The Patriot Post Digest 8-14-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-14-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Aug. 14, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/57642-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.” —Alexander Hamilton (1774)

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Democrats still love socialism, but their disdain for capitalism is growing.
It took two years, but the FBI finally fired Peter Strzok.
The entire criminal justice system is racist, says phony Cherokee Elizabeth Warren.
The Rainbow Mafia has even corrupted Anne of Green Gables.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists, and Short Cuts.

IN BRIEF
Dems Favor Socialism Over Capitalism by Growing Margin1

Thomas Gallatin

A new Gallup poll2 shows that a majority of Democrats, 57% to be exact, view socialism favorably compared to a new low of only 47% who positively view capitalism. Meanwhile, 37% of Americans overall hold a positive view of socialism with 58% seeing it as negative. And not surprisingly, 71% of Republicans hold favorable views of capitalism, while only 16% think socialism is viable. Given the deadly effects of socialism3 everywhere it’s tried, we’d like to see 0% of Americans support it. But that’s government education for you4.

With Democrat numbers like this, it’s not surprising to hear Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new socialist face of the Democrat Party5, assert, “The whole country is further left than Congress. The whole country. The electorate is way further left than Congress, [but] we have low voter turnout.”

The most interesting aspect to these latest poll numbers is the change in Democrats’ opinion of capitalism. In 2010, 53% of Democrats had a favorable view of socialism, which increased to 58% in 2016, most likely due to the popularity of Bernie Sanders. But that same year 56% of Democrats also had a positive view of capitalism. That’s dropped by a whopping nine percentage points in just two years.

What happened? Trump Derangement Syndrome6. As Gallup notes, “It’s possible that the drop in Democrats’ positive views of capitalism is related to Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump is an enthusiastic capitalist, and his administration’s efforts to roll back regulations on business and industry, as well as the tax cut law that is advantageous to businesses and corporations, may have caused Democrats to view the entire capitalist enterprise with less positive eyes.”

The Gallup poll also notes, “The question wording does not define ‘socialism’ or ‘capitalism’ but simply asks respondents whether their opinion of each is positive or negative.” This is an important caveat given how poorly many Americans, particularly young people, understand what socialism actually is7. Again, much of the reason for this is that the Left within media and academia has long preached the myth of socialism as a positive system that brings equity and fairness, whereas capitalism is allegedly a system primarily organized to support only the greedy interests of the wealthy and big business. With the hard-Left’s increasing takeover of the Democrat Party, it’s only logical that support for capitalism would severely wane, as the eventual goal of these leftists is to create a political boogieman out of capitalism that must be overtly opposed and attacked. The more Democrats go down this extremist road, the more average Americans will walk away8. Will Republicans be able to capitalize on the Dems’ socialist bent?

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57640-dems-favor-socialism-over-capitalism-by-growing-margin

Finally, the FBI Fired Peter Strzok9
Nate Jackson

Two years ago, FBI agent Peter Strzok was a chief lieutenant to now-disgraced and unemployed FBI Director James Comey. Strzok played a key role in two major investigations — the one into Hillary Clinton’s illegal transmission of classified information over a private email server and the other of alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, which by the way was based on that phony, Clinton-funded dossier10. We learned in 2017, via uncovered texts11 with his FBI mistress, that Strzok’s anti-Trump bias was a serious problem, and that, like Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe12, Strzok’s higher loyalty was to Clinton13. Both the texts and the illicit affair were grounds for his firing two years ago.

Instead, after 22 years at the bureau, Strzok was finally fired Friday — two years too late, albeit one year after being removed from Robert Mueller’s investigation. Moreover, according to Strzok’s attorney, he was fired only after Deputy Director David Bowdich took the rare step of overruling the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which recommended only a suspension.

After the damning inspector general’s report14 in June, Strzok gave a contemptuous congressional testimony15 insisting on his innocence. No one should believe him.

More than anything else, this lagging timeline — the fact that only now is this bad apple fired — is an indication of what is wrong with government. Entrenched bureaucracy, which sometimes becomes the so-called “deep state,” is cancerous and difficult to remove. Think of the immense effort required to fire Strzok and McCabe in particular, and then ponder how many other Clintonistas remain fixed in the bowels of government.

Yet much of this comes from the top. Presidential attorney Rudy Giuliani hit the nail on the head, saying, “I’m going to tell you who was the quarterback for all of this. Strzok — he’s a bit of a puppet. Then there’s Mueller — he’s a puppet. … The guy running it is [former CIA Director John] Brennan. And he should be in front of a grand jury.” Brennan, who once voted communist in a presidential election, was indeed Barack Obama’s hatchet man16 behind the whole Russia fiasco. Removing Strzok is good, but we’re a long way from justice.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57637-finally-the-fbi-fired-peter-strzok

Top Headlines17

Trump signs massive defense bill — biggest pay raise for soldiers in nine years (The Daily Wire18)
Report: Regulations being cut at record pace, savings double (Washington Examiner19)
Senate gears up for major Kavanaugh confirmation battle (Washington Examiner20)
China’s growth engine sputters as it battles U.S. over trade (The Wall Street Journal21)
New info indicates Clinton-funded opportunities research launched FBI’s Trump investigation (The Federalist22)
Ninth Circuit returns to form, upholds bizarre California gun regulation (National Review23)
West Virginia lawmakers impeach all state supreme court justices (Associated Press24)
Lunch lady sisters accused of stealing nearly $500,000 from Connecticut school system (Fox News25)
Good news caught on camera: Kids return wallet with $700 inside (ABC13 Houston26)
Humor: God confuses all the languages again to stop everybody from arguing online (The Babylon Bee27)
Policy: The earliest signing of the NDAA in 40 years is a giant step in rebuilding the military (The Daily Signal28)
Policy: A look at rural broadband economics (American Action Forum29)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report30.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57641-tuesday-top-headlines

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Warren: Justice System Is Racist ‘Front to Back’36

Lewis Morris

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Cherokee) laid a heavy accusation on our entire criminal justice system recently at an event in Louisiana, throwing the “racist” label around, much to the delight of her supporters.

“The hard truth about our criminal justice system: It’s racist,” Warren told a crowd37 at Dillard University in New Orleans. “I mean all the way. I mean front to back. This is not just sentencing reform we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the front end on what you declare to be illegal, on how you enforce it, on who gets arrested.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-14-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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In her slanderous attack, Warren would have Americans believe that from the time one is approached by a cop all the way through to the moment one is sentenced and incarcerated, one is in a racist system that targets minorities. For the system to be racist, then by extension wouldn’t most if not all the people who serve it be racist too? Warren seems to ignore the 27% of the nation’s police officers who are minorities, as well as the 400 black prosecutors, the 383 minority federal judges, and the previous two U.S. attorneys general.

Warren’s rhetorical assault is surely meant to stir up some press for her 2020 presidential run. But more broadly speaking, the race card is a key part of the leftist toolkit, and it has been used to rail on the justice system for years.

It can’t be denied that the criminal justice system needs reform, as we have argued38 on these pages39. There is something wrong when America, with 4% of the world’s population, has 25% of the world’s prisoners. Two-thirds of the 650,000 people who leave prison every year will be back in jail within three years. This is a failure with sentencing and giving inmates the tools they need to turn their lives around. It’s not racism.

Reforms are already taking place on the state level that have improved the situation in certain areas. President Donald Trump proposed40 following that example at the federal level and threw his support behind the First Step Act, a House bill with tremendous bipartisan support.

The bill, which addresses recidivism and allowing prisoners to build “good time” credit, had bipartisan support in the House but was stymied in the Senate.

The Left has drawn the conclusion that the criminal justice system is racist because of the disparity between the total black population versus the black prison population. Blacks make up 13% of the total population but 30% of the state prison population. It can be said that black incarceration rates for drug offenses are significantly higher, but you can’t blame it all on the drug war41. In 2014, the share of the prison population in jail for only drug offenses was 16%.

One of the biggest culprits in the mushrooming prison population may be the plea-bargaining system. Plea bargains are a popular tool with prosecutors because it allows them the power to send someone to jail without having to deal much with judges. It’s a fast-moving, murky process that has likely scooped up some people who would otherwise be serving less time in jail, or perhaps no time at all.

Criminal justice reformers would also like to do away with mandatory-minimum sentencing and three-strikes laws that take the sentencing out of the hands of judges and create a sort of automatic sentencing structure that does not consider details of specific cases.

Warren makes her accusations, unfounded though they may be, because racism is the red meat of her campaign. In fact, her phony claims of Native American ancestry42 boosted her career for decades. You can be sure that she, along with other Democrat senators — especially those with plans in 2020 — will pick apart any prison reform proposed by Trump and Republicans. They won’t be specific about what they don’t like about the proposals. They’ll just jump around and yell “racism.” If the GOP were to get even some credit for prison reform, then it’s one less thing the Left can use to attack them.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57635-warren-justice-system-is-racist-front-to-back

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Rewriting Anne of Green Gables43 — Netflix pushes LGBT agenda with a children’s classic. Entertainment as indoctrination.
Video: Do Millennials Know the First Amendment?44 — Cabot Phillips of Campus Reform seeks to find out how Ivy League students fare.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Gary Bauer: “Last week, two police officers were ambushed in New Jersey as they were stopped at a red light. More than three dozen law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty this year, but … spoiled millionaire athletes are still berating law enforcement. Of all the things affecting the black community, the police are not the problem. According to the Washington Post’s database, 109 black men have been shot and killed by police so far in 2018, with the overwhelming majority being justified shootings. Compare to that the 197 black men who have been homicide victims so far this year just in Chicago! During a speech last week at a historically black college, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren condemned the entire criminal justice system, saying, ‘The hard truth about our criminal justice system: It’s racist … I mean front to back.’ … It is the worst possible message to be sending when there are such tensions between police and minority communities.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “There’s one way to find out if a man is honest — ask him. If he says, ‘Yes,’ you know he is a crook.” —Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

Upright: “Disney is putting an openly gay character in a kid’s film for the first time. The Left is outraged that the actor playing the character is straight. A crucial dynamic is on display here. The Left gets what it wants, but demands more. Always more. It is never satisfied. Meanwhile, Christians cede more and more of the culture, rarely offer a peep of protest, and make do with whatever crumbs they are thrown.” —Matt Walsh

Crisis averted! “There are hundreds of other environmental procedures and regulations that Trump’s group has begun to undo. So he’s doing some damage, but overall I would say less than I had feared.” —environmental blowhard Al Gore

Braying Jenny: “It is not a disconnected fact … that American women entering the labor force from 1973 to 2009 added three and a half trillion dollars to our economy. … That is not disconnected from the fact that Roe became the law of the land in January of 1973.” —Chelsea Clinton, who neglected to mention that there are approximately 30 million fewer women (and another 30 million fewer men) since 1973

Braying Jackass: “When someone comes to call out bigots and it gets hot, even physical, are they equally wrong as the bigot they are fighting? I argue no. … People who show up to fight against bigots are not to be judged the same as the bigots even if they do resort to the same kinds of petty violence.” —CNN’s Chris Cuomo condoning antifa

And last… “Remember when over 100 newspapers agreed to run editorials on the same day defending a free press against Obama after he spied on AP, hacked [Sharyl] Attkisson, got phone records of one reporter, while trying to jail another? Me neither.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57636-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