Saturday PM ~ TheFrontPageCover

TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
The Personality Cult of Ginsburg
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by Brian Mark Weber  
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Pompeo Launches Middle East Tour 
to Galvanize Region Against Iran
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by Adam Kredo
{freebeacon.com} ~ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to depart on a tour of the Middle East next week in a bid to galvanize regional leaders to confront Iran and remind allies that the United States is not disappearing from region... amid the Trump administration's decision to pull American troops out of Syria and possibly Afghanistan, according to senior State Department officials. Pompeo will depart next week on his way to meet with government leaders in Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait. The goal of the trip is to show regional allies that the "United States is not leaving the Middle East," according to senior State Department officials who previewed the secretary's itinerary on Friday. Regional allies and enemies alike have been up in arms over the Trump administration's surprise decision to pull all U.S. forces out of Syria and Afghanistan. Rogue regimes such as Iran and Russia, as well as regional jihadi groups, have celebrated the decision to withdraw, claiming victory. U.S. officials, sensitive to the negative press surrounding the decision to withdraw, emphasized that the Trump administration is not abandoning America's role in the region and its allies... Correction on Afghanistan, not all troops will depart just half will leave.
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Dirty waters: Civilian-military 
relations are growing toxic
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by Giselle Donnelly
{aei.org} ~ With his New Year’s tweet attacking retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal — “fired like a dog by President scumbag/liar-nObama a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth” and, worst of all, “scumbag/liar-Hillary lover!”... Donald Trump is close to completing the alienation of the “Deck of Cards,” the military leaders who achieved the greatest successes of the post-9/11 Middle East wars. The list includes McChrystal, his retired Special Operation colleague Adm. William McRaven, former Secretary of Defense and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis and his battle buddy, ex-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and ousted National Security Adviser and retired Army Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster. Even before his election, Trump denigrated “Failed” retired Marine Gen. John Allen. Wisely, the architects of the Iraq “surge,” Army Gens. David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, have kept their heads below the parapet, although Petraeus has publicly said he would not serve in a Trump administration. What is perhaps most remarkable about these very public spats is that the officers involved number among the most intelligent and educated of their generation in matters of civil-military relations. Full disclosure: I contributed an essay to a book on the subject co-edited by Mattis, “Warriors and Citizens.” That they have been drawn into these chaotic and nasty exchanges is yet another example of how toxic Trump is, and how difficult it is to avoid being debased by any interaction with the man. The lemming-like loyalty with which Trump surrogates follow their leader threatens to turn what might otherwise be personal tempests into institutional civil-military climate change. Laura Ingraham and her internet organ, LifeZette, whined that the media only cared about McChrystal when he attacked Trump. The president’s echo chamber quickly expressed their delight in getting rid of Secretary Mattis. Once beloved as “Mad Dog” — a moniker the marine loathed — it turned out that the former defense secretary was little more than another Washington Swamp Creature, “repeating,” complained Christopher Roach on the Trump-backing website American Greatness, “the globalist conventional wisdom out of the New York Times.” Of course, says Roach, “Trump is smarter than the generals.”...
scumbag-Cummings to Investigate Trump Admin.
Over Census Question On Citizenship
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by Haris Alic
{freebeacon.com} ~ Democratic congressman scumbag-Elijah Cummings (Md.), the newly minted chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform  Committee, is planning to investigate the Trump administration... over its decision to include the question of citizenship on the 2020 census. After previously signaling interest in the issue, scumbag-Cummings confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon on Thursday that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who has purview over the U.S. Census Bureau, will be one of the first individuals called to appear before his committee. "Secretary Ross added a citizenship question after his own Census Bureau warned that it could seriously harm the accuracy of the count," scumbag-Cummings said. "Then, Secretary Ross told Congress it was all the Justice Department's idea when evidence indicates he orchestrated the whole thing." "We will get to get to the bottom of this issue, and we will do everything we can to ensure that the upcoming census is accurate, unbiased, and counts every person—as the Constitution requires," the congressman added. In March 2018, the Commerce Department  announced that the citizenship question would reappear on the 2020 census in order to provide the most "complete and accurate" data on the citizen voting-age population. Historically, the question was included  on every decennial census between 1890 through 1950. Despite being removed from the general census questionnaire in 1950, the question appeared on the long-form questionnaire from 1970 until 2000, when it was discontinued in favor of the American Community Survey (ACS)... Why is scumbag-Cummings wasting tax money on this issue which have been on and off for centuries.  https://freebeacon.com/issues/cummings-to-investigate-trump-admin-over-census-question-on-citizenship/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=08ba68271b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_01_04_08_52_COPY_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-08ba68271b-45611665
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European Court of Human Rights 
Promotes Human Wrongs
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{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ October 26 marked a historic day for Ireland, where citizens, in a national referendum, overwhelmingly voted to repeal the country's blasphemy law... Blasphemy remains a serious offence in many parts of the world, in some Muslim countries even requiring the death penalty. More astonishing is that even some European countries are criminalizing "defamation of religion". Recently, an actor was detained in Spain for failing to appear in court where he would face the accusation of "having insulted God and the Virgin Mary". The outcome of the Irish referendum will entail a modification of the Irish Constitution, which states in Article 40.6.1: "The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law." While no prosecution for blasphemy has been recorded in Ireland since 1855, the Irish police in 2015 opened an inquiry into remarks by the British comedian Stephen Fry, who said live on television: "Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world so full of injustice and pain?"  Even the Catholic Church, in conjunction with other Christian groups, declared the constitutional ban on blasphemy "largely obsolete", and called for its removal...  https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13376/european-court-human-wrongs
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Fee for Service: A Viable Health Care Alternative
by Keith R. Jackson
 
{americanthinker.com} ~ Fee for service, especially when it involves your health care, has acquired a bad name. "Why should somebody make money off of you being sick?" is the refrain from leftists when espousing their single-payer, government-controlled takeover of the United States health care economy... They complain that we should be spending money on wellness, not giving money to those who act like parasites, feeding off the misfortune of others. But "fee for service" may instead be one of the best ways to slow down our accelerating health care costs. "If the financial incentives are removed from the equation, maybe those greedy doctors will care more about the patients and less about their pay." At least that is what is constantly drilled into or heads with the left's media onslaught. TV shows like "New Amsterdam" advertise plot lines in which specialists who bill are kicked off of the medical staff because of their obtuse priorities, apparently caring more about money than people. The reality of how the economics of medicine have gotten off the rails is a complicated mess, not the least of which is the absence of transparency in cost. Many of the players in the game of getting paid to treat the sick have a vested interest in keeping the actual costs a big mystery. The real power players in medicine aren't the doctors; they are the government, the insurance companies, and the hospital corporations, all of which act incestuously and wield power that dwarfs the actual people who provide your care. Certificate of need laws that were ostensibly created to protect hospitals from bankruptcy are in fact a huge factor in facilitating escalating costs. It is against the law to attempt to open a fee for service facility to compete with the existing and entrenched local hospitals. As an example, if a group of doctors want to open a center that dramatically undercut the prices charged by the hospital for outpatient surgery, they cannot. Without competition, the rates that the hospitals charge are not challenged...
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The Personality Cult of Ginsburg
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by Brian Mark Weber:  Many Americans lament the demise of the federal judiciary from an independent and objective part of the American system into a branch of government that seems more self-serving and politicized than ever before. But while leftist and conservative justices alike have strayed from the vision of our Founding Fathers, none have eclipsed the cult-like status of the Supreme Court’s oldest justice: 85-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

             Of course, Supreme Court justices are only human, and they’re just as susceptible to outside influences as any politicians on Capitol Hill. But the very nature of their position demands more discipline in order to fight the temptations of a society that can turn just about anyone into a celebrity overnight.
               And even the most independent nominee can become more ideologically hardened after surviving the grind of the nomination process.
               Politico’s Peter Canellos writes, “Even if nominees aren’t particularly partisan at the outset, they quickly learn to recognize their friends and enemies; the loyalties forged in the furnace of the confirmation process carry over onto the bench. It’s only human that such anger or gratitude, growing out of a trauma that some compare to a near-death experience, would alter judicial decision-making.
               Canellos adds, “There’s a third element to the politicization of the courts, though. That’s the visceral sense of approval and validation that judges get when they please their fans. The 60,000-member Federalist Society provides conservative judges with a Greek chorus of admirers. And many members of the Supreme Court, such as the late Antonin Scalia, couldn’t resist taking bows before conservative audiences for court rulings that devastated liberals.”
               But earning the admiration of a respected organization like the Federalist Society is nothing compared to Ginsburg’s celebrity status among leftists, many of whom weren’t even born when Ginsburg was appointed to the High Court by scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton in 1993. From the “RGB” documentary of last year to the recent biopic entitled “On the Basis of Sex,” the leftist Supreme Court justice is being turned into a mythical figure. How can fair-minded Americans expect Ginsburg, a former ACLU general counsel, to make independent decisions based on the law when she’s been deified by millions on the Left?
               As Ginsburg said in the RGB film, “I’m 84 years old and everyone wants to take their picture with me.
               In 2016, seemingly emboldened by her superstardom, she joked that it’d be time to move to New Zealand if Donald Trump were elected. “I can’t imagine what the country would be,” she said. Later, under intense criticism from both the right and the left, she admitted regret for the comments. But she never apologized — not to the American people, nor to the Republican nominee.
               As Stephanie Mencimer writes at the far-left Mother Jones, “Ginsburg has since been tattooed on women’s arms, immortalized in song and a children’s book, and featured on [‘Saturday Night Live.’] She’s had her face plastered on everything from tote bags to water bottles. This merchandising could not have happened without the justice’s blessing; the law gives her a fair amount of control over the use of her image, as she well knows. Rather than start copyright battles, Ginsburg has encouraged her cult following. She assisted Carmon and Knizhnik with their book, appeared in the CNN documentary and makes a cameo in ‘On the Basis of Sex,’ carries an RBG tote bag in public, distributes RBG T-shirts to friends and admirers, and generally has reveled in her celebrity.”
               Mencimer adds that Ginsburg’s desire to hang on to her position on the Court actually threatens to undermine the Left’s agenda. For years Ginsburg rejected suggestions by “progressive” supporters that she retire during the Barack scumbag/liar-nObama years to ensure a like-minded successor. Now, her desire to fight on through various health issues — including recent surgery for lung cancer — at an advanced age may be setting the stage for a conservative replacement if she’s unable to outlast Donald Trump. But that’s not stopping her.
               NPR’s Nina Totenberg writes, “Even as she was secretly undergoing a series of tests and consulting an array of doctors, she made multiple public appearances and was interviewed in front of audiences three times, at one point reciting from memory the words of several arias from an opera about her famous friendship and legal dueling with the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
               The Left has professed to do just about anything, even offering to donate their own organs to Ginsburg, in order to keep her on the bench.
               But should Ginsburg retire or pass away before Trump leaves office, allowing him to replace her with a Constitution-friendly justice, the Left may one day regret the cult of personality that they alone created. And rightly so.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/60343?mailing_id=3994&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3994&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  
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