The Patriot Post Digest 7-27-2018

________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 7-27-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
_______________________________

The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Jul. 27, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/57392-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.” —George Washington (1789)

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Trump’s regimen of tax cuts and deregulation is yielding solid economic growth.
Facebook set a record for the worst single-day loss in stock market history.
Evangelicals stick with the defender of religious liberty.
The House tackles limitations for eminent domain.
Americans love the First Amendment… sometimes.
California: The land of topsy-turvy.
Trump takes on Turkey over detaining an American pastor.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists, and Short Cuts.

IN BRIEF
Grand Domestic Product — 2Q GDP Up 4.1%1

This isn’t exactly the news Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) and his young henchwoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez2 wanted to hear. Today, the Commerce Department apprised us of second-quarter GDP figures, and it’s encouraging all the way around. “Gross domestic product grew at a solid 4.1 percent pace in the second quarter, its best pace since 2014, boosting hopes that the economy is ready to break out of its decade-long slumber,” CNBC reported3.

Elevated consumer spending, a bump in business investment, more exports, and more government spending are all being credited, though we’d happily take less government spending. Even better, CNBC says, “In addition to the strong second quarter, the Commerce Department revised its first-quarter reading up from 2 percent to 2.2 percent.”

Interestingly, The Washington Post reports4, “While the vast majority of economists warn that Trump’s trade war will hurt U.S. growth, they say it temporarily boosted growth in the spring as foreign firms rushed to make purchases before the tariffs took effect. Exports added more than a percentage point to growth, something that hasn’t happened in years and is unlikely to repeat. Soybean exports exploded in the second quarter, as customers in several countries scrambled to snatch up supplies before new foreign taxes on U.S. soybeans went into effect, part of a broad retaliation against Trump’s tariffs on a range of foreign products.”

Yet it’s worth reminding that Donald Trump’s trade blueprint appears to be paying off5. Part of his pending agreement with the EU is to have Europe import more U.S. products. This inevitably creates a dilemma for China, which will feel additional pressures to broker a trade compromise. So while a fear-induced increase in exports may have helped GDP in the second quarter, additional concessions will only further help the economy down the road.

The consensus among the “experts” is that Trump’s “trade wars” will fail, because these coastal elites have already determined how it will end. But if major compromises are continuing to be made, the outlook for the economy will only brighten. That’s not to say future GDP won’t be moderated, as some surmise. It may very well drop. Yet the foundation seems to be strong and ready to be built upon. That’s why President Trump responded to today’s news by saying, “We’re going to get a lot higher than these numbers and these are great numbers. We are now on track to hit an average GDP annual growth of over 3 percent and it could be substantially over 3 percent.” He’s right to be optimistic. The better our economy is, the less the anti-capitalist rhetoric of the Democratic Socialists will resonate in the midterms.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57389-grand-domestic-product-2q-gdp-up-4-dot-1-percent

Facebook’s Face-Plant6
Thomas Gallatin

Facebook set an infamous record on Thursday — the largest single-day stock market loss for any company in history. As CNBC reports7, “The social media giant’s market capitalization plummeted by $119 billion to $150 billion as its stock plummeted by 19 percent. At Wednesday’s close, Facebook’s market cap had totaled nearly $630 billion, according to FactSet.” Facebook missed its quarterly revenue forecast and lowered its revenue outlook amid declining user growth.

Concern over privacy after the company’s failure to protect user data8 is the leading culprit for the social media giant’s increasingly negative public image. But add to that Facebook’s poor handling of the disinformation controversy — its new algorithms have proven to throttle traffic9 on conservative feeds and it even blocked the Declaration of Independence10 as “hate speech” — as well as the massive cost increases to advertise on the website. With all that blundering, it’s not surprising to see the company taking this hit.

Mark Alexander further notes that Facebook is trying to put a smiley face on the massive loss: “Company execs laughably asserted that the reduced revenues were due to its spending billions of dollars developing stronger privacy measures… Laughable because Facebook’s entire business model revolves around compromising the privacy of its users.”

Now Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is facing renewed pressure to step down as the company’s chairman, something he has refused to do in the past. Will a stock bust in the middle of an economic boom1 finally do the trick? While Facebook has taken a face-plant, this good economic news should lift everyone’s faces. It appears that more Americans are busy working and fewer are sitting at home checking their Facebook feeds.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57388-facebooks-face-plant

Top Headlines11

Cohen: Trump knew in advance of Trump Tower meeting with Russians; Trump: No I didn’t (Hot Air12)
Trump’s message to critics: “I’ve never been a politician before” (The Daily Caller13)
Jim Jordan running to replace Ryan as House Speaker (Washington Examiner14)
Meadows backs off impeaching Deputy AG Rosenstein after leadership talks (The Hill15)
America’s adversaries are weaponizing information, NSA director warns (The Washington Free Beacon16)
Remains of U.S. war dead retrieved from North Korea (Fox News17)
Trump threatens Turkey with sanctions over detained pastor (The Hill18)
Record high number of foreign college graduates taking U.S. jobs (Washington Examiner19)
Coca-Cola will raise soda prices due to Trump tariffs (National Review20)
Humor: Facebook fact-check feature narrowly saves man from laughing at satirical article (The Babylon Bee21)
Policy: The importance of the truce In U.S.-EU trade disputes (Hudson Institute22)
Policy: U.S. must avoid a single-payer health care system that stresses doctors to the breaking point (The Heritage Foundation23)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report24.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57390-friday-top-headlines

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Evangelicals Stick With the Defender of Religious Liberty28

Brian Mark Weber

The Left is losing its collective mind these days. And why not? Just when they think President Donald Trump is cornered and his presidency ready to implode, his poll numbers inch upward. When the mainstream media sends its reporters into the “foreign” territory of the American heartland to see whether Trump’s support has waned, they’re chagrined to discover just the opposite: His base is hardening. But there’s one group among the president’s base that really irks the Left: evangelical Christians. With the tapes recording a discussion about an alleged Trump payoff off a Playboy model in the headlines these days, could evangelicals be ready to jump ship?

Nope. Trump continues to enjoy high poll numbers among those who identify as evangelicals. Why?

John Fea, chairman of the Department of History at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, seems to have it all figured out. In a recent (wrong) opinion penned for USA Today29, Fea asked, “Why do so many evangelicals believe in Donald Trump? Because they privilege fear over hope, power over humility, and nostalgia over history.”

Fea characterizes evangelicals as “intellectually lazy” in waging a “failing war against thickening walls of separation between church and state, the removal of Christianity from public schools, the growing ethnic and religious diversity of the country, the intrusion of the federal government into their everyday lives (especially as it pertains to desegregation and civil rights), and legalized abortion.”

In truth, Fea wants (racist) evangelicals to succumb to the secular agenda instead of seeking to repel its corrosive effects on our culture. Instead of seeking new leadership to protect the sanctity of the unborn, promote the primacy of marriage between a man and a woman, and reject the Rainbow Mafia’s thought policing, evangelicals should celebrate the new world in which they find themselves.

That world, by the way, has left Christians vulnerable to crippling lawsuits and wrecked livelihoods for refusing to bake a same-sex wedding cake, for erecting a cross in the public square, and for reciting a prayer before a football game. Their First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty has, for years now, been under withering assault by intolerant leftist secularists.

________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 7-27-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
_______________________________

For decades, Republicans at all levels of government gave campaign lip service to the hopes of Christians around the country only to turn their backs on those same voters once in office. Why, then, continue to elect these well-meaning but mild-mannered choirboys? Instead, why not throw in behind a serial philanderer who’s delivering the strongest pro-life message in our history and seating a conservative Supreme Court that will defend religious liberty for the next generation?

And just how has Trump backed up his rhetoric? Ralph Reed, head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, recently stated30 that Trump, in contrast to Hillary Clinton, “was strongly pro-life and released a list of conservative judges from whom he promised to select Antonin Scalia’s replacement.” Moreover, Reed continued, “He pledged to defund Planned Parenthood, move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, end the harassment of churches by the IRS, withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and defend religious freedom. He has kept every one of those promises.”

Evangelical Christians now sense a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to advance the principles and values of Christianity that are today being attacked from multiple angles. As a result, they’re willing to overlook the moral failings in their president’s personal life.

But it’s not only the leftist push against Christian traditions, mores, and values here at home that’s driving support for the president. It’s the broader objective of saving all people of faith from oppression in other parts of the world.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Susan Crabtree writes31, “[Former U.S. Senator and Kansas Governor] Sam Brownback, who serves as the ambassador at large for religious freedom at the State Department, pledged a new U.S. government commitment to halting the persecution of religious minorities around the world and called on other countries to join the campaign.”

Some 80 countries sent representatives to the summit where Brownback spoke this week about worldwide religious persecution, particularly against Christians, and the need to spread the ideals of religious liberty beyond American borders. At the summit, Brownback asserted, “Religious freedom really, truly is for everyone. It’s a right given by God, and your presence is an encouragement to people of faith around the world that someone cares about their plight.” He added, “Unfortunately, a large majority of the world live in countries where the freedom to practice their own faith is extremely limited … and in some cases deadly.”

Moreover, Vice President Mike Pence spoke Thursday about religious liberty32, which he called the “first freedom of everyone in the world.” He rousingly addressed threats to religious liberty in China, North Korea, Iran, Turkey, Europe, Nicaragua, and even here at home. And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a declaration33 calling on governments around the world to defend that liberty. The document states, “Religious freedom is a far-reaching, universal, and profound human right that all peoples and nations of good will must defend around the globe.”

It should be no surprise that evangelicals continue to support a president who has delivered more than they ever could have imagined. Her childhood Methodist background notwithstanding, a President Hillary Clinton would have dealt a crushing blow to any hope of restoring (or even limiting the damage to) Judeo-Christian values in our country.

In the end, evangelicals are not the narrow-minded Bible-thumpers the media wants us to believe. They’re actually politically astute, and they know a winner when they see one. And in the minds of Christians across the country, President Trump has been a champion for the values and principles they believe in.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57385-evangelicals-stick-with-the-defender-of-religious-liberty

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Eminent Domain and Protection for Private Property34 — Congress is finally moving to undo the Supreme Court’s damage in the Kelo ruling.
Americans’ Love the First Amendment… Sometimes35 — The average citizen’s ignorance of protected rights under the First Amendment is inexcusably high.
California: The Land of Topsy-Turvy36 — Where straw-law transgressors are punished more severely than abortionists who traffic baby parts.
Trump Takes on Erdogan’s Regime37 — Standing strong for a detained American pastor; yanking F-35s until further notice.
Video: Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share?38 — Will Witt took to the streets to ask people what they think.

OPINION IN BRIEF

David Harsanyi: “Socialists like to blame every inequity, the actions of every greedy criminal, every downturn and every social ill on the injustice of capitalism. But none of them admit that capitalism has been the most effective way to eliminate poverty in history. Today, in former socialist states like India, there have been big reductions in poverty thanks to increased capitalism. In China, where communism sadly still deprives more than a billion people of their basic rights, hundreds of millions benefit from a system that is slowly shedding socialism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the extreme poverty rate in the world has been cut in half. And it didn’t happen because Southeast Asians were raising the minimum wage. In the United States, only 5 percent of people are even aware that poverty has fallen in the world, according to the Gapminder Foundation, which is almost certainly in part due to the left’s obsession with ‘inequality’ and normalization of ‘socialism.’ Nearly half of American millennials would rather live in a socialist society than in a capitalist one, according to a YouGov poll. That said, only 71 percent of those asked were able to properly identify either. … If all you really champion are some higher taxes and more generous social welfare, stop associating yourself with a philosophy that usually brings destitution and death.”

SHORT CUTS

Braying Jenny: “I think [Trump’s] dangerous. I don’t know why people take it. I think Americans should be out in the streets screaming to the top of their voice. Do something. Make something happen. … I think that this man does not deserve to be the president of the United States. He is one of the most deplorable people I’ve ever encountered in my life.” —Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Seriously? “Really, for any other president, a tape like this, on which we hear his voice, his married voice, suggesting that his lawyer pay a Playboy bunny $150,000 in cash to keep her quiet — for any other president, there would be an address to the nation tonight.” —Jimmy Kimmel (“Bill Clinton, of course, lied under oath about using a 22-year-old White House intern as his own personal humidor, has been credibly accused of multiple incidents of sexual misconduct, and, despite all that, still enjoys a career in the political mainstream.” —The Daily Wire)

Dezinformatsiya: “The president sees that his numbers are waning. He cannot be this dictator that he’s trying to be at this moment. … Putin has got Donald Trump big pimping — big pimping Donald Trump right now. Donald Trump thinks he can do whatever he wants to the world and this nation, and it’s not happening.” —CNN political analyst April Ryan

Non Compos Mentis: “Global News reports that the [Toronto] gunman committed suicide. If so, this is an important clue suggesting [the assailant] was not an ISIS-inspired attacker. As … others have explained, suicide is a big no-no for jihadists.” —The New York Times’ Rukmini Callimachi (Yes, which explains why they commit suicide all the time.)

Non Compos Mentis II: “The damage that has been done to these children [at the border] will be lifelong, to the families units as well. And in fact, I suggest they need to be compensated for what this administration did to them. To have these children ripped apart and separated is one of the most reprehensible things I’ve witnessed in my 20 years of service here in the House of Representatives.” —Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY)

And last… “How did we destroy jobs and reputations before Twitter? I mean ‘we’ in the sense of faceless, howling mobs distributed around the country. We couldn’t! Why, kids today have fast, easy access to vindictive mobs; when I was growing up, if a famous person said something bad, the most you could do was write a letter to Time magazine.” —James Lileks

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57382-friday-short-cuts

Join our editors and staff 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