Anything to take the public’s eyes off a roaring economy and a notable bump in his approval numbers, right?

Well, yes and no. As reported by the Miami Herald in November 2018, the crimes Epstein is accused of committing are both chilling and heartbreaking at the same time. Dozens of underage girls were lured to Epstein’s Palm Beach estate to ostensibly give him massages for cash, but were then sexually victimized by Epstein.

It’s a “horrific history,” as Jim Geraghty notes in National Review, but the Herald chose to make the story about then-federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta — who is now the former secretary of labor after resigning this morning — and the very lenient slap on the wrist Epstein received for charges that could have put him in prison for the rest of his life. It’s an angle that was gleefully embraced by the partisan media with Epstein’s arrest last week, so Acosta fell on his sword today.

Other hand-wringers believed President Trump had reason to worry, including former Trump biographer Timothy O'Brien, who tut-tutted, “If [Epstein] has anything sordid or compromising that he’s willing to trade about Trump, however, the president could be in for an uncomfortable summer.”

On the other hand, those who’d like to keep the public from learning about the more than two dozen flights scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton allegedly took with Epstein and underage girls are busy scrubbing Wikipedia of any mention of Democrats and Epstein together. (Or, as liar-Nancy Pulosi’s daughter Christine admitted, it’s “quite likely that some of our faves are implicated.”) Several years ago, an Epstein “black book” with a number of recognizable names was revealed, so it’s a fair wager this may be what the younger liar-Pulosi is referring to. A single offense is obviously one too many when it comes to such matters, but there’s clearly a question of scale here that some would prefer not be asked.

The Left’s white-hot spotlight, though, was on Acosta — and for obvious reasons: He’s the son of Cuban refugees, a first-generation college graduate, and the first Hispanic to serve as assistant attorney general (during the George W. Bush administration). Derailing this man’s career takes him off the board as a rising Hispanic star in Republican politics.

Acosta’s record is one of a complex case against an all-star team of legal minds for an exceptionally wealthy client and the prospect of gaining leads in a separate high-profile financial case, argue Acosta’s defenders. But it also left a nagging sense that justice wasn’t properly served the first time, and in such a time where the Harvey Weinstein saga and #MeToo movement has heightened awareness of other similar cases affecting politicos like Al Franken, Anthony Weiner, and Roy Moore, it’s almost impossible to believe Jeffrey Epstein will get another plea deal. The only question is how far into the corridors of power will the investigation go?

Could it really drain the Swamp? Or will it merely serve the Left’s dual purpose of ruining the career of a talented Hispanic Republican and imperiling Donald Trump’s chance for a second term?  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64242?mailing_id=4417&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4417&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

Trump declared, “I will be issuing an executive order to put this very plan into effect immediately. I’m hereby ordering every department and agency in the federal government to provide the Department of Commerce with all requested records regarding the number of citizens and noncitizens in our country.”

“It is essential that we have a clear breakdown of the number of citizens and noncitizens that make up the U.S. population,” he asserted. “Knowing this information is vital to formulating sound public policy.” It’s also vital in determining accurate population counts for representation in Congress. And it was no big deal until Trump became president. Rep. Jim Jordan noted, “We’ve been asking the citizenship question on the census in one form or another for 200 years.”

With no apparent self-awareness or sense of irony, Senate Minority Leader Chuck scumbag-Schumer pontificated, “It is nothing more — the president’s action — than a naked political power grab, which is one of the few things he’s good at as president.” scumbag-Schumer added, “He will try anything to rewrite the rules to his advantage.”

scumbag-Schumer perfectly described what Democrats do in attempting to rig elections to their advantage and what Barack scumbag/liar-nObama did for eight years with “naked political power grabs.” Indeed, Trump argued correctly, rabid opposition to the citizenship question “is part of a broader left-wing effort to erode the rights of the American citizen.” Citizens who, by the way, support the citizenship census question by large majorities.

As a final thought, it’s possible that Democrats are digging a hole for themselves on redistricting. In other words, by excluding the citizenship question and then pushing for redistricting based on population growth, they could be opening themselves up for legal challenges because there is not sufficient evidence that the people counted are U.S. citizens.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64245?mailing_id=4417&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4417&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body 

There were no other publications on the Internet for us to use as a template, and frankly, I thought this entrepreneurial First Amendment exercise might not make it through its first year. But with encouragement from a handful of the nation’s leading conservative thinkers at the time, we did indeed. Even though email wasn’t yet a ubiquitous means of communication, we had gained nearly 5,000 subscribers and were operating in the black!

We also did a few things that were entirely different from other publications — things that still set us apart today.

First, we chose an unconventional business model that was for-profit (so IRS rules wouldn’t impose editorial constraints on our political or policy analysis), but supported by donations, so we could offer our publication at no charge as a service to students, military personnel, and others with limited income. Today, we are sustained by the generosity of our grassroots donors and take no  funding from any political benefactor, special-interest group, or parent organization.

Second, we also refuse any funding from advertisers. As our “About” page notes: “Our website pages and emails are certified ‘Ad Free.’ Because we do not depend on a single penny of ad revenue, we focus solely on providing you content that is actually newsworthy — worthy of your time — rather than constantly churning the ubiquitous topics that now dominate the mainstream media’s relentless 24/7 recycled spin. … We do not accept advertising to ensure our advocacy and editorial content is not restrained by commercial influence — as is the case with all mass media outlets. Thus, you will note our website and email editions are free of advertising clutter.”

Third, as also noted, “We rely on reputable sources and never post the sensationalist non-news ‘click bait’ that now infests the pages of political news sites on both the Left and Right. Nor will you find any of the ‘fake news’ fabrications and editorial tripe driven by pursuit of market share that determines the advertising revenues on which commercial news websites depend.”

And last, we chose to honor our nation’s founders by publishing under a pseudonym. As noted on our “About” page: “As was the case with The Federalist (Papers) in 1787, the premier resource for understanding the Liberty and Rule of Law enshrined in our Republic’s Constitution, and from which we derive much of our constitutionally constructionist editorial inspiration, The Patriot Post is published under the pseudonym ‘Publius.’”

The Federalist Papers were published by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay and provided a detailed explanation of the meaning of our Constitution in support for its ratification. But they chose to publish pseudonymously because it was the timeless message of Liberty enshrined in our Constitution that they were promoting — not themselves. Today, in a mainstream-media marketplace built largely around “celebrity journalists,” we still choose to promote Liberty and not personalities.

Some of our grassroots editors and contributors choose to be listed by pseudonym for the same reason, humility, which is an uncommon attribute in today’s personality-centric commercial media market. But then, none of us consider ourselves “professional journalists,” nor aspire to be that. Many of our writers hold positions in the fields they write about, which is to say they actually know their subject.

Since our inception, we’ve grown significantly. While we have loyal readers among key executive- and legislative-branch staff, as well as DC think tanks, our mission remains first and foremost, to provide the timeless message of Liberty to grassroots American Patriots far outside the Beltway — those Americans who constitute who we really are as a nation.

In recent years, even while endeavoring to maintain a low profile, our success has put us in the crosshairs of  Leftmedia protagonists (or is that antagonists?) hell-bent on silencing those who refuse to comport with their political and cultural agendas.

The most perilous hazards to free speech on the Web, history’s greatest First Amendment platform, are not Facebook and YouTube censors (though they are certainly a threat), but the media “fact checkers” and well-funded organizations that have positioned themselves, benignly they claim, as the digital gatekeepers of truth. And they are the ones pulling the social-media censorship strings.

Not content to dominate virtually every news medium on the planet, Leftmedia outlets have increasingly promoted their “fact-checking” arms as a way to establish themselves as the arbiters of what is “true.” Increasingly, many of these “fact-checker” assessments masquerade as fact but amount to what we coined years ago as leftist “Dezinformatsiya,” the old Soviet term for disinformation.

Of course these checkers’ “ratings” of truthfulness are inevitably subjective and therefore irrevocably shaped by their own bias. Consequently, the media blacklists created by these self-appointed arbiters pose a greater threat to Truth and to freedom of speech than the “fake news” they claim to be guarding against.

Recently, The Patriot Post was rated by an organization called NewsGuard, which provides a browser extension to rate news sources. It’s now a standard feature in Microsoft’s Edge browser, and it’s also available for Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Mozilla Firefox.

Launched in 2018 by some reputable veteran mainstream -media journalists — Steve Brill of Court TV and former Wall Street Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz — NewsGuard employs an array of journalist watchdogs tasked with evaluating news sites on numerous criteria to help users determine the reliability of what they’re reading and, conversely, steer clear of “fake news.”

Let’s stipulate for the record that the idea of an objective accreditation organization isn’t bad in and of itself. It’s akin to Underwriters Laboratories, the familiar “UL” brand that certifies, validates, tests, verifies, inspects, audits, advises, and educates regarding all manner of consumer products. But UL uses well-established and objective criteria.

NewsGuard seems to utilize objective standards. It uses a simple color system of green checkmarks and red Xs to quickly show how a site measures up on the nine factors  deemed most important to credibility and transparency. Some items are weighted more than others. For example, it’s worth more points to steer clear of unverifiable or suspect content, and to clearly distinguish between news and opinion. A site’s total score out of 100 determines whether the overall rating is green or red, and each site is then given a fuller “Nutrition Label” that explains its rating.

The extension also has an orange smiley face that helpfully explains when a site — like our staff favorite,  The Babylon Bee — is satire or humor. Other sites like YouTube and Wikipedia receive a blue “i” indicating that content is user-generated and is thus subject to inaccuracies.

The standards are solid, and they help define what constitutes respectable journalism, but there are vulnerabilities. Commercial gatekeepers and arbiters of truth are at risk of becoming politicized and failing their own standards of objective assessment. The assessors aren’t machines, and they are therefore subject to the same human biases as the rest of us. The potential for subjectivity to infect an objective rating system is always present. Arguably, much of what the Leftmedia outlets run as news is steeped in opinion.

A few NewsGuard assessments suffice to illustrate the point.

FoxNews.com gets three red Xs — for allegedly failing to regularly correct or clarify errors, disclose ownership and financing, or reveal who’s in charge. Interestingly, the overall rating is still a green checkmark.

Meanwhile, CNN.com somehow receives a complete slate of green checkmarks. We’ve spent decades now documenting CNN’s brand of fake news. In just the last 18 months, this includes staging an anti-Second Amendment rally, running misinformation on AR-15s, airing multiple false stories about President Donald Trump, and joining in the media lynch mob that viciously attacked a group of Catholic high-school students with a dishonestly edited video clip.

But other examples raise more questions about objectivity.

BuzzFeed News, which to its credit does have some reputable journalists, has a perfect rating. The site is best known for “lolcats” and “listicles,” but its news division should also be known for leaking the scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton-funded and completely unverified anti-Trump “Russian dossier,” breaking a false report about Michael Cohen, and setting up a fake website to impersonate economist and pro-Second Amendment journalist John Lott.

BuzzFeed’s violations of the most rudimentary journalistic integrity didn’t merit a reduction in NewsGuard’s rating.

(Coincidentally, The Patriot Post is currently the target of BuzzFeed’s resident fake-news expert (rich irony noted) and his colleague at Syracuse University. More on their motives and objectives soon, but suffice it to say that when the substance or merits of a media outlet’s content can’t be challenged, attempt to undermine their credibility.)

Moreover, how is it that the big news organizations propagating the demonstrably fabricated Russian collusion delusion for the last two years are rated anything other than “biased” for relentlessly promoting the Democrat Party’s political agenda?

The Daily Signal and National Review, two solidly conservative sites, receive all green checkmarks, so, to be fair, NewsGuard doesn’t reflexively downgrade right-leaning websites. But, predictably, it appears to tilt left.

For the record, The Patriot Post is rated well by NewsGuard (at least until we publish this review). Our rating was nicked because, as noted above, some of our writers choose to publish pseudonymously under the “Publius” model. What we’ve always done for reasons of humility (and in some cases, security), is confusing to the journalism experts. Promoting ideas over personalities is an enigmatic standard.

All said, I note that the the evaluation process was helpful because there is not a “professional journalist” among our ranks – by design, and the critical review and advice we received from career journalists at NewsGuard helped us tighten up our operation.

However, regarding objectivity evaluations, totally absent from media-rater questions is one critical criterion that should be weighted as highly as any other: “Does your news site depend on advertising revenue?”

That key question isn’t asked by NewsGuard, Poynter Institute, or any of the other ostensible arbiters of truth, like the insidious Southern Poverty Law Center, which, incredibly, is still cited as a credible organization by certain major media outlets.

Clearly, the question about advertising revenue isn’t asked because virtually every media outlet would receive a red X, while we’d be in the green!

Make no mistake, there’s nothing “transparent” about how MSM editors select and treat news based on its potential impact on their lifeblood, advertising revenue. As I noted previously, The Patriot Post does not accept advertising to ensure our advocacy and editorial content is free of commercial influence.

Moreover, nor do the raters ask how much information media outlets collect on their users or subscribers, or whether they sell or share what should be private information. Again, virtually every media outlet would receive a red X — but not The Patriot Post.

While I view NewsGuard as a reputable organization (and for-profit, by the way), the other “truth arbiters,” especially the media “fact checkers” on the payrolls of Leftmedia outlets, who are clearly endeavoring to constrict the speech and reach of organizations that do not agree with their political and social agendas.

And a final note: At some point, once even the reputable news evaluators are well embedded as the go-to source for such evaluations, what questions might they add to their criterion, which require compliance with their political and social agendas in order to maintain a favorable rating?

Bottom line, who will rate the raters?  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/alexander/64202?mailing_id=4415&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4415&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The most prominent among the newcomers is commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the loudmouth former bartending Millennial socialist from the Bronx. The ubiquitous Leftmedia overload on “commie-AOC” is mind-numbing, but pundits hang on her every word. The Right largely sees her as a poster child for everything foolish and idiotic about socialism.

At least publicly, liar-Pulosi gives off the same vibe. In February, she dismissed the Green New Deal as “the green dream, or whatever they call it,” knowing full well what they call it. This week, she derided commie-Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts, worthless-Ilhan Omar, worthless-Rashida Tlaib, and worthless-Ayanna Pressley, saying, “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they didn’t have any following” in the House. Indeed, these sorts of comments are becoming regular for liar-Pulosi, who seems to disdain the way commie-AOC and her pals think they’re “the boss.”

“I have no regrets about anything,” liar-Pulosi said when asked about her remarks. “Regrets is not what I do.”

In response, commie-Ocasio-Cortez pulled out the race card, claiming it’s “the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”

Perhaps this represents a true rift in the Democrat Party. For liar-Pulosi and the old guard, the way to get things done is through rigid unity of the caucus. Keep squabbles private, and when push comes to shove, fall in line and vote to advance an achievable agenda. That’s how they accomplished the radical takeover of one-sixth of the economy through scumbag/liar-nObamaCare. To “progressives” a decade later, however, that’s already old policy needing to be replaced by single-payer health care via Medicare for All.

The extreme Left is vying for control of the Democrat Party — indeed, it already does dictate most of the agenda. But liar-Pulosi isn’t taking kindly to being pushed faster or farther than she wants to go. “If the Left doesn’t think I’m left enough, so be it,” she said. It will bear watching how this Democrat “civil war” plays out.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64211?mailing_id=4415&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4415&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The Baby Boomers are the children of the Greatest Generation. That generation scrimped and saved and struggled through the Great Depression, only to be thrown into an existential global crisis with the effort to defeat the military juggernaut that was the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and fascist Italy, who sought to enslave the world.

In stark contrast, the Baby Boomers grew up enjoying unprecedented wealth, freedom, and privilege. And they rewarded future generations by ruining everything that made America great.

For example, under Boomers, zoning laws have gotten much stricter. While initially used to control population density as industrialization led people to the cities, there was a drastic increase in land-use restrictions between the 1960s and 1980s. Today, riding the peak of their political power, Boomers have used regulations for green space, parking, height limits, historic preservation, and so forth as a mechanism to artificially restrict new construction.

Limiting new construction drives up the cost of existing buildings, making it much more expensive for younger generations to obtain housing. When rents or mortgages are prohibitively expensive, or force younger generations into crowding living situations, the result is that they still live at home. They delay the transition into traditional adulthood events, like marriage and having children — which, ironically, endangers their retirement as there are fewer children who will become workers paying into Social Security and Medicare.

This problem is compounded by the explosion in licensing requirements under Boomers, where workers are required to have special licenses, degrees, or certifications in order to work. This drives up the cost of labor, making it harder for younger workers to obtain jobs. And while it may be reasonable to expect surgeons and structural engineers to obtain licenses and certifications, one is hard pressed to justify laws requiring 1,200 hours of training and $18,000 in tuition to practice African hair-braiding.

Like land-use restrictions, licensing requirements artificially raise the bar for entry into the workforce, restricting the number of people practicing a profession, artificially driving up wages for older, established workers while keeping out younger workers.

Also increasing the difficulty of getting a good job is the expanding number of jobs requiring college degrees, which have become ridiculously expensive and leave young workers burdened with enormous debt as they start their careers. New studies show that lifetime earnings are staying flat, even as the degrees get more expensive.

Add to that the skyrocketing national debt accrued under Baby Boomers, who have demanded ever-more expensive government programs for every conceivable problem, each with a large and growing price tag. Medicare and Social Security are the primary drivers of the national debt, yet it is political suicide to even contemplate reducing benefits for the Boomers who are the most reliable voting bloc.

Funded by payroll taxes from today’s workers, Social Security is projected to be insolvent in just 16 years, which means younger generations will spend decades paying into an entitlement program that will be bankrupt when they retire.

Just think how furious they’ll be when they learn that the Supreme Court ruled decades ago that they have no right to Social Security benefits, no matter how much or how long they have paid into the system.

Then there is the $22 trillion national debt that places an enormous burden on future generations, who will see more and more of their earnings swallowed up in federal spending. As of today, the CBO projects interest alone on the national debt will cost $389 billion this year, rising to $914 billion by 2028. This will take up an ever-growing portion of the federal budget, crowding out and forcing spending reductions on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, military spending, infrastructure, education, and the myriad of other things the federal government has its hands in.

As federal spending takes more and more of workers’ paychecks, it leaves less for state and local spending priorities, and leaves workers with an ever-shrinking portion of their paycheck for housing, food, transportation, etc.

If there is one sliver of hope in these dark clouds, it is that the situation is bad but not irreversible. The problem is caused by the Boomer penchant for spending money and controlling others.

With a clear-eyed acknowledgment of the seriousness of the situation, and the political will to change it, we can gut the mountain of regulations imposed by all levels of government, which will lead to an explosion of economic growth (indeed, President Donald Trump has already shown this can be done, slashing 22 regulations for every new one implemented). We can phase out wasteful, redundant, and inefficient federal programs, and privatize everything that is not directly authorized under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. We can stop subsidizing higher education and let the free market work to improve quality and bring down tuition. And we can make it a national mission to pay off the national debt, the fiscal equivalent of a moon landing.

In order to do that, though, the Boomers who voted for massive expansions of government, and entitlement programs that enrich them, will have to place the nation’s welfare ahead of their own.

The question is, then… will they?  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64184?mailing_id=4410&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4410&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

A brief refresher is in order. President Donald Trump called for a question asking about citizenship to be placed on the 2020 census. Given the constitutional mandate for a census in the first place, and the history of such questions having appeared, it seemed reasonable. Yet, the Associated Press reports, “Opponents of the question say it will depress participation by immigrants, lowering the population count in states that tend to vote Democratic and decreasing government funds to those areas because funding levels are based on population counts.”

This is not an inaccurate criticism but it is an illegitimate one. By that we mean, yes, a citizenship question could result in less representation for Democrats. But they don’t want foreign interference in elections, right? So why do they want our very system of representation skewed by noncitizens? The question is rhetorical, of course — they want to rig elections to guarantee leftist rule.

In any event, the charge of “racism” evidently held enough sway to persuade Chief Justice John Roberts to conclude that the process and motivation behind the question was wrong, even if the actual legality of the question itself was perfectly fine.

After the Supreme Court loss, the Trump administration eventually dropped the question only for Trump to reverse that decision. The constantly changing rationale from Trump and other members of the administration seems to be par for the course on this entire effort. “Nobody has any f—king idea” what Trump wants, one official told The Wall Street Journal. The lawyer change is likely an attempt to put other people in charge of arguing the case so as to negate the questions about motivation. But Furman isn’t going to allow it.

The bottom line is that the question is not only entirely legitimate but it should be asked. Unfortunately, the Trump administration seems to have handled the process so poorly that critics were able to persuade judges to block the whole thing.

Footnote: The Washington Times reports, “Two-thirds of voters approve of a citizenship question on the 2020 census, and that includes [55%] of Hispanic voters.”   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64189?mailing_id=4410&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4410&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body