Mid-Day Snapshot · June 19, 2024

Leave a reply

“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

THE FOUNDATION

“That form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the law, is the best of republics.” —John Adams (1776)

ON THIS DAY in 1910, several churches in Spokane, Washington, celebrated the first Father’s Day. It was conceived by Sonora Louise Smart Dodd, who noted the newly established Mother’s Day and wanted to honor her widower single father of six. Presidents soon observed it, and in 1972, Richard Nixon signed a law making it an official holiday on the third Sunday in June.

IN TODAY’S DIGEST

EXECUTIVE NEWS SUMMARY

Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler

Politics

  • ChiCom “business opportunities”: Somewhat lost in recent months amid the cascading failures of his father’s presidency and his own legal troubles involving guns and taxes are the many damning data points of Hunter Biden’s international influence-peddling on behalf of the Biden Crime Family. Yet another example was uncovered recently. As Fox News reports, sonny boy told his business associates back in 2013, while the Big Guy was serving his second term as Barack Obama’s veep, “that a top Chinese Communist Party leader allegedly asked him to travel to China to talk about future ‘business opportunities.’” Hunter accompanied his dad on a six-day Asia trip that included China, South Korea, and Japan, during which the junior Biden introduced his dad to a couple of those business associates in a hotel lobby. The unelected and unappointed son of the sitting vice president “attended multiple events with his dad, including a lunch that featured some of the most powerful CCP leaders in China.” Later, according to an email exchange with Hunter, one of his business associates offered to accompany him on a trip to Hong Kong “to discuss business opportunities” with “C.H. Tung, a former governor of Hong Kong and billionaire who served as the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference between 2005 and 2023.” No influence-peddling to see here, though. Move along.
  • Trump’s appeal of gag order in “hush money” case dismissed by New York’s highest court (CBS News)
  • All 18 Trump allies charged in Arizona “fake electors” case plead not guilty (Washington Examiner)
  • Joy Behar, Rachel Maddow predict Trump will take them off the air if he wins (Daily Wire) | Humor: Trump polling at 100% after hosts warn he would cancel “The View” (Babylon Bee)
  • Top six takeaways from primaries in Virginia, Oklahoma, and Georgia (Washington Examiner)

Crime

  • Secret Service agent robbed in LA: Joe Biden was in Los Angeles on Saturday hobnobbing with Hollywood celebrities at a campaign fundraiser. Outside the venue that evening, a Secret Service agent was robbed at gunpoint, with the suspect making off with a handbag. The agent reportedly fired a firearm during the incident, but the perpetrator got away. Police have been unable to locate the suspect. The incident demonstrates the problem of growing crime in many Democrat-run states and cities. For Los Angeles in particular, the homicide rate rose 30% between 2023 and 2024, with the overall violent crime rate rising by 3% and robberies up 10%. Much of the crime rate increases can be blamed on the city’s Democrat leaders’ soft-on-crime policies. Prosecutions of criminals have decreased thanks to political leaders committed to promoting woke ideology as opposed to blindly upholding the law.
  • Migrant crime: While not all illegal migrants are violent criminals, by definition, all illegal migrants are lawbreakers because they have unlawfully entered the country. The distinction between “legal” and “illegal” matters, but Democrats and the Leftmedia intentionally ignore and conflate the two so as to bolster their spurious claim that Republicans are anti-immigrant and to justify Joe Biden’s border malfeasance. Well, sadly, thanks to Biden, Americans are seeing more violent crimes being committed by illegal migrants that would otherwise not be happening if Biden actually did his job and enforced our nation’s borders. For example, in New York City, a 25-year-old illegal alien from Ecuador was arrested after sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl at a park in broad daylight. The illegal alien entered the U.S. in June 2021. In February 2022, an immigration judge ordered him deported, but that clearly did not occur. Americans are increasingly frustrated by the growing number of violent crimes being committed by illegal aliens, primarily because these crimes would not be happening if our border laws were being enforced.
  • ICE non-detained docket is now over seven million (PJ Media)

Doublespeak

  • Sanctuary state Maryland governor wants immigration reform: One sure sign that a presidency is in dire straits is when one politically ambitious party member after another begins to stake out positions in clear opposition to their incumbent president. An El Salvadoran illegal immigrant was arrested for murdering Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five, last August while she was out hiking. In response, promising young Maryland Democrat Governor Wes Moore scurried off the Bad Ship Biden. “My heart is broken for the Morin family, as is our entire state,” Moore said. “She should still be here.” Moore, who perhaps has forgotten that the state he governs offers sanctuary status to illegal immigrants, is now calling for something to be done. “We have an immigration policy that needed to be dealt with and was not. The consequences then fall on us as the leaders of our individualized jurisdictions.” Sadly, though, for Rachel Morin and her five children, the governor’s words can only ring hollow. Morin’s blood, as well as the blood of Laken Riley, is on the hands of every Democrat who failed to denounce Joe Biden’s disastrous border policies from the outset.
  • The two-faced Pentagon: “Bodily autonomy is not the only argument against Covid vaccine mandates. They are also unscientific and unethical.” So said former Harvard professor Martin Kulldorff, one of three bold epidemiological experts who drafted “The Great Barrington Declaration” during the height of our nation’s COVID-19 hysteria. Sadly, though, our Department of Defense wasn’t paying attention. But it’s even worse than that. As Reuters reports, at the same time the Pentagon was mandating vaccines for all service personnel — or else be discharged — it was also running a secret anti-vaccination campaign to undermine China during the pandemic. The clandestine op “aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China,” said Reuters. “Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines — China’s Sinovac inoculation.” Talk about doublespeak. None of the tens of thousands of American warriors who were kicked out of the service for refusing to take the experimental stick were asked for comment.

Economy

  • The wrong kind of jobs report: At a time when Joe Biden is desperate for good news, a new survey of 2,000 retirees delivers just the opposite: A growing number of retired Americans are thinking about going back to work due to chronic Bidenflation. As the Motley Fool reports, “More than 66 million retirees saw their Social Security benefits increase 3.2% in 2024 due to the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which is determined by the rate of inflation. But most aren’t satisfied with the bump, and many are considering going back to work to generate extra income.” The Fool adds, “44% of respondents are considering looking for work because Social Security does not provide enough income to support their lifestyle. That points to dissatisfaction among Social Security beneficiaries with the 2024 COLA.” And, we’d add, it points to still more electoral trouble for Joe Biden.
  • Budget-busting: On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office updated its government deficit forecast for Fiscal Year 2024. The CBO added $400 billion to the previous estimate, now calculating that the total deficit will hit $1.9 trillion. The reasons for the change have everything to do with more massive government spending. The CBO pointed to Joe Biden’s college loan debt cancellation order, foreign aide spending, growing Medicaid spending, and increasing FDIC costs for the forecast change. Over the next decade, the CBO projects that the deficit will be $2.1 trillion higher than initially forecast. Furthermore, annual interest payments on the debt alone will surpass $1 trillion next year, which is more than is spent on our national defense, and by 2034 the annual debt interest payment is forecast to hit $1.7 trillion. By that same year, the overall national debt is projected to hit $50.7 trillion.
  • EV startup Fisker’s U.S. units file for bankruptcy (Reuters)
  • New Boeing whistleblower says company is using defective parts on planes (Washington Examiner)

World

  • Russia gets NoKo backing: In an unsurprising move, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new mutual defense deal with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The deal provides mutual defense should either of the nations be attacked and includes new trade, investment, and cultural ties. The occasion was also Putin’s first visit to the communist nation in over two decades, as the two repressive regimes seek to strengthen ties amid Putin’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Under the deal, North Korea will provide Russia with “significant munitions” and weapons, and according to U.S. intelligence, Russia will share its nuclear submarine and ballistic missile technology. The concern is that it will help North Korea complete its first nuclear-armed submarine. Furthermore, Putin’s visit will help raise Kim’s domestic profile as a world leader, strengthening his grip on power.
  • Houthi terrorists sink another major commercial shipping vessel as Biden fails to establish deterrence (Daily Wire)
  • Brazil’s left-wing Supreme Court imprisons prominent conservative based on U.S. Border Patrol error (Daily Wire)

Misc.

  • Biden admin sends two FBI agents to the door of nurse who helped expose illegal gender program at Texas Children’s Hospital (Not the Bee)
  • Oregon doctors could soon lose their licenses for “microaggressions” under proposed Medical Board rule (Washington Free Beacon)
  • Climate activists vandalize Stonehenge with spray paint (National Review)
  • There is apparently a “National Gay Flag Football League” and the Buffalo Bills are sponsoring it (Not the Bee)

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.

Comment | Share

Follow Thomas Gallatin and Jordan Candler on X/Twitter.

FEATURED ANALYSIS

We’re a Republic, if We Can Keep It

Rebutting CNN’s man-on-the-street attempt to scare people about “threats to democracy.”

Nate Jackson

“A republic, if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin answered when asked what kind of government had been established by the 1787 constitutional convention.

Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution says, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” The word “democracy” is nowhere to be found.

In explaining our Constitution, James Madison outlined some differences between republics and democracies in Federalist No. 10. He wrote, “Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

In 1776, John Adams wrote, “There is no good government but what is republican.” A year earlier, he wrote, “They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.”

Of course, Adams also said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” That’s something to ponder at a time when groomers target kids, and people who don’t even know what a woman is claim that she has a right to abort her child.

But cultural devolution is not the point here. Our Founders, who had many more thoughts on the subject, deliberately moved us away from a monarchy and to a republic while eschewing democracy. That’s important background for CNN’s latest effort to misinform the American people.

Reporter Donie O’Sullivan, who hails from — ahem — the Republic of Ireland, conducted a “man on the street” interview about the supposed “threat to democracy” posed by Donald Trump. When many interviewees told him we live in a republic, not a democracy, he was shocked and appalled by what was clearly “an attack on democracy.”

After this outrage, he scurried to the newsroom for an interview with historian Anne Applebaum to disprove these backward MAGA types. “I’ve heard a lot of conspiracy theories,” he fretted. “I hear a lot of things out on the road, but to hear Americans, people who would describe themselves as patriots, say that America is not a democracy, that stopped me in my tracks.”

Applebaum delivered the desired authoritative line, asserting without evidence, “America is a democracy. It was founded as a democracy.” Paging Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and John Adams.

Applebaum had a point when she said, “Honestly, the word ‘democracy’ and the word ‘republic’ have often been used interchangeably.” Cue the clips showing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush using the word “democracy.” She was wrong, however, in her next sentence: “There isn’t a meaningful difference between them.” Again, Madison disagreed.

Few people see a meaningful difference because the word “democracy” has long served as shorthand for “people voting.” Insofar as that is the case, I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill.

However, there are important points to be made about our system of government. Republics protect minorities — and I don’t mean only or primarily skin color. I also don’t mean people with very public fetishes about their private parts. I mean political minorities — people with different opinions that aren’t the most popular. I mean states with smaller populations and less power. As the saying goes, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.

A republic elected Trump in 2016. A democracy would’ve elected Hillary Clinton. That’s why leftists break out in hives when anyone uses the word “republic.”

Applebaum tries to turn the tables, saying that because her Democrat and Leftmedia pals assert that Trump is such a threat to democracy, the only defense Trump supporters have is to claim it’s not a democracy and conclude that “it doesn’t really matter” if Trump is “attacking democracy.” That’s a logical fallacy that assumes leftists are telling the truth.

She goes further, saying, “There is a part of the Republican Party that would like to rule as a minority, and they need an excuse for why that’s okay.” She thinks they mean, “‘We want Donald Trump to be able to do whatever he wants.’” That’s pure projection.

O’Sullivan concluded the segment by asserting that a constitutional republic is really just “a form of democracy.” But, he says, “This is not actually a debate about government, about democracy; it’s an attack on democracy.”

These people.

The real reason Democrats want everyone to use the word “democracy” is because their party is named after it. Ergo, they are its defenders. The opposite could be said of the GOP, as well, but Republicans have the advantage of the Constitution establishing a republic.

Democrats want to destroy the Electoral College, a cornerstone of our republic. They want to pack the Supreme Court, which Joe Biden ignores to transfer student loans to taxpayers. Biden also just issued another amnesty despite having no power to do so. What did Applebaum say about a president doing “whatever he wants”? They want to end the Senate filibuster and add states just so they can have more Democrats in the Senate. They foment hateful protests and violent riots when it suits their purpose of coddling a favored minority.

Oh, and by the way, they aim to jail the leading opposition-party candidate so as to make us a banana republic.

The only thing that matters to Democrats is power. Anything that facilitates the acquisition of it is “democracy.” Anything that gets in their way is a “threat to democracy” — including voters knowing that we live in a republic.

Follow Nate Jackson on X/Twitter.

Comment | Share

Patriot Fund Update

In order to reach the largest audience possible, we have never charged a subscription fee. The Patriot Post’s mission has been 100% grassroots supported for more than 27 years!

If you can, please make your gift today to help us meet this critical Independence Day funding goal that keeps our operations afloat until November.

Two Easy Ways to Give:

Online: Click here to make your gift

By Mail: Click here for the printable donation form

From all of us here, thank you for your ongoing support. Our work is not possible without you!

With gratitude,

MORE ANALYSIS

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion.

BEST OF VIDEOS

  • What Is Juneteenth? Venice Beach vs. South Central — Before Juneteenth became a national holiday in 2021, few people had ever heard of it. Is this due to systemic racism in America’s education system, or is the new focus on Juneteenth simply a tool for division?
  • ‘An Attack on Democracy’ — A CNN report absurdly claims that Donald Trump supporters accurately calling America a republic is a threat to democracy.
  • Secret Service Agent Robbed in CA — An off-duty Secret Service agent was robbed at gunpoint in Tustin, California, after a fundraiser for President Joe Biden.
  • Deported 16 Times — An illegal alien who has been deported 16 times was arrested after killing a 64-year-old man.
  • A Tale of Two Ninnies — The more brain function John Fetterman recovers, the more conservative he becomes. And then there’s Joe Biden…
  • Are WNBA Players Jealous Mean Girls or Pro Athletes? — The most popular WNBA player of all time, Caitlin Clark, has been left off of the Olympic basketball team. Is it all due to jealousy?

SHORT CUTS

Thanks, Captain Obvious

“I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that, you know, they want to see more action with regard to the border.” —Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) when asked, “Why do you think voters seem to trust Trump’s policies more than Biden’s?”

For the Record

“Every woman in America needs to understand that they are at risk because of the open border policies promoted by Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. … The debate over illegal immigration is not a hypothetical debate. It is about the safety of our wives, daughters, and granddaughters.” —Gary Bauer

Baghdad Bob

“I wonder why anybody is questioning Joe Biden’s mental acuity.” —Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu

Dumb & Dumber

“I’ve heard a lot of conspiracy theories. I hear a lot of things out on the road, but to hear Americans, people who would describe themselves as patriots, say that America is not a democracy, that stopped me in my tracks.” —CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan

“You are hearing people say America is not a democracy because there are people around Trump who want them to be saying that, who’ve been planting that narrative.” —historian Anne Applebaum

“The word ‘democracy’ and the word ‘republic’ have often been used interchangeably. There isn’t a meaningful difference between them.” —Anne Applebaum

“There is a part of the Republican Party that would like to rule as a minority, and they need an excuse for why that’s okay, and so they have begun to say, ‘We’re not a democracy, we’re a republic.’ … I think they mean, ‘We want Donald Trump to be able to do whatever he wants.’” —Anne Applebaum

Braying Jenny

“[Samuel] Alito struck me almost immediately upon sitting down to talk with him as a radical, as a fanatic about his views of culture and the role of religion in our society and his religion. … And I found him scary, and I said so on the floor of the Senate when I voted against him.” —Hillary Clinton

Big Brother

“The government spent decades trying to make fathers unnecessary. The failure of that experiment put society on the long-term path to collapse.” —Victor Joecks

Atrophy

“Once in America … we were gifted by great orators, men and women who could by the power and content of their words inspire, motivate and sometimes unify their nations. Today, we have politicians who mumble, slur their words, repeat themselves and in other ways make no sense. They neither inspire, nor unite.” —Cal Thomas

Village Academies

“The teacher unions are the strongest force in the modern Democratic Party. Unions. Not parents. … The teacher unions are adamantly opposed to anyone measuring THEIR performance. They can grade the students, but no one dares to grade the teachers.” —Stephen Moore

And Last…

“It’s weird how the press is now admitting Ashley Biden’s diary is real, but choosing not to discuss what she writes about her father in it.” —Erick Erickson

Follow Jordan Candler on X/Twitter.

Comment | Share

MEMES & CARTOONS

Share

For more of today’s memes, visit the Memesters Union.

Share

For more of today’s cartoons, visit the Cartoons archive.

“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.