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Speaking of voter enthusiasm, loose lips liar-Biden’s big Super Tuesday has most watchers concluding that he will be the eventual Democrat nominee, leading naturally to political pundits pontificating about a running mate. loose lips liar-Biden has certainly scored the most endorsements, as all of the most competitive candidates that dropped out eagerly lined up to endorse him. That excludes Elizabeth dinky/liar-Warren, who we assumed would throw her support behind her ideological comrade commie-Sanders, but she has somewhat surprisingly refrained. Maybe her accusation of commie-Sanders calling her a liar on national TV stung more deeply than many assumed.

Meanwhile, some pundits have made hay over a slip of the tongue by Amy Klobuchar over the weekend. While offering a hardy endorsement of loose lips liar-Biden, she appeared to say she was joining “the ticket.” It may very well have been little other than her misspeaking, but there is near-universal consensus that loose lips liar-Biden will choose a woman as his running mate, and Klobuchar could theoretically help him in the Rust Belt and most certainly in Minnesota.

lowlife-Kamala Harris has thrown her hat in the ring for a loose lips liar-Biden ticket with her endorsement over the weekend. Obviously, she waited to voice her allegiance until the most opportune moment — when it appears that loose lips liar-Biden is on the cusp of securing the nomination. She checks both the female and minority boxes and therefore may have a leg up on Klobuchar, but it’s not clear that lowlife-Harris delivers any constituency that loose lips liar-Biden doesn’t already have.

Yet, irrespective of who loose lips liar-Biden chooses as a running mate, his biggest hurdle is likely himself. As we have previously noted, and as many Democrats have quietly observed, loose lips liar-Biden is looking old. loose lips liar-Biden has always been “gaffe prone,” but it’s clear to everyone watching that his best days are behind him, that his political form has slipped.

This may be why scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton has thus far pointedly refused to endorse him while releasing a documentary series about herself. For one thing, she may view his campaign as a sinking ship she’d rather not be on when he gets overwhelmed in a Trump victory wave. Secondly, she may be holding out faint hope that loose lips liar-Biden, at 77, doesn’t make it to the convention and she will be there standing in the wings to “save” the Democrats from commie-Sanders. This is obviously a long shot, but it’s also likely scumbag/liar-Clinton’s last opportunity for a shot at the presidency.

In any case, tomorrow’s primaries should make it clearer whether commie-Sanders is able to mount any kind of a comeback or if loose lips liar-Biden has the nomination wrapped up.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/69101?mailing_id=4911&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4911&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Everyone talks about the power of the Republican and Democrat party establishments.

It’s real — just ask commie-Bernie.

He quickly found out how powerful the Democrat establishment is this week when Mayor socisalist-Pete and Amy Klobuchar both called it quits just in time to help loose lips liar-Joe Biden rack up some impressive primary wins on Super Tuesday.

commie-Bernie Sanders is a socialist, an outsider.

Outsiders always have a tough time. But good, likable candidates like my father in 1980 can defeat the party establishment.

commie-Bernie isn’t exactly likable, but he was looking pretty strong there for a while — almost unstoppable.

He had a lot going for him.

Big, energetic crowds. A clear and unchanging message calling for bigger government, radical economic change and social justice. Lots of campaign money rolling in. Friendly coverage by the liberal mainstream media.

But his big mistake — the one that caused Democrat power brokers to quickly crush him just as he seemed to be cruising to the nomination — was when he went on “60 Minutes” and staunchly defended Fidel Castro’s literacy and educational programs.

The Democrat establishment woke up and said, “Whoa, wait a minute. We just lost Florida in the fall.”

commie-Bernie had to know that with half a million Cubans living in Miami, a presidential candidate in a general election who says nice things about Cuba’s communist government is committing political suicide.

But “principled” commie-Bernie couldn’t help himself.

He’s a living ideological relic of the 1960s, when leftists like him excused, justified and even applauded the oppressive, impoverished and primitive dictatorships of Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Half a century later, with the USSR’s evil empire long gone and Eastern Europe free, commie-Bernie still actually believes all that 1960s leftwing claptrap.

He’s one of the reasons the Cold War lasted so damn long.

When the Democrat bigshots heard commie-Bernie praising his hero Fidel — and stubbornly refusing to pull it back — it scared the bejesus out of them.

Biden was getting weaker and goofier every day, but to the party establishment he was suddenly again looking like their only hope to beat Trump.

loose lips liar-Biden was getting weaker and goofier every day, but to the party establishment he was suddenly again looking like their only hope to beat Trump.

So the Democrats — the party of diversity — got rid of the rest of their women candidates, their young candidates, their billionaire candidates and their candidates of color and ended up with two very old white guys.

Anything could happen, but loosew lips liar-Biden now looks like he’ll win the nomination unless he completely goes off the rails — which might happen in the next CNN debate on March 15.

By then Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington will have held their March 10 Democrat primaries and half of all delegates will have been chosen.

loose lips liar-Biden and commie-Bernie will debate one-on-one for two whole hours — if the old coots can last that long.

Both of them are going to need extra doses of vitamin B-12. Instead of water on his podium, loose lips liar-Biden will be swigging Red Bull.

Whoever wins their debates, commie-Bernie is never going make the Democrat establishment happy by obediently dropping out of the race like Mike Bloomberg and the others did.

That means it’s going to be hot and nasty at the Democrat National Convention in Milwaukee this July.

If loose lips liar-Biden wins the nomination, according to the Democrat establishment’s plans, the party’s big problem will be getting commie-Bernie’s young army of left-wingers to get out of bed and vote for loose lips liar-Biden on Election Day.

Good luck with that.

In the general election, no matter which woman he picks as his VP, old loose lips liar-Joe Biden and his stale, “moderate,” leftover scumbag/liar-nObama-era policy ideas will be a longshot to beat Donald Trump.

But the Republican Party and the Trump campaign better be careful.

Voters don’t always vote on policy. They often vote on personality — “Do I like you?”

That “likability” advantage helped Donald Trump pull off his upset of scumbag/liar-Hillary. But whatever weaknesses loose lips liar-Biden has, he will never be as unlikable as she is.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/69054?mailing_id=4908&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4908&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

First, some reliable medical perspective…

I have several longtime and trusted friends whom I have consulted over the years on potential epidemic issues. They are career disease specialists and former military physicians who understand the government response context, and who have now been in private practice for decades. Collectively, they agree on the following assessment at this point.

The key issues are that COVID-19 is contagious prior to symptoms, the incubation period appears to be longer, and we don’t yet have effective antiviral therapy or a vaccine — hopefully coming soon. These are the obvious reasons why the non-medical impact will be significant, and why it is going to be more difficult to contain.

They note further that mortality rates with past flu epidemics have varied widely, especially with regard to age groups, so it’s difficult to compare overall mortality statistics. We don’t yet have a firm understanding of the mortality implications although it could be as high as 3.4%. For numerous reasons, COVID-19 is not as bad as the 1918 influenza epidemic or, more recently, the SARS outbreak. But it will likely be worse than H1N1 in older adults but not kids.

They note we don’t know the extent of the disease spread because, until the last 10 days, testing protocols have delayed our active surveillance of the spread. Like all virulent seasonal flu outbreaks, it will spread nationwide — and likely already has. The daily “dramatic spread” media reports are because we are only now testing for it. Whether this will cost more lives than the worst year on record in the last decade (63,000 U.S. deaths)? It may.

Second, President Donald Trump canceled his visit to the CDC today after signing the $8.3 billion congressional spending bill.

An unfortunate un-presidential “stream of consciousness” yesterday provided yet another opening for Democrats to politicize the outbreak and condemn Trump. In an interview, Trump stated, “I think the 3.4% [death rate] is a false number. Now, this is just my hunch… If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better and then…”

NO! The hard and fast rule in our Patriot Post publishing house is — and should be in any business — if you are sick, STAY HOME.

Mike Pence is handling this well — the president needs to stop talking “hunches” and stop repeating that there are just a few deaths and serious illnesses. The fact is, like most flu outbreaks, there are potentially going to be thousands of deaths and millions of infections. As I noted last week in our “Coronavirus Reality Check,” the current U.S. flu season has already resulted in 29 MILLION diagnosed cases, 280 THOUSAND hospitalizations, and more than 16 THOUSAND deaths. COVID-19 is going to result in many more infections and deaths than it has so far.

For disgraceful Democrat Party leaders to use deaths and illnesses as political fodder should be met with condemnation from ALL quarters.

Third, in a very uniformed analysis in the otherwise-reliable Washington Examiner, Adam Smith Institute Fellow Tim Worstall chastised Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) for his condemnation of Amazon for allowing “price gouging,” rapid price increases of products (10X and more) on the basis of the current pandemic fear. According to Worstall, “The high prices will make sure that those who really want and need the supplies are the ones who get them.”

It is truly mind-numbing, Beltway-detached logic to suggest that $399 for a couple bottles of Purell hand sanitizer ensures that an elderly person with limited income and at greatest risk of death will have access to it.

For the record, 34 states have laws against price gouging in emergencies, and the Supreme Court has rightly upheld those laws once emergencies have been declared. Currently, Washington, California, Maryland, and Florida have declared states of emergency related to coronavirus.

What Worstall should have pointed out is the irony that Demos are complaining about price gouging at the same time they and their Leftmedia outlets are fomenting the panic.

Finally, visit our comprehensive COVID-19 contagion resource and response page, “The Flu and You,” to stat informed in what will likely be a bad flu year.   

~The Patriot Post

This sounds like standard presidential lip service, but with one big difference: The Trump administration has real statistics to back up his claims.

For example, during his first year in office, the president  directed $200 million in technology education grants to women and minorities in order to promote tech-based careers and resolve the concern over gender inequality in that industry. And let’s not forget this president’s support  for the pro-life movement. Trump has a stellar record of appointing pro-life judges, has boldly condemned legislation that allows abortion throughout pregnancy, and earlier this year became the first president to attend the March for Life.

As for those parents already with children, Trump and the Republican Congress expanded the child tax credit in his first year, which doubled the per-child credit for middle-income families.

And with likely Democrat nominee Joe Biden already having pledged to eliminate Trump’s tax cuts for families, we’ll have a clear contrast between a pro-family president and an anti-family challenger.

What else has the Trump administration done for women’s progress?

In 2019, first daughter Ivanka Trump revealed the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative. Joanne Lu writes that the program “aims to get all U.S. foreign assistance agencies — including the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Peace Corps and six others — to give top priority to push for women’s economic development.” In addition, “it sets up a $50 million fund for USAID to invest in new programs that can help make it easier for women to find jobs, start their own businesses and do business.”

Sure, these policies all sound good, but are there real numbers to back up Trump’s efforts?

One of the more noteworthy developments during Trump’s first term is the significant drop in female unemployment. As of this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate for women is at 3.5%, the lowest number since 1953. The bureau also reports that the U.S. economy has not only added more than four million jobs for women since Trump’s election, but also more than 58% of the 7.1 million jobs added have gone to women.

All this makes for an impressive record to run on in November — especially with suburban women, a constituency that went strongly for Democrats in the 2018 midterms.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/69045?mailing_id=4908&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4908&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

President Trump was rightly critical of the deal struck with Cuba during the scumbag/liar-nObama administration when he said the communist Cuban government got everything they wanted, and the U.S. got nothing in exchange. He has thankfully been reversing some of those unilateral concessions.

Let’s apply his standard to the recently announced “peace deal” with the Taliban. Under terms of the agreement, as reported in The Washington Times, “The U.S. will free 5,000 Taliban prisoners and begin to remove sanctions on top Taliban leaders.”

What does the U.S. get in return? The agreement, reportedly, asserts that we start calling them the Islamic Emirate, even though the U.S. doesn’t recognize it as a state. They have agreed to release “1,000 people from ‘the other side’ held by the militant group, all before March 10.”

Also in exchange for removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a goal long sought by the president, the Taliban has agreed to permanently cut all ties with terrorist groups, including al Qaida, and to never allow Afghanistan to again become the center for extremist organizations. How do they do that when they have been involved in terrorism — some of it supported by the Iranian regime — that has caused the deaths of many American troops?

Beginning March 10 in Norway, the Taliban also pledges to engage in formal talks with the Afghan government, which it has never recognized as legitimate. I’m betting the Nobel committee will hand out a “peace prize” to Taliban leaders in the final corruption of that once prestigious award (they also gave one to PLO terrorist leader Yasser Arafat).

The president is right that nearly 19 years after al Qaida’s terrorist attack on America, the nation, not to mention brave American soldiers who have suffered through multiple deployments and family absences, are tired of the conflict. The late al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was also right when he predicted U.S. battle fatigue would occur in Afghanistan and used Vietnam as an example. And many people are correct when they say America cannot police the world. So, who will in our absence?

In a statement released by her office, House GOP conference chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo), expressed the skepticism many feel when she said, “Releasing thousands of Taliban fighters, lifting sanctions on international terrorists, and agreeing to withdraw all U.S. forces in exchange for promises from the Taliban, with no disclosed mechanism to verify Taliban compliance, would be reminiscent of the worst aspects of the Obama Iran nuclear deal.”

A telling picture at the signing ceremony between two Taliban and one American official saw the Taliban members smiling and the American looking sober. Yet the agreement is already being tested. BBC News reports that the Taliban is set “…to resume attacks against government forces, just days after signing a deal with the US aimed at bringing peace to Afghanistan.”

The key in all this is whether other nations, especially those which have faced — and still face — terrorist attacks will meet their responsibilities in helping to police this deal. The worst outcome would be a regrouping of terrorists in Afghanistan and another attack on the United States, which next time might result in more deaths then occurred on Sept. 11.

Guess which president would be blamed should that occur?  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/69022?mailing_id=4905&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4905&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

“If they want to give more, we’ll do more,” President Donald Trump said last week. “We’re going to spend whatever is appropriate.”

The Wall Street Journal reports, “The agreement came as the total number of people in the U.S. with the virus reached 153, with 11 deaths linked to coronavirus, as of Wednesday afternoon. Ten of the U.S. fatalities have been in Washington state. World-wide, more than 90,000 people have contracted the virus, and more than 3,000 have died.”

Despite the appearance of agreement, however, partisanship reigns. “Lives are at stake,” liar-Pelosi lectured last Thursday. “This is not a time for name-calling or playing politics.” Yet playing politics is exactly what Democrats have done. Rather than push through funding liar-Pelosi thought was adequate, she deliberately delayed working on a package to allow the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee time to run ads ahead of Super Tuesday attacking Republicans for not “doing something.”

Such cynicism is, unfortunately, par for the course with Democrats, who, as Rahm Emanuel so infamously put it, “never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve took the emergency step of cutting interest rates to try to stabilize the stock market. It doesn’t seem to have worked, as this week’s market rollercoaster ride reveals. Trump has pitched a temporary payroll tax cut, as well, which we estimate will have virtually no effect — it didn’t when Barack scumbag/liar-nObama tried it — because it would be temporary. The better course is for the administration task force to continue its work to take serious and appropriate measures to contain the spread of the virus without creating or worsening panic. 

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/69033?mailing_id=4905&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4905&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

It’s always important to keep things in proper perspective. That is particularly important as the nation grapples with the fallout from the novel coronavirus, which has infected 100 Americans and killed six people. Sadly, more people died Monday night from the tornadoes that ripped through Tennessee.

But just so you know, the yearly flu has already infected at least 32 million Americans and caused 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths.

The left’s delusional reaction to the coronavirus is more of a public threat than the virus itself. Seriously, friends, let’s just look at how the left has responded to this crisis.

• When President Trump imposed travel restrictions on China, the left accused him of xenophobia. Monday, Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the nation’s top medical experts, said that the travel restrictions “bought us time and space” to combat the virus.

• When the president created the Coronavirus Task Force, the left complained that it was “too white” and “too male.”

• The left accused the president of muzzling medical experts. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters over the weekend, “I’ve never been muzzled and I’ve been doing this since Reagan.”

• The left accused the president of calling the coronavirus a “hoax.” Even liberal fact checkers  have rejected that accusation as false.

• The left accused the president of gutting the budgets of vital health-related agencies. That too was false.

• The left even mocked the administration for praying, which is what decent people do.

Once again, it’s obvious that the left views everything — yes, even a virus — through a warped, ideological lens. Just think about that for a moment. 

If there’s a potentially dangerous virus spreading around the world, the left would refuse to secure the borders. It would demand that experience and expertise take a back seat to racial quotas. It would lie about basic facts and mock people for seeking God’s wisdom and mercy.

Is that really the kind of government we want? Just something to remember in November.

By the way, a recent Gallup survey found that 77% of Americans are confident in the government’s ability to address the coronavirus situation. That confidence level is significantly higher than previous outbreaks involving the bird flu, the swine flu, and Ebola.

Assaulting Your Rights

Did you catch Michael Bloomberg on the Fox News town hall Monday night? I’m not sure why Fox gave him a platform for his far-left views, but I was pleased to see one of the attendees blast Bloomberg for his hypocrisy. 

Bloomberg is known for bankrolling radical anti-Second Amendment efforts around the country. Those efforts have elected hundreds of far-left Democrats. Yet, the former mayor travels with an armed security detail. The questioner pointedly asked Bloomberg, “Does your life matter more than mine or my family’s?”

Bloomberg’s response was dripping with condescension and entitlement. He made it clear that he was worth far more than the questioner, and as a former politician he does get death threats. 

But he claimed that the only restrictions he supports are laws to prevent the sale of firearms “to people with psychiatric problems, criminals, or people [who] are minors.”

Well, there are already laws on the books to address all those things. But stopping kids from buying guns has nothing to do with the radical left-wing agenda he’s funding and enabling. 

Michael Bloomberg is no “moderate.” He’s just another lying left-wing politician.

What About Fox?

It is really irritating to see that Fox News has joined every other media outlet in labeling commie-Bernie Sanders as “left wing” while describing his primary opponents as “moderate.”

I heard it Monday night as Fox covered loose lips liar-Biden’s Texas rally with socialist-Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and socalist-Beto O'Rouke. 

As I have noted before, but it evidently bears repeating, there's NOTHING moderate about any of these Democrats.

All of them support scumbag/liar-nObamacare or some form of government-run healthcare.

All of them support abortion on demand.

All of them support the demands of the radical homosexual/transgender movement.

All of them support open borders. Even free healthcare for illegal aliens. 

All of them support the radical Green New Deal.

None of them are “moderate.” And you don’t have to take my word for it.

• This media analysis found that loose lips liar-Joe Biden’s platform is more liberal than scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton’s.

• The Washington Post editorial board recently declared, “No, socialist-Pete Buttigieg and loose lips liar-Joe Biden are not ‘centrists.’”

• Axios wrote that loose lips liar-Biden and socialist-Buttigieg “have taken positions to the left of Barack scumbag/liar-nObama — illuminating the liberal drift of the entire party.”

Speaking of Fox News, I assume the network will be canceling Donna Brazile's contract after her outrageous outbursts yesterday. During a segment on Super Tuesday, Brazile repeatedly told RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to “go to hell." Fox would never tolerate any conservative commentator talking to Brazile that way.

Speaking of Elections…

Israelis went to the polls Monday for their third national election in less than a year. While ballots are still being counted, initial results look promising for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

A spokesman for Netanyahu’s Likud Party told reporters, "The country had its say. The people want a nationalist government under Netanyahu.” At the moment, the conservative-religious bloc appears to control 58 seats in the Knesset, just shy of the 61 votes needed to form a government. 

Getting Tough on China

Monday, the Trump administration imposed a cap on the number of employees that five of China’s state-owned propaganda outlets could have in the U.S. As a result of this employee limit, 60 Chinese nationals are effectively being expelled.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “As we have done in other areas of the U.S.-China relationship, we seek to establish a long-overdue level playing field… We urge the Chinese government to immediately uphold its international commitments to respect freedom of expression, including for members of the press.”

As Secretary Pompeo noted, the Trump administration is aggressively rebalancing our relationship with China. And the American people are noticing. For the first time in decades, more Americans now see the United States, not China, as the world’s leading economic power. 

President Trump is making America great again!   

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/68993?mailing_id=4902&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4902&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body 

The NEA launched the “Fire DeVos Pledge,” declaring her to be the least qualified secretary of education in history. The claims include: “Her education freedom scholarships are ‘degrading’ to public schools, ‘threaten students’ civil rights,‘ 'widen educational inequity,’ are a personal attack on teachers, and are ‘dangerous.’”

Nor are the attacks limited to rhetoric. Thanks to threats from the teachers unions and their thugs, American taxpayers now spend $6 million per year for a security detail to protect DeVos. And she personally covers their travel expenses.

What atrocities have occurred at the direction of Secretary DeVos that warrant such hostility?

She is an enormous advocate for educational freedom, supporting mechanisms like vouchers and ESAs (Educational Savings Accounts) that put power over children’s education back in the hands of parents instead of bureaucrats. This allows poor children in failing schools the same opportunity for a quality education that children of the affluent and politically connected receive.

The ugly truth is that America’s education system is mediocre at best, an anachronism of the industrial age, ill-equipped to develop the minds of our children in the information age. Our children are placed in educational assembly lines, in batches by age, taught the same things in the same way, regardless of the strengths and weaknesses of each child, and regardless of their interests.

Our children suffer as a result, and teacher-union bosses couldn’t care less.

Al Shanker, former president of the American Federation of Teachers, when asked about the impact four teacher walkouts in less than a year would have on the children, famously retorted that he would “start representing kids when they started paying union dues.” Nothing has changed.

DeVos seeks to expand educational freedom and drastically reduce the size, scope, and reach of Washington politicians and bureaucrats, as well as teachers unions, which have an incestuous, symbiotic relationship. Unions provide (almost exclusively Democrat) politicians an army of campaign workers and millions in member dues in the form of campaign contributions, and the politicians block measures that allow parents the ability to move their children out of failing schools.

The politicians and union leaders thrive, but the children suffer.

Yet as noted by Rebecca Friedrichs, founder of “For Kids & Country,” a 28-year public-school teacher, and the plaintiff in a 2016 Supreme Court case that dealt an enormous blow to unions, “Freedom for families means fewer educators paying union dues — a threat to union power.”

All over the country, when “right to work” laws are passed, union membership plummets. While government-sector union membership stands at 37%, private-sector union membership barely registers at just 6%.

Unable to compel workers, union participation falls precipitously. Fewer union members means less in union dues, which means less money to pay off the politicians who give power and taxpayer money to union leaders.

Choice is the death knell for unions, which is why union leaders have long engaged in threats, intimidation, and even violence to protect their power. Those that threaten their power are subjected to character assassination and harassment by union mobs and their willing accomplices.

The federal Department of Education was established in 1979, with a budget of $12 billion. That grew to $70 billion in FY2017, Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s last year, for a department employing more than 4,000 bureaucrats who do nothing but micromanage the decision-making of countless thousands of schools around the country.

Yet after four decades and hundreds of billions of dollars, the academic achievement of American children is stagnant in math and reading, and worse in science. As Secretary DeVos correctly notes, government can’t fix public schools.

The American people would never tolerate federal bureaucrats and their union cronies dictating where we select our groceries, especially if the stores we were forced to shop at offered no selection, stale bread, moldy fruit, and rotting meat.

Yet that is exactly what government forces us to do with our children, our most cherished possessions: feed them the educational equivalent of stale bread and rotting meat.

President Trump and Secretary DeVos are fighting the unions to obtain quality education and choice for our children. Every American should join them in that fight.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68987?mailing_id=4902&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4902&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

China played a rigged game for the better part of 40 years to tilt the worldwide economic balance of power in its favor. Manipulating its currency, engaging in illegal trade practices, industrial espionage, and other dirty tactics should have isolated the totalitarian regime from global trade. Instead, China was rewarded by convincing many major American and European manufacturers to set up shop there. Furthermore, it used low-paid and sometimes prison labor to manufacture and sell goods in the American market and elsewhere so cheaply that other countries simply couldn’t afford to compete at that level and remain in business.

It wasn’t until Donald Trump became president that the United States finally acted against China’s underhanded tactics. But it will take more than some strategic tariffs to undo the damage done by the communist regime — and previous administrations.

The coronavirus outbreak — which followed China’s three-week New Year break — has all but brought Chinese manufacturing and exports to a halt. U.S. businesses reliant on components from China are facing long wait-times for delivery that range from six to 15 weeks. These major disruptions to the global supply chain will cost American businesses billions of dollars as they work to reschedule construction projects, adjust product orders, and attempt to belay investor concerns. Global tech giants Microsoft, Apple, and Nintendo are all already looking at reduced second-quarter earnings.

One particularly unhealthy aspect of our dependence on China is that country’s dominance of the medical supply chain. Large portions of major American pharmaceuticals are manufactured in China, and we could face a shortage of these products.

Goldman Sachs predicts stagnant earnings growth for the rest of 2020, and best estimates put current investment losses tied to the coronavirus at $2 trillion. Cooler heads on Wall Street still maintain that the stock market is experiencing a course correction and not taking a dive. Of course, Democrats and their Leftmedia propagandists are fanning the flames of panic. They would love nothing more than to see a ravaged American economy because that is the surest way to defeat Trump in November.

It could be, though, that the coronavirus outbreak that has been symbolic of our economic dependence on China could also be the thing that ultimately breaks that hold. Researchers have noted that the virus outbreak comes at a time when China is facing a series of challenges to its economic power. Its economy has been slowing for several years, the country has saturated global markets to the point that expanding exports is quite challenging, and the Trump tariffs dealt it a severe economic blow. And let us not forget that China is a totalitarian regime oppressing its people and seeking hegemony by means of force; it’s not generally considered a model for long-term economic success.

This doesn’t mean that the U.S. has to stand by and wait for China to fall by the wayside, because it may not. Instead, our great nation needs to be more proactive by not only diversifying overseas investments and manufacturing but pushing hard to invest in America First. The United States should lead the world in manufacturing, and moving toward such leadership and care for our own citizens should be paramount in the minds of America’s leading corporations and its elected leaders.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68985?mailing_id=4902&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4902&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

In a torturous, twisted interpretation of federal immigration law, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a preliminary court order Friday to block the Trump administration from continuing to implement its Migrant Protection Protocols, known informally as the Remain-in-Mexico policy.

But shortly after issuing the ruling, the three-judge panel voted 2-1 to put a hold on it, preventing it from going into force until the federal government can file written arguments by the end of Monday in favor of the Remain-in-Mexico policy and plaintiffs can respond by the end of Tuesday arguing in favor of stopping the policy from being carried out.

Implemented last year by the Trump administration, the policy has proven effective in stemming the flood of illegal crossings at our southern border.

One of the biggest drivers of the crisis at the southern border was the “catch and release” policy of President Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s administration.

Because the number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border far exceeded the capacity of federal detention facilities, most of those arrested were simply processed, scheduled for an immigration hearing and then released. The majority then disappeared into the vast interior of our country and never showed up for their immigration hearings.

Naturally, this only encouraged more illegal immigration.

Fighting back, the Trump administration issued a new rule last year that took advantage of the authority granted under 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1225(b)(2). That provision specifies that in the case of immigrants who arrive “on land (whether or not at a designated port of arrival) from a foreign territory contiguous to the United States,” they can be returned “to that territory” while their claims for asylum are pending.

The Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) required that asylum seekers who crossed the southern border had to return to Mexico until immigration officials determined the validity of their claims.

Moreover, the asylum claims of those who failed to cross through an official port of entry would not be considered credible. This is simply common sense.

After all, why would someone with a valid asylum claim sneak across the border instead of coming in legally at a port of entry? The administration provided exceptions to the MPP for unaccompanied children as well as those with a credible fear of persecution in Mexico.

Once word got out about this new policy, the number of illegal crossings plummeted. With the cooperation of the Mexican government, more than 60,000 illegal immigrants were returned to Mexico over a 13-month period.

New immigration courts at key crossing points like Laredo, Texas, drastically reduced the time needed to process asylum claims, so that refugees with legitimate asylum claims had their cases heard much faster.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the MPP “allowed us to take control of the crisis” at the border that was overwhelming the Border Patrol and our immigration capabilities. So naturally, those who want open borders and no enforcement of our immigration laws sued and found a friendly audience in federal court in San Francisco and in the 9th Circuit.

Given how clear the statute is, one might wonder how a court could say that the MPP is somehow invalid. But that is what the 9th Circuit did in East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump. It began by ignoring several provisions of federal immigration law that deprive courts of having any say over this issue to begin with.

One of those, 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1252(e)(3), specifically says that regardless of “the nature of the action or claim and without regard to the identity of the party or parties bringing the action, no court may enter declaratory, injunctive, or other equitable relief in any action pertaining to an order to exclude an alien.”

Of course, this is exactly what the lower court and 9th Circuit did in issuing an injunction against the order excluding immigrants from entry into the U.S. while their asylum claim is being evaluated.

The court then held that the MPP is an “arbitrary and capricious” interpretation of the law, even though federal immigration law unambiguously and without any limitation gives the federal government the ability to exclude immigrants who have crossed one of our land borders while their asylum claims are being evaluated.

How can applying the clear text of a federal law be arbitrary and capricious?

The court further held that it was also arbitrary and capricious for the executive branch to consider as not credible the asylum claims of those who cross illegally rather than through an official port of entry. This was despite acknowledging that the courts have long recognized that the method someone uses to enter the country is a discretionary factor that the government can consider in deciding whether an immigrant should be granted relief.

Finally, the court substituted its own foreign policy judgment for that of the president by ruling that enforcing these provisions of federal immigration law was “unreasonable” in light of our treaty obligations under the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to Status of Refugees and the 1967 U.N. protocols Relating to the Status of Refugees.

In fact, the court seems to be substituting its foreign policy judgment not just for that of the president, but also for Congress. That’s because the president in this case is acting not only under his constitutional authority to conduct foreign policy and secure our border, but under the specific authority delegated to him by Congress to determine which immigrants will be allowed into the United States.

There is no doubt that the Trump administration will appeal the court’s unwise decision. The White House issued a news release saying that if this “hugely successful” policy is stopped, it will “flood the Nation’s immigration system, present unchecked coronavirus entry risk, deeply damage our positive relationship with the Government of Mexico and other regional partners, and reignite the humanitarian and security crisis at the border.”

News releases are often filled with hyperbole. But in this case, that is an accurate assessment of what will happen if this latest nationwide injunction is not lifted.   

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/68973?mailing_id=4900&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4900&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_conte

That said, we also have long thought that Afghanistan had reached a point where there were no good options. As we also have noted, there was no clear idea of what victory looked like and how it would be achieved. Thus, the war effort became a mess that was largely passed off to Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

Even under George W. Bush, who was serious about winning, America pulled punches that should have been allowed to go full-force. Dalton Fury revealed in 2008 that requests to use modern GATOR mines were rejected during the Battle of Tora Bora. These mines would have self-destructed or gone inert within 40 days. But micromanaging from Washington allowed Osama bin Laden to make it into Pakistan, where he hid out for nearly a decade.

The betrayal of Patriots who served — like James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who played crucial roles in getting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to spill his guts — also raised questions about how serious those in Washington were about winning.

Yet we were supposed to let SOCOM send its highly trained operatives on numerous deployments to that region with no clue about how to win or what winning looked like? How numerous were those deployments? Here is one indicator: The first military casualty during President Trump’s administration had been sent on 12 deployments.

We should not dismiss what was achieved: Afghanistan has a freely elected government. We have killed or captured a lot of the senior leadership of al-Qaida. We have not seen anything like another 9/11. We have trained an Afghan military that is capable of defending that country. We should be proud of what our troops, including those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, accomplished.

But we should also keep some things in mind. We have lessons to learn from this war. We should, as a country, resolve that when we do ask our troops to fight and risk being maimed or killed, they be allowed to win.

Whether this peace agreement will hold is an open question. Could the Taliban merely be using this as a chance to re-arm and gain strength to go after the Afghan government? We can’t rule that out. If that should happen, then the Taliban must pay a fearsome price for breaking the deal.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68953?mailing_id=4900&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4900&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

First of all, remember that whenever you’re told that the “free market” led to China’s rise as one of the world’s most dominant economic powers.

But second, note that the list of companies supplied by these factories includes such “woke” brands as Apple and Nike. The latter in particular might raise your ire, because the athletic-equipment company two years ago paid big bucks to make America-hating ex-quarterback Colin Kaepernick the face of its brand, even yanking a Betsy Ross shoe when he whined about it.

On his refusal to stand for our national anthem, Kaepernick said, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” But he has no problem taking a huge paycheck from a company supplied by actual minority slave labor in an oppressive communist country.

ASPI notes, “Local governments and private brokers are paid a price per head by the Xinjiang provincial government to organise the labour assignments. The job transfers are now an integral part of the ‘re-education’ process, which the Chinese government calls ‘vocational training.’” More than a million people have “disappeared into a vast network of ‘re-education camps.’” And, the report adds, “A factory in eastern China that manufactures shoes for US company Nike is equipped with watchtowers, barbed-wire fences and police guard boxes.”

Naturally, Nike denies there’s a problem. “We are committed to upholding international labor standards globally,” insisted spokeswoman Sandra Carreon-John. Suppliers are “strictly prohibited from using any type of prison, forced, bonded or indentured labor.”

If there’s one thing the world’s socialists have always had in common — from the Nazis to the Bolsheviks to the Chinese — it’s forced labor and “re-education.” Nike’s response? It’s all about the money, so just do it.   

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68955?mailing_id=4900&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4900&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

My wife and I attended an extraordinary concert on Sunday, Feb. 23, by the brass ensemble of “The President’s Own” (the United States Marine Corps Band), commemorating the 75th anniversary of one of the toughest, bloodiest battles of the Pacific War — the Marine assault on Iwo Jima, which began on February 19, 1945.

The concert took place in the Leatherneck Gallery of the National Museum of the Marine Corps outside of the Quantico Marine Base in Triangle, Virginia, before a packed crowd, including a veteran of the Iwo Jima battle.

Iwo Jima (which translates as Sulfur Island) is a tiny, ugly island of volcanic ash, smoke, and tremors. Marine Corporal E. Hartman said the sand was “so soft it was like trying to run in loose coffee grounds.” The island is a little over four miles long and two miles wide, dominated by the 600-foot-high Mount Suribachi at its southern tip.

But Iwo Jima is only about 650 miles southeast of Tokyo. It had three airfields, along with radar installations that had been alerting Japanese interceptor squadrons and anti-aircraft batteries to American B-29 Superfortresses that were bombing the Japanese home islands from bases in the Mariana Islands.

Seizing the island from the Japanese would destroy Japan’s early-warning system; eliminate Japanese planes that were attacking American bombers; provide a safe base for B-29s low on fuel or otherwise damaged to land; and provide a staging area for P-51 fighters to provide escort protection for the American bombers hitting the Japanese mainland. Three hundred P-51 Mustangs that flew 1,700 sorties were eventually based there.

Prior to the invasion, a U.S. Navy task force hit the island with a massive bombardment. It was carried out for three days from February 16 to February 18 by six battleships, five cruisers, 10 destroyers, planes from 10 escort carriers (using newly invented napalm bombs), and even raids by land-based B-24s. Eventually, hundreds of Navy ships were supporting the Marines. Unfortunately, that bombardment had almost no effect on the 21,000-man Japanese garrison commanded by Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, a former diplomat and haiku poet.

Iwo Jima was full of caves, deep ravines and rocky ridges that Kuribayashi had fortified with elaborate concrete and steel bunkers, some with as many as five levels, and connected through a labyrinth of tunnels. Many military historians conclude that no other battle area in modern warfare was as skillfully fortified by a combination of nature and human engineering as Iwo Jima. The Japanese safely sat out the bombardment with few casualties.

On Feb. 19, almost 30,000 warriors of the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions of the 5th Amphibious Corps (including Navaho code talkers), with the 3rd Marine Division in reserve, landed on the island with little opposition. Kuribayashi’s strategy was to allow the Marines to land, and then, within half an hour, subject them to massive mortar, artillery and machine gun fire — much of it directed by Japanese observers on Mount Suribachi, which had seven levels of underground fortifications.

By the end of the week, 70,000 Marines were on the island, advancing only yard-by-yard, under such a barrage of interlocking fire that Lt. Colonel Justus “Jumpin’ Joe” Chambers said, “You could’ve held up a cigarette and lit it on the stuff going by.”

It took tanks, flame-throwers, bazookas, mortars, and hand-to-hand fighting by the Marines to defeat Japanese troops who had pledged to die defending their turf. The fleet supporting the Marines with supplies and rolling artillery barrages on the island was also hit by Japanese Kamikaze attacks that sank one escort carrier, the Bismarck Sea, and damaged other ships, including the fleet carrier Saratoga.

Mount Surabachi was taken on Feb. 23, and the Marines planted a flag on the top of the mountain. A second, larger flag was then raised (which is currently displayed at the Museum). The raising of that flag on Surabachi is probably the most recognized and iconic battle photograph ever taken. It symbolizes the valor and dogged perseverance of the Marines in one of the toughest battles they ever fought. It was their bravery that was being commemorated at the Marine Band concert on the 75th anniversary of the raising of the flag. And the architectural design of the Marine Corps Museum evokes that photograph.

But the raising of the flag on the fifth day after the assault began was not the end of the story. The hardest fighting on Iwo Jima was still ahead as the Marines advanced towards the northern tip of the island. There were so many Marine casualties in the fight for Hill 382, one of the fortified Japanese positions, that it became known as “The Meat Grinder.” The Japanese made their last stand in a 700-yard-long canyon known as “Bloody Gorge” that took the Marines 10 days to clear out.

Military planners believed it would take two weeks to capture the island. Instead, it took more than five weeks — until March 26. Even on that day, 300 Japanese were killed after launching a banzai attack.

The Marines suffered their worst casualties of the Pacific War (and in their history) by the time the battle for the island was over, with almost 6,000 dead and over 17,000 casualties, with additional Navy sailors killed and wounded. Out of the 21,000-man Japanese garrison, only 200 Japanese surrendered. The rest fought to the death.

The taking of Iwo Jima by the Marines is credited with saving the lives of almost 30,000 American pilots who would otherwise have been forced to ditch at sea.

In fact, on March 4, the first crippled B-29 landed on one of the landing fields captured by the Marines while the battle for Iwo Jima was still raging. One pilot was quoted as saying that “whenever I land on this island, I thank God and the men who fought for it.”

There were more Congressional Medals of Honor awarded following the battle of Iwo Jima — 27 (including to five Navy sailors) — than in any other battle in U.S. history. The ferocious bravery and determination of the Marines and sailors led Admiral Nimitz to say that on Iwo Jima, “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

Nimitz’s memorable words are engraved on the wall of the Marine Corps Museum. Our memories of that uncommon valor have not dimmed and will not dim as long as we continue to remember the gallant Marines who fought that fateful battle 75 years ago.

It is because of them and the sacrifices of so many other American soldiers (and their families) that we live in a free, bountiful country today.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/68902?mailing_id=4898&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4898&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body