The Patriot Post Digest 9-17-2018

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 9-17-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Sep. 17, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/58298-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

https://patriotpost.us/fqd/58297-founders-quote-daily

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Democrats launch a despicable and cynical attack on Kavanaugh.
Ten years later, reviewing the financial crisis and its roots in Democrat policy.
It’s time to hold America’s “educators” to account.
If Dems prevail in November, higher taxes are coming.
What should conservatives do about Silicon Valley?
Today is Constitution Day.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists, and Short Cuts.

IN BRIEF
Democrats Assault the Constitution Over Kavanaugh1

Thomas Gallatin

While despicable to the nth degree and the dirtiest form of gutter politics, Democrats trotted out an accusation of sexual assault supposedly perpetrated by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and his accuser has come forward. The last-minute revelation, made first by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), may best be described as evil genius. With Christine Ford, a research professor of psychology in California, now publicly stepping up to own the accusation, Democrats have gone full Anita Hill in their efforts to obstruct2 Kavanaugh.

First, the details of Feinstein’s #MeToo dog whistle3 are now known. But while the allegation of sexual assault by Kavanaugh against Ford — from 35 years ago, when they were both in high school — is serious, it’s also quite dubious.

Right from the get-go, Kavanaugh vehemently and categorically denied having engaged in any such misconduct at any time in high school or after. He was supported in his refutation by 65 women who have known Kavanaugh since high school and vouched for him being a man of high character.

Moreover, the details of the allegation appear spurious. The lone corroborative evidence offered by Ford is a 2012 couple’s counseling therapy session. However, the notes from that session do not match Ford’s current story. For example, the number of individuals involved in the alleged assault is different and Kavanaugh’s name does not appear in the session notes. Both of these discrepancies raise red flags about the credibility of the accusation.

Second, political allegiance is a huge factor that must not be overlooked. Ford is a progressive Democrat donor who’s literally invested in stopping any conservative judge from reaching the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Feinstein and her fellow Democrats sat on this allegation since July, not asking Kavanaugh even one question about it during the three days of hearings, nor during their closed-door questioning. In other words, there is no question that the timing is a politically calculated play by the Democrats.

Finally, Democrats’ calls to immediately halt the confirmation vote on Kavanaugh in order to investigate this allegation undermine the very spirit of the Constitution and the American judicial system. The foundational concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is what has made the U.S. justice system the envy of the world. Democrats are pushing the dangerously flawed concept of assuming guilt based solely on the seriousness of the accusation and then demanding that the accused prove his innocence. Make no mistake, this is an assault on the Constitution — and today is, ironically, Constitution Day4.

Unfortunately, with a friendly mainstream media backing them, this dirty political play gives Democrats a win-win scenario. They have now effectively weaponized the #MeToo movement against Kavanaugh in an effort to dupe women voters5. Should Republicans go forward with the vote without conceding to Democrat demands for delay and further investigation, they risk the bad publicity of “not listening” to a victim of possible sexual abuse. Democrats will gleefully use that against Republicans in the midterms. If, on the other hand, Republicans cave to Democrat demands and lend legitimacy to an almost certainly phony hit job, they fall into the trap of further drawing out the confirmation vote until possibly after the midterms, which, worst case scenario, has Democrats regaining majority control. And if that were to occur, what’s to stop outgoing Republicans, particularly anti-Trump squishes like Jeff Flake (R-AZ) or Bob Corker (R-TN), from stalling further or even voting against Kavanaugh?

In fact, should the confirmation vote be delayed until after the midterms, and should Democrats win the Senate majority, their argument will naturally be that the Kavanaugh vote must be delayed until the new Senate is seated because “the people have spoken.” That argument alone would buckle the knees of some Republicans, whose concern over getting along with the new Democrat Senate majority would direct their vote.

In the end, this recent play by Democrats has made one thing patently obvious: The Washington swamp is far from drained.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58294-democrats-assault-the-constitution-over-kavanaugh

2008 Financial Crisis — A 10-Year Retrospective6

Nate Jackson

Ten years ago, the nation experienced a formative and trying financial crisis. Economically, the collapse of major financial institutions helped plunge the nation into the “Great Recession.” Politically, the crisis propelled Barack Obama to victory in 2008 — which then caused eight years of economic stagnation under the weight of his massive new government programs.

On a walk down memory lane (or the memory hole of the Left), we see that Democrats seeded the financial collapse, particularly with mortgage regulations.

As Mark Alexander explained in his updated and comprehensive review of the 2008 financial crisis7, “The Community Reinvestment Act was passed by Democrats of the 95th Congress and signed into law by Jimmy Carter in 1977. It coerced lending institutions to make loans ‘to the entire community,’ undermining means testing to qualify applicants for mortgages.” Despite some positive changes in the intervening Republican White House years, “Bill Clinton’s signature on legislation making it easier for minority constituents with ubgone21 to obtain mortgages really reseeded the crisis. … Clinton’s legislation, in effect, applied affirmative action to the lending industry, which is to say that the [crisis was] NOT a ‘free market failure’ but the result of socially engineered financial policy by the central government.”

It took time for bad subprime mortgages to create a financial sinkhole underneath major banks. That’s why the collapse didn’t happen in 1998 but during the tenure of George W. Bush a decade later. When the house of cards inevitably collapsed, the Democrat response was … more government regulation. The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul essentially codified “too big to fail” — the very thing Democrats routinely railed against. By 2015, Obama’s administration was working to make sure history repeated8.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 9-17-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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Fortunately, in 2016, Americans took another path. President Donald Trump has worked from Day 1 to lower taxes and deregulate the economy, and the results are impressive9. That doesn’t mean we’re permanently out of the woods, or that Trump is a miracle worker. But it does mean that the right policies matter at the federal level and at your kitchen table.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58263-2008-financial-crisis-a-10-year-retrospective

Top Headlines10

Pompeo: John Kerry “actively undermining U.S. policy11” on Iran (National Review12)
Trump has decided to impose tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods in dramatic escalation of trade battle (The Washington Post13)
Lisa Page testimony: Collusion still unproven by time of Mueller’s special counsel appointment (Fox News14)
Al Gore’s claim about Hurricane Florence doused by scientists (The Washington Times15)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can’t explain how she’ll pay for the $40 trillion programs she supports (The Daily Wire16)
More equal than others: “Socialist” Ocasio-Cortez wears $3,500 outfit for photo shoot with construction workers (The Daily Wire17)
Education Department reveals new Title IX rules18 (Reason19)
Should have been satire: Coast Guard member reassigned after he flashed “offensive” “OK” hand gesture on TV (USA Today20)
Chelsea Clinton: It’d be un-Christian to … overturn Roe v. Wade (Hot Air21)
Humor: World history professor opens class with trigger warning for socialist students (The Babylon Bee22)
Policy: No fourth branch of government (Washington Examiner23)
Policy: Why we couldn’t create our Constitution today (The Daily Signal24)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report25.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58296-monday-top-headlines

FEATURED ANALYSIS
It’s Time to Hold America’s ‘Educators’ to Account29

Arnold Ahlert

Last week, in an effort to blame a president for his administration’s failings before a disaster occurred, a Washington Post editorial stated30 that Donald Trump is “complicit” with a hurricane. Such a statement should set off alarm bells, but not for its pathetically inane31 level of political bias. That the Post would not only consider such an editorial for publication but actually publish it is a testament to the pitiful state of American education. And it’s time for Trump to demand a Republican-controlled Congress hold nationally televised congressional hearings to deal with what has become an existential threat to our republic.

According to dictionary.com, the definition of complicit is “choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act, especially with others.” Thus, the Post’s editorial board is asserting that the president of the United States and a storm are partners in crime. It is impossible to believe the board isn’t fully aware that such an assertion is a complete non-sequitur. Nor can we be expected to believe they seriously think that if Trump only fell into line with the progressive worldview and kept America in the economy-crushing Paris Accord, that Hurricane Florence would either not exist, or would have turned to sea instead of making landfall.

We suppose it’s worth something that at least the editors knew the word “collusion” was spent.

How contemptuous of the American public’s acumen are the Post’s editors? Last February, the same paper revealed that many nations who signed the Paris Accord are failing32 to meet its goals. Moreover, the U.S. is currently the world leader in cutting33 CO2 emissions. Thus, one can conclude the most reasonable motive for publishing such unadulterated garbage is the editorial board’s smug conclusion that a mis-educated public will buy it.

Their contempt is hardly unique. “Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits,” writes34 former Select Committee on Intelligence member Angelo Codevilla. “These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the ‘in’ language — serves as a badge of identity.”

And what kind of education do ordinary Americans get? “For our K-12 school system, an honorary membership in the Third World,” writes35 columnist F.H. Buckley.

This divide produces immense polarization between a ruling class that believes it is entitled to rule — irrespective of elections — and an American public they believe is “retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained,” as Codevilla puts it.

Codevilla wrote that piece in 2010. Last week, video36 of a post-election meeting of Google leadership and employees revealed the utter contempt these self-appointed Masters of the Universe have for anyone who runs afoul of the progressive social canon. Moreover, company co-founder Sergey Brin and CEO Sundar Pichai refer to project “Jigsaw,” which was an effort37 to use their search engine — the one with a 90.88% worldwide market share — to redirect “extremists” to content tailored to change their opinions.

Extremists according to whom?

Google’s arrogance is matched by Twitter. The social media service that both exploits and epitomizes America’s increasing infatuation with semi-literate communication has determined the highly accurate term “illegal alien” — used in federal law and at the Supreme Court — violates38 its “Hateful Content” policy.

Unfortunately, both companies are plowing fertile soil, courtesy of a unionized educational cartel that is a de facto arm39 of the Democrat Party. This contemptible decades-long alliance has turned America’s classrooms into dumbed-down, progressive indoctrination factories.

It’s time for a national accounting. For example, it would be highly illuminating to put officials at John F. Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on national TV and ask why they are teaching40 students a gender-bending, anti-white worldview, courtesy of a “Diversity Toolkit” that contains a confidentiality clause that keeps inquiring parents at bay. Or maybe a Vernon, New Jersey, middle school teacher could explain why she skipped41 commemorating Sept. 11 to teach a fictionalized account of a Muslim boy bullied because his name was Osama. Maybe officials in numerous cities and states who boast of increasing graduation rates could explain why a whopping 40-60% of high school “graduates” need42 remediation classes in English or math — or both — before entering college. Or why only 36% percent of eighth-graders are proficient43 in reading, and only 34% are proficient in math.

How is failing to teach more than six in 10 children basic skills — year after year — even remotely acceptable?

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 9-17-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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Because it aligns with the American Left’s long-term strategy, which is now bearing fruit: When one turns out a sufficient number of semi-literate, semi-numerate, and ultimately government-dependent students — the majority of whom are contemptuous of a nation they know next to nothing44 about in terms of civics, history or the Constitution — an increasing infatuation with socialism, and countless other permutations of a “by any means necessary” agenda, including the effort to unseat a duly elected president, become eminently reasonable.

The deleterious effect on the nation has never been clearer. The orchestrated ignorance is profound, enduring — and multi-generational.

Thus in Hollywood, a community that once turned out thoughtful, well-constructed, clever, literate and oftentimes pro-American entertainment now floods the nation with a degenerative sludge-fest of anti-intellectual detritus, often accompanied by moronic moralizing.

Our universities have become de facto kindergartens, where social justice warriors make the now seamless transition from their helicopter parents (educated by the same system) and “everyone gets a trophy” lifestyles to campuses replete with safe spaces, trigger warnings, and utter contempt for the First and Second Amendments, all enabled by cowardly or complicit administrators.

Corporations have abandoned sensible business practices for leftist-oriented virtue-signaling45 policies that alienate customers. Moreover they embrace46 monocultural hiring and firing practices that amount to nothing more than political blacklisting.

And as for what Codevilla called our uniform ruling class, a public-be-damned lack of statesmanship, and a boundless level of self-interest are its two most “uniform” characteristics.

Nonetheless, nationally televised congressional hearings are the best vehicle for staging the battle to save the nation. It is one of the few venues where the filter of an equally corrupt mainstream media is least likely to be imposed — and where the rogue’s galley of scam artists, activists, and propagandists purporting to be educators can and must be taken to task in no uncertain terms.

The public must be made to understand that every serious problem with which this nation is afflicted has education as its common denominator, and that “sunlight” — as in the white-hot lights of national TV exposure — is the best disinfectant.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58288-its-time-to-hold-americas-educators-to-account

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Constitution Day 20184 — Celebrate the enduring legacy of Liberty enshrined in our Constitution.
Video: Honoring Constitution Day47 — Reflecting on the awesome gift of the Constitution and preserving the principles of the Founding.
Threatening Weather Ahead With Storm of Democrats48 — They will almost certainly raise taxes on almost all Americans if they win in November.
What Should Conservatives Do About Silicon Valley?49 — Existing laws cover much of what’s going on. All it takes is the will to enforce them.
Sequel to ‘Unbroken’ Hits Theaters50 — This movie tells the rest of Louis Zamperini’s story — coming to Christian faith.
Video: Bob Woodward’s ‘Fear’: Who Cares?51 — Is the Trump administration a bunch of tattling, backstabbing, self-aggrandizing, traitors to the boss?
Video: The Real Wage Gap Number Revealed52 — The so-called gender wage gap, the factors involved, and what the actual data shows.
Humor Video: Weather Channel Reporter Drama53 — Mike Seidel really wanted viewers to know the wind was blowing. Darn those passersby.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Gary Bauer: “The [Kavanaugh] letter is an important piece of evidence. Don’t miss the significance of this letter, my friends. It shows you that the Left is willing to do anything to regain power so it can finally ‘fundamentally transform’ America into a socialist/progressive/left-wing fascist enterprise. The handling of this letter is a violation of every norm and every standard of decency. Even some members of the liberal media seem disturbed by this latest Democrat attack. Sen. Dianne Feinstein had the letter for months. She could have raised it with Kavanaugh during a private meeting. She could have easily brought it up during the hearings. She could have referred it to the FBI at any time. Instead, the letter was held for precisely this moment — just as Kavanaugh is on the verge of confirmation. And she has sent it to the FBI now. Yes, THAT FBI — the one apparently infested with left-wing deep-state operatives who have been out to get Donald Trump for the past two years.”

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, ‘We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.’ This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man.”

Braying Jenny: “I think [Donald Trump is] the most deplorable, the most despicable human being I’ve ever encountered. He’s a liar. He’s dangerous. He’s alienated all our allies. And he’s in bed with [Vladimir] Putin, the oligarchs, and the Kremlin of Russia.” —Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Braying Jackass I: “You will read quotes from Republicans saying, ‘Wow, this is messed up.’ Well, why aren’t you doing something about it? ‘Well, we can’t, because we really like these tax cuts for the wealthy. … So we’ll put up with crazy.’” —Barack Obama

Braying Jackass II: “What happened to all this concern about deficits? You weren’t concerned when you gave me a tax cut I didn’t need and didn’t ask for. None of this is conservative. This is not normal, what we’re seeing. It is radical.” —Barack Obama

Belly laugh of the week: “President Clinton … ushered in transformative progress to protect women from violence and abuse.” —House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) praising legislation signed by an accused rapist

Non Compos Mentis: “Donald Trump has killed those [Puerto Rican] people twice — once through neglect in oversight, and secondly, disgracing [sic] that they died at all. And that’s what death denial, that’s what Holocaust denial, that’s what all these denial syndromes are all about, is killing the person twice. … And the reason they’re doing such a bang-up job … in North Carolina and South Carolina is because those are Trump voters, just like they were in Texas. If they’re not voters, and they’re not white, he doesn’t give a darn.” —MSNBC’s Jennifer Rubin on the inane Hurricane Maria death-toll dispute54

And last… “If the GOP does not stand up to this character assassination attempt on Kavanaugh, every judicial nominee moving forward is going to suffer last minute sexual assault allegations.” —Erick Erickson

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58285-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