The Patriot Post Digest 10-12-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 10-12-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Oct. 12, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/58817-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.” —James Madison (1787)

https://patriotpost.us/fqd/58815-founders-quote-daily

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Kanye West met with Donald Trump, and the ensuing racism is appalling.
The Leftmedia keeps peddling the Matthew Shepard “hate crime” hoax.
After all these years, Republicans still need a health plan.
Kids suffering gender dysphoria are not receiving actual care.
GOP still looking for the Ford letter leaker.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists, and Short Cuts.

IN BRIEF
Uh Oh, Kanye Escaped the Demo Plantation Again1

Nate Jackson

Kanye West once again finds himself a “fugitive slave” of sorts for making his way via the Underground Railroad to an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump. There is nothing in this country that permits overt racism quite like a black person thinking for himself and refusing to toe the Democrat Plantation Party line.

West, of course, is no stranger to this type of controversy. We last wrote2 about his politically incorrect comments back in April. But neither is Kanye a conservative hero thoughtfully pushing Republican policies. (Remember, he’s the same guy who declared3 after Hurricane Katrina, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”) Let’s face it: This was a celebrity president glad-handing with another celebrity. As for West, his sole “crime” is being pals with Trump, whom Democrats are politically invested in tarnishing as a racist.

“Trump is on his hero’s journey right now,” West said during his White House visit. “He might not have thought he’d have a crazy motherf—ker like Kanye running up support.” Of his “Make America Great Again” hat, Kanye said, “There was something about when I put this hat on it made me feel like Superman. … You made a Superman cape for me.” Later, he got up, gave Trump a hug, and said, “I love this guy right here.”

Lowbrow entertainment to be sure, but Leftmedia talkingheads were outraged.

“Kanye West is what happens when Negroes don’t read,” CNN’s Bakari Sellers declared. Colleague Tara Setmayer joined in, declaring West to be “the token Negro of the Trump administration.” And CNN host Don Lemon summed it up, “What I saw was a minstrel show. … Him in front of all these white people, mostly white people, embarrassing himself and embarrassing Americans, but mostly African-Americans, because every one of them is sitting either at home or with their phones, watching this, cringing.”

All three of those CNN analysts are black, which is the only other reason they were permitted to use such racist language.

So why are leftists actually attacking Kanye? The big picture is that it’s about enforcing ideological conformity among Democrats’ favorite victimized identity group. But practically, it’s about votes.

The Hill reports4, “The president won 8 percent of the black vote in the 2016 election, according to exit polling, and Gallup’s tracking poll has long shown Trump’s support among African-Americans hovering between 10 and 15 percent.” If Kanye were to end up pulling off a few percentage points of the black vote from the Democrat column, November’s blue wave wouldn’t even make the beach.

Democrats have built their coalition around 90% or more of the black vote, and they seek to do the same thing with other minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. Cracks in that alliance spell real electoral trouble, hence the vitriolic response to Kanye.

Black Lives Votes Matter.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58812-uh-oh-kanye-escaped-the-demo-plantation-again

Leftmedia Keeps Peddling the Matthew Shepard ‘Hate Crime’ Hoax5

Thomas Gallatin

On Thursday, it was announced that the remains of murder victim Matthew Shepard will be interred at Washington National Cathedral. NPR reported6, “News of Shepard’s interment comes 20 years after he was tied up, savagely attacked and left for dead in October 1998. At the time, he was a 21-year-old college student in Laramie, Wyo. His brutal murder attracted intense media coverage at the time and galvanized support for laws protecting the rights of LGBTQ Americans.” And insomuch as the homosexual lobby, willingly supported by the mainstream media, crafted the incident into a narrative of murder motivated by hatred of homosexuals, NPR’s statement is correct.

However, years later investigative journalist Stephen Jimenez unearthed the truth behind Shepard’s murder, exposing the fact that the popular narrative that Shepard was murdered because of his homosexuality was a lie. As Mark Alexander wrote7 four years ago, “After years of exhaustive research on Shepard’s murder, including interviews with more than 100 people — associates of Shepard, his murderers and their associates — a respected journalist, Stephen Jimenez, has published his findings in The Book of Matt. The book dispels the notion that the murder was related to Shepard’s sexual orientation, and instead concludes he was a meth dealer and sex partner with one of his murderers — both of whom were homosexuals.”

Interestingly, following the publishing of his book in 2013, NPR interviewed Jimenez8, who is himself a homosexual. In that interview, Jimenez offered a damning insight: “Once you had the president of the United States, while Matthew … being kept alive on a respirator, already making comments that this was a de facto hate crime — once that story got out, what was going to happen? How was that story going to be pulled back?” Clearly, NPR is too committed to the leftist bogus narrative to reverse course as they are still unquestioningly peddling the Shepard “hate crime” hoax to this day.

This is a classic example of Leftmedia bias — the promotion of the leftist agenda is more important than reporting the truth if the truth doesn’t serve to support the agenda. In NPR’s Thursday piece, there is no mention of any questions over the validity of the Shepard story or of the network’s own interview with Jimenez. Instead, the only issue of “uncertainty” entertained by the story is that of Shepard’s parents and their decades-long debate over where their son’s remains should finally be laid to rest. Would that everyone here could make peace with the truth.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58811-leftmedia-keeps-peddling-the-matthew-shepard-hate-crime-hoax

Top Headlines9

Hurricane Michael leaves 1.2 million in the dark from Florida to Virginia (Washington Examiner10)
15 more judicial confirmations, with more to come (National Review11)
Turkish court rules to release U.S. pastor Brunson (NBC News12)
Trump administration touts 2019 drop in average ObamaCare premiums (USA Today13)
China trade surplus with U.S. widens to record $34.1B (Associated Press14)
Pope accepts Cardinal Wuerl’s resignation as archbishop of Washington after sexual-abuse scandal15 (Catholic News Service16)
Army to attack recruitment shortfall in booming economy (The Washington Times17)
Pentagon grounds F-35 fighter jet flights in wake of crash (New York Post18)
Washington state court throws out death penalty, calling it racially biased (Fox News19)
Humor: New polls increase fears that midterm elections will be won by wave of politicians (The Onion20)
Policy: Researchers argue benefits of CO2 outweigh the harm (Inside Sources21)
Policy: Are immigrants driving income inequality? (American Action Forum22)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report23.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58816-friday-top-headlines

FEATURED ANALYSIS
After All These Years, Republicans Still Need a Health Plan27

Brian Mark Weber

After taking office in 1993, one of Bill Clinton’s main initiatives — led by Hillary Clinton — was “guaranteeing” health care for every American. The result was “HillaryCare,” a behemoth bill that would have put the government in control of doctors and hospitals, but was defeated by opposition from a range of health care, business, and political groups. The famous “Harry and Louise” commercials, portraying a middle-class American couple struggling to get their minds around the plan, were inspired by the Clintons’ power grab.

When it failed, Republicans had a prime opportunity to take charge and reframe the issue in a way that Americans could understand and support. In classic Republican fashion, however, they surrendered the issue to Democrats, who rebranded and marketed government health care under Barack Obama 17 years later.

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The Patriot Post Digest 10-12-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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Ever since ObamaCare became law, Republicans have been promising to repeal and replace it. But while President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have chipped away at the law, the full-repeal effort failed spectacularly. In any case, health care in this country keeps getting more complex and more expensive. Poor Harry and Louise.

It’s true that Trump is out this week touting an average drop in ObamaCare premiums13 for next year. But health care and health insurance are vastly more expensive than pre-ObamaCare.

Sarah Kliff writes28 at Vox, “Over the past decade, the size our insurance deductibles have skyrocketed. Deductibles have grown by 212 percent since 2008 — eight times faster than wage growth, and 12 times faster than inflation.” Kliff adds, “Over the same time period that we’ve seen deductibles skyrocketing, we’ve also seen support for a national health care plan slowly rising.”

Just as Democrats have hoped.

By merely tinkering with ObamaCare rather than ripping it out root and branch, the GOP has squandered an opportunity to deliver real, market-based solutions that address the quality and affordability of health care.

And rising costs are the consequence of leaving too much of the ACA in place without coming up with viable alternatives.

As Ed Morrissey writes29, “The real cause of skyrocketing deductibles is that same government intervention. ObamaCare limited premium hikes and forced insurers to add more costs while eliminating risk-based rates with its ‘community pricing’ mandates.” Those costs have to be covered somehow.

Clearly, there are still problems with what’s left of ObamaCare, but there’s little clarity about how to deal with rising costs. Sure, there are plenty of health care experts and even some politicians with commonsense solutions, but none of them have made it into policy. And without alternatives, single-payer government health care starts to sound like the natural way forward.

This should scare the daylights out of freedom-loving Americans of all stripes.

Eric Earling writes30 at The Resurgent, “Too many conservatives, including both policymakers and pundits, don’t understand enough of the health policy and health care industry in question. Repeal and Replace was a joke, in part because despite campaigning on it, no one had a sound plan to do so.” Earling notes that Sen. Lindsey Graham and even Donald Trump have admitted that the health care issue was more complicated than they thought.

Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic writes31 simply, “Republicans failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, as they vowed to do.” Robb adds, “Equally responsible was a critical mass of GOP lawmakers who flinched at doing the things necessary to create a well-functioning health insurance market.”

With his inability to convince a handful of moderate Republican senators to repeal ObamaCare, the president must sense the issue slipping away, at least for now. And that’s got him worried. At many of his recent rallies, Trump has repeatedly mentioned the need for a health care system that covers pre-existing conditions as a way to remind wary voters that the issue is still on the GOP’s radar.

With polls showing that Americans are not only concerned about rising health care costs, but also indicating that they trust Democrats more than Republicans to bring down costs, time is running out for the president and his party. The midterms are only a few weeks away.

A quarter-century after Bill and Hillary Clinton tried to put government in charge of health care, Republicans still don’t have a plan to wrestle the issue back from the Left and convince voters that a government-run system isn’t good for health care or the country. But don’t worry. Should Democrats take back the House, Republicans will suddenly regain their clarity of purpose: “If only we had the power,” they’ll say, “here’s what we’d do.”

Lather, rinse, repeat.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58810-after-all-these-years-republicans-still-need-a-health-plan

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Transgender Kids: Eliminating Caring as an Option32 — From medical studies to media reports, the new “tolerance” is really hurting children.
GOP Seeks to Hold Dems Accountable for Kavanaugh Mess33 — Sen. Tom Cotton puts the blame on Schumer for leaking Ford’s letter to the media.
Video: This Is What Lying Under Oath Looks Like34 — Hypocrisy Alert: Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein voted against impeaching Bill Clinton for perjury.

OPINION IN BRIEF

David Harsanyi: “Of course, it’s easy to embrace fake magnanimity when you hold power. Michelle Obama’s ‘when they go low, we go high’ came during her 2016 speech at the Democratic National Convention, and it was aimed at Trumpian rhetoric when nearly everyone in power believed that Clinton would triumph. Obama offered her axiom after liberals had spent eight years trying to use executive power to coerce, demean and morally micromanage the deplorables — yet those clingy God-loving gun nuts stubbornly refused to accept the progressive reinvention of patriotism. They went low all the time. It was Joe Biden, not Trump, who accused Republicans and their presidential candidate, a man who had dutifully engaged in civic life for quite some time, of betting against America. Yet Democrats still act perplexed by the backlash. Even now the mob within their ranks is being cast, predictably, as a conservative fiction. ‘Republicans Seize On "Angry Mob” Mantra To Keep Their Midterm Base Fired Up,’ says NPR. CNN insists that it’s a normal, everyday demonstration of free expression to chase politicians’ wives out of public places. You may not use the word ‘mob’ in their presence. ‘This is what happens,’ Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said this week. If you act as if every traditionally conservative policy position and legal appointment to the court portends the Fourth Reich, this is indeed what happens. For now, though, partisan incivility isn’t really a mainstream problem. But some Democrats seem to want to change this.“

SHORT CUTS

For the record: "Americans with strong opinions on both sides of [the Brett Kavanaugh] debate spoke up in a civil, respectful way and our nation was better for it. But … only one side was happy to play a host to this toxic, fringe behavior. Only one side’s leaders are now openly calling for more of it. … And I’m afraid this is only phase one of the meltdown.” —Mitch McConnell

Flashbacks: “[People look at Arizona and say,] ‘Damn, those people are crazy.’ Is it something about the water? No, the water’s fine. It’s all from Colorado. There’s nothing wrong with the water. They’re called Republicans.” —Democrat Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema about her own constituents in 2011

Oh please: “You asked Russia to hack me on national television.” —Hillary “No Civility” Clinton responding to Donald Trump saying, “There was a lot of collusion with them and Russia and lots of other people.”

The BIG Lie: “Democrats are for securing our borders.” —Nancy Pelosi

Good question: “Went to bed appalled over Don Lemon’s despicable behavior laughing at Tara Setmayer and Bakari Sellers’ awful remarks about Kanye West’s visit with [Trump]! Woke up wondering why CNN doesn’t take all three off the air?” —Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker

True story: “Black Americans who think for ourselves are mocked and degraded with words we last saw under Jim Crow. If President Trump had no black supporters, they would call his circle ‘lily white.’ Now, one of America’s most prominent black entertainers praises and visits the president, and he is trivialized as a ‘token’ who ‘doesn’t read.’” —Deroy Murdock

And last… “Come on. Hugging Donald Trump as he’s sitting behind the Resolute Desk doesn’t even crack the top 30 craziest things Kanye West has ever done.” —Jim Geraghty

https://patriotpost.us/articles/58814-friday-short-cuts

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Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis

Nate Jackson, Managing Editor
Mark Alexander, Publisher