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“‘In the coming weeks, some 6,500 people in five Central Florida counties will get a letter in the mail telling them the crippling medical debt they owe has been paid off, no strings attached,’ the Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday. ‘It’s not a scam. It’s an act of faith worth $7.2 million to the struggling families.’”

“The idea for the special offering was prompted by the church having already met the financial needs of its annual operating budget this fiscal year, and the year containing 53 Sundays rather than 52, as is more common, the outlet reports.”

Read more at The Daily Wire.  https://www.dailywire.com/news/49365/watch-church-pays-millions-medical-debt-6500-james-barrett

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64286?mailing_id=4423&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4423&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

You had to be there 50 years ago, and I was. As a young reporter for a local TV station in Houston, I frequently visited NASA (“the space base,” we dubbed it), met many of the astronauts and reported on their exploits.

Along with people from around the world, I watched the lunar landing on television, July 20, 1969, fulfilling President Kennedy’s goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of that decade.

A new, three-part PBS documentary, “Chasing the Moon,” recalls the American space program, which followed the Russian launch of the first satellite in 1957. It is a brilliant film, created and directed by Robert Stone, and a useful reminder for the two generations born since then of what a united America can achieve.

CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite makes that point when he says, “It shows what the richest nation in history can do when it puts its mind to it.” If you missed the broadcast, you can find the series at pbs.org.

About Apollo 11, a reporter says, “It is like seeing Columbus sail out of port.”

Jack Lousma, one of the astronauts who followed the original seven, later became a close friend. Lousma was the CAPCOM recipient of the “Houston, we’ve had a problem here” message from Apollo 13 and the pilot for Skylab 3 in 1973. He also commanded the third space shuttle mission in 1982.

I asked for his remembrances of that time and about the legacy of America’s most famous spaceflight.

Lousma said: “Apollo was a bright light, a ray of hope, a force for ‘good’ during the Vietnam War controversy with its riots, civil unrest, demonstrations, violence, turmoil, burning draft cards…

"Unpredictably, Apollo unified the world for a short time. I recall photographs of people in many nations watching TV during the landing … a worldwide sense of ‘oneness’. They were not just ‘watching;’ they seemed part of our team, as if this were a victory for all earthlings, not just for the U.S. We were vicariously representing each one of them. There was a similar response to the drama of Apollo 13.

"It made us proud to be Americans; it set a standard for excellence; it established a baseline for advanced exploration and discovery.”

It wasn’t all ‘The Right Stuff,“ as Tom Wolfe wrote. NASA covered up the extramarital affairs and excessive drinking by many of the earlier astronauts for fear of hurting public confidence in the program.

In her review of Lily Koppel’s book, "The Astronaut Wives Club,” Susannah Cahalan writes in The New York Post: “Out of the 30 astro-marriages – spanning from the first American launched into space in 1961 to the moon landing in 1969 — only seven couples would stay married. … To the outside world, they were perfectly coiffed, apple pie baking housewives. But with their sisters — the AWC — they allowed their armor to fall, the tears to drop, and the truth to come out.”

The debate then, as it has been with other flawed humans who achieved great things, is whether the goal — beating the Russians to the moon — eclipsed those personal flaws. Probably not to the wives, but to the nation, ignorant of their frailties, it did.

One story adds to the many illustrations of the power of fame the astronauts had. On a commercial flight, I sat across the aisle from Annie and John Glenn, he the first American to orbit the Earth and at the time a Democratic senator from Ohio. “Apollo 13” was shown. At the end of the film, passengers approached Glenn for his autograph. I said, “John, you know they don’t want your signature because you’re a senator, right?” He laughed and said, “Don’t I know it?”

In today’s divided nation, it should be more than an exercise in nostalgia to revisit those exciting years when space really was “the final frontier” and America came to lead the way in exploring it.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/64290?mailing_id=4423&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4423&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Many grassroots Americans would vehemently disagree with Hume’s first sentence, and we’ll come back to that. It was his second sentence that resonated. Hume even cited the Merriam-Webster’s definition of racism to show that Trump’s comments had nothing to do with race. Hilariously — and pathetically, in a sign of the times — Merriam-Webster replied with a lengthy explanation about how “the lexicographer’s role” isn’t to define “how some may feel [words] should be used,” while warning that “it is prudent to recognize that quoting from a dictionary is unlikely to either mollify or persuade the person with whom one is arguing.”

In other words, words have no meaning if facts conflict with your triggered feelings.

Now, to the first of Hume’s assertions. Again, as we noted yesterday, Trump said what he said poorly, leaving himself wide open for the very assault he’s facing. He said what we think he meant far better in defending himself later. “These are people that hate our country,” he said. “If you’re not happy in the U.S., if you’re complaining all the time, very simply, you can leave.”

Oddly enough, leaving wasn’t his idea. Are we the only ones who remember the scads of leftists pledging to flee America altogether if Trump were elected president? Instead, they’re all still here, still hating our country, still undermining the “democracy” they claim to be defending, and still trying to impeach its president.

That brings us to the press conference Monday involving the four radical leftist congresswomen who are members of what has been dubbed “The Squad” — Alexandria commie-Ocasio-Cortez, worthless-Ilhan Omar, worthless-Rashida Tlaib, and worthless-Ayanna Pressley.

worthless-Omar, the anti-American, anti-Semitic refugee from Somalia — and thus the only one of the four women resembling Trump’s original description — was the worst, calling Trump “blatantly racist” and decrying his “agenda of white nationalists.” She rehearsed a slew of false charges against Trump. Among them:

• Trump was “credibly accused of … colluding with a foreign government to interfere with our election.” (A team of Democrat lawyers spent two years and $35 million to determine that it was NOT a credible accusation.)

• He has “pursued an agenda to allow millions of Americans to die from a lack of health care while he transfers millions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations.” (Both charges are BIG Lies and/or tinfoil-hat conspiracies. Millions have not died for lack of health care. And no money was “transferred” to corporations because it wasn’t taken via taxes in the first place. Democrats are the ones bent on transferring wealth and basing their platform on envy.)

• “This is a president who has called black athletes ‘sons of b—es.’ This is a president that called people who come from black and brown countries ‘s—tholes.’ This is a president who has equated neo-Nazis with those who protest them.” (No, he didn’t. No, he didn’t. And no, he didn’t.)

• She falsely blamed Trump “for the deaths of children on our border,” and she accused him of “committing human-rights abuses” like “keeping children in cages and having human beings drinking out of toilets.” (Children and the traffickers who bring them might not be trying to illegally cross the border without Democrats’ open invitation. And while no one is drinking from toilets, Border Patrol detention facilities wouldn’t be overwhelmed without, again, Democrats’ open invitation.)

• worthless-Omar accused Trump of making a “mockery out of our Constitution,” something Democrats do all day every day, while concluding, “It’s time for us to impeach this president.”

There was plenty more, but that should suffice.

The Democrats’ clear agenda with the “racist” charge is a craven political calculation to send Republicans scrambling for cover. It’s working, too, as elected Republicans distance themselves from the president while much of the conservative commentariat piles on Trump. But they’re succumbing to the relentless drumbeat of the Democrats’ Leftmedia super PAC. For example, a Washington Post story today is titled, “White identity politics drives Trump, and the Republican Party under him.”

How to put this politely…? That’s horse pucky. Buried under Trump’s garbled prose is a legitimate point, and it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with loving or hating America and the political party guilty of the latter.

Finally, as we observed yesterday, Trump’s strategy is to unite Democrats behind these four radical socialist faces. “Trump doesn’t play tic-tac-toe. He plays chess,” said Newt Gingrich. “He wants the Democratic Party to identify with” these four women. “liar-Pulosi in a sense was trying to draw a line and say, ‘We are not them.’ After Trump’s tweet, she said, ‘Oh, we really are them.’” liar-Pulosi is indeed standing with the four to push a new resolution to condemn Trump.

Likewise, Rush Limbaugh said, “Trump obviously is attempting to have these people become the face of the Democrat Party. It’s a brilliant political move.” No less than DNC Chief Tom Perez said that of commie-Ocasio-Cortez last year. And a new poll says swing voters do indeed consider commie-AOC to be the “definitional face” of Democrats.

So, we’ll see if Trump’s strategy really is brilliant.  ~The Patriot Post

As most conservatives who love America know, authentic freedom is characteristic of individual self-reliance. That self-reliance comes when work, wealth, and worth are valued. Currently, America is in the midst of the longest economic expansion in our nation’s history thanks to policies that have reversed the failed beliefs that government has its own money, that jobs are created by the votes of politicians, and that Americans are best when beholden to and kept by the bureaucracies of the state.

During the presentation ceremony of this “supreme civilian decoration in precedence in the United States,” Dr. Laffer, whose policies are rooted in the soil of true freedom, was praised by Trump: “Few people in history have revolutionized economic thought and policy like Dr. Art Laffer. He developed a brilliant theory, shaped unprecedented economic reforms, and helped turn a severe recession into a remarkable boom. He proved that the most powerful way to grow the economy and raise government revenue was not to increase tax rates but to adopt strong incentives that unleash the power of human freedom and innovate, create jobs, and deliver greater opportunity to all Americans. And he’s proved it over and over again.”

In years past, the Left has scoffed at the “Laffer Curve,” a doctrine holding that if individuals keep more of their own money, along with businesses, through lower taxes and minimal regulation, economic growth would be the result and government revenue would actually increase.

In 2018, there was economic (GDP) growth of 3% after the tax cuts of 2017. Over the ensuing decade, that will leave $1.5 trillion to individuals and companies that otherwise would have been sent to Washington for the insatiable spending appetite of the incumbent class that is without partisan differentiation. For 10 straight months, average wages have grown about 3%; however, for the poorest fourth of the labor force, highs of 4.4% wage growth have been measured and reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. As conveyed by the Daily Signal, “The highest-income workers’ wages are growing at a more modest rate, more than a percentage point lower than those of low-wage workers.”

Americans’ wages are rising while unemployment is at a near-50-year low of 3.7%. Dealing with the illegal cash-paid workforce that undermines the particularly undereducated and lower-skilled workers has been part of “Trumponomics.” Synonymous with supply-side theories that open markets coupled with, as Trump has shown, fair trade (which also includes free trade) is the winning formula. And, not too surprising, those who need the most help are getting it, says The Daily Signal in reporting that the unemployment rate for blacks is just 6%, right at the historic low of 5.9%. Moreover, “women, Hispanics and workers without a college degree are seeing similar trends.”

There are three threats to this good news and effective policy: The failure to secure our borders to the influx and invasion of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants that require massive entitlement spending and feed the unlawful job market; the idiocy seen on the political Left that demands freedom be substituted with socialism; and the unbridled and excessive spending of all of DC.

Once again, leftists are likely stewing in their realization that a political novice, Donald Trump, has taken tried-and-true-conservative principles, applied them, and voila… We’ve found the “magic wand” that supposedly would be needed by Trump to bring back certain jobs and boost America’s world-leading economy.

The facts are that, when markets are free and fair and taxes are lower with fewer regulations, so-called “trickle-down” economics works. Let’s all enjoy and keep “Laffing.”  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64266?mailing_id=4421&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4421&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Cue the outrage that quickly cropped up from all sides.  Predictably, the Left responded in typical hysterics, yelling “racist!” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries called Trump a “racial arsonist.” Democrat presidential candidate commie-Bernie Sanders bloviated, “When I call the president a racist, this is what I’m talking about.” And of course commie-AOC chimed in, “Mr. President, the country I ‘come from,’ & the country we all swear to, is the United States. But given how you’ve destroyed our border with inhumane camps, all at a benefit to you & the corps who profit off them, you are absolutely right about the corruption laid at your feet.”

But by no means were Democrats alone in pulling out the race canard — some on the Right were too quick to see racism in Trump’s words. Matt Walsh wrote, “What absolute idiocy. This is a gift to commieAOC, worthless-Omar, and all Democrats. Anyone who thinks Trump is deploying some brilliant strategy, rather than just mouthing off like a child constantly, needs to have their head examined. … What’s worse is that he compels his sycophants to echo whatever dumb crap he says. So now we’ll be treated to three days of Trump fans explaining in all sincerity why non-white Democrats should indeed go back to where they came from. What a disaster. Again. Thanks, Trump!” David French bemoaned, “I can think of few worse things for the soul of the GOP or the health and unity of our republic than adopting a strategy of ‘be racist to own the libs.’”

To be fair, Trump’s wording was indeed (and intentionally) crass and provocative. However, to accept the Left’s narrative that Trump’s motivation was simply an expression of some deep-seated racist instinct is to miss the actual calculation. This is another classic case of Trump being Trump, by which we mean his uninhibited political bomb-throwing. As we have argued before, Trump plays politics like a Democrat, lobbing accusations against opponents that hit upon some grain of truth but primarily spark outrage.

Stepping back from the immediate emotion of the moment, Trump has now forced liar-Pulosi into defending the very congresswomen who had just last week called  her a racist. Has Trump now successfully ended the “civil war” within the Democrat Party? Such is the worry expressed by conservative media pundits. But what if Trump’s move was strategically aimed at hanging the hard-Left albatross of commie-AOC and her “Squad” around the Democrats’ necks? Was he seeking to force Democrats to circle the wagons around these leftist congresswomen so that the party en masse is viewed as the party of the extreme Left? It certainly is a possibility.

Furthermore, the sentiment expressed by Trump is only seen as “racist” when viewed through the leftist lens of intersectionality. How many Americans have become sick and tired of hearing from the Left that the U.S. is a terrible country because it is racist, capitalist, or because it is strong and successful? How many Americans are tired of being declared “deplorable” for believing in Liberty and defending the Constitution?

While much of the mainstream media will declare that Trump’s words were racist, the fact of the matter is they express the resentment many Americans feel for being labeled by the elites in this country as “wrong” or “backwards” for being proud of our country, its founding, its history, and its laws. It is not racist to demand that America’s borders are secured and our laws are respected. It is not racist to declare that someone who enters this country illegally is by definition an illegal alien, or that anyone who enters should first love this country. Now, a majority of Democrats are once again seen actively defending those extreme leftists whose aim is to fundamentally change America into a socialist nation.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/64281?mailing_id=4421&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4421&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body 

I’ve often wondered whether the internal contradictions of leftist ideology would eventually cause leftists to turn on one another. Perhaps we’re catching a glimpse of that in the feud between liar-Nancy Pulosi and the commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quartet.

Everything about modern leftist ideology is extreme. It is extreme in substance, and its practitioners are self-absorbed, sanctimonious, uncompromising and often irrational. Intersectionality zealots are disciplining white feminists for their selfish advocacy. Biological males are dominating female athletic events courtesy of the transgender movement. Leftists of color and female gender are dissing old white men despite the men’s long records of dedication to the sacred cause of progressivism. Some women of color are being told they are not black enough to lead the cause. And what about poor PETA? Where does that hapless group fit into this kaleidoscope of insanity these days?

After Speaker liar-Pulosi led Congress in passing a border-funding bill over the opposition of Reps. commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, worthless-Ilhan Omar, worthless-Rashida Tlaib and worthless-Ayanna Pressley, liar-Pulosi discussed the bill with The New York Times. “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” she said, referring to the leftist upstarts. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”

Uh-oh! That wasn’t very nice — especially not for a nice liberal.

commie-AOC is not known for her humility or obedience, and she did not take that slight sitting down. “When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood,” commie-AOC said. “But the persistent singling out … it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful … the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”

There you go. To invoke a very cliched cliche, “Live by the sword. Die by the sword.” Not to defend the indefensible commie-AOC, but I wonder how liar-Pulosi feels getting some of that race baiting thrown back in her face? You will recall that not long ago, she despicably said that President Trump wanted to “make America white again.” To paraphrase Doc Holliday in “Tombstone,” “Why, liar-Nancy, what an ugly thing to say. I abhor ugliness.”

But seriously, commie-AOC? Or, to put it more in your vernacular: Are you being serious right now? How dare you accuse the Snow White-ish progressive icon liar-Nancy Pulosi of racism?

liar-Nancy is getting a taste of her own medicine here. If she were capable of learning a lesson, this is what it would be: The leftist ideologies of intersectionality, critical race theory, whiteness studies and miscellaneous other faculty-lounge thought experiments will tell you that you — a white lady — no matter how dedicated you’ve been to the cause, are not capable of adequately representing it because your whiteness, and even female gender, don’t afford you the requisite life experience to fully get it.

liar-Nancy, and so many progressives, use racial smears against conservatives to neuter them — not because they believe they’re racists. They know better. It’s simply a cynical power play, and it always has been.

While it is delicious to see this tactic thrown back in liar-Pulosi’s laughing face by one with stronger intersectionality credentials, let us not allow ourselves the luxury of sanguinity over this blissful moment. In the long run, it won’t matter much in the scheme of things.

Don’t be fooled. This is not really a battle over ideology. liar-Nancy Pulosi and the establishment wing of the Democratic Party are not — let me repeat, they are not — moderates. These people all embrace varying degrees of an extreme progressive agenda including radical environmentalism; socialized medicine; socialism writ large, evisceration of gun rights; abortion on demand; health care and welfare for illegal immigrants; open borders; confiscatory personal- and corporate-income tax hikes; softness on Iran and terrorism; leftist judicial activism; wholesale end runs around the Constitution to secure their power, such as abolishing the Electoral College and allowing 16-year-olds and felons to vote; and so much more.

Yes, commie-AOC’s Four Horsemen of the Apocaleft are more radical, but if left to their own menacing devices, liar-Pulosi and Co. are plenty radical enough to complete scumbag/liar-nObama’s scheme to fundamentally transform the nation. The significant difference between the two groups is that liar-Pulosi’s has enough sense and savvy to pretend to be more moderate to make itself more electable. commie-AOC et al. are just too idealistic (though it pains me to associate their toxic views with any sort of idealism) to rein themselves in, even for pragmatic purposes.

What we’re seeing is simply a turf battle for control of the party. It’s about power. Yes, liar-Pulosi is the alpha, but commie-AOC, despite her reliable buffoonery, is a force to be reckoned with, if for no other reason than she represents the future of her insane party. She is the product of decades of cultural indoctrination, and she is but one of millions of young radical leftists eager to accelerate the end of America as founded. Pelosi is fighting back because she has to, but in the end, they will have to make peace, or at least pretend to, going into the election season.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/64236?mailing_id=4417&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4417&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

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