by Nate Jackson:  President Donald Trump has had a few pretty good weeks. His response to two major hurricanes was laudable, however badly that disappointed a Leftmedia ready to pounce a la George W. Bush and Hurricane Katrina. His new chief of staff, John Kelly, appears to be running a tight ship at the White House. Trump even worked across the aisle with a deal on the debt ceiling — at least the press was good, even if Republicans were jilted.

          Thus, combined with last week’s release of liar-Hillary Clinton’s pathetic blame-everybody-else book, the timing is perfect to turn attention back to … what else? Russia.
          Think we’re paranoid about the timing? Back in July, Julie Pace, the liberal Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press, observed quizzically, “Every time [Trump and his administration] feel like they found their footing, every time they feel like they’ve had a positive message, something on the Russia investigation overtakes it.”
          According to a New York Times scoop, Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, may be facing criminal charges as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. The Times says this relates to possible “violations of tax laws, money-laundering prohibitions and requirements to disclose foreign lobbying.” These may or may not have anything to do with Manafort’s relationship to Trump, and it may or may not have anything to do with the raid on his house in July.
          Which brings us to yesterday’s second story. CNN reports that James Comey’s FBI was surveilling Manafort before and after the 2016 election, and may have recorded conversations with Trump last year. It isn’t clear if Manafort was being surveilled while he was serving as Trump’s campaign manager. Either way, it lends a little credence to Trump’s charge that Barack liar-nObama “had my wires tapped.”
          There are two things to keep in mind here. First, neither of these stories is the “bombshell” the Times or CNN hope, though it’s true surveilling Manafort would have required some reasonable suspicion countenanced by a FISA court. He may be innocent, or he may not be. Second, and far more important, is as Mark Alexander wrote in July: The most perilous domestic threat to American Liberty is the collusion between Democrats and their mainstream media partisans. What did the Times and CNN know, and when did they know it? How long have they been sitting on what amounts to pretty useless information, meant solely to put Russia back in the headlines and keep Trump on the ropes?  
~The Patriot Post 
https://patriotpost.us/articles/51361

.

by Political Editors:  Donald Trump signed a resolution condemning racism Thursday. Trump said, “As Americans, we condemn the recent violence in Charlottesville and oppose hatred, bigotry and racism in all forms.” He continued, “No matter the color of our skin or our ethnic heritage, we all live under the same laws, we all salute the same great flag, and we are all made by the same almighty God. We are a Nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. As one people, let us move forward to rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans.” Sounds pretty much like his Inaugural Address.

          Trump’s statement came on the heels of a one-on-one meeting with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the only black Republican senator. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the problem of race relations and possible solutions to help bring about greater unity in the nation. After the meeting, Scott, who was critical of Trump’s response to the Charlottesville violence, said via a spokesman that he “was very, very clear [with Trump] about the brutal history surrounding the white supremacist movement and their horrific treatment of black and other minority groups.” Moreover, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and to expect the President’s rhetoric to change based on one 30-minute conversation is unrealistic. Antifa is bad and should be condemned, yes, but white supremacists have been killing and tormenting black Americans for centuries. There is no realistic comparison. Period.”
          The difficulty with the issue of race in America today is the often convoluted nature by which it is both understood and discussed. Scott is absolutely correct about the past history of white supremacy and the evil it inflicted on blacks. But it is also true that today white supremacist groups like the KKK and Neo-Nazis represent the extreme fringe within America — they have no political power and they have been soundly rejected by the vast majority of Americans for decades now. Those few individuals who cling to the racial hatred espoused by these groups are essentially living in a fantasyland of a bygone era.
          However, what Scott seems to be missing or maybe too easily dismissing is the larger and growing real threat to Liberty. That threat is the rise and growing appeal of extreme leftist groups like antifa. There is no question that antifa advocates using violence and justifies its violence by labeling those it attacks as fascists and Nazis, gross irony notwithstanding. Couple that with the fact that antifa explicitly calls for the silencing and suppression of free speech rights and Americans should rightly be concerned. But what makes antifa currently the greater threat than these fringe white supremacist groups from yesteryear has been a sympathetic mainstream media that has been all too willing to overlook or excuse antifa’s violent rhetoric and actions.
          When ethnicity is conflated with political ideology the result is a virulent form of identity politics that so demonizes the “other side” that it is unable to hear, let alone consider, opposing ideas or opinions. Identifying with and protecting the group or tribe is prized above all other values. Individual identities and opinions are overshadowed and subordinated by the collectivist group identity. This is where faulty concepts like “white privilege” or “micro aggression” originate. No longer are individuals judged by their own words and actions, but by their tribal identity. The irony with groups like antifa or Black Lives Matter is that they practice the very things they claim to be fighting against.
          The rioting over the weekend in St. Louis following the acquittal of a police officer in the shooting death of a black man attests, once again, to this problem of conflating a political agenda with racism. Over the last eight years, Barack liar-nObama lowered the bar for civil unrest and racial discord. And that’s the nice way of putting it. The consequences of that are what we’re now witnessing across the country.
          As Morgan Freeman once said, the best way to deal with racism is to “stop talking about it.” The reality is that most Americans aren’t racists. Like a scab, the more it’s picked at the more it bleeds and the longer it takes to heal. We’ve been picking at this scab for so long now, one would think that slavery is still happening today in America.                          ~The Patriot Post                                                            https://patriotpost.us/articles/51324

.

by Arnold Ahlert:  The national debt has officially topped $20 trillion. And in an era where “bipartisanship” is almost a dirty word, both parties deserve ample amounts of “credit” for facilitating the nation’s steady march toward fiscal Armageddon.

          During the eight years of George W. Bush’s administration, the nation racked up nearly $5 trillion of additional debt, with the phrase “compassionate conservatism” used to justify the record-setting recklessness. Yet like a one-two knockout punch from a heavyweight slugger, the Bush administration’s record as the most spendthrift administration in history was quickly broken by Barack liar-nObama’s administration that nearly “doubled down” on the insanity, adding another $9.3 trillion dollars to the nation’s almost unfathomable pile of IOUs.
          Actually, $20 trillion is a bit misleading. Right after Trump signed a deal with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling — as a tradeoff for getting $15 billion in hurricane and disaster recovery aid — the debt rose by $318 billion, pushing the actual total to $20.1 trillion.
          Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of Americans pay almost no attention to this unfolding disaster.
          Perhaps that’s inevitable in a nation where many younger Americans are mis-educated enough to need computers to calculate even the simplest math problems, many older Americans are cynical enough to believe they will be gone before the real devastation begins, and many Americans of every generation are so inured to the entitlement mentality that even the most stalwart politicians are hesitant to embrace the statesmanship necessary to set things right.
          Regrettably, we also have a statesmanship deficit every bit as onerous as our debt — if not more so.
          Yet nothing less is required to acknowledge that Medicare, Medicaid, liar-nObamaCare, and Social Security, which consumed 52% of all tax dollars in FY2016, need serious reform.
          Why? “Mandatory” spending consumes 65% of the federal budget. “Discretionary” spending consumes 29% of it. The above entitlements are on the mandatory side of the ledger, meaning they run on “autopilot” — as in the agencies running them are authorized by law to spend whatever is necessary to keep them going.
          Coupled with the interest on the current debt, which consumes just over 6% of federal spending, these programs will account for 83% of projected spending growth over the next 10 years. And absent reform, spending on health care programs, Social Security and net interest on the national debt — as in no reduction whatsoever of the debt itself — will consume all federal tax revenues by 2033.
          How difficult is reform? During the 2012 election campaign, then-vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan attempted to introduce a budget proposal that addressed these spending drivers. A group called the Agenda Project Action Fund promptly ran an ad depicting a Ryan-like figure pushing a grandmother in a wheelchair over a cliff.
          That’s the level of “intellectualism” that inevitably informs any discussion of fiscal reform.
           Then there’s baseline budgeting, a concept that virtually assures Congress will continue to spend more money than it takes in. That’s because baseline budgeting includes automatic spending adjustments engendered by inflation, along with anticipated increases in the number of people participating in a particular program. And since inflation is a virtual constant, and the number of people participating in many programs is increasing, the overwhelming majority of those spending “adjustments” are headed upwards.
          Nonetheless, our oh-so-clever political class, aided and abetted by the media, play a cunning game with a largely uninformed public. If an agency’s budget is projected to grow by $50 million, but only grows by $30 million, we are told that agency sustained a $20 million cut in spending. This bit of fiscal trickery allows so-called budget hawks to claim they are “restraining” spending, while the budget chickens bemoan the effort to balance the budget “on the backs of vulnerable Americans.” Both groups are lying with impunity.
          Just as infuriating, if not more so, is the Kabuki theater surrounding the aforementioned debt ceiling. Every time the nation bumps up against this artificially imposed spending limit, we are regaled with tales of impending horror, lest we don’t raise it to pay for obligations we have already incurred. After a round of orchestrated Ruling Class hand-wringing, the federal government then raises the debt ceiling, and promptly goes back to spending more many than it takes in — until we reach the next debt ceiling.
           What are some “experts” suggesting we do to “fix” the problem? “A debt limit that is never followed is worthless to have,” states CNBC.
          It’s even more worthless to continue spending money we don’t have with impunity. Unless the federal government embraces serious and genuine spending cuts, all we are doing is postponing the inevitable arrival of national bankruptcy.
          Yet there are those who insist the inevitable will never happen, largely because the U.S. dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, meaning it’s accepted for trade all over the world, based primarily on the strength of the U.S. economy. Moreover, in times of economic crisis the U.S. dollar has been viewed as the ultimate monetary save haven. They also believe the nation would never default on its debt.
          Yet millions of Americans are already feeling the consequences. Minuscule interest rates, engendered by the Federal Reserve to keep borrowing costs cheap, have devastated responsible Americans, whose pitiful return on their savings isn’t even keeping pace with inflation. If interest rates rise, not to their historical mean, but only to levels seen during the liar-Clinton administration, “then we’re going to be paying $1.4 trillion a year just in interest on the existing debt; which is to say, interest payments alone will account for 45 percent of all federal taxes that will be collected in 2015,” wrote columnist Kevin Williamsn.
          Williamson wrote that column two years — and two trillion dollars — ago, when the national debt was “only” $18 trillion.
          An exchange contained in Earnest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” is quite apropos. “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
         Nothing lasts forever. China, Russia and other nations would like to adopt a world currency and Venezuela just announced it will no longer take U.S. dollars for oil. If the dollar is ultimately abandoned, we can expect to endure the “suddenly” part of the equation that not only includes massive levels of unemployment, but the very same need to adjust any number of policies that any beggar nation needs to do so it can continue borrowing money — including the evisceration of those same entitlements Americans view as sacred cows. In short, America will no longer control its own destiny.
          Even worse, we would be exposed as the fundamentally immoral nation we are rapidly becoming. That is an apt description of a country so addicted to spending it is willing to mortgage the future of its own children and grandchildren, saddling them with unconscionable levels of debt they didn’t accumulate, and from which they’ll never benefit. Keep that reality in mind when Congress debates amnesty for “Dreamers” many Americans believe should be exempt from the “sins” of their parents.
          Also keep it in mind when the national debt reaches $25 trillion. At the rate we’re going, it won’t be long until we get there.                   ~The Patriot Post                                         https://patriotpost.us/articles/51338 

by Culture Beat:  When science and social politics collide, science is often co-opted to promote political ideology rather than genuine science instructing public policy. The former seems to be the case (again) regarding the National Science Foundation’s spending of over $100,000 to create “safe zones” for LGBTQ students. Some $114,116 was given to the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign for the purpose of studying ways to “increase the inclusion of LGBTQ students and professionals in  engineering.” According to the grant, the field of engineering can be an “unfriendly or a chilly” climate for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals.”

          The grant also states that “the research will be the basis of systematic development and formative refinement of an online SafeZone course to provide inclusion training to engineering students and professionals nationwide.” Is this science or politically motivated social engineering?
          The federal government’s use of “science” to further push the normalization of transgenderism onto the American public doesn’t stop there. The National Institutes of Health will be spending $200,000 on “exploratory or developmental research on the health of transgender and gender nonconforming people.” The NIH announcement further stated, “Transgender and gender nonconforming people encompass individuals whose gender identity differs from the sex on their original birth certificate, including individuals who are making or who have made a transition from being identified as one gender to the other, as well as individuals who are questioning their gender identity, who identify with more than one gender, or whose gender expression varies significantly from what is traditionally associated with or typical for that sex.”
          It’s important to note that studying the problems of gender dysphoria and the impact it has on individuals is not unwarranted or unscientific research. But in today’s politically correct environment — where transgenderism is being celebrated as normal, and anyone questioning its normality or morality is labeled a bigot and a hater — it’s pretty clear this is an attempt to use “science” as a tool to further justify forcing the American public to accept transgenderism as normal. Even Sen. RINO-John McCain (R-AZ) is drinking the Rainbow Mafia’s Kool-Aid. He is co-sponsoring a bill that would prevent the military from banning transgenders from serving.  ~The Patriot Post                                           https://patriotpost.us/articles/51342

.

          We invite you to honor this historic event and its enduring legacy by reading Mark Alexander’s Primer on American Liberty. Keep the flame of Liberty burning bright by promoting the civic knowledge of Liberty for all those in your sphere of influence. To assist in that process, please distribute our highly acclaimed “Patriot’s Primer on American Liberty” pocket guides.
          As the current generation of American Patriots, we hold all elected representatives to account for abiding by their solemn oaths to “to Support and Defend” our Constitution and the Rule of Law it enshrines.
          Additionally, we invite you to read our extensive archive of columns on the Constitution as it relates to domestic and foreign policy, and, more specifically, sections on Liberty and Rule of Law and on our Republic’s First Principles.
          A year ago, we marked The Patriot Post’s 20th anniversary. Today we celebrate our 21st year, and we are grateful to you, our fellow Patriots, for your financial support of our mission and operations budget in order to extend Liberty to the next generation.  ~The Patriot Post                              https://patriotpost.us/articles/51319

.

 

by Nate Jackson:  As we noted earlier this week, the University of California-Berkeley was ramping up security in anticipation of “antifa” (read: fascist) violence at a speech by conservative writer Ben Shapiro. In a statement last week, the school declared, “No one should be made to feel threatened or harassed simply because of who they are or for what they believe.” Of course, the university was not referring to conservative speakers but to snowflake students. The statement prefaced that declaration with this: “We are deeply concerned about the impact some speakers may have on individuals’ sense of safety and belonging.” In fact, “support services are being offered and encouraged.” That means counseling for students “offended” by the mere presence of a differing viewpoint. Or maybe the school wants to help fascists who hate Jews like Shapiro.

          Well, thanks to riot police on hand, six buildings shut down, a perimeter of blockades, checks of all ticket holders and an estimated $600,000 spent on security, Shapiro was actually allowed to speak without much incident Thursday night. How astounding that such is the cost of free speech at a public university in America.
          In other Berkeley news, the university was just awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Park Service to compile historical information intended to “honor the legacy” of the Black Panther Party. Yes, that would be the racist and Marxist revolutionary group that the FBI describes as having “advocated the use of violence and guerilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government.” According to the funding announcement, the “cooperative research project … is anchored in historical methods, visual culture, and the preservation of sites and voices.” Who’s in charge at the Park Service? Michael Reynolds, one of Barack liar-nObama’s many holdovers.
          With this kind of garbage passing for “higher education” at these bastions of leftist indoctrination and intolerance, is it any wonder that enrollments and budgets are falling short?             ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/51315  

.

http://www.freedomsback.com/no-amnesty-is-good-amnesty/?roi=echo3-46621186418-44202968-5fe731b1c80cf7a8c27242f5f040a3bb

          According to data from a new survey released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute, a study of more than 100,000 Americans across the nation found that the number of those who call themselves “religious and spiritual” has declined from 59% in 2012 to 48%. Currently, just 43% of white Americans claim to be Christians and only 30% Protestants. In 1976, the numbers were 81% Christian with 55% Protestant. That’s clearly a significant drop in one generation.
          PRRI found that the decline in religious observance among Americans is highest in young Americans. The non-religious or “nones” now make up 34% of all Americans under the age of 30. And young Americans who are religious and identify as Christians are a shrinking percentage. Interestingly, among religiously unaffiliated Americans, a minority (only 27%) claim to be either agnostic or atheist. It’s interesting that most Americans who identify as secular and non-religious aren’t willing to entirely reject religious beliefs.
          Part of the problem with surveys like this is the fact that people’s definitions for what makes someone a Christian are constantly evolving. Hence the common delimiters such as Protestant vs. Catholic, mainline vs. evangelical, denominational vs. non-denominational, and so on. To make matters even more confusing, racial delimiters have been added.
          So, the bigger question is what’s the point behind publishing this data? Why is it important to track America’s religious trends? Much of the answer lies in America’s unique religious history — a Christian religious history — and its significant impact upon the foundation of this great nation.
          Looking back on America’s historical roots, one theme becomes quite evident early on. America was a place — the place — of refuge for the persecuted. It is well documented that the Pilgrims traversed the Atlantic in the Mayflower out of a desperate hope to make it to the New World where they would have the opportunity to worship God freely in accordance with their religious convictions. This spirit of religious liberty was in many ways the spark that ignited the nation’s founding. Even though not all the Founding Fathers were Christians, they all acknowledged the central, significant and important role religion played in establishing a stable and enduring republic. And not just any religion, but Christianity in particular.
          “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people,” wrote John Adams. “It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
          When the 13 colonies declared their independence from British rule, they justified their rebellion by appealing to an authority greater than that of the king — the highest authority of all, God. There is no question that the Declaration of Independence overtly appeals to religious truth as the key to our human rights. It’s a truth our Founding Fathers held to be “self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Those Rights were eloquently summarized by three concrete concepts: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
          The Founding Fathers recognized that the rights of people are not a creation of government, rather they are a manifestation of common human dignity and value endowed by our Creator. The government’s role first and foremost is to protect its citizens by protecting their rights. The whole reason these rights were enumerated in the Constitution was to explicitly limit the power of government to strip citizens of their God-given rights.
          We can break down our concern about the decline of religious affiliation into two categories. First, it leads to a loss of human freedom. By necessity the more secular a society becomes, the larger and more authoritative and restrictive the government becomes. We have glaring examples of this truth over the past century in countries where communism took control. When God is removed from a recognized place of ultimate moral authority, then all that’s left to fill that void is human power, resulting in some form of totalitarian government — rule of men rather than Rule of Law.
          As evidenced by the rise of groups like antifa, there are those who would seek to shut down the free speech of others as a means of gaining greater power and authority over them. They wouldn’t flinch at limiting the rights of those with whom they  disagree.
          Second, it leads to an increasing loss of human dignity. We see this in America’s culture war over abortion and the celebration and forced acceptance of deviant behavior like homosexuality and transgenderism. Truth about humanity is also increasingly becoming a scarce commodity, where people are taught to value their feelings above objective reality. This lends itself to ridiculous notions like having “safe spaces” to protect people from ideas with which they don’t agree.
          In short, the reason for concern about a growing secularism in America is the implications it has on our cultural understanding of “unalienable rights.” The fewer number of people believing in and recognizing the authority of God, from whom we all receive our rights and dignity, the more imperiled our Liberty becomes.
          The reality is that Christianity is in America’s DNA. It’s the country’s moral backbone. The nation as we know it and the individual freedoms that we are privileged to enjoy would soon collapse and disappear should that moral foundation be removed. That is why the survey numbers are troubling. But as all Christians know, our ultimate hope rests not in men. We pray for our nation, we love neighbors and help those in need, we speak the truth and we entrust ourselves to our Savior, Jesus Christ.   ~The Patriot Post                                                                           https://patriotpost.us/articles/51270

          Among the ideas being floated is one by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA), the draft of which is reportedly in its final stages. The legislation would take action “to fund insurers payments critical to the Affordable Care Act,” The Wall Street Journal reported. The report added, “Mr. Alexander suggested he would be willing to authorize the subsidy payments for multiple years, as Democrats are demanding, in exchange for ‘structural changes’ to … liar-nObamacare.”
          But the term “structural changes” is a red herring, Suderman correctly opines: “Although some of the stabilization plans that have been discussed are temporary, temporary patches often have a way of becoming unofficially permanent. One potential and even likely outcome of this approach would be a recurring series of temporary bailouts, in which the exchanges are always teetering on the brink, and stabilization funding is always about to expire, and Congress comes together each year to ask what can be done and then decides to merely extend the funding for another year.” Just look at the debt ceiling brouhaha for how this strategy plays out.
          On a brighter note, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Dean Heller (R-NV) are working on a proposal to make liar-nObamaCare state-managed. “Rather than funding Medicaid and subsidies directly,” The Washington Post says, “that money would be put into a block grant that a state could use to develop any health-care system it wants. It also allows states to opt out of many [liar-nObamaCare] regulations.” Even here, though, the cons are evident.
          Suderman explains, “The potential downsides are clear enough: The federal preexisting conditions protections that are the major driver of premium increases would be left in place. The combination of preexisting conditions rules and no coverage mandate would likely cause insurance markets to enter a death spiral. States would not be required to use the block grants to provide aid to the poor, so some of the funding might not be targeted towards the needy. Giving the states more freedom would mean more variation in performance; it is likely that some states would use the money poorly, and that others would simply continue with systems that look rather like liar-nObamacare does now.”
          That’s not to say the entire idea is bad, as Suderman argues: “States that wanted to keep an individual mandate in place could do so. States would not be required to spend on the poor, but could also use the plan’s flexibility to find ways to better target the poor and the needy. The variation in performance would likely mean that some states come out better than they would under the current system, and that those experiments could then be replicated, and perhaps even improved upon, in other states.”
          The bottom line: It’s a gamble, but one that shows better promise than option A — exchange bailouts. Based on historical context, red states would do better under the Graham-Cassidy-Heller proposal, while blue states would completely botch how health care dollars are managed. But it would also allow consumers to vote with their feet. The biggest question is whether Congress, which is quickly running out of time to enact a health care alternative — and, Suderman observes, whose Republican members have more or less accepted liar-nObamaCare — has the guts to pursue and pass this structure. That is a question that demonstrably shows bleak potential.  ~The Patriot Post                                                https://patriotpost.us/articles/51233  

.