Daily Digest
THE FOUNDATION
“Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression.” —James Madison, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1788
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Barack, Francis, Hot Air and Social Justice
The United Nations is apparently now writing “climate change” encyclicals for the Vatican. On Monday, an Italian magazine leaked a draft copy of Pope Francis' 191-page address on the topic. Taking a page from the Left’s playbook, the pope insists that curbing global warming is a moral imperative. “Humanity is called on to be aware of the need to change lifestyles, production and consumption,” he says, because the world is filled with a “culture of waste.” We are all for using energy judiciously and curbing waste, but not under the pretense of a UN-Vatican mandate. The encyclical coincides with Obama’s announcement this week of his plans for more climate “executive actions” in order to bypass Congress. Like Obama, the Pope has long advocated for liberation theology, a doctrine similar to that propagated by Obama’s religious mentor, Jeremiah Wright, and other Marxist promoters of “social justice.” Many Catholics in the U.S. take strong exception to the pope acting as a water boy for the UN. Big-government statists at the UN welcome the pope’s statement, as it may assist with the UN’s global climate treaty negotiations at the upcoming Paris summit — a treaty which would be more accurately called a “global economic control” treaty. Obama insists, “If I can encourage and gain commitments from the Chinese to put forward a serious plan to start curbing their greenhouse gases, that then allows us to leverage the entire world.” However, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) made clear that neither he nor his Republican colleagues are drinking Obama’s Kool-Aid: “The Senate is not going to ratify any international climate treaty that continues this trend [centralizing the global economy].”
Obama May Fundamentally Transform Economy
The Obama administration claims that the money dropping into the U.S. debt hole has declined. Jobs are up. The economy is coming back. (Y'know, except for those pesky winters.) But the reports are coming in that counter the administration’s propaganda. First, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report Tuesday claiming that, if left unchecked, the U.S. debt will become much, much worse. “The long-term outlook for the federal budget has worsened dramatically over the past several years, in the wake of the 2007-2009 recession and slow recovery,” the CBO said in its report. The debt could double by 2040 if left unchecked. It’s a massive problem, almost too large for any politician in Washington to recognize, but one that will affect the economic vitality of the nation far into the future. Part of the problem is that entitlement spending is going to increase as the baby boomer generation heads into retirement. As for the generation that’s supposed to keep entitlement spending going, millennials have entered the job market at the lowest part of the recession. According to statistics blog Five Thirty Eight, that generation holds more personal debt, makes less money and owns fewer and less expensive homes. Furthermore, because millennials entered the job market in a tough economic time, they will make less money over the course of their careers. Thank to his administration’s shenanigans, Barack Obama could have the legacy of fundamentally transforming the American economy.
Hillary, The Miser
In 2014, Hillary Clinton spoke at a Boys and Girls Club fundraiser. Like most of the “dead broke” politician’s speeches, this one was for a fee: $200,000. Usually, a speaker appearing at a nonprofit will charge a fee and then donate it back, especially if it’s a smaller organization. That’s what Condoleezza Rice did when she spoke at the Boys and Girls Club in 2009. But not Clinton. She turned around and deposited the check into the Clinton Foundation. Politico reports, “[F]undraising experts and people affiliated with some nonprofits on the list — including the Boys and Girls Club — grumbled that the hefty price tag for securing a Clinton speech is a significant drain on small charities' fundraising and that community-based nonprofits could put the money to better use.” Furthermore, Clinton’s campaign is running off the work of full-time interns who work for free. The Guardian reports that the people taking these jobs are seasoned politicos who wish to enter Clinton’s good graces. How can she talk about a bad economy and a wage gap when she doesn’t take care of the people working to get her elected? Remember, this is the same Hillary Clinton that said, “I don’t think Americans are against success, I think they’re against people who get on top of the ladder and starts pulling it up so that nobody else has the same chance that they had. … Those of us who do have opportunities how to be doing more to help other people do the same.”
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
A Short History of the Trans Fats Witch Hunt
By Jim Harrington
In the year 1975, a mother was likely to give her children a snack with trans fats in it. Those fats were considered healthier, the benefits of nutritional innovation. Fast-forward 40 years and America considers trans fats a pariah and a substance that directly leads to heart disease.
Last week Mommy Government decided that no level of trans fat is healthful in the American diet. It therefore completely banned the substance by 2018 so that you’ll have one less danger stalking you.
In banning a certain ingredient from food, the government assumes too much responsibility over Americans' lives. David Harsanyi points out that the government’s justification that the ban prevents heart disease could justify a battery of food bans — including on alcohol and cigarettes. Instead, big-government social engineering must decide what we consume — even if its groupthink may be wrong.
Trans fats can be found in fried foods, margarine and commercial baked goods. They aremanufactured fats that take saturated fats and stabilize the substance through a process called hydrogenation.
Trans fats were initially developed in Germany and later went into large-scale production in England. In 1909, Proctor and Gamble bought the rights for the U.S. market, and their first product, a partly hydrogenated cottonseed oil used as shortening, was named Crisco.
Products using trans fats quickly became popular. During World War II, when dairy products were scarce, margarine took the place of butter. Trans fats also found uses as preservatives and for improving products' texture. In the 1960s the government and scientists both recommended using them in food preparation rather than saturated fats such as lard and butter. Of course, cigarettes were being advertised as a boon to your health, too.
The Atlantic points out, “A 1961 Time magazine article that railed against the dangers of saturated fat (found in meat and dairy products), and … consumers began to view margarine and shortening as healthier alternatives.”
“In the 1980s,” the Atlantic continues, “some scientists began to associate heart disease with saturated fats, and in response, groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the National Heart Savers Association … began to hound manufacturers [to stop] poisoning America … by using saturated fats… In 1990, a New York Times food writer said CSPI’s campaign prompted fast-food chains to ‘slim down’ by switching to frying in shortening.”
Activists got their wish. Low fat became de rigeaur in restaurants and among “health-conscious” people. Fat was out. Chicken breast was in. And those of us who revel in our Royale with cheese and a good donut or two have become politically incorrect.
But a funny thing happened. In the late 1980s, just as Al Gore was warming up, scientific “consensus” began to shift away from trans fats. A decade later, healthy food activists were saying the fats contributed to clogged arteries. Indeed, they may be a more insidious threat than saturated fats, they said.
Ironically, as The Atlantic reported, Center for Science in the Public Interest, the organization that initially lobbied for the wide use of trans fats, turned around and told the FDA to add warning labels to any food that contained them. In 2006, the FDA required companies to label their products with the quantity of trans fats they contain and include a warning that no amount of trans fat is safe. Enjoy your meal.
This comes at a time when the average consumption of trans fats has dropped 80% in the last decade. The FDA was issuing its warnings, and people were making their own decisions about their diets.
Large food companies have already started to make the switch to other kinds of oils, but smaller businesses likely still have a stock of trans fat products. With rent, wages, taxes and now additional regulation, it doesn’t make sense to get rid of them any sooner than necessary.
Once again we see the absurd spectacle of a government treating its citizens like infants. Not only are we regulated beyond absurdity, the rules also change every generation or so. Who are these people who spend their careers writing these preposterous warnings for the “children” who work at real jobs and pay their salaries?
Adding injury to insult, now that time has passed in which “grave damage” has been visited upon millions of victims of trans fats by manufacturers that knew all along they were poison, the wolves are coming out of the woods. Personal injury lawyers are lining up to go after the deep and not so deep pockets of firms that produced an entirely legal product.
As long as the government is allowed to treat citizens as infants — a situation with which far too many are comfortable — regulations will continue getting more ridiculous and more expensive for everyone. Is it too much to tell the government to start treating Americans like a group of adults?
TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US
- ANALYSIS: Sending Troops Is the First Step in Countering Russia
- Clinton Was for the Trade Deal Before She Was Against It
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
- Arnold Ahlert: The Death of the Neighborhood
- Ben Shapiro: Yes, Rachel Dolezal Is Black
- Jonah Goldberg: Why Are We Ignoring a Cyber Pearl Harbor?
- Stephen Moore: The Young and Investment-Less
- Star Parker: The Audacity of Jeb Bush
- Walter Williams: Culture and Social Pathology
- Tony Perkins: A Call to Lead
For more, visit Right Opinion.
OPINION IN BRIEF
Ben Shapiro: “[W]hat distinguishes [Bruce] Jenner from [Rachel] Dolezal? On what basis can we reject Dolezal’s blackness, given that the left has now redefined objective reality as self-definition? If you want to be a woman, you are a woman. If you want to be black, why can’t you be black? … By the left’s standards, Rachel Dolezal is black. She can choose her race, just as Bruce Jenner can choose his sex. And she didn’t choose. She always felt that way. After all, no one would choose to be black, just as no one would choose to be gay — blacks are so put upon in American society that no one would fake being black for, say, the benefits of employment or mainstream leftist celebration. Perhaps we can all learn from Rachel Dolezal: Race doesn’t matter. Except that it does for people like Rachel Dolezal, which is why she went black. Rachel Dolezal is a poster child for the deconstructionist, victim-manufacturing left. But now she’s learning: Once you go black, the left will make you go back.”
SHORT CUTS
Insight: “If it was necessary to tolerate in other people everything that one permits oneself, life would be unbearable.” —French novelist Georges Courteline (1858-1929)
Upright: “[Rachel Dolezal] actually said when explaining her deceptions, her lies, her constructions, her inventions, her delusions, ‘I hope that [my story] can drive at the core of the definitions of race, ethnicity, culture, self-determination, and ultimately empowerment.’ Is there a cliché from the marxist lexicon of identity politics that she has not used? … This is oppression envy. I can’t quite figure out if this is psychopathological deception on her part, or has she actually shifted over into delusion?” —Charles Krauthammer
The BIG Lie: “I’ll be honest with you. With all the crises we were dealing with … [technology and IT] did not get the kind of laser-focused attention until Healthcare.gov, which was a well-documented disaster, but ended up anyways being the catalyst for us saying, ‘Okay, we have to completely revamp how we do things.’ The results there were so outstanding.” —Barack Obama
Non Compos Mentis: “The records of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, of cleaning up the messes they inherited, is something that speaks to Democratic values. Both my husband and President Obama created more opportunity coming from a lower base, because they believe, fundamentally, that real and lasting prosperity must be built by all and shared by all.” —Hillary Clinton
Village Idiots: “We are rolling out major policy proposals over the summer/fall. Among those proposals will be revenue enhancements.” —Hillary Clinton’s press secretary Brian Fallon (“Of course, ‘revenue enhancements’ is code for tax hikes. During the Bill Clinton administration, another code word for this was ‘broad-based contributions.’” —Washington Examiner’s Jason Russell)
Braying Jackass: “The Supreme Court shouldn’t have taken up [ObamaCare]. … I think the language is clear. I hope the Supreme Court can read English.” —Harry Reid
Late-night humor: “It was a beautiful weekend in New York. This is how nice the weather was: I went outside without sunscreen for about an hour, and I was elected to run the Spokane NAACP.” —Seth Meyers
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson
Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.
