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« on: December 14, 2018, 05:41:47 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 12-14-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Dec. 14, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/60061-mid-day-digest
THE FOUNDATION
“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.” —John Adams (1756)
https://patriotpost.us/fqd/60059-founders-quote-daily
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Leftists are bankrupting the Boy Scouts of America.1
The FBI may have entrapped Michael Flynn.2
Daily Features: On the Web3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Memes6, Cartoons7, Opinion in Brief8, and Short Cuts9.
Featured Analysis: Challenging the Bureaucratic State10
IN BRIEF
Bankrupting the Boy Scouts of America11
Mark Alexander
As a former Scout, a Scout leader, the father of two Eagle Scouts, a BSA Executive Council member, and a Scouting supporter for decades, it grieves me to report that, according to12 The Wall Street Journal, the National BSA board is considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to the Journal, the consideration is due to “dwindling membership and escalating legal costs related to lawsuits over how it handled allegations of sex abuse.” It is the latter issue — protection against legal action from Boy Scouts who have been the victims of homosexual predation and assault13 — that is the primary motivation for bankruptcy consideration.
The national board noted in its latest the annual report that it was “aware of threatened and expanding litigation” regarding sexual abuse. Recently, other organizations have sought bankruptcy protection regarding primarily cases of homosexual predation, including more than 20 Catholic dioceses and religious orders.
According to national BSA Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh, “We have a social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse during their time in Scouting. … We care deeply about all victims of child sex abuse … [and] we sincerely apologize to anyone who was harmed during their time in our programs.”
I have been a critic of the national BSA board since 2013, when, under the leadership of wealthy corporate execs who had no connection with grassroots scouting, they removed membership restrictions against homosexuals. In an open letter14, I wrote, “While all homosexuals are not molesters of teens and pre-teens, where same-sex molestation occurs, homosexuals are almost always the perpetrators. So, why would the national BSA board consider a motion to remove its restrictions on homosexual members and leaders?” The answer: “Several corporations have pulled their support for the BSA because of its sexual-orientation policies…”
I concluded that this was a “Faustian bargain” — that compromising the high moral standards upheld by the Boy Scouts since its 1910 inception would trade one problem for another bigger one. And now, the BSA is considering bankruptcy because of declining membership associated with this policy change, and lawsuits related to sexual assault in recent decades. Moral bankruptcy leads to monetary bankruptcy.
In a follow-up column, “The ‘Gay Pride’ Merit Badge15,” I noted, “In May of 2015 the BSA’s national board announced that it was surrendering to the ‘gay lobby’ and would open its ranks to adult homosexual leaders16, a self-destructive policy which the board approved two months later17.”
Apparently the national BSA board was unable to discern any lessons from the horrendous record of predatory sexual abuse by homosexual priests18 in the Catholic Church. Even Pope Francis recently declared19, “The Church urges that persons with this rooted [homosexual] tendency not be accepted into ministry.”
Let me emphasize that local BSA councils across the nation are separate entities from the national organization. They are 501(c)(3) entities incorporated in their respective states, and their assets are owned and controlled by their local executive councils. But the actions of the national BSA board have caused local councils to suffer membership and funding drops.
The Boy Scout oath is as follows: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
But for those of us who have devoted so much time, energy, and resources to Scouting in order to strengthen the next generation of young men morally and spiritually, and in all other respects noted in the Scout oath, the national BSA board’s bankrupting of those values by adopting policies contrary to that oath is disgraceful. It also has a predictable consequence: The decline of a once-great and singular institution.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/60051-bankrupting-the-boy-scouts-of-america
Did the FBI Set Up Michael Flynn?20
Thomas Gallatin
Did the FBI mistreat former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn by intentionally setting up a perjury trap and pressing him to walk into it unawares? That appears to be what U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan is seeking to determine after he surprisingly demanded that Robert Mueller and the Justice Department provide additional documents related to the FBI’s January 2017 interview of Flynn.
Flynn’s legal team’s argument is that the FBI failed to alert Flynn to the criminality of lying to investigators and that then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe pressured agents to set up an interview that precluded Flynn from having an attorney present. That was enough to prompt Sullivan to seek answers before sentencing Flynn for lying to the FBI.
The actors in this whole event should raise a few eyebrows. The now-fired anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok was one of the two agents in the interview that the also now-fired McCabe set up. Clearly, Flynn believed the meeting was not intended as an interrogation of any sort, as he quickly agreed to meet with the agents the same day as he received the call from McCabe. Flynn even gave them a tour of the West Wing. And, of note, those agents described Flynn as “unguarded,” “relaxed and jocular,” as well as saying they “didn’t think he was lying” and that he “clearly saw the FBI agents as allies.”
Importantly, Flynn was never found to have committed any crime related to collusion with Russians. Instead, as Mark Alexander notes21, Mueller has only “accumulated some ‘process crimes,’ most notably perjury charges related to the testimony of George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. … There is nothing that remotely establishes Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Nothing.”
Of most significance is the different treatment Flynn received to that of Hillary Clinton, who showed up with nine lawyers to her interview with FBI agents. Or consider George Papadopoulos, who was given explicit warnings by agents of the criminality of perjury and was allowed to have attorneys present.
Interestingly, The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland points out22, “The most recent iteration of Sullivan’s standing entered in the Flynn case required Mueller’s office to produce ‘any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.’ The order further required the government to submit to the court any information ‘which is favorable to the defendant but which the government believes not to be material.’” Sullivan may smell a rat.
Mueller and the DOJ have until 3:00 p.m. today to produce for the court the requested documents. Hopefully, those documents will shed a little more light on this twisted web of legal gotcha. And for Flynn, who has lost almost everything in this politically motivated witch hunt, there could be at least a little redemption in the end.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/60054-did-the-fbi-set-up-michael-flynn
ON THE WEB TODAY
Botching Brexit Leaves No Good Way Out23 — Prime Minister May had one job: Steward the transition out of the EU. Oops.
The Myth of Capitalism-Caused Inequity24 — There is no explosion of income inequality in America, despite the cries of leftists.
Google’s BIG Lie: ‘Without Political Bias’25 — The search giant’s CEO claims there’s nothing to see here. History says he’s wrong.
Video: SJWs Aren’t Offended By Old Tweets26 — Brittany Hughes says they’re offended by success and those who earn it. |
