlie Gard25, a baby with a similar “incurable” illness, despite the public outcry against this injustice and his parents’ desire to seek treatment abroad.

Socialism and communism deny human dignity, trading it instead for the value of a person’s “work.” The government elite establishes the standard of value and worth, not the parents or loved ones or even God. If a child or disabled person cannot “contribute” to society (whatever the government determines that to be), he or she does not “deserve” to live.

But who really assigns value and dignity? Who really decides whether a person should live or die?

People are not machines to be discarded when they cease to function properly. Yet by stripping the human person of value, worth and dignity, socialism and communism views people as machines to serve the state.

Communism and socialism’s social reengineering seeks to create a world without faith, a world without family and a world without love. Whether this means forced abortion in China or forcing parents to remove medical care for their sick children, the human rights abuses are the same. Government coercion promises “protection” but only delivers slavery, abuse and exploitation.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

National Day of Prayer30 — Please join us, and millions of our countrymen, in prayer for our nation today at 12:00 local time.
Homophobes, Hypocrites and Joy Reid31 — If “progressives” didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.
Facebook Promises to Police News ‘Trustworthiness’32 — Social media giant plans to create a system designed to limit “fake news.” What could go wrong?
EPA’s Emissions Rules Rollback Taken to Court33 — California leads 17 other states in fighting to keep Obama’s onerous emissions regulations.
Video: Stossel on Socialist Propaganda34 — Venezuelans starve, but their government spends money on videos that blame capitalism.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Veronique de Rugy: Is Ethanol Cronyism on the Ropes?35
Ed Feulner: Wisconsin and Welfare: Work Works36
Hans von Spakovsky: DACA Should Be Overturned. A New Lawsuit Might Succeed in Doing That.37
Rebecca Hagelin: Reducing Crime38
Victor Davis Hanson: Is Trump Now Bad Cop or Good Cop?39
For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion40.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Gary Bauer41: “The fallout continues over the release of dozens of questions that Special Counsel Robert Mueller reportedly wants to ask President Trump. Mueller and his team of Clinton lawyers are trying to bait the president so they can trap him, just like they trapped Michael Flynn. Former Secret Service Agent Dan Bongino made a great observation Tuesday. He said, ‘You investigate a crime and you find people. You don’t find people and then go find a crime.’ Mueller and his team are not investigating a crime. There isn’t one. They are investigating the president, hoping to entice him into a crime. … By the way, Mueller reportedly threatened the president’s legal team that unless it convinces Trump to sit down for an interview, Mueller will force him with a subpoena. The Left insists that any attempt by the president to fire Mueller would create a constitutional crisis. But if Mueller tries to subpoena the president, that will create a constitutional crisis.”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “Tuition has increased at two and half times the rate of inflation. Nothing else this important has ever done that. Not real estate, energy, food, even healthcare. The question is why? Is the quality of education two and half times better than it was thirty years ago? No way. … No, universities have been able to raise their prices partly because too many parents believe that anything less than a four-year degree will doom their kid to a less productive existence, and partly because we’ve pressured millions of kids to borrow whatever it takes from a bottomless pool of unlimited money that doesn’t really exist.” —Mike Rowe

Heh: “Now that doctors are coming clean I’m looking forward to finding out the real reason HRC collapsed at the 9/11 memorial.” —Bethany S. Mandel

Excuse #887: “It’s hard to know, but if you’re in the Iowa caucuses and 41% of Democrats are socialists, or self-described socialists, and I’m asked, ‘Are you a capitalist?’ and I say, ‘Yes, but with appropriate regulation and appropriate accountability,’ you know, that probably gets lost in the ‘Oh my gosh, she’s a capitalist.’” —Hillary Clinton now blaming her “capitalist” sensibilities for her 2016 loss

Hypocrite: “I have said to my Republican colleagues in Congress: Not one of your political survivals is more important than the survival of our children.” —House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

The BIG Lie: “The [Washington] Post has changed now. … It’s not as exciting a paper as it was, but it’s definitely not ideological anymore.” —MSNBC’s Chris Matthew

Late-night humor: “Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just attended the premiere of a documentary about her life. Even she was like, ‘I’m only here because "Avengers” was sold out.’“ —Jimmy Fallon

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