The Patriot Post Digest 7-31-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-31-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Jul. 31, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/57445-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” —Samuel Adams (1781)

IN TODAY’S EDITION

House Republicans are defending a record number of seats, but there’s still hope.
The TSAs “Quiet Skies” program is drawing scrutiny.
A story of China’s intellectual-property theft.
Are “trigger warnings” actually harmful? Research suggests they are.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists, and Short Cuts.

IN BRIEF

Republicans’ Steep Hill to Climb1
The House GOP will be defending a record number of open seats in November. Some 42 currently Republican-held seats are being vacated, the most since 1930. Eight of these seats are in districts that voted for Hillary Clinton and another 13 are in districts that President Donald Trump won by a slim margin — in other words, potential toss-ups.

David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report currently rates 19 of these 42 seats as still solidly in Republican hands and another 11 as Republican-leaning, whereas three seats are likely going to the Democrats. For the Democrats to win control of the House, they need to flip a total of 23 seats. Wasserman adds, “With 102 days to go, Democrats remain substantial favorites for House control.” The Cook analysis currently rates 181 Democrat and 153 Republican seats as “solid.”

To make matters worse, The Resurgent’s David Thornton notes2, “Republican candidates also face a fundraising gap. … The leading Democrat raised more than the Republican in 20 of the 42 Republican open seats between April and June. This was not only true in all but one of the districts carried by Hillary, but also in 13 of 34 districts carried by Trump.”

So, as it looks now, Democrats appear to have a distinct advantage and much to be hopeful for three months out. But as the adage goes, the only real numbers that matter are seen on Election Day, and much is sure to happen between now and November. To wit, there was also a 90% chance Donald Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton — before he didn’t.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57428-republicans-steep-hill-to-climb

About That TSA Profiling for ‘Quiet Skies’3
Nate Jackson

In a scoop over the weekend, the Boston Globe reported4, “Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency.” The program is called “Quiet Skies.” An internal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) bulletin outlines the objective as decreasing threats by “unknown or partially known terrorists; and to identify and provide enhanced screening to higher risk travelers before they board aircraft based on analysis of terrorist trends, tradecraft and associations.”

Many are raising Fourth Amendment objections over the program. Much like errantly ending up on the terrorist watchlist, citizens have little recourse for removal — in fact, most profiling subjects may never even know they were singled out. Moreover, you don’t have to do anything wrong to end up being profiled; certain behaviors that don’t seem all that unusual are enough.

We certainly agree that the government isn’t to be blindly trusted with securing our Liberty because the Constitution is so often ignored by agencies and bureaucracies. For that reason, we objected when the TSA was created and we’ve noted its failures numerous times5.

However, Mark Alexander has argued for years that terrorist profiling6 should be employed along the lines of the Israeli model of observing specific behavior. It’s not toddlers from Toledo or wheelchair-bound grandmothers from Gatlinburg who present a threat or who require random TSA groping; it’s Middle Eastern males between the ages of about 17 to 40. The TSA didn’t confirm any specific targets, but a spokesman did say, “These programs are … designed to protect the traveling public, but they’re not targeting the average American. … We’re talking about a very unique passenger that warrants the attention of a federal air marshal.” The TSA said people are dropped from observation after an undisclosed amount of time if there’s no reason to continue.

There is no obvious or blatant constitutional violation simply in observing and tracking certain behavior or individuals for a short time in public venues, particularly when the vulnerability of our air-travel system resulted in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history on 9/11. That isn’t to say the TSA’s program is effective, well managed, or a flawless use of resources. The jury is out on that. It is to say that some profiling isn’t wrong — quite the contrary — and it’s worth taking a moment to remember that amidst the sudden civil liberties panic among leftists who hate Donald Trump more than any terrorist.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57438-about-that-tsa-profiling-for-quiet-skies

Top Headlines7

Sessions announces “religious liberty task force” (The Hill8)
A list of 139 congressional Democrats who support disastrous “Medicare for All9” (Washington Examiner10)
Morgan Stanley says the biggest stock correction of the year is building (Bloomberg11)
Chinese economy starts to feel tariff impact (The Wall Street Journal12)
Trump: I am ready to meet with Iran “anytime they want to” — with no preconditions (CNBC13)
U.S. spy agencies: North Korea is working on new missiles (The Washington Post14)
Dems expand push to blacklist businesses working on Trump’s border wall (The Washington Free Beacon15)
Police officer murdered by illegal alien (The Daily Wire16)
Man saves $1,092 on car insurance by identifying as a woman (CNS News17)
Humor: Twitter rolls out automatic tweet deletion so you won’t get fired in 10 years (The Babylon Bee18)
Policy: Fixing American infrastructure: Unleash market forces and promote devolution (Mercatus Center19)
Policy: Calculating the costs of the U.S.-China trade war (American Action Forum20)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report21.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57442-tuesday-top-headlines

FEATURED ANALYSIS
A Story of China’s Intellectual-Property Theft27

Lewis Morris

The heated competition for supremacy in the marketplace between the U.S. and China is at the heart of the current trade conflict between the two countries. China is hot on America’s heels in developing new technologies for consumer use; a challenge to this nation’s economy. China is also applying its technological developments for military application, which is surely a threat to America’s national security.

How is China gaining this advantage? At least partly through men like Ruopeng Liu28, a tech billionaire who has been referred to as China’s Elon Musk. The big difference between the two men is that while Musk comes up with products and services through grit and great ideas, Liu apparently steals29 them — with the backing of the Chinese government.

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-31-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Liu stands accused of stealing intellectual property from Dr. David Smith of Duke University, where Liu graduated in 2009. Smith is one of the leading experts in a manufactured substance called metamaterials — hi-tech components that can be used for a variety of uses. One particular metamaterial that Smith has been working on for years is an invisibility cloak30, a device that can guide electromagnetic waves around an object to make it appear that the object is not there. This cloak isn’t straight out of the magical world of Harry Potter — it would not make an object or person invisible to the naked eye, but it would fool scanning and thermographic instruments. The military applications are obvious.

Liu attended Duke University from 2006 to 2009, and he was part of Smith’s research and development team. According to Smith and former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi, Liu, with the help of the Chinese government, stole Smith’s cloaking technology and brought it back to China.

Smith initially believed Liu to be an enterprising student, but over time he realized that things did not seem right. Liu repeatedly broke protocol with regard to sharing and claiming credit for information about the project. He also refused to share some of his work with Smith, who was Liu’s supervisor and head of the project.

Under the guise of international collaboration, Liu talked Smith into letting Chinese researchers visit the lab. They took a lot of pictures while Smith wasn’t around and later returned to China. Liu also returned to China after receiving his degree from Duke in 2009. A year later, he founded a tech company there now valued at over $6 billion. In the lobby at headquarters is a prototype of a cloaking device very similar to the one Smith has been working on for years.

Liu categorically denies that he stole Smith’s work. But Smith and FBI investigators31 are quite confident that he did. Liu’s company and work have received generous support from the Chinese government, which may have also backed his stay at Duke. It may be the case that Liu was under Chinese government orders all along to attend an American university and gain access to important technological R&D work, preferably something with military application.

Unfortunately, Liu’s story is not unique. Thousands of foreign nationals, including those from adversarial countries like China and Russia, attend American universities all the time. They gain student visas, come to the U.S., work on important projects, and then take their knowledge back home — sometimes into the waiting arms of government officials looking to seize that intellectual property and use it to their advantage.

American colleges and universities are eager for foreign financial support and to further academic research. This approach, however, leaves them wide open to intellectual property theft by malevolent Chinese and Russian entities. Export control licenses, written agreements, and security protocols for taking part in certain research projects have been put in place in some instances to protect against more Lius.

U.S. academic institutions are at the forefront of advances in civilian and sometimes military technology. Their traditional open door policy has helped foster research and collaboration, essential in our global economy. At the same time, however, not everyone plays fair. Many of the technological advances that China boasts of have been stolen and repurposed from American universities and companies. It’s time that American higher education starts putting a tighter leash on who it allows to work on key research projects before this country’s best work ends up being used against us.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57437-a-story-of-chinas-intellectual-property-theft

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Are Trigger Warnings Actually Harmful?32 — Overuse of trigger warnings can encourage greater anxiety rather than resilience in students.
Video: The Strange Death of Comedy33 — In today’s hyper-sensitive world, it’s hard to know what’s funny anymore.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Stephen Moore: “Trump’s tariffs are meant to force other countries to lower theirs. It’s a dangerous game, for sure, because it can risk a trade war escalation — as we are now seeing with China. But Trump has always believed that the United States has the upper hand because of our massive consumer market, and that our trading partners will be forced to capitulate sooner rather than later. What is clear is that he has played the Europeans like a fiddle here. His threat of a 20 percent auto tariff scared the daylights out of the Germans. Those levies could cripple their already-struggling economy. The panic in Berlin is what drove the EU to the bargaining table. Even more masterful was how Trump got the Europeans to agree to buy more American natural gas. … I often disagree with Trump’s saber-rattling trade antics. But it’s getting harder all the time to find fault with the results. We aren’t out of the trade-war fires yet — far from it. But if Trump can solidify this deal with the Germans, the French and the rest of the EU and get a Mexico free-trade deal signed, he can then isolate China as the bad actor on the world stage and force Beijing to stop its half-trillion dollars a year of cheating and stealing.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom for in that way one captures volition itself.” —Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Brace yourselves: “I’m now 85. My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years.” —Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Not satire: “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wants 5 more years on the Supreme Court, and people are offering their organs to keep her healthy.” —Business Insider

Braying Jackass: “I’m concerned about this country, period. I think all of us should be. This is the worst moment I’ve lived in in my lifetime.” —Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti

Non Compos Mentis: “I might be the only one in our little chapter that is a Christian, and it all just fits so perfectly together for me — things that I’ve always thought anyway along with my values morally and religiously. Possibly my mother would want to debate me on this, but if anyone was ever a socialist it was Jesus.” —Democratic Socialists of America’s Kelley Rose (No, he wasn’t34.)

Village Idiots: “There are some things we can’t stop. Like the disgruntled kid who takes his dad’s shotgun and walks into a high school. But we could have stopped the guy in Vegas. I blame the lobbyists. And the biggest in the gun world is the NRA.” —country music singer-songwriter Eric Church, who, despite claiming he’s “a Second Amendment guy,” says “nobody should have that many guns and that much ammunition and we don’t know about it”

And last… “‘Illegal straws’? Show some compassion. It’s 2018. They’re called undocumented drinking structures.” —Allie Beth Stuckey

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57439-tuesday-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