The Patriot Post Digest 7-18-2019

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-18-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Jul. 18, 2019

https://patriotpost.us/digests/64366-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself.” —Thomas Jefferson (1825)

https://patriotpost.us/fqd/64365-founders-quote-daily

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Trump’s strategy continues to play out.1
Bernie’s Medicare for All is now up to $40 trillion.2
Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Opinion in Brief6, Short Cuts7, Memes8, and Cartoons9.

IN BRIEF

‘The Squad’ Deserves Trump’s Ire10

We have long objected to the manner in which President Donald Trump uses a certain social-media platform because of just how far removed it is from what should be presidential character11. But we have to step back and marvel at the way he succeeds in making his political opponents double down on crazy and nearly implode in the process. Political opponents who, by the way, aren’t just saying mean things; they’re aiming to fundamentally transform America into a totalitarian socialist state.

After Trump’s weekend tweets, we argued — contrary to the prevailing Beltway political “wisdom” — that Trump was deliberately uniting Democrats12 behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley (collectively known as “The Squad”) for the simple reason that they are anti-American radical leftists who are unattractive to most voters. Beset as they are with Trump Derangement Syndrome, Democrats compulsively took the bait, screaming from every venue that Trump is “racist13,” even though his comments had nothing to do with race and everything to do with loving (or hating, as the case may be) America.

The strategy for both parties14 continued to play out Wednesday in the House. After voting to condemn Trump’s “racist” comments, House Democrats ended up being forced to block an impeachment resolution introduced by Rep. Al Green. The resolution, based on Trump’s supposed “racism” and not the usual charge of “obstruction of justice,” failed 332-95.

“We’re going to impeach this motherf—r,” screamed Tlaib earlier this year. Eh, not so much.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long opposed impeachment because she knows it’s a political loser for Democrats. Instead, Pelosi insists on staying on “the serious path” of nonstop investigations. But being speaker is akin to herding cats, and many in her caucus are rabidly in favor of overturning the 2016 election through impeachment. And all Democrats agree they at least want the cloud hanging over Trump for the duration of his first term.

While Democrats are busy with their investigations and impeachment votes, and while Omar is introducing a resolution15 supporting a boycott of Israel in part with the justification that the U.S. boycotted … Nazi Germany (stop and think about that for a moment), Trump is expanding on his strategy. In a North Carolina rally Wednesday, Trump focused his fire on “The Squad,” arguing, “They don’t love our country. I think in some cases they hate our country.” He later added, “I have a suggestion for the hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down. They never have anything good to say. That’s why I say, ‘Hey, if they don’t like it, let them leave.’”

The Leftmedia focused on the crowd’s chant, “Send her back,” in reference to Omar, but the truth is, millions of Americans are tired of America-hating Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez claiming as she did in January that the migrants overwhelming the border are “more American than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be.”

If that doesn’t define what this debate is really about, we don’t know what does.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64362-the-squad-deserves-trumps-ire

Sanders Says ‘Medicare for All’ Would Top $40T16

Go big or go home — that seems to be the adage on which socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has decided to stake his campaign. On Wednesday, Sanders unveiled his latest version of “Medicare for All,” his scheme for single-payer health care. He estimated it could cost up to $40 trillion over 10 years, which blows past the $32 trillion estimate17 outsiders calculated after Sanders first began peddling his plan. Previously, Sanders admitted that he would raise taxes across the board to pay for this government power grab, but now that he’s upped the price he’s downplaying that broad tax increase and focusing on the rich paying more.

This massive sum of $40 trillion only exposes Sanders’s apparent ignorance of basic economics. As Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw observes, “Forty trillion over ten years is an average of four trillion per year. Does anyone recall what the entire budget of the United States federal government was for 2018? It was 4.094 trillion dollars. So Sanders is casually talking about expending the equivalent of our entire budget on his health care plan. (While simultaneously outlawing private health insurance and wiping out an entire industry.)” Well, he is a socialist.

Nevertheless, Sanders insists that his plan is not “absurd,” asserting, “What the most serious economists tell us [is] that if we do nothing to fundamentally change the health care system, which is what Joe [Biden] was talking about, keeping it as it is, we’ll be spending something like $50 trillion over a 10-year period.” Biden has released a plan18 recommending an expansion of ObamaCare, which he claims would cost an additional $750 billion over 10 years.

The fact of the matter is, this is exactly what conservatives warned against when Nancy Pelosi and company were forcing ObamaCare onto the backs of the American people. We warned that ObamaCare was merely setting up an excuse to push for a single-payer, government takeover of America’s health system. And here we are, facing that very prospect.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64361-sanders-says-medicare-for-all-would-top-$40t

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Farewell, Wesley Pruden. “[He] would have wanted to spend his final hours at his keyboard, deftly deflating the pompous, entitled and arrogant of the political establishment, and he came awfully close,” says19 The Washington Times, for whom Pruden had served since 1982. Pruden was not just editor-in-chief emeritus of the Times but a true old-school newsman and one of the sharpest wits in Washington. He will be missed.

ON OUR WEBSITE TODAY

Featured Analysis: Inflated Egos Require Inflated Grades20 — Studies show that the average grade has gone from a C to an A, not because of merit.
Dems Allege Racism After DOJ’s Garner Decision21 — DOJ decides to the drop civil-rights case against NYPD Officer Pantaleo.
American Spirit: Businessman Gives Motorized Wheelchairs to 580 People22 — “These chairs offer a way for people to live an independent life.”
Video: ‘The Squad’ Is Crashing Pelosi’s Party23 — “Immature females seem to be driving the Democrats’ bus at the moment.”
Video: Anti-White Discrimination Is Escalating24 — Sydney Watson points to a Detroit festival charging more for tickets for white people.

Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read The Left’s Moderation of Conservative Media25. “They are relentless and use Gestapo tactics.”

If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email every Wednesday, update your subscription here26.

TOP NEWS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

HOUSE JESTERS: “The House voted to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt on Wednesday, escalating a battle between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats. The measure holds the Trump Cabinet members in contempt for defying subpoenas for documents on their since-abandoned efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.” (The Hill28)

DRUG IMPACTS: The Washington Examiner29 reports that “Border Patrol highway checkpoints in the southern New Mexico region that normally seize seven figures worth of drugs annually have not seized a dollar in nearly four months” because “Border Patrol closed them to move all personnel to the border to assist with apprehending, processing, and caring for the high number of migrant families arriving.” However, TIME30 says, “Preliminary federal data suggest the number of Americans who died from drug overdoses finally fell in 2018, after years of significant increases. Provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics predicted that 68,500 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2018, compared to about 72,000 the year before.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-18-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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BORDER BACKUP: “The Pentagon said on Wednesday it would send an additional 1,000 Texas National Guard and 1,100 active duty troops to the border with Mexico, the latest deployment in support of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. … There are currently about 4,500 active duty and National Guard troops on the border with Mexico.” (Reuters31)

KEEN SENSE OF THE OBVIOUS: “Mexicans are deeply frustrated with immigrants after a year of heightened migration from Central America through the country, according to a survey conducted by The Washington Post and Mexico’s Reforma newspaper. More than 6 in 10 Mexicans say migrants are a burden on their country because they take jobs and benefits that should belong to Mexicans. A 55 percent majority supports deporting migrants who travel through Mexico to reach the United States.” (The Washington Post32)

TURKEY EMBARGO: “The Trump administration on Wednesday officially banned Turkey from purchasing American-made F-35 fighter jets, citing the NATO member’s purchases of Russian-made anti-aircraft systems,” National Review33 reports. “‘Turkey’s decision to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems renders its continued involvement with the F-35 impossible,’ a statement from the White House said. ‘The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities.’” This this clearly more evidence of Russian collusion…

IRANIAN GOADING: “Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces seized a foreign oil tanker accused of smuggling oil, Iran’s state TV reported Thursday,” the Associated Press34 reports. “The vessel appears to be a United Arab Emirates-based tanker that had disappeared off trackers in Iranian territorial waters over the weekend.” Meanwhile, The Daily Beast35 says the U.S. “is preparing to send 500 troops to Saudi Arabia as part of its 1,000 troop deployment to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran.”

OOPS: “A recently released — and subsequently deleted — document published by a NATO-affiliated body has sparked headlines in Europe with an apparent confirmation of a long-held open secret: U.S. nuclear weapons are being stored in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. … A passing reference … appeared to reveal the location of roughly 150 U.S. nuclear weapons being stored in Europe.” (The Washington Post36)

GUZMAN SENTENCED: “Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman was sentenced to life behind bars in a U.S. prison, a federal judge in Brooklyn decided Wednesday. … In addition to the life term, the judge ordered a $12.6 billion forfeiture, which prosecutors said was a conservative estimate of the proceeds of El Chapo’s drug trafficking.” (ABC News37)

9/11 VICTIM FUND BLOCKED: “Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday blocked an attempt by Democrats to pass an extension of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. … ‘It has long been my feeling that we need to address our massive debt in the country,’ he said. ‘And therefore any new spending … should be offset by cutting spending that’s less valuable. We need to, at the very least, have this debate.’” (The Hill38)

POLICY: We need a national citizenship drive (New York Daily News39)

POLICY: ICE raids will force long-needed national immigration debate (Issues & Insights40)

HUMOR: AOC proposes radical new green-energy program: shoveling money directly into a furnace (IMAO41)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights42.

The Patriot Post is a certified ad-free news service, unlike third-party commercial news sites linked on this page, which may also require a paid subscription.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64364-thursday-top-news-executive-summary

OPINION IN BRIEF

Rich Lowry: “America has two assimilation problems. One is immigrants feeling only a tenuous connection to America, and getting isolated in ethnic enclaves. The other is immigrants like Omar — and some of her second-generation colleagues — assimilating into the America of identity politics and grievance. They have learned to speak not just English, but the language of oppression. They understand our system (at least no less than the average officeholder), but hold it in low regard. They know our history, as taught by an instructor cribbing from Howard Zinn. They may be citizens, but they are certainly outraged victims.”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “I have an advantage of knowing the president very well and he’s not a racist. His comments are not racist, but he loves the country very much. And he has a feeling that those who represent the country should love it as well.” —Ben Carson

Master trolling: “There’s a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother43. I know nothing about it. … I’m sure that somebody would be looking at that.” —President Donald Trump on Rep. Ilhan Omar

Political futures: “I’m struck at how many people have come up to me recently and said, "Trump’s going to get re-elected, isn’t he?” And in each case, when I drilled down to ask why, I bumped into the Democratic presidential debates in June. I think a lot of Americans were shocked by some of the things they heard there. I was.“ —New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman

Race bait: "We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t need Muslims that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don’t want to be a queer voice.” —Rep. Ayanna Pressley telling people not to think for themselves

Intraparty infighting: “Acknowledge the fact that we are women of color, so when you do single us out, be aware of that, and what you’re doing.” —Rep. Rashida Tlaib with a warning to Nancy Pelosi

The BIG Lie: “What the most serious economists tell us [is] that if we do nothing to fundamentally change the health-care system … we’ll be spending something like $50 trillion over a 10-year period. I don’t think there’s a study out there … that does not suggest that Medicare for All is far less expensive than continuation fo the current system.” —Sen. Bernie Sanders

Alpha Jackass: “He’ll have an angry crowd of resentful, uneducated people screaming for blood from the people of color who are stealing everything from them.” —Bill Clinton Press Secretary Joe Lockhart remarking on Trump’s North Carolina rally

And last… “I’m not sure the president should exchange playground insults with [‘The Squad’]. When you try to argue with a fool, that proves there are two. But the president decided to do so. The simple fact of the matter is that the four congresswomen think that America was wicked in its origins. They are entitled to their opinion. They are Americans. But I’m entitled to my opinion, and I just think they are left-wing cranks and they are the reason that there are directions on a shampoo bottle.” —Sen. John Kennedy

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64359-thursday-short-cuts

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Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis

Nate Jackson, Managing Editor
Mark Alexander, Publisher