The Patriot Post Digest 8-27-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-27-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Aug. 27, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/57887-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.” —Benjamin Rush (1773)

https://patriotpost.us/fqd/57885-founders-quote-daily

IN TODAY’S EDITION

John McCain was a Patriot but not always a conservative ally.
Pope Francis is accused of covering up Catholic priests’ sexual abuse.
The doctor shortage is a bigger problem than many realize.
South Africa — when social justice becomes theft.
Two Republicans save funding for Planned Parenthood.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists, and Short Cuts.

IN BRIEF
John McCain, RIP1

Nate Jackson

John McCain, the six-term Republican senator from Arizona, died Saturday at age 81. He will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, the 34th person to receive that high honor. His death leaves sizable and complicated shoes to fill.

McCain was an enigma. He was clearly a Patriot who served his country with honor and distinction as a Navy pilot in Vietnam, as a senator, and as a presidential candidate2. John McCain loved America and no one ever questioned it. Politically, however, McCain was often at odds with — no, deliberately provoked, antagonized, and undermined — conservatives and relished too much his role as the media-darling “maverick” of the GOP. When you’re the only Republican the media loves (with the exception of the 2008 presidential campaign), that says a lot that isn’t good.

The Swamp is a powerfully intoxicating place, and McCain, along with too many others who spend too many years there, succumbed to it. From his “Gang of Eight” powerbrokering to campaign-finance reform (i.e., incumbent protection) to the fact that among his final Senate votes was a promise-breaking, deciding one to save ObamaCare3, McCain in some ways came to define the Swamp. As a result, his feud with Donald Trump4 became something of a legend. Perhaps it’s no small irony that McCain died of the same brain cancer as Ted Kennedy, nine years later to the day5.

Disagreements aside, there was far more to McCain the man. He survived being shot down while on a bombing mission over Hanoi in 1967; having broken both arms and his right knee, he was captured, beaten, and stabbed, and he spent more than five years being tortured by the North Vietnamese in the “Hanoi Hilton.” Given that his father and grandfather were Navy admirals, the North Vietnamese attempted to exploit him for propaganda. They then offered him early release, which he refused in order to stay with his fellow Patriots in captivity. He was a true American hero.

Thus it was no surprise to see McCain spend the rest of his life as a tireless champion for Patriots in uniform. He served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and did much good for these men and women.

We’ll close with a couple of quotes from McCain himself, given in a 2015 interview.

Asked about bouncing right back in 2008 after his defeat by Barack Obama, McCain said: “You know, the best cure, I found, for something like that is: Get goin’. Don’t look back. It’s so mentally harmful for you to look back — ‘I shoulda, coulda, woulda.’ … The best thing to do is press on.”

And about his career, he said: “I do not know anyone alive — I’ve never heard of anyone — who is as lucky as I am. I crashed airplanes. I was a terrible disciplinary problem at the Naval Academy. I managed to avoid being killed in a fire on the [USS] Forrestal. I was shot down. I had the honor of winning the nomination for the presidency of the United States. The honor of serving in the United States Senate. And now following in the footsteps of one Barry Goldwater as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. I am exuberant and so fortunate. I’m telling you, I wake up every morning and go to bed every night saying, ‘Thank you, God.’”

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57879-john-mccain-rip

Archbishop Calls for the Pope’s Resignation6
Thomas Gallatin

Another bombshell hit the scandal-ridden7 Roman Catholic Church over the weekend in the form of a letter8 written by the Vatican’s former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó. In the scathing letter, Viganó calls for the resignation of Pope Francis over allegations that he knew of the sexual abuse perpetrated by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. McCarrick had been placed under disciplinary sanctions by Pope Benedict, and yet Francis acted to repeal them, freeing McCarrick to continue his predatory ways.

Viganó blasted Francis, writing, “He knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator. Although he knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end; indeed, he made McCarrick’s advice his own, which was certainly not inspired by sound intentions and for love of the Church. It was only when he was forced by the report of the abuse of a minor, again on the basis of media attention, that he took action [regarding McCarrick] to save his image in the media.”

In calling on Francis to resign, Viganó argues, “In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”

As we have previously noted, this scandal exposes shocking levels of corruption within the leadership of the Catholic Church. And now Viganó alleges that “the corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy.” It may well be that Francis’s own leftist leanings9, which he has regularly espoused in his public teachings, factored into his decision to reverse his processor’s disciplinary action against McCarrick. Recall that Benedict was a staunch conservative and traditionalist who sought to revive a number of older church practices that had fallen out of favor.

In his letter, Viganó also acknowledges the elephant in the room, writing of the “widespread” sin of homosexuality being practiced among the clergy “in many dioceses.” He calls for “a time of conversion and penance” and says, “The seriousness of homosexual behavior must be denounced. The homosexual networks present in the Church must be eradicated. … These homosexual networks, which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders, etc., act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire Church.”

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57884-archbishop-calls-for-the-popes-resignation

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-27-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Top Headlines10

White House flag back at full staff — bad form and needless antagonism (The Resurgent11)
U.S., Mexico reach tentative new NAFTA deal (Fox News12)
Democrats move to limit role of superdelegates in presidential nominations (The Hill13)
DNC goes gender-neutral, demands equal number of men and women on committees (The Daily Wire14)
Trump’s power to fire federal workers curtailed by judge (The New York Times15)
Trump cancels Pompeo trip to North Korea, citing lack of “sufficient progress” on denuclearization (The Washington Free Beacon16)
Assailant at Jacksonville Landing gaming event kills two before killing himself (Fox News17)
Feds charge 19 noncitizens with illegally voting in 2016 (The Washington Times18)
U.S. cuts more than $200 million in aid to Palestinians (Townhall19)
Humor: Libertarian just gonna kick back and enjoy watching faith in government institutions crumble (The Babylon Bee20)
Policy: Three examples of how Social Security robs Americans of greater income before, during retirement (The Daily Signal21)
Policy: The missing ingredient of HSA reform (Real Clear Policy22)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report23.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57886-monday-top-headlines

FEATURED ANALYSIS
The Doctor Is Out27

Arnold Ahlert

Millions of Americans, including those who believe health care is a “right,” are in for a rude awakening: According to a 2018 report28 from the Association of American Medical Colleges, America faces a projected shortage of 42,600 to 121,300 physicians by 2030. Both ends of the span represent an increase from the 40,800 to 104,900 doctor shortage the AAMC projected in 2017.

“This year’s analysis reinforces the serious threat posed by a real and significant doctor shortage,” said AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, MD. “With the additional demand from a population that will not only continue to grow but also age considerably over the next 12 years, we must start training more doctors now to meet the needs of our patients in the future.”

Four broad categories — primary care, medical specialties, surgical specialties, and other specialties — are aggregated by the report. In the arena of primary care, there will be a shortage of between 14,800 and 49,300 doctors. In the other three categories, the shortages will be between 33,800 and 72,700 physicians. Moreover, these shortages will persist, despite changes in health care delivery and the usage of other specializations to fill in the gaps.

As Kirch notes, population matters. America’s overall population is expected to grow 11% by 2030, but the over-65 population will surge by 50%. Furthermore, 33% of currently active doctors will also be 65 year of age or older.

When they decide to retire may affect the shortage more than any other factor.

On the other end of the equation, fewer Americans are interested in becoming doctors. “There are definitely fewer people going to [medical school] and more going into careers like engineering,” said Craig Fowler, regional VP of The Medicus Firm, a national physician search and consulting agency. Fowler further notes that Millennials prefer urban lifestyles that don’t align with the limited residency choices available to new medical school graduates.

Thus, rural America is where the doctor shortage is most acute. “As of June 30, according to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, there were more than 7,200 designated Health Professional Shortage Areas lacking adequate primary care nationwide — home to 85.5 million people,” U.S. News and World Report reveals29. “Of those areas, according to the HRSA, nearly 60 percent were in rural regions, and the nation needed 4,022 rural doctors to close the gap.”

Yet Millennial lifestyle choices aren’t wholly selfish. Median medical school debt approaches30 $195,000 and the higher salaries one can command in urban settings makes it easier to pay off. So does opting for a specialty instead of becoming a primary care provider (PCP).

Ideas such as31 free tuition and/or arrangements to pay tuition in exchange for working as a PCP in underserved areas have been implemented. But as Dr. Julie Phillips, a PCP and Michigan State University associate professor who researches the consequences of medical student debt, notes, that pay gap, coupled with specialists’ shorter working hours and the “prestige factor,” seriously mitigate the effects of those ideas.

Just as disturbing? Those who make it through the rigors and expenses of medical school — and opt out for another career. Fowler cites the insufficient number of residency slots for medical grads. “So you have that population of people who have an MD but didn’t practice for that reason. There is this bottleneck effect,” he explains.

Columnist Cal Thomas’s longtime family physician, Dr. John Curry, now retired, illuminates32 a far more serious problem. Curry explains that medicine as he practiced it back in 1974 was a transaction between patients and a professional, dedicated class of doctors who took the Hippocratic Oath very seriously. And while there was an assortment of incompetents in the field, “the typical physician put the patient’s interests ahead of his own; everyone who needed care received it; and in dealing with the poor, ‘fees’ could be embarrassingly small,” he explained.

Today? Doctors have been supplanted by “corporate entities” that control everything from hospitals, health insurance, and pharmaceuticals to psychiatric and physical therapy benefits, all for millions of people paying exorbitant premiums. People with little knowledge of how their money is spent.

Government worsens the system via a series of interconnected computers forever being upgraded to deliver better care that never gets better. And physicians who used to be the essence of medical care are reduced to the proverbial cogs in the machine. Curry concludes, “Becoming a physician no longer has the appeal of joining a profession in which one can expect to do a lot of good in the world, advance scientific knowledge, have a lifestyle that balances work and family and earn a better-than-average living.”

Cog in the machine is a recurring theme. Dr. Amy Baxter, who quit medicine after a 20-year career, has little use for the government-mandated expansion of electronic health records (EHRs) engendered by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act33 passed in 2009. “With the [enforcement] of EHRs, I had to spend more time as a scribe,” Baxter explains. “One night a child I was treating had a seizure and I couldn’t get the medicine to enable them to breathe because their chart wasn’t in the system yet. This kid was fixing to die and I, the doctor, couldn’t get the medicine. It was demoralizing.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-27-2018
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Baxter is not alone. New research34 by Stanford Medicine conducted by The Harris Poll reveals a whopping 59% of physicians believe EHRs “need a complete overhaul,” and 40% believe “there are more challenges with EHRs than benefits.”

Far worse, 69% say that EHRs “take valuable time away from their patients.”

Columnist Selwyn Duke cites35 another factor for the doctor shortage: diminishing faith. While Christianity “stresses self-sacrifice and service to others,” the nation’s increasing infatuation with moral relativism and secularity have produced legions of Americans who embrace self-gratification above all. “Unfortunately,” he asserts, “this decline in faith, and its attendant morality, leads to bigger government.”

Duke is spot on. Despite the evident disaster socialism represents, 70% of Americans, including 52% of Republicans, want36 Medicare for All.

That so many Americans remain utterly oblivious to the astronomical costs37 of such a program, and the reality of placing their lives in the hands of bureaucrats instead of doctors, is a testament to the disaster our education system has become.

Another inconvenient reality? More doctors are refusing38 to accept Medicare due to its low reimbursement rates. Combine that with the increasing doctor shortage and what do you get? What America’s veterans dealing with a health-care-for-all VA already know: Everyone gets health insurance — but one may literally die waiting39 to get health care.

“In 2017, the U.S. spent $3.4 trillion on healthcare for 323 million Americans, or $10,526 for every man, woman and child,” explains40 retired pediatric cardiologist Dr. Deane Waldman. “Imagine if every family of four put $42,105 in an HSA every year and simply shopped for and paid for their health care. No government stealing our money to pay its bureaucracy. No insurance company delaying or denying care. Just the old but right doctor-patient relationship with no one and nothing in between.”

Nothing but cultivated ignorance.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57864-the-doctor-is-out

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

South Africa: When Social Justice Becomes Theft41 — President Ramaphosais and the communist African National Congress are taking land from white farmers.
Two Republicans Save Planned Parenthood Funding42 — Senate rejects Rand Paul’s amendment defunding abortion providers in the appropriations bill.
Video: What Do People Really Think About Racial Identity?43 — Are people proud to be white? Black? Hispanic? Will Witt went to Venice Beach to find out.
Video: Dr. Jordan Peterson on Today’s Political Climate44 — 12 Rules for Life author Jordan Peterson reacts as many people view his work in a political light.
Video: We CAN Go Back Again45 — How fast our society is descending is tough to measure … until you see something like this.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Gary Bauer: “Here we go again… The Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-wing hate group, has reportedly convinced Visa and MasterCard to cut off the David Horowitz Freedom Center, essentially shutting down its ability to raise gotcha186. This is yet another disturbing example of the Left turning corporate America into active combatants in the culture wars as it tries to silence conservative views. Progressives are operating on two fronts. They are using antifa mobs to shout down conservatives, and they are using corporations, whether it is social media or payment platforms, to lock out conservative organizations and voices from the public policy debate. The Left is fundamentally opposed to free speech and increasingly intolerant. It does not want to win the debate. It wants to stop the debate.”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “There are two groups of people in this country: People who have wanted to get rid of Donald Trump since the moment he won [the] election and people who chose to vote for him because he said he would advance their agenda. That latter group is extremely happy, probably pleasantly surprised with how well things have gone. The first group, it doesn’t matter what the details are. They’re just moving to get rid him by hook or by crook. The fact that people can see this — that we live in a swamp where if you have the right connections you get away with crimes and if you don’t they’ll go after anybody, anyway, anyhow, whatever it takes to get rid of the president — is a credibility problem for those institutions that are supposed to practice the rule of law.” —Molly Hemingway

Dezinformatsiya I: “The sitting president is accused of a crime. The Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives would begin to look to see if there’s enough evidence to start investigating and drawing up articles of impeachment, but this is not a functional Congress. This is a Congress controlled by Republicans.” —Chuck Todd

Dezinformatsiya II: “Always keeping in mind that Mueller knows so much more than he has shown. If you think [last week’s development] was a shock to our democratic system, just stay tuned. Because the other things Mueller is working on, and sooner or later we’ll find out what they are, is going to make [all that] pale by comparison. I think the evidence abounds.” —fake newsman Dan Rather

Dezinformatsiya III: “When impeachment was being considered for President Clinton, and as you know, orders of impeachment, word against him, he won the trial in the Senate, but Lindsey Graham said that impeachment is about the honor and integrity of the president. If you apply that to the present situation, if what we’re talking about is the honor and integrity of the president, this is a situation Donald Trump in the end may not win.” —Dan Rather

And last… “Firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens rarely result in tragedies, but confiscating firearms from law-abiding citizens frequently results in genocides.” —Mark Alexander

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57878-monday-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