The Patriot Post Digest 1-22-2019

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-22-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Jan. 22, 2019 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/60695-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)

https://patriotpost.us/fqd/60694-founders-quote-daily

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Kamala Harris joins the 2020 presidential field as arguably the frontrunner.1
Sanctity of Life Day: Successes and setbacks in the fight for life.2
Daily Features: On the Web3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Memes6, Cartoons7, Opinion in Brief8, and Short Cuts9.

IN BRIEF

Harris 2020: ‘For the (Progressive) People’10

Nate Jackson

Kamala Harris wasn’t the first Democrat to announce her 2020 presidential bid, but the freshman California senator (elected in 2016) and minority woman is a formidable candidate and her MLK Day announcement sets her up to be the frontrunner in what promises to be a crowded field. A former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, her prosecutorial skill was evident in the outrageous circus11 posing as “hearings” for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Harris questioned Kavanaugh calmly, cooly, and effectively, and she was instrumental in the Democrats’ contemptible strategy12 to smear a good man among their base. Given the rapidly declining health of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the advancing age of Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court will be a paramount issue once again in 2020. Harris’s credibility among her base is now bolstered by her performance.

Now, don’t mistake acknowledgement of her skill as praise. Harris is a Demo-gogue of the worst sort, and she pushes the same class warfare, social “justice,” and racial and religious bigotry13 growing by the day on the Left.

Her launch video14 was so banal that most of her buzzwords could be spoken by any candidate of either party. But among her platform planks are leftist standbys like a $3 trillion tax plan to reduce the tax burden of the lower 50% of earners, which is already disproportionately low, and “Medicare for All,” the $32 trillion15 single-payer health plan of Bernie Sanders.

Ironically, her history as a prosecutor might be her Achilles heel16 given the push for criminal-justice reform in both parties. It is a particular hurdle in a party dominated by Black Lives Matter, and she knows it. The Wall Street Journal notes17, “In her new campaign autobiography, ‘The Truths We Hold,’ Ms. Harris casts herself as a ‘progressive prosecutor’ whose aim was to ‘shine a light on the inequality and unfairness that leads to injustice.’”

Fortunately for her, Democrats are always on “the right side of history,” which in practice means their own history never matters to anyone on the Left.

Her California roots will help, as the Golden State will pour resources and backing into a favorite daughter after it moved up its primary — which awards a quarter of the needed delegates — to early March. Democrats are also ripe to nominate not just another woman but a minority to go up against Donald Trump, who’s been branded a “misogynist” and “racist” by the Left. As political analyst John Fund put it18, Harris is “a candidate who would appeal to feminists and minorities alike and drive turnout up.” She “checks all the requisite liberal boxes” and, Fund adds, “Harris is convinced that 2020 will be the Year of the Liberal, just as the mid-term elections of 2018 were.”

Of course, 2020 is a political lifetime away — and who can forget the unpredicted outcome of 2016? But don’t be surprised to see Harris claim the Democrat nomination.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/60692-harris-2020-for-the-progressive-people

Successes and Setbacks in the Fight for Life19

Thomas Gallatin

Today marks the 46th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that legalized the termination of unborn life as a social “right” of convenience. In the ensuing years, 60 million children have lost their lives. And every year, pro-lifers recognize Sanctity of Life Day as a wake-up call to the conscience of our nation to embrace and fight for the right to life of the most innocent among us.

Where does the country currently stand in this ongoing struggle? There is both good and bad news, success and setback, but overall there are encouraging signs that the pro-life movement is making gains in this fight against the greatest evil of our time.

First, the bad news. Planned Parenthood, the leading provider of abortions in the U.S., reportedly totaled 332,757 babies20 aborted in 2017, an increase of 11,373 babies from the previous year. PP also reported that it received $563.8 million in revenue from “government health services reimbursements and grants” through the year ending June 30, 2018. In other words, PP has been steadily increasing the amount of taxpayer funding it receives each year, despite a supposed prohibition on federal dollars being used for abortion.

Even so, the sad reality is that PP doesn’t depend upon taxpayer funding to survive. National Review reports21, “Planned Parenthood raked in $100 million more in private contributions than it had the previous fiscal year, bringing the grand total of donations to $631 million. Given its many high-profile supporters and its billions in assets, it is ludicrous for the group to claim that it relies heavily on federal reimbursements and grants to conduct its business.”

PP has worked to gain greater taxpayer funding as a means of promoting the false image of it being a legitimate health care provider, which in turn creates cover for politicians to justify their defense of the immoral organization.

However, there is indeed real progress being made against abortion. Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state of Texas can strip taxpayer funding from Planned Parenthood. Recall in 2015 the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released undercover videos22 of Planned Parenthood members discussing illegally harvesting and selling organs and tissue from aborted babies. Following the videos’ revelations, Planned Parenthood sued, alleging that CMP “deceptively edited” the film footage. A twisted excuse for a sick practice.

Meanwhile, the latest Marist poll23 shows that a growing majority of Americans support pro-life ideas and increased restrictions to limit abortions. Just 15% of Americans believe abortion should be unrestricted at any point during pregnancy, while 84% favor a variety of restrictions, including banning late-term abortions. Indeed, what may be one of the most encouraging signs of the ongoing progress for the pro-life movement is that 65% of Americans now believe the Supreme Court should rule to make abortions illegal, or at least make it an issue to be decided on a state-by-state basis.

The fight to preserve the right to life of the unborn is far from over, but there is plenty of reason to be optimistic about the future. In the meantime, we in the pro-life movement continue the struggle.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/60693-successes-and-setbacks-in-the-fight-for-life