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             This decision by President Donald Trump’s DHS marks one of the most significant immigration policy changes to date. And it’s a welcome one, as it helps to close one of our nation’s most abused immigration loopholes.
               The Associated Press reports, “Asylum seekers typically wait years on average before their cases are resolved, allowing them to put down roots in the U.S. while they wait.” The AP also notes, “Only about 9 percent of those who apply are actually granted asylum, and administration officials have long said too many migrants make false claims as a way to stay in the U.S.”
               The AP further reports that “discussions between U.S. and Mexico to hammer out the arrangement began well before Mexico’s new president, Manuel Lopez Obrador, took office on Dec. 1. On Thursday, the Mexican foreign ministry said Mexico had agreed to the policy on a temporary basis for humanitarian reasons.”
               Predictably, leftists decried the change, with ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt bleating, “This plan cannot be done lawfully and will result in countless people in life-threatening situations.” And while there will certainly be lawsuits, asylum seekers must now remain in Mexico pending court rulings — at least for the time being.   ~The Patriot Post  

             “We have won against ISIS,” he added, “We’ve beaten them and beaten them badly.” In doing so, President Trump hung his “mission accomplished” banner in Syria. That not only brought out the congressional critics but prompted the anticipated resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis, the most respected of Trump’s cabinet members — a man whose distinguished service to our nation qualified his standing as a force for stability in matters of national security.
               Congressional hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham, referring to Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s unilateral political move of withdrawing from Iraq, warned, “I don’t think General Trump is going to do any better than General scumbag/liar-nObama.” Echoing Graham, fellow Sen. Marco Rubio called the withdrawal a “colossal” mistake that has “basically turned the country over to Russia and to an even greater extent, Iran.”
               There are some comparisons but also major differences. The Syria withdrawal involves about 2,000 U.S. personnel who are largely there in advisory and training roles. scumbag/liar-nObama’s politically motivated actions in Iraq required withdrawing tens of thousands of troops who were the last line of defense against the emergence of ISIS. Trump also lacks constitutional authority to remain in Syria. More on that in a minute.
               Graham’s caution that premature departure from Syria could yield undesirable consequences is noted. But  scumbag/liar-nObama’s decision to withdraw from Iraq enabled the rise of the Islamic State from “JV team” to caliphate and created an epic humanitarian crisis. That caliphate may be no more, but a small portion of Syria remains under ISIS control, and as Syrian government troops clash with insurgents trying to overthrow the Assad regime, ISIS could return to fill in the void. But President Trump was adamant about making the move earlier this year and now it will be done. “Time for others to finally fight,” said the president.
               One of those “others” — and among the few applauding Trump’s decision — is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who now has an unfettered hand with which to prop up Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. “If the United States decided to withdraw its force, then this would be right,” said the Russian leader, who claimed the United States was interfering in his efforts to bring a political solution to the Syrian problem.
               The stance makes Putin a strange bedfellow with some GOP lawmakers. Sen. Rand Paul, who declared, “I am happy to see a President who can declare victory and bring our troops out of a war. It’s been a long time since that has happened,” also remarked that Trump was simply making good on a campaign promise. Meanwhile, fellow Sen. Mike Lee gently chided Graham, insisting that this Syrian withdrawal is not just “the opposite of an scumbag/liar-nObama decision,” but it reverses an unauthorized action. “Congress has never declared war, or authorized the use of military force in Syria,” Lee correctly noted. “We shouldn’t be there anyway.”
               Lee’s view was echoed by National Review’s David French, a veteran of Iraq. However, while French argues that the 2002 AUMF often used as justification for forays into the Middle East “is not a catch-all provision designed to authorize force against any jihadist force, anywhere, for all time,” French and his NR cohorts would have preferred that Trump secure permission from Congress to remain in Syria rather than leave the situation for Russia and other outside players to resolve.
               Yet Syria may be the tip of the iceberg. A “major withdrawal” of troops from Afghanistan — our longest battle of the Long War — may also be in the offing.
               Which brings us to the release of Secretary of Defense James Mattis’s retirement letter. His February departure was deemed “sudden” in media reports but wasn’t unexpected by insiders, who noted it had been “on the board” for two months. Whatever the case, the SecDef’s sentiment — “because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours … I believe it is right for me to step down from my position” — showed obvious frustration with the president. “This isn’t just retiring. This is quitting in protest,” opined frequent Trump critic Susan Wright.
               Perhaps. Or perhaps as with most things Trump, some of the “chaos” is actually planned.
               One year hence, at which time our nation will be heading into a presidential election year, the American defense landscape could be radically different than the one we’ve come to accept for the last several years. A new secretary of defense will be overseeing a military that’s focused less on directly fighting the Long War and perhaps retrenched away from the Middle East for the first time in decades. In any case, the effects of Trump’s announcements will continue long after he leaves office.  ~The Patriot Post  

             However, then came the unexpected twist. Trump called a seeming “last minute” meeting with Republican House leadership that concluded with outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan stating, “The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came up from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security.” What then transpired could best be described as Trump calling the bluff of incoming House Speaker Nancy Pulosi.
          In last week’s on-camera Oval Office wall brawl between Trump and Democrat leaders Pulosi and Sen. Chuck scumbag/clown-Schumer, the following argument over wall funding occurred: “If I needed the votes for the wall in the House, I would have them in one session — we’d be done,” Trump insisted.
               “Well, then do it. Do it,” Pulosi said. “You will not win. The fact is you do not have the votes in the House.”  “Nancy, I do,” replied Trump.
               “Well,” she taunted, “then let’s take the vote and find out.”
               And then yesterday happened. House Republicans proved Trump correct, as they voted to insert $5.7 billion in funding for the border wall into the bill. Now the legislation heads back to the Senate as talk of a (meaningless) government shutdown looms.
               This is classic Trump: He intentionally presents an image of chaotic, spur-of-the-moment decision-making that has everyone’s heads spinning. But there’s a method to his madness. He was elected to shake things up in Washington, and indeed the centralized power structure has been shaken.
               So, regarding this spending bill, what is the endgame? It appears likely that Trump will get some funding for the border, though perhaps not the entire $5.7 billion. It may be the Senate concedes to something in the range of $1.6 billion. The important point will be that Trump opens the door to finally get funding for his wall. Once it’s opened, then it can subsequently be pushed further.  ~The Patriot Post  

             It had been a tumultuous year in America and around the world, and their message provided a great sense of unity and peace — a message that’s applicable today and for all eternity.
               Apollo 8’s crew, Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders had launched their historic and dangerous flight on December 21. It took them 68 hours to travel 240,000 miles to the Moon, but their reward was spectacular. They became the first humans to orbit another celestial body, to see the bleak far side of the Moon, and to witness a stunning “Earthrise,” photographs of which provided the first human look back at our own planet.
               On that Christmas Eve, people around the globe watched the grainy televised images recording Apollo 8’s view of the Moon’s surface below them. On their ninth lunar orbit, Borman began their television transmission with an introduction of the crew. Each gave their perspective on the Moon’s surface, with Borman describing it as “a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing.”
               Then, unexpectedly, the astronauts began reading the Creation account from Genesis.
               William Anders: “We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness.’“
               James Lovell: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
               Frank Borman: “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas. And God saw that it was good.”
               Commander Borman finished the broadcast, saying, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”
               It was 2.5 hours later that the crew began a critical burn from the far side of the Moon, out of contact with mission control. This burn had to be carried out with absolute precision in order to put the astronauts back on a track to leave the Moon’s gravitational force and begin their return to “the good Earth” on Christmas Day. That burn went exactly as planned, and upon reacquiring contact with Mission Control, Jim Lovell’s first words were, in his humorous style: “Please be informed: There is a Santa Claus.”
               Merry Christmas and “God bless all…on the good Earth”!  

~The Patriot Post  

             Really? Even though more than half of Americans own stocks and other types of investments, including their homes, that are dependent on a strong economy?
               Of course, the WaPo was lamenting the fact that most of the value of equities held by Americans is in the hands of 20% of investors. Ironically, a sizable chunk of that is held by Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest individual in the world. Ironic because Bezos, who owns the WaPo, is a charter member of the mega-rich  Archenemies of Liberty Club — leftists who use their wealth to fund Democrats and socialists and their free-enterprise wrecking-ball policies.
               For the record, Bezos has an estimated worth in the $130 BILLION range. Or, to put it another way, Bezos makes more money in 10 seconds than his average Amazon employee makes in a year. Additionally, much of his newspaper’s elite Beltway readership lives in five of the nation’s richest counties.
               The Bezos/WaPo hypocrisy notwithstanding, the wealth created in equity ownership is reinvested in companies and creates jobs for all Americans — which is to say, all Americans have an interest in a strong economy reflected in stable equity prices. But that report was from August.
               Now, according to financial analysts: “Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are on pace for their worst December performance since 1931, when stocks were battered during the Great Depression. The Dow and S&P 500 are down 7.8 percent and 7.6 percent this month, respectively. December is typically a very positive month for markets.”
               The Left’s primary print propagandist, The New York Times, assessed this situation: “The market has been buffeted by a range of concerns, from signs that the trade war between China and the United States is beginning to weigh on global growth to worries that higher interest rates will eat into corporate profits. … When the dust had cleared, the S&P 500 was down 2.1 [percent] for the day and 4.8 percent for the year. Should the market fail to recover, 2018 would be Wall Street’s worst year since the financial crisis a decade ago. This year’s sell-off is nothing like the collapse of stocks a decade ago, when the S&P 500 fell more than 38 percent. But in its own way, 2018 is emerging as a remarkable year for financial markets, with almost every type of investment and asset class — stocks, bonds, commodities, even safe Treasuries — posting negative or minuscule returns.”
               And the most recent survey of chief financial officers for U.S. companies found that 50% believe that the economy will be in recession by the end of 2019. Almost 80% think a recession will hit by the end of 2020.
               So, what’s going on? After all, when Donald Trump was elected, the economy soared to new heights by virtually every measure. The administration’s tax cuts, passed by Republicans in Congress, fueled the economic engine. And regardless of Wall Street, Americans on Main Street were doing well.
               But now, after second-quarter GDP at 4.2% and the most recent quarter at a very healthy 3.5%, the markets are tumbling — and with them, confidence in the economy.
               In all the Leftmedia analysis of a potential economic downturn, they’re leaving out the proverbial 800-pound gorilla most responsible for the downturn in the equities markets.
               That gorilla is the surety of political instability, the most significant deterrent to economic stability, under the incoming House Democrat majority.

            The Trump administration came into the midterm election with an extraordinary record of achievements.
               Democrats, on the other hand, had nothing to run on but their “Hate Trump” platform, campaigning, in effect, against  peace and prosperity. The midterm election was, therefore, a referendum on Demo voter IQ and the Demo/MSM’s chokehold on their opinion. Clearly, Democrat voters are not a very intelligent lot.
               But the Democrat Party outspent Republicans by more than two to one — spending fueled by the aforementioned leftist billionaires and their ActBlue socialist cabal, which gave Democrats more than $1.5 BILLION in 2018.
               Consequently, Democrats retook the House, promising to take Trump down! Their most likely angle of attack?
               It probably won’t be Special Prosecutor dirty cop-Robert Mueller’s dead-end Russian collusion investigation, which we now know was sparked by the fake Russian dossier funded by scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton and her DNC hacks, and then promoted by her political sycophant, former FBI Director  scumbag-James Comey and his deep-state operatives.
               Two years into that charade, even some of the “journalists” who originally advanced the dossier conspiracy are doubting its veracity. Most notable among them, Michael Isikoff, who filed one of the earliest wire reports on the dossier, now says many of its claims “will never be proven and are likely false.” In this case, Isikoff does not get class credit for “better late than never.”
               So I conclude House Demos will focus on accusations of campaign-finance violations, which fit neatly into the Democrats’ “stolen election” narrative, to fuel their faux corruption and impeachment charges. They may even follow through with threats of impeachment against Justice Brett Kavanaugh in order to further appease their largest constituency, women voters.
               The House will haggle over such charges for months, until it is politically expedient for a simple majority vote on impeachment. If they get that far, the charges would then pass to the GOP-controlled Senate for a lot more theatrical Demo handwringing before it dies there ahead of the 2020 election.
               This is the holiday calm before the storm. Caught in the Democrats’ political crossfire for the next two years will be tens of millions of American workers and their families whose job and income prospects will fall victim to the Demos’ politically induced recession — the direct result of having thrown economic confidence under the bus in order to attack Trump.
               As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) notes, “[Democrats] want Trump to lose more than they want the country to win.”
               National Review’s Jim Geraghty concurs with a cautionary note: “If the economy goes into recession in 2019, President Trump may well relish having the Democratic-controlled House to blame. It’s unlikely that House Democrats will have much ability to influence U.S. economic policy, other than blocking any new initiatives from the Trump administration. But the timing for them would be pretty bad — they step into the new majority and the economy suddenly slows on their watch.”
               But don’t underestimate the current crop of socialist Democrats. Like generations of socialists before them, they are willing to trample grassroots Americans — the “Forgotten Man,” including many of their own constituents — in their relentless pursuit of power and what they falsely frame as “the greater good.”

Footnote: Patriots, one of the most cost-effective investments you can make toward the future of Liberty is to support The Patriot Post. We rely entirely on the voluntary financial support of our Patriot readers — people like you — to promote freedom and challenge the one-sided Leftmedia narrative. Please support The Patriot Fund’s Year-End Campaign today. Thank you.*  ~The Patriot Post  

             Tucker Carlson and Fox News are being boycotted by, among other corporate advertisers, IHOP, the United Explorer credit card, Just For Men, Jaguar Land Rover, Ancestry.com, and Voya Financial. That boycott is because of Carlson’s opposition to illegal immigration, and it’s typical of a growing trend in strong-arm tactics being used by Moveon.org, Media Matters, and other leftist organizations.
               The most obvious evidence that The Patriot Post is not subject to such leftist extortion is that our homepage and editions are not cluttered with the often-offensive ads plastered on virtually all mainstream media news sites and in their emails.
               Notably, those publications also collect information on your patterns of use and consumer interests, which they then sell to marketers. Unlike the MSM news platforms, we do not violate your privacy. We do not share any information about you to any third party. We are a certified “Ad Free” website and have a very strong and unambiguous privacy policy.
               However, there is a more subtle and far more invasive reason The Patriot Post refuses advertising requests: Depending on ad revenue adulterates editorial content and perspective. In short, it infringes on free speech.
               As outlined on our Mission and Objective page, The Patriot Post’s budget is funded solely by the voluntary financial support of our fellow Patriots. We are not sustained by any political, special interest, or parent organization, and we do not accept advertising to ensure our advocacy and editorial content is not restrained by commercial influence.
               Support free speech! Please support The Patriot Fund’s Year-End Campaign today.  ~The Patriot Post  

             The Caller notes, “Identifying as ‘Chepe,’ Alcoff advocates for the violent overthrow of the government and for the murder of the rich. He has relished the mainstreaming of Antifa’s militant tactics in the Trump era.”
               Alcoff was also previously an organizer of Occupy Wall Street and “Cop Watch.” And a sampling of his other rhetoric is truly deplorable:

"#DearRichPeople die in a fire, or someday we will kill you in a fire.“ "Police lives don’t matter. They can all burn in Hell.” “I hate this country. It isn’t half bad. It’s all bad.”
               “I truly hope [Trump] has a very public death at the hands of the pitchfork wielding exploited, a public execution that befits Trump’s stature.”
               Unmasking him would have been less relevant but for the violence Alcoff foments. And not just random violence, either. Alcoff hypocritically declared in 2016, “You have to expose them and you have to expose where they live, their names, what they do for a living. Never let them be anonymous, and never just push their rhetoric without directly countering it.”
               It’s time to force Democrat leaders to answer for their  fringe constituents in the same way President Donald Trump has been forced to deal with his.  ~The Patriot Post  

             “We have to give people a fighting chance, we have to give them an opportunity to protect themselves,” said Pinellas County Sheriff and commission chairman Bob Gualtieri. Polk County Sheriff and commission member Grady Judd agreed, and further illumined why. “In the ideal world, we shouldn’t need anyone on campus with a gun, but that’s not the world we live in today,” he said. “One’s not enough. Two’s not enough. We need multiple people in order to protect the children.”
               Unfortunately, dealing with the world we live in today is not American Left’s strong suit. Florida’s teachers union and PTA have voiced their opposition to such a measure, insisting teachers are hired to educate, not be law enforcement officers. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), whose district includes Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, echoed their assertions. “Teachers want to teach, not be armed for combat in their classrooms,” he stated. “Law enforcement cannot push their responsibilities to make our communities safer on to civilians that should be focused on educating their students.”
               To be fair, Deutch’s argument has one legitimate aspect to it: The 407-page preliminary report addressed the massive failures by multiple law enforcement officers from Sheriff Scott Israel’s department to respond appropriately to the atrocity. It noted that Israel’s active-shooter policy, which states that officers “may” confront shooters as opposed to “shall” confront them, was a recipe for disaster.
               “‘May’ gave them the out not to enter,” Judd explained. “They decided to be cowards instead of heroes.”
               Scott Peterson, the lone armed deputy on duty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when the atrocity occurred, tried to exploit that policy. In attempting to get a lawsuit filed against him by the family of murder victim Meadow Pollack dismissed, he asked Broward Circuit Judge Patti Englander Henning to rule that he had “no legal duty” to protect teachers and students.
               Thankfully, Henning wasn’t buying it. In ruling against Peterson, Henning asserted that a school security guard has the “obligation to act reasonably.” She also found that Peterson was not protected by “sovereign immunity,” which prevents litigation from being filed against public employees based on their official conduct.
               Peterson’s attorney, Michael Piper, has promised to appeal the decision. If he is unsuccessful, perhaps Pollack’s family will be able to attach some portion of Peterson’s $8,700 per month pension. The one the 55-year-old deputy began collecting after being initially suspended but ultimately allowed to resign and retire on Feb. 22 — one week after the shooting.
               Sheriff Israel, who asserted shortly after the tragedy that he had provided “amazing leadership” to his department, remains as defiant as ever. “I have done nothing that would warrant my resignation and have absolutely no intentions of resigning,” he said in response to the report. “I am committed to BSO [Broward County Sheriff’s Office] and the safety of Broward County. I will remain sheriff for so long as the voters of Broward County want to have me.”
               Maybe, maybe not. Governor-elect Ron DeSantis, who will be sworn in Jan. 8, repeatedly called for Israel’s removal during his campaign. Now, he sounds more like a politician,  insisting he wants to see the final report and “if there’s corrective action that needs to be taken, then we can take corrective action.” Chairman Gualtieri insisted nothing Israel did could be construed as “malfeasance or misfeasance.” “He had some personnel that failed,” Gualtieri said. “Any law enforcement organization is going to have people that fail. And just because individuals fail doesn’t mean that the leader of the organization is a failure.”
               Really? The report notes there were seven deputies who heard shots fired and failed to act, and it characterizes their conduct as “unacceptable and contrary to accepted protocol under which the deputies should have immediately moved towards the gunshots to confront the shooter.” As for organizational leadership, the report states there was “abundant confusion over the location of the command post and the role of the staging area,” which “stemmed from an absence of command and control and an ineffective radio system.” Nonetheless, it recommends that the BSO conduct an internal investigation into the incident.
               An internal investigation? Shortly after the shooting, Israel stated his department had been contacted 23 times regarding the alleged murderer and his family. Records showed at least 45 calls were made between 2008 to 2017. When  confronted about Peterson’s failures? “I gave him a gun. I gave him a badge. I gave him the training. If he didn’t have the heart to go in, that’s not my responsibility,” Israel stated. Moreover, Israel turned his office into an apparent patronage program, hiring six community affairs employees with salaries totaling $388,729, “from the ranks of his political supporters, building a community outreach wing his critics say doubles as a re-election team,” the Sun-Sentinel reported … in 2016.
               Commissioner Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son, Alex, was killed at the school, cast the lone vote against the motion. He would rather see the state hire police officers for campuses and allow non-teaching staff to carry guns. Allowing teachers to be armed “creates a host of problems,” he insisted.
               Problems worse than the mass killer having the ability to reload five times?
               Efforts are already afoot to undermine the commission’s recommendations. Duval County’s decision to put armed “school safety assistants” in its elementary schools was met with a lawsuit filed by filed by seven unnamed families and the League of Women Voters of Florida. According to the suit, they prefer an approach “designating unarmed guardians whose job would include implementing key elements of the consensus approach to school safety recommended by experts in the field.”
               Unarmed guardians? How many victims who might otherwise be saved must be sacrificed to satisfy inane, anti-gun sensibilities?
               The commission’s final report will be presented to Gov. DeSantis and the state legislature by Jan. 1. And in a one-two punch sure to outrage those who blame guns for everything, President Donald Trump’s commission on school safety has recommended revoking the scumbag/liar-nObama administration’s loathsome federal guidelines that directed schools to punish minority students at lesser rates, irrespective of the frequency of their misbehavior. That policy precipitated Broward’s “diversionary” PROMISE program that intentionally kept minority students out of the criminal justice system by ignoring certain crimes. County administrators and school superintendents, who directed cops to stop arresting such students, lauded the resultant “reduction” in crime rates.
               Without that policy in place, the murderous psychopath who evinced highly troublesome behavior leading to expulsion  would have likely been prevented from buying a gun. The rest is history — and reprehensibly politicized tragedy.  ~The Patriot Post  

             While the ultimate blame for failure to fund the border wall falls on Congress — specifically Republicans, who failed to use their majority to pass legislation — the lion’s share of this political defeat falls on the president.
               The reason: Trump failed to follow through on his threat to play hardball last week when he boldly proclaimed to Senate Minority Leader Chuck scumbag/clown-Schumer (D-NY) and incoming House Speaker Pulosi, “I am proud to shut down the government for border security because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. So, I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it. The last time you shut it down, it didn’t work. I will take the mantle of shutting down.” Well, it now appears that Trump had second thoughts on taking up the shutdown “mantle.” It was an empty threat at that, which should be a lesson to him.
               And to add insult to injury, the spending deal includes $10.6 billion in funds given to Mexico to help pay for its own border security. What happened to building a wall that Mexico would pay for? That said, as bad as the political optics of this look for Trump, it’s actually not a bad deal in terms of stemming the tide of illegal immigration at its source.
               Finally, even from a minority position Democrats have been exceedingly effective in blocking Trump on a campaign issue that they themselves were in favor of a mere decade ago. At this point it’s hard to see Trump ever getting this wall.

Update: Trump has reconsidered and will not back off his demand for wall funding. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently addressed the issue stating, “We just had a very long productive meeting with the president. The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came up from the senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security.”  ~The Patriot Post  

             In a piece entitled “Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?”, Clemson philosophy professor Todd May argues that humanity is a scourge of the planet, and the world would be better without us. He’s seemingly taking his cue from Marvel’s “Infinity War” and its villain Thanos, who [spoiler alert] wipes out half of all life in the universe for the same reasons May expounds.
               What horrific crimes has humanity committed making us worthy of self-extinction? According to May, humans are (1) responsible for the “climate change” that is “devastating ecosystems,” (2) increasing population encroaching on the ecosystems of animals, and (3) factory farming animals, causing them “nothing but suffering and misery” before they are slaughtered for food.
               In summary, “Humanity, then, is the source of devastation of the lives of conscious animals on a scale that is difficult to comprehend.”
               Interestingly, May never mentions man’s inhumanity to man, as with the Holocaust, or genocide in places like Rwanda, as a cause for concern. No, only cruelty to cows, chickens, and pigs warrants his sympathy, and displacement of the snail darter his wrath. Apparently, the thought of inadvertently impacting a species through our development of the earth’s resources for human use, or exercising dominion over animals for human good (i.e., for food or labor) is repulsive to May. But the thought of the global extermination of humanity in order to return the earth to its natural state is perfectly acceptable.
               May acknowledges that “nature itself is hardly a Valhalla of peace and harmony,” noting, “Animals kill other animals regularly, often in ways that we (although not they) would consider cruel.” But he then argues the predatory nature of humans is far worse than any other species. That is, however, a subjective judgment that only humans possess the intelligence to make.
               After a philosophical exercise in the relative worth of a human soul, in which he highlights the positive contributions of humanity (an advanced level of reasoning, our ability to create art, literature, music, etc.), he contemplates whether it would be worth saving humanity to perpetuate its positive attributes … before concluding it would not.
               May argues, “Unless we believe there is such a profound moral gap between the status of human and nonhuman animals, whatever reasonable answer we come up with will be well surpassed by the harm and suffering we inflict upon animals. There is just too much torment wreaked upon too many animals and too certain a prospect that this is going to continue and probably increase; it would overwhelm anything we might place on the other side of the ledger.”
               Unless we believe that there is a profound moral gap? Yes, that is exactly what we believe!
               Of course, quite hypocritically, May is not quite ready to sacrifice himself to the cause. Instead, he argues that existing humans should take steps to prevent any more humans from coming into the world.
               This twisted philosophy finds a welcomed home in the hearts of modern progressives, who have long argued for population control through methods like sterilization and abortion. They paint a bleak, hopeless picture of humanity’s future.
               In the 1970s, they warned of a “coming Ice Age” that would kill off most of humanity, followed by the dark specter of apocalyptic “climate change,” coercing us into abandoning the abundant energy and higher standard of living that comes with industrialization. Harvard biologist George Wald declared in 1970 that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years.” Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, argued that due to scarce food supplies “the death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” Ehrlich also insisted that by 1980 “urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution,” and he proclaimed “the life expectancy of a man would plummet to just 42 years.”
               Since then, the global population has more than doubled from 3.7 billion to 7.7 billion, yet rapid advances in technology allow us to grow vastly more food on far less land and with fewer resources, drastically reducing world hunger and poverty. Life expectancy has mostly lengthened, not plummeted. Technology has resulted in cleaner air and water in advanced societies, indicating human ingenuity is the solution, not the problem.
               Sadly, it is this contempt for the worth of human life, deeply rooted in the death cult of progressivism, which has truly resulted in unfathomable human (and animal) suffering over the last century. The variants of totalitarian socialism (in which the state is god) have resulted not only in the deaths of six million Jews in the Holocaust, but in the brutal deaths of more than 100 million people whose communist governments deemed them of no value beyond their labor.
               America alone has seen 60 million unborn children slaughtered in abortion clinics since 1973. Around the world, Down Syndrome children are being aborted into extinction, and throughout Europe thousands of the sick, elderly, and mentally ill are being euthanized without their consent.
               This is the inevitable result when humans no longer believe human life has intrinsic value. Ironically, those who share May’s nihilistic view of humanity bring about the greatest suffering.
               Though flawed, mankind is also capable of goodness and self-sacrifice. In our absence, animals would be no less predatory, and nature no more forgiving. With humanity, the earth is capable of breathtaking beauty, kindness, and progress. We think we’ll stick around.  

~The Patriot Post  

             Let’s put the personal morality of paying off porn stars and Playmates for their silence aside. Whether these are campaign expenditures or illegal donations as opposed to a personal matter is, thanks to the hairy mess that is campaign-finance law, now hotly disputed. There is actually a bigger issue here: The First Amendment.
               For all the complaints that come from some media personalities about how Trump is a threat to freedom of the press, perhaps we should be looking at those who are investigating Trump instead. The criminalization of the National Enquirer’s exercising its editorial prerogatives is a dangerous precedent and could enable some renegade bureaucrat to investigate other outlets.
               The accusation is simple: A decision to publish (or not publish) a story would be viewed as a campaign contribution. When The Patriot Post covered the big differences between scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016, First Amendment issues played a big role, and scumbag/liar-Hillary came out the poorer. Under the perversions espoused by some, that would have been seen as a campaign contribution.
               Far-fetched interpretation? Well, in that piece, it was also noted that Democrats on the Federal Election Commission were targeting conservative media and talk radio. Imagine a Democrat-controlled FEC or Department of Justice probe on The Patriot Post team for deciding to drop George Will.
               We don’t have to imagine the Democrats using the power of the government to target political opponents. Look at Andrew Cuomo’s use of financial regulations against the NRA. Look at the IRS scandal that the scumbag/liar-nObama administration got away with. Look at the John Doe investigations in Wisconsin. These are just the high-profile cases. Granted, the NRA’s suit has gone to discovery, and under Trump the DOJ settled allegations, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court put an end to the witch hunt against conservative groups, but the incalculable damage has been done.
               How many Second Amendment supporters or other conservatives have decided not to get involved because they don’t want to risk the wrath of some Lois Lerner-type in a cubicle who could kick off a process that could lead to crushing legal fees in the best case of a successful defense? How much advocacy was delayed or halted because of the need to deal with investigations? We can never truly know.
               It’s not as if a prominent Democrat didn’t have his political future aided by a decision to bury a story. In 2005, then-Senator Barack scumbag/liar-nObama was photographed in the company of Louis Farrakhan at a Congressional Black Caucus event by journalist Askia Muhammed. The photographer chose to bury the photo in order to protect scumbag/liar-nObama’s political future. It stayed buried for more than a dozen years, until January 2018. That photo, had it come to light a decade sooner, would have killed scumbag/liar-nObama’s campaign — and Muhammed’s comments indicate he knew it would have.
               Somehow, we get the feeling that had Muhammed been investigated by the Justice Department, the FEC, or Congress, the folks who are eagerly hoping that the Enquirer payoffs can bring down President Trump would be much less eager to see “justice” done. So, the question that some conservative Trump critics must answer is why they would seek to subject conservatives to yet another witch hunt?
               That is already on the agenda. According to former Investor’s Business Daily reporter Paul Sperry, Democrats are planning to investigate conservative media outlets for “ties to Russia.” In reality, the real “crime” will be supporting President Trump. Even without a successful prosecution, the process itself will serve as punishment for those who dare oppose progressives, as was the case with the IRS and John Doe abuses.
               There is only one way to stop this: We must put aside the grievances and disagreements that have emerged since the Trump candidacy began in 2015 and draw a line in the sand. The right of media outlets to make editorial decisions that are protected by the First Amendment must be defended.
               It is better to have to explain editorial decisions with our free-speech rights intact than to accept a double standard and find our ability to make the argument extremely limited at best. If conservatives can’t make the argument, how can they win debates, much less elections?  

~The Patriot Post