The Patriot Post Digest 1-14-2019

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-14-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Jan. 14, 2019 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/60530-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.” —Thomas Jefferson (1805)

https://patriotpost.us/fqd/60529-founders-quote-daily

IN TODAY’S EDITION

The FBI avenged Comey by investigating Trump.1
Republicans have had enough of Steve King.2
Daily Features: On the Web3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Memes6, Cartoons7, Opinion in Brief8, and Short Cuts9.
Featured Analysis: The real wall debate is about globalism and nationalism.10

IN BRIEF

NYT Inadvertently Exposes FBI’s Anti-Trump Bias11
Thomas Gallatin

The New York Times has inadvertently exposed12 the reality that former FBI leaders opposed Donald Trump from the moment he won the Republican nomination. The Times’s intention with its “bombshell” report was to offer more “evidence” supporting Robert Mueller’s investigation, but instead it showed just how biased and vindictive previous FBI leadership was against Trump. As The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway observes13, “Admitting there is no actual evidence for their probe into whether Trump ‘worked for the Russians,’ FBI officials instead cited their foreign policy differences with him, his lawful firing of bungling FBI Director James Comey, and alarm that he accurately revealed to the American public that he was told he wasn’t under investigation by the FBI, when they preferred to hide that fact.”

What the Times story makes even clearer was the degree of anti-Trump bias of FBI leaders at the time, which motivated them to essentially conspire14 with Hillary Clinton’s campaign by leveraging the bogus Christopher Steele dossier as evidence to justify surveilling15 members of Trump’s campaign under the guise of investigating allegations of Russian election meddling. Through timely leaks to the press, FBI officials helped foment the Trump-Russia collusion narrative all the while denying that the president was implicated — as former FBI Director James Comey did when he lied to Trump’s face, saying the president was not an FBI target. Then, the day after Trump fired Comey, an incensed FBI leadership secretly launched a retaliatory investigation against the president that was used to fuel demand for creating the Mueller probe.

“This is yet more evidence that FBI leaders actually had no real evidence against the Trump team,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) declared16. “Instead, they were simply trying to undermine a president they didn’t like and avenge Comey’s firing. By relying on the Steele dossier — a fraudulent document funded by Democrats and based on Russia sources — FBI leaders were either complicit or too oblivious to notice they were being used in a disinformation operation by the Democratic Party and Russian operatives.”

Trump expressed his disgust at the Times report, stating that it showed “the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!”

The Democrat charge that Trump is Vladimir Putin’s “best buddy17” is made with absolutely no supporting evidence — and in the face of actions by the president that demonstrate just the opposite. Trump is no more beholden to Putin than the Democrat Party is beholden to Trump.

Yet Democrats and their cohorts in the Leftmedia keep parroting the Russian collusion conspiracy sans any evidence in their ongoing efforts to delegitimize his election, while attempting to convince the American public that Democrats are justified in their outsized resistance to his presidency.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/60525-nyt-inadvertently-exposes-fbis-anti-trump-bias


Republicans Have Had Enough of Steve King18

Nate Jackson

Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King has a long history of unfiltered rhetoric. Some of it is innocuous if unpolished, while other comments are clearly wrong, rude, or just plain racist — and reinforce leftist stereotypes of Republicans. Regardless, other elected Republicans often find microphones shoved in their faces to respond to the latest King outrage. Funny how that doesn’t happen on the other side, regardless of the long list of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, hateful comments that spew forth from Democrats.

King’s latest offense came last week, when he said, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

Western civilization is not offensive, despite leftist attempts to make it a “trigger” term, and the same goes for nationalism. But white nationalism is another matter, and white supremacism is flat-out toxic. King knows this, as he later insisted19 that he “rejects those labels and the evil ideology that they define.”

Nevertheless, fresh off their November defeat and still stinging from unfounded accusations of racism that have dogged the GOP particularly since the rise of Donald Trump, some other Republicans have had enough. “Action will be taken,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “I’m having a serious conversation with Congressman Steve King on his future and role in the Republican Party.” The two men are scheduled to meet today.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) called King’s comments “offensive and racist,” while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the remarks were “stupid,” “hurtful,” and “wrong.”

Sen. Tim Scott, a black South Carolina Republican, scolded King20 in an op-ed. “Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism,” Scott opined. “It is because of our silence when things like this are said.” He explained, “King’s comments are not conservative views but separate views that should be ridiculed at every turn possible. Conservative principles mean equal opportunity for all to succeed, regardless of what you look like or where you are from. It is maddening to see so many folks who believe this and have only good intentions in their hearts tarnished by these radical perspectives. That is why silence is no longer acceptable.”

Former Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz likewise penned an op-ed21 rebuking King, saying, “There are too many [offensive] statements for any one of them to qualify as a simple gaffe.”

Fair or not, Republicans cannot win in the future if they are successfully branded as racists by a dishonest and biased Leftmedia. It only makes that a tougher job when King confirms the bias. The fact remains that the core message of the Republican Party is that individual merit, not identity group, is what matters. King doesn’t seem to understand that.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/60527-republicans-have-had-enough-of-steve-king

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-14-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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ON OUR WEBSITE TODAY

Morality, Populism, and Cultural Decay22 — John Adams once wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”
Feinstein Wants to Ban All ‘Assault Weapons,’ GOP Aims at Reciprocity23 — While Senate Dems seek to limit Second Amendment protections, Republicans seek to expand them.
Evaluating the Prudence of Declaring a National Emergency24 — There’s a big question in conservative circles regarding the legitimacy of such a move.
Video: Former Border Patrol Chief: Walls ‘Absolutely Work’25 — The chief of U.S. Border Patrol during Barack Obama’s presidency says that Donald Trump is right.
Video: The Democrats’ Wall Is Beginning to Crack26 — Nancy Pelosi: “The wall, in my view, is an immorality. It is, again, a waste of money…”
Video: Let’s All Try Socialism!27 — Many people today are growing fond of the idea of socialism. Chad Prather takes a closer look.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

60500 60501 60509 60511 60507

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion28.


TOP HEADLINES

Government shutdown sets record as longest in U.S. history (USA Today29)
Trump has a strong legal argument that he can declare national emergency at border (The Daily Signal30)
Immigration court backlog could grow by years after government shutdown (Bloomberg31)
New caravan forms, prepares to head north to U.S. border (The Daily Wire32)
Dems fly to Puerto Rico on chartered jet, meet with lobbyists, see “Hamilton” as shutdown drags on (Fox News33)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg will miss oral arguments for second week but is free of cancer with no further treatments planned (CNBC34)
VA prepares to redirect billions of dollars into private care (The New York Times35)
Opioid overdoses now deadlier than car crashes, researchers find (The Hill36)
Democrats roll out big health care proposals in the states (Associated Press37)
Humor: Anti-wall extremist the Kool-Aid Man leads campaign against Trump (The Babylon Bee38)
Policy: We could build two border walls just by eliminating “improper payments” (Investor’s Business Daily39)
Policy: Renewable energy subsidies costly to taxpayers, benefit big companies (The Heartland Institute40)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report41.

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Anti-Wall Equals Pro-Globalism44

Arnold Ahlert

Hollywood now makes more money45 from international box office revenues than domestic ones. Google shelved its Dragonfly Project to build a censored search engine for Communist China, but CEO Sundar Pichai refused to rule out implementing it in the future. Over the last 30-plus years, the income gap in America has reached unconscionable46 levels, especially over the last decade. In 2016, 52% of British voters opted to leave the EU. That vote is on the verge of being negated47 by a series of duplicitous negotiations. Meanwhile, Germany and France will sign48 a “twinning” pact aimed at sharing defense, foreign, and economic policies, viewed as a prototype for a “more sovereign, united” Europe.

What does any or all of this have to do with building a wall on our southern border? Everything.

For as long as Americans can remember, the political divide in this nation has been termed Left vs. Right, conservative vs. liberal, or Republican vs. Democrat. For at least a decade, those terms have been little more than orchestrated distractions aimed at obscuring the real and most debilitating divide that has ever afflicted this nation: globalism vs. nationalism.

In 2016, the globalist agenda was suddenly and shockingly rejected by the American electorate, who had been assured the ascension of Hillary Clinton was a done deal, and that the “fundamental transformation” envisioned by Barack Obama — and supported by media, academia, Hollywood, Wall Street, Corporate America, Democrats, Establishment Republicans, and the legions of useful idiots convinced this nation is irredeemably flawed — would continue unabated.

A wall is both a symbolic and substantive rejection of the globalists’ open-border, national sovereignty-despising agenda.

Aided by their corrupt media lackeys49, (who do the bidding of the multinational corporations50 that employ them), globalists insist a wall is ineffective. Yet politicians have them around their homes, the Vatican is surrounded by a wall, and Israel built one to keep terrorists at bay. Moreover, the number of countries who have constructed, or are constructing border barriers, has increased from 16 in 1989, to 65 today.

Globalist arguments against building a wall?

It’s “immoral51.” Note that this bankrupt assertion is made by the same people who make the most morally bankrupt assertion of all: Illegal aliens commit crimes at “lesser rates” than native Americans. In the last two years alone, ICE arrested52 266,000 illegal aliens with criminal records that included 100,000 violent assaults 4,000 murders, and 30,000 sex crimes. In 2016, more Americans died53 from drug overdoses than the total numbers of deaths recorded in Vietnam — over the course of 20 years. Drugs that include heroin smuggled from Mexico and fentanyl manufactured in Chinese labs and smuggled54 through Mexico and Canada.

Those would countenance any number of such wholly avoidable crimes because it serves their ideological agenda are utterly despicable.

It’s “too expensive55.” Illegal immigration costs America more than56 $100 billion per year. Reduce that by only 10% and The Wall pays for itself in two-and-a-half years. Greater reductions equal quicker payback.

It’s “racist.” As is anything that doesn’t align with globalist dogma.

If we must have a wall, some or all illegals should get a “pathway to citizenship.” In 1986, America granted unambiguous amnesty to 2.7 million illegals — in exchange for a secure border and a crackdown on businesses who hired illegals. The border wasn’t secured and businesses still hire illegals. And after 30 more years of border-busting, 11-22 million57 illegals live here. Globalists would have you believe this time will be different.

It won’t, and once again America will signal the world that coming here is worth the risk. Moreover, the idea that national security should be used a bargaining chip for anything else is absurd.

“High-tech” surveillance makes a wall unnecessary. High-tech precipitates more arrests … of illegals well-rehearsed by leftist immigration lawyers to exploit our nation’s “catch and release” policy that transmits the exact same risk/reward message. A wall would partially undermine this contemptible policy.

Open-border supporters deflect this reality by insisting more people overstay58 their visas. That’s true. So why not address both problems? Congress could make illegally crossing the border or overstaying one’s visa a felony that also makes one automatically ineligible for asylum. They could fully institute the E-Verify system and make it a felony to hire illegal workers. Congress could also write a law holding government officials who support sanctuary cities criminally and civilly liable for crimes committed by illegals they harbor, a clear violation of a 2014 Supreme Court ruling59 reiterating that immigration laws are regulated60 by the federal government.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-14-2019
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That they’ve done none of this reveals how blatantly our lawmakers have capitulated to the globalist agenda.

Lawmakers from both parties. In 2010, Democrats had complete control of Congress and the presidency for two years. In 2016, the GOP was granted the same two years of control. Yet as recently as December, Border Patrol agents apprehended61 27,518 members of family units, the highest monthly total on record. Last year they apprehended more than 500,000 people trying to enter the country illegally. While DHS claims their apprehension rate is 80%, other studies put it at 50% — meaning a minimum of 100,000 illegals successfully entered the country last year alone.

In other words, despite all rhetoric to the contrary, members of both parties have amply demonstrated they are fine with this contemptible status quo.

A status quo that reeks of hypocrisy. “Illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple. Until the American people are convinced we will stop future flows of illegal immigration, we will make no progress,” said Chuck Schumer in 200962. “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented and unchecked,” declared Barack Obama in 2005. “I voted numerous times … to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in. And I do think you have to control your borders,” insisted Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Why the about-face? Because the Democrat Party’s only “core value” is the acquisition and maintenance of power — by any means necessary, all the hypocrisy in the world notwithstanding. They are joined by the other aforementioned globalist-supporting factions, all of whom derive either power, or historically unprecedented63 levels of wealth from fostering — and enhancing — the globalist status quo. The one where millions of Americans in “flyover country” are too stupid, fearful, racist, religious, gun-clinging, nativist, and “deplorable” to know what’s good for them.

The current standoff is a “make or break” moment for the nation. Either we remain a country with definable borders beholden to the Rule of Law, or we become an interchangeable cog in the globalist machine. One that wholly accommodates a globalist agenda — Liberty and self-determination be damned.

A wall? The cornerstone of a constitutional republic is more like it.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/60510-anti-wall-equals-pro-globalism


OPINION IN BRIEF

Peggy Noonan: “We have seen the political correctness of the social-justice warriors sweep the universities, hounding out those who would speak from an incorrect perspective, decreeing new rules of language and living. They do not understand that when you tell people, especially Americans, what they can and cannot say, can and cannot think, they don’t stop saying and thinking. They go underground, sometimes to the depths. And it is dark down there. Conservatives have long decried political correctness. The past 30 years they’ve provided the intellectual muscle against censorship. But an end to political correctness in the arts and entertainment cannot come from the right. It can come only from the left. All the organs of entertainment and art in America, from Broadway to Hollywood, through Netflix, the museums and onward, are entities of the cultural left. They are run and populated by the cultural left. They have the pertinent power. When conservatives write or speak against limits on free speech, what they say is heard by the left as mere reaction, a cover for intolerance, and so dismissed. The left will listen only to entities of the left who say: Enough. Art needs air, and that air is freedom.”


SHORT CUTS

Insight: “We’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important. If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. I’m warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.” —Ronald Reagan in his farewell address in January 1989

Upright: “Yes, additional barriers would not end all illegal immigration. Similarly, focusing only on visa overstays would ignore unlawful border crossings. This isn’t a good argument against barriers.” —Guy Benson

The BIG Lie: “[Trump’s] ultimate goal is … to make America ‘pure’ in the sense of not having immigrants, not having folks of color here, and shutting down every form of legal immigration. … And so I hope that this can backfire on him and I hope that it continues to backfire on him because he has never been interested in being a president for the whole country.” —Rep. Pramila Jayapal

Alpha Jackass: “What I took from that [Auschwitz] trip was, if you see something really wrong, if you see someone who is doing something consistently wrong, that is wicked, that is against the values of society, you have to fight it the first day, the second day, the third day.” —Tom Steyer, who is allocating $40 million of his war chest toward removing Donald Trump

Non Compos Mentis: “I’m not going to talk about what we may have been briefed in the gang of eight when these investigations opened. But I do think it’s curious that throughout that whole summer when these investigations started, you had Vladimir Putin policies almost being parroted by Donald Trump.” —Sen. Mark Warner

Braying Jenny: “I know it’s a strong word, but this [shutdown] is political terrorism.” —Rep. Katie Hill

And last… “Just a reminder that Democrats spent $2B+ on the Obamacare website that didn’t work… and they didn’t think that was ‘too expensive.’” —Liz Wheeler

https://patriotpost.us/articles/60526-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