| Radio America News |
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| D'Souza Talks Antifa, Trump & Midterms |
| Tue, 14 Aug 2018 16:37:57 EST Posted on August 14, 2018 |
| Omarosa Taping 'A Serious Breach' |
| Mon, 13 Aug 2018 16:20:16 EST Former Trump administration staffer and former reality television star Omarosa Manigault Newman is releasing clips of secret recordings she allegedly made in the most sensitive areas of the White House, and a former White House information official says that could mean big trouble. Manigault Newman is publicizing the conversations she had with President Trump and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly from around the time she was fired from the administration. She says the discussion with Kelly took place in the White House Situation Room, which is designated as a "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility," or SCIF, pronounced "skiff." "If this turns out to be true that a recording device was in the White House Situation Room, of all places, that would be an incredibly serious breach of not only trust but a breach of a classified facility on a level that is very, very serious," said Theresa Payton, who served as White House Chief Information Officer in the George W. Bush administration. She is now CEO at Fortalice Solutions, a cybersecurity consulting firm. Payton says there are severe consequences for flouting protocol in these facilities. "This is considered a grave security breach so there's a lot of different actions that could choose to take. Some of those actions that they could entertain are revoking a security clearance, recommending an individual to not clear again. "They could take legal action. That's typically rare unless secrets were sold to the adversary or a real grave breach happened," said Payton. She says it is understood by anyone with security clearance that electronic devices have no place in a SCIF. "Classified conversations, classified phone calls, classified documents are handled within that facility. Often times, that facility has no windows. There's a series of doors that you have to punch in codes and slide cards into. There's a whole sense of protocol. You can't accidentally trip into a conference room that's a SCIF," said Payton. Outside the SCIF are usually a series of lockers or storage boxes for people entering the SCIF to leave all electronic devices. "You never know if those devices are compromised and could be turned into listening and recording devices that could be used by the adversary and/or if they would potentially be connecting to other devices that could be in the room that have been cleared to be in the room for phone calls or video conferences," said Payton. The list of banned items includes smartphones, laptops, and tablets but also items like fitness trackers. There are signs posted prominently outside the SCIF for people to unload their devices but for staff there is frisking or wanding involved. They are given multiple classes on the proper handling of classified informationand are expected to honor their promises to follow protocols. "You're somewhat on the honor system because you are a trained individual and you signed a document saying, "I understand the training. I understand the law and I will follow it.' Nobody's frisking you because they expect you to because they expect you to implement the training you were given and to honor the agreement that you signed," said Payton. Payton adds that guests to the White House and other sensitive facilities are put through a number of detectors and instructed to hand over their electronic devices before entering a SCIF but she says there are rarely pat downs for those people either. She says the fight against cybercrime is far more complicated than when she served in the White House and says it is a constant challenge to stay ahead of people who wish to do far more harm than Omarosa. "As we improve the defenses at the White House, the adversary realized, 'This is getting hard.' And they don't suddenly say, 'This is so hard, I should just go be a good person and bake pies for my neighbor.' They up their game. "It's almost like an arms race if you will on the cybersecurity side to stay one step ahead of the adversary," said Payton. |
| Liberal Policies Makes Wildfires Much Worse |
| Fri, 10 Aug 2018 16:29:32 EST Firefighters spent much of the past week battling the largest wildfire in California history, but an environmental policy expert says things are not getting worse because of climate change but because California is dry and liberal forest policies are making fires bigger, making the air quality worse, and putting lives and homes in danger. Earlier this week, California officials declared the Mendocino Complex fire the largest in state history, responsible for charring tens of thousands of acres. Other fires threaten lives and property elsewhere in the state. Environmental activists claim that human activity is leading to a more volatile climate that makes hurricanes more intense, heatwaves and droughts more intense and snowfalls deeper. But what do the facts show? "Climate does play a role in all of this, but not in a way that environmentalists would have you believe," said Dr. Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research. Cohen says the California climate is always conducive for wildfires. "The climate in California is arid. It always has been and always will be. At times it is subject to drought and sometimes even extreme droughts. California has recently recovered from an extreme drought," said Cohen, noting the drought was rates the eighth worst in the past century. But Cohen says the arid nature of the state is only one major factor in the huge fires. "This dry climate is exacerbated by strong winds. There are strong winds in southern California - the infamous Santa Anna winds - and strong winds in northern California. It is not uncommon for these winds to gust up to 60 or 70 miles per hour," said Cohen. He also points out the fires find plenty of additional fuel thanks to counterproductive environmental policies. "California has a lot of public land, federal land and state land, and there are strict restrictions on a lot of that regarding logging and even removal of dead and diseased trees. "You have tinderboxes brought to you courtesy of either the federal government, or the state government, or - tragically in some cases - both," said Cohen. Cohen adds that by bending over backwards on behalf of the environment, liberals are actually harming it. "Fires are actually a normal and perfectly healthy way of dealing with overgrown forests, but when those forests are mismanaged as U.S. Forest Service land has been mismanaged, not for years but for decades with overgrown forests, these forests are an open invitation to the tragic wildfires that we're seeing here now," said Cohen. The impact is not limited to the forests. California's already fragile air quality also suffers. "You can tighten up the Clean Air act as much as you wish, but once you have these forest fires taking off the way they are out West, the quality of air suffers. It is absolutely filthy. You would think environmentalists would be deeply disturbed by this. As a matter of fact, they show no signs of doing so whatsoever," said Cohen. Cohen says liberal policies are also why we see families and homes devastated in these fires. Cohen says liberal policies consistently drive the cost of living higher and higher in big cities from San Francisco to Los Angeles to San Diego. That forces middle class families into areas of the state far more prone to the fires. According to Cohen, the Healthy Forest Initiative in the George W. Bush administration helped to move things in the right direction by allowing some thinning of forests on federal lands, but he says reforms need to go further. "[They need to] make it easier for Forest Service personnel to thin trees that they know should be removed so that when the next wildfire comes along it will not enter a tinderbox and devastate thousands upon thousands of acres of land," said Cohen. As for the environmentalists, Cohen says they won't allow any common sense intervention in the forests, despite the impact fires are having on the air and land. "Their reaction is very simple. Leave it alone. Don't harm nature. Don't interfere. Let nature take its course. That's as far as they are willing to go. "It's an interesting way of looking at the world, in which you place a higher value on a nature that really doesn't exist in a way in which they mean it at the expense of human beings who are caught up in the grotesque mismanagement of nature," said Cohen. |
| Hamas Attacks Proves Iran in Turmoil |
| Thu, 9 Aug 2018 17:17:13 EST Middle East tensions are heating up again as Israel mounts a military response to nearly 200 Hamas rockets fired into Israel, but a Reagan-era Pentagon official says the real headline here is that the benefactors of Hamas are rattled. "I think it's because its patron, Iran, is in trouble. The Iranians are making a concerted effort, I think, to attack Israel while they can," said Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, who served as an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "The regime, the mullah-ocracy if you will, is increasingly facing pressure from its own people, among others things, to stop supporting Hamas and for that matter Bashar Assad in Syria and Hezbollah," added Gaffney. Instability has arisen in Iran before, most notably in the 2009 Green Revolution against the mullahs and then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after clearly rigged elections. But Gaffney says the current protests are unlike anything we've seen before. "What seems to be different about what's happening now is that it's not just certain strata of society that are opposing the government in a visible, public way, as was true in the Green Revolution. "You have masses of people from across the demographic, political, economic spectrum, many of whom are facing the fact that there's no longer any water for them to drink. There's no employment opportunities. They're fleeing their cities and towns and going elsewhere in search of basic necessities," said Gaffney. The Israeli military has already carried out airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza after 180 rockets were fired into Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ordering "strong action" in retaliation as well. Gaffney says it's a complicated issue for Israel. On the one hand, Netanyahu cannot allow his country to be attacked without a fierce response. At the same time, Hamas consistently embeds its military elements in civilian locations like hospitals and daycare centers. When Israel attacks the military assets, Hamas and much of the world inevitably accuse it of carry out human rights atrocities. But Gaffney says both sides need to walk a diplomatic tightrope. "I think both sides are trying to walk that fine line. The folks in Hamas understand that Israel can do very considerable harm to their infrastructure and operations. On the other hand Israelis understand almost anything they do is going to be met with intense criticism by countries elsewhere," said Gaffney. The U.S. will be one of the few nations to defend Israel at the United Nations and elsewhere. But Gaffney says President Trump can achieve greater stability in the Middle East by choking the economic life out of Iran and all of its proxies in the region. Specifically, he implores Trump to keep up pressure through economic sanctions. Earlier this week, the U.S. reimposed sanctions on items ranging from carpets to gold and from pistachios to automobiles and aircraft. Another round of sanctions are scheduled for early November, which will target Iran banks and the oil industry. "This is a moment when economic warfare against the regime and making very clear our desire to help the Iranian people and stand with them will have a very salutary effect," said Gaffney. |
| VA Squalor 'Not A Money Problem' |
| Wed, 8 Aug 2018 16:29:49 EST A retired U.S. Marine Corps gunnery sergeant prominent veterans advocate is fuming after new revelations that the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington is failing to meet even the most basic medical standards. Employees at the center are imploring new Veterans Affairs Sec. Robert Willkie to take immediate action to change practices there. They cite rusty medical instruments and bacteria-infected water being used to sterilize equipment. The employees also report, "Infection rates went up instead of down in veterans 19 bloodstreams and in their urinary tracts. Patient satisfaction went down instead of up. Employee satisfaction tanked." Jessie Jane Duff served 20 years in the Marine Corps, rising to gunnery sergeant. She is now a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. "This sounds like a third world hospital and yet it's right at the back door of the VA headquarters itself right here in Washington, D.C. It's tragic. This is one of the flagship hospitals for the VA," said Duff, noting the facility is one of fifteen nationwide with the lowest rating. "If it was a restaurant, it would have been shut down," she added. "Here is an example of basic healthcare that is being handled in such an incompetent manner. I mean rusty instruments? Water that you can't even drink from? What is going on? Are we actually in combat? Are we in a MASH unit? Even then, their standards are higher." As a result of the VA scandal earlier this decade, funding for the department was effectively doubled. Duff says these conditions are not due to a lack of resources. "The VA gets the second largest bucket of money next to [the Defense Department]. So this is not a money problem. This is a management problem. It's an accountability problem. Until you're able to bring in positive leadership with positive change. with the capability of removing those bad apples that have allowed these problems to fester, then you essentially have a status quo of business as usual," said Duff. Duff says legislation signed by President Trump last year does make it easier to fire the "bad apples" and also gives veterans more flexibility to find care outside of the VA system. However, there are still problems, including veterans only getting access to private sector care if they live a certain distance from a VA facility. Private providers are also have trouble getting reimbursed from the VA. With the bureaucracy grinding the system to a halt and sometimes not even putting clean medical instruments into use, Duff says the American people should take a good look at the VA. "My question to the American people is, 'Do you see why government-run health care has never helped those that are using it?' It sounds like an easy fix. It sounds like a possible solution to problems, but what often happens is when you remove private enterprise from the equation, there is not a sense of responsibility," said Duff. She says these problems must be dealt with soon or military enlistments will drop. "We cannot have a nation where we do not take care of those who sacrificed the most, who signed a blank check with their life or their limb for us. That is critical. Who will volunteer for the military if they ever see that this is the end result in their final years of life or even when they're only thirty-something years old and need health care," said Duff. But what should happen now to make sure we never see similar conditions at another VA facility? Duff says President Trump must make it clear this is unacceptable on his watch. "This is one thing that President Trump ran on. He stated that the VA bureaucracy was something that needed to be taken care of," said Duff, who encourages Trump to use his Twitter account to call out those responsible. Regardless of the public relations strategy, Duff says the problems must be solved. She says the courage of the employees at the D.C. facility is a great first step, but meaningful change must follow. "I admire them for speaking up and if it is being covered up, let's crack this open. Let's get this exposed. Let's have the media go after it. "I'll tell you right now, President Trump is not going to tolerate veterans dying on his watch due to a lack of care run by the very system, by the very people he has now appointed. I expect that he will be very aggressive about this," said Duff. |
| Placation vs. Change in Iran |
| Mon, 6 Aug 2018 16:30:15 EST The Trump administration began reapplying economic sanctions against Iran Monday, the latest consequence of President Trump withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal. Trump withdrew the U.S. as a signatory of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in May, and the new round of sanctions is the first of two rounds of crippling sanctions designed to deter Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons and grant more liberties to its people. "There's the difference between the Obama administration and the Trump administration. The Obama administration was trying to placate. The Trump administration is trying to actually change Iranian behavior," said retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash, who is also a Fox News military analyst. This first tranche of sanctions forbids the importing of Iranian carpets, pistachios, and also voids licenses that allows Iran to buy American and European-made aircraft. Another round of sanctions targeting oil and banks is set to take effect Nov. 4. European leaders are furious with Trump for bringing the sanctions back, but Nash says they have little choice but to go along. "They were looking to sell a tremendous amount of goods to Iran. Those deals, now that the United States has pulled out, the administration has basically said, 'Would you like to do business with the United States or would you like to do business with Tehran? Pick one,'" said Nash. And Nash says the Europeans could not circumvent the sanctions even if they wanted to. "Look at aircraft for example. There is so much United States technology in aircraft that there isn't an aircraft manufacturer in the western world who can export to Tehran if the United States pulls the licenses for its technology. It's embedded in those platforms," said Nash. Nash says the sanctions are also meant to make life uncomfortable for another group inside Iran. "That impacts the bazaaris, which is the mercantile class inside of Iran," said Nash. "They are the big supporters of the theocratic regime." Nash says the bazaaris were key allies of Ayatollah Khomeini during the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979. But he says if the bazaaris feel the heat, the mullahs will also be sweating. "When they start shifting because they're under pressure, if things really start to happen, you'll get the mullahs' attention," said Nash, who notes the Iranian economy is already hurting badly. "In the last year alone, their currency, the rial, has lost 80 percent of its value. Things have been going south in Iran for years," said Nash. He says the mullahs are sure to blame the renewed sanctions for the economic misery in Iran, but Nash doesn't think the people will believe them. "The mullahs are trying to tell the people, 'No, no, no. It's not our gross mismanagement. It's not our spending money on militarization instead of working on infrastructure and other things in the economy. No, no, no. It's the Americans pulling out of the deal.' And the people aren't buying it," said Nash. Nash says the Iranian leadership has funneled valuable resources into the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which pledges allegiance not to the government but to the Islamic Revolution, similar to how the Gestapo pledged fidelity to Adolf Hitler instead of the nation. That, in addition to the weak economy, is sparking large protests against the the regime. Nash says Iranian leaders may soon have to make a very tough decision. "The mullahs are probably going to be able to keep the lid on this but for how much longer? And that's the equation they have to balance. 'Can we really let the United States move on to the Nov. 4 exercise of sanctions, which would be the second tranche, where they then put sanctions against our banking industry and our energy sector?' "When that happens, that could spell doom for the mullahs inside of Tehran," said Nash. |
| 'The History of Jihad' |
| Fri, 27 Jul 2018 16:22:59 EST From the response to the 9/11 attacks to the confronting of ISIS, Americans and other western leaders regularly refer to Islam as a "religion of peace," but a new book contends the 1,400 years of Islam is a timeline awash in bloodshed and conflict. Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer is author of the new book "The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS." He says there is a consistent attern of carnage since the earliest days. "What I found is that through fourteen centuries, without any break, without any let-up, without any reformation or reconsideration, without any period of tolerance - although there are a lot of historical myths about that - Islam has been responsible for conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims for fourteen uninterrupted centuries," said Spencer, who is quick to point out that most Muslims are not Jihadists. "Obviously, not all Muslims are involved in this and not all of them approved of it. Nonetheless, in every century and in in every place in the world where there have been Muslims, there have been jihadis who thought that it was one of their responsibilities before Allah to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers," said Spencer. History books tell us that Islam was founded in 622 A.D. Mohammed died in 632. By 732, at the Battle of Tours in modern-day France, Charles Martel led a decisive Frankish victory against Muslim invaders who had already swept through North Africa and Spain. But how did those invaders get from the Arabian Peninsula to the Atlantic coast within 100 years? Spencer says it was accomplished through violent conquest, and he contends most people who deny the violence perpetrated in the early years of Islam are arguing from a position of ignorance. "People aren't really aware of this history. This is one of the reasons why I wrote this book. The Islamic advance was incredibly swift. And not only did they get all the way to the Atlantic and to Spain within 100 years of the death of Mohammed, but they also went in the other direction, conquered one of the great powers of the day in Persia and went into India," said Spencer. Spencer says his book is the first work in the English language to detail the jihad against India, which he calls "an extraordinary and bloody story." In addition to those who don't know the history, Spencer says others believe a false version of history. "I think a lot of people take for granted the idea that there was some kind of mass conversion to Islam, that people were converting to it because they were convinced that it was true and that this is what was responsible for the Islamization of the Middle East and North Africa. That's actually not the case. It was all done by conquest," he said. Spencer further asserts that ISIS is not the exception or some radical departure from Islam over the centuries. He claims ISIS looks much like jihadists throughout the past fourteen centuries. "I show in the book there are movements like that all through Islamic history. Many of them were responsible for the conquest of Spain and its 700-year occupation by Islamic forces. Many of them have also been responsible for jihad warfare elsewhere. There was nothing new that ISIS did, nothing different. It was exactly the same in its beliefs as jihadis throughout history," said Spencer. Jihadists also played a key role in the first major military engagement of the United States when President Thomas Jefferson was forced to confront the Barbary Pirates off the coast of North Africa. "They were jihadis, as I show in the book. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote a report to Congress about how the Moroccan ambassador had explained that they were fighting them because it was explained in the Quran and they felt they had a divine responsibility to do so," said Spencer. That conflict is also how U.S. Marines became known as "leathernecks." "They're leathernecks because they wore leather collars that would prevent them from being beheaded. The (Marine Corps) song with the 'shores of Tripoli' was all about them facing the jihadis," said Spencer. In multiple speeches, President Obama stated Muslims have been a vital fabric of the United States from our very beginning. Spencer says other than being our first opponent in war, Obama's assertions do not hold up. "In terms that Obama's claim that Muslims were in the United States and were involved in it since the founding; that's complete historical fiction and has no basis in fact whatsoever," said Spencer. Today, Spencer believes the U.S. and other western nations make a habit of whitewashing the ugly history of jihadism. "The West in general has had a drastically wrongheaded response to this threat and that's primarily been characterized by simple denial. They just proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace and leave it at that. The most notorious example of that is George W. Bush right after 9/11," said Spencer. But if jihad is historical Islam, why do most Muslims not engage in it? "Jihad is risky. You can get killed. You can get maimed. You can have all sorts of disasters happen to you. That takes a certain amount of courage. Not everybody is going to do it. Also, there are people simply not religious enough to care," said Spencer, who suggests others do their work more surreptitiously these days. "There are also people waiting and biding their time, working in other ways. The Muslim Brotherhood and other groups of its kind are working to achieve the same ends as jihad terrorists, which is Islamic (Sharia) law ruling the world but through different means: through elections, through civilizational change and so on," said Spencer. And while a majority of Muslims do not engage in jihad and many do not even condone it, Spencer says they could do much more to condemn it. He says those who do speak out against jihadists like ISIS get a tepid following at best. "A few years back when ISIS was in it's heyday, every now and again we'd see Muslims against ISIS rallies. Invariably, they only attracted about 25-50 Muslims. Whereas, rallies against cartoons of Mohammed drew 800,000 people in Chechnya, hundreds of thousands in Pakistan and Iran," said Spencer. Spencer says the first step in the solution is to call out jihadists for what they are. "The first thing we need to do is to speak honestly about this problem, call upon Muslim groups in the West to renounce the aspects of Islam, including jihad warfare, that are at variance with the constitutional principles of the United States and, in general, the principles of western free nations," said Spencer. He says the U.S. and our western allies must take a stand because the past fourteen centuries show that the problem won't go away on its own. "Everywhere there have been large numbers of Muslims, there has been conflict. Here again, it's not all Muslims or every Muslim but there are always some among the Muslims who believe they need to wage jihad against unbelievers. Why do we think we're going to be exempt from this and that it's not going to happen to us?" said Spencer. "It is." |
| What We Really Learned from the FISA Warrant Application |
| Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:29:45 EST All sides of the Trump-Russia debate see the recently released application for a FISA warrant against a former Trump campaign figure as confirming their previously held opinions on the matter, but a former federal prosecutor says that's because some are conflating two very different matters and reaching a faulty conclusion. Over the weekend, the FBI released a redacted version of the FISA warrant request it sought against former Trump aide Carter Page. The paperwork shows the FBI did rely heavily on the Steele dossier, assembled by a former British intelligence official hostile to Trump, and a footnote in the application admits the dossier was funded for months by the Hillary Clinton campaign an the Democratic National Committee. So what does former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy see as the headline in this new information? "That it's a confirmation of my previously held position," joked McCarthy, before turning serious. "My previously held position is basically what we learned in congressional hearings over the past year-plus, which is that the FBI used the Steele dossier, which is a partisan opposition research screed, which was basically commissioned by the Clinton campaign," said McCarthy. McCarthy says there's still information we don't know, but that we also know there's no further corroboration of the dossier in the FISA application. "We know that that's not there because there have been hearings. There have been reports. Senators (Charles) Grassley and (Lindsey) Graham, for example, put out a report on a classified memo that was declassified earlier this year which laid out not only the passages of the actual FISA warrants that were relevant but also explained what the FBI had done was rely on the credibility of Christopher Steele," said McCarthy. So how are all sides claiming victory after the release of the FISA warrant application? McCarthy says it's because many people are confusing two very different matters: whether Carter Page was someone worthy of further federal scrutiny and whether the government had built a legal case for obtaining a surveillance warrant. Page aroused suspicion years before the 2016 campaign for trying to become a Russian agent but was dismissed by the Kremlin as an "idiot." "To get a FISA warrant under federal law, you have to have probable cause that an American citizen in this case is willfully acting as a clandestine agent of a foreign power. "That is, he is quite intentionally acting to advance the interests of Russia in the United States in a clandestine way, which means under federal law is a probable violation of federal criminal law," said McCarthy. He believes the feds fell short of that burden. "They didn't have that that we can see, other than through the Steele dossier, which is why I think (former FBI Deputy Director Andrew) McCabe said that they couldn't have gotten the warrant without the Steele dossier," said McCarthy. "It's fine to say we should have been concerned about Carter Page and even that we should have investigated Carter Page. Getting a FISA warrant on someone is a drastic step up from that," he added. McCarthy also believes President Trump could easily clear up all speculation about what's still behind those redacted sections of the FISA warrant application. "President Trump has the power...to declassify and publicize anything in the way of classified information that the government has. Until we get this information, there'll be a lot of this speculation that goes on," said McCarthy. |
| Anger Gives Dems Edge in Midterms |
| Tue, 24 Jul 2018 16:32:34 EST For the first time in the 2018 political season, one of the nation's leading political forecasters is predicting Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives following the midterm elections. On Tuesday, Sabato's Crystal Ball, led by University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, moved 17 House races more favorable to Democrats. The report also shows 33 of 36 seats labeled as toss-ups are currently held by Republicans. Seven other GOP-held seats are considered even more imperiled. In contrast, only two seats held by Democrats are considered toss-ups, as is one member vs. member race in Pennsylvania. One seat held by Democrats is likely to flip to the GOP. Democrats need a net gain of 23 House seats to reclaim the majority. Sabato's Crystal Ball Managing Editor Kyle Kondik says the enthusiasm in midterm election years is almost always against the party of the president. And with President Trump serving as a lightning rod for the left, the passion among Democrats is even higher. "The Republicans had this advantage in 2010 and 2014 and now the Democrats generally do in terms of asking people how enthusiastic they are to vote," said Kondik. "For voters, anger can be a great motivator and the angrier party, I think right now, is the Democrats." Even though Trump is not on the ballot, Democrats are looking for any chance to express their disapproval. Kondik says last year's Virginia governor's race proved Democrats cared much more about hurting Trump than supporting Democrats on the ballot. "Reporters were asking voters about Ralph Northam, the eventual Democratic winner and of course now the governor. They didn't seem to know a whole lot about him, but they did seem to know they were casting a vote against President Trump. I think that's what you might see in November," said Kondik. Republicans are also running against history. Kondik says American history shows midterm elections are almost always good for the party out of power. "Going back to the Civil War, there have been 39 midterms. The president's party has lost ground in the House in 36 of those, and the average seat loss is 33 seats. The Democrats need to net 23 seats. So it would not be historically odd for Democrats to win the House," said Kondik. But despite those built-in advantages for Democrats, Kondik says no one should count the Republicans out. "I don't think it's a slam dunk for the Democrats by any means. It's also quite possible the race for the House could come down to a few seats here or there," said Kondik, indicating Democrats could make major gains but still wind up in the minority. Kondik expects Republicans to try matching the intensity of Democrats by firing up their own base. Part of that may be based on issues like immigration, on which some Democrats have advocated abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, just like Democrats plan to demonize Trump, he suspects Republicans will rally their voters over fears of who would be running the House of Representatives if Democrats take control. "They're also raising the specter of Nancy Pelosi being the House Speaker again. Many Democratic candidates have actually disavowed Pelosi but Republicans still see her as a very useful foil," said Kondik. Gauging 435 House races is a bit tricky since polling can be scarce in a lot of contests. Many seats are considered safe for one party and the battle lines are drawn over a few dozen swing districts. "The national party committees are doing polling here and there but even they don't have perfect knowledge about these districts. A lot of [predicting races] is based on the history of the district, our sort of subjective view of the quality of the candidates, past performance, and demographics. You just try to do the best you can," said Kondik. "As we've seen in the past, even polls on the statewide level are not always correct and so there's a significant amount of projection and guesswork that goes into it," he added. Sabato's Crystal Ball will revise its projections on House, Senate, and governor's races before locking in predictions just before Election Day, Nov. 6. |
| GOP Cranks Up Pork-Barrel Spending |
| Mon, 23 Jul 2018 16:17:50 EST Congressional Republicans are once again embracing pork-barrel spending, more than doubling the amount spent on earmarks since the last fiscal year. Citizens Against Government Waste, or CAGW, publishes "The Congressional Pig Book," which chronicles spending on earmarks each year. According to the book, 232 earmarks are part of the appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2018, a 42 percent increase from 2017. Those earmarks total $14.7 billion, a 116 percent jump from just a year ago. For budget hawks, the news is especially depressing because House Republicans appear to be trying to restore earmarks after abolishing them in 2011. "Yes, it more than doubled between 2017 and 2018, and there have been earmarks, according to CAGW's definition, since the moratorium was adopted in 2011. Congress' definition is not the same, so they keep claiming there are no earmarks. We disagree," said CAGW President Tom Schatz. The $14.7 billion price tag barely reaches half the amount of the GOP's worst example of pork-barrel spending, but Schatz says Republicans ought to remember that fallout from those earmarks. "This is more than half of the record $29 billion in 2006, which not coincidentally was the year that Republicans lost the majority in the House. Then after they got it back (following the 2010 midterms), they got the moratorium," said Schatz. The book also lists the earmarks, including $65 million to protect salmon on the west coast. Schatz cited a wasteful project earmarked for the Pentagon. "(There's) $25 million in the defense bill for alternative energy research, up two-thirds from the $15 million in 2017. There's now $315 million of earmarks for this purpose, even though the Energy and Water Development Act supplies billions for alternative energy research," said Schatz. He says between 2007-2014, the Pentagon purchased about two million gallons of alternative fuel at a cost of $58 million. In contrast, the Defense Department bought 32 billion gallons of petroleum at a price of $107 billion. But should we really be making a big deal out of $14.7 billion in spending when the government spends several trillion dollars per year? Schatz says the whole process just invites corruption. "The point of earmarks is that they're corruptive, they're inequitable, and they are costly. In the 111th Congress (2009-2011), names of members were included in the appropriations bills. The 81 Senate and House appropriators, that's 15 percent of the whole Congress, had 51 percent of the earmarks and 61 percent of the money," he said. He also cited Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, for condemning earmarks through their work on the Article I Project. "They said, 'Earmarking is not an innocuous exercise of Congress' constitutional power. It was the tool lobbyists and leadership used to compel members to vote for bills that their constituents and sometimes their conscience opposed. Bringing back earmarks would make Congress weaker, make federal power more centralized, less accountable and more corrupt,'" said Schatz, quoting Lee and Hensarling. Schatz isn't ready to say Republicans don't mean it when they vow to be fiscally responsible. He says the allure of spending intoxicates both parties. "It's what we call Potomac Fever. It effects both parties. When they come here, they just see this as an opportunity to spend money. There are no adverse consequences for facing the taxpayers' money, except perhaps for getting voted out of office. When 90-plus percent of incumbents get re-elected, that's not so risky," said Schatz. So who is to blame for the GOP reverting back to form on earmarks? Schatz says much more responsibility lies with Congress than with President Trump. He says this year's Bipartisan Budget Act was a big culprit. "As happens in Washington, Republicans want more money for defense. Democrats wanted more money for everything else. So they said, ''OK, let's just spend more on everything,' and that's what happened," said Schatz. He says that approach is how Congress piled up so much debt over the years. "The answer here in Washington, D.C., is to address every problem with a program or more spending, not, 'Let's solve the problem and figure out how much it will cost,' which is how the rest of the world operates," said Schatz. |
| 'They're Just Looking for Something to Complain About' |
| Wed, 18 Jul 2018 17:01:53 EST One of most prominent hosts in cable news says President Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia during the 2016 campaign, but Democrats and the media keep chasing the story to distract from what she considers the real conspiracy inside the Obama administration to make sure Trump either would not get elected or would remain mired in scandal. Former Westchester County, New York, prosecutor and judge Jeanine Pirro hosts "Justice with Judge Jeanine" on the Fox News Channel. She is also the author of the new book, "Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy." Pirro says the outrage over Trump's comments about whether he believes Russia meddled in the 2016 campaign is a perfect example of the left trying to advance its narrative. While Republican figures from both sides of Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, distanced themselves from Trump's comments, Pirro says the liberal rage was just par for the course. "Anything Donald Trump says is going to cause the left to have a breakdown. Honestly, they're just looking for something to complain about," said Pirro. Following Trump's Tuesday statement that he does believe U.S. intelligence reports that Russia meddled in 2016, Pirro is ready to move on but she says the left cannot do the same. "The president said, 'Look, I misspoke.' To me, that's the end of that, but that's not enough for the left. Look, the left is determined to disenfranchise the American voters, and the the left is determined to make sure that everything the man does to make America great again is something that they think is anti-American or illegal or obstructionist," said Pirro. Pirro firmly believes the perpetual outrage is an intentional smokescreen to distract Americans away from the real scandal. "There is truth in the book as it relates to a collusion on the part of the Obama administration, who wanted to make sure that in the event that the unthinkable would happen and Donald Trump is elected president, they would have an insurance policy. That insurance policy is the Russia collusion investigation," said Pirro. She says the FBI's refusal to file charges against Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information on her private server shows objectivity was never the intent inside the Obama administration. "It's laughable, except that we're talking about the presidency. We're talking about dark forces in American history, who are looking to take down a duly elected president," said Pirro. Pirro believes the make-up and conduct of Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation betrays an obvious agenda. "Their mission is to find anything and everything. As they scour everything and as they try to squeeze father against son and lawyer against client, they are determined to find something. "Will they? Who knows? All I know is, there's no collusion with Russia, there's no obstruction," said Pirro. She also says she can't figure out Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe. Pirro says on one hand, Rosenstein made the case to Trump for firing former FBI Director James Comey and then promptly created a special counsel to determine whether that firing constituted obstruction of justice. Pirro, who once shared office space with Comey in New York, isn't buying his public Boy Scout persona. "This guy was called Cardinal Comey by his own people behind his back because he's got this holier-than-thou approach. 'I'm the good guy. I'm saintly," when it's hogwash," said Pirro. She says the only collusion worth investigating should center on Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. "The only collusion going on is Hillary Clinton selling 20 percent of America's uranium to Russia, with a payback of $145 million into the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 quick cash deposit for Bill's 20-minute speech with a Kremlin-connected company. Nobody wants to talk about that stuff," said Pirro. Pirro will continue to focus much of her TV program on these issues. She admits the show was not designed to address politics this much, but she's eager to keep hammering away for as long as possible. "Initially, I fully expected to be talking about crime (on her show), because that's my wheelhouse. But to be honest with you, there's more crime in Washington every day than there is in criminal courtrooms across this country," said Pirro. "I am in this for the long haul," she said. |
| 'You Cannot Unring A Bell' |
| Tue, 17 Jul 2018 16:13:32 EST A former high-ranking CIA official says President Trump's refusal to stand by the U.S. intelligence community while on stage with Russia's Vladimir Putin is "devastating" and believes Trump's efforts to walk back those words on Tuesday was thoroughly meaningless. Herbert E. Meyer served as special assistant to Reagan-era CIA Director William Casey and also as vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. He's also an accomplished producer and author, most recently writing the booklet, "Why is the World So Dangerous." As a Trump voter, Meyer says the president's inability to decide whether U.S. intelligence or Vladimir Putin is telling the truth about meddling in the 2016 campaign, is deeply disappointing. "He's done a lot of good things and I'm supporting him. What he said in Helsinki was appalling. There's just no way around it. He can apologize. He can back off, but you cannot unring a bell. What he said, the entire world heard it. Sorry, that was devastating," said Meyer. Meyer says Trump's logic in granting equal weight to multiple U.S. intelligence reports and Putin's denials would be considered ludicrous in any era of U.S. history. "If somebody got up and said, 'I don't know, some people say the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but I was talking with the Japanese Prime Minister and he says they didn't do it. I have complete confidence in our military, but I'm not sure who attacked us at Pearl Harbor,' we would say that man's an idiot," said Meyer. In addition to the lack of confidence Trump's comments inflict among the various intelligence agencies, Meyer says the president isn't even consistent with his own allies in Congress. "He trashed not only our intelligence community, but the committees in Congress, Devin Nunes' committee for example, that issued an extensive report a month ago on what happened," said Meyer. Nunes, R-Calif., chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Meyer says a damage to morale is significant damage to any organization and the intelligence agencies are no exception, but he says the repercussions are far more broad. "It's devastating, not just to the intelligence community. It's devastating to the United States. If you are an ally of our country now, you can't pay any attention to what he says, because if it bounces badly he'll just say something else," said Meyer. On Tuesday, Trump read a statement indicating he did accept the conclusions of intelligence professionals that there was meddling in the 2016 campaign. But Meyer says the clarification still carries two problems, starting with the fact that it comes too late. "When he walks it back today, it's meaningless. It's like saying, 'I think you're a liar. Oh no, I don't think you're a liar.' It just means that words don't mean anything anymore," said Meyer. "Why should anybody pay attention to what he said (Tuesday)? He's only issuing a clarification because it blew up in his face. I was just watching it on TV when you called me. He doesn't believe a word he's saying. He's sort of mumbling it and reading it. "He's not only the country's president, he's the guy I voted for, and what he's saying is just awful," added Meyer. Meyer is confident Putin is loving every minute of the controversy. Her doesn't believe Putin is changing any major policy or plans based on his perceived diplomatic victory, but there's little doubt that the Russian leader considers Trump's comments a big win. "Putin's primary objective in office is to humiliate the United States. That's what he wants to do. Now you and I can say that doesn't make any sense, but that's what he wants to do. If he could throw a banana peel under our feet, he would rather do that than have another one percent economic growth in Russia," said Meyer. Meyer says Trump is causing all sorts of trouble for himself by conflating Russian meddling with political collusion in his own campaign, when the two are distinctly separate issues. "He folded the two of them together and made everything confused," said Meyer. So, is there an avenue for Trump to repair relations with our intelligence agencies? Meyer's short answer is no. "The president and I are the same age. Guys our age don't change. Sorry, what you see is what you get. Words don't mean anything. He could say anything. He can go out to Langley and give a speech and all that. It doesn't mean anything. He stood on stage with the leader of Russia and trashed American intelligence," said Meyer, who finds himself wincing as an American and as a Trump supporter. "He's wounded himself and that's very bad for the United States, whether you're Republican or Democrat. We have a president with a self-inflicted wound and that's bad," he said. |
| 'The Deep State Strikes Again' in Jordan Controversy |
| Mon, 16 Jul 2018 16:27:18 EST Prominent conservative Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is battling allegations that he helped cover up sexual abuse at Ohio State University, and a longtime conservative activist believes the controversy is simply an effort to tarnish Jordan and block him from becoming Speaker of the House. "The deep state strikes again," said Richard Viguerie, who pioneered direct mail in political campaigning. He is also chairman of conservativehq.com and author of "Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It." "Anytime conservatives look like they're making any progress or gain in dismantling the deep state or challenging their position, authority, or power, they do whatever is necessary to set the conservative cause back. "That's all this is. They're in a panic mode that Jim Jordan could be the next Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives," said Viguerie. While not at Ohio State 20-30 years ago, Viguerie says grassroots conservatives across the nation have the highest regard for Rep. Jordan, one of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus. "I put Jim at the very highest level of character, of values. He's a very serious person. To the extent that I know him, I have nothing but the highest admiration and respect for him. Quite frankly, every conservative without exception that I know at the national, state, and local level feels the same way," said Viguerie. Numerous former Ohio State wrestlers are also coming to Jordan's defense. But "deep state" is a general term. If this is nothing but a smear campaign, who exactly is behind it? Viguerie says the answer should be pretty obvious. "Who benefits? Who would benefit by the establishment staying in power? That's who you can look to for the perpetrators of this," said Viguerie. "Without naming names here, the Republican establishment, the Washington, D.C., establishment is going to benefit by the present leadership staying in power." Viguerie says the GOP congressional leaders are a major disappointment to many grassroots conservatives on a host of key issues, starting with health care. He says Republicans passed full repeal of Obamacare time after time when leaders knew it would never become law. Once the GOP controlled Congress and the White House, things changed. "They wouldn't bring it up for a vote anymore. They were afraid that it would be undone," said Viguerie. Jordan was perhaps the most vocal conservative House member demanding an up-or-down vote on a full repeal. Viguerie says there are other issues involved as well. "They don't want to dismantle the administrative state, build a wall, (pass) serious immigration reform that really controls the border," he said. He believes the D.C. establishment fears Jordan because many conservatives see him as a leader. "In the 60 years almost that I've been involved at the national level of the conservative movement, he number one thing we've needed all those years above anything else is leadership. "Jim Jordan, through the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, is providing that leadership, one of the very few Republicans in the country that is actually providing leadership that the grassroots can look up too," said Viguerie. But for Jordan to be a threat, he would have to be in a position to win the support of a majority of House Republicans in the next leadership election. House Freedom Caucus members have historically fallen well short in challenging the likes of former House Speaker John Boehner. Viguerie says Jordan is in position to win that kind of support within the House GOP Conference. "The grassroots is very unhappy with the present leadership. I think there's a lot of people who voted with establishment candidates in the past and realizing that the establishment is not producing for the voters, for the American people. "With a new Congress coming in here (following the 2018 midterms), I think a conservative candidate like Jim Jordan would be very, very competitive," said Viguerie. |
| 'Why Do We Need A Special Counsel for This?' |
| Fri, 13 Jul 2018 16:10:06 EST Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russians, accusing them of hacking key individuals and institutions and even, stealing the information of some 500,000 voters. However, a former federal prosecutor says while it's vital to know how Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 campaign, there's still no connection to the Trump campaign and still no basis for why a special counsel is on this case. Andrew C. McCarthy served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and led the successful prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots against other New York-area landmarks. He says the biggest question in his mind following the announcement of the indictments was whether Trump knew this announcement was coming. Knowing now that Trump was aware, McCarthy finds it very interesting that Trump gave the green light for the news to go public just before his Monday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland. "It seems to me, since he was given a heads-up that this was happening, he had an opportunity to direct that the indictment not be unsealed. He didn't do that, which suggests to me that he and his advisers actually think that having this will strengthen their hand when they meet with Putin," said McCarthy. On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments against a dozen figures connected to the Russian intelligence and military communities. The Trump administration quickly released a statement pointing out that no Americans, much less any Trump campaign figures, had any connection to Russia's alleged meddling. 1cToday 19s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result, 1d said White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters in a statement. 1cThis is consistent with what we have been saying all along, 1d she added. McCarthy says Trump's argument that no campaign official has been charged when anything related to a Russian conspiracy clearly holds true. "It's perfectly natural and appropriate for them to say yet again that there are no indications in this indictment of any conspiratorial relationship between the Russians and the Trump campaign," said McCarthy. Just as when Mueller issued indictments against 13 Russian entities in February, known as the troll farm indictments, McCarthy says no evidence has turned up yet to justify the existence of a special counsel on this matter. "When I see this indictment, I thought what I thought when I saw the troll farm indictment, which is why do we need a special counsel for this? It doesn't seem to me that there's any reason that we needed a special counsel. "The Justice Department, which was investigating Russian interference in the election - with the FBI - before Mueller was appointed, certainly could have handled these cases," said McCarthy. But McCarthy is also clear that he believes an investigation into Russian activity during the 2016 cycle is highly warranted. "I don't think anyone sensible has ever questioned the legitimacy of the investigation as it pertains to Russian interference in the 2016 election. That ought to be something that everybody agrees needs to be done and needs to be run down," said McCarthy. He's also chiding the president for regularly tweeting condemnations of the Mueller team. While McCarthy believes Trump sees the investigation is a 'witch hunt' specifically as it relates to his campaign and not to possible Russian involvement, he says the persistent denunciation of Mueller is a bad move. "I think we all know when he says that what he's talking about is the allegation that his campaign colluded with the Russians, of which there remains no evidence, much less charges. "But I don't think it's helpful that if he knows you're about to release a set of charges that confirm what all of us have suspected for some time, which is that the Russians did conduct this operation against our election, I don't know that that's the best time to be taking shots at the prosecutor," said McCarthy. But do these indictments advance the plot much into the Russian meddling? McCarthy doesn't think so. "Other than putting some names and some interesting specifics like the Bitcoin aspect of it and the fact that they made that into a money laundering conspiracy, I don't think that we've learned a lot that we didn't know already on the basis of what we've been told by the intelligence community regarding its investigation," said McCarthy. But while we may not have learned much today, McCarthy says Mueller clearly has learned some new tactics. After the troll farm indictments, the special counsel got a bit of a surprise that he made sure didn't happen again this time. "The problem that Mueller ran into in the troll farm case is that he indicted three of these companies that really turned out to be Kremlin fronts. Much, I think, to his surprise and chagrin, one of them retained counsel in Virginia and showed up and demanded to get the discovery and get ready to go to trial," said McCarthy. McCarthy says it's highly unlikely that any of the 12 Russians indicted on Friday will ever face prosecution. So why go through the indictments? "I think the point is to try to file a conclusive U.S. government investigative document that puts to rest any claim that Russia is not responsible for any of this," said McCarthy. |
| 'He Approached Every Issue Without Passion or Prejudice' |
| Thu, 12 Jul 2018 16:32:18 EST A law professor who clerked for both Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy says President Trump made a terrific selection and is confident that Kavanaugh would be a justice who is faithful to the text of the law and not any policy agenda. Justin Walker teaches at the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. He clerked for Kavanaugh in 2010-2011, and was thrilled to hear Trump nominate him to the high court. "He's impeccably credentialed. He was a great lower court judge. He's going to bring independence and fairmindedness and brilliance to the job. "I was also happy for him, may mentor and former boss, someone who has always been unfailingly kind to me, unfailingly supportive to all of his 48 former clerks. Every one of us would say that any time we have a career decision to make, one of the first people we call to ask for advice is judge Kavanaugh," said Walker. Walker says that Kavanaugh is a hard worker, something he saw up close and that he heard from Justice Kennedy, whom Kavanaugh clerked for years ago. "The thing he would always mention about Judge Kavanaugh is how hard-working he had been. He would say, 'Brett was always in his chair when I'd get here in the morning. He was always in his chair at his desk when I'd leave at night. I'd say, 'Brett, you work too hard. You need to go home.' But then I'd come back in the morning and he'd be right there in his chair,'" said Walker. As a result of Kavanaugh's work ethic, Walker says he really didn't need his clerks to do a lot of work but he did include them in robust discussion about the cases. "He always wanted to know what the law says. What does the text say? I'm quite sure he never asked his clerks, 'What do you think is the best policy outcome for this case?," said Walker. "He wanted us to dig deep with him in terms of trying to figure out the meaning of the law, starting with the text and then going to structure, precedent, history, all the tools a judge with solid legal principles uses in order to try to find the right answer," said Walker. And Walker says Kavanaugh leaves his own opinions out of decisions as well. "I know Judge Kavanaugh believes it's the job of the judge to say what the law is and not what the law should be. Judges should not be in the business of inventing law that they think would make the world a better place," said Walker. "He approached every issue without passion or prejudice for any party or any political outcome." Walker says Kavanaugh also has deep reverence for judicial precedent, as one can read in the judge's 1,000-page book "The Law of Judicial Precedents." "What I saw in page after page and chapter after chapter is Judge Kavanaugh talking about the importance of respect for judicial precedents and that the virtues of having that respect include keeping the law settled, promoting consistency, promoting predictability and furthering the rule of law. "That's not to say there aren't extraordinary circumstances when a precedent should be overruled," said Walker, noting critical reversals in history such as Brown v. Board of Education reversed the "separate but equal" logic of Plessy v. Ferguson. "Only under extraordinary circumstances should a precedent be overrruled. That's what Judge Kavanaugh says in his book. He says in the book that a change in the court's personnel should not throw former decisions open to reconsideration," said Walker. |
| 'It Is Exactly the Kind of Judge that We Need' |
| Wed, 11 Jul 2018 17:03:35 EST Brett Kavanaugh may not have been the first choice of social conservatives for the Supreme Court, but a leading voice in the Christian legal community is applauding the choice and hopes Kavanaugh will help take the court out of the business of policymaking. President Trump tapped Kavanaugh, a 12-year veteran of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, for the Supreme Court seat held by the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Many social conservatives championed Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the nomination, but Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver is thrilled with the choice. "It is exactly the kind of judge we need on the U.S. Supreme Court," said Staver. "His credentials are impeccable. He is exceptionally qualified to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court as a justice. "From a judicial philosophy standpoint, I think that is really what is of interest to most social conservatives or most people that are interested in the court and the rule of law," said Staver. Staver says he was very impressed with Kavanaugh's 2017 speech in which he explained why the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist was his "first judicial hero." "He ultimately wanted to bring the court away from social policymaking, which it's not supposed to do or be, to a rule of law entity, which is exactly what it's supposed to do," said Staver. Kavanaugh has drawn concern from some social conservatives for stating in his confirmation hearings for the appellate court that he considers Roe v. Wade to be an established precedent. Staver says it is a mistake to conflate the role of an appellate court judge with a Supreme Court justice. "[Appellate judges] have to follow the law as it's been established by the U.S. Supreme Court, but a Supreme Court justice can actually have the opportunity to overrule bad precedent," said Staver. Another concern on the right is Kavanaugh's 2011 decision siding with the government on a technical issue related to challenge to Obamacare. Again, Staver says the concern is unfounded. Staver says the decision in question dealt only with whether it was appropriate for the court to take up the issue at that point, and that Kavanaugh was not addressing the merits of the law. "Had he ruled on the merits, based on his judicial philosophy, he would not say that the commerce clause authorizes the government to force people to purchase a product or service. He's actually said that before and even after that particular decision," said Staver. Staver was not a fan of Donald Trump during the 2016 GOP primary season but supported him in the general election against Hillary Clinton due to the Supreme Court seat vacated upon the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Now that Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch, who now sits on the court, as well as Kavanaugh, Staver says his trust in Trump's nominations was well-founded. "President Donald Trump has kept his promise. A lot of people voted for him because of the U.S. Supreme Court," said Staver. Staver doesn't want Kavanaugh to join the court and make policy favorable to conservatives. He wants the court to get out of that business altogether. "It needs to get out of politics. It needs to get out of social policymaking and the right justices can extricate the Supreme Court from social policymaking and put it back to where it's supposed to be , an institution that respects and follows the rule of law," said Staver. However, Staver expects a vicious political fight precisely because he believes liberals want the court to keep making social policy they can't advance legislatively. He also warns that George Soros and others will likely bankroll groups posing as conservatives opposed to Kavanaugh in order to create division on the right. "I think there's even going to be false, so-called conservative groups that are created by the left and make it look like there's a division within conservatives and those that believe in the rule of law," said Staver. |
| Trump Has 'Upper Hand' in Disarming North Korean Nukes |
| Mon, 9 Jul 2018 15:38:39 EST North Korea is bristling at American the verification demands for the dismantling of its nuclear program, but one prominent expert believes the Trump administration's hardball tactics got Kim Jong-Un to the negotiating table and will likely lead to him truly abandoning his nukes as well. Over the weekend, North Korea accused Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of engaging in "gangster" tactics for making a number of unilateral demands for North Korean disarmament. The negotiations themselves followed international reports that North Korea was upgrading its primary enrichment site at Yongbyon and two other facilities. There is also evidence that North Korea is moving forward with its ballistic missile program. Population Research Institute President Steven Mosher doesn't see North Korean cheating as evidence that the deal is collapsing but as proof the Trump administration intends to see the entire nuclear program reduced to rubble. "I think the Trump administration is leaking intelligence reports to the media in order to put Kim Jong-Un on notice that we are watching," said Mosher. "We're putting Kim and his people on notice that if they do not tell us exactly where all the missile launch and manufacturing sites are, all the centrifuges are, all the nuclear sites, all the nukes they may have in storage somewhere," said Mosher. And despite the North Korean pushback on Trump's tactics, Mosher is confident Kim will ultimately comply. "My guess is that he is (going to go along with nuclear disarming). I hope he understands that the sanctions will not be lifted unless he denuclearizes. He knows, I think, that the president has his number. I think that's why the U.S. has the upper hand in these negotiations," said Mosher. Mosher says Trump caught Kim off guard by not communicating in the same manner as his predecessors. He says Trump's threatening Kim with "fire and fury" and comparing the sizes of their nuclear buttons appears to have rattled Kim. He also asserts that Trump promising to help revitalize the North Korean economy once the nukes are gone is a major attraction for Kim. But even if all of that happens, Mosher says the Kim regime's days are numbered. "[Trump] made clear in Singapore that he can make life in North Korea much easier. Kim Jong-Un can stay in power. His economy can develop and his people will be much better off. "Now think about his other options. I believe we'll see other steps taken to lock up the North Korean regime inside the hermit kingdom that it really is. That will eventually lead to the collapse of the regime," said Mosher. One of the other options is for Kim to demonstrate the power of his arsenal with a desperate pre-emptive strike on the U.S. or one our allies in the region. Mosher says that would be a colossal mistake. "If he tries some sort of pre-emptive strike against the South, that would only accelerate this process. He would be driven back. The Chinese would be forced to intervene again. He would be signing his death warrant and all but inviting China to absorb his half-kingdom," said Mosher. Even though China keeps North Korea afloat economically, there's no great love for the Chinese in Pyongyang. Mosher points out that the government forces women impregnated by Chinese men to undergo abortions so as not to pollute the race. But China is another reason Mosher thinks Kim will eventually play ball and get rid of his nuclear program. He says Trump has China in a position of weakness as well. "We've caught China cheating on the sanctions a half dozen times already. We caught them cheating on land when the trucks and the trains were still going into North Korea carrying Chinese goods. We caught them at see when they were doing at-sea fuel transfers and goods transfers. Satellite photos showed they were Chinese ships doing the cheating. "And we caught them again just a couple of weeks ago, when Chinese businesses were rushing into North Korea, anticipating the lifting of the sanctions. We said, 'Wait a minute. The sanctions are still in place.' Beijing has ordered all the companies and their representatives back to China," said Mosher. Mosher says China is also cautious about flouting sanctions due to the resurgent American economy. "The American economy may grow faster than the Chinese economy this year. They're claiming six percent growth but that probably a 30 percent exaggeration. The real growth is about four percent. They have an aging population because of the one-child policy, a shrinking workforce. "They have huge government corruption and they have off the books debt that is just enormous, probably 300 percent of GDP," said Mosher. So what are the demands that have North Korea so upset over the past few days? Mosher hopes Pompeo is leaving no wiggle room for Kim to cheat on his promises. "You have to have verified, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea. We have to have American teams of inspectors going in there, unrestricted by any conditions of when you can visit a site and how often you can visit a site and where you can go. "We've denuclearized countries before. We went into Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union and de-nuked that country in a couple of years. We know how to do it if we have access," said Mosher. If North Korea fails to allow that kind of access or reneges on it's promises, Mosher says the consequences should be severe. "I think the sanctions can be tightened even further. We have to make sure that China's not cheating. Russia needs to be sidelined as well. They're both spoilers. They've violated the sanctions regime in the past. If we're not watching and putting pressure on them, they'll violate the sanctions regime in the future. "I think we also have to ask countries to send the North Korean workers home who are working in their countries. That's a big source of revenue for Pyongyang," said Mosher. He also says the U.S. could put the North Korean economy in a vise grip to compel compliance. "Finally, I think we need to consider blockading North Korean ports to stop North Korean trade through the oceans. If we do that, we can then sit back and watch the North Korean economy gradually grind to a halt. That, if anything, will bring Kim Jong-Un back to the negotiating table to get serious this time," added Mosher. |
| Iranian Regime to Fall Within Year or Two? |
| Thu, 5 Jul 2018 16:30:42 EST Authorities in four European nations foiled a terrorist plot against an Iranian resistance rally in Paris, and a key figure in the resistance says Iran is right to be worried about regime change, hinting all the pieces are in place for the mullahs to be toppled within the next year or two. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal and other sources reported multiple arrests were made in connection with an attempted terrorist attack against last weekend's "Free Iran" rally. An Iranian diplomat based in Austria is heavily implicated in the plot. Alireza Jafarzadeh is deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, which is preparing to lead Iran if regime change can be achieved. He is grateful to the authorities for stopping an attack that would have left "huge crowds" vulnerable. He says it's also a signal to the world that Iran is not like other nations. "It was a warning to the rest of the world that you cannot allow the Iranian regime's embassies to operate where they are operating," said Jafarzadeh. However, he also says the Iranian government is lashing out against his group out of well-founded fear grounded in swelling discontent inside the country. "You can imagine how desperate the Iranian regime is on one hand. The majority of the 80 million population are very discontented with this regime and they want change. They're chanting in the streets of Iran, 'Death to Khamenei' and 'Death to Rouhani,' calling for an end to the religious theocracy in Iran," said Jafarzadeh. The chants referred to Ayatollah Ali Khameini and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Jafarzadeh says the protests that made headlines at the beginning of 2018 are still going on and are even intensifying in some areas. Shortly, before the resistance rally in Paris, demonstrators even took to the streets of Tehran. Jafarzadeh firmly believes a smooth transition to a much better system could happen if the NCRI were to replace the mullahs and Rouhani. "(The NCRI) has called for the suppression of church and state (being intertwined as one), ballot boxes being the only criteria for legitimacy. It's called for freedom of speech, freedom of political parties, gender equality, religious tolerance, peace in the Middle East, a free-market economy, and a non-nuclear Iran," said Jafarzadeh. He says the resistance is so well-organized that Iran would not face the same destabilizing crises as Egypt and Libya should the current Iranian regime be ousted. Jafarzadeh says the resistance group MEK is spearheading the internal unrest, which is made easier my the wretched economic conditions in Iran and the realization that all economic gains are gobbled up by the regime, especially the Iranian Republican Guard Corps. But he also calls on the U.S. and other nations to suffocate the regime with sanctions and provide demonstrators with hope. "You also want to send a message of encouragement to the population that is coming to the streets. You want them to feel that they are not alone. The world is watching them as well as watching the regime," said Jafarzadeh. He says the conditions are ripe for the collapse of the current regime and he suspects it may not take long. "The next year or so or even less will be absolutely crucial for the process of regime change in Iran," said Jafarzadeh. |
| Trump SCOTUS List 'An Embarrassment of Riches' |
| Tue, 3 Jul 2018 16:21:00 EST President Trump plans to announce his choice to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court Monday, and grassroots activists are ready to promote and defend whomever Trump chooses from his public list of potential nominees. On Monday, Trump reportedly interviewed four people for the job, including Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Raymond Kethledge and Amul Thapar from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Brett Kavanaugh of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel Carrie Severino says the most important thing is that everyone on Trump's list has the right view of a judge's role. "The most important thing is this is going to be someone is faithful to the law, is faithful to the Constitution. We're not looking for a specific outcome in any one case or the other. You want someone who is going to keep those principles first and foremost," said Severino. In the past week since Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his impending retirement, Democrats have alternated among demanding no confirmation vote be held until after the midterm elections to lamenting that one more originalist on the court will mean catastrophe for every liberal priority. "It's really a hysterical list. Everyone take a deep breath and try to look at the actual facts on the ground. As it happens, all these people are excellent and have great records of upholding the Constitution and reading the laws as they're written," said Severino. So what does Severino think of the names on the list and the four candidates screened by Trump this week? "You've got the constitutional legal scholar in Amy Coney Barrett. You've got Amul Thapar who's got district court experience as well as now being an appellate court judge. He was even a short-lister and interviewed by the president for Justice Gorsuch's spot. So he's obviously been in the running for awhile. "And then two Kennedy clerks, Judges Kethledge and Kavanaugh, both of whom have long track records on the bench and both of whom are incredibly highly regarded in their fields. It's really an embarrassment of riches. I think I could be in love with any of these nominees," said Severino. When discussing the intense liberal reaction to Trump getting the chance to name the justice to succeed Justice Kennedy, Severino admits she was filled with dread in early 2016 when it appeared President Obama would have the chance to name a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia. That was before Senate Republicans insisted on waiting until the election was over before considering a nominee. However, Severino also says the corollary to Obama naming a replacement for Scalia would be for Trump to name a successor for someone like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She says the outrage over Trump choosing a justice following Kennedy's retirement is is far too hysterical. "Justice Kennedy, yes he was a swing vote, but he swung much more often with the conservatives. A couple of the recent terms were pretty discouraging for conservatives but this term he voted 100 percent with the conservative bloc," said Severino. She also says many Americans might be surprised to learn which justice Kennedy was closest to in his opinions. "The justice he aligned the most with was Justice (Neil) Gorsuch and vice versa. It turns out that for all the hysteria of this is going to have such a huge, dramatic impact on the court, it turns out that you couldn't have picked a better justice to mimic Justice Kennedy. So if we get a similar pick to Gorsuch, then any liberal worried about keeping Kennedy's legacy alive should be happy," said Severino. With just a 51-49 majority and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., unlikely to be able to vote, Republicans cannot afford any defections. In addition, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, now says she cannot support a nominee who could pose a threat to Roe v. Wade. Nonetheless, Severino is confident that Collins and other moderate Republicans will stay in line. She says its the Democrats who have the real dilemma. "They have to decide if they're going to stand with the president's nominee who is clearly, from the list we're looking at, going to be an outstanding pick for the Supreme Court, or are they going to align themselves with a liberal fringe in the Democrat Party, and vote lockstep with Chuck Schumer. "That might play well in California, in Massachusetts, in New York. I don't know how that plays in West Virginia, Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri, Montana," said Severino. Ten senators are running for re-election in states carried by Trump in 2016. The five states mentioned by Severino went for Trump by wide margins. |
| 'They Don't Want Immigration Enforcement at All' |
| Fri, 29 Jun 2018 16:36:04 EST A growing number of elected Democrats are now on record in wanting to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, a development that one immigration law expert believes has exposed the desire among many liberals to have fully open borders. The trend started on Wednesday after avowed socialist Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez defeated 10-term Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., in a stunning congressional primary. Reporters discovered Ocasio-Cortez wants to abolish ICE. She publicly defended that position, saying ICE has run far off course by separating parent and children entering the U.S. illegally. Thursday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., echoed Ocasio-Cortez in supporting the abolition of ICE, appalled that the agency is acting like a "deportation force." On Friday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his solidarity as well, and "Abolish ICE" posters were frequently seen at rallies around the country over the weekend denouncing President Trump's immigration policies. Center for Immigration Studies Research Fellow Andrew Arthur helped write the homeland security legislation that created ICE in the wake of 9/11. He says the Democrats are just trying to score political points. "This is just a political stunt. This is all political theater," said Arthur. "Blaming ICE for immigration enforcement is sort of like blaming the janitor for the mess that you left if you're a member of Congress. They created the laws. They can change the laws," said Arthur. But Arthur firmly believes that Democrats do want open borders. "They don't want immigration enforcement at all. There's no other way to explain it," said Arthur. He says such a policy move would lead for a human tidal wave at our southern border since word would spread quickly that getting into the U.S. would guarantee they get to stay. He also says it would lead to a massive increase in Mexican drug cartels pushing their products across the border. The calls for abolishing ICE come on the heels of a passionate debate over ICE enforcing existing law which requires parents and children to be separated while the parents are prosecuted for an illegal border crossing. Arthur stresses ICE is doing the job it was created to do. "Immigration and Customs Enforcement performs many critical tasks. They counter trafficking in the United States, child smuggling. They go after foreign corruption, and they enforce the immigration laws of the United States. To say that they've suddenly become a vast deportation force is to say they are exactly what they were when they were set up," said Arthur. Arthur says the immigration laws being enforced exist for a very simple reason. "First and foremost, the immigration laws exist to protect the wages and working conditions of working Americans. That's not just United States citizens, but it also includes aliens who are lawfully here," said Arthur. Democrats are already touting legislation to abolish ICE. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., is planning legislation that is short on details but would establish a commission to determine what duties ICE should be performing. Arthur says that ambiguity is at the heart of the problem. "They just don't want immigration enforcement. They don't like the idea of it but they really haven't thought through the ramifications of their proposals or their ideas," said Arthur. For his part Pocan, wants borders enforced for the purposes of stopping terrorists but is staunchly opposed to removing people from the country because they came here illegally. The Democrats are looking to benefit from the family separation controversy in the midterm elections, and Arthur admits the images from the border have been difficult to watch. However, he says Democrats are in for a big surprise if they think calling for the abolition of ICE will play well all over America. "I'm supportive of the president's policies but the optics of it were very bad. There was no way to avoid that. [Democrats] are now taking that policy and taking it way too far to an extreme. I think that's actually going to turn off independent voters who understand there is a reason why we have immigration laws in the United States," said Arthur. |
| Kennedy Responsible for Some 'Real Horrible Decisions' |
| Thu, 28 Jun 2018 16:55:28 EST As Washington gears up for one of the most contentious Supreme Court nominations in recent memory, many political figures and pundits are applauding the tenure of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, but Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says Kennedy leaves a dark legacy on the moral fabric of America. Shortly after the news of Kennedy's retirement was announced, President Trump lavished praise on Kennedy. "He's been a great justice of the Supreme Court," said Trump. "He is a man who has displayed great vision. He's displayed tremendous vision and tremendous heart." And Staver admits that Kennedy has been a key voice and a vital vote on critical issues, including this month's rulings in favor of Christian cake baker Jack Phillips and crisis pregnancy centers in California. Kennedy also authored a stinging dissent against the decision from Chief Justice John Roberts that saved Obamacare. "Certainly, he was on the right side of many cases and even the most recent cases that came out of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was a fifth vote in that particular case or cases and made a huge difference," said Staver. But he says the cases where Kennedy got things badly wrong leave a lasting impact. "I'm going to remember Justice Kennedy for some of the real horrible decisions that he ultimately inflicted because they have caused significant harm and even death," said Staver. "Between the LGBT agenda, culminating in the marriage decision, and particularly the abortion decisions, that really is the legacy of Justice Kennedy." On abortion, Kennedy ruled both for and against federal bans on partial-birth abortions, striking down the legislation in 2000 but upholding it in 2007. However, it's Kennedy's role in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that deeply distresses Staver. That case gave justices the opportunity to solidify or reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions that legalized abortion nationwide. Staver says Kennedy was initially part of a majority that would have reversed those rulings. "For thirty days, (then-Chief Justice William) Rehnquist was writing the opinion and Kennedy was right there with him. But he succumbed to lobbying pressure from Justices (Sandra Day) O'Connor, and (David) Souter. After 30 days, he changed his mind," said Staver. "He flipped from the five in the majority to overrule the abortion case to flipping it and the minority became the majority. Five individuals ultimately voted to uphold the abortion decisions, albeit somewhat modified," said Staver. He says Kennedy bears significant responsibility for the abortions since that day. "The babies who have lost their lives since 1992, Justice Kennedy is the reason for that. He is the reason for the people who have lost their lives and all the families that have been broken," said Staver. Kennedy also took the lead in multiple decisions related to the LGBT agenda. He authored the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision striking down state sodomy laws and the 2013 United States v. Windsor ruling which struck down key portions of the Defense of Marriage Act. His majority opinion two years later in Obergefell v Hodges declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. "In June 2015, he authored a horrible decision that has no basis in the Constitution, no basis in the court's precedents - just an imposition of his will - in which he overturned marriage laws that understood the natural definition and order of marriage being between two people of opposite sex. He struck it down and ushered in so-called same-sex marriage," said Staver. As the Senate braces for a monumental political fight over Kennedy's successor, Kennedy's place on the high court also resulted from a nasty political fight. In 1987, President Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, but the nomination went down to defeat after a fierce Democratic opposition led by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. Kennedy was ultimately Reagan's third choice. Staver says history would be much different if Bork had been confirmed. "What a big difference the decisions would have been if Robert Bork had been confirmed instead of Kennedy," said Staver. "If you would have had Bork on the bench in 1992, you wouldn't have abortion from 1992 to the present. You wouldn't have same-sex marriage from 2015 to the present," said Staver. President Trump will likely announce a nominee within the next few weeks and says it will come from his public list of 25 possible choices. While Staver says the list is generally strong, some are preferable to others. "No, I'm not mostly fine with whoever the president chooses. Each one of these have to be individually vetted. Not everybody is at the same level as (Justice Neil) Gorsuch," said Staver. "We need to have another person just like that, who has that commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution." Staver would not name any preferences for the nomination but he did single out one name he would be very disappointed to see in appeals court judge William Pryor. "Pryor's on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He had some bad decisions with regards to the LGBT agenda, where he injected an activist viewpoint on his particular decision," said Staver. He says Trump and Senate Republicans have to get this pick right, as a litany of critical issues could come before the court in the coming years. "If they do, abortion will become history. We will stop the bloodshed of innocent children. We need to make sure we have the right person with that judicial philosophy," said Staver. "The clash between the LGBT agenda and religious freedom and free speech, all these different things, plus more. The second amendment, so many other things. Our basic freedoms are on the line," said Staver. |
| SCOTUS Smacks Down Unions on First Amendment Grounds |
| Wed, 27 Jun 2018 16:27:48 EST The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday rendered a sweeping decision that frees non-members from having to pay dues to public sector unions, a ruling that overturns a previous decision and could be financially lethal to organized labor. In a 5-4 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, Justice Samuel Alito said the ruling had to be broad because of the fundamental free speech questions involved. "States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees," wrote Alito. "This procedure violates the first amendment and cannot continue." Wednesday's verdict formally overturned the court's 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision, that said unions could extract some fees from the paychecks of non-members, but not for political purposes. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation represented Illinois government employee Mark Janus before the Supreme Court. The group's president, Mark Mix, says the past 41 years proved the previous decision simply didn't solve the problem. "This regulatory structure is unworkable and that this case deserves what is called strict scrutiny in the legal process. That means this is a question of pure first amendment rights. "Everything government unions do is political. They're telling government how to allocate their resources so we went from this Solomon-like decision of splitting the baby to slicing the bologna ever thinner and trying to regulate it in even more and greater ways to throwing up their hands, saying, 'You know what? We're doing this wrong. Let's get to the basic question of the first amendment,'" said Mix. "They did that today and what they said is government employees across the nation have a first amendment right against being forced to pay fees as a condition of their employment," he added. The Supreme Court has taken up the issue six times since the Abood decision. In a 2012 case, the court was examining a narrower question but Mix says Alito noted then that broader questions had to be addressed. Justice Elena Kagan authored the primary dissent in the Janus case, arguing that the majority was meddling in a process that ought to play out for itself. "It wanted to pick the winning side in what should be -- and until now has been -- an energetic policy debate," she wrote. "Today, that healthy -- that democratic -- debate ends. The majority has adjudged who should prevail." Mix is not swayed. "Justice Kagan doesn't realize that we've had literally hundreds of lawsuits across the country at every level of government on this issue and every level of the court system on this issue. She probably hasn't seen the frustration from judges across the entire country who have tried to sort out what the court said in the Abood case and what's in and what's out. "So this robust debate that she talks about is just ridiculous. This is about a scheme that union officials have enjoyed for 40 years and giving them the privilege to extract money from workers who never wanted them, never asked for them, and never voted for them and now that's over," said Mix. During oral arguments earlier this year, Kagan stopped National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorney Bill Messenger presentation to ask about the union reliance on those dues. "What our attorney said is you can't rely on anything that violates the first amendment. If you've relied on it in the past, it's been wrong and they got it right this time. So to Justice Kagan, the needs of the many don't outweigh the rights of the few," said Mix. Mix says this decision does not gut unions as organized labor activists contend, since non-members are free to give as much of their income as they want to the public sector unions. Critics of this decision also insist non-members ought to pay some dues since they benefit from the collective bargaining conducted by the unions. Mix rejects that argument, noting that collective bargaining often results in wages being allocated by seniority rather than productivity or skill. "The fact of the matter is if these workers could speak for themselves, often times many of them would do better than the monopoly power that union officials have had over them and continue to have over them in states that allow them to be the only voice for workers in the marketplace," said Mix. So what comes next in this fight between organized labor and the right to work movement? Taking this same fight to the private sector. "The next step is to end forced fees across the entire country, whether we do it state by state or Congress goes into a 1935 New Deal piece of federal legislation that (Franklin) Roosevelt jammed through the Congress and jammed through the Supreme Court that forces private sector workers to pay dues to get or keep a job. We can strike that down too. That's the next battle," said Mix. |
| SCOTUS Speech Ruling 'A Great Victory for All Americans' |
| Tue, 26 Jun 2018 16:55:55 EST The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a pro-life crisis pregnancy center, shooting down part of a California law that had required such centers to inform patients about abortion services, a mandate the court rejected as compelled speech. It was a 5-4 decision, with the court's four liberals opposed.. In the case of National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out the state was requiring the clinics to deliver a message they explicitly oppose. In a concurring opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy saw the case as a clear issue of free speech, calling it a "a paradigmatic example of the serious threat presented when government seeks to impose its own message in the place of individual speech, thought and expression." The plaintiff was represented by Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF Legal Counsel Elissa Graves says the court got this one spot on. "Today was a great victory for all Americans. The Supreme Court affirmed today that the government cannot force you to speak a message that conflict with your very reason for existing. "The State of California here used it's power to try to force pro-life pregnancy centers - and only pro-life pregnancy centers - to promote abortion. The Supreme Court today said that they can't do that consistent with the first amendment," said Graves. Graves elaborated on how California's FACT Act singled out pro-life pregnancy centers on this issue. "The law was gerrymandered in such a way as to only apply to pro-life centers. It exempted centers that provided certain services, which included things like birth control and abortafacient contraceptives, things that pro-life pregnancy centers do not wish to provide, because it promoted abortion. They drafted it in this way, so it only applied to a pro-life viewpoint," said Graves. Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor wrote dissenting opinions. In reading a summary of the disagreement with the majority opinion, Breyer said the pro-life centers were actually getting special treatment. "If a state can lawfully require a doctor to tell a woman seeking an abortion about adoption services ... why should it not be able to require a medical counselor to tell a woman seeking prenatal care about childbirth and abortion services?" stated Breyer. Graves says the liberals on the court are comparing apples and oranges. She says Breyer was describing what's known as informed consent, which patients sign off on prior to a specific procedure, and that is different than what California was requiring from pro-life clinics. "As Justice Thomas noted in the opinion here, this disclaimer (informing about abortion services) is before any sort of procedure is contemplated. It has to be presented to everyone as soon as they walk in the door. "It's not in any way connected to medical services, and that's the difference. This is not an informed consent provision but a compelled speech provision," said Graves. It's the second major win at the Supreme Court this month for Alliance Defending Freedom. It also represented Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop against the State of Colorado after courts in that state ruled Phillips did not have the right to refuse custom decoration of a cake for a same-sex wedding. In that case, the high court ruled 7-2 in favor of Phillips, but limited the scope of the decision to his mistreatment by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission as opposed to a broader ruling about freedom of conscience or free religious expression. Nonetheless, Graves says the court delivered a vital, consistent message in these decisions. "Both 'Masterpiece' and today in NIFLA, the court has consistently held that the government cannot express a hostility towards expressions of faith, that this is unconstitutional. That's exactly what 'Masterpiece' said with Jack's treatment by the Colorado Civil Right Commission and that's what they said today with the way the State of California treated pro-life Christian pregnancy centers," said Graves. The Supreme Court is sending another high profile case back to a lower court for reconsideration. The justices declined to hear the appeal of Washington florist Baronelle Stutzman, who was sued and punished by the state for refusing to provide floral arrangements for longtime customers for their same-sex ceremony. However, they did order the Washington Supreme Court to look at the case again in light of the "Masterpiece" decision. "They will have to use that clear ruling in 'Masterpiece' that you cannot have this hostility toward religion in evaluating her case," said Graves. |
| Waters' Call for Confrontation 'Terrifying and Shocking' |
| Mon, 25 Jun 2018 17:02:08 EST Republicans and even top Democrats are condemning Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., for urging Trump administration critics to gather crowds to confront cabinet officials in public places, a call that a prominent political and media commentator sees as on the brink of "incitement." As the intense debate over family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border unfolded, protesters chased Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Trump adviser Stephen Miller from separate restaurants. More recently, owners of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave their establishment. On Saturday, Rep. Waters urged supporters to crank up the pressure. "If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, at a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them," Waters said through a bullhorn. "You tell them, they're not welcome anymore, anywhere." American Women's Alliance President Gayle Trotter, who is also a regular panelist on the Fox News Channel's "Media Buzz" program, says comments like those raise political tensions to a dangerous level. "It's terrifying and shocking that a sitting congress member would rile the crowd up like that. One of our most esteemed constitutional rights is the first amendment that protects political speech. But this speech by Maxine Waters almost goes to incitement," said Trotter. On Monday, the top two Democrats in Congress denounced the call to confrontation. "No one should call for the harassment of political opponents, that's not right, that's not American," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who also noted that he "understands" the inclination of Democrats to respond in kind to President Trump's "bullying harassment and nastiness." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., struck a similar tone in a tweet. "In the crucial months ahead, we must strive to make America beautiful again. Trump 19s daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable. As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity from sea to shining sea," tweeted Pelosi. Trotter is not impressed. "Pelosi's comment is equivalent to saying, 'Her skirt was too short.' It's trying to pin the blame on the victim, instead of really calling out a member of her caucus and saying this is completely unacceptable." said Trotter, who wonders why Pelosi won't call on Waters to resign . But are these confrontations a result of high passions over immigration policy or the inevitable progression of a toxic political culture? "This seems to be a progression that is getting more dangerous all the time," said Trotter. And while Waters' comments are getting quite a bit of media attention, Trotter says if the political tables were turned, liberals and the media would be howling in protest. She points to the New York Times and others blaming Sarah Palin, without basis, for the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords while seeing no larger issues in the Waters comments even as another Homeland Security official found a decapitated and burned animal on his front porch. "In past circumstances, the press has made up these types of examples. Yet here, if you go to the editorial page of the New York Times, there were no [columns] there talking about the danger of this effort to target anybody in the Trump administration," said Trotter. Trotter sees a troubling transition as incendiary words turn into actions against Trump administration personnel. She also thinks a lot of these protesters are looking for their fifteen minutes of fame, pointing out the restaurant owners who kicked out Sanders and her family had to know their actions would make news. "It seems like it's not only disagreements about politics, but it's also to the point where people are doing things just to get 24/7 media attention. This is failing to underscore that the left is failing to practice what they preach. They talk about tolerance and yet we don't see people condemning violence in the face of political disagreement," said Trotter. She says there's nothing wrong with intense political disagreement, but it needs to stay within the confines that our founders intended. "Robust political debate is what made this country great. Instead, what wee have now are people on the left who are promoting this mob mentality. It's a disturbing pattern of intolerance," said Trotter. |
| 'Health Reform is Not Dead' |
| Fri, 15 Jun 2018 17:28:29 EST Grassroots activists and state officials are making another push to "repeal and replace" Obamacare, and a leading figure in the effort believes there is a 50-50 chance it can get passed before the midterm elections. "Health reform is not dead," said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner, who has been working with other activists to revive the effort ever since the Senate failed to advance legislation last summer. They plan to hold a press conference outlining their reform principles this coming week. "Next Wednesday afternoon, here in Washington, with a number of governors, state legislators and others," she said. Turner says this new approach builds upon a last-minute effort by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., that would move much of the authority to make health care policy out of Washington. "It's based upon the chassis of Graham-Cassidy with block grants to the states but with a lot of refinements that make this a much better bill," said Turner. "We need to move resources and authority back to the states to heal their health insurance markets that have been broken by Obamacare." What would her preferred legislation actually look like? "Basically we're saying this money that's currently going to insurance companies, dumping more and more money into Medicaid, these sort of open-ended entitlements. Let us turn those into a block grant and distribute that money among the different states and give them more flexibility in how they spend that money in order to provide better choices for health insurance and lower costs," said Turner. Turner says there would still be federal subsidies associated with the plan to help people afford private, commercially available health insurance. There would also be funds for patients facing chronic illness or major events like organ transplants. She adds that the individual market was badly hurt by Obamacare, despite endless promises to the contrary. "We actually have no more people covered in the individual market today than we did before Obamacare passed. We spent all this money. We have turned our health care system upside down and no [additional[ people have private health insurance. "Yes, there are more people covered (overall), but the great majority of them are on Medicaid which, as we know, is a terrible program for people," said Turner, noting Medicaid patients have a terrible time finding primary physicians who will see them and certain specialists are also almost impossible to get." She says legislation grounded in the ideas she is pushing would open many more doors for patients. "People need the option of private coverage, quality coverage, that gives them not only access to coverage, but actually access to care," said Turner. But will activism among the grassroots and the state level get Congress to take up this issue so close to Election Day? "We believe the Senate is going to take our recommendations seriously and hopefully we'll be able to move this forward. We think there are a lot of forces that are going to bring them back to health reform this summer, even though they'd really like to do something else," said Turner. Turner is also buoyed by the news that the Senate will remain in session for most of August and is confident Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will bring the issue to the floor if he knows there are 50 votes to pass it. Republicans would once again need to approve the reconciliation process for the debate since there is no chance of getting 60 votes for the legislation. We think it won't be very hard to get it through the House. The Senate is really where the focus will be over the next several weeks," said Turner. "I'm pretty optimistic. I'd give it a 50-50 chance, which is a lot more than most people on Capitol Hill would give it," she said. |
| Rosenstein's Clear Conflict of Interest |
| Thu, 14 Jun 2018 16:22:33 EST While Washington digests the long-awaited report on the performance of the FBI and Justice Department during the 2016 campaign, separate revelations convince former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein must recuse himself from the Mueller investigation over a clear conflict of interest. McCarthy's conclusion follows a Fox News report that Rosenstein has threatened to subpoena emails, phone records, and other data from lawmakers and congressional staffers in response to the withering criticism from Republicans over Rosenstein's failure to produce documents they have subpoenaed. "He's clearly in an untenable situation, even if this had not happened," said McCarthy, who led the prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plans to attack other New York City landmarks. He says Rosenstein cannot possible oversee an investigation in which he is a critical witness. "It's been obvious for awhile now, really since the day that he appointed Mueller, since that event was triggered by Comey's dismissal. Rosenstein has always been an essential witness if you're going to investigate Comey's dismissal as a potential criminal violation," said McCarthy, who adds he sees no reason for such an inquiry. "It's pretty black letter conflict of interest law that where an attorney is an actor in the facts of an investigation, he can't as a lawyer for one of the parties in the case. It's a conflict of interest that can't be solved," said McCarthy. McCarthy says Rosenstein is further entangled by playing conflicting roles as Congress examines how the Obama administration observed or surveilled the 2016 Trump campaign.. "You have a bunch of FISA warrants that were issued, the last one of which was issued on the approval of Rosenstein himself. So he's yet again in a position of acting as the attorney general in connection with an investigation where his own behavior is the subject of scrutiny," said McCarthy. According to McCarthy, Rosenstein was well within his rights to initially go slow in releasing classified documents to Congress and even making an argument as to why some of the requested documents should not be turned over. But he says Rosenstein now appears to be running out the clock. "It's now gotten to the point where this is really over-the-top stonewalling," said McCarthy, who stresses that the Justice Department does not have the power to ignore congressional demands. "They cannot be beyond oversight and scrutiny. Basically, the position they're taking is that they're an unaccountable fourth branch of government, and that's simply not acceptable," he said. And it's those allegedly glaring conflicts of interest that McCarthy suspects has Rosenstein frazzled and lashing out with threats against lawmakers and their aides. "It ratchets up the scrutiny that you're under and you're apt to make mistakes and to do the sort of things it's now been reported that he's done, including flying off the handle in a very inappropriate way with [congressional] investigators," said McCarthy. A Rosenstein recusal would likely trigger a political uproar in Washington. The oversight for the Mueller probe would fall to the solicitor general, the number three official at the Justice Department. And while the move would result in many unanswered questions, McCarthy says Rosenstein's responsibility is to do the right thing. "When you're making a decision about conflict of interest, the question you're supposed to answer as a lawyer is, 'Do I have a conflict of interest?' It's obviously a matter of importance what happens after you're gone, but if you're disqualified, you're disqualified. "The question of whether you have a conflict or you don't have a conflict doesn't hinge on whether it's going to be difficult to replace you or not," said McCarthy. |
| Chemistry vs. Hard Reality |
| Tue, 12 Jun 2018 16:37:14 EST President Trump and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un were all smiles at the summit, agreed to written terms and some unwritten ones, and publicly lavished praise on one another, and veteran Cold War expert is concerned about what this meeting will mean going forward. "It could be the triumph in personal chemistry over hard reality," said Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, who also served as a Defense Department official in the Reagan administration. He says relying on personal chemistry with rogue dictators doesn't have a successful track record. "Often times it doesn't work out very well, particularly in the case of ruthless and wholly unreliable totalitarians," said Gaffney. Trump and Kim agreed to four written points and two that did not make it into the formal document. They agreed to pursue new and peaceful relations with one another and for the Korean peninsula, Kim agreed "to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," although no specifics were discussed to verify he is making good on those promises. And North Korea will begin sending home the remains of Americans lost during the Korean War. In addition, Kim will dismantle elements of his missile program and the United States will suspend joint military exercises with South Korea. Gaffney is not impressed. "I'm concerned about the gap between what was indicated would be coming out of this meeting and what actually has in terms of deals," he said. Gaffney is not all happy to see Trump scrap the military exercises or embrace the North Korean, Russian, and Chinese characterization of those exercises as "provocative." Gaffney says those are defensive exercises designed to respond to North Korean aggression. And he says it will be very hard to start them up again even if North Korea starts behaving badly again. "I fear it might make it very hard to restart those exercises should the need arise - and I think it will - especially given the South Korean government's desire to dispense with them altogether," said Gaffney. In addition to wanting a way to verify North Korea's supposed commitment to dismantling its nuclear program, Gaffney says it's hard to "un-invent" a nuclear program and put that genie back in the bottle. He also implores Trump not to make the Korean peninsula "safe for conventional war." "This (agreement) doesn't solve the problem and I don't think President Trump does either. I think he thinks that it is evidence of commitment on the part of Kim Jong-Un that has thus far not been evident," said Gaffney. Gaffney is very pleased that Trump neither relaxed sanctions or made any apparent promises to do so, meaning the maximum pressure campaign is still in place. However, he says Trump needs to get tougher on China over its renewed efforts to circumvent the sanctions. Perhaps most concerning to Gaffney is Trump's effusive praise of Kim, publicly stating it was a great honor to meet with the North Korean dictator, and stating that the man who punishes any dissent with prison or death "loves his people." "I consider him to be one of the world's most horrific tyrants and it's troubling that we find ourselves having to deal with him," said Gaffney, noting that the issue is on Trump's plate because the past three administrations failed to address the issue effectively. Nonetheless, he is not a fan of Trump's kind words. "It is totally regrettable and undesirable in the extreme to be signaling anything other than the way he treats his people is unacceptable," said Gaffney. "Any nation that is so horrifically indifferent to the suffering of its own people is not one that I would trust with the safety of our," he added. |
| 'It's A Win for Voters' |
| Mon, 11 Jun 2018 16:44:11 EST The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that Ohio is not violating federal law through it's new law that removes people from voters rolls after six years if they do not vote during that time or respond to state efforts to verify their residence in the state. The vote was 5-4, with the four liberal justices all dissenting. In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito stated it was only the job of the court to determine if the Ohio policy violated federal law, not whether the policy was a good one. And majority determined federal law was not compromised. "This was a good decision and actually a win for voters," said Hans von Spakovsky, director of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation and a member of last year's White House commission on election integrity. "The ability to clean up voter rolls is essential to ensuring integrity in the election process. The court itself quoted the fact that one out of eight voter registrations in the United States has problems and is inaccurate. This is just another way to make sure states have the tools they need to clean up the rolls," said von Spakovsky. In a stinging concurring dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the majority decision and suggested racial minorities could be disenfranchised by this ruling. She said the five justices on the other side were ignoring "the history of voter suppression against which the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act] was enacted and upholds a program that appears to further the very disenfranchisement of minority and low-income voters that Congress set out to eradicate." Von Spakovsky considers that argument nonsense. "Her thinking is totally illogical and shows what fantasies she's created in her own mind. None of what she said makes any sense. The cleanup rules don't effect certain races more than others," said von Spakovsky. "Her opinion is all emotional thinking with no basis in facts or logic." "[This ruling] only effects people who don't bother to vote and then don't reply to an official notice and saying you still live here. Her saying that is somehow going to effect black voters is a very patronizing attitude," he added. National Review columnist John Fund has also closely studied this issue and co-authored a book with von Spakovsky entitled "Who's Counting: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk." Fund says legislation like Motor Voter and the Help America Vote Act did not achieve their goals of making it easy to vote and hard to commit fraud but hasn't worked out that way given the million of inaccurate or out-of-date records. That's why states like Ohio are taking these steps. As for the allegations of disenfranchisement, Fund notices a curious omission from all the dire projections. "In all of these cases, in whatever state they're filed in, the one thing that seems to be missing are the names of actual victims, people who weren't actually able to vote," said Fund, noting that the Ohio residents reported on as victims of the new law have not voted in over a decade and ignored repeated efforts by the government to verify their status. "At that point, I think the government had the right to say, 'We haven't heard from you. You're not voting, so we're going to clean up the rolls. You have to participate in order to validate your registration,'" said Fund, who points out Ohio residents can literally register to vote by mailing in a postcard. So why are four Supreme Court justices and other liberals reluctant to allow thorough updating of the voter rolls? von Spakovsky suspects out-of-date voter rolls enable voter fraud. Fund thinks they earnestly believe something that isn't true. "They really do sincerely believe that democracy should be just as effective depending on how many people vote, regardless of whether or not they're eligible, whether or not they're real, whether or not they're well-informed. Most Americans, I think, have a very different view," said Fund. While Fund and von Spakovsky point out a dearth of people actually disenfranchised by updating the voter rolls, their critics suggest allegations of rampant voter fraud are also without evidence. "Well, if you don't look for evidence and you don't conduct any steps to find the evidence, you're not going to find any problems," said Fund, who points our Project Veritas has proven how easy it is to vote fraudulently in states that do not require voters to present photo identification. Von Spakovsky says the Heritage Foundation has 1,100 examples of voter fraud in its database and it's getting bigger all the time. "The idea that fraud doesn't occur is just wrong," he said. |
| Simple Solution to Save Medicare, Social Security |
| Wed, 6 Jun 2018 16:13:27 EST Social Security and Medicare are on the path to insolvency sooner than previously thought, and Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., is frustrated that Congress won't act to stave off fiscal disaster when the solution seems obvious to him. On Tuesday, the government announced that on their present courses, Medicare will become insolvent in 2026 and Social Security faces the same fate in 2034. The Medicare projection moves the insolvency date three year's closer than the government estimated just last year. And it's not just the warnings of impending fiscal chaos. Brat says mandatory entitlement spending once consumed 25 percent of the budget and 75 percent was spent on defense and other domestic spending. Now, he says entitlements gobble up 75 percent of the budget and it already has some people feeling the pain, since far less money is available for other priorities. "People are starting to feel that and states are starting to feel that and localities, because the same money is not getting down to them," said Brat, always ready with an example of the red ink engulfing the U.S. to the tune of $21 trillion and another $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. "In ten years or so, they're saying the interest payment alone on the debt will be bigger than the defense budget," said Brat. He's also keeping a close eye on Wall Street. "The bond market is the ultimate arbiter here. They will send the signal on what is too much debt. The unfunded liabilities fit into that indirectly. They put (on) pressure. You're getting a lot of new concerns from the market itself. "That is unfortunately what it will take. As soon as the bond market has a hiccup, then everyone's going to get way more responsive," said Brat. The trillions of dollars in debt the nation faces is hard for anyone to fully comprehend, but Brat says there is a simple approach to restoring solid footing to Medicare and Social Security. He says those programs began when the life expectancy in the U.S. was 65, so the government made money on the people who aid into the system but didn't reach retirement age and had enough resources to provide assistance for those that lived longer. That has changed. "The programs still kick in at 65 but the average death age is now 83. So you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what the answer is. But that's politically explosive to rearrange these programs and reform them so that has to be bipartisan and it has to be done within an election cycle," said Brat. Brat suspects the Democrats will continue to argue that tax hikes on "the rich" will shore up the systems for the long haul. Brat says that would barely make a dent. "If I told you how much you would have to raise taxes to make these programs solvent, you wouldn't believe it. It's through the roof. Those aren't politically palatable and if you put those tax increases in, you'd bring the economy to a halt. You'd have zero growth or recession immediately," said Brat. "The Democrats don't like spinach. They're more on the spending side. They're not trying to trim and save money over the long run. They want to expand all of government," said Brat. Democrats strongly dispute the diagnosis for the encroaching insolvency. Many politicians on the left and some policy experts contend the $1.5 trillion Republican tax cuts are the driving force behind the revised estimates on Medicare. Brat pushes back strongly against that analysis. "That's just pure politics. The tax cuts are $150 billion a year (over ten years) and if you grow at three percent they're paid for. The left said you'll never get three percent and we're at three percent," said Brat. He says reckless spending like the Democrats forced into the recent omnibus that also boosted military spending is how we got to this point. "What they won't tell you is that to get nine Democrat Senate votes at the end of the budget debate, we had to plus up the budget $400 billion - the tax cuts were $150 billion - to go sign a budget," said Brat. Brat says Congress must get it's act together but shows no interest in doing so. "No. Nothing. No response. That's what's stunning. People have internalized the politics and realized what it would take to achieve that change," said Brat. "We should be dealing with it right now if we're rational and foresighted." He says the inaction leaves an unfair burden on upcoming generations. "The only substantial power group that doesn't have a lobbyist up here is the kids, and if you're not represented, you don't get attention," said Brat |
| Rogan Recalls Upheaval, Stacked Field 50 Years After RFK's Death |
| Tue, 5 Jun 2018 16:31:28 EST Fifty years ago Tuesday, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy eked out a narrow win in the California presidential primary. Moments after declaring victory, Kennedy was fatally shot, throwing the 1968 presidential race into further turmoil and sending political shockwaves still being felt today. Former Rep. James Rogan, R-Calif., who also served as one of the impeachment managers against President Clinton in 1999, is now a judge on the Superior Court of California in Orange County. He is also the author of "On to Chicago: Rediscovering Robert F. Kennedy and the Lost Campaign of 1968." Rogan was 10 years old and finishing the fifth grade when Kennedy was killed. His class was enthralled with the very competitive Democratic primary. While most of the kids backed Kennedy, Rogan strategically supported Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., to impress a cute girl in his class who was also on the McCarthy bandwagon. Rogan remembers staying up past midnight, seeing McCarthy concede and Kennedy declare victory. It was only in the morning that a classmate called to tell him Kennedy had been murdered. He then flipped on his family's new color television and saw the footage of Kennedy on the hotel floor. "The first thing I saw was color footage from six hours earlier of Kennedy flat on his back on this concrete floor of a pantry of a hotel in Los Angeles, with this big pool of maroon blood seeping from the back of his head. I had never seen anything like that before," said Rogan. Another Kennedy assassination would have been traumatic enough for the country, but his murder also followed the Tet Offensive in Vietnam that greatly galvanized the anti-war movement, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. two months earlier and the race riots that followed in over a hundred cities around the nation. "People in 1968 really believed that a possible revolution was afoot," said Rogan, who noted that the GOP candidates vigorously committed to victory in Vietnam and backing the police amongst the rioters in our urban centers. America's political and cultural environment was a powder keg in 1968, and Judge Rogan says he's stunned by how many younger, well-educated Americans know almost nothing about it. "We have generations of young professionals today who have never heard of Robert F. Kennedy or Nelson Rockefeller, or Eugene McCarthy, or Hubert Humphrey, people who were titans on the political stage in 1968," said Rogan. While people too young to remember Kennedy's assassination or the upheaval of 1968 may think of it as ancient history, Rogan is quick to point out the same ideas seen on the campaign trail in 2016 found their roots in 1968. "It really struck me how 1968 and 2016 had so many different parallels: a nation divided, the polarization of politics, the abject hatred that people had for the other side, the incendiary campaign strategies of some candidates," said Rogan, who was working on his book during the 2016 campaign. He says Bernie Sanders was not pushing anything new in the last campaign, because Kennedy and McCarthy were espousing the same ideas five decades earlier. "If you go back and study their speeches, and their campaigns, and what their issues were, you can see it is a direct predecessor to what the progressives of today are talking about," said Rogan. "Anybody who wants to understand 2016 and 2018 needs to understand 1968 if you want to know where it all started and how the connection reaches back in time," said Rogan. Another parallel between 1968 and 2016 is the prodigious field of candidates. But while 2016 featured 17 Republican candidates at one point, Rogan says 1968 was remarkable for the many prominent names all battling each other. "Running against each other in one single race, you had President Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, three-term Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller, Bobby Kennedy, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, George Wallace - who made Donald Trump look like a shrinking violet on the campaign trail - and Gov. George Romney from Michigan, who was Mitt's dad," said Rogan. "It was the ultimate throwdown in American politics," he added. Nixon ultimately won the election over Humphrey, with Wallace winning a handful of states as an independent candidate. In addition to recalling the horror of Kennedy's assassination and the fallout on our nation, Rogan's book also examines what would have happened if Kennedy had not been killed. The idea has intrigued Rogan since learning Kennedy probably would have made a full recovery if Sirhan Sirhan's bullet had been off course by just a centimeter. "I wanted to explore, not based on sentimentality or that Camelot sentimental nonsense. I wanted to explore the issue, based on the facts and the evidence, what really would have happened if Bobby Kennedy had survived and continued his campaign: what would have happened to the Democratic Party, what would have happened to the Republican ticket and what would have really happened in November 1968," said Rogan. |
| 'A Significant Win for Religious Freedom' |
| Mon, 4 Jun 2018 16:57:56 EST The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of the Colorado baker who refused to customize a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony, exciting defenders of religious liberty but leaving some of the broader issues of free speech and religious expression unresolved. The 7-2 decision reversed a decision by the Colorado Court of Appeals and resolved a six-year legal dispute between Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips and the same-sex couple who allege Phillips discriminated against them. "This is a significant win for religious freedom and it's a great decision from the court that affirms the basic freedom for everybody to live and work according to their religious beliefs, without fear of unjust punishment from the government. That's a great thing for Jack and that's a great thing for everybody today," said Kate Anderson, legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Masterpiece Cakeshop in this case. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the majority opinion legalizing same-sex marriage in 2015, also wrote the ruling this case. "I was in the courtroom when this decision was handed down and when Anthony Kennedy was the one reading the decision, it really made me nervous," said Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver, a fierce critic of Kennedy on many cases related to marriage over the years "You couldn't tell which way he was going at the very beginning, but as his discussion of the case moved forward it was clear the court ultimately sided with Jack Phillips," added Staver. "To get seven justices to agree on this particular issue, whether it's narrow or broad, is a spectacular event, and it's a good day." The legal battle began in 2012, when Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins entered the shop, looking to order a cake for their same-sex ceremony. "He offered to sell them anything in his shop. He just explained that he cannot create custom wedding cake designs that send a message that violates his conscience, in this case a cake that is custom in nature and sends a message celebrating a vision of marriage that violates his conscience," said Anderson. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission came down very hard on Phillips. "The commission ruled against him and showed a great deal of hostility in that ruling. They ordered him to create cakes for same-sex weddings despite his religious beliefs if he created any wedding cakes, so he has had to stop creating wedding cakes. It's been about a 40 percent hit on his business. "The commission also ordered him to re-educate all of his staff in accord with the commission's views on marriage. Mostly it's his family that works for him, so he was ordered, essentially, to re-educate his family on these issues," said Anderson. It was that "hostility" that drove Monday's court ruling. "[I]t must be concluded that the State 19s interest could have been weighed against Phillips 19 sincere religious objections in away consistent with the requisite religious neutrality that must be strictly observed. The official expressions of hostility to religion in some of the commissioners 19 comments 14comments that were not disavowed at the Commission or by the State at any point in the proceedings that led to affirmance of the order 14were inconsistent with what the Free Exercise Clause requires," wrote Kennedy "The Commission 19s disparate consideration of Phillips 19 case compared to the cases of the other bakers suggests the same. For these reasons, the order must be set aside," he added. Anderson says the ruling is great vindication for Phillips. "Now he can live according to his religious beliefs, which is a great thing for everyone. The court was clear that the government cannot be hostile to religious beliefs and that the government, in applying the laws, must be fair and respectful of people's religious beliefs," said Phillips. But the decision is being characterized many many as narrow, not due to the margin in the court's vote but to the impact of the ruling. "The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market," wrote Kennedy at the end of his opinion. Staver says that means the battle goes on. "One thing for sure is that it didn't settle once and for all this issue of the clash between the first amendment and the LGBT agenda. That will be saved for another day," said Staver. Anderson agrees in principle but says the condemnation of hostility could apply to other cases, such as Washington state florist Baronelle Stutzman, who is also on the legal ropes after refusing to service a same-sex wedding for clients she served for other purchases for years. Anderson contends Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson demonstrated very similar hostility to Stutzman, moving forward with a case before he even had a client. Staver says the court could add additional heft to Monday's decision when it rules on another hot-button issue later this month. "I think what we're going to see between now and the end of June is a case out of California, involving crisis pregnancy centers and forced speech. The state is forcing them to give a pro-abortion message. I believe the court is going to come down on the side of the crisis pregnancy centers against the forced speech," said Staver. While the broader issues have yet to be resolved, Anderson says all Americans should celebrate what happened on Monday. "Civil liberties run together so when one person's rights to live according to their beliefs are violated, everybody's beliefs are at risk. "I hope that everyone can see that, that this strong decision that government needs to respect people's ability to live and work according to their beliefs is something that goes both ways. It means that everybody's protected in their particular beliefs," said Anderson. |
| Economy Strong and Only Getting Stronger |
| Fri, 1 Jun 2018 16:33:25 EST U.S. unemployment fell to its lowest rate in 18 years and is on the brink of matching the lowest numbers in 50 years, and a former Labor Department economist is confident the economy is only getting stronger. On Friday, the Labor Department reported 223,000 new jobs were created in May, higher than the 188,000 predicted by experts. The report also shows the unemployment rate dropping to 3.8 percent, the lowest since 2000. The U-6 rate, which also factors in part-time workers seeking full-time work and discouraged job seekers dropping out of the labor force, is at 7.6 percent, the lowest rate since 2001. "The jobs market is performing very, very well. I think that everyone can be happy with the numbers that came out today," said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, who served as chief economist at the Department of Labor for President George W. Bush and later as the chief of staff for Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. Furchtgott-Roth is confident the numbers are only going to get better as the benefits of the corporate tax cuts kick in. "As companies start to realize and implement plans based on the 21 percent corporate tax rate, we're going to see a lot stronger economy going forward. Don't forget, the tax cuts were only passed January 1. Businesses are still changing their plans based on those tax cuts," she said. The May jobs report also showed a 0.3 percent rise in wages, edging the expectation of a 0.2 percent gain. Many economists contend that rate is still anemic considering the overall strength of the economy, but Furchtgott-Roth says a close study of the numbers explains why. "If you look at the jobs report carefully, you can see that the unemployment rate went down the most among people without a high school diploma and and people with a high school diploma and no college. Those are the lowest-skilled people in the workforce and they come in at a lower wage. "One needs to realize this is an average wage and when the economy is employing more low-skilled workers, as we want it to do, then the average wage will not rise as quickly as if all the gains were among the group who had a BA,"said Furchtgott-Roth. She also says the wage number does not factor in the many benefits all workers are receiving such as health benefits and time off for vacation and maternity leave. Tthat said, Furchtgott-Roth is confident wages will soon be rising more substantially. "I think the tightness of the labor market, the 3.8 percent unemployment rate, does augur very, very well for future wage increases within one's particular group," she said. The labor participation rates dipped slightly once again, remaining at a stubbornly low 62.7 percent. Furchtgott-Roth suspects some of that may be due to women waiting until school starts in the fall before returning to work, but she says the rate is simply too low. "That is definitely something we want to address, especially among workers in the prime age group of 25-55 (years old)," she said. While Democrats found little to criticize other than President Trump tipping his hand on the jobs report before the numbers were released, experts on both sides of aisle fear new tariffs against China and allies in Europe could stunt economic growth. Furchtgott-Roth is not worried and believes such moves are necessary to protect vital economic interests. "One has to realize this is is a negotiating tool and also that China is stealing America's intellectual property, so something has to be done. President after president has ignored the theft of America's intellectual property and it needs to be addressed," she said. |
| 'The Presidents and the Pastime' |
| Thu, 31 May 2018 16:32:52 EST President Trump was once a top baseball prospect, the first President Bush was thought to be a Hall of Fame caliber fielder, and Bush may not have become commander-in-chief without critical support from a baseball legend. These are just some of the nuggets in the new book from former presidential speechwriter and prolific baseball author Curt Smith in his new work, "The Presidents and the Pastime." Baseball roots in the U.S. go back to our founding, as colonists played "rounders." By the 1860's, President Lincoln was giving federal workers time off to attend games, and in 1910, President William Howard Taft began the long tradition of presidents throwing out the first pitch of the season in or near the nation's capital. So what's behind the connection? Quoting George H.W. Bush, Smith says "baseball has everything." "He meant it was an honorable game, an honest game,a game that anyone could play, a game that anyone no matter how small or large nor any color (could play)," said Smith. "He meant that it was an inherently American game, that it was ours, that we invented it. He meant that it was a game that he had been taught by his father and that he had taught his son, who of course would also become president," he said. That son would use baseball in one of the most important moments of American history. Just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium for a World Series game between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Smith says his writing on that powerful moment might what he's most proud of in "The Presidents and the Pastime." He shared some of it with us. "He met a roaring ovation as he left the Yankees dugout, red and blue states vanishing. He passed the first base dugout and then moved towards the mound, ready to throw to a catcher behind the plate. Add the fury in every seat, every tear, the emotion overwhelmed. "Bush wound up and threw a perfect strike to the Yankees' Jorge Posada, exactly splitting the plate, precisely at the knees, as if he had lovingly placed the ball in the catcher's glove. The crowd exploded. It's cry for justice piercing the cool Bronx air. "Slowly, Bush left the field. Gary Cooper in 'High Noon,' a hero now more than he had ever been or ever would be again," read Smith. Bush threw a perfect strike with the eyes of the world watching and while wearing a bullet-proof vest. However, the current occupant of the Oval Office was a great ballplayer too. Smith says Donald Trump had the tools to be a major league player, but turned it down in classic Trump style. "Trump was a terrific prospect. In prep school, he was viewed as 'can't miss' by the Phillies and the Red Sox, both of whom were primed to sign him. The only problem was that Trump didn't want to sign a contract. The reason was, as he said, 'I didn't want baseball money. I wanted big money,'" said Smith. Smith suspects the elder Bush was the best all-around player among our presidents. As captain of the Yale team, Smith reports that scouts thought Bush had hall of fame skills as a defender. It was the other part of the game where he struggled. "The problem was that he wasn't even a good field-no hit player. He was a great field-zero hit player almost. As a result, his chances for the bigs were zero," said Smith. Baseball also played a key role in the first President Bush winning the GOP nomination in 1988. After a third place finish in Iowa, Bush had to win in New Hampshire to keep his campaign alive. Forty-six years earlier, as a young Naval aviator, Bush met Boston Red Sox star Ted Williams, who was training pilots for action in World War II. The two became lifelong friends and when Bush was on the political ropes, Williams stepped up to rally his friend among the New England fans who adored him at Fenway Park. "Ted Williams, to Bush's total surprise, flies his own plane from his home in Florida to New Hampshire, shocked Bush, and stumped the next three days with Bush and resurrected Bush's presidential campaign," said Smith. Smith wrote the book in part to highlight the presidents' love affair with baseball and in part to urge Major League Baseball to make the game more attractive to younger generations by speeding up the game through shorter intervals between pitches, not allowing batters to leave the batter's box so much, and beefing up the strike zone. He also urges President Trump to throw out a first pitch, even if the crowd does not receive him well. Smith says it is vital to save and strengthen the American pastime. "These are serious times. This is a serious topic. Baseball has better wake up and realize that if you lose one generation or two generations, you never get them back," said Smith. |
| Illegal Immigrant Kids: What's Really Happening? |
| Wed, 30 May 2018 16:22:24 EST For weeks, the Trump administration has been blasted in mainstream and social media for separating parents and children caught crossing into the U.S. illegally and for allegedly allowing 1,500 minors to go missing, some even into the hands of gangs and human traffickers. However, a leading immigration expert says parents are responsible for the separation and the Trump administration is actually doing a much more responsible job of tracking kids than previous administrations. Center for Immigration Studies Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan says adult-child separation is standard operating procedure at the border in several circumstances. In some cases, the adults are not the parents. Some kids are being smuggled and other parents send their kids with other adults to establish a "deportation shield" for them in America. While all of the above scenarios are on the rise, Vaughan says Trump administration policy is responsible for many of the cases, but only because the administration is enforcing the law. "The Trump administration, seeing no end in sight to the continued influx from Central America who are coming here illegally and hoping to be released and live here indefinitely, is implementing a zero-tolerance policy. Under the law, people who enter illegally are charged with a crime," said Vaughan. She says the decision by parents to illegally enter the U.S. is responsible for separating families. "The children cannot go to federal detention with them, so they are being put into protective custody, in a system that's handled by the Office of Refugee Resettlement and cared for until their parents' criminal prosecution is dealt with," said Vaughan, who says the families are then reunited, usually for deportation. While sometimes referred to as "prisons" by the media and certain activist groups, Vaughan says the facilities are more like a group home or dormitory. They learn English, get health care, have recreation time and field trips. However, relatives who pass federal screening and promise to stay in contact with the government can take these minors into custody. And that's where the number of unaccounted minors starts to rise. Vaughan says some of those minors run away from their family members and some of the people taking custody of the children refuse to get back in touch with the government to hide their own questionable status or to keep their young relative in the U.S. Others, sadly, wind up in the custody of gangs or human traffickers. Vaughan says the problem accelerated with the perfect storm of a surge in unaccompanied minors over the past few years and lax Obama administration observation of what was happening to those minors in the custody of others. "Under the Obama administration, there was no follow-up being done, no background checks, no home studies, no making sure that the person was going to care for them appropriately and was not going to be abusing them," said Vaughan. As a result, it was easy for the minors and their caretakers to fall off the map. "They just don't see any reason to check in with the government. They accomplished their goal of getting here and being able to live here. So they just ignore the call," said Vaughan. Vaughan says the government is still tasked with finding all of these people and assuring their well-being. She says the Trump approach is much more responsible. "It's only under the Trump administration, which actually increased the vetting and the home studies and the monitoring of these kids that advocacy groups have started to complain, which seems to me to be for political purposes. They weren't complaining when the Obama administration was doing this in a much more irresponsible way. But they're complaining now because they want to score political points," said Vaughan. In addition, Vaughan cautions Americans not to think of all minors as cuddly kindergartners. She says a disturbing percentage of them are teenagers or older (while claiming to be minors) in order to join gangs such as MS-13. "[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] estimates that about 30 percent of the MS-13 gang members that they've arrested in the last year originally arrived here as minors in exactly this scenario," said Vaughan. She says gangs brought in a lot of people under the more lax rules. "When we [had] such a lenient policy like this, of releasing minors to anybody who shows up to claim them, then bad actors are going to take advantage of it and they have done so. It's caused a lot of problems in places like Long Island and the Washington, D.C, suburbs, and Texas, and other places where these gangs have suddenly become much more active and are causing a lot of problems," said Vaughan. |
| 'First Step' Toward Prison Reform |
| Tue, 29 May 2018 17:28:48 EST The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a prison reform bill last week that aims to better prepare inmates for re-entering society, a leading criminal justice reform advocate is blasting liberals for suggesting the legislation is a wasted opportunity because it does not include sentencing reforms. The bipartisan "First Step Act" passed the House 360-59 but faces a much bigger hurdle in the Senate because of the demand for sentencing reforms. Organizations like the Brennan Center for Justice call the House bill a "piecemeal improvement masquerading as real reform." Right on Crime Director Derek Cohen says opposing a bill for what's not in it makes no sense. "The idea that this is the only bite at the apple, therefore we should do something strong or do nothing at all is a completely self-defeating argument," said Cohen. "You are literally making that choice between a modest bill, the bill that's in front of us right now, or nothing. I think that is a tough sell to these families that have individuals incarcerated and have to drive more than 500 miles to go see their relatives that are getting put in programming that doesn't help," said Cohen. Liberal groups want Congress to address mandatory minimum sentencing, arguing that such policies force non-violent offenders to spend much more time in prison than necessary and makes it harder for them to re-enter society when their sentences end. Cohen wouldn't mind seeing some sentencing reforms in the "First Step Act," but he cautions there is no plan that would pass right now. "The problem is there is no consensus as to what a package of sentencing reforms looks like, on the left or the right," he said, noting that despite some common ground, the left and the right have some deep differences on criminal justice reform. "Folks on the left tend to support more affirmative programs, like actually providing folks with jobs or compelling people to not inquire about criminal history, 'ban the box' as it's known. "The conservative answer to that is simply indemnifying landlords for renting to these folks...indemnifying employers for employing these folks. Make it more attractive for these folks to actually be hired," said Cohen, who says employers often rave about the former convicts they've hired because those offenders are so eager to prove themselves worthy of the job. So what is in the bill passed by the House? Cohen says it's geared towards easing burdens on families and better preparing convicts to contribute to their communities when they get out of prison. "It looks at how we have these folks in prison. What are we doing to lower their recidivism, lowering their chance of re-offending once they're out. That includes criminogenic rehabilitation. It includes education. It includes training. It includes making the decision before we plug folks into one of those programs that it is a program that particular person needs, as opposed to just spinning our tires or wasting our money. "It also tries to move individuals closer to their home to better facilitate re-entry, so that family can still come and visit and prison ministry that might exist in their community might be able to visit with them in their facility - to really deliver that kind of warm handoff we've come to understand in criminal justice, to make sure we're not just shooting somebody out the door and basically hoping they don't re-offend," said Cohen. In addition to calling for more targeted education and job training programs, the bill also calls for a risk-needs assessment for prisoners who need help reacting properly to stressful situations and providing the help they need. "That risk-needs assessment is basically an instrument that diagnoses the offender, and when it comes back it says 'anti-social personality traits, anti-social cognitions, and they also have an anti-social peer group.' Those three things alone are incredibly detrimental to success on re-entry," said Cohen. |
| Freitas Champions 'Individual Liberty' in Virginia Senate Race |
| Fri, 25 May 2018 16:36:06 EST Virginia Del. Nick Freitas is racing to the finish line ahead of the commonwealth's June 12th U.S. Senate primary and says his message of individual liberty, smaller government, and thriving markets is resonating with voters. Freitas got a major political boost in March when his passionate defense of the second amendment on the floor of the Virginia House of Delegates went viral. "When 40 million people see something, that helps with your name ID," said Freitas. While recent polling is scarce in the GOP primary, the viral video is helping Freitas raise his profile against primary rivals Corey Stewart and E.W. Jackson, both of whom have run statewide before. Freitas has dwarfed his rivals in fundraising in recent months and he recently secured the National Rifle Association endorsement. Stewart, who currently serves as chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, is known for his aggressive, confrontational style of politics. He says that approach will be necessary to defeat incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine in November. He also claims that his ability to win in a blue part of Virginia makes him the natural choice for a nominee. Freitas strongly disputes that. "Donald Trump does not need a cheap imitation of himself in order to win in Virginia. There's only one Donald Trump. Let Trump be Trump. What the Republican Party needs in Virginia is someone who can go around and explain and advocate for the positive, substantive policies that have made people's lives better," said Freitas. "He thinks it's a divide and conquer campaign. I think it's more of a divide and lose campaign. It's unfortunate because there are good things about Corey Stewart and there are good things he's done in Prince William County. "But there's other things he's done there that have really given people pause. He's voted to raise taxes several times in Prince William County, and there's other things that people are just skeptical of," said Freitas. Freitas believes he has the ability to bring people together to get things done. "We need to be able to unify Virginians around a central message and that message is we're going to empower you, not government programs," said Freitas. Freitas also believes he separates himself from Stewart and Jackson in three critical ways, starting with his service as a Green Beret in Iraq. "I'm the only combat veteran in the race, which means I understand a key component of the federal government, which is providing for national defense. I fought counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency and unconventional warfare. President Trump needs more people in the Senate that share his view that we are not the police force in the world but we need a strong military and I can provide that kind of advice," said Freitas, who believes the U.S. does need to be a leader on the world stage but does not need to deploy the military unless absolutely necessary. He also says his time in the Virginia House of Delegates sets him apart from Stewart and Jackson. "I'm also the only candidate that's served in the legislature. So I understand what it's like to take an idea from concept all the way through the legislative process. I know how to effectively engage constituents in the process when there's that critical vote in the subcommittee or full committee," said Freitas. Third, Freitas says his message distinguishes him from the rest of the field. He says his goal is not to gain power to reward friends and punish political foes but to return power to where it belongs. "My goal is to get in a position where we can disperse power back where it belongs and that's to the people, that's to states, and that's to localities. And then if we keep the federal government within its proper boundaries so it can do its intended jobs well instead of doing a hundred other jobs poorly," said Freitas. But what does that look like for a candidate who embraces major strains of both conservative and libertarian thought? Where does he come down those beliefs conflict? On the role of the military, Freitas believes in having a strong military and using overwhelming force whenever force is absolutely necessary. He also wants to see Congress return to its constitutional role of authorizing war. On cultural issues, Freitas says his deeply-held Christian beliefs inform him on the definition of marriage but he believes much of the political debate over it misses a key point. "You've got some people wanting the government to define marriage one way. You've got other people who want that government to define marriage another way. And I'm sitting here going, 'Why is the government defining marriage?' "I understand why government has to handle civil contracts, but I certainly don't understand why the government needs to be in the process of coercing people to accept a particular definition that they may not want to," said Freitas. Freitas did introduce religious freedom legislation that would protect conscience rights for Virginians. "(Former Virginia Gov.) Terry McAuliffe had signed an executive order which essentially prevented any religious organizations that happened to hold the viewpoint that marriage is between one man and one woman from being able to team with the government to help hungry, sick, and addicted people. I said that was ridiculous," said Freitas. On abortion, Freitas says science and the law make it clear that unborn life deserves protection. "At the moment of conception, we're talking about life. If we use science to determine between human life and other forms of life, we find at the moment of conception we're talking about human life. From a legal perspective, I don't think there's any doubt that we're also talking about innocent human life. So the question for me is does the government have an obligation to protect innocent human life? I think it clearly does," said Freitas, who was born out of a crisis pregnancy. "I don't know what it's like to be that young woman who finds herself pregnant and completely unprepared for it, but I do know what it's like to be her son," he said. On fiscal matters, Freitas is appalled by the $1.3 trillion omnibus shepherded through Congress and signed into law - all by Republicans. He says Congress desperately needs transparency and open debate on what is worthy of taxpayer money. He also says Congress, like the Virginia government, fails to use common sense on spending issues. "On the things that we agree on - that are legitimate functions of government - the military, law enforcement, public safety, certain things with transportation and others - great, let's fund them. But let's not hold those things hostage because certain congresspeople have different goodies that they've got to hand out to various constituents to help their re-election chances," said Freitas. Freitas says he's also ready to tackle health care policy, especially after fighting against Gov. Ralph Northam's efforts to enact Obamacare Medicaid expansion in Virginia. In addition to stating that medical care for Medicaid patients is not much different than it is for the uninsured, he says government intervening in health care is a guaranteed failure. "What's so frustrating to me is that what wee clearly need in health care is more competition and more market forces, which always have a tendency to increase quality and drive down prices,"said Freitas, noting that the cost of vision correction surgery, such as Lasik, has dropped from $2,500 per eye to $500 per eye while the reliability of the procedure has improved drastically. "Unfortunately, there are many, especially on the left, (for whom) the only solution they will accept is a government solution. The problem is government does the opposite of what we need. Government almost always causes prices to go up and quality to go down," he said. |
| Gorka Demands Obama Officials Lose Security Clearances |
| Thu, 24 May 2018 15:40:13 EST Former Trump administration official Dr. Sebastian Gorka is urging the president to take decisive action against Obama administration officials involved in conducting surveillance on the Trump campaign and to release as much information on those efforts as possible. Gorka, also the author of the forthcoming book "Why We Fight: Recovering America's Will to Win," is also applauding President Trump's decision to cancel the summit with North Korea and believes this shows exactly what kind of a leader Trump is. Recent, widespread reports indicate that the FBI enlisted an informant to make contact with Trump campaign officials in an effort to investigate - or instigate, as Trump alleges - the connection between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 campaign. "It's the worst political scandal in American history. What we have is one administration deciding that they can spy on another presidential candidate and his campaign for purely political reasons. For more than a year, people laughed when the president said, 'I was surveilled.' Now we know that not only was he surveilled, they put covert assets into his campaign," said Gorka. Gorka says Trump needs to respond boldly. "Right now all the key personnel from the last administration must be stripped of their security clearances. The idea that (former CIA Director) John Brennan is feeding Russian propaganda lines on national television and still has his security clearance is absurd," said Gorka. He says security clearances should also be revoked for others involved in Operation Crossfire Hurricane, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Gorka says transparency should also be on Trump's short list. "Now we have to see every document associated with Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the illegal political espionage operation authorized by the Obama administration. All those documents must be declassified and the president can do that at the stroke of a pen," said Gorka. Gorka is also pleased to see Trump back away from the scheduled June 12 summit with North Korea's Kim Jong-Un. In a letter to Kim, Trump said he was canceling the meeting because of North Korea's "openly hostile" language in recent statements. "North Korea has everything to lose. We have nothing to lose," said Gorka, who says this episode exhibits the same leadership and negotiation skills that Gorka saw during his time at the White House. "You see a man who is decisive. He knows what he wants. He's results oriented. He cares about this country. He's a pragmatist and a patriot," said Gorka. Gorka says Trump's move to scrap the summit should come as no surprise to anyone who read Trump's book, "The Art of the Deal." "In chapter two, he states unequivocally (t0) never, ever be so wedded to any deal so that you can't walk away at any point. That's exactly what the president did. "This is a man who isn't interested in empty pablum or nice pieces of paper to wave at you. He isn't an individual who looks at the world through ideological filters. He wants results. When he doesn't get them, he'll walk away," said Gorka. So what happens next in the effort to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons? Gorka says China will play a key role in determining just how badly the U.S.-led sanctions strain the Kim regime financially and possibly lead to an even better deal. He also believes the days of the Kim regime are numbered. "This is the great paradox of all dictatorships. They're very powerful at the top. They deny individual liberties. But at the end of the day, they're also highly vulnerable because of the denial of human of liberty that they are founded upon. So this is not a regime that can last forever," said Gorka. While crippling economic sanctions and and a robust military brought North Korea to the brink of denuclearization, Gorka believes the same results will be more difficult to achieve with Iran due to the Islamist mindset of its leaders. "At the end of the day, the North Korean dictatorship is evil but they're rational. When you're dealing with a theocracy like Iran, there are individuals at the top, amongst the mullahs, who do not think in rational terms. Several of them believe in the occultation of the 'Hidden Imam'and actually think ideas like apocalypse are a good thing. "The question in Iran is who is in ascendance, the less rational individuals or the more rational individuals? If it's the latter, then we can probably see some positive results coming out of Tehran as well," said Gorka. |
| 'We Better Not Be Giving These People Even an Inch' |
| Wed, 23 May 2018 17:03:14 EST A sitting member of Congress is publicly proposing a ban on so-called military-style semi-automatic rifles and advocates criminal prosecution for Americans who refuse to take part in a mandatory buyback program. In an opinion piece for USA Today, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif, laid out his proposal. "[W]e should ban possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons, we should buy back such weapons from all who choose to abide by the law, and we should criminally prosecute any who choose to defy it by keeping their weapons," wrote Swalwell, who does allow for such weapons to be kept in police stations and shooting clubs. Earlier this week, in a heated debate with Tucker Carlson on the Fox News Channel, Swalwell stood by his proposal, insisting no one would be going door to door to look for the banned weapons and make arrests, but he did say people could be charged and prosecuted for still owning the rifles if police found them in the course of normal police work. "And if you were caught, just like if you were caught with drugs or anything else, and they had probable cause to go into your home and you had one of these weapons, yeah, you'd be prosecuted," said Swalwell in his Fox News interview. Gun Owners of America Executive Director Emeritus Larry Pratt says gun control advocates are now showing their cards. "They really do want to go very, very far indeed and they're willing to resort to extreme measures to do that," said Pratt, who says the rhetoric about not wanting to take the guns away from law abiding citizens largely evaporated after the February massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Pratt believes the biggest spark came a New York Times column from former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. "Stevens has opened the door to the deeper recesses of the left's mind. He called for the elimination of the second amendment. That seems to have been followed by statements made by gun control advocates like Mr. Swalwell," said Pratt. According to Pratt, research shows that semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 save many more lives than they take. "He is focusing on firearms that have been used for criminal purposes and he's overlooking the fact that firearms are used four times more often - every day - to protect life," said Pratt, also pushing back against the notion that the typical homeowner doesn't need that kind of firepower. "Many people have saved their lives from multiple invaders of their home with their AR-15. One fellow said, 'Yeah, I used all 30 rounds in my magazine. I had to start using my semi-automatic pistol before it was over,'" said Pratt. Pratt also says Swalwell's ideas demonstrate why pro-second amendment Americans must stand their ground. "He's just making it easier, frankly, for the rest of us to say, 'We better not be giving these people even an inch because you can see where they want to go,'" said Pratt. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is making enforcement of existing gun laws a high priority. In fact, Sessions is now being criticized by the very people demanding new gun laws for being too aggressive in applying the old ones. "If it weren't for double standards, the left would have no standards at all. These people really don't live in the real world, I don't think. That's why I don't think they're going to be getting much traction, and when they speak this way, not likely at all," said Pratt. To stop mass shootings in our schools and elsewhere, Pratt urges lawmakers and school officials to study what works. He says 98 percent of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones, effectively working as a magnet for would-be shooters because they know they will not encounter armed resistance. To the contrary, Utah allows weapons on school grounds and Texas, Georgia, and Alaska allow it to some extent. Pratt urges the scrapping of gun-free zones and for other states and locales to emulate the Utah model. In the meantime, Pratt suspects the increasingly brazen gun control proposals will bring gun rights supporters to the polls. "The more they talk like that, the more they're going to motivate the pro-second amendment, pro-constitutional voter. This hasn't worked out well for them in the past," said Pratt, noting the 1994 Republican revolution occurred just months after Democrats in Congress passed the "assault weapons" ban. "If they want to campaign this way, we've got enough experience now that I can sit back and say, 'Well good. Keep on doing that,'" said Pratt. |
| Freedom Caucus Demands DOJ Cooperation, Better GOP Leaders |
| Tue, 22 May 2018 16:32:12 EST The House Freedom Caucus is increasingly frustrated with the Justice Department refusing to hand over documents critical to the investigation into the 2016 campaign and with its own Republican leadership on issues ranging from immigration to spending and more. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., is a member of the House Freedom Caucus and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He says the Justice Department is dragging its feet on turning over documents related to many different aspects of the 2016 campaign and the ongoing Mueller probe. "(It's) everything to be quite honest with you because the investigations into Hillary Clinton as well as the presidential campaign have shown there is egregious overreach here. but one of the key points is what the scope of this (Mueller) investigation actually is. "We see Mr. Mueller on a fishing expedition, trying to get anybody and everybody tagged into a crime that they create," said Gosar. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C, is leading the charge for a second special counsel to be named so that person could impanel a grand jury and bring possible criminal charges on a range of issues. However, Gosar says that is unlikely to happen since he believes the Justice Department is trying to "wait out the clock." When asked whether that meant letting the Mueller investigation play out or see if Democrats win a majority in one or both chambers of Congress, Gosar suggested it was both. "A Pelosi-borne House cancels all these processes," said Gosar, noting that his goal is to make sure "the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C, aren't being held to a different standard than people out in the real world." Gosar and other House Freedom Caucus members are also furious with how Republican leaders are handling the immigration issue as proponents of a DACA amnesty near the 218 signatures needed to force the issue on the House floor. The congressman blasts leadership for repeatedly promising to put the far more conservative Goodlatte bill on the floor for a vote but never making good on the vow. That plan would only grant legal status to DACA enrollees, rather than a path to citizenship. It would also limit chain migration to the immediate family, cancel the visa lottery, mandate E-Verify for all hires in the U.S. and beef up border security. He also says leaders have reneged on promises to bring a bill to the floor focused solely on scrapping the visa lottery. "Trust is a series of promises kept. Leadership has drug its feet repeatedly on this aspect," said Gosar. GOP leaders are pleading with members not to sign the discharge petition, but Gosar says the alternative offered by leadership is equally unacceptable. "We were presented with an idea. They would go forward with the Goodlatte bill but we had to agree to a rule vote that not only brought up the Goodlatte bill but brought up an immigration bill to be named later as well. No one in their right mind actually does that," said Gosar. Freedom Caucus members held up the latest farm bill in protest of the leadership's performance on immigration but also to protest what they expect to be significant watering down of the farm bill in the Senate. Gosar says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has no intention of fighting to keep welfare work requirements in the legislation but does plan to push hard for legalizing industrial hemp. Gosar says it's another example of leaders unilaterally deciding what legislation will look like, just as House and Senate leaders hammered out an agreement for the $1.3 trillion omnibus earlier this year. The congressman says new GOP leadership is desperately needed but there will be no leadership elections anytime soon because current Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy cannot get 218 Republicans to support him. |
| Trump's 'Bold, Comprehensive' Iran Sanctions |
| Mon, 21 May 2018 16:33:43 EST Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the U.S. will apply the toughest sanctions in history in order to squeeze the life out of Iran's nuclear and territorial ambitions and a former Clinton administration official says the Trump administration is headed in a much better direction than the one charted by the Obama administration. During a speech Monday morning at the Heritage Foundation, Pompeo made it clear Iran's belligerent behavior is already resulting in economic pain. "We will apply unprecedented financial pressure on the Iranian regime. The leaders in Tehran will have no doubt about our seriousness. Thanks to our colleagues at the Department of Treasury, sanctions are going back in full effect and new ones are coming. "Last week, we imposed sanctions on Iran's central bank and other entities that were funneling money to the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps'] Quds Force and were also providing money to Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations," said Pompeo. Pompeo then elaborated on what new sanctions were coming. "The sting of sanctions will be painful if the regime does not change its course from the unacceptable and unproductive path it has chosen to one that rejoins the league of nations," said Pompeo. Lawrence J. Haas served as communications director to Vice President Al Gore and was spokesman for the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget. He is now a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and was a frequent critic of the Obama administration's approach to Iran and Israel. While eager for more details, Haas says Pompeo's remarks are a welcome step. "It's bold. It's comprehensive," said Haas. "In an extremely unpredictable presidency, we do have some consistency here. President Trump has said for a long time that one of the main problems with the Iran nuclear deal is that it wasn't comprehensive enough. "That is is only addressed the nuclear program and did not address the other damaging aspects of Iranian behavior: the ballistic missile program that's tied to the nuclear program, the terror sponsorship, the efforts in the region to destablilize other regimes, the presence in Syria and all the rest," said Haas. He says the Trump approach takes all Iranian threats and destructive policies into consideration. "Here we see a policy that, at least on paper, is broader and does take in all these different aspects of Iranian behavior," said Haas. Haas believes Pompeo's speech was also aimed at our former partners in the Iran nuclear deal, putting Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China on notice that their own economic fortunes could be imperiled if they keep cooperating with Iran. He says that's easier said than done since the U.S. does not want to ostracize those allies, whom we will need for other international priorities. However, if Trump can convince those other nations to get on board with the sanctions, it could have a massive impact. "This could be potentially game-changing," said Haas. Pompeo made it clear that Iran will need to reverse course in a host of areas to see sanctions relief. In addition to no enriching of uranium or pre-processing of plutonium, Iran would also have to scrap its missile program, get out of Syria, stop aiding the Houtis in Yemen and end its threats towards Israel. Haas wonders if the Iranian regime has such a sea change in its DNA, even if were to see the benefits of becoming a responsible government. "Can this regime do all this and still be true to itself, which is a brutally hostile anti--American, anti-Israeli, expansionist, revolutionary regime?" asked Haas. Right now, Haas wants to know what the U.S. is willing to do economically and otherwise to keep Iran in check. "I'm curious to see the specifics of the sanctions and I'm curious to see how the administration follows through on it's promises to constrain Iranian behavior in the region," said Haas. |
| The One Issue that Could Keep GOP Base at Home in Midterms |
| Fri, 18 May 2018 18:10:02 EST A rebel band of moderate Republicans in the House are on the verge of teaming with 200 Democrats to sidestep GOP leaders and advance legislation granting amnesty to people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Led by Reps. Jeff Denham, R-Cal., and Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., at least 20 Republicans are on board with what's known as a discharge petition. If a majority of House members sign a petition in solidarity on a given issue, they can force the issue on the House floor in defiance of leadership in the majority party. "That allows them to leapfrog over leadership and take control of the House floor, and (House Minority Whip) Steny Hoyer has promised them 200 Democrat votes. Right off the bat, you're scratching your head. Why would 25 Republicans give the floor over to the Democrats to pass a bill," said Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va. House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy are imploring Republicans not to join the discharge petition. Brat, whose 2014 primary stunner over then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor was due largely to his tough stance on immigration, says Ryan and McCarthy know that this move could be lethal to the party in November. "This is the one issue that has the capacity to keep our base at home in the elections coming up, which are just so critical," said Brat, who is a prime target for Democrats in Virginia's seventh congressional district. If the discharge petition succeeds, supporters would then proceed to the "Queen of the Hill" strategy, which would allow for votes on four different measures that would address the fate of people in the country illegally but who are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. The bill getting the most votes would then advance to the Senate. One option is the Goodlatte bill, which is favored by immigration hawks because it confers legal status but not a pathway to citizenship for DACA enrollees and does not grant legal status to those eligible for DACA but failed to enroll. It would also limit chain migration, scrap the diversity lottery, tighten internal enforcement, mandate E-Verify to screen all job applicants and beef up border security. But that bill doesn't have enough votes to pass, and with 200 Democrats champing at the bit, it's a clean amnesty bill that would attract the most votes. "The one with the more Democrat votes wins. The American people didn't give the House and the Senate and the White House to Republicans in order to do a giant, huge amnesty bill," said Brat, who says the amnesty plan would extend a lot farther than just the DACA enrollees. "The Democrats would have an all-out amnesty bill, which grants amnesty to about four million folks and then ten million folks over ten years without any border control, without any E-Verify to make sure you're having legal hiring, without taking any account of chain migration," said Brat. Brat says this discharge petition tactic shows the Democrats and their GOP allies cannot win an open debate and they must resort to other tactics to advance their agenda. "Democrats know they can't win politically. They know they can't win in the public realm on the exchange of ideas, so they try to do it behind the scenes with these tricky little procedures," said Brat. Brat says he's surprised that 25 Republicans have not yet signed on to the discharge petition, noting "they have plenty more ready to roll" but wonders whether Ryan and McCarthy warning them about the possible midterm calamity caused some to back away from the idea. The debate took on a new dimension this week when Democrats savaged President Trump for allegedly referring to illegal immigrants as "animals." Even when they learned the president was specifically discussing members of the Latin American MS-13 gang, known for sadistic murders and sex trafficking, some, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, still chided Trump for questioning the humanity of the gang members. "When you have these people on record battering children over the heads with baseball bats and these gruesome activities, I think the left has to agree something has gone wrong with the humanity of that person," said Brat. Even if the discharge petition succeeds, the effort will not result in the bill becoming law. The legislation would still require 60 votes to pass in the Senate and even then it would face a certain veto from President Trump. While Brat hopes the issue won't tank Republican hopes in the midterms, he says this issue and many others present a stark choice to voters in November. "If you want more federal government running your life, vote Democrat, and if you want to return to all the principles that made the country great in the first place, vote for that," said Brat. |
| 'We Aren't Opening Up the World to Some Mad Max Version of the Internet' |
| Thu, 17 May 2018 16:58:29 EST With the reversal of the Obama-era net neutrality policy set to take effect June 1, Democrats and some Republicans are scrambling to block the move legislatively, but an FCC commissioner says none of the nightmare scenarios are going to play out, many people completely miss what's really changing, and the biggest changes likely to come from the policy change will be better, faster, and cheaper broadband. On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted 52-47 through the Congressional Review Act to reverse the FCC's December action on net neutrality. Supporters of the resolution, including three Republicans, fear that ending net neutrality will result in slower or less reliable internet service and more predatory behavior by internet service providers, or ISP's, towards consumers, by rolling back consumer protections. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr says the internet will simply revert to the pre-2015 policy, which was not a time of anarchy. "We aren't opening up the world to some Mad Max version of the internet, where ISP's now have free reign to dictate their online experience. What we're doing is going back to the same legal framework that was in place in 2015 and for the 20 years before that where consumers are fully protected and wee saw massive investment in our broadband infrastructure," said Carr. Come June 1, he says no one will be able to tell anything has changed when they log onto the web. "In terms of your day-to-day online experience, what you see the day these rules are removed is going to be identical to what you see the day before they're removed," said Carr. But there will likely be a major impact that consumers will enjoy down the road. "What we've seen principally (under net neutrality) is a pretty sharp decline in investment in the broadband space," he said. "The one difference we're hoping they're going to see that some of the decline in investment, hopefully we will see a reversal in that." So what's behind the protests? "I think a lot of what we're seeing, by advocacy groups or otherwise, is intentional misrepresentations about what this issue is about purely - and I think this has been stated publicly by others - for partisan electoral politics," said Carr. Carr's greatest frustration is that many of the vociferous opponents to the new FCC policy don't seem to realize what is changing and what is not. He says the biggest change is how the internet is classified in federal law. "The debate is really about this Title II framework, not really about the rules themselves, and the negative impact we've seen in terms of investment is because of the broad Title II framework," said Carr. When the Obama-era FCC instituted net neutrality in 2015, it allowed the federal government to regulate the internet based on the Communications Act of 1934. It's that additional regulation that Carr and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai contend is creating disincentives for internet service providers to invest in upgrading and improving their products. But what about the consumer protection policies? Carr says that is easy to remedy. "If you get down to the nitty gritty, it's about the rules: no blocking, no throttling, no broken promises in terms of what you're getting. There's a tremendous amount of common ground. I'd be perfectly fine if Congress were to step in and adopt those types of specific rules," said Carr. He says efforts are underway to provide consumer protections through legislation rather than regulation, but only one party seems to have much interest. "There are Republicans in Congress who have already introduced a standalone net neutrality bill and they're not getting any traction in terms of a bipartisan group that will stand behind these bills. "Unfortunately, there's been so much of this focus on trying to go back to this Title II framework when I think it's a pretty short putt...to try to enshrine the actual rules that consumers care about into law," said Carr. Carr firmly believes unleashing the incentives for ISP's to invest in emerging technology will mean a much better experience for internet users much sooner than they would have gotten it under Title II regulation. 'We're at an interesting time from a technology perspective. We've got this new generation of low-earth orbit satellites - these thousand satellite constellations that people are investing in now and potentially going to launch in a couple of years. That could change the game for satellite broadband. "We've got these new fixed wireless broadband applications which could give you - over the air - gigabit speeds. We could see greater competition with cable. And we've got 5G, this next generation of wireless broadband that going to, again, by gigabit-style speeds. "In the not-too-distant future, these technologies and the regulatory work we're doing at the commission right now to cut red tape and enable them. It's going to to serve consumers and so I'm really optimistic about where we're going in this space," said Carr. |
| Prescription Drug Prices: How Can Trump Drive Them Lower? |
| Wed, 16 May 2018 16:31:07 EST President Trump is vowing to bring down prescription drug prices by targeting the "middle man," and a leading health care policy expert is explaining who that is and what should and should not be done about it. The cost of prescription drugs continues to be a major frustration for patients and physicians, to the point that cash-strapped patients sometimes choose not to get their medication. "Physicians tell me that they prescribe medication for their patients and they can't afford to fill the prescription because of the cost of their co-payments," said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner. So who are these "middle men" and how are they driving up the cost of prescription drugs? At issue are distributors who sell to major clients like hospitals and big pharmacy chains like Walmart and CVS. "Distributors, called pharmacy benefit managers, have set up their businesses to help provide not only distribution supply chains so these institutions have their medicines but also to try to negotiate big discounts for them. "There are questions about how much of that money - the discounts - is actually going back to the people making the purchases. You're always going to have middle men in the economy that work between the manufacturer and the consumer, but I think the lack of transparency in this industry has become something of a problem," said Turner. Many liberal critics cried foul when Trump did not order the government to negotiate price reductions with drugmakers, calling it a sellout to the industry. Turner says Trump made exactly the right call. The left's approach always is, 'Let's put price controls on drugs and we can get the costs down,' what every government-run health care program in the world does. It doesn't work. You end up artificially suppressing prices temporarily, but you wind up with fewer new drugs. "We're the medicine chest for the world because we don't have price controls," said Turner. In fact, Turner says competition and consumer choice is leading to lower prices through the Medicare Part D program. "It's costs are 45 percent below what the government said the costs were going to be at this point when the program was created more than 10 years ago. Seniors' premiums are less now than they were ten years ago," said Turner. Turner says another way to bring down costs is to boost drug price transparency. Right now, she says a pharmacist can only tell you what your insurance company is telling him to charge you. He cannot tell you it might be vastly cheaper to get your prescription filled somewhere else. Yet another advantage for patients would be to speed up the introduction of generic meds. Turner says there is a difficult tension at work in the current timing. "The balance of protecting intellectual property rights of that developer that spent maybe $2.5 billion bringing that drug to market is important. But it's also important, to them as well, that people have access to those drugs," said Turner. She says the Trump administration has about 100 different ideas to bring down the cost of prescription drugs and is urging the public to weigh to help prioritize its efforts. More information can be found at hhs.gov. |
| 'The Palestinians Use Any Excuse to Riot Against Israel' |
| Tue, 15 May 2018 16:32:37 EST Hamas, the media, and many nations are blaming President Trump decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem for inflaming Middle East passions and Israel for the scores of deaths along its border with Gaza this week, but a terrorism expert who grew up in the region says the embassy is just an excuse, radical groups are looking for any reason to paint Israel as the villain, and the media are perfectly willing to oblige. For days, mainstream media outlets have shown side-by-side images of the ceremony opening the American embassy in Jerusalem and the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza. While critics of Trump and Israel suggest this loss of life was inevitable if the embassy was moved, Act for America President Brigitte Gabriel says there's no real connection. "Palestinians use any excuse to riot against Israel. As a matter of fact, these riots have been building up for weeks to culminate today - in what is celebrated across the Islamic world as the 'Day of Catastrophe,'" said Gabriel. "So what is the catastrophe that they are celebrating, that they dedicate a day to remember every single year? The establishment of the state of Israel. This Palestinian rioting is about hatred. It's not about us moving our embassy or the occupied territories," she added. Gabriel, who is also the author of "They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It," also pushed back on the widespread reporting that the Palestinian demonstrators were peaceful or "mostly peaceful." "It is not peaceful at all. I have seen background footage of Hamas rallying up their people to come to the border. They are showing up at the border with Molotov cocktails, even launching kites to help them set fire to the Israeli farms," said Gabriel. Among the dozens of Palestinians killed in the fighting was an eight-month-old baby, whose lifeless images have been broadcast around the world as evidence of Israeli repression. Gabriel says there's much more to the story. "Why would a mother bring an eight-month-old child where Molotov cocktails are being launched? Why are they doing that? They're doing it because Hamas is willing to sacrifice the lives of its own children in order to get worldwide publicity against Israel," she said. That sort of thing is rarely, if ever, reported in the mainstream media. But why not? Gabriel says it's a combination of Arabs and Palestinians rewriting history and feeding the misinformation to reporters and scholars who are largely alumni of institutions with a strong bias against Israel. "Our universities have been influencing young minds because of all the money from the Middle East pouring into Middle East study departments and political science departments and appointing Arab professors who are anti-Israel and anti-America to basically brainwash the students," said Gabriel. Gabriel also asserts that giving up land does not lead to peace for Israel. Then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew Israel from Gaza in 2005. Subsequent elections places Hamas in charge. Gabriel says the Palestinian people live in squalor while Hamas officials live in sprawling mansions on the Mediterranean coast and hire their family members to high-ranking positions at very generous salaries. Much of the rest goes to purchasing weapons and training fighters. In addition, Hamas destroyed the very lucrative flower and greenery industry deliberately left behind by Israel to provide an economic boost inside Gaza. "They gave all that to the Palestinians. A businessman in New York gave $14 million so the Palestinians could start immediately in Gaza with an industry. Within 24 hours, Hamas in Gaza destroyed the greenhouses to the point they broke down the copper pipes and took them home. This is self-destruction," said Gabriel. And she says as long as the hatred for Israel rages, there will be no change in the region. "The Arabs and the Palestinians cannot tolerate Israel in the Middle East and that's what's driving the hatred. "Until the Palestinians learn to love their children more than they hate the Jews, that's when we'll have peace in the Middle East," said Gabriel. |
| The Case for Talking Human Rights with North Korea |
| Fri, 11 May 2018 17:49:48 EST The release of three Americans held prisoner in Iran is being hailed as a sign of increased goodwill heading into next month's U.S.-North Korea summit, but a leading group assisting persecuted Christians is imploring the Trump administration to make human rights and religious freedom an important part of the conversation as well. President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un are scheduled to meet June 12 in Singapore. Removing nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula is the top goal for the U.S. Such an idea seemed impossible just months ago when Trump and Kim were trading barbs about the size of their nuclear buttons, but relation appear to be thawing after Kim's promise to halt testing of nuclear weapons and missiles leading up to the summit, a positive meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and now the prisoner release. Open Doors USA President and CEO Dr. David Curry is also excited about the possibility of North Korea mending its ways. "It's likely a charm offensive, but you must acknowledge that progress has been made that hasn't been made before," said Curry. Open Doors USA assists persecuted Christians around the world. It consistently ranks North Korea as the worst nation on earth in its treatment of believers. Curry says the release of the three Americans ought to remind us that thousands of unknown North Koreans are imprisoned for their faith with virtually no present hope for release. "I think what it points to is the people that we don't know, the ones that are not American citizens, the 50,000 or more...who are Christians in labor camps right now in North Korea today. They could fill a stadium in any city across America," said Curry. Curry is pushing the U.S. to demand transparency from North Korea on the treatment of religious and political prisoners. "What we think would be a helpful thing for the North Korean regime to do - during this time of talk of denuclearization - is make a show of goodwill and open up the labor camps for inspection by the Red Cross so we can begin to understand the scope of the humanitarian crisis there," said Curry. He expects Kim to resist such a demand vigorously. "I think Kim Jong-Un will hold out for the lifting of economic sanctions and denuclearization and try to maintain an iron fist control over his regime," said Curry. That iron-fisted approach can land believers in prison or labor camps for the simplest of things. "You can be arrested and put in a labor camp for years or decades, and some people even die there just for being caught with a bible or being under suspicion of being a Christian. If people sense that you've had a bible study or met with others, these sorts of things in North Korea can get you in a great deal of trouble," said Curry. Curry says including the issue of human rights and religious freedom is vital for countless people unjustly jailed in North Korea. "The reason you bring in these human rights issues is that if you really and truly do have 50,000 Christians in labor camps - but there are many more than that for other crimes against the state - what are there conditions? Can we bring the Red Cross and the UN into these camps to make sure that people who are starving there can be helped in some way?" asked Curry. He says the onus is on Kim to prove the international community ought to have a change of heart about his regime. "What he may not have calculated and what we must insist upon is that if he wants to be part of the international community...and what that means, he's going to have to pass some social norms regarding human rights regarding religious liberty and the treatment of prisoners," said Curry. And he has other ideas to follow up on those human rights conditions. "I think an easy one is to allow a visit of the International Religious Liberty Ambassador Sam Brownback within the first 90 days. There are targets I think we can set out like that within 60 days, within 90 days, where the religious liberty ambassador can get in there, have conversations, and have religious liberty, make some observations. "You have the UN Council on Inquiry be able to inspect certain areas, begin to understand how far we have to go with the North Korean regime and what they're willing to do to [allow] the World Health Organization and so forth to aid their people," said Curry. |
| 'Israel Will Never Accept Iranian Bases on the Border' |
| Thu, 10 May 2018 16:47:24 EST Israeli Defense Forces responded to an Iranian missile attack in northern Israel with an immediate barrage against Iran's command and control infrastructure inside Syria, and a retired Israeli general says he hopes Iran got the message that its meddling near the border will not be tolerated. Iran fired 20 missiles into Israel. Reports suggest the Iron Dome missile defense system worked well and that no Israeli citizens were injured. On the contrary, reports also suggest Israeli airstrikes did considerable damage to Iranian assets. "I hope after the lessons they have been taught last night...they will change their attitudes," said retired Israeli Brigadier Gen. Elihu Ben-Onn. "Israel will never accept any Iranian bases on the border between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights. There is no way Israel will accept that from them." He says it's bad enough that Iran already bankrolls and supplies terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas with threaten Israel on a daily basis from Lebanon and Gaza respectively. Ben-Onn is also not surprised that Israel is being criticized more harshly for the extent of its response than Iran is for initiating the hostilities. "Unfortunately, whenever we are winning, we are to apologize for that. I don't know why. "Those people are a little bit ignorant and don't understand what it means to live in the Middle East, what kind of enemies we have, what kind of struggles we are facing every day for our security. We are talking about our lives. This is not a movie. This is not cinema. This is not Hollywood," said Ben-Onn. "We don't like the idea that they don't understand the situation, but we know that we are the good guys and they are the bad guys," added Ben-Onn. Ben-Onn is encouraged that Iranian leadership got the message from the Israeli counter-strike. "Just a couple of minutes ago, I heard that the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said he didn't want to open a new front in the Middle East. That was kind of soft language by the Iranians saying, 'OK, maybe we tried but we learned our lesson and we're going to stop this policy,'" said Ben-Onn. Israel and Iran have never been directly at war. In fact, Ben-Onn says before the Islamic Revolution, the two countries had a productive relationship. "Before 1979, when (Ayatollah) Khomeini came to power, Israel and Iran had a daily flight from Tel Aviv to Tehran. Many Israeli businesses worked in Iran and built the infrastructure in many fields: agriculture, construction, and they had many good times between the two countries. "We never had a fight or any conflict. The only conflict is that the Iranians are supporting the enemies on the borders of Israel. The moment they are getting closer to the border and using missiles, this is something the Israeli government will never accept," said Ben-Onn. |
| Iran Decision 'Right and Overdue' |
| Tue, 8 May 2018 16:27:51 EST President Trump announced Tuesday that the United States will withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal on May 12, citing the ineffectiveness of the agreement in stopping development of a nuclear weapon and announcing tough new economic sanctions to put the pressure back on the Iranian government. In 2015, President Obama, through then-Secretary of State John Kerry, signed on to the JCPOA without consulting Congress. The stated conclusion of the deal was that the U.S. and five key allies would ease sanctions and return frozen Iranian assets in exchange for Iran allowing international inspections at its admitted nuclear sites. By labeling the plan an executive agreement rather than a treaty, Obama and Kerry were able to bypass Congress. But they also set the stage for a future president reversing the policy unilaterally. Obama administration veterans, the media, and America's partners in the agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, are very critical of Trump decision, but he is earning wide praise from most congressional Republicans and conservative policy experts. "The thing that you've got to admire about President Trump is that he makes a decision. He move forward with it. We will deal with it and the rest of the world will deal with this," said Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla, who chairs the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy in the Reagan administration, is also very happy with the move. "I think the decision was both right and overdue. I'm thrilled he has taken this step," said Gaffney. "It finally denies legitimacy to this heinous regime, which could just mean that the people of Iran are able to achieve freedom as well as us achieving a measure of security that would otherwise be denied us." Gaffney points out Iran is not only the world's leading sponsor of terrorism but has proven it cannot be trusted to honor agreements. "It has cheated on every agreement that it has participated in. It has pursued weapons of mass destruction. It continuously says that it seeks death to America. It has gotten an enormous amount of money (from the nuclear deal), which it has used to further endanger our interests and those of our friends and allies in the region and beyond," said Gaffney. Yoho also cited Iran's bad faith on the world stage. "Right after it was agreed to by those entities, not us in Congress, Iran fired ballistic missiles and that was against the clause of exercising good faith and Iran broke that the next day," said Yoho. But even if Iran had abided by the terms of the JCPOA, Yoho says there are still terrible flaws, including the gaping holes in the inspections. "They were supposed to be able to check anywhere, anytime, any place per John Kerry. I was in the hearing when he said that. Then it turned out it was 24 hours notice and (no access) to places like military bases. Those places are off limits. Then we can only inspect those places we know. We can't inspect places that we may hear of," said Yoho. Where Yoho and Gaffney strongly disagree is what should happen once the sanctions put Iran in a vulnerable spot again. "Let those start to work. Let the dust settle. Then we'll see how earnest and sincere Iran is, wanting to come to the table and put this nuclear business behind everybody," said Yoho. Gaffney believes there should never be a table to return to when it comes to Iran. "There is clearly no point in having a deal with people who can't be trusted - not only can't be trusted but can be trusted to violate any obligation they make," said Gaffney. He says the only permanent solution to Iranian nuclear ambitions is for the Iranian people to kick the mullahs to the curb. "I think the only solution to this is for the people of Iran to remove this regime that enslaves and brutalizes them and threatens us. And I think that is clearly the desire of the people of Iran," said Gaffney. "We will end the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon by once and for all seeing this regime removed from power," added Gaffney. |
| Senate Primary Showdown in West Virginia |
| Mon, 7 May 2018 16:34:26 EST Three states hold U.S. Senate primaries Tuesday, all of them are in states won handily by President Trump in 2016 but are represented by Democrats in the Senate, and the biggest drama is playing out in West Virginia, with Trump begging GOP voters there not to nominate the candidate that both conservatives and moderates believe has no chance of winning in November. Conservatives are trying to rally the base to get West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey into the general election, but polls show him locked in a tight primary with Rep. Evan Jenkins and former Massey Energy chairman Don Blankenship. The winner faces Sen. Joe Manchin in November. Blankenship, who spent time in prison after being convicted in connection with the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, had been fading in the polls. But he is getting a great deal of free media attention for referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as "Cocaine Mitch" and accusing McConnell of helping "China people" through his in-laws. McConnell is married to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, whose father is a prominent businessman in the Far East. The Senate Conservatives Fund is backing Morrisey in the race. The group's president, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, says all the attention on Blankenship's comments means this race is completely up in the air. "The spike in talk about Blankenship has really confused things substantially," said Cuccinelli. He also says the Democrats see a chance to lock up this seat and are meddling intensely in the primary. "(Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer has funded a PAC that has been taking shots at Morrisey first and foremost, and some at Jenkins, because they want Blankenship as the Republican nominee," said Cuccinelli. Stung by the lost opportunity in the special Senate race in Alabama in December, President Trump is urging West Virginia voters to stay away from Blankenship. "To the great people of West Virginia we have, together, a really great chance to keep making a big difference. Problem is, Don Blankenship, currently running for Senate, can 19t win the General Election in your State...No way! Remember Alabama. Vote Rep. Jenkins or A.G. Morrisey!" Trump tweeted. Cuccinelli welcome the first part of the tweet but not the closing line. "He said vote either for Morrisey or Jenkins. It's not like he's endorsing the conservative in the race. In fact, the president has never endorsed a conservative when there were others in a race," said Cuccinelli. So what's wrong with Jenkins? Cuccinelli says the congressman's very recent past presents a very big problem, since Jenkins switched from being a Democrat to a Republican just a few years ago. "Jenkins has just what you'd expect from a 20-year Democrat in terms of his public record. It creates all sorts of problems for him, nothing less than supporting Hillary in 2008 and voting for Obama in '08 and '12," said Cuccinelli, noting both Clinton and Obama were drubbed in West Virginia due to their anti-coal policies. In contrast, Cuccinelli points out Morrisey sued the Obama administration over efforts to target the coal industry. He also fought back against the Obama administration's transgender initiatives. In addition, Morrisey is joining with five other states to force the Trump administration to end the DACA program, as Trump had ordered to happen by early March. He is part of a 20-state effort to have the remainder of the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional as a result of the recent tax bill removing the individual mandate penalty and thus allegedly ending the ability of the government to consider the individual mandate a tax, Cuccinelli says the conservative grassroots in West Virginia are squarely behind Morrisey. "West Virginians for Life is behind Morrisey. The West Virginia gun groups are for Morrisey. There's virtually no West Virginia grassroots group supporting either Jenkins or Blankenship. They are all supporting Patrick Morrisey," he said. Cuccinelli says Morrisey is also the one best suited to defeat Manchin. "Manchin is a family name. He goes back a long way. He's not just a first-term senator. He is part of a long and strong political family in West Virginia. This is no easy task but he is beatable and Morrisey is the best guy to beat him. "It's why the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed him, that in addition to his conservative track record," said Cuccinelli. He is confident the conservative base is with Morrisey. Now it's just a matter of getting them to the polls. "He's got a track record of beating Democrats, but he isn't going to get a chance to beat Manchin if he doesn't get enough votes from conservatives tomorrow in West Virginia," said Cuccinelli. |
| Judge Delivers 'Smashmouth Takedown' of Mueller |
| Fri, 4 May 2018 17:09:15 EST A federal judge blasted the special counsel investigation of Robert Mueller Friday, accusing the former FBI director of assuming "unfettered" authority and maintaining control of the Paul Manafort prosecution solely to squeeze out incriminating information about President Trump. And a former federal prosecutor says this was an "unprecedented rebuke" of Mueller and his team, as well as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe. "This was a smashmouth takedown," said Joe diGenova, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. "To question the integrity, in essence, of Mr. Mueller, because of the nature of the case that he has in front of him in federal court, is truly unprecedented." On Friday, District Judge T.S. Ellis strongly challenged the authority Mueller and his team have to veer off into prosecuting financial crimes, such as the ones lodged against one-time Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. Ellis specifically wanted to know why Mueller's team had no trouble referring the Michael Cohen case to the Southern District of New York but continues to handle the prosecution of Manafort on financial allegations unrelated to Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign. "I don't see what relation this indictment has with what the special counsel is authorized to investigate," Ellis said Friday. "You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud. ... What you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment," he added. Ellis also took aim at Mueller's approach to the investigation. "What we don't want in this country, we don't want anyone with unfettered power. It's unlikely you're going to persuade me the special counsel has unlimited powers to do anything her or she wants," said Ellis. Ellis has been on the federal bench since 1987. diGenova says Ellis has a reputation for being a conservative but calm judge, which makes his comments on Friday all the more striking. "I was absolutely stunned in a positive way that a judge, who was so fundamentally conservative in both his approach and his demeanor in court, was so appalled by what was happening in front of him. This is a very bad sign for Mueller," said diGenova. "This was a remarkable dressing down for Mr. Mueller," he added. "What it shows is that seeping out into the federal court system and judges is a sense that not only is the Mueller investigation out of control, but the supervision of it by Rod Rosenstein is either non-existent or out of control. That is a very bad sign for Mr. Mueller and Mr. Rosenstein," said diGenova. In addition to the specifics of the investigation, diGenova says the comments from Ellis mark an important moment. "What we are watching here is the slow education of the American people through a civics lesson, which is being conducted through the media. People are discussing the law and the Constitution and the threat to our constitutional order that the Mueller investigation represents, because it started with no crime being investigated," said diGenova. "People are beginning to see that the original sin in the Mueller investigation was the outrageous memorandum signed by Rod Rosenstein appointing him, which mentioned no crime to be investigated," said diGenova. diGenova suspects the rebuke from Judge Ellis will likely quash any possibility of Mueller to subpoena President Trump. "I don't think he's going to issue a subpoena because I think Bob Mueller knows he's going to do something then which will take him down. That will be an act of suicide. But if he is arrogant enough to do it, it will destroy his investigation. It will take him down. "This will be the kind of stupid overreach that frequently undoes constitutional officers," said diGenova. On Friday, Mueller's attorney, Michael Dreeben, argued that prosecuting Manafort is within the scope of the investigation based on a letter signed by Rosenstein after the investigation began. Ellis demanded to see the letter within two weeks. diGenova says Ellis will likely dismiss the case against Manafort if Mueller refuses to share the Rosenstein letter. Even if Ellis gets to see it, Manafort could soon get good news, given the timing of the letter. "Remember, that letter came to Mueller from Rosenstein after the raid on Paul Manfort's home in Virginia. That could be a very serious legal problem for Mr. Mueller," said diGenova. |
| Improving Economy Trumps Sanders' Socialist Dream |
| Thu, 3 May 2018 16:51:30 EST New economic reports suggest an increasingly thriving economy thanks to changes in regulatory and tax policy and the Bernie Sanders promise of the government providing a job, an education, and health care is just a fantasy that ultimately ends in misery, according to Texas Public Policy Foundation Chief Economist Dr. Vance Ginn. Numbers released Thursday from the Labor Department show, that in the final week of April, just 211,000 Americans filed first-time unemployment claims. That's the lowest number since 1969. The monthly average for April was 221,500 new claims, the lowest since 1973, when the U.S. workforce was half the size it is now. Ginn says there are pretty simple reasons for the low numbers. "A big part of it has to do with the regulatory reform. The rollbacks by the Trump administration last year gave some more consumer and business confidence out there, that are near record highs. Along with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed in December, these things have (people) saying, 'Let's go ahead and invest. Let's go ahead and hire more workers. "People are spending more at the same time. That's the way you really get more job creation and more economic growth over time," said Ginn. But the historically low unemployment claims don't tell the whole story. Ginn says there is definitely room for improvement in the labor participation rate and the unemployment rate, known as U-6, that includes part-time workers and people who have given up looking for work. "They are improving but there is still a ways to go. The unemployment rate - the reported number - is at 4.1 percent. But the U-6, which includes under-employed and discouraged workers, is still above eight percent. That's above where we're usually at at this time in an economic expansion. As of this month, this is the second-longest economic expansion in U.S. history," said Ginn. He's also not satisfied from what he's seeing from an economic indicator known as the employment to population ratio. While the economy grows, the political left has a very different vision for America's economic future. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, who narrowly lost the 2016 Democratic Party nomination to Hillary Clinton, is now pushing a plan to provide a government job to every American, along with taxpayer-funded health care and college tuition. While conservatives recoil at such an agenda, a new Rasmussen poll shows 46 percent of Americans like the Sanders plan. Ginn is not surprised. "What it tells us is that people like to get things for free or what they perceive to be free. But it also tells me that 54 percent of people understand the opportunity cost and what direct cost this will have," he said. "So even with it being "free," they still oppose it because they understand this is going to come with some sort of cost. Somebody's got to pay for it and all the details aren't out yet," said Ginn. He says a majority of Americans still realize this cannot be done. "Making sure that the jobs pay $15 an hour or making sure that there's health care benefits, maybe even having "free college," all these things come with a huge cost," said Ginn, who says that money would have to come from tax hikes on businesses and individuals. "If you're raising the cost of doing business, that means fewer jobs available in the private sector. So are we going to have more federal government jobs. How exactly will these people be employed?" asked Ginn, who also notes that many people may not like the jobs the federal government would assign them. But conservatives like Ginn face an uphill climb. While firmly believing data and experience are on the side of limited government and free markets, Ginn says it's a lot easier to promise "free" stuff than to articulate the beauty of markets. "Often times that can be difficult. When you say you're cutting taxes and then you show that the corporate income tax rate went from 35 percent to 21 percent, how is that not for the "rich?" (We know) businesses simply submit taxes. They don't actually pay for them. People pay for them through the form of higher prices, lower wages, and fewer jobs available. "Often times that's a difficult message to sell but that's the economic reality and I think we've got to stick to those core principles throughout each and every one of these policy initiatives," said Ginn. |
| 'Adult Supervision' Needed at DOJ |
| Wed, 2 May 2018 16:24:50 EST A former federal prosecutor says Special Counsel Robert Mueller's threat to subpoena President Trump shows a Justice Department in need of "adult supervision" and says the Mueller questions leaked to the media show that Mueller still hasn't found a crime to prosecute. Mueller's prosecutors and Trump lawyers have been negotiating the terms of a voluntary interview, but Mueller is now threatening a subpoena if Trump does not commit to the session. Andrew C. McCarthy served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and led the case against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots against other New York City landmarks. McCarthy says the subpoena threat shows this process is off the rails. "We're not having adult supervision in the Justice Department," said McCarthy, who asserts that proper oversight would not allow the subpoena of lesser figures without clear evidence of a crime. "You'd have to go through hoops at the Justice Department for permission to serve (a subpoena to), say, a journalist. "With a president, the prosecutor should not be permitted to even ask for an interview, much less coerce the appearance of the president with a subpoena unless he can show there is a serious crime that Trump is implicated in and that can't be accessed through any other source, like Nixon with the tapes," said McCarthy. "If you don't have that kind of a scenario, then you as a prosecutor don't have any business asking the president to answer some questions because you think it would be interesting. The Justice Department is supposed to be the body that steps in and makes sure that kind of stuff doesn't happen," said McCarthy. McCarthy says Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein established Mueller as special counsel "in a panic" after the Trump administration "completely botched" the firing of FBI Director James Comey by offering conflicting reasons for his termination. Nonetheless, DOJ guidelines are clear on this matter. "The appointment was not in compliance with Justice Department regulations for appointing a special counsel because you're supposed to have a basis for a criminal investigation, which they didn't. They assigned Mueller a counterintelligence investigation "But [Rosenstein] also, according to published reports, committed to congressional Democrats that Mueller would have carte blanche to take the investigation wherever Mueller decided the facts went," said McCarthy. So what is Trump to do if Mueller does subpoena his testimony? McCarthy says there are strong grounds for executive privilege. "This is a prosecutor. He doesn't work for Congress. He's an inferior executive official who has a very narrow license to ask questions and conduct investigations in furtherance of probing a crime. And if you don't have a crime, he doesn't get to ask superior executive officials a bunch of questions," said McCarthy, likening a Mueller subpoena to a subordinate military officer making demands of a superior officer. McCarthy says it's also clear to him that Mueller still hasn't found a crime based on the questions Mueller reportedly passed along to Trump. Instead, he sees Mueller hunting for a motivation to obstruct justice in Trump's actions to fire Comey, etc. McCarthy says a sitting president can be targeted if he commits an illegal act but cannot be probed for why he committed a legal act. However, the strongest defense for Trump against any allegations of obstruction is that no investigations have been obstructed. "If you look at what happened here, whether you're thinking about him weighing in on the (Michael) Flynn case or him firing Comey, there was no obstruction whatsoever. The Russia investigation has never been sidetracked. It continued apace. "After Trump weighed in with Comey on the merits of prosecuting Flynn, Comey has testified that the FBI ignored what the president said. We now know that Mueller picked up the investigation, ran with it and ultimately prosecuted and convicted Flynn. So there was no obstruction here," said McCarthy. McCarthy says there is damage to the presidency from Mueller hunting down sinister motives by Trump. "It's a frivolous basis to conduct an investigation under circumstances where it really hurts the country to have the president under the cloud of suspicion," said McCarthy. A former federal prosecutor says Special Counsel Robert Mueller's threat to subpoena President Trump shows a Justice Department in need of "adult supervision" and says the Mueller questions leaked to the media show that Mueller still hasn't found a crime to prosecute. Mueller's prosecutors and Trump lawyers have been negotiating the terms of a voluntary interview, but Mueller is now threatening a subpoena if Trump does not commit to the session. Andrew C. McCarthy served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and led the case against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots against other New York City landmarks. McCarthy says the subpoena threat shows this process is off the rails. "We're not having adult supervision in the Justice Department," said McCarthy, who asserts that proper oversight would not allow the subpoena of lesser figures without clear evidence of a crime. "You'd have to go through hoops at the Justice Department for permission to serve (a subpoena to), say, a journalist. "With a president, the prosecutor should not be permitted to even ask for an interview, much less coerce the appearance of the president with a subpoena unless he can show there is a serious crime that Trump is implicated in and that can't be accessed through any other source, like Nixon with the tapes," said McCarthy. "If you don't have that kind of a scenario, then you as a prosecutor don't have any business asking the president to answer some questions because you think it would be interesting. The Justice Department is supposed to be the body that steps in and makes sure that kind of stuff doesn't happen," said McCarthy. McCarthy says Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein established Mueller as special counsel "in a panic" after the Trump administration "completely botched" the firing of FBI Director James Comey by offering conflicting reasons for his termination. Nonetheless, DOJ guidelines are clear on this matter. "The appointment was not in compliance with Justice Department regulations for appointing a special counsel because you're supposed to have a basis for a criminal investigation, which they didn't. They assigned Mueller a counterintelligence investigation "But [Rosenstein] also, according to published reports, committed to congressional Democrats that Mueller would have carte blanche to take the investigation wherever Mueller decided the facts went," said McCarthy. So what is Trump to do if Mueller does subpoena his testimony? McCarthy says there are strong grounds for executive privilege. "This is a prosecutor. He doesn't work for Congress. He's an inferior executive official who has a very narrow license to ask questions and conduct investigations in furtherance of probing a crime. And if you don't have a crime, he doesn't get to ask superior executive officials a bunch of questions," said McCarthy, likening a Mueller subpoena to a subordinate military officer making demands of a superior officer. McCarthy says it's also clear to him that Mueller still hasn't found a crime based on the questions Mueller reportedly passed along to Trump. Instead, he sees Mueller hunting for a motivation to obstruct justice in Trump's actions to fire Comey, etc. McCarthy says a sitting president can be targeted if he commits an illegal act but cannot be probed for why he committed a legal act. However, the strongest defense for Trump against any allegations of obstruction is that no investigations have been obstructed. "If you look at what happened here, whether you're thinking about him weighing in on the (Michael) Flynn case or him firing Comey, there was no obstruction whatsoever. The Russia investigation has never been sidetracked. It continued apace. "After Trump weighed in with Comey on the merits of prosecuting Flynn, Comey has testified that the FBI ignored what the president said. We now know that Mueller picked up the investigation, ran with it and ultimately prosecuted and convicted Flynn. So there was no obstruction here," said McCarthy. McCarthy says there is damage to the presidency from Mueller hunting down sinister motives by Trump. "It's a frivolous basis to conduct an investigation under circumstances where it really hurts the country to have the president under the cloud of suspicion," said McCarthy. |
| Runaway Spending Will Engulf U.S. Soon |
| Fri, 27 Apr 2018 17:53:38 EST Earlier this year, a $1.3 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill left many fiscal conservatives wretching over the rise in domestic spending, but Hillsdale College Prof. Gary Wolfram says mandatory spending is real emergency and we've got less than a decade to do something before it gobbles up all of our revenue. Wolfram teaches economics and public policy at Hillsdale. He also served as chief of staff to former Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich, in the mid-1990's and on the Michigan State Board of Education. The omnibus controversy arose when President Trump and Republican congressional leaders agreed to huge increases in domestic spending in exchange for lifting the spending caps on national defense spending. In a recent column, Wolfram explains that mandatory spending - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid - is the much greater threat. What makes it mandatory is specific congressional acts dictating how much is spent on those programs. In our interview, he discussed how much federal revenue goes towards mandatory spending now and what it will look like in a few years if the problem is not addressed. "If you look at mandatory spending plus interest on the debt, in 2019 it's going to be 70 percent of the budget outlays and 89 percent of the revenue. So if Congress didn;t enact anything, 89 percent of the revenue's going out the door already with mandatory spending. "If you get to 2028, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 98.5 percent of all the revenue that comes into the federal government is going to be spent already, either through Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and some other items that are already mandated, plus net interest," said Wolfram. "So if you do not do something about Social Security and Medicare, which between them are almost two trillion dollars in 2019 and are going to be $3.3 trillion in 2028, you're not going to do anything about the deficit," said Wolfram. While Wolfram believes each mandatory program must be reformed, his first recommendation is to change the appropriations process. In Wolfram's home state of Michigan, the legislature determined how much is spent on each program every year, regardless of what is mandated in statute. He says the same principle should be applied in Washington. "Let's say Social Security is supposed to spend $1.043 trillion in 2019. If this were the way the Constitution worked in the federal government, Congress appropriates a trillion dollars. Everybody gets their proportionate share of the trillion dollars. I think that's the type of thing we've got to be looking at," said Wolfram. Wolfram says Congress won't get serious about reforming programs until members are faced with passing a massive hike on Medicare and Social Security taxes. He ought to know. When serving for Rep. Smith, Wolfram pushed legislation that would allow taxpayers to set aside a portion of the their Social Security tax payments into a private account in exchange for receiving smaller checks when they retire. Only one other members showed up at the press conference announcing the bill. But he says there are still measures that could do some good. He says keeping the system in place for Americans 55 years and older is doable if younger people are told they won't get Social Security benefits until they are 70 or 75. However, he believes Medicare needs a far more drastic overhaul. "With Medicare, you've got to change the way the system works. You've got to make it like health savings accounts are in the private sector, where it's a high deductible policy where you get so much and then you ask the question, 'How much does it cost when you go to get your blood test?'" said Wolfram. He says there are simple ways to drastically reduce Medicaid costs as well. "Think of what the incentives are in Medicare or Medicaid. It's to produce something that the government will pay for, even if it's inordinately expensive, because the person buying it is not the person receiving it," he said. Wolfram says the health savings account approach works well on Medicaid as well. "If you apply that to Medicare and Medicaid, it'll change the whole incentives of the system. I'll be Walmart or Walgreens and I'll have a nurse practitioner there, charge you ten bucks to tell you your kid's got pink eye and then provide you with a prescription," said Wolfram. Congress refuses to deal with the problem, but Wolfram still holds out hope that lawmakers will do the right thing when they have no other choice. "I believe at some point things are going to get bad enough that they're going to have to deal with it," said Wolfram. |
| What Next at the VA? |
| Wed, 25 Apr 2018 16:42:21 EST While the media firestorm swirls around President Trump's choice to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and leading advocate for veterans is holding an open mind on Dr. Ronny Jackson while passionate prodding the VA to do better in caring for those who have served this nation in uniform. This week, the media began reporting on allegations that Jackson excessively prescribed painkillers for government officials and was seen drunk in public. Jessie Jane Duff served 20 years on active duty in the Marine Corps. She is now with the London Center for Policy Research. She says if the allegations are a big problem if true, but she says Jackson's determination to proceed with the nomination speaks volumes, especially after President Trump opened the door for him to exit the process. "I would suspect that if he himself knew that these things were true, he would not want to go forward and get embarrassed during any type of confirmation. That, to me, would be very much a no-brainer. Who wants to go up there and get humiliated?" asked Duff. While reserving judgment in case the allegations prove true and admitting she's a bit concerned due to Jackson's lack of a track record, Duff wants to be sure these attacks are not just the product of partisanship. "I didn't have an opportunity to look at the allegations and who the senators were that were reviewing them. I'm curious if they were Democrats. The reason I say that is that they simply didn't have a problem with Ronny Jackson being the physician to President Obama. Now he's being nominated by President Trump. Sometimes I smell a rat when dealing with the swamp in D.C," said Duff. Critics are also concerned that Jackson doesn't have the typical pedigree seen in VA secretaries. Duff says plenty of perfectly qualified secretaries were failures. "We haven't had the best of luck with a lot of our VA secretaries, so I'm open-minded at this point. I think many men have gone in there with vast experience but incapable of dealing with the Washington bureaucracy. We are talking about the second largest agency in the federal government. It's second only to to the Department of Defense," said Duff. Duff says there are some things the VA does very well, like dealing with prosthetics and treatment for post-traumatic stress and other medical conditions most often seen in veterans. But other basic care for veterans is still not where it should be. "There are many, many locations throughout the Veterans Administration, with their hospitals, where people have been waiting for cancer treatments beyond what we would normally expect if they were on a regular insurance provider," said Duff. She is encouraged that the VA is making strides in allowing veterans to access private sector care but she says many physicians are reluctant to take on a lot of veterans as patients because the government is often very slow to reimburse them and provides only a fraction of what those doctors could make treating other patients. After 15 months of the Trump administration, Duff says some hard realities are being learned and important progress is being made. "You just cannot imagine how difficult it is to get change in Washington because of these bureaucracies that have been embedded, systems that are very difficult to change overnight. It takes diligence and lots and lots of perseverance. I didn't expect dramatic changes in 15 months, but I did expect to see changes in the right direction. "The fact they've been working on firing those employees that have been defaulted in their responsibilities for those veterans, that's a huge win for me. e're still working on the private care. We have made accomplishments in that area , and that's a huge win for me. But nowhere are we done with this battle. This war has been going for awhile with the Veterans Administration," said Duff. |
| Iran Desperate for U.S. to Keep Nuke Deal |
| Tue, 24 Apr 2018 16:30:36 EST President Trump's instinct is to scrap the Iran nuclear deal while French President Emmanuel Macron is willing to amend it but not rescind it without another plan in place, but a leading figure in the Iranian resistance says the deal doesn't stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons but does help the radical mullahs stay in power. President Trump has until May 12 to declare whether Iran is in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, and whether the U.S. will remain a party to the seven-nation agreement. Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, says despite Tehran's bluster about exiting the deal if the U.S. does, the Iranian leaders badly need the agreement to continue. "There's no way the Iranian regime wants to lose this agreement. They want to do everything possible to keep it, because the regime knows that absent this agreement, there's really not too many other options left for them," said Jafarzadeh, who says threats to the contrary are nothing but "hot air.". He says that's because internal unrest is reaching a boiling point. "The regime is facing tremendous problems domestically, particularly on the economic side of it. We've seen the uprising going on since December that were built around the economic corruption in Iran and the high rise in prices for very basic food. Inflation is so high. Inflation is skyrocketing," said Jafarzadeh. Iran is clamping down on media outlets and social media, so reports of the ongoing protests are hard to find, but Jafarzadeh says they are still going strong and are appearing in many different parts of the country. "The protests are continuing ever since they started. It expanded to 142 cities starting back in December," said Jafarzadeh, listing off a number of cities seeing major protests in the past several days. "Every week there is a new hot spot in Iran. People are chanting with the same intensity against the regime, making significant demands, none of which the regime can really meet," said Jafarzadeh. He says some chants even explicitly scold the government for blaming its problems on America and stating that only the Iranian regime is to blame. Keeping the deal in place is critical for the Iranian leaders because the money that flowed back into Iran from the agreement has been trumpeted as the solution to Iran's economic problems. However, even that good fortune could soon backfire on Iran's leadership. "Once the people realize that all the money that was given to the Iranian regime ended up in the pocket of the mullahs, the ayatollahs, and the Revolutionary Guard. It was basically the military structure and the clerical structure that benefited from that. "Imagine if there's more pressure built against the regime what kind of political problems it's going to create for the Iranian regime," said Jafarzadeh. The more pertinent issue for Trump, Macron, and other world leaders is whether the JCPOA is actually preventing the advancement of Iran's nuclear program. Jafarzadeh is convinced it doesn't. "The agreement has kept almost all of the nuclear infrastructure of the Iranian regime intact. It has allowed the research and development of more advanced centrifuges that could actually enrich uranium much faster and more efficiently further down the road. "It hasn't put any meaningful restrictions on the missile program of the Iranian regime, which is really marching forward with more missile tests on nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. And it has this ridiculous sunset clause. In a few years, all those restrictions on the nuclear program are removed," said Jafarzadeh. And he says the hurdles to inspections make enforcement of the existing deal virtually impossible. "Most importantly, there's no serious access and inspection of a number of nuclear sites where the core of the nuclear program of Iran is. It's not just the enrichment but the weaponization part of the program. We exposed at least six nuclear sites we believe need to be inspected," said Jafarzadeh. He says the bottom line is the JCPOA doesn't stop Iran from getting nukes. "As of now, the current restrictions are not sufficient enough to prevent the Iranian regime from developing nuclear weapons further down the road," said Jafarzadeh. |
| North Korea Deal Possible if Trump Keeps Pressure On |
| Fri, 20 Apr 2018 16:46:53 EST South Korea's president says North Korea is ready to scrap its nuclear weapons program with virtually no conditions, but a leading expert on North Korea says President Trump must keep the heat on Kim Jong Un and China to get a deal worth signing. Gordon Chang, author of "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World," also says the South Korean president might be a bigger stumbling block to an acceptable deal than Kim is. Optimism is on the upswing for the upcoming summit between Trump and Kim after South Korean President Moon Jae-in publicly indicated that North Korea is prepared to give up its nuclear program. "I don 19t think denuclearization has different meanings for South and North Korea. The North is expressing a will for a complete denuclearization, 1d Moon said Thursday, according to Reuters. "They have not attached any conditions that the U.S. cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea. All they are talking about is the end of hostile policies against North Korea, followed by a guarantee of security," added Moon. Kim has said very little publicly, but Chang still sees an opportunity for something significant to happen in the Trump-Kim talks. "We should be cautiously optimistic that President Trump, if he wants to exert American power, can perhaps bring a very good outcome to the Korean Peninsula," said Chang. "This provides the opportunity for a breakthrough. I'm sure Kim Jong Un doesn't want to give up his most destructive weapons and won't do it unless there's severe pressure, but President Trump is in a position to apply that pressure," said Chang. According to Chang, Kim is rattled by Trump's policies and personnel choices, and that may mean he's ready to make major concessions. "He doesn't want the the U.S. to strike his nuclear or his missile facilities. You now have John Bolton as national security adviser, who made some very hawkish statements when he was a Fox News contributor. I'm sure that's unnerving Kim and probably the Chinese as well," said Chang, who believes the pain of sanctions is a factor here as well. "I do think that our sanctions campaign has been working. There were reports, for instance, from South Korea that North Korea could run out of foreign exchange reserves by October. That's maybe a little bit optimistic but, nonetheless, we do know they're running out of money. "And we're also hearing from the Chinese that Office #39, which is the Kim family slush fund, is low on cash. There's a lot of information that corroborates the view that Kim actually needs sanctions relief," said Chang. Chang believes Trump should meet with Kim but should crank up the pressure even more. He also hopes Trump allies pressure on China. "In the last month, Beijing has done some things which are really disturbing, in violating the UN sanctions openly. So we need to put some pressure on the Chinese right now to make sure that Kim understands that President Trump is willing to go not only against him but also against China," said Chang. Even more encouraging for Chang than North Korea's reported willingness to give up its nukes is the mindset President Trump says he is taking into the meeting with Kim. "President Trump said something significant on Wednesday at his joint press conference with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister. He said he's willing to walk away, and that's absolutely critical. If you're willing to walk away, you can get a good deal," said Chang. He says the biggest mistake the Obama administration made in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal was to make it clear the U.S. was eager for a deal. However, the biggest stumbling block to forcing Kim's hand may be South Korea. Moon is desperate to achieve unity on the Korean peninsula, and that may play to Kim's favor. "We've got to be more concerned about Moon Jae-in than we do about Kim Jong Un. We know that Kim is an out-and-out villain. I think we need to view Moon in a very suspicious light, especially because of the things he has done to undermine the United States and also because of what he wants to do," said Chang. North Korea's overarching objective is to conquer South Korea and Chang says Moon and his sympathetic allies in Seoul are doing some of Kim's work for him. "He's got a willing partner in Moon Jae-in, who is trying to amend the South Korean constitution to make it more compatible with North Korea. Moon has a lot of senior advisers who, in their college days, were openly pro-North Korean and today they won't disavow those earlier positions," said Chang. |
| Libby Pardon Revives Special Counsel Debate |
| Thu, 19 Apr 2018 15:57:11 EST While the news cycle continues at a breakneck pace, a prominent Washington attorney President Trump's recent pardon of former George W. Bush administration official Lewis "Scooter" Libby ends a shameful chapter in American jurisprudence and is a clear example of why the special counsel belongs on the ash heap of U.S. history. On April 13, Trump pardoned Libby, who was feeling the effects of painkillers when the president called. The president also called Libby's attorneys, Victoria Toensing and joe diGenova. "He said, 'I just signed it. The ink's not dry,'" recalled Toensing. "He said, 'I don't know the guy, but I know he was screwed.' When they put the press release out, they cleaned that up a little bit." Toensing says Trump was troubled by what he perceived as a major injustice. "This is part of Donald Trump's personality. He did not like that somebody got the raw end of a deal. He just didn't like it, and he decided to do what he could do," said Toensing, who submitted the pardon request last year. Libby was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements, in 2007, four years after the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame was allegedly leaked illegally to political columnist Robert Novak. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft named federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as the special counsel in the Plame case. Fitzgerald came highly recommended by Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey. State Department official Richard Armitage actually passed the name to Novak. Armitage was never charged for giving the name and neither was anyone else. President Bush commuted Libby's sentence but refused to issue a full pardon. "Shame on George Bush for not having done it. Scooter Libby had nothing to do with leaking anything as we now know," said Toensing. "George Bush would not give him a pardon to Dick Cheney's eternal chagrin." "It was just so unfair and unjust in our system that his prosecution even occurred," said Toensing, who says the facts of the case were clear long before Fitzgerald was ever appointed. "They knew from the get-go, from day one, that Dick Armitage had leaked the information. If that had been a crime, why didn't they just prosecute Dick Armitage? "This was a whole case about going after Dick Cheney and the Iraq War. This was a whole political prosecution about the Iraq War," said Toensing. Toensing says the only reason Libby was prosecuted is because Libby would not turn on Cheney, whom Libby served as chief of staff. "Before indictment, Scooter's lawyer was told that if (Libby) just provided criminal information about Dick Cheney, this whole thing would go away," said Toensing. And what was Libby convicted of? "Scooter was indicted on just a 'he said-he said.' It's as if you said something happened on Tuesday and I said Wednesday and then and they decided to indict Scooter just because he differed. He differed with three witnesses," said Toensing. Libby's conviction was ripe for pardon after the testimony of journalist Matt Cooper did not match his own notes and reporter Judith Miller recanted her testimony after she discovered her testimony was incorrect as a result of Fitzgerald refusing to share evidence with her. The third witness, Tim Russert, died in 2008. Toensing says it's clear between the Fitzgerald and Mueller probes that the special counsel should be abolished. "I don't think any is good. I didn't think Ken Starr was good. It's just out of hand and there's no control," said Toensing. She says the Justice Department is doing the public no favors either. She says the mandate Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave to Robert Mueller is stunningly broad and allows him to investigate "any link between the Russian government and anyone involved with the Trump campaign." "That means a farmer in Iowa who sells rice to Russia and was co-chairman of the Trump campaign could be investigated because he had a link with the Russian government and the Trump campaign. That's it. It's despicable," said Toensing. |
| 'A Spectacularly Popular First Lady' |
| Wed, 18 Apr 2018 16:52:24 EST The man who wrote more speeches for President George H.W. Bush than anyone else says Barbara Bush was a "superstar," who endeared herself to the American people through her approachable demeanor and her fierce loyalty to her family and her nation. Mrs. Bush died Tuesday at her home in Houston at age 92. Just two days earlier, she announced she was refusing any further treatment beyond comfort care for her congestive heart failure and other ailments. Prolific author Curt Smith was a speechwriter for President Bush. He says it was clear in the last month that the end was near. "I was told she was looking forward in the last few weeks to going to heaven because she was in such pain. The Bushes, I think, were comforted by their deep faith in God. They don't talk a great deal about it. They don't have to. They live it. Anyone looking at them can understand where their faith comes from and how they live that faith," said Smith. In his first public statement following his wife's death, President Bush echoed that belief. "We have faith she is heaven, and we know life will go on 14 as she would have it. So cross the Bushes off your worry list," stated Bush. The Bush family is receiving an outpouring of condolences and well wishes from former presidents and first ladies and millions of American citizens. Smith says there's a reason people felt a connection with Mrs. Bush. "I alluded to her as 'Barbara Bush Superstar,' and certainly I think that would be verified by her ratings in the Gallup Poll. She was a spectacularly popular First Lady," said Smith, who believes Bush's down-to-earth personality was the key. "She took her role as First Lady with extraordinary severity. She demanded perfection from her staff. She supplied it almost to a T as First Lady," said Smith. "Great poise, totally unflappable, totally imperturbable, and yet with a pixie sense of humor, never took herself seriously. I think it was this total lack of pretention that endeared her so to the American public," said Smith. Barbara Pierce was born on June 8, 1925. At age 19, she married Bush in January 1945. Their 73 years together is the longest presidential marriage. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter will mark 72 years in July. Smith says Mrs. Bush was known to needle her own family, even in public, but was ready to pounce if anyone outside the family took a critical tone. "But boy, let anyone else say anything rough about them and you paid for it," said Smith. Smith described George and Barbara Bush as "married at the hip." "They were spectacularly close. It stuns that one is gone. She was George Bush's best friend, best pal, great protector," he said. Mrs. Bush was known as "The Enforcer" in the family, showing a steely resolve that came more naturally to her than the president. Smith says Barbara was an indispensable factor in Bush winning the presidency. "He never would have been president without her. There's no question in my mind, nor I think in anyone that knew them. A perfect match in every possible way, which is why they were so close to the end of their time on earth," said Smith. Smith says Mrs. Bush and Nancy Reagan were similar in that regard, encouraging their husbands to seek the highest offices in the land. He says world history changed because of how deeply Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Bush believed in their husbands' abilities to change the world for the better. "We would not have had the triumph of democracy and the collapse of Communism and the triumph of freedom throughout the world in the 1980's and the nineties. That's how important Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush were," said Smith. While Mrs. Bush was sometimes derided as being old fashioned and out of touch with modern women, Smith says many more saw her as a role model of independence and strength. "She was a feminist in the best sense of the term. She lived her life exactly as she wanted. She married the great love of her life and she lived with that man every step of the way, enriching that life, being a spectacular success every step of the way," said Smith. "She was outspoken, independent yet always dignified, always a woman of great character, of great honor, of great faith. What's not to like? What's not to admire?" said Smith. |
| 'I Think That Was Outstanding' |
| Tue, 17 Apr 2018 14:42:47 EST Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Tom McInerney is applauding the Trump administration for building a coalition to strike Syria and carrying out a successful attack, but he says solving the long-term challenges there requires collaboration with Russia and that cannot happen so long as Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues his probe. On Friday night (early Saturday in Syria), the U.S., along with Great Britain and France, fired dozens of missiles at three specific targets in Syria in response for the chemical weapons attack that took place several days earlier. As McInerney suspected last week, President Trump took longer to order a response in order to build international support and participation. He's thrilled our allies took part and says the cooperation extended beyond London and Paris. "I think that was outstanding. Having those two partners is extremely important. In addition, we had other partners. We fired (some) missiles from the Red Sea that went over Saudi Arabia and other locations. So we had other, de facto partners as well, which is equally important," said McInerney. He's also thrilled with the results of the mission. "We got three important targets, one of them in Damascus, which was their research and development center for chemical weapons and a very important target. We took that out as well as two other targets, one a production and the other a storage facility," said McInerney. The U.S. fired 105 missiles, primarily cruise missiles, and none were shot down, contrary to assertions from the Syrian government. Last week, McInerney recommended wiping out the Syrian air force if the U.S. was convinced the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attack. He says coalition building made that impossible. "When we went for the allies to be participating with us, that put time in the equation. That meant the Syrian air force moved a lot of their assets in with the Russians...because they knew we wouldn't strike anything with the Russians in it," said McInerney. Trump telegraphed the attack in various tweets and public statements last week, but McInerney says it's clear the administration was communicating with Moscow long before the missiles started flying. "They were well aware of it. They elected to let us go in and do it. I think that was the right move. "There's a lot of talk going on about what they're going to do to retaliate, etc. But I think the Russians got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, so they didn't want to see what President Trump was going to do and the other allies. Getting the UK and the French involved was a very important decision," said McInerney. Despite the strong Russian denunciation of any response, McInerney believes Russia is smart enough not to overreact. "You can never tell but I really believe that President Putin does not want to have a direct confrontation down there. He doesn't have nearly the size of the forces we have, and he certainly doesn't want to open the door for others to go in." he said. McInerney says solving the problems involving Syria, the Kurds, the Free Syrian Army, ISIS, and other radical groups like the Al-Nusra Front is deeply complicated, but he says working constructively with Russia is a big part of the solution. "We need to get an accommodation. The only way there's going to be an accommodation over there in Syria - and it's going to be divided up - is with the U.S. and Russia agreeing to work together," said McInerney. "That's why the Mueller investigation that's going on right now is impacting our national security. I believe the Republican Congress ought to close that operation down. The only collusion was between the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign with Russia. Yet, the Obama administration concocted the idea that the Trump [campaign] were the ones colluding," said McInerney. If the U.S. and Russia were to carve up Syria, what ought to be the greatest priorities? McInerney says President Obama's inaction opened the door for Russian intervention and has made it next to impossible to remove Bashar al-Assad. He believes we have no choice but to allow Russia to keep its bases there. He says the top goal should be limiting Iranian influence in the region. "We need stability in the region. We do not want to have a Shia Crescent that sweeps from Iran, through Iraq, through Syria, and to the Mediterranean. That is not in the interest of the free world," said McInerney. |
| Basic Beliefs Under Assault |
| Fri, 13 Apr 2018 15:58:54 EST Traditional marriage is in the cross hairs of the progressive left again this week, as a sitting U.S. senator suggested Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo was unfit for office because he opposes gay marriage, and a New Yorker column expressed horror about the successful expansion of Chick-fil-A in New York City. On Thursday, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., questioned Pompeo as part of the confirmation process and used part of his time to pepper Pompeo about his views on tradition marriage and whether be believes "gay sex is a perversion." He refused to accept Pompeo's contention that he did not believe in same-sex marriage but would all subordinates equally. National Organization for Marriage Communications Director Joseph Grabowski says this is the latest sign of a troubling litmus test on the left. "I think this is a demonstration of an ideological purity test that unfortunately is becoming common in the Democratic Party. We've already seen it on the life issue and a woman's so-called right to have an abortion. Now we're seeing it also with respect to beliefs about marriage that people can hold personally," said Grabowski, noting that as recently as 2008, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton publicly backed same-sex marriage. Booker couched his comments as being in the interest of State Department employees who might have same-sex spouses, but Grabowski says the implication was clear that "somehow this view that Mr. Pompeo holds as a matter of personal belief, as a matter of religious conviction, disqualifies him from public service." Grabowski says Booker could simply look into Pompeo's record at the CIA, in Congress, or in the military if he really wanted to know if Pompeo has had any problems on these issues. "It's clear to be that Sen. Booker doesn't have any such evidence and that's why he's pursuing this line of questioning," said Grabowski, noting that the National Organization for Marriage has launched a website to call attention to Booker's questioning and to gather petition signatures in condemnation of it. Grabowski adds that this sort of badgering by Booker puts the lie to the LGBT's longstanding public relations efforts. "The adage of 'live and let live' which was claimed as the policy that was underlying the effort to allow for same-sex marriage. It's clearly not the intent here," said Grabowski. He says this movement was never just about changing the law but about changing the culture and marginalizing anyone with a traditional view of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. According to Grabowski, the goal is "to make that the equivalent in the civic discourse of what racists in the Jim Crow South years ago believed." The left dominates the public square on the issue. Some polls now show a majority of Americans - or even a majority of Republicans - back same-sex marriage. Grabowski says traditional marriage supporters keep quiet our of fear for the jobs or being ostracized in their social circles. He also pushes back on the idea that traditional marriage is no longer the majority position in the U.S. He says the societal pressure is so strong that people won't even express their true beliefs to a pollster. However, this is not only an issue in the halls of government. On Friday, New Yorker columnist Dan Piepenbring vented about the success of Chick-fil-A restaurants in New York City. Again, the faith-based foundation of the chain was at issue. "[T]he brand 19s arrival here feels like an infiltration, in no small part because of its pervasive Christian traditionalism. Its headquarters, in Atlanta, is adorned with Bible verses and a statue of Jesus washing a disciple 19s feet. Its stores close on Sundays. Its C.E.O., Dan Cathy, has been accused of bigotry for using the company's charitable wing to fund anti-gay causes, including groups that oppose same-sex marriage," wrote Piepenbring. "The restaurant 19s corporate purpose still begins with the words 1cto glorify God, 1d and that proselytism thrums below the surface of the Fulton Street restaurant, which has the ersatz homespun ambiance of a megachurch," he added. "Still, there 19s something especially distasteful about Chick-fil-A, which has sought to portray itself as better than other fast food: cleaner, gentler, and more ethical, with its poultry slightly healthier than the mystery meat of burgers. Its politics, its décor, and its commercial-evangelical messaging are inflected with this suburban piety," added Piepenbring. Grabowski says such a column only confirms what most of America thinks of liberal bastions like New York City. "This is the kind of elitism we see every election cycle, when people complain sometimes about the values of certain coastal elites who miss out on the real values of the average American. "This is a perfect example of that. In a city like New York, where you can walk down any given street and see a several stories-high billboard portraying people barely clad in skimpy underwear and engaged in all kinds of weird poses. To be offended by something like a homely restaurant is just completely absurd to me," said Grabowski. But with the LGBT movement enjoying strong alliances with the media, Hollywood and the rest of popular culture and traditional marriage advocates fearful of reprisals, is there any reason to think this momentum will change? Grabowski says yes. "There is a grassroots groundswell of support for this issue. You don't see it reported a lot. You don't see it reported a lot, but that doesn't mean you're along. I would encourage people to take heart and to know there is strength in numbers and to know that we have the truth on our side. Ultimately, that will win out," said Grabowski. |
| McInerney: Russia Probe Makes Syria Policy Much Tougher |
| Thu, 12 Apr 2018 15:27:35 EST Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. General Tom McInerney suspects any response to apparent chemical attacks in Syria may be on hold while the Trump administration tries to build a coalition for any action and he says solving the problem in Syria is much more difficult because partisan sniping over Russia is hampering our ability to find common diplomatic ground with Moscow. Earlier in the week, reports suggested a military response could come by the end of the week. On Thursday, President Trump made it clear a more deliberate approach may be in the works. "Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!" tweeted Trump. McInerney says there is likely a very good reason for a delayed response. "I think his national security advisers have advised him to get a coalition involved with this, to include the UK, French, perhaps the Jordanians, the Egyptians, Israelis, Saudis and Emirates - a coalition of the willing that can represent a very broad front," said McInerney. "When you have a coalition like this, it means they're all in agreement and they're willing to use their forces. And you have Arab forces. I believe it's important to use Arab forces," he said. "It makes us define the problem more." McInerney says another critical element is to confirm the chemical attack actually came from the Syrian government. "We've got to confirm with the most precise accuracy that it was the Assad regime that did this. The reason I say that is because Al-Nusra was looking for chlorine stocks a number of months ago and it would be in their interest to want to keep the U.S. involved and for the U.S. to attack the Assad forces," said McInerney. He says there may be an easy way to determine blame in this case. "Was it an airplane with barrel bombs or was it an IED? Because we know the Al-Nusra forces do not have aircraft," said McInerney, who adds that U.S.-led surveillance ought to provide critical evidence on whether the attack came from the air, although it may take time to comb through the intelligence. If Assad is responsible, McInerney favors a big response? "I think we need to eliminate his air force. Is that difficult to do? Yes, it is, because he has moved his forces on Russian bases with Iranians. I'm not worried about killing Iranians. I think they need to be pushed back and of course the Israelis are very concerned about this Shia Crescent that is sweeping across," said McInerney. In addition to the Syrians, Russians, and Iranians, U.S. policy must also consider how any action impacts the Kurds, ISIS, the Free Syrian Army and other groups in the area. McInerney says the complexity of the issue is immense, and he says it's now far more complicated because of the ongoing Russia probes here in the U.S. "Because the Democratic Party laid out this false narrative, this fake news about Russian collusion, it has soured the diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Russia. It's difficult to communicate with them in a reasonable way. "That's why the Mueller investigation must be terminated as quickly as possible. Clearly Russia is a great power. Still, it's got lots of nuclear weapons which concern us. They are modernizing their nuclear forces, and we do not want to let this get out of control," said McInerney. McInerney says the region is also more complex as a result of the Obama administration pulling the U.S. out of Iraq entirely and failing to honor the red line it set for chemical weapon use in Syria. "Unfortunately, because of Obama's ineptness, he helped create the vacuum that the Russians were able to move in on," said McInerney. |
| 'Dumbfounded by the Dumbness' of London Knife Control |
| Tue, 10 Apr 2018 17:26:21 EST Officials in London are responding to 50 stabbing deaths this year by declaring war on knives and pleading with people never to carry one in public, decisions one second amendment expert calls "silly" and says is proof that taking away people's guns doesn't remove the desire of criminals to harm people. London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted "No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law." There is also an aggressive #knifefree campaign featuring teenagers discussing their dreams and their intention to never carry knives so they have a chance of achieving their goals. Local police are tweeting imagines of items they've confiscated as possible weapons, including scissors, screwdrivers, pliers and gardening tools and declaring relief that such implements were now in police custody. TheGunMag.com Senior Editor Dave Workman is shaking his head in disbelief. "The mayor of London is acting silly , frankly, because bad guys who use knives to commit crimes are not going to turn those knives in. It's just that simple, just like bad guys aren't going to turn their guns in," said Workman, who is also affiliated with the Second Amendment Foundation. "I think this is an example of government run amok. They think they're going to solve a problem by disarming the wrong people," said Workman. "They've already disarmed the wrong people by taking their guns away from them and that makes them vulnerable to knife attack. I'm dumbfounded by the dumbness of the people in London under this mayor." One of the stabbing deaths this year came when a 78-year-old British man plunged a knife into the upper body of a home intruder, who later died. Police arrested the man on suspicion of murder and appalled citizens erected a memorial to the deceased criminal across the street until neighbors tore it down. "This 78-year-old man was simply defending himself inside the confines of his home from this criminal. For the Brits to even suggest that they might put him on trial for murder is just abysmal," said Workman. "At least in the United States, we still recognize that the individual citizen has the right to defend himself or herself from violent crime. In Great Britain, apparently it's not that way anymore," said Workman. So how might the London story impact the U.S. gun debate? For starters, Workman suspects Britain will not be held up as the gold standard of gun control anymore. "The next time a gun prohibitionist brings up the British example or the London example, he's going to get laughed right off the stage," said Workman. He says the murders in London demonstrate why we need a robust second amendment. "We're boiling it down to the question of should you bring a knife to a gunfight. In the United States, where we've got more than sixteen-and-a-half million people licensed to carry, that's a very real problem for the recidivist criminal who may want to bring a knife," said Workman. Gun control activists could point to the fact that the rash of stabbing deaths still do not equal the number killed in the Las Vegas shooting. Workman says that argument misses the point. "Dead is dead. Whether you get stabbed to death with a knife or shot by some lunatic with a firearm, who shouldn't have had it in the first place and sent all kinds of warning signals about his intentions, I'm not sure it makes all that much difference," said Workman. He says one thing that's become clear in the wake of the Parkland shooting is that gun control advocates, including former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, are openly calling for a repeal of the second amendment. A federal judge has also ruled that the second amendment does not protect the right to own semi-automatic weapons. "I think where this is going is that it's still feeding this monster of civilian disarmament. For the gun control people to continue claiming that nobody's coming to take your guns and nobody wants to take your guns is just a flat-out lie," said Workman. |
| Abortion Reversal Treatment Proves Successful |
| Mon, 9 Apr 2018 16:15:22 EST Women who begin a chemically-induced abortion but then have second thoughts now have hope of saving their unborn children thanks to a new study showing a great success rate in reversing the early effects of abortafacients through hormone treatments, a discovery that could save some 30,000 babies per year. The treatments also appear to add no additional risk of birth defects. In the latest edition of the journal "Issues in Law and Medicine," Dr. George Delgado and his six colleagues published a study entitled "A Case Series Detailing the Successful Reversal of the Effects of Mifepristone Using Progesterone." Delgado teaches medicine at the University of California-San Diego and is also medical director at Culture of Life Family Services, a pro-life medical facility in southern California. He says the success of this study is great news for women. "It's empowering to them. It gives them a second choice and I think it really helps them to heal and to go forward in their lives in a really positive fashion," said Delgado, in an interview following the publishing of the study. The effort focuses on chemically-induced abortions. "We're talking about 300,000 cases a year. In some percentage of these cases, we know that women have second thoughts and change their minds and may want a second chance at choice. We know this because they call the hotline of their own volition because they've searched us out," said Delgado. And how many actually have second thoughts when beginning an abortion through abortafacients? "I think a conservative estimate would be ten percent of women want to consider reversal. I even base that on studies that are touted by abortion advocates," said Delgado. "They call it a very small number, which you might say ten percent is pretty small, who have second thoughts. When you look at the number of medical abortions per year - 300,000 - ten percent of that is 30,000 women. If 30,000 women a year would be interested in this treatment, I think we should do everything we can to educate them so they know that it is available," said Delgado. Delgado also stresses that ten percent is a conservative estimate and believes the number who reconsider chemical abortion is higher because "having an abortion fundamentally goes against the hard wiring of a woman, who is hard-wired to be nurturing and to protect her young, including her unborn,"said Delgado. Delgado says his research led to very encouraging conclusions. "This is very exciting. This new article effectively proves that the use of progesterone to reverse the effects of mifepristone medical abortions is safe and it's effective," said Delgado. He is equally excited that the progesterone infusion does not appear to increase the likelihood of birth defects. His success rate was 64-68 percent of healthy live births, while the percentage of unborn babies who survive mifepristone is just 25 percent. So what are progesterone and mifepristone and how does this reversal work? "[Progesterone] is a hormone that is essential for the health of a pregnancy. Without progesterone, every pregnancy would miscarry, so we know that progesterone is extremely important. That's why they started using mifepristone to cause medical abortions. They discovered that mifepristone blocks the effects of progesterone by blocking the receptors where the progesterone needs to land in the cells in order to cause its effects. "So what we've devised is a strategy, whereby we give supplemental progesterone so there is more progesterone in the system and it out-competes the mifepristone at the receptor sites until the mifepristone washes out of the system," said Delgado. Pro-choice experts argue that not enough research has been done to declare the work definitive. Nonetheless, Delgado says those same skeptics gave confirmed important details, such as unborn babies only surviving 25 percent of the time if a chemical abortion is stopped after taking mifepristone. They also confirm that infusion of progesterone is a logical strategy to counteract mifepristone. Delgado is quick to point out that a chemically-induced abortion begins with mifepristone and is usuall followed up with doses of misoprostol, which expels the baby from the womb. There is no counter to that at this time. Delgado says the next step is to refine the treatment by comparing the modes and doses of progesterone to determine what is most effective. Already he says the women who changed their minds after beginning a chemical abortion are powerful. "Almost unanimously their comments are of great relief and great gratitude that they had this opportunity to reverse their medical abortions," said Delgado. |
| 'We Are Being Invaded' |
| Fri, 6 Apr 2018 16:29:27 EST Former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., is thrilled to see President Trump ordering National Guard personnel to the U.S.-Mexico border but says the only way to fully stop the flow of illegal immigration is to make sure potential migrants know they have no chance for a job if they come here. Tancredo served in the House of Representatives for ten years, where he became known as one of the strongest opponents of illegal immigration. He was a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008 and twice ran for governor of Colorado. He says Trump is doing the right thing by calling up the National Guard. "It's a long time coming. I can't tell you how glad I am to see it happen," said Tancredo, who says the Guard can make a big difference. "I think with National Guard, you do not have the posse comitatus issue," said Tancredo referring to federal law that bars the military from being used as domestic law enforcement. "We use them a lot in areas of floods and fires and earthquakes and people who are causing trouble (through riots, etc.)," said Tancredo Tancredo says the situation is urgent. "We are being invaded, have been for a long time. The government of Mexico has participated in this for a long time," said Tancredo. Years ago, Tancredo saw firsthand in Arizona how the Mexican government facilitates illegal immigration into the U.S. "I was with the Border Patrol and we were glassing the desert in Mexico. We saw two buses pull up, let the people out, who then swarmed across the line into the United States, into the desert mind you. "Those buses were hired by the Mexican government. People on them were provided a bag of food, water, and...an explanation of what to do when you ran into a border patrolman. This was all part of a Mexican government activity and funded by them," said Tancredo. Tancredo says that posture from the Mexican government is directly relevant to the current border crisis. "This idea that the Mexican government is aiding and abetting this caravan for instance is certainly not new. It is an act of a hostile, hostile neighbor," said Tancredo. What leverage does the U.S. have to persuade Mexico to stop exacerbating illegal immigration? Tancredo says it starts with trade. He says the length of the National Guard deployment could have trade implications. "It probably becomes part of the bargaining that's going on between the United States and Mexico in an around NAFTA. I wouldn't doubt for a moment that the president is using this as another bargaining chip," said Tancredo. He says another effective tool could center on the money being sent back to Mexico and other Latin American nations from inside the U.S. "The other thing you could is make it much more expensive to send money back home to Mexico. Presently, Mexican nationals in the United States send back about $25 billion a year," said Tancredo. When he was in Congress, Tancredo says that money wiring constituted the second largest influx of money into Mexico, second only to their national oil company. However, Tancredo is adamant that there's only one real way to solve the illegal immigration problem. "You would pas a law mandating E-Verify for every business in the United States and then you have to enforce it. You'd have to make sure than if an employer that ignores E-Verify hires people even though they haven't gone through the E-Verify process gets fined. If it happens a couple more times, maybe they spend time in the cooler. If you do that, you eliminate the draw," said Tancredo. But there's a problem. "Because it would work, you will never see it pass this Congress, at least this Congress," he said, noting Republicans are a major part of the problem along with most Democrats. "You've got Republicans who are as adamant in their opposition to actually securing our borders as any Democrat because they are what I call part of the Chamber of Commerce Republicans. They are just as much of a block to doing something significant," said Tancredo. Tancredo says he's all for Trump's wall but says that only addresses the symptoms rather than the cause of illegal immigration. "Until you (enact E-Verify), you have to build barriers as much as you can. I'm all for them. Don't get me wrong, but they will not solve the problem," said Tancredo |
| 'The Media Are Being So Hypocritical' |
| Thu, 5 Apr 2018 17:02:30 EST Mainstream media are blasting Sinclair Broadcast Group for having anchors at its affiliates all record the same promotional video but a conservative media watchdog says there's nothing nefarious about the message and the bigger outlets are exposing their hostility for any sources that are not blatantly liberal. The controversy began when the liberal sports site Deadspin edited a mashup of all the affiliates stating the same commitment to check facts before going on the air with any news stories. Comedian and HBO host John Oliver said the video showed Sinclair and its affiliates to be a "brainwashed cult." CNN and MSNBC spent considerable air time denouncing the supposed group think, as did some of the broadcast networks. That's a decision that has Media Research Center Vice President for Culture and Business Dan Gainor fuming. "This is a story that particularly annoys me because the media are being so hypocritical. "These are, in many cases, journalists representing syndicated outlets: ABC, CBS, and NBC syndicate every day three to four hours of morning news, a half hour of evening news and several hours of entertainment coverage every day to their member stations," said Gainor. He says the mainstream reporters are getting bent out of shape over a very minor difference from their own operations. "The only difference between that content appearing in one location or another and what Sinclar did is that Sinclair had it read by multiple people using the same script. The broadcast networks just use the same show," said Gainor. So if the common promo is not worthy of such outrage, why are the big media outlets turning their guns against Sinclair? "The broadcast networks and the lefty cable networks all think that Sinclair must be stopped. They're out to stop Sinclair from buying Tribune. This is a blatant political play on behalf of the allegedly neutral journalists," said Gainor. Gainor also says Sinclair has a reputation for being in the tank for President Trump because it won't cover him the way the liberal outlets do. "Sinclair doesn't lean as far to the left as they do. Sinclair has been accused of being pro-Trump, but in the land of liberal media...not attacking Trump every second of the day is to the networks, by comparison, pro-Trump," said Gainor. Gainor says the bias in the mainstream media is obvious. He points to CBS morning host Gayle King chiding Sinclair even though she has given "tens of thousands of dollars" to Democratic organizations. He also says the most virulent anti-Trump reporters get rewarded, including lesser known figures like April Ryan and Brian Karem. "No one ever heard of them prior to (anti-Trump statements in the White House Briefing Room), then as soon as that happened, they were hired by CNN," said Gainor. He says it's nothing new, pointing out that 50 years ago CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite declared the Vietnam War unwinnable and even media icons like Edward R. Murrow were "huge, die hard liberals." Gainor says independent journalism is facing rough waters right now. "It's very tough. Journalism in general hasn't been doing well financially for many years," said Gainor. He says the industry took a big hit when the dot com bubble burst and suffered badly in the wake of the 2008 economic downturn. He says that crisis also deepened the bias. "The 2008-2009 stock market collapse caused a nationwide recession. In journalism it caused a nationwide depression. Journalists lost their jobs by the thousands and they haven't really come back. So the journalists all want to save their jobs and attack anyone who disagrees with them," said Gainor. Gainor says it is vital to our nation and our politics for independent and conservative media to have a place in the arena. He says there are two key ways for that to happen. "We need top donors to get involved to fund more conservative outlets. There's new outlets opening up all the time. That's an opportunity. But outlets are only as good as the people who staff them. So I strongly encourage young conservatives to go into journalism," said Gainor. |
| Trump Rolls Back 'Nightmare for Consumers' |
| Wed, 4 Apr 2018 16:37:15 EST The man who led the Trump transition's landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency is hailing the administration for rolling back Obama-era fuel efficiency standards that he says would restrict consumer freedom, weaken vehicle safety, and have a much more limited impact on the environment than activists claim. On Tuesday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the shelving of the standards which required all cars and light trucks to have a fleet-level fuel efficiency of 50 miles per gallon by 2025. Proponents of the rule say it would help the environment and speed up innovation in the auto industry in addition to lowering fuel bills. But Myron Ebell, who spearheaded the Trump transition at EPA, says the real consequence of the rule would be the erosion of freedom. "I think it's a nightmare for consumers because what the government has done by vastly increasing the fuel economy standards is to tell consumers, 'We don't care what you want in a car and we don't care how much it costs. We just care that it gets really good gas mileage. So that's what you're going to be able to buy," said Ebell. Ebell is also director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He says the mandate was already driving up auto prices. "Since these new standards were adopted in the Obama administration in the last four or five years, cars have already gone up a lot, several thousand dollars for the same car," said Ebell. Improvements in engine manufacturing have already led to greater fuel efficiency in recent decades, but Ebell says it's obvious how consumers are approaching those improvements. "Engines have been getting more efficient right along but drivers have been buying cars that use that greater efficiency to buy a bigger car or a faster car," said Ebell. Bigger and faster is not what we'd get under the old Obama rules. "If they wanted to buy a car they could afford (starting in 2025), they would be faced with buying a much smaller car, a much lighter car, a much less powerful engine. Consequently, it wouldn't meet the needs of a lot of people. Moreover, a smaller and lighter car is much safe," said Ebell. Ebell suspects the Obama administration thought demand for such vehicles would be high if gas prices hadn't come back down. "The guess was in the Obama administration that, 'We can make this work because we're going to drive up the price of gasoline. And once gasoline gets to be six, seven, eight dollars a gallon, people will all want to buy much more fuel efficient cars and the additional cost of those cars they'll be able to save in gas costs,'" said Ebell. "But with gasoline under three dollars a gallon, people want the performance and they want the size. They're willing to spend a certain amount each week on gasoline and they want a bigger and better car," he added. He is also skeptical of environmentalists' claims that the Obama EPA rule would reduce greenhouse gases by the equivalent of 140 coal-fired power plants every year. "All of these claims of savings of any type are always vastly exaggerated and in the end people find that they don't get as good mileage and that the supposed environmental benefits are less," said Ebell. Ebell says the push for electric cars and even no cars by clustering the populace near mass transit options are other efforts to restrict freedom from the left. He lauds Pruitt for doing a "great job" advancing an "ambitious" Trump agenda in deregulating energy policy, especially for heavy industries. However, he implores Trump to appoint more critical personnel to the EPA and for the Senate to act swiftly on the nominees that have been offered. While Ebell and others cheer the scrapping of Obama's fuel economy standards, California and other states plan to fight back. The Clean Air Act allows California to impose more stringent environmental standards than the federal government calls for and other states are attempting to follow suit. Ebell says California can either toe the line on this or face a bruising court fight. "The EPA can then move to revoke the waiver that California got from the EPA that allows them to be part of this process. Once the waiver is revoked, California, if they want to set their own standards, will have to go to court and win what would be a very major court victory and one that I doubt that they would win," said Ebell. |
| Saudi Crown Prince: Israel Has Right to Its Own Land |
| Tue, 3 Apr 2018 15:03:44 EST Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud says that Israel has a right to its own land, and although there's no immediate change in official Saudi policy, a former Clinton administration official says that position could lead to a tidal shift in the region and the quest for Middle East peace. In an interview with "The Atlantic," reporter Jeffrey Goldberg asked the crown prince, who is effectively running Saudi Arabia, whether he believes the "Jewish people have a right to a nation-state in at least part of their ancestral homeland?" "I believe that each people, anywhere, has a right to live in their peaceful nation. I believe the Palestinians and the Israelis have the right to have their own land. But we have to have a peace agreement to assure the stability for everyone and to have normal relations," said bin Salman. When pressed about whether he has any religious objection to the existence of a Jewish state, the prince gave a more detailed answer. "We have religious concerns about the fate of the holy mosque in Jerusalem and about the rights of the Palestinian people. This is what we have. We don 19t have any objection against any other people," said bin Salman. Bin Salman also made it clear that the threat posed by a nuclear Iran is a critical factor in warmer relations with Israel, stating that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini "makes Hitler look good." The crown prince also gave some reasons for cooling the optimism. In the same interview, bin Salman also said there is not an anti-Semitism problem in Saudi Arabia and that "there is no Wahhabism. We don 19t believe we have Wahhabism." He also does not recognize Israeli territory gained since 1967 Nonetheless, American Foreign Policy Council Senior Fellow Lawrence J. Haas says the prince's comments on Israel could be earthshaking. "This statement is, potentially, monumentally important. It is, in essence, a recognition of the right of the Israeli state to exist," said Haas, who served as communications director for Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton administration and staunchly opposed the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration. After 70 years or Arab refusal to recognize the modern state of Israel, Haas says this kind of gesture by bin Salman provides at least a flicker of hope for that hostility to change. "If this leads to a more formal recognition and peace deal between those two countries, this could really have tremendous effects that stretch across the entire region. So I think it's terribly important," said Haas. Bin Salman has been cracking down on corruption, relaxing restrictions on women in Saudi society, and he permitted an Israeli flight to use Saudi airspace. Haas says the slow thaw has been happening for a while. "This is part of a gradual warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia that has really taken place over the course of the last five to ten years. Lots of back channel communications, appearances by Saudi officials and Israeli officials at the same events. I believe there was even a handshake at one point," said Haas. While bin Salman is working to modernize Saudi Arabia, Haas says the obvious point of agreement between the two nations is the need to confront a massive, mutual threat from Iran. "There's no question that that's the overwhelming driver for Saudi Arabia," said Haas. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend and Israel and Saudi Arabia probably have the most to lose when it comes to the rise of Iran," said Haas. Iran has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel of the face of the earth, while Saudi Arabia is the is leading Sunni Muslim power while Iran is the clear leader among Shia Muslims. According to Haas, teaming up against Iran gives Israel and Saudi Arabia the opportunity to coordinate strategies, share intelligence, and rally more of the region to their side. Haas believes Saudi Arabia warming towards Israel could have a major impact on other nations in the Middle East. "It would be a pretty important signal to other countries that don't have relations with Israel that at the end of the day, this is a long-running dispute we've had with Israel. Israel isn't going anywhere. We've got bigger problems and maybe the rest of you need to get on board," said Haas. There is a major concern for Haas and others who hope there can be meaningful progress toward stability in the region. They fear bin Salman may not live to achieve his goals. "Anytime you're in a conversation about what the crown prince is doing in Saudi Arabia and how significant it may or may not be, you don't have to be speaking very long before someone says, 'If he survives,'" said Haas. "The threat being that he will suffer the same fate perhaps as (former Egyptian President) Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated by radical forces within his own country after making peace with Israel." "He's moving pretty aggressively and you do have to wonder how successful he will continue to be as he pushes the envelope more and more. We'll have to see but people do worry about his fate," said Haas. |
| Hillary 'Still Operating in Fantasy Land' |
| Mon, 2 Apr 2018 17:10:22 EST Hillary Clinton suggests two U.S. Supreme Court decisions contributed to her loss in the 2016 presidential race, but an election law expert says there is no merit to the former Democratic Party nominee's allegations and believes she is "still operating in fantasy land." During a Thursday appearance at Rutgers University, Clinton said the Supreme Court's decisions to allow more independent expenditures on campaigns (known as Citizens United) and it's ruling to amend the Voting Rights Act both worked against her. "I was the first person to run for president who had to deal with both Citizens United and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act," said Clinton. "With Citizens United it was all bets are off, more money than we've ever seen and being spent in ways we still to this day don't know. I mean the NRA spent more money against me than they've ever spent against anybody, and all these other groups were just pumping it out because with the Citizens United decision, we can't stop it and we can't even follow it and we often don't even know after the fact," said Clinton. "Then the Voting Rights Act, which was gutted, opened the door to voter suppression like we haven't seen in 50 years. So people are being turned away from the polls because they don't have the exact right ID, although they bring everything else they possibly can bring. "And they're being purged from voter rolls because maybe they haven't voted in a year or two," she added. Hans von Spakovsky directs the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation and served on the President Trump's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. He says Clinton's assertions are baseless. "Just about everything Hillary Clinton said is wrong and she's apparently still operating in fantasy land," said von Spakovsky. Von Spakovsky says the Supreme Court only changed one aspect of the Voting Rights Act, and that was to no longer require southern states to get permission from the Justice Department before changing election laws. He says all the critical protections for all voters remain intact and there were no allegations of voter suppression in the wake of the election. "If anything like that had occurred, you would have seen lawsuits filed by all kinds of groups under the Voting Rights Act because suppressing and intimidating voters is illegal under the Voting Rights Act. Not a single lawsuit like that was filed. No lawsuit was filed by the U.S. Justice Department either," said von Spakovsky. He also says no one was turned away over not having the proper identification. "She obviously is not familiar with federal law, which says that no one can be turned away from a poll. If you show up and there's some sort of problem, say you're not on the voter registration lists, you are given a provisional ballot and you are allowed to vote. "She also said that people were being purged (because) they hadn't voted in a year or two. That is also completely and totally false. Federal law, through the Motor Voter Law, does not allow that to be done. So she is basically making up these claims," said von Spakovsky. But what about Clinton's claim that shadowy, unaccountable money made it's way into the campaign in amounts never seen before as a result of the Supreme Court broadening the definition of political speech in the Citizens United decision? "The independent spending, and by independent spending we mean spending by groups that are not associated with the campaigns or the political parties - that's something that's been going on in our elections for a very long time and it's a tiny, tiny percentage of the amount of money that was raised and spent by the presidential campaigns, including her campaign," said von Spakovsky. "By the way, most of that independent spending is entirely disclosed. Political groups - PAC's and others that engage in that type of spending - have to include all of it including all of their donors to the Federal Election Commission," said von Spakovsky. In addition, the spending from the 2016 campaign shows that the Clinton campaign vastly outspent the Trump campaign and the Democratic National Committee plus outside liberal groups easily outspent the Republican National Committee and right-leaning advocacy groups. So why is Clinton blaming these court decisions for the results in 2016? "She just can't get over the fact that Donald Trump won the election," said von Spakovsky. |
| 'The Mask Is Coming Off' in Gun Control Push |
| Thu, 29 Mar 2018 16:35:07 EST After years of gun control advocates insisting they didn't want to take away anyone's guns, the March for Our Lives and a string of opinion columns headlined by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens are making it clear that the movement is aimed at repealing the second amendment, and the head of one leading gun rights group welcomes the honesty. "Obviously the mask is coming off. There is a radical agenda that we are fighting against. The anti-gun left wants to confiscate guns from law abiding Americans, but they're not going to succeed," said Gun Owners of America Executive Director Erich Pratt. None of this comes as a surprise to Pratt. He says opponents of the second amendment have been wanting this for a long time, even pointing to a '60 Minutes' interview with Sen. Dianne Feinstein from decades ago. "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America turn them all in, I would have done it," Pratt recounted Feinstein as saying. He notes Gov. Andrew Cuomo openly talked about gun confiscation in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary massacre. Pratt went to the March For Our Lives on March 24. He says the overarching goal of the protesters was clear. "It was all about, 'Yes, we want to ban guns,' or if they wanted to give us the privilege of keeping our guns, they would want to have the government go door-to-door and put trackers on the guns. This is the type of thing we're actually seeing in the movement,"said Pratt. In his op-ed for the New York Times, Stevens asserted that the second amendment does not grant the right to keep and bear arms unless it is in the context of a militia. Pratt begs to differ. "That view lost at the Supreme Court," he said, referring to a 2008 decision that affirmed an individual's right to keep and bear arms. The decision was 5-4. Stevens wrote the dissent. In addition to vigorously disagreeing with the effort to repeal the second amendment, Pratt says the logic of the protesters makes no sense. "It's almost like they don't see the contradiction. They want to take away our guns so therefore they want the Trump administration to have all the guns? Wait, I thought they feared the Trump administration. It simply doesn't make sense," said Pratt. Stevens also claims a rich legal history of the courts severely restricting gun rights and he quotes former Chief Justice Warren Burger as saying the National Rifle Association committed "one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime, 1d by claiming the right to keep and bear arms could not be tampered with. While Pratt admits the courts did clamp down on gun rights over the years, the second amendment was vital in the wake of the Civil War and during the tensions of the civil rights movement. He says one of the purposes of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment was to make it possible for blacks in the South to be able to purchase weapons when southern states refused to allow it. In the 1950's and 60's, when police in the South were looking the other way while the KKK targeted black neighborhoods, black citizens restored order by patrolling their neighborhoods with guns. "This idea that we can now trust the government, that we only needed (the amendment) in the 1700's or 1800's but we don't need it today, that's just simply crazy," said Pratt. Pratt does not believe the second amendment is going anywhere anytime soon, given 70 percent support for the right to keep and bear arms and the major difficulty of amending the Constitution. He says the greater threat is the step by step erosion of gun rights that gun control proponents keep pushing. For gun rights to survive long term, Pratt says parents need to educate their kids before the world gets to them. "Use your sphere of influence. If you're a parent, I would ask you this. Are you training your kids in your values and beliefs. Sadly, too often the kids from conservative households have been lost to the current culture," said Pratt. |
| Uproar over Census Citizenship Question |
| Wed, 28 Mar 2018 14:51:43 EST Democrats in multiple states are planning to sue the Trump administration to stop the 2020 U.S. census from asking whether people living in the U.S. are citizens, a move that may find initial success in the courts but may also be based on false assumptions. The citizenship question appeared on every census form from 1820 through 1950. From 1960 through 2000, it appeared on the long form sent to about one-sixth of U.S. residences. 2010 is the only census in the past 200 years not to include the question to anyone. Nonetheless, left-leaning states like California and New York are headed to court to prevent the question from appearing on the census. 1cHaving an accurate Census count should be of the utmost importance for every Californian, 1d California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. 1cThe Census numbers provide the backbone for planning how our communities can grow and thrive in the coming decade. California simply has too much to lose for us to allow the Trump administration to botch this important decennial obligation. 1d 1cThis move directly targets states like New York that have large, thriving immigrant populations 14 threatening billions of dollars in federal funding for New York as well as fair representation in Congress and the electoral college, 1d said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The concern from Becerra, Schneiderman and others is that people living in the U.S. who are either not citizens or not in the country legally will be far more reluctant to fill out the census, thus skewing the data received and depriving certain states the congressional representation they ought to have and the government spending it needs. And while the U.S. census is under the control of the executive branch through the Commerce Department, don't be surprised if the courts back the challengers. "We'll get a court to enjoin this. There's no question. The reason for that is that if the Trump administration were to say the sky is blue, you could find a federal court at this point to enjoin that and say it's not correct," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies. "There's just so many judges out there who have a deep suspicion of every motive and every action of the administration, that's they'll find a reason," said Camarota, who says the likely verdict of the Supreme Court on this is less clear. But while plenty of attention has been paid to the blowback from Democrats, why is the Commerce Department adding this question back into the census? "It came at the request of the Justice Department, which said that we'd really like to have this question because it would be helpful in enforcing voting rights law," said Camarota. At issue is greater scrutiny of racial and ethnic gerrymandering and whether the drawing of legislative districts is putting certain people under a greater burden to get to the polls. "You're allowed to gerrymander for political reasons but you're not allowed to explicitly try to dilute political power among different racial minorities. Or another example is the placement of a polling place. You can have a situation where minorities are all in one part of the area but the polling place is very far away and very inconvenient," said Camarota. "The same kind of thing could apply to naturalized citizens. Does the placement of polling places or does the gerrymandering tend to dilute or make difficult the voting of naturalized citizens. That's why you would ask the question they're planning on asking," added Camarota. While the reaction to the citizenship question is falling largely along party lines, Camarota says on the surface it is reasonable to wonder it will lead to fewer responses and less accurate data.. "The question is does the benefit you get by asking this question offset the risk that you might reduce the quality of Census Bureau data," said Camarota. "I think it's not an unreasonable concern. I think it's an open question." That being said, Camarota says the best evidence suggests there probably would not be much of a drop off, if any, if the question is added to the census based on what we see with other surveys. "Every year we do what's called the American Community Survey. It shoots for about one and a half to two percent of the population and they ask all these detailed questions, several related to citizenship. The second survey we have is the Current Population Survey. It's done every month. It's where we get the unemployment numbers. It has also been asking about citizenship for many years now," said Camarota. He says Trump's campaign and presidency seem to have little or no impact on the response rate. "The argument is that there's a kind of Trump effect, that in the new context of increased immigration enforcement, now we're really going to see people respond (at different rates). You don't really see it. "With the American Community Survey, Trump ran for office and won office in 2016, but the share of people who refused to take the survey didn't change between '15 and '16, which is what you'd expect if people were reluctant to answer these questions," said Camarota. He says the rate of response is trending down but that development began long before Trump's political rise. In addition, the same pattern can be seen on the monthly surveys. "You'd think they'd be really reluctant to answer the question and you can do an analysis to see if in fact people are not answering that question, leaving it blank or what have you. There's been no rise. "Even if you try to put on a graph the months in which Trump did well - he announced his candidacy, or won the nomination, or won the presidency - and then look at several months after, there's just no change in the continuity of the data," said Camarota. According to Camarota, the evidence just isn't there to suggest returning the question to the census will skew the results. "That would tend to undermine the idea that putting this question on is going to make much difference one way or the other. I think it is harder and harder to gather data. I think that has to do with the decline in trust for government. It has to do with the decline in civic mindedness. People don't see it so much as their civic responsibility anymore. "I think those things are true, but I don't think it has much to do with the citizenship question," said Camarota. |
| GOP Targeting Obamacare Again |
| Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:24:40 EST Reports of Republicans giving up on repealing and replacing Obamacare are greatly exaggerated, according to Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner, who is not only confident the GOP will address the issue again this year but is part of the team trying to make it happen. Republicans have achieved a few wins on the health care front over the past year, namely the repeal of the individual mandate in the tax legislation, the repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board in a spending bill, and the end of cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies through executive action from President Trump. When Republicans tried but failed to restore funding for the cost-sharing reduction payments in exchange for removing burdensome regulations from the individual health insurance market in the recent omnibus bill, many feared the GOP was giving up on addressing health care in a meaningful way this year. Turner says that's not the case. First of all, she says the failure of Republicans to restore the subsidies to insurers was a major blessing. "The measures that they were considering as part of the omnibus spending bill were really just papering over the problems. And with Obamacare, they were ready to throw tens of billions more dollars into this black hole of Obamacare. It was not going to fix anything," said Turner. But Turner also insists Republicans are ramping up for another legislative push to dismantle Obamacare this year. "Congress is going to have to come back to a full repeal and replace measure and we have been working every week since October to refine this legislation at the behest of the Senate. (Former) Sen. Rick Santorum has really been the energy behind this effort," said Turner, who also explained the other players in the effort. "Heritage Foundation, Ethics and Public Policy Center, the American Enterprise Institute, a lot of state-based think tanks and a lot of experts from around the country have been putting together a proposal that we believe cannot only get majority support in the Congress but majority support of the American people to fix this for good," said Turner. In 2017, the House of Representatives passed reform legislation but the Senate failed on several different bills. Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain voted down all GOP bills. Since then, Republicans lost a Senate seat in Alabama and McCain has been home battling cancer. On most days, the GOP holds a 50-49 voting majority. Turner says the focal point of this effort will look less like the bills that tanked last summer and more like the Graham-Cassidy bill that failed to advance in September. the sponsors were Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana. Cassidy is a longtime physician. "That bill was based upon a different approach, a federalist approach to return money and power to the states to ultimately empower individuals to have more choice and more control over their health insurance," said Turner. "We've got to devolve power to the states and they need resources in addition to new flexibility to be able to provide people with the kind of policies they actually want to buy instead of what they're forced to purchase. They would use the money to make sure that they purchase private coverage and that they have many more choices and that the coverage is more affordable," said Turner. She says Obamacare is a proven disaster and is only getting worse because more people are getting out of the system and leaving older and sicker people to deal with soaring premiums. "Obamacare is becoming one big high risk pool. That means millions, probably tens of millions of people, are being shut out of health insurance. They need a different place to go. That's what states can do. States can figure out how they can revive their individual and small group health insurance markets," said Turner. But Republicans have a problem besides finding a majority to support any legislation. The budget reconciliation rules that allowed them to attempt passage with a simple majority expired in September. Right now, they would need 60 votes to get anything done. Turner is confident the Senate GOP leaders could ramp up support for another budget reconciliation rule, and she believes this time they would do it right. Turner says a big problem with the process last summer is how the rules were structured. "They did it backwards last time. This time we're going to do it the right way, starting with good policy and then create a vehicle to get that enacted," she said. So what happened last time? "What they did is pass budget reconciliation instructions to create the pathway for the repeal and replace legislation they wanted to pass. And they had to fit it in to that channel and it didn't really fit," said Turner. "As one of my colleagues said, they just kept having to pull limbs off of it until it would fit through that process. At the end, nobody really liked the product. We're doing this differently. We're starting out by creating a product that we believe can work and that people will like and then they'll write the budget reconciliation instructions around that," said Turner. Turner says the polls consistently show health care is the number one concern of voters and the GOP must make another push this summer. "How can they go back to their voters and say, 'Oh, sorry. We know we told you for four election cycles we were going to repeal and replace Obamacare but it was just too hard.' They can't do that," said Turner. |
| Twin Wins for Christians in Military |
| Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:44:54 EST Advocates for religious freedom in the military are mostly cheering President Trump's policy on transgenders serving in the military and are breathing a sigh of relief as the U.S. Navy rejects the push for an theist chaplain. On Friday, President Trump issued a memo reversing the Obama administration policy on transgender service. The president believes there are legitimate concerns about the impact of transgenders - particularly those transitioning from one identity to another - on military readiness. "In my judgment, the previous administration failed to identify a sufficient basis to conclude that terminating the departments' longstanding policy and practice would not hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources, and there remain meaningful concerns that further study is needed to ensure that continued implementation of last year's policy change would not have those negative effects," reads the memo. The move is largely applauded by Christian voices in the military community. Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty Executive Director Phil Wright says Trump did the right thing. "The Chaplain Alliance affirms the commander-in-chief's decision. The number one priority for the military is to be ready to deploy and engage in and win the nation's wars as well as defend our allies," said Wright,a retired U.S. Army colonel who served as a chaplain while in uniform. He says it's time for the government to stop using the military to advance cultural and political goals. "The military is not (designed) to engineer social change. It's not a club. It's not to reflect America. It is to win the nation's wars, to defend the nation and our allies," said Wright. The memo largely restricts military service from people undergoing surgeries or therapies that make them undeployable if they get sent somewhere they won't have access to those medical options. However, it does not call for a total ban on transgenders serving in the military, and Wright says some aspects of the lingering policy leave him concerned, including safety for women in uniform. "When you have men alleging to be women and having access to female billeting, barracks, showers, bathrooms, we think that is an issue that has not been addressed appropriately," said Wright. Wright says there are numerous complaints from women being forced to share quarters with men transitioning to a female identity and that those women not only fear for their safety but are deeply concerned that their superiors will have little regard for their privacy. He's also concerned about whether chaplains and other personnel will be pressured to stifle their beliefs on transgender issues. "We are very concerned that the constitutional protections afforded our service members as far as religious liberty are not addressed when those who continue to serve seem to have all of the rights," said Wright. However, Wright is fully thrilled to see the U.S. Navy once again reject the application of a humanist to join the chaplain corps. Jason Heap was rejected once during the Obama administration but tried again this year. The effort met swift resistance on Capitol Hill from 45 Republicans in the House and 22 in the Senate. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., led the effort to quash Heap's application. Both serve on the respective armed services committees in the House and Senate. "We're very fortunate that we have people in our civilian leadership, which is part of our military, having oversight. We were glad that they were able to step in and make such a cogent argument," said Wright. Wright says the idea of an atheist chaplain boggles the mind. "By definition, humanists or human secularists or atheists could not be a military chaplain is to be religious. Their very first comment will be that they are not religious and have no intention of being religious. They're actually hostile to religion," said Wright. He does not see Heap's application as an effort to water down the chaplains' corps but the exact opposite. "It seems to be more aimed at doing away with the chaplain corps than it is to minister to those soldiers of that particular belief system," said Wright. Wright points out the chaplains were first ordered into the Army by Gen. George Washington and that chaplains play a far more critical role in combat than many people realize. "Having served myself, I know many commanders would not go downrange into combat without a chaplain in their ranks because of what the chaplains provide for those commanders and the men and women that they lead and the family members left behind," said Wright. "You have someone who understands authority. You have someone that's disciplined. You have someone who has a high view of life, and in those murky fog-of-war situation, I think you would want someone, whether it's a soldier who's pulling the trigger or a chaplain who is trying to instruct them about just war and about doing right at the right time for the right reason. "That's who you want in your formation and not someone who does not have an informed worldview like that," said Wright. With atheists wanting to join a unit specifically for people of deep faith and people wanting to join the military while identifying as a different gender than their biology indicates, how challenging is it for chaplains and other believers in the service today? "You have a biblical worldview on the one hand that our chaplains hold to and that a lot of Americans hold to and then you have other worldviews which lead to some of these other kinds of belief systems or facts that aren't really truth. "You get into, 'Well, maybe that's your truth not my truth. There is one absolute truth," said Wright. "This is an ongoing challenge that has always been around ever since Jesus walked the earth." |
| The Cost of Spending and Tariffs |
| Fri, 23 Mar 2018 17:07:13 EST The $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill and new tariffs announced by President Trump will not only drive up our national debt, but could greatly reduce the economic benefits otherwise expected through the recent tax reform bill. On Thursday, Republican majorities in the House and Senate approved the bill to ward off a partial government shutdown and President Trump signed it after briefly considering a veto. The omnibus plus Trump's embrace of steel and aluminum tariffs and this wee's targeting of China for unfair trade practices has fiscal conservatives are furious with the GOP at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp sees the omnibus as a disaster. "We're talking about an increase of $80 billion in defense spending, $62 billion in non-defense spending, a gimmick called the Overseas Contingencies Operation Account. "Bottom line, amid rising interest rates, the additional debt that's going to finance this bill is going to have headaches down the line, because servicing that debt is going to get costlier in addition to this spending," said Sepp. Sepp says fiscal conservatives really weren't asking that much of the GOP-led Congress. "In addition to passing tax relief and tax simplification, we were expecting them to at least hold the line on federal spending," said Sepp. "Congress decided earlier in the year to break the spending caps for a third time that were established in a 2011 bill called the bipartisan Budget Control Act. Congress has not kept that promise. "For the third time, they've broken the caps and by deciding to do that, they had to consciously pass another law. This do-nothing Congress, as it's been criticized for, needed to do nothing to hold the line on spending, but they wouldn't do that. They actively plotted to undermine the caps, and this omnibus spending bill seals that deal," said Sepp. Both Trump and many of the congressional Republicans who backed the omnibus counter by saying only defense spending was still under the caps and the military is suffering badly as a result of austerity aimed specifically at the Pentagon during the Obama years. They further assert the only way they could get the votes for greater military spending from Senate Democrats was to bump up non-defense spending as well. Sepp isn't buying it. "That's the politics of the deal but as policy it is rotten. Unfortunately, our defense spending establishment has had years of bloated practices, bad management and unauditable financial statements. "If we were to demand better fiscal accountability from the Pentagon, I have the feeling, we would find a lot more resources to get to our service people who really need them, instead of just approving a huge spending increase with very, very little accountability to go along with it," said Sepp. However, Sepp says the omnibus could have been far more expensive and that there are a few bright spots for taxpayers tucked in there. "The omnibus spending bill could have been a lot worse considering some of the riders that were being proposed: a new tax on travelers - a passenger facility surcharge if you will, a new act that would have empowered states to collect sales taxes on internet transactions," said Sepp. Sepp also says there are also elements of greater government transparency in the bill. However, he says those positive nuggets don't outweigh the negatives of the bill and adding in Trump's proposed tariffs make our economic outlook less rosy. The steel and aluminum tariffs alone could be major job killers. "There are some reports estimating that the steel and aluminum tariffs alone could cost up to 180,000 jobs in our economy, because while we're protecting steel and aluminum manufacturing workers, other types of industries that use the steel and aluminum in their own manufacturing will be badly hit by higher prices," said Sepp. We can debate how many jobs might be at stake here, but at that upper level of 180,000 jobs, you're talking about giving back as much as half of the jobs created by the tax cut act," said Sepp. Sepp hopes Trump's new chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, will be able to pivot the president away from tariffs. He says Kudlow is clearly on the record as opposing such policies. "He said, essentially, that when we impose tariffs on another country's imports, we're imposing sanctions on our own consumers. That's exactly what's going on here and the amount of sanction could be very significant," said Sepp. |
| 'The Worst Bill I've Ever Voted On' |
| Thu, 22 Mar 2018 16:18:48 EST The House of Representatives approved a $1.3 trillion spending bill Thursday that has fiscal conservatives fuming about the price tag and a process that left everyone but the leaders out in the cold. The House passed the bill 256-167, with 145 Republicans voting for the increased spending and 90 lining up against it. Among Democrats, 111 voted for it and 77 opposed it. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., a member of the House Freedom Caucus who was elected in the tea party wave of 2010 is among the GOP critics. "This is probably the worst bill I have ever voted on in my eight years here," said Gosar, who says it was not humanly possible to read the bill in the limited time between leadership releasing the text and calling for a vote. "We has less than 12 hours to review this bill of over 2,000 pages. That is not possible. The American people, whom we represent, should be able to see this as well before we vote on it. It's a sad deal that we didn't have the time to find out what was actually in the bill," said Gosar. He says that approach ought to sound familiar. "We chastised Nancy Pelosi for having to pass the bill to find out what was in it," said Gosar, referring to then-Speaker Pelosi's statement urging passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. "Guess what we just did. We did the same thing. A culture that doesn't understand it's history is doomed to repeat history and I guess we just did," said Gosar. Despite the short time given to review the omnibus spending bill hammered out by House and Senate leaders, Gosar says he saw more than enough to vote against it. "I sped-read through about 400 of the pages and what we saw was not good, and that's why we were a principled 'no' against the vote," said Gosar, who then elaborated on the provisions that bothered him most. "First of all, the price tag of $1.3 trillion. That's just unfathomable. I was elected in 2010 to get our budget in order and start to make sense of this budgetary process. This was bad process, bad policy, and bad politics," said Gosar. "Within this bill we actually did the takings of over a billion dollars of private property. We actually armed the endowment of the arts and we disarmed the second amendment," said Gosar. How did the second amendment lose in this bill? Gosar says Speaker Paul Ryan made a specific promise to Republicans about efforts to strengthen the National Instant Criminal Background Check System that wasn't kept. "We had a promise by the speaker that if the Fix NICS bill was actually brought forward, it would have conceal and carry (reciprocity). Of course, conceal and carry was dropped form the bill. Very problematic for the speaker in terms of a promise offered and a promise not kept," said Gosar. "The leadership on the Republican side and the Democratic side are the same," added Gosar. He says Ryan's actions as Speaker of the House simply don't match his rhetoric of fiscal responsibility. "Take a look at this product. Words are cheap, actions speak. You look at somebody talking like a conservative, but when they act like a liberal, you know what? Is it really what they talk about or is it the actions they display? I think it's the latter," said Gosar. Gosar credits Ryan for shepherding appropriations bills through the House in regular order but blasts Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for never taking them up because he doesn't have the votes to break a Democratic filibuster. Gosar says McConnell is hiding behind rules rather than any concrete constitutional obstacle. But this cannot all be on the leadership. What about those 145 House Republicans who voted for the bill? Gosar says many of them did it because they were left with a terrible choice over military spending. "We have so crippled our military that anything was better than nothing. That's a sad place to be put in when we're spending the American taxpayers' dollars," said Gosar. Gosar says the Republicans had a golden opportunity in January when the Democrats were against the political ropes and being blamed for a brief government shutdown. He says GOP leaders should have insisted on higher military spending while refusing to raise non-defense discretionary spending. "It was leadership that failed to look at this. The way we negotiate in this institution is absolutely abominable," said Gosar. "The way we're doing things doesn't work and it needs to be reformed. It needs to be reformed right away. If that requires different leadership, so be it," said Gosar. |
| Supremes Take on Free Speech and Abortion |
| Tue, 20 Mar 2018 16:37:17 EST The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday over a California law requiring pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to post information about how to obtain abortions, a requirement that the pro-life movement considers a direct infringement on free speech. However, the pro-life side is also optimistic that the court will rule in its favor. The legal battle is over a 2015 California law known as the FACT Act, which forces openly pro-life centers to prominently display information on how to get an abortion. The sign reads: "California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including all FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care and abortion for eligible women." It also provides contact information to learn more about abortions. "This case really isn't about abortion or Roe v. Wade. It's about free speech. It's a basic question about whether the government can compel private speakers to speak a message that they disagree with or, frankly, they just don't want to say for any reason," said Denise Harle, a legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the plaintiff in the case, known as National Institute of Family Life Advocates vs. Becerra "American's can't be forced by the government to promote messages that conflict with their beliefs. The first amendment guarantees that free speech means that Americans cannot be compelled to speak or forbidden to speak," said Harle. "California has enacted a law forcing pro-life speakers to advertise for the abortion industry." Harle offered more details on what message the signs convey. "The sign has to be in 48-point font in the waiting room. It actually gives a number to call," she said. "The law says it has to be clear and conspicuous placement in multiple languages that tells them where to get a free or low-cost abortion. "If they call that number, they will actually be referred to Planned Parenthood or another abortion clinic," added Harle. The FACT Act also makes advertising difficult for the pro-life facilities. "The law also requires for certain centers to put in every single one of their advertisements this 29-word disclaimer in multiple languages and it makes it completely impossible for them to do internet advertising, newspaper ads, billboards," said Harle. In addition, Harle says the law applies only to explicitly pro-life pregnancy centers. "It only applies to pro-life speakers, which I think is so concerning about this law. It exempts all other doctors. It exempts out all for-profit health care providers. And it exempts out the non-profit general community clinics if they aren't primarily pregnancy focused," said Harle. Legally speaking, Harle says the law places a tremendous burden on the clinics. "It interrupts the pro-life center's message to women. Not only is it confusing, but it's a severe burden on the consciences of these centers that exist solely to defend life because they believe life is precious and encourage childbirth. For the government to force them to promote abortion is just completely wrong," said Harle. Harle says working on this case has been a joy because of the pro-life convictions of the directors and volunteers at the centers. But she says they are wrestling with conscience issues over this law. "This law just adds layer upon layer of burden. So not only are the clinic workers having their consciences burdened, they have a really serious decision about whether to work in a place that post signs promoting free abortion," said Harle. "Can you imagine having your whole existence being based on pro-life views and yet having to be a billboard for free and low-cost abortions," she added. It could also dry up resources for such centers. "Donors are burdened with a conflict. What am I doing now if I'm supporting these centers but they're having to advertise for abortion. Is this something I can continue to support?" said Harle. At the Supreme Court Tuesday, the four liberal justices seemed to argue that pro-life centers ought to be required to inform patients of other options since that is the rule for abortion clinics as well. The remaining justices seemed sympathetic to the argument that these signs conflict with the first amendment, with Justice Anthony Kennedy accusing the law of "mandating speech." Harle believes the oral arguments bode well for her clients. "We're very hopeful that we have several justices who agree that that's a basic first amendment violation," she said. If the court sides with California, Harle says the consequences would be chilling. "There almost seems to be no limit to what a government could do if it doesn't like a certain viewpoint. If they don't like a certain advocacy group or ideology and it's going to impose these burdensome on them, that is going to silence and suppress free speech. "Anyone on any side of any issue should be really concerned about a government that has that much power," said Harle. |
| Cabinet Secretary Ethics Woes: Corruption, Confusion or Both? |
| Mon, 19 Mar 2018 17:09:18 EST Several members of the Trump cabinet are under scrutiny for alleged ethics violations after reports of using taxpayer dollars for personal travel or spending huge sums of money on office furniture, and a government waste watchdog says much clearer ethics rules would make a huge difference. Several Trump administration cabinet officials have raised eyebrows. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned last year after reports of using taxpayer dollars to take private flights to various events. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin are under fire for questionable travel expenses. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Housing Secretary Ben Carson are facing questions about lavish spending on office decor. So do stories like these suggest the cabinet secretaries have a stunning disregard for taxpayer dollars or is it the result of a labyrinth of confusing ethics rules that leave these officials wondering what can be charged to the government and what can't? Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz says these stories make for good political fodder but there's more than meets the eye. "Taxpayer-funded travel has always been an easy target for both sides to try to score political points. The problem is no one knows what prior administrations did , how they spent the money, (and) what the budget amount might be for the various activities," said Schatz. "It's easy to point out a few trips here or there that might look like something's wrong. But again, no one knows what the prior secretaries did. There's no way to know whether any of this may be within the rules, which also differ - not just between different administrations but even among agencies," said Schatz. And how is it that one administration has no idea what rules the previous one enacted? "All of this information is really inaccessible. There's no searchable database to find out how often federal officials use taxpayer-funded travel, how much it costs, whether it's necessary, whether it's done on military aircraft or private planes. It's confusing. It's disorganized," said Schatz. And while Congress is not at the centerpiece of the recent stories, Schatz says that's where responsibility ultimate lies for establishing a clear set of rules. "Congress is ultimately at fault for how much money is being spent because they approve the budget. This recent budget deal increases spending 14 percent. We continue to suggest that Congress find ways to cut spending, to offset these increases if it's that critical to increase defense spending and non-defense spending," said Schatz. Members of Congress seems to have a better handle on what their ethics rules are but Schatz says there's still way too much wiggle room. "There is nothing that shows the list of congressional travel. There is no committee vote. There is no transparency about what the legislators are supposed to accomplish. "One thing that did occur over the years is they stopped taking spouses and staff to the Paris Air Show, but why are they going at all as members? What happens with the results of these trips? What's the legislative activity that follows?" asked Schatz. Schatz is doing more than complaining about the lack of transparency. He and National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp launched an effort to bring clarity to the process following the Price resignation last year. "We asked taxpayers to sign an online petition to demand detailed transparency on who was traveling, the mode of transportation, who is traveling with the public official, the purpose of the trip, the compilation of an annual report - including the cost associated with military aircraft and personnel - and then put it on one website that covers all federal agencies so that everyone can see what is going on. "Then it might be more sensible to say, this individual or that individual or this agency or that agency is or is not doing something that violates the rules. And I think uniform rules would also be very helpful," said Schatz. But will Congress actually address any of this? "It would be nice if this happened, but like everything else in Washington, it's just inertia, whether it's the bureaucracy or whether it's Congress itself after the issues with Sec. Price. "They talked about having Chief of Staff John Kelly sign off on cabinet-level travel, but that still doesn't address the inconsistent and fragmented reporting of travel rules and the exact costs that are associated with the travel. That still probably wouldn't be available," said Schatz. |
| Navy Considering Atheist Chaplains |
| Fri, 16 Mar 2018 16:27:23 EST The U.S. Navy is considering allowing atheists into the Chaplain Corps, a move that even the Obama administration opposed and that Christian conservatives say would squander precious resources and open the corps to almost anything in the years ahead. "I do think it would be really deleterious," said Family Research Council Senior Fellow Chris Gacek. This is not the first round of this fight. In 2015, Jason Heap filed suit to become a Navy chaplain after the Defense Department rejected his request because he sought to affiliate with a pair of humanist groups instead of a religious denomination. The Obama administration fought Heap's lawsuit and won but Heap is making the push again. This time, the U.S. Navy seems more open to the idea. "The Defense Department won all the cases against Jason Heap so you would think that they would leave well enough alone and, therefore, there wouldn't be a problem in the future. But there is a board called the Chaplain Appointment and Retention Eligibility Advisory Group that is recommending that the Navy accept him as a chaplain. "So even though he couldn't get it through the courts or through other processes, there's another group of faceless bureaucrats that have an agenda and are trying to push it through," said Gacek. Gacek argues that if the Navy allows an atheist chaplain there's no telling where that decision could lead. "What's the limit? There's no reason to think it would just be stuck at one or that you wouldn't have more of them or all sorts of people coming in here who are just basically yoga instructors," said Gacek. "It's like saying the pastors and priests division has to accept atheists. A does not equal B here. It's like having square wheels or something. It's kind of hard to imagine you even have to have this debate. "It's important I think to maintain the integrity of the institution. We've had chaplains since 1775, when George Washington himself had Congress establish the chaplains," said Gacek. While the Navy considers and possibly advances this idea, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., 22 other senators and 40 House members are pushing back. Gacek says that pressure and possible appropriations riders on funding could force the Navy's hand on this. Gacek says he's surprised this idea has any oxygen at all in a Republican administration. "If you had a sensible Secretary of Defense and they were in charge of these things, this would be taken care of. It's sort of amazing that this is happening in the Trump administration," said Gacek. In addition to pointing out the logical inconsistency of an atheist chaplain, Gacek says scarce resources for the Chaplain Corps would stretched even thinner for those identifying with a specific faith or denomination. He says those chaplains are vital in ministering to people far from home. The Chaplain Corps is already strained. Gacek says eight years of Obama's cultural agenda took a heavy toll. "In the Obama administration, you had certain social agendas being pushed. There were people who wouldn't accede to the idea of same-sex marriage. I can imagine it's only getting worse with all these new gender categories they're trying to cram down everybody's throat. "Since the Bible has a set idea about sex, there being only two of them, and there being only two genders, this isn't really going to fly for a lot of people," said Gacek. |
| 'Not Just About Abortion, but Discrimination' |
| Thu, 15 Mar 2018 16:05:38 EST The abortion debate has intensified in recent days as pro-choice activists push back against a series of new state laws banning abortion due to a pre-natal diagnosis of Down Syndrome, but a leading pro-life voice says such abortions are nothing more than "genetic discrimination" and a disturbing sign for our culture. In recent months, North Dakota, Indiana, Ohio, and Louisiana have adopted laws banning abortions because the unborn child is found to have Down Syndrome. The legal pushback is already underway, and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus stirred up a fierce response by defending the decision of most mothers to abort such children. "I 19m going to be blunt here: That was not the child I wanted. That was not the choice I would have made. You can call me selfish, or worse, but I am in good company. The evidence is clear that most women confronted with the same unhappy alternative would make the same decision," wrote Marcus, who never had an abortion in such circumstances but said she would have. Dr. David Prentice is vice president at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, which is affiliated with the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. Prentice confirms that the vast majority of babies with Down Syndrome are aborted, and he says this takes the abortion debate down an even uglier path. "This is not just about abortion. This is about discrimination. This is a genetic discrimination where you are saying just because these little kids have a particular set of chromosomes - in particular they have one additional chromosome - that that makes them essentially unworthy of life," said Prentice. "We're starting to parse out here, pre-natally, who has a life worth living or not. It hearkens back to some of the horrific genocides of the past, that simply because someone was different, we're just going to kill them. "Well, now that hunt is going genetic and it's going into the womb," said Prentice. Prentice says this could lead to abortions based on other characteristics discovered in the womb, including short stature or nearsightedness. He says a chilling parallel is sex-selection abortion in places like China, where the one-child policy ended up in the abortions of at least 160 million girls. He says the idea of ending a life in the womb because it may not be the child you envisioned is horrifying to him. "As a society, we shouldn't accept any kind of discrimination and certainly not pre-natal, where we're going to kill somebody before they even have a chance to be born," said Prentice. He says our culture is in big trouble if we start to reject children because they are not exactly what we ordered. "This becomes commodity shopping. I want this kind of baby, I want this kind of baby and I'm just going to return them, so to speak, if they don't match up. Again, it is horrific in this thought that we are rejecting somebody just because they don't measure up to our own particular desires," said Prentice. Prentice says many women are convinced to abort their babies based on statistics suggesting their children will have severe health challenges, a low IQ, and live much shorter lives. He says those statistics are long outdated and the average life expectancy for a child with Down Syndrome is about 60 years old. He also says the families that choose to welcome these children are overjoyed with their lives. "It's something like a 95-98 percent rate of happiness and satisfaction with their lives. Their brothers and sisters love them. Their parents love them. I think in one case you might say that this extra chromosome actually imbues them with additional love," said Prentice. Prentice is not about to speculate how the Supreme Court may eventually rule on the challenges to the state laws. But he has a simple message for any judges who hear this case. "Do they deserve a chance at life or should we be discriminating a lethal discrimination against them? My hope is that they will rule on the side of life," said Prentice. If they don't, Prentice says our culture will be much darker. "That reflects on our relationship with all members of our species, not just unborn children. If we really consider other people simply ends to our own desires, we're in a really sorry state," said Prentice. |
| Preparing Police for Mass Shootings |
| Tue, 13 Mar 2018 16:22:58 EST As the media focus on the thousands of students walking out of school Wednesday to protest gun violence and demand gun control legislation, a longtime officer and police academy director says a critical element of stopping or limiting mass shootings is finding the right people to become police officers and training them well. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School did have armed security when a former student killed 17 people on Feb. 14, but resource officer Scot Peterson did not enter the school when he determined shots were being fired inside. Many critics branded Peterson a coward for his inaction, but 21-year Illinois police officer Randy Petersen (no relation) says it's more complicated than that. "Maybe it's not a cowardly person but someone who is unsure of themselves, unskilled, haven't been trained up properly. Anytime you have something like that, we can have this situation where we shoot people that we don't want shot or we don't shoot people that need to be shot," said Petersen, who also directed one of the largest police academies in Texas and is a senior researcher at Right on Crime. "To go to the point where we have a police officer that is either incompetent in their physical skills, their defensive tactics skills, their shooting, they're not going to have confidence and a lack of confidence can get you to a point where an officer either fails to act or overreacts," said Petersen. Petersen says a special type of demeanor is needed to be an effective police officer. "We want a blend of these two qualities where a person is not overly excitable, not easily offended, but at the same time very competent and very capable," said Petersen. He says finding those qualities ought to be a high priority in the hiring process. "We can train people to fight. We can train them to be good at sports. We can train them for an event, but we don't know how they're going to perform before they actually do it. What we can do is, during hiring and testing, we can have an idea of what we're looking for an officer to be able to do," said Petersen. However, Petersen admits the vast majority of police officers never fire their weapons during their careers, so how can there be any certainty how they'll perform under pressure? He says training drills can be very effective. "You'd be surprised at how realistic your role players, if you have good ones. Some of the technologies we have can really re-create the situations you can get in the training academy or in inservice training. You can get a real picture for how someone's going to respond," said Petersen. "You can put them under pressure where the stress levels will give them that adrenaline dump, make them scared, make them nervous, make them physically exhausted, right up to the point to where the real situation is going to be just a little bit different," said Petersen. He says the key question is what police departments are wiling to do about the officers who can't do the job well. "The problem becomes whether or not we're willing to weed out people who can't. In a lot of situations I think that we don't. We don't weed out the people that we recognize and say, 'I think this person's not going to be able to do this,'" said Petersen. Petersen says the problem is often not with the police departments but with the powerful allies of the officers not measuring up to the job. "The union can make it difficult in a lot of states to terminate an officer that either has a lot of complaints filed against them or is basically incompetent. A lot of times they can end up getting their jobs back. "It's not that police agencies themselves are hesitant to get rid of them. Sometimes they fire them and they come right back on the job," said Petersen. While Right on Crime does not endorse any particular legislation to address mass shootings, Petersen says armed school security officers can be a good thing, but only if proven to be capable of handling a crisis of that magnitude. He also says those officers can be limited in their effectiveness on a large piece of property. "A police officer that's on a sprawling campus still may have to run all the way across the campus to get to it, which may only take a matter of a minute or two but that's a minute or two that we have active shooting going on. By the time the officer gets there, they may be winded. That changes the dynamics of being able to shoot and fight skillfully," said Petersen. On the issue allowing teachers to carry guns if they want to, Petersen says it may make a big difference when seconds count. "Having administrators and/or teachers that are armed would be keeping in line with the doctrine of active shooter training because you're going to have people with guns on scene faster to intercept that person," said Peterson. |
| Schwarzenegger's 'Shakedown' |
| Mon, 12 Mar 2018 16:28:49 EST Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently announced he would be working to bring forth lawsuits against the big oil companies 1cfor knowingly killing people all over the world," but a leading policy expert says this sort of legal action is nothing short of a "shakedown." Schwarzenegger revealed his intentions at the annual SXSW festival in Texas during an interview with Politico's "Off Message" podcast. 1cThis is no different from the smoking issue. The tobacco industry knew for years and years and years and decades, that smoking would kill people, would harm people and create cancer, and were hiding that fact from the people and denied it. Then eventually they were taken to court and had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars because of that. 1cThe oil companies knew from 1959 on, they did their own study that there would be global warming happening because of fossil fuels, and on top of it that it would be risky for people 19s lives, that it would kill, 1d said Schwarzenegger. He says legal action is coming. "We are now talking to law firms to go and do exactly the same thing as they've done in the tobacco industry, where we sue the oil companies for knowingly killing people all over the world. There's 7-9 million people dying every year because of pollution because of fossil fuels," said Schwarzenegger. Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher C. Horner believes there's not much sound logic behind this legal effort. "I think he's beginning with the seed of something he's heard somewhere and then just flying off into nutty land," said Horner. "I know it's very fashionable, including in the courts in California, to say things where he begins, but it doesn't make it any more sane." Horner also takes aim at the 7-9 million people who supposedly die from man-caused global warming each year. He has no idea where Schwarzenegger gets that number. "That's a lot, so I guess he could name 7-9 of them, right? But no, he can't. They just sort of pull these things out of the ether. There are computer models to do everything this agenda requires, including computer model statistical deaths. They don't have names or toe tags," said Horner, who says he does have the names of people who died because of energy poverty, which he asserts is the end result of the climate change agenda. "We do have names and toe tags and I've got a whole Power Point presentation drawn from the English-speaking press about seniors who have died of hypothermia as these policies take root in the UK. "There are people who are dying from energy poverty, which comes when, as one man put it, this causes your electricity rates to 'necessarily skyrocket,'" said Horner, quoting then-presidential candidate Barack Obama from 2008. Horner says this sort of threatened legal action is really just a money grab. "In essence, this is a shakedown. In 2012, there was a meeting out in -surprise - California, in La Jolla, in which they produced a report. The report said if they could just get one sympathetic attorney general or district attorney to start subpoenaing these people's documents to use against them, then we could wring this big settlement out of them," said Horner. This is not conjecture, says Horner. He says the left openly admitted this strategy until they got called on it. "The lawyer who started all this for all of these plaintiffs, named Matt Pawa, admitted to Nation magazine that they were tired of waiting for legislation, and so they were going to try to use the courts. He later denied to the Washington Times that he ever said that," said Horner. "We caught him, using Freedom of Information Act requests, working with state attorneys general to push this agenda because it was a failed agenda through the proper political process," said Horner. But while the total number of people dying from hazardous environmental conditions may not be quantifiable, many climate change activists point to poor air quality in places like Los Angeles, Beijing, and beyond. Horner says that's a non sequitur. "They'll yell about catastrophic, man-made global warming and immediately shift to cancer and smog. That's what you call changing the subject," he said. "I would change the subject too. It's not called catastrophic man-made global smogging. You're talking about a pollutant and a pollution issue for which we have regulatory regimes. You want to reduce smog, go through the smog laws and regulations we have," said Horner. "But that wouldn't really pay off, would it? That wouldn't pay off the trial lawyers. That wouldn't pay off your political constituencies through these tobacco-style settlements," he added. Horner says the climate change agenda is still dangerous even though activists are not convincing the public or lawmakers to enact their policies. "No one has ever spent this kind of money and not prevailed, except for the Soviets, as the global warming industry. And it does end up at a number called the bottom of every list. The environment is at the bottom and this is at the bottom of environmental concerns. "And let me tell you, thank you people like Gov. Schwarzenegger. One of the reasons catastrophic man-made global warming hysteria ranks last is because of this sort of moonbattery. Keep it up. If wee didn't have you, we'd have to invent you," said Horner. |
| Climate Change: Fact vs. Fiction |
| Fri, 9 Mar 2018 11:45:37 EST Every destructive weather event is not caused by climate change, there is no scientific consensus that human activity is endangering the planet, and there's no proof the carbon dioxide is actually bad for us. Those are among the iconoclastic conclusions reached by ClimateDepot.com founder Marc Morano in his new book, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change." The first target for Morano is the environmental movement changing the terminology from global warming to climate change. Because of that, climate change activists can now chalk up every severe weather event to humans damaging the planet. "What they try to do is switch it over to extreme weather. In other words, every drought, flood, hurricane, tornado, and yes blizzard, is now the result of global warming and what they expected. That was one of the shifts in the name of climate change because then they could cover anything and everything," said Morano. But the blame doesn't stop at weather developments. He says the climate change movement sees the impact everywhere. "An increase in prostitution? That's global warming. Vehicle thefts going up? That's global warming. Bar room brawls? That's global warming. Bad coffee crop? That's global warming. That's climate change. Everything's shifted over to the name climate change and they blame everything on it," said Morano. By 2018, many of the dire climate predictions of flooded coasts and other calamities were predicted to come true. So how do those scientists explain those erroneous projections? "They have opposite predictions. If you bet for both teams to win the Super Bowl, you're going to be a winner no matter what. They've done that. They can go back on snow in particular. Global warming will cause less snow. That's what the United Nations said, that's what the United Nations scientists said. That's what was in all these studies. "But they had a few studies that said global warming will cause an increase in snow. So they predicted global warming will cause more snow and less snow. now they can come out and say they predicted it. They predicted global warming will cause fewer lightning strikes and more lightning strikes. Now, not matter what happens, they predicted it - more malaria and less malaria, more hurricanes and fewer hurricanes," said Morano. But how can a "consensus" of 97 percent of climate scientists be wrong? Easy, says Morano. That number is made up and there is nowhere near that kind of consensus. "One study claiming 97 percent of scientists wasn't even 97 scientists. It wasn't even 87 scientists. It was 77 scientists and we don't even know who these 77 anonymous scientists are. We don't know their university affiliation. We don't know their expertise. "They got a survey that started with tens of thousands and they whittled it down. They tortured the data until they got what they wanted," said Morano. And Morano stresses the reason for all this sleight of hand is not to be missed. "In the words of the United Nations climate chief, whom I interviewed for the book, she actually says, 'We want a centralized transformation that will make life on planet earth very different in order to fight global warming," said Morano. He says this is nothing new. "I go back to the 1970's and I show that different environmental scares had the same solutions: wealth redistribution, central planning, and global governance. These are the exact phrases they've been using for 40 years trying to promote the solution to the crisis. Global warming is just the most recent crisis," said Morano. Morano interviewed former Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, an ardent opponent of the climate change movement because it reminds him of what he saw for decades behind the Iron Curtain. "He said, 'Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, the greatest threat since the fall is ambitious environmentalism from the climate agenda.' He considers them the greatest threat to liberty, this whole climate agenda. And this is a man who grew up under that agenda," said Morano. Morano is fully confident the truth is on his side in this debate, but he is unsure whether his side will win the debate given the United Nations, most world leaders, Hollywood, the media, and liberal politicians all insisting the science is settled and action must be taken. He is especially concerned about how early schools are targeting young kids with this message. "This is absolute brainwashing of children. They are taught from a very young age that there is no dissent on this issue. Not only is there no dissent but no dissent is allowed. You are going to be called an idiot. You are going to be disenfranchised. You will have no career unless you toe the line. This is very far from science. "One scientist I interviewed was actually called a heretic after she reversed her view and became a skeptic. Those are not the words of science. Those are the words of religion," said Morano. Morano says he wrote the book to give kids and parents a way to push back. "The book is an entertaining, humorous book first and foremost. Make no mistake about it, this is not a boring textbook. This is for parents and for anyone in the public who wants to debate and parents who want ammunition as their kids get indoctrinated," said Morano. He applauds President Trump for setting the U.S. on the path to withdrawing from the Paris climate deal and for rolling back a number of government regulations from water rules to emissions standards on coal-fired power plants. Still, Morano urges Trump to find a science czar to push back on the science as well as the damage such rules could do to the economy. Morano also says the environmental movement will never stop. "They are all in on this. They are going to keep pushing and they have an agenda. And if global warming were to fade, they would replace it with another environmental scare at some point, with the same solutions," said Morano. |
| North Korea Able to Reach Entire U.S. Within Months |
| Thu, 8 Mar 2018 16:43:06 EST Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says North Korea has no intention of scrapping its nuclear program, is trying to sucker the United States into relaxing sanctions, and is now just months away from being able to deploy nuclear weapons capable of reaching any point in the United States. Earlier this week, South Korea trumpeted the news that North Korea is allegedly willing to suspend nuclear testing in exchange for direct talks with the United States and may even be open to ending its nuclear program altogether. Bolton doesn't believe a word of it. "The North Koreans have been conducting an absolutely masterful propaganda campaign, beginning with their participation in the Winter Olympics," said Bolton. But he says the true objective is clear. "The only thing they're trying to do is get us to abandon the pressure that we're putting on them and hopefully foreswear the possible use of military force, which nobody wants but nobody wants North Korea with nuclear weapons either. That's what this is about," said Bolton. Bolton says the North Koreans are on the verge of posing a very real danger to every part of the United States. "They are very close to achieving their long-sought objective of deliverable nuclear weapons. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said recently that the North was within a "handful" of months - his phrase, a handful of months - of being able to land a thermonuclear weapon on any target in the United States they want," said Bolton. However, Bolton says this is not merely a distraction to buy time. He believes the big stick approach from the Trump administration is working. "I think the North, finally figuring out that Barack Obama is no longer president, is worried about what Donald Trump might do. So their response is to throw up a lot of smoke and dust in the air and hope to divert our attention, first with the Olympics and now with this supposed offer to sit down," said Bolton. Bolton is adamant that North Korea has zero interest in actually making nice with the U.S. or South Korea and says the proof can be seen in our recent history. "They've made commitments four separate times in international agreements to give up their nuclear weapons program. "Four times they've lied about it. Does history ever mean anything? If you've negotiated with somebody for 25 years and failed to get agreement, what possible reason is there to think they'd agree in year 26," said Bolton. So what will deter North Korea? Bolton says we're facing a series of difficult options. He outright rejects former National Security Adviser Susan Rice's recommendation for the world simply to accept North Korea as a nuclear power, but hopes the solutions can come through engagement with China. "There's really only one diplomatic play left here and that's trying to convince China either to do what they uniquely have the capability of doing, overthrowing the regime in North Korea and putting in something that's at least vaguely more reasonable, or working with us for the reunification of the Korean peninsula," said Bolton. And while he hopes to avoid it, Bolton says the military option must be considered. "The other things we have to look at is the potential to use military force against the regime's program to make sure that they don't endanger us and our allies in South Korea and Japan. Neither of these options is very attractive, but that's where we are after 25 years of failure," said Bolton. But one of those allies is also contributing to the problem. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is a strong advocate of reunification with North Korea and Bolton says Moon is actually strengthening the regime that wants to conquer him. "There's a compassionate, humanitarian argument here. Many South Koreans have family in the North. But the fact is the North is a 25 million-person prison camp. It's not going to treat its people humanely. It's going to take the subsidies and use them for its own purposes," said Bolton. He says South Korea's generosity was fully exploited by North Korea at the Winter Olympics. "South Korea actually paid for the North to participate, one more series of subsidies to keep the Kim Jong-Un regime in power, unfortunately by our allies in Seoul," said Bolton. |
| The Trouble with Tariffs |
| Wed, 7 Mar 2018 16:34:39 EST President Trump 19s embrace of new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports is largely believed to be behind the exit of his top economic adviser, and one free market advocate is concerned that it could hurt American consumers and stunt the nation 19s economic growth spurt. Last week, during a meeting with executives from America 19s leading steel and aluminum manufacturers, Trump announced his new policy. 1cWe 19ll be imposing tariffs on steel imports and tariffs on aluminum imports. Pretty much all of you will be immediately expanding if we give you that level playing field, if we give you that help, 1d said Trump in announcing 25 percent tariffs on steel imports and a 10 percent surcharge on foreign aluminum. The policy comes as little surprise, since Trump routinely condemned what he characterized as terrible trade policies with the likes of China and Japan and vowed to revive American manufacturing by addressing America 19s trade posture. However, Texas Public Policy Foundation Senior Economist Dr. Vance Ginn believes tariffs are the wrong policy for Trump to pursue. 1cI think this would be bad for Americans overall and reduce our economic potential over time, which had been boosted by the tax cuts last year and the regulatory reforms that were made. I 19d rather see those sorts of things boosted instead of tariffs and trade practices such as this, 1d said Ginn. Ginn says the simple fact is that charging more more imports means higher prices for all of us. 1cIf you raise the cost of doing business, that hurts business and it hurts American consumers. Whenever you look at raising steel prices and aluminum prices, those are in the cars that we drive and the buildings where we work and in many other aspects of capital throughout our economy, 1d said Ginn. He also says we were reminded just last decade in the George W. Bush administration that steel tariffs don 19t necessarily get the intended results. 1cSome estimates show that cost us about 200,000 jobs. I would hate to see more Americans not have a job when we 19ve had an expanding economy, 1d said Ginn. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross estimates that the steel tariffs would result in a bump of one half of one percent to three-quarters of one percent, an average of about $700. He says the difference is 1ctrivial. 1d Ginn says that approach badly undermines the administration 19s defense of the tax cuts. 1cIf $1,000 is just crumbs according to Nancy Pelosi but a big deal according to those in favor of the tax cuts, $700 is also a big deal. That takes away a lot of the potential from those bonuses that they had before to [add income], 1d said Ginn. But with significant trade deficits and China dumping steel into this country in violation of World Trade Organization protocols, the U.S. stands at a tactical disadvantage. Ginn says that doesn 19t explain why the tariffs apply to everyone. 1cThe proposal so far would be a global tariff on steel and aluminum. It wouldn 19t just hit China. So if there are those issues with China, let 19s deal with those, not necessarily make it for everyone to pay these higher costs, 1d said Ginn. Ginn also says the effort to reduce our trade deficits starts with a tough look in the mirror. 1cLet 19s look at what we 19re doing here at home that 19s also maybe raising the cost of living and raising the cost of doing business such that China and other countries are having a competitive advantage in the global market, 1d said Ginn. 1cLet 19s look at the cost of unions and what they 19re doing to the cost of labor over time. Let 19s look at our minimum wage and what that 19s doing over time. Retirement pensions. There are a number of factors that are raising the cost here that are putting us at a disadvantage compared to other countries, 1d said Ginn. Ginn believes America 19s position on the global trading stage is already on the upswing thanks to the tax reform bill. 1cThat helps to reduce the cost of doing business. It allows us to be more competitive on a global playing field. I think we should look at more of those things, along with regulatory reforms, 1d said Ginn. According to Ginn, the way to help an economy flourish is not to add more complications but to remove as many as possible. He says it 19s led to a booming economy in Texas. 1cThe ability for us to focus on freedom and free markets has allowed us to be a powerhouse. As an independent nation, we would be the tenth largest economy in the world and continue to create a lot of jobs. In fact, over the last decade, we created 26 percent of all new jobs that were added in the United States, 1d said Ginn. President Trump 19s negotiating tactics often show him throwing out an idea, watching his critics set their hair on fire, and then finding common ground with a less severe approach. Ginn suspects that is Trump 19s approach here, as well as an effort to put the heat on officials renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. 1cHe 19s even talked to the Mexicans and the Canadians and said, 18Look, if we don 19t get something done with NAFTA, then I 19m definitely going through with these tariffs. 19 That puts pressure on the NAFTA renegotiation process as well. I 19m hopeful this is not where we 19ll be at the end of the day, 1d said Ginn. Ginn contends NAFTA could be much better but is not as destructive to the U.S. economy as its critics suggest. He says free trade ought to be the ultimate goal. 1cWhat would be a perfect trade agreement? It would be no trade barriers between the countries that are involved. Instead, we have a 1,700-page trade agreement with NAFTA. 1cSo what does that do? That picks winners and losers throughout the whole economy. There 19s a lot of ways to renegotiate to make this more of a free trade agreement. I 19m just a little concerned that 19s not where we 19re going to go if we start picking out even more winners and losers in the process, 1d said Ginn. |
| What 'Solutions' Will Stop Mass Shootings? |
| Tue, 6 Mar 2018 17:04:39 EST Gun control activists and a growing number of Republicans insist something must be done to address gun violence but one of the leading researchers on guns says the data prove the gun control proposals getting discussed will not stop future atrocities but ideas getting shouted down by Democrats and the media would make a difference. More and more Republicans are urging action by Congress, from universal background checks to denying people on the No Fly List from purchasing guns. Some aren't even sure what they want but insist something needs to get passed and President Trump needs to lead on the issue. "You have an obligation to give us a package to consider, regarding school safety and guns. You did a good job talking in front of the country about the problem," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "Propose something, Mr. President, and I think Republicans have an obligation to work with Democrats to make it law if we can," added Graham. Crime Prevention Research Center President Dr. John Lott has studied gun and crime data for decades. He is not impressed by the generic demand for action. "I'm very frustrated by this whole debate myself. What makes me even more frustrated is the fact that the types of solutions that are being offered have really nothing to do with stopping these types of mass public shootings," said Lott. Lott then took aim at ideas like expanded background checks and banning so-called assault weapons, explaining why he thinks they would't work. "The number one solution that Democrats go to all the time are the background checks on private transfers of guns. If that type of law had been in effect, it wouldn't have stopped any mass public shooting this century or even years before that. And yet they keep pushing it," said Lott. He says the statistics on "assault weapons" are also unconvincing. "To go and ban guns based on how they look really never made much sense to me and there's a lot of academic research that shows that it had no impact on these types of crimes," said Lott. Many conservatives recoiled last week when President Trump seemed warm to ideas ranging from raising the minimum age for purchasing rifles to expanded background checks and possibly even portions of an "assault weapons" ban. Lott says people need to remember how Trump approaches policy and adds he will not judge Trump until he sees concrete proposals. "I don't put too much weight on any one part of the conversation. I want to see what comes out in the end, but Trump is a very practical person. You can't go and argue with him, I don't believe, just saying this is a right. "I don't think that's the way he thinks about things. He wants to know what will work, what will stop these types of things," said Lott. Lott is very pleased Trump seems to be on board with allowing teachers and staff voluntarily conceal carry on school property. He also applauds Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., for introducing legislation to repeal the federal gun-free zones. He says the research shows those zones are magnets for deranged killers. "I don't know how somebody can get around it. You read the diaries, you read the other statements these killers leave, they're very explicit on why they picked the targets that they do. Over 98 percent of the mass public shootings since 1950 have occurred in places where guns are banned," said Lott. Politicians in both parties recoil at the idea of teachers and school staff voluntarily carrying guns, with some preferring armed security instead. Lott says that's not nearly as effective. "Putting somebody in uniform is like putting someone there with a neon sign that says 'Shoot me first,'" said Lott. "If it's concealed (on staff or teachers), the attackers won't even know who they have to worry about. It takes away the strategic advantage that these killers have." But is there any evidence that arming faculty and staff will work? "It varies a lot across states but there are 25 states that allow staff and teachers to carry to varying degrees. There's never been an attack at one of those schools," said Lott. Of course, mass shootings don't only happen in schools, and Lott says concealed carry is also the best defense of those settings as well. "We have 17 million Americans in this country who have a concealed carry permit. They're at the malls. They're at the restaurants, at the movie theaters, at the grocery stores. You have no clue whether somebody next to you has a concealed carry permit or not. "If you take out California and New York, over eight percent of the adult population in the rest of the country has a concealed carry permit. It's very likely when you're just going around that there are people there who have a gun. You'd only know if something bad happened," said Lott. |
| Tax Cuts Working, Spending Must Be Reined In |
| Fri, 2 Mar 2018 15:46:42 EST The Republican tax cuts are already boosting local economies and more help may be on the way, but GOP House member says lawmakers must get serious about cutting spending and taming the debt. Rep. Keith Rothfus, R-Pennsylvania, is a member of the House Financial Services Committee. He says the benefits of the tax legislation, passed solely on Republican votes in December, are already clear in his district east of Pittsburgh. "We're seeing a lot of positive feedback. We're seeing a lot of folks who are getting more money in their weekly or bi-weekly paychecks. We're hearing from people who have gotten bonuses. "We've talked to small businesses that are going to be able to make new investments in their businesses to grow their businesses, hire workers, buy equipment, which means the person who supplies the equipment is going to have a job. We have gotten a lot of great feedback and this is just the thing that this economy needed," said Rothfus. Rothfus says the tax cuts, along with the GOP rollback of regulations, is triggering the kind of economic recovery we should have seen years ago. "The Obama administration had a different model of recovery, one of more regulation, more control from Washington, higher taxes, more spending. We saw the slowest growth rate in a recovery since the Great Depression," said Rothfus. So what do Rothfus and other Republicans have in mind for stoke economic growth some more? "It's all about getting capital flowing again. We are losing a community bank or a credit union a day in this country because of all the over-regulation in the financial sector. We need to find right regulation. I talk about this all the time. We want regulation that is smart, prudent, responsible. That's the focus we're going to have on the Financial Services Committee," said Rothfus. But while Republicans made good on their promises to cut taxes for most Americans, Congress has not managed to restrain spending. In addition to maintaining Obama-era spending levels for over a year, lawmakers forged a budget agreement in February that will crank up both military and domestic spending and create trillion-dollar deficits for years to come. Rothfus voted against that deal. He says it is unacceptable for lawmakers to look the other way on debt and deficits. "That means we are borrowing two million dollars every minute, every day of the year. That's what a trillion dollars is," said Rothfus. "We have to get serious about this spending problem that we have. We are collecting more tax revenue than ever. We have to get back to healthy economic growth, because that's actually going to help generate revenues to pay for programs that people expect," said Rothfus. He says a double-digit growth in domestic spending is irresponsible given other pressing priorities. "When you're growing the defense budget the way we did, when you're going to offer $89 billion to help people effected by disasters in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico, this was not the year to raise domestic, non-defense spending by 12 percent. "A family that is going through issues in their budget at the kitchen table, if they had a fire there they know they're going to have to put more money there and not buy other things," said Rothfus. When asked how to control spending, Rothfus pointed to two ideas, one of which Congress recently scrapped. "The smart way is to have left in place the caps that we had under the prior budget agreement, except to make sure that we're taking care of defense and our veterans," said Rothfus. He also wants to see much closer scrutiny of existing government programs, as Congress is now doing with funding for opioid addiction treatment. "That means you have to take a hard look at other programs across the government and see what's effective and what's not. We passed a bill a couple years ago called the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act, a necessary piece of legislation to address the opioid epidemic. One of the provisions for that is for the first time we are going to measure the effectiveness of some of the treatment plans. "Imagine that. We should be measuring the effectiveness of every government program. These are the hard-working taxpayers' dollars that we want to be good stewards of," said Rothfus. Addressing the opioid crisis is a major priority for Rothfus, who believes government needs to play a key role in helping people end their addictions. "The response has to come from everywhere. This is an all hands on deck situation. We have to have local partnership," he said. In addition to providing the money for programs proven to help addicts recover, Rothfus says the crisis makes real border security an even greater priority. 'We have to be taking a hard look at our border. Most of the heroin that we have in our country is coming from the cartels in Mexico. If that's not a reason to secure our border, I don't know what is. "So we've got to be doing a much better job and, where appropriate, have barriers along the border. We have to increase capacity at ports of entry so that we can be inspecting the vehicles that are smuggling this poison in," said Rothfus. |
| Pennsylvania Supreme Court Putting Constitution 'In the Shredding Machine' |
| Thu, 1 Mar 2018 14:54:00 EST Pennsylvania's 2018 congressional primary season is now in limbo after the left-leaning state supreme court ordered a new congressional map far more favorable to Democrats and Republicans take the issue to court, arguing the decision is in clear violation of the U.S. Constitution. Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the congressional district map was excessively partisan and, therefore, unconstitutional. The court gave the GOP-led legislature just days to present a new map. If Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf rejected the map, the court said it would draw the new map, which is exactly what happened. Republicans are now taking the issue to court. Time is of the essence, with the 2018 primaries scheduled for May 15. Under the previous map, Republicans won 13 of 18 House seats. With the new district lines, experts believe Democrats to have a good chance of winning 11 or 12 seats this year. In 2016, GOP Rep. Keith Rothfus won re-election with 62 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district. He is now being assigned to a district that would have been carried by Hillary Clinton two years ago. Rothfus says the state supreme court vastly overstepped its bounds. "The Pennsylvania Supreme Court took a part of the federal U.S. Constitution and put it in the shredding machine. The Constitution is clear. The federal Constitution says state legislatures are responsible for setting the time, place, and manner of elections for senators and representatives. "This is not the job of a state supreme court. It is not the job of a state. It expressly says that's the job of the state legislature. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court took an unprecedented move and demanded that the state legislature, frankly in two days, come up with a new map. They did not issue their official opinion until two days before their deadline," said Rothfus. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution states, "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators." In addition, Rothfus says the Pennsylvania already addressed this issue last decade. "These issues with respect to congressional districts were litigated 15 years ago, almost the identical case. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court at that time did not think that this was a cause of action," said Rothfus. He also says Democrats did not have a problem with the map the GOP-led legislature drew up for the 2012 cycle and beyond. "My Democrat predecessor, Jason Altmire, actually was on record in 2012, saying that the seat that I was in was fair and contiguous. You had a bipartisan majority of the state legislature, back in 2012, approve this map," said Rothfus Rothfus and other GOP critics of the decision are also furious that the court did not actually draw the new map. "You had four people (out of seven) on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decide that they should go with a new map, drawn not by a person from Pennsylvania but from a Stanford University law professor thousands of miles away, trying to project his will on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as opposed to the will of the legislature," said Rothfus. It is common to accuse judges of partisanship or judicial activism when legal decisions on political cases do not go one's way, but the political bent of the court is an open fact. "We have elections in Pennsylvania for our state supreme court. A couple years ago, the Democrats had a sweep," said Rothfus, who thinks this verdict ought to trigger a closer look at those judicial campaigns. "We need to take a hard look at what was going on in that election. Were some of these candidates making statements about redistricting, about gerrymandering. There is a suggestion that at least one of them did, in which case that person should have been recused from this case to begin with," said Rothfus. With primary elections scheduled for just over 10 weeks from now, Republicans are headed to federal court to have the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision reversed. "We have sought relief from the federal courts to protect the prerogatives of the state legislature as defined in the U.S. Constitution," said Rothfus. Rothfus says the GOP map allowed for Democrats to be competitive in a number of districts. "These districts can be competitive with the right kind of candidates. Western Pennsylvania tends to be more conservative. They look for Democrats who are conservative. But when the national party has gone so far to the left, so extreme, that's what makes their candidates unacceptable. "They only way they can win elections is if they themselves do gerrymandering, and that's what's happened in this case," said Rothfus. Regardless of how the fight over the map turns out, Rothfus will be running for re-election this year. He says he's got a record he's proud to take before the voters. "We have to be very aggressive with our message. We have a very positive message to talk about with the tax cuts and how that's bringing the economy back to life, about (killing) Washington regulations that have been crushing jobs, crushing wages. This is a district we are going to be very competitive in," said Rothfus. "The way you win elections is to campaign on ideas. That's what we did. That's how I won in 2012 and that's how we're going to continue to win in the future," said Rothfus. |
| Gun Lobby Fires Back |
| Wed, 28 Feb 2018 16:29:53 EST Gun control activists and members of both parties are rolling out legislation to tighten gun laws, but gun rights groups say those proposals would do nothing but open the door to more gun control efforts. House Democrats are pushing the most aggressive proposal, calling for a ban on most semi-automatic weapons, specifically if they have detachable magazines or can hold more than ten rounds. Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott is asking state lawmakers to raise the minimum age for buying a rifle to 21 years old. There is a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate that would do the same. Senate Republicans are also advocating for expanded background checks. President Trump has, at times, embraced both increasing the minimum age to buy rifles and universal background checks. But Gun Owners of America Legislative Director Mike Hammond says all of these ideas would fail to address the reasons for mass shootings and only serve to restrict the freedoms of law abiding Americans. While Democrats and the media often portray semi-automatic weapons as the reason for the high casualty counts at many shootings, Hammond says they are also the weapon of choice for many millions of gun owners. He says semi-automatics make up a bigger percentage of the 300 million guns in this country than most people realize. "Of those, there are probably 10 million AR-15's. They're the most popular gun in the country. I would guess that if you added other semi-automatic rifles like AK-47's, you'd probably have 20 million of the households. And if you start adding semi-automatic handguns, who knows where you are? Fifty million or a hundred million," said Hammond. "Basically you're taking off the market a substantial portion of the guns which are in private hands in the United States," said Hammond. Hammond says gun control advocates target semi-automatic weapons because of how they look. "They are demonized because of cosmetic features that make them look like something else. Also, they're demonized by this false narrative that they're somehow a military rifle. "I was in the military. I was issued a fully automatic M-16. I wouldn't go into battle with a semi-automatic firearm. So the exercise is to use fraud in order to ban the most popular gun in America," said Hammond. Hammond and his allies are frequently confronted with the question of why anyone would need a semi-automatic firearm. He says history provides examples, including Korean grocers who protected their stores and their homes above those stores during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. "They stood on the roofs of their grocery stores, showing their nasty semi-automatic firearms so anyone who wanted to burn down their store and their home could see it. As a result of that, they saved their lives, they saved the lives of their families, they saved their homes, they saved their stores," said Hammond. As for the bipartisan push for raise the minimum age for buying any firearm to the age of 21, Hammond says it's just a slick move to advance more gun control legislation. He says the law, 18 USC 922 (b) (1), only refers to buying guns from a dealer. "It wouldn't solve a single thing. The next day the gun controllers would be back to us, saying, 'Well, sure they can't buy semi-autos from dealers, but now we need to ban their purchase from gun shows. Now we need to ban their purchase on the internet. Now we need to enact the sort of universal background checks which Congress considered and rejected in 2013 after Newtown,'" said Hammond. "What it would do is just open up a whole bunch of trap doors for the gun controllers to come and make a series of successive demands, claiming that what we did accomplished nothing," said Hammond. As for universal background checks, Hammond says those are just a way for the government to barge into every gun owner's life. "They mean that you can't buy a gun anywhere in America unless the government approves the sale," said Hammond. He says this can take various forms, using the example of rural neighbors. Under universal background checks, he says those neighbors might have to drive hours to find a gun dealer who can do the background check and charge whatever he wants for performing the service. In the bigger picture, Hammond fears the government would use that information to build a national gun registry. "Currently, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is going around in connection with its annual inspections and photographing gun records. We suspect its making those photographs into the beginnings of a national gun registry. "If everyone has to sell their guns through a dealer, that means every transaction has one of those gun records. And that means that everyone is going to be in that universal gun registry," said Hammond. |
| 20 States Take Aim at Obamacare |
| Tue, 27 Feb 2018 17:04:14 EST The recent tax cut legislation also puts an end to penalties for failing to buy health insurance, a development 20 states now argue should render the rest of Obamacare unconstitutional. Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the states filed suit in federal district court in Fort Worth on Monday, asking for an injunction against continued enforcement of the Affordable Care Act and, ultimately, for the law to be struck down. President Trump and Republicans often assert that the tax bill repealed the individual mandate, but that's not exactly correct. "It made the individual mandate a zero. It zeroed it out, which is what they could do because the Supreme Court had declared the individual mandate a tax but it didn't strike the language from the statute," said Rob Henneke, a former colleague of Paxton's who is now general counsel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. "So part of the argument that the states have here is that because the individual mandate is set at zero, it is not performing the functions of a tax and therefore cannot still be construed constitutional by the Supreme Court under the taxing powers of Congress," said Henneke. And why is that? In 2012, despite ruling that the law violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution by forcing Americans to purchase a product, Chief Justice John Roberts saved the Affordable Care Act by declaring the the individual mandate a tax, which is within the powers of Congress. Henneke says without that rationale, Obamacare collapses. "The whole crux of that regulatory scheme rests on the essential component of being able to compel Americans to purchase health insurance or pay this tax penalty. Now that that one card has been pulled out of that house of cards, the states argue that the entire regulatory scheme collapses," said Henneke. Henneke admits that the justices seem very reluctant to confront Obamacare again, but he says the states are hoping Roberts will reverse course once he's confronted with his own words. "In this situation, it is the Supreme Court's own words in the NFIB v. Sebelius case, where they point to the individual mandate as the key component in what made the Affordable Care Act constitutional," said Henneke. Another big question, says Henneke, is whether the defendants will put up much of a fight this time around. "It remains to be seen what position this administration and the Department of Justice is going to take and if and how they are going to defend the law. "The president has been very critical of the Affordable Care Act. It's been a cornerstone of what he campaigned on. Are they really going to disagree with the 20 states that have challenged the constitutionality of this law or do they agree with the argument presented by the states? " said Henneke. He says it's also possible that this case could make it through the system pretty quickly. "[The states] are asking for a court to enjoin the Affordable Care Act, to have a court order that would stop that law from continuing. That is the ultimate relief that is sought in the lawsuit. but stay tuned. We may see those states come to court earlier and ask for a preliminary injunction to stop the Affordable Care Act while the lawsuit goes on," said Henneke. "If that happens, then that could be a decision that moves up through the court system much, much faster than the three or four years it takes a lawsuit to normally get through the trial court," he added. |
| Union Dues Battle Reaches Supremes Again |
| Mon, 26 Feb 2018 16:17:54 EST The Supreme Court heard oral arguments over whether labor unions can force non-members to pay dues when they hold public sector jobs, and the upcoming verdict may have a major impact on organized labor going forward. And one leading expert says if unions cannot count on compulsory dues, their next plan may be to get it from the taxpayers. On Monday, justices heard the case of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME. Mark Janus is an employee with the Illinois Department of Public Health. He is not a member of AFSCME, but $50 is still taken out of his paycheck each month in union dues. AFSCME contends that the collective bargaining it does on behalf of public sector employees ends up benefiting all workers, thus collecting $50 per month from people like Janus is reasonable. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix says organized labor's argument is full of holes. "The fact that the unions have positioned themselves as the exclusive bargaining agent and the monopoly voice of all workers in the public sector is really the issue. This is the fundamental problem and the injustice of this particular situation. The unions say that everything they do benefits everybody they come in contact with. That's just not true. "So the idea is that Mark Janus, our client who we represented at the Supreme Court, is basically saying that what they're doing in some cases hurts him. In some cases it's arguable that it doesn't help him. In some cases it probably does. But the bottom line is that he would lose his job if he did not pay these fees to the union," said Mix. It's the compulsory policy aimed at non-members that Mix believes is unconstitutional. "In order to work for his government and have a voice, he's got to pay a private organization for that privilege. We believe that it all should be voluntary. If the union's doing great work and they're providing all these great benefits, then workers will join them voluntarily and that's the way it should work," said Mix. Mix says organized labor often positions itself as looking out for the working class and middle class employees, but he alleges the reality is just the opposite. "If Mark Janus wins this case, there's nothing that stops any individual from joining a union. It won't prohibit anything. It just simply gives individual workers the choice, and really, when you boil this out that's what this is. It's a battle, literally, between union officials and the rank-and-file workers they claim to represent "What they're saying is, 'If you give these workers a choice...they may decide to do something different, and that's really the fundamental issue at the bottom of this case. Union official are worried that if workers are given the choice, they may not choose to support them financially," said Mix. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Staff Attorney William Messenger argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of Janus. Mix says Messenger was pleased with the way oral arguments went Monday, and he also highlighted how the various justices approached the discussion. "In the last five years they have asked and talked about this issue, so they were well-informed," said Mix, noting that the high court heard very similar cases in 2012, 2014, and 2016. The 2016 case deadlocked at 4-4 due to the death of Justice Scalia. "Justice Kennedy was pretty animated and interested in this case. The first amendment is really the ultimate question here. Justice Thomas did not ask a question. Justice Gorsuch did not ask a question. Roberts had a few, Alito had a couple, and Sotomayor and Kagan led the charge for the other side," said Mix. Gorsuch not asking a question leaves some mystery as to the final verdict, since the other eight justices are on the record with their views. While not hazarding a guess as to how the court will rule, Mix says he "hopes the fundamental argument of free speech will hold the day." If his side wins, Mix says unions will quickly start looking for other sources of revenue and in left-leaning states that money might come from the taxpayers. "They're trying to convince legislatures to give them the authority to collect money from taxpayers if they lose the Janus case. We're seeing things pop in New York, in California, in Washington state, and Hawaii. They're actually going to ask the taxpayers to pay the fees they can no longer collect from non-members if we win this case, said Mix. He suspects that road will also wind up a dead end. "I think that gets them deeper into the hole as opposed to providing solutions for them. They may win on the short term by getting taxpayers to fund it, but I think once taxpayers find out they're paying a private organization taxpayer money to do the work they're doing, I think that will be another problem for organized labor down the road," said Mix. Mix says a far better reaction would be for unions to shape up and show non-members there is great value in paying fees for ongoing representation in collective bargaining and other areas. A ruling on Janus v. AFSCME is expected before the end of June. |
| 'I Think the Republican Party Needs to be the Party of Individual Liberty' |
| Fri, 23 Feb 2018 16:22:53 EST Virginia Del. Nick Freitas says his U.S. Senate bid is not only about defeating Democratic incumbent Tim Kaine but about returning the Republicans back to a party that champions the ideals that make America strong. Freitas, 38, is in his second term in the Virginia House of Delegates. He is also a U.S. Army veteran who served two tours in Iraq in a special forces unit. He is married with three children. And while he wants to replace Kaine in the U.S. Senate, Freitas says steering the Republican Party back on course is just as big of a goal. "There's an impulse by some that they want big-government Republicanism, where they concede some of the arguments of the progressive left that we need to have this nanny state and it would just be better if Republicans ran it. "I completely reject that. I think the Republican Party needs to be the party of individual liberty. It needs to be the party of free markets and opportunity, and it needs to be the party of equal justice before the law," said Freitas. He says Republicans need to do a much better job of explaining not only what they believe but why they believe it. "It's not just about why we want tax reform or regulatory reform or greater opportunity within education. It's about explaining that the reason we believe all those things goes back to this core fundamental belief and love for the individual person," said Freitas, who says that view stands in complete contrast with how liberals look at people. "I really despise how the modern left has manages to categorize people based many times on superficial distinctions. The left right now has four questions they want to ask you. What's your skin color? What's your gender? What's your sexual orientation? How much money do you make? "If you answer those four questions, they put you into a victim group and there you stay. I don't see people that way. I see people as unique individuals with something to offer themselves, their families and society. The key for them to be able to do that is a government that stays within it's constitutional boundaries and protects their librety and freedom to do so," said Freitas. He says once that approach to government is explained, then you can get down to policy. "Then we explain why tax reform, why regulatory reform, why a greater educational opportunity, why a free market for health care helps the individual achieve all those things they want to and allows them to pursue happiness, that's a winning message for the Republican Party. "I want to see more people advocating for it so I decided to step up and make the argument," said Freitas. And Freitas believes making a strong case for those principles and supporting the pro-liberty aspects of the Trump agenda does not require a confrontational tone. "The solution to that is not to yell and scream at everybody in Virginia and treat them like idiots if they don't agree with us. The solution is to explain the benefits of those policies in such a way that they can relate to and feel an urge to support," said Freitas. Five Republicans are in the field for the GOP nomination, including Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart, who narrowly lost last year's gubernatorial nomination, and Bishop E.W. Jackson, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2013. While vowing to focus on his message, Freitas believes he is the strongest candidate to return power to the individual. "That's not an attempt to disparage any of the other candidates that are running. I think they're going to take a different approach to the Republican message. In a lot of ways, I think it's going to look like the approach that's been used before and quite frankly hasn't worked very well in Virginia," said Freitas. "Corey Stewart is obviously going to take a very different approach than I will with respect to addressing these issues and to building the sort of coalition we need in Virginia to win elections," said Freitas. Republicans control the U.S. Senate by a narrow 51-49 majority and had some hits and misses in the first year of the Trump administration. The Senate managed to pass tax reform but failed to repeal Obamacare or deal with huge deficits. Freitas says tax reform was "definitely a step in the right direction" and roundly applauds Trump for rolling back burdensome regulations, but he is frustrated by the GOP approach to spending. "Everybody loves to cut taxes. Nobody loves to cut spending except for very few people, and that's because we're not going out there and actually making the argument for why this sort of government spending is not appropriate and what it's going to mean for our children and future generations," said Freitas. If elected, Freitas says he'd be looking for a new GOP leader in the Senate. "I'm not going to commit to vote for Mitch McConnell," said Freitas. "I want to see someone that is going to push a bold and unapologetic argument for conservative principles. If we're running on it, we shouldn't be afraid to legislate it." Sen. Kaine, who was also the 2016 vice presidential nominee for the Democrats, is considered a big favorite to win a second term. But Freitas says he is ready to take the fight to Kaine over where the power in the United States should reside. "It's not that Tim is a horrible guy or a mean guy. Tim believes that the solution to our problems is more government control. Tim fundamentally believes that if he has more control over our lives, he'll make things better," said Freitas. He says the contrast is clear. "I believe that the way to achieve not only greater economic opportunity but greater equality before the law is by dispersing power, by taking it out of the hands of politicians and putting more control of decisions back in the hands of individuals," said Freitas. "It's the parent whose child has been consigned to a failing school, giving that parent more options over where that child can go to school in order to craft a unique education for their child. It's that person that wants to engage in the marketplace but can't because federal regulations are holding them back. It's the additional tax burden that prevents families from doing the things they need to do in order to be successful," said Freitas. While Freitas and Kaine disagree on a vast array of policy areas, Freitas says a few in particular come to mind first, including Kaine backing the FISA court without any concern over the fourth amendment rights of Americans, supporting tax increases and additional regulations on businesses, and consistently voting to protect late-term abortions. "From individual policy perspectives all the way down to the core, the fundamental difference between Tim Kaine and I is Tim believes in controlling people. I believe in freeing people to be able to live their own lives. That's going to influence every decision and that's going to be the starkest contrast between Tim Kaine and myself," said Freitas. In addition to Kaine's widespread name recognition and full bank account of over $9.2 million as of the end of 2017, Freitas and the other Republicans are running statewide just a year after Democrats convincingly swept all statewide offices. In fact, the GOP has not won a statewide race since 2009. Freitas is not concerned. He says Virginia almost always goes the opposite way the year after a presidential election and that his approach to liberals in his district has won quite a few converts. "I have people that are definitely left of center in my district support me and not just come out and vote but actively go out and support my candidacy against a liberal progressive Democrat. "The reason for that was not because I was a Squish on the issues. It wasn't because I walked away from tough votes. It wasn't any of that. It was bcause I found the issues where there was overlap. For instance, I think we need criminal justice reform and so I'm carrying the bill on civil asset forfeiture reform to make sure the government can't take your property and sell it off without a criminal conviction. "I've carried the legislation that removes onerous regulations on growing industrial hemp in Virginia because, quite frankly, our farmers need this and people want access to the products," said Freitas. "One does not have to compromise any of their conservative principles to get a wide base of support, but they do have to spend time learning how to talk to people in a way that's relevant to them, identifying the issues that are important when there's room for cooperation, and then spending the time and energy to actually get the legislation passed," said Freitas. The U.S. Senate primary in Virginia is scheduled for June 12. |
| Virginia Republicans Help Pass Medicaid Expansion |
| Thu, 22 Feb 2018 16:27:32 EST After four years of resisting Medicaid expansion in Virginia, 20 Republican lawmakers in the House of Delegates relented and helped to push a limited, bipartisan expansion across the finish line, a vote one conservative member believes the GOP will live to regret. "I think this is going to prove to have been a very, very bad decision," said Republican Del. Nick Freitas, who is also a candidate for U.S. Senate this year. Former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe pressed for full Medicaid expansion for four years. He failed each year, given the GOP's roughly 2-1 majority in the House of Delegates. However, in November, Democrats picked up 15 seats, leaving the Republicans with a slim 51-49 majority. Earlier this week, Virginia House Speaker William Howell announced a bipartisan agreement to expand Medicaid in Virginia, but with certain conditions, including work requirements and the ability to reverse the expansion if the federal government fails to deliver the funding it has promised. On Thursday, the plan cleared the House of Delegates, 69-31, with all Democrats and 20 Republicans voting for it. There is still an uncertain future, however, since the Virginia Senate did not include Medicaid expansion in it's budget, meaning the issue will be resolved in a House-Senate conference. Freitas says Howell and other Republicans have reasons for what they did but he says it was still a big mistake. "It's frustrating. I certainly understand where the speaker and other members are coming from with respect to being concerned that a full expansion is in the works. So their attitude is that we've got to do something first in order to make sure that we get certain provisions in there that Republicans have asked for in other states," said Freitas. "We just voted on it on the House floor today and unfortunately it did pass with 31 Republicans voting against it. So it was actually a minority of Republicans in the House of Delegates that voted for the Medicaid expansion within the budget," said Freitas. Freitas says this is a terrible idea both fiscally and in terms of health policy. "This is bad not only from a fiscal standpoint, which we tend to focus on a great deal but I think it's bad also when you look at the underlying problems with respect to Medicaid. "This is a program that is failing people not only from a fiscal standpoint, but it's actually failing people with respect to the quality of health care that it's supposed to be able to provide. I don't think any of us should be shocked by that. That's what happens when a government tries to micromanage a program," said Freitas. But were Republicans wise to head off a much worse program that could have passed instead of this one or should the GOP have avoided this path altogether? "You can make a reasoned argument that something worse could come. The question is how complicit do you want to be in the end product. I don't think there's a good way to expand Medicaid, period," said Freitas. He also says the provision to reverse the expansion in certain circumstances may sound reassuring but believes that would never happen. "If we don't have the will to prevent a bad program from expanding, I don't see how we're suddenly going to have the will to kick off hundreds of thousands of people that we've made dependent upon that program once it's gone into play," said Freitas. The argument that the bipartisan bill had to be pursued to avoid a more liberal version begs the question, since Republicans still control both parts of the legislature. Were some Republicans prepared to vote for full expansion without the GOP conditions? "I think that's a fair assessment. I do believe that there were some Republicans that were willing to vote for a full expansion," he said. |
| 'God Chose to Use Him in a Remarkable Way' |
| Wed, 21 Feb 2018 16:40:12 EST Rev. Billy Graham, who preached to gospel to more people than anyone in history, died Wednesday morning at age 99, and his earthly life is being remembered as faithful to Jesus Christ and for his integrity in leading a global ministry. Although sidelined by health issues for the past decade, Graham traveled the globe for 60 years, preaching at crusades to over 200 million people in person and many more via television, radio, and the internet. Former Moody Bible Institute President Dr. Michael J. Easley says Graham was blessed in a special way. "The short answer is God's hand. You can talk about skills and learning television and communication and media and being in the right place at the right time, and all those things certainly affected his ministry. But I have to believe it was the work of God in the man's life and his hand on him as a servant in a unique way," said Easley. "I have to believe God chose to use him in a remarkable way. You can go back to D.L. Moody and (Charles Haddon) Spurgeon, and other leaders like that, but no doubt this was one of America's finest Christians, finest evangelists and honed in on the gospel all the time," said Easley. Easley says Graham's focus is obvious even in the brief news videos being shown about his life. "Watching the clips, how often do you see Jesus mentioned. Not God. Jesus. He was very clear in his Christology, in understanding the gospel and in how to present it simply to the masses," said Easley. Easley says Graham's children explained why their father's messages resonated with so many people. "Billy Graham had the newspaper and he watched the news. He would hush his children to watch the news. Essentially, he used the news, the newspaper, and the Bible to communicate. When you think of mass communication in his era, that was genius," said Easley. "He had this unique skill of taking a very clear message from a passage of scripture, tying it to today's issues: loneliness, hurt, whatever it was and wrapping the gospel in a package that was simple for the masses," said Easley. "As a person who tries to preach for a living, you listen to the guy and think, 'On one level, it's pretty simple. On the other, it's brilliant the way he sewed it together.' He was an extraordinarily gifted communicator and simple but clear every time he got into a pulpit or behind a microphone," said Easley. Another hallmark of Graham's ministry was it's scandal-free record over more than six decade. When other notable preachers fell into disrepute, Graham carefully guarded his team from any whiff of impropriety. "This one professor friend of mine who would often dine with him said they would be escorted to a place. he said it was like the corridors in a labyrinth and then there was a restaurant room somewhere in the back. They had already swept the thing because there were inopportune attempts to catch him (in compromising behavior). It was wisdom on the Billy Graham ministry's part," said Easley. Easley says Graham's integrity stretched from his marriage vows to his finances, "He didn't approach ministry for money. He took a pretty modest salary, typically speaking. Of course the ministry pays for transportation and infrastructure. But his reputation as a man of integrity around the opposite sex, as well as financially, were never talked about but they were given," said Easley. Graham is being remembered in much of the media coverage as a pastor to the presidents, having met with every president from Harry Truman through Barack Obama and prayed at nine inaugurations. Some critics saw Graham getting too intertwined with politics but Easley thinks he balanced it well. "Billy had this unique ability to not take sides politically. For goodness sake, the presidents you mentioned were polar opposites from administration to administration and yet he still had an audience," said Easley. "Billy seemed to have a unique balance of not taking sides. Obviously, he had an affinity for life. Obviously, he had an affinity for a traditional view of marriage. But that was not his platform. His platform was to present the person and work of Jesus Christ," said Easley. Inside evangelical circles Graham received criticism for his altar calls after each crusade message, leaving some concerned that people coming from their seats would have a false sense of assurance of their salvation simply because they took those steps. "It was Moody who said, 'I like my way of doing evangelism better than your way of not doing it.' I've always thought about that when it comes to the criticism of his crusades," said Easley. "Certainly there can be a misunderstanding of the action of doing that being equivalent to salvation, but let's also give a little credit where credit is due. They're not that naive," said Easley. "I don't think anyone in the Graham association was under the illusion that if 5,000 people came down, all 5,000 were de facto saved." Easley also says Graham's ministry was very careful in training the people who interacted with those making the walk after Graham's messages. "The laymen and women were probably more well-prepared to follow through and share Christ, help a person understand what they were really doing than most churches that have a robust outreach program," said Easley, who says the phone operators taking calls during crusade broadcasts were also meticulously trained. Easley says it's fine to debate Graham's methods but that the evangelist's primary calling was clear and done with excellence. "The presentation of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and trusting in Christ and Christ alone for your salvation, Billy Graham did that faithfully. How he grows disciples after that is another discussion, but give the man credit where credit is due. God used him to present the gospel of Christ every chance he had, clearly and simply," said Easley. Easley also stresses that it doesn't take Billy Graham to share the gospel and that all believers need to do that in their "sphere of influence." "Your sphere of influence needs to hear about the person and work of Jesus. As simply and as kindly as Billy did it, you too can share that message. He lived. He died. He was buried. He paid for your sins and mine on the cross, in our place, on our behalf. He comes back form the dead and he offers anyone who trusts, believes, who put their faith in Him, He offers them the gift of eternal life," said Easley. |
| Are Marines Lowering Standards? |
| Tue, 20 Feb 2018 16:27:13 EST The United States Marine Corps is no longer requiring infantry officer candidates to pass the grueling Combat Endurance Test to qualify for the position, a move Marine officials say is reflective of modern needs but critics say is proof that standards are being watered down so more women can meet the criteria for difficult jobs. "The U.S. Marine Corps will no longer require prospective officers to pass a punishing combat endurance test to graduate from the service 19s Infantry Officer Course. "Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller quietly made the shift to standards in November, altering the test from a pass/fail requirement to just one of many exercises measured as part of overall IOC evaluation," reported the Washington Free Beacon. The story was based off a report from the Marine Corps Times, which characterized the policy change as minor. "In a slight change to the grueling initial stage of the 13-week Infantry Officer Course, Marines will no longer be required to pass the Combat Endurance Test to move on. The Corps has come under criticism for what some have claimed to be unnecessarily high standards to graduate from the course. To date, only one unnamed female Marine has successfully completed the entire course," the Marine Corps Times reported. 1c'Over the past 40 years, the Marine Corps has made multiple modifications to Infantry Officer Course (IOC) program of instruction (POI) to reflect the requirements of the operating environment, 1d Training Command said in a statement to Marine Corps Times. 1cThe quality of the course remains the same,'" stated the Times. Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly isn't buying it. "Nobody's going to be fooled by that. If the test is no longer pass/fail. if it's no longer must-succeed, it certainly has changed. It's changed a great deal," said Donnelly. "To make it just another evaluation point on the way to being an infantry officer changes the character of the program. It is a lowering of standards, and it's not being done for operational requirements," said Donnelly. "It's not operational, it's political because the pressure has been on the Marines to change the nature of the combat endurance test. She believes a move like this proves that military readiness is not the top priority in the Marine Corps right now. "It really is regrettable. It is an unforced error. He didn't have to do this. The purpose is to reach gender diversity metrics. Metrics is another word for quotas. The quotas were imposed during the Obama administration. It's a new administration and there should be official action to put them to an end," said Donnelly. Donnelly is calling on Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer to reverse the policy. She also described what the Combat Endurance Test is and why she believes it needs to be a tool for identifying the best leaders. "It's a very tough, full-day, starts-before-dawn, exhausting exercise. It involves long marches, heavy loads. You've got to make your way through unknown terrain. You have to survive. It's exhausting, deliberately so, people with bloody feet and falling because they can't march anymore. "This test is tough for a reason because infantry officers are supposed to lead men into battle so the test has to be tougher than it is for the enlisted soldiers and Marines. To say that officers no longer have to succeed on this test is indeed a major change, not a minor one," said Donnelly. When then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced ground combat roles would be opened to women in 2015, he was quick to assure the nation that standards would not be watered down to accommodate the policy change. Donnelly says this news seems to prove Carter's promise wasn't kept. "Neller didn't even announce this. He started it in November. Only now has the story come out that the Combat Endurance Test is now just a combat evaluation test. That it's something different than what it was before. It's the application of what wee call the Dempsey Rule. "When Army Gen. Martin Dempsey was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in January 2013, he was asked what would happen if women couldn't make the higher standards for the infantry. He said, 'If the standards are too high so that women can't succeed, we'll ask why is it that high? Does it have to be that high?" said Donnelly. It's a bit ironic that the Marines are making such headlines. During the debate over whether ground combat roles ought to be opened to women, the Marines commissioned a major study showing the physical differences between men and women were substantial and that women were much more susceptible to injury in such capacities. "We didn't get to see [that] report. The administration brushed it aside and forced it on the military anyway. But in this case the Commandant of the Marine Corps said we're going to do it even though he wasn't ordered to do it. That's what's so disappointing, the way that this has happened not with a bang but a whimper," said Donnelly. Donnelly is also wondering whether the Marines lowered the standards on the endurance test before deciding that it wasn't necessary to pass to remain an infantry officer. She says credible reporting from 2012, 2013, and 2014 showed an attrition rate of 20-30 percent among Marines attempting the endurance test. Yet, the Marines claim attrition rates are now three percent, and just one percent in 2017. Donnelly says no one should think less of women in the military as a result of this controversy. She says the leadership is failing. She also says the bottom line is that men and women are different. "There is a physiological inequality that needs to be taken into account. Otherwise, we're going to lose a lot of good female officers who would otherwise progress in their careers. Why would we want to do that?" asked Donnelly. "And if you make it possible for all the women to get through without being injured then you're not going to be demanding as much of the men, and the men will be less prepared for battle," she added. |
| Immigration Stalemate |
| Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:43:04 EST The U.S. Senate rejected multiple attempts at immigration reform legislation, suggesting it is unlikely Congress can reach a deal this year that tightens up the nation's immigration system and also clarifies the future for those holding legal status under the expiring DACA program. President Trump announced last year that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program would expire in March 2018. DACA is the 2012 initiative taken by President Obama to grant legal status to people in the U.S. who were brought here illegally as children. Roughly 700,000 enrolled in DACA. In announcing the end of DACA, President Trump made it clear he wanted Congress to address the issue through legislation and use the opportunity to make changes in immigration law such as ending the visa lottery and significantly reducing chain migration, by which family members can be sponsored by new citizens to come to the U.S. Democrats want nothing to do with that approach, insisting only a "clean" DACA fix of simply granting legal status and a pathway to citizenship is acceptable. In January, Democrats ended a brief government shutdown after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to allow debate on the issue in the weeks to come. That promise was kept last week, but no bill was able to get the 60 votes needed to end debate and proceed to a final vote. There is little likelihood that stalemate will be broken anytime soon. "It's unclear what will happen now, probably not much," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies. Only 39 senators voted for the bill most closely resembling President Trump's wish list. He wants a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million people, which includes DACA recipients and those who qualify but never enrolled. Trump would also scrap the visa lottery and limit the chain migration policy to spouses and minor children. He also wants $25 billion to secure the border and begin constructing major portions of a border wall. The highly-touted "bipartisan" bill sponsored by Republicans Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., fell six votes short of the 60-vote threshold. It kept the 1.8 million number in place as well as $25 billion in border security. However, Camarota says it fell far short in reforming the legal immigration system. "It did not have any ending or phasing out of the chain migration categories. And it had other things, like how priorities on enforcement would move forward and it seemed it was going to make it more difficult to enforce the law in some other areas. So while the border might be more secure, the interior might be less secure," said Camarota. So why did the bill Camarota considers weaker than the Trump-backed measure get 15 more votes in a GOP-controlled Senate? Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, says many in his party are now to the left of Barack Obama on immigration, at least compared to the parameters Obama imposed on DACA. Camarota sees Cruz as hyperbolic in that comparison given that Obama wanted legal status and a pathway to citizenship for 10-11 million people in the U.S. illegally. But he says Cruz does bring up an important point. "His basic insight is not ridiculous. If you're the party of enforcement against amnesty, the president was agreeing to a pretty generous amnesty of 1.8 million. "I think the reason he did that, and this is the way politics works and you have to decide what you think of it. He thought it was the only way he could get the things that he wanted, like the reform of the legal immigration system and the wall. The hope was that this trade-off would go through, but some of his own party and the Democrats didn't want it," said Camarota. And what do the Democrats want? "The Democrats are pretty unified that they want to keep immigration (numbers) as high as possible, letting the most number of people in and increase it. (They want) as expansive an amnesty as possible and tend to not want to spend more on enforcement. There are a lot of Republicans who tend to support that agenda," said Camarota. While the Center for Immigration Studies likes Trump's efforts to limit chain migration, Camarota says the group has major misgivings about the president's willingness to place the so-called Dreamers on a path to citizenship. "One of the reasons you want to reform the chain migration system or give citizenship to DACA members is that pretty quickly it means they might be able to sponsor their parents, and the parents are the ones who brought them here. "The whole idea of a DACA amnesty was that we'll do this for people who aren't to blame, but eventually it means amnesty for everyone who is to blame unless you end those categories. Don't allow people to sponsor their parents to come in or don't give citizenship to the DACA recipents," said Camarota. With just two weeks until DACA is rescinded, Camarota says the courts may end up having a critical say in how this debate plays out. "Although the DACA program is ending so people will not be able to renew, more than one judge as ruled - crazy as it may sound - that although it was a discretionary policy and that's how it was sold, that the administration can't end the program," said Camarota. "If, which seems likely, the administration can overcome the ridiculous judicial activism that says they can't end the program, then it would put more pressure on Democrats and then we might see some meaningful reform," said Camarota. |
| Free Speech and the Russia Indictments |
| Fri, 16 Feb 2018 16:33:01 EST The Justice Department announced the indictment of 13 Russians on charges of attempting to defraud the United States by meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, but a former federal prosecutor says the charges may have a chilling effect on free speech here at home and around the globe. On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments handed down from a grand jury connected to the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian activities during the race for the White House. While all 13 Russians face defrauding charges, some of them also face wire fraud and bank fraud charges as well. However in addition to the indictments, Rosenstein also announced that any Americans participating in the operation did so unwittingly. Many media outlets immediately went wall-to-wall with breathless coverage of the news, but former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy isn't sure what the bombshell is. "I don't think there was any doubt that the Russians were trying to meddle in our election because I think they meddle as much as they can in all our elections. In fact, this indictment says this particular scheme to meddle in the elections goes back about five years. So it's long before there even was a Donald Trump campaign," said McCarthy. McCarthy further says there is a big gray area about what sort of foreign involvement in American politics is legal and what is not. In this case, he says the indictments suggest Mueller sees the Russian bot activity as an in-kind political contribution. He also says the plan is deeply frowned upon by the Justice Department, which cannot properly register those involved in the plot as foreign agents since they operate anonymously. The State Department also has reason to be furious since the Russians came to the U.S. on visas, giving very different reasons for being here. But while McCarthy urges the government to prosecute visa fraud as aggressively as possible, he says the Mueller indictments might create more problems than they solve. "I don't really understand the point of this. I don't even know if these people are prosecutable. I don't know that there's a chance you actually get these people physically into a federal criminal court in the United States," said McCarthy. However, he says the long-term impact of this could create problems for the United States. "It seems to sweep into it, potentially, a lot of behavior that Americans engage in and may result in retaliation on the part of foreign governments on activities that are pretty important to the spreading of American messages that we want to spread throughout the world," said McCarthy. And he says political involvement on the internet could also be greatly impacted by Friday's actions. "You're talking about regulation of political expression of a variety that a lot of Americans engage in. It seems like they're doing this as a sweeping prohibition on a theory that these government agencies have had their missions frustrated by the way that this scheme took place," said McCarthy, noting that such freedom could be at risk all for a case that may never be tried. McCarthy painted another unsettling scenario. "Are we now saying that every time that somebody champions a candidate or a cause in social media that that's an in-kind campaign contribution and that if you're doing it anonynously or under a pseudonym that you're defrauding the United States?" asked McCarthy. "It would seem to me that that would be absurd, but it's less absurd after reading this indictment than it would have been before," said McCarthy. In addition to the actual charges announced Friday, McCarthy says it is significant that Mueller and Rosenstein conclude that no Americans knowingly collaborated with Russian attempt to cause mischief in the campaign. They also pointed out that the bots stirred up partisans on both sides, certainly in the wake of the elections. "It does say that to the extent Americans were involved in this it was "unwitting," which means that if that's the full extent of it, there obviously can't be a collusion conspiracy because you can't collude - I mean collusion is a nonsense word legally anyway. "To be a criminal conspirator, you have to have an agreement to violate the law and that's not something that someone can do unwittingly," said McCarthy. So much like every other development in this case, both sides of the Russia debate see vindication in Friday's developments. "Anybody who was interested in championing something that I think should have been beyond dispute - namely that the Russians tried to meddle in our elections - they get to say, 'See, Russians meddle in elections.' "And anybody who had a political interest in saying that Trump didn't collude, they can now come away and say, 'See, this thing shows there's no collusion,'" said McCarthy. |
| Gun Rights Group Responds to Media Condemnation |
| Thu, 15 Feb 2018 16:27:50 EST Gun control advocates and media figures are making several accusations against the gun lobby and guns rights reporters in the aftermath of Wednesday's horrific high school shooting in Florida, but a prominent gun rights group says the claims are baseless and says media attention given to this killer is already inspiring the next one. On Wednesday, 17 people were killed and another 14 injured at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The 19-year-old shooter, who was once expelled from the school, is in police custody. As has become custom in the wake of such horrific tragedies, the political blame game began just minutes after the news first broke of the shooting, with many gun control advocates accusing their opponents of bearing some of the blame. Gun Owners of America Legislative Director Michael Hammond says that is nothing new. "That is certainly the theme of the day, that if you take a particular position on a policy that you're implicated or complicit," said Hammond. "The left now thinks it has a terminology that will hurt us so it's sticking to it." Hammond is also playing offense, asserting that the non-stop media attention to massacres like the one in Parkland only makes the problem worse. "I fear they're never going to stop until the names and pictures of these horrible individuals stop being plastered on TV 24 hours a day," said Hammond. "There are probably millions and millions of young men currently sitting in their parents' basement, in front of their computer screen, without a date for Valentine's Day, who potentially could snap. "What's going to cause them to snap in some cases is that they have a wall of clippings of the attention given to previous shooters," said Hammond, who says the killer at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, had such a wall before he murdered small children and school officials in 2012. A common argument from gun control advocates in recent days is such mass shootings "only happen here." Hammond says that's not true, pointing to major mass shootings in Norway and France in recent years. "There are plenty of countries that have horrific incidents which are comparable. One of the things those countries don't have is a left-wing cable medium which glorifies these killers and lionizes them," he says. Media figures and Democratic politicians are also accusing the GOP-led Congress and President Trump of making it easier for mentally ill people to buy guns, as the result of a bill signed into law last year. Hammond says that is also way off base. "What [the Obama-era rule] did was it trolled Social Security disability. It said, 'We'll look at everyone who has a guardian receiving their check for whatever reason. We'll look at everyone with PTSD, ADHD, Alzheimer's, and we'll send their names to West Virginia and take away their guns," said Hammond. "Congress, not surprisingly, found this objectionable and found it fundamentally lacking in due process and overturned it by a fairly substantial margin. The fact is 257,000 law-abiding veterans have had their guns taken away from them because they had PTSD," said Hammond. Hammond says he finds it appalling that these people were trusted with automatic weapons to defend the nation in uniform but aren't trusted with semi-automatic weapons to protect their family and property. The Florida shooting is the latest mass shooting to have a killer using an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Hammond says it's the most popular rifle in America but gun control advocates want to see it banned. Hammond says the AR-15 may look more menacing than other guns but works exactly the same as semi-automatic weapons made by Glock and Baretta. He says it's used in mass killings because of the copycat effect and believes the effort to ban it are purely political. "It's exploiting a tragedy for the purpose of making a political point. The day after they outlaw the AR-15, they'll be back for national gun registration, or national gun confiscation, or something else. "Look at New York, there is no jurisdiction that has begun to go down that road that has voluntarily stopped short of complete, across-the-board gun bans and confiscation," said Hammond. So what is his solution? He says the best way to prevent such atrocities in the future is to repeal gun-free zones that were implemented more than two decades ago. "In 1996, Congress banned guns from campuses. Guess what happened within two or three years of that? Columbine happened. Since the efforts of the media to use Columbine to exploit Columbine, for the purpose of achieving gun control, there has just been a non-stop session of copycat killings," said Hammond. He says killers almost always attack in a gun-free zone because they are confident there will be no resistance. "If you want to get your 15 minutes of fame. If you want to go someplace and ensure that your name will be enshrined in the pantheon of MSNBC forever, what you do is you go into that place where you know no one else will have a gun and no one will shoot back. Where is that? A school. "The Aurora shooter basically went from movie theater to movie theater until he saw a no guns sign," added Hammond. Hammond strongly endorses legislation from Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., that would rescind the gun-free zones from the federal level. He also encourages armed personnel to be placed at schools and other soft targets. "If one of these guys shows up with a gun and he dies before he's fired the first shot, then he's going to look foolish and there aren't going to be copycat shootings of that," said Hammond. |
| Victory for Free Speech in Climate Debate |
| Wed, 14 Feb 2018 16:30:05 EST A judge in British Columbia dismissed all charges against climate change skeptic Dr. Tim Ball, in what Ball calls a major win for free speech in an era where the effort to stifle politically incorrect opinions is "endemic." On Tuesday, Judge Ronald Skolrood dismissed the charges aimed at Ball by Canadian climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who is also leader of the Green Party in British Columbia and has a long affiliation with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Why was Weaver targeting Ball in court? "The article (Ball authored) on Weaver was saying that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had so directed the focus of climate research and all of the funding by the way - we're talking billions of American dollars towards CO2 and human-caused climate change. So for 30 years, there's been no real advancement in our understanding of climate," said Ball, a former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg and the author of numerous books on climate science. The trouble started soon after that article ran. "The mistake I made was that after an interview with Weaver, I made some comments that I didn't fully substantiate. And that's what triggered the lawsuit," said Ball. "As soon as I got the lawsuit, I sent him a letter of apology for those unsubstantiated comments. That wasn't enough for him to drop the lawsuit. He took it all the way," added Ball. Ball says Weaver relishes portraying himself as a victim. "To give you a measure of what we're dealing with, he posted that apology letter of mine on a wall in his academic office that is labeled the 'Wall of Hate,'" said Ball. "He's labeled it that because he shows it to students to say, 'Look, here's all the people that hate me and this is what I have to go through to defend you and defend the planet from these climate change deniers," said Ball. Ball says his fierce participation in the climate debate is about science, not politics or hate. "It's laughable. I don't hate him . What I dislike is the fact he's using climate science for a political agenda," added Ball. "The judge heard all of that, heard about the 'Wall of Fate,' and came forward with his judgment of total dismissal of Weaver's claims. By the way, when we got to the courtroom, (Weaver) didn't present a single witness," said Ball. Ball still faces charges in a lawsuit filed by Dr. Michael Mann, the originator of the the hockey stick explanation of allegedly rising global temperatures. Ball gave a talk in Manitoba that was highly critical of the hockey stick theory and the legal papers came flying. "Within 12 hours, a lawsuit was filed on Michael Mann's behalf. Here's an American living in Pennsylvania filing a lawsuit in in British Columbia for an event that occurred in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This is what they call jurisdictional shopping. It's a measure to me of the extent to which they're using the law to silence people," said Ball. Ball is being sued under what are known as SLAPP laws, which stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation and have been used to chill political speech. Eight of ten Canadian provinces have anti-SLAPP laws, but British Columbia recently rescinded it's anti-SLAPP provisions, allowing the suit to proceed there. Ball says Americans and Canadians need to fight back against this assault on speech rights. "The use of the law to silence people is becoming endemic," he said, noting that lawsuits are often aimed at media outlets who publish material critical of the climate change movement. "When you start to lose an argument, you start to attack the individual. That's what these lawsuits are, they're silencing the individual. But they have a residual effect. People have said to me, 'We wouldn't go through what you're going through, so we're going to keep our mouths shut," said Ball. He says he hears some version of that fear on a regular basis. "I've had scientists say to me, 'We agree with you but we won't say anything because we'll lose our jobs," said Ball. "Scientists have said to me, 'Look, we're Democrats or socialists . Even though we agree with you, we're not going to say that because immediately we'll be cast as right wing conservatives,'" said Ball. When asked if this legal and financial road of hardship has been worth it, Ball says it's complicated. "It really doesn't matter now. I'm in this and I'm not going to quit. I'm going to move forward with it. Truth be known, if I knew what I was going to go through, I probably wouldn't have done it again," said Ball. "But of course, as Edmund Burke famously said that evil triumph when good people stand idly by," said Ball. |
| Kim's Charm Offensive Unlikely to Change Much of Anything |
| Tue, 13 Feb 2018 16:02:23 EST North Korea expert Gordon Chang is not surprised the western media swooned over Kim Jong-un's sister at the start of the Olympics in Pyongcheong but he says this "political warfare" won't change the big picture very much, unless the South Korean president acts on his desire to undermine U.S. policy. Over the weekend, media outlets from CNN and Reuters to the Washington Post and the New York Times lavished praise on Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, for her performance in South Korea. CNN said she was stealing the show. The Washington Post compared her to Ivanka Trump. Reuters and the New York Times said her wordless smiles outflanked Vice President Mike Pence in diplomatic effectiveness. While the coverage appalled Americans and others familiar with the gulags and murderous repression of the Kim regime, Chang was not surprised Kim got such positive coverage. "North Koreans may rank last in almost in almost every metric when it comes to their miserable state, but they are number one in one category and that is political warfare. They are masters at getting good publicity, so we shouldn't be surprised that they were able to do it this time," said Chang. He says the United States needs to catch up in the messaging department. "The United States has a great message, but we are not good at political warfare, especially since the end of the Cold War. What we need to do is to get our message out. North Koreans are very good at getting their message out," said Chang. Chang says North Korea has two objectives with this diplomatic charm offensive. The long term goal of conquering South Korea remains unchanged, but he says the Trump administration approach to the regime is creating some major, more immediate problems. "I think [North Korea] has looked at the sanctions regime that has been put together by the Trump administration. You have UN sanctions. You have U.S. sanctions. Basically North Korea needs relief. There's anecdotal evidence suggesting that the regime is starting to have real problems because of the lack of money. So Kim is saying to South Korea, 'Give me some cash,'" said Chang. But for all the headlines about Kim outflanking Pence in South Korea, Chang says Pence did a very good job of showing the South Korean people that he stood with North Korean defectors. He also visited a memorial for South Korean sailors murdered by North Korea in 2010. Also, according to the Washington Post, Pence struck a deal with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, with the U.S. agreeing to hold talks with North Korea without preconditions and South Korea agreeing not to send aid to North Korea. While the latter part of the agreement seems obvious in the U.S., Chang says it's a major concession for Moon, who is quite possibly the most far left president in South Korean history. "Moon Jae-in is a Korean nationalist. He believes in one Korea. So President Moon is going to try to do all those things to knit the two Koreas together," said Chang. The good news for the U.S. is that a growing number of South Koreans do not share Moon's approach and are not impressed with the North Korean charm campaign. "It's not working among the conservatives who just abhor North Korea. But it's also not working among a critical group, and that is voters in their twenties. Voters in their twenties have by and large become South Korean nationalists, who believe their society is separate and apart from North Korea," said Chang. Moon's desire to "knit the two Koreas together" was on full display during the opening ceremonies on Friday. Some Americans were frustrated that no mention was made of the sacrifice made by Americans and others in the Korean War, which set the stage for South Korea being free and prosperous, while their North Korean neighbors are impoverished and enslaved. "In a country led by Moon Jae-in, who does want to see one Korea, who believes in a Korea separate and apart from everybody else, that's not too much of a surprise. It does look like we were isolated but that's the way that Moon views the world and we've got to get used to it. "That means the United States has to talk to a critical audience. and that is South Korean voters, to make sure they hem in Moon Jae-in," added Chang. He says Moon is a "daily struggle" for the Trump administration's effort to rein in North Korea. "Moon Jae-in, if left to his own devices, would do things to undermine the alliance with the United States," said Chang. "I think that he would be willing to adopt a sunshine policy, in other words indefinite, unconditional aid to the North Koreans. Certainly that would undermine the maximum pressure campaign of President Trump at the United Nations Security Council," said Chang. However, Chang says Pence and other U.S. officials have done a good job of preventing Moon from providing money to North Korea. He says the best case, and likely, scenario is that all this political warfare will accomplish very little. "I'm going to be an optimist and say they're pretty much going to be the same way they were before the Olympics. The reason I'm saying optimist is because I don't think there will be the conditions under which Moon can reach out to the North. I think the North will engage the South Koreans, but they'll also commit provocations that'll make it very difficult for Moon to have all these reconciliation moves. "I think we'll be pretty much where we were before and that is South Korea, reluctantly but nonetheless, standing with us against North Korea," said Chang. |
| Kentucky Gov. Details Work Requirements for Medicaid |
| Mon, 12 Feb 2018 15:51:27 EST Last month, the Trump administration gave its blessing for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin to implement work requirements for some Medicaid recipients, and while his critics are predicting this move will result in people needlessly dying, Bevin says it will lead to better health outcomes because more people have a stake in the system. Bevin's predecessor, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, embraced Medicaid expansion as President Obama's health law took effect. However, Bevin says that decision did not result in better health care for the people in Kentucky. "The whole purpose of having health coverage is to, ultimately, allow people to have better health outcomes. What we have seen is through the expansion of Medicaid we actually have fewer doctors, not more, that will even see Medicaid patients, which means that we've made access to health care less possible, even though more people are covered," said Bevin. Bevin says just adding people to Medicaid isn't even an upgrade for those who had no coverage prior to Obamacare taking effect and Kentucky agreeing to expand Medicaid. "Studies that have been done have shown that people with Medicaid access in some instances have lesser health outcomes, at best equivalent health outcomes to people with no coverage at all. That's a pretty sobering fact," said Bevin. And he says the short-term evaluation of health in Kentucky is seeing no improvement. "Kentucky leads the nation in many health categories that we would not want to: diabetes, lung cancer, premature death, hypertension, cardiac arrest, and cardiovascular disease. These are things we don't want to lead the nation on and these numbers have only gone up since we've expanded Medicaid. This tells us something isn't working," said Bevin. As governor, Bevin says it is his job to make sure taxpayer dollars are providing some value for the people in the commonwealth. "I'm a big believer in spending the money that we have and not more, being good stewards of the taxpayers' money because it is our own money. I believe in cutting regulation, simplifying the process. But above all else as it relates to health care and any other policy that comes from government, we have to look at what the return is that we get on investment," he said. "So as it relates to this issue and everything else, my approach to governing is to get a good return for the taxpayers on their money and to get results. At the end of the day, that's what wee should be paying for," said Bevin. Bevin says it is clearly in the interest of Kentucky to change its approach to Medicaid, and he wants to make it in the interest of each person in the Bluegrass State. "If people have a vested interest in something, because they have actively participated in it, then they're more likely to value it and utilize it. The analogy I've often given is for people who have bought their own bicycle. The odds are pretty high that they didn't leave that bicycle out in the rain. In other words, if you care about something, you're going to pay better attention to it," said Bevin. He is also quick to point out that the new policy applies to a fairly small percentage of Medicaid recipients. "This doesn't apply to anybody who is a traditional Medicaid patient: the elderly, the frail, someone who's pregnant, a child, someone who has a disability, who is addicted to drugs. These are people for whom there is not an expectation. These are people for whom Medicaid was originally designed. "What it wasn't designed for is working-aged, able-bodied men and women, people with no dependents, people who could get engaged but for some reason have not. That's not who this system was designed for so this waiver, this expectation that people work, or volunteer or get training or get education only applies to a small subset of the expanded Medicaid population," said Bevin. He estimates that 60 percent of those in the expanded Medicaid pool already comply with the requirements, which is to work, volunteer, train, or get education for 20 hours per week - either all in one area or in a combination of two or more categories. So what impact could this have in Kentucky? "As we have done projections, and they are only that, we would expect that five years from now there might be as many as 95,000 current recipients who are no longer needing Medicaid for one of two reasons. A, they have moved their way up and out and that should be the bulk of them. And B, they just don't want to do anything at all in exchange for something of value," said Bevin. Liberal critics are savaging Bevin for pushing work requirements, alleging that people will end up dying because those standards could not be met. In addition to the statistics comparing Medicaid coverage versus no coverage, Bevin points out that grew up in deep poverty and never had health coverage until he joined the military. He also says Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma articulates his approach to the issue perfectly. "[She] said that to do other than this is to treat those who are poor with the soft bigotry of low expectations. That is perfectly said. "I find it offensive that liberals think that poor people can't do things for themselves and need to be wards of the state. That's offensive. I find that kind of bigotry to be reprehensible, and in Kentucky, we're not going to tolerate it. We're going to give people a better opportunity," said Bevin. |
| Protecting Your Kids from Sexual Predators |
| Fri, 9 Feb 2018 16:09:37 EST The explosion of sexual abuse revelations in recent months reveals a much bigger problem than many imagined, and Americans are now far more aware of the sexual abuse of children from cases ranging from Hollywood to disgraced USA Gymnastics Dr. Larry Nassar. And a career sex crimes prosecutor says parents can play a vital role in preparing kids to recognize lewd behavior and in helping them come forward if abuse has occured. Stacey Honowitz serves as an assistant state attorney in Florida, specializing in cases of sexual abuse. She is also the author of "My Privates are My Privates," a book designed to teach young kids about where people should not be touching them. Honowitz says the litany of allegations of abuse remind us all that sexual predators are not creepy looking guys in trench coats. "I've seen in my 30 years experience that it's not that stranger. It's normally somebody that you know. It could be someone in the family. It could be a coach. It could be a rabbi. It could be a priest. Sex crimes really know no boundaries. Anybody can be a predator and anybody can be a victim," said Honowitz. In short, it's often people that we instinctively trust who may feel the most emboldened to act in an illicit way. "What we find is people who were so trusted are usually master manipulators, because they know that the kids trust them. They know the kids aren't going to report them. They know the kids have this bond with them. They feel they can manipulate the child so if they do something wrong then that child is never going to come forward," said Honowitz. "And that's what we saw in Nassar. These girls never thought that this elite doctor who was training the Olympic athletes would ever do something and cross the line. So they didn't know to report it and they didn't know if something was wrong," said Honowitz. That why she says parents must communicate with their kids that any improper touching from anyone is wrong. "You want tell your kid, 'Even if you love [the suspected predator], even if you trust them, they can always do something to betray that trust. And you can never feel funny about telling mom or dad or somebody that you feel uncomfortable,' even if you think to yourself this could never be happening," said Honowitz. With an endless array of after-school and weekend extracurricular activities, Honowitz says it is vital for parents to keep an eye out for some telltale signs of trouble, starting with someone who is spending more time than necessary with your kids. "A lot of parents feel that if someone is taking such an interest in their child that it's wonderful. And I'm not here to tell you that every coach in the world or every person that's nice to your kid is a sexual predator because that's not the case. "But if you see conversations, text messages, the person wants to take your kid when you're not around, tells you they're going to babysit or take them to the movies. If it doesn't pass the smell test or the relationship is just reeking of something that's not kosher, you need to ask your kid. "'What's going on? Why are you spending so much time? Why is he giving you presents? Why is he taking you there? Why is he asking if you want him to babysit? Why is he taking you to a practice when you don't have a practice?'" said Honowitz. She says seeing the warning signs is not as complicated as some think it is. "You really just kind of need to be smart. Use your common sense. We all think this is such a major thing and that it's rocket science. It's not. It's common sense to see that someone wants to spend a lot of time with your kid and you're trying to figure out why," said Honowitz. If concerns do arise, Honowitz encourages a clear, unscripted conversation. "You don't ever want to say, 'Step one, tell me what happened. Step two, did he talk to you?' You don't want to do it that way. That's why the conversation needs to start early and very casual," said Honowitz. How early should the conversation start? Probably earlier than you'd like it to and earlier than you think it should. "You have to teach the kids, 'My Privates are My Privates,' just like I said in the book and no one is allowed to touch them, even if the person tells you, 'It's OK. I need to do it for my job,'" said Honowitz. And she says teaching kids proper anatomy is also crucial. "You have to be able to tell them, 'That's your private,' and you have to say it in the terms that are proper. So you don't want to make up a name for vagina. You don't want to make up a name for penis. Because you want them to know that this is part of their anatomy and no one can touch them there," said Honowitz She urges parents to teach kids those proper names the same time they're learning where their eyes, nose, hand and feet are. Honowitz also says another good way for parents of young kids to communicate is to tell kids no one may touch them in areas that are covered by their underpants or bathing suit. When it comes to encouraging kids to tell you if they are being abused, Honowitz says stressing that open line of communication takes a lot of power away form an abuser. "So many times the perpetrator will say, 'Listen, if you tell somebody I'm going to do this to you. I'm going to hurt your family. I'm going to hurt you. You're going to be in trouble.' "You've got to tell the kids, 'If you feel comfortable enough to tell me, you don't have to worry. You'll never be in that position. He's never going to hurt me. He's never going to hurt my family. But if you don't tell me what's going on, you will be a perpetual victim,'" said Honowitz. Often times victims and their parents feel powerless if the predator is someone powerful or has a sterling reputation. Honowitz says you'd be surprised what happens once someone comes forward. "Just like in the gymnastics case, there is strength in numbers. Many times when you feel that your child is going to be the only one it doesn't work out that way. If your child comes forward, lots of times other people will come forward because someone else has taken that step," said Honowitz. If a parent doesn't know what to believe or has a child who often fails to tell the truth, Honowitz says to always bring the matter to authorities. She says investigators are skilled at determining whether allegations are likely to be true or if a child is being coached by one parent to lie about another in a divorce case or some other scheme is afoot. However, Honowitz strongly encourages parents to believe your child and let the authorities worry about the investigation. She says dismissing a child's allegations can do great damage to them. "If you tell your child you don't believe them, if that child is being sexually abused you cannot imagine what kind of secrets they have to live with for the rest of their lives. "We saw it happen in Nassar. We saw one of the fathers didn't believe his daughter. When everybody started coming forward, he ended up committing suicide because he couldn't live with the guilt," said Honowitz. |
| Brat: Senate 'Scare of Shadow" on Spending |
| Thu, 8 Feb 2018 17:05:15 EST Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, is slamming Republican congressional leaders for caving to spending demands by Democrats in a two-year budget bill that he anticipates will spark trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see while Republicans unilaterally surrender their greatest weapon for passing meaningful entitlement, welfare, or health care reforms. On Wednesday, just one day before another government funding deadline, the Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate announced an agreement to keep operations running for two years, but with a hefty price tag for the American taxpayers. Republicans who favor the bill are celebrating the lifting of sequester spending caps on national defense. They also included language to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, often referred to as "death panels" in the Affordable Care Act. And they contend there is money well spent on veterans programs, infrastructure, disaster relief, and opioid addition programs. But Brat says everything is getting more money and the media's estimate of $300 billion in new spending is actually low. "It's actually $400 billion now and wait til you see what policies get plowed into that $400 billion," said Brat. The congressman says the House of Representatives addressed appropriations last year, passing a budget that cut spending as well as 12 separate departmental spending bills. He says things fell apart once those bills got sent to the U.S. Senate. "They failed. They failed on Obamacare. They failed on keeping their word to the American people on being fiscally responsible," said Brat. Earlier this week, the House passed a continuing resolution that boosted defense spending but left other levels unchanged. "The House Freedom Caucus plussed up defense spending. The entire Republican Conference was in favor, plus up the military but nothing else. We were going to stay as a team on that call. "Then leadership got together and went to the Senate. They need nine Democrats and it morphed into a Democrat bill in five minutes. They plussed it up to $300 billion. When you add in contingency funding, it's $400 billion," said Brat. "When you've got (Senate Minority Leader Chuck) Schumer saying this is a great bipartisan bill, and Republicans are in charge of the House, the Senate, and the White House, you might have a problem on your hands," said Brat, who points out the two-year deal allows the Senate to wash its hands of the issue until late next year. "The Senate basically doesn't even want to vote on a budget next year. They're scared of their shadow," he said. Brat is generally positive on Speaker Paul Ryan's leadership but is not impressed with his actions on this bill. "We got backed into a trap, but still [Ryan's] got to take the boxing gloves and put them on and go over their to (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell and say no," said Brat. Brat says there's only one reason why a bill like this gets passed in the GOP-run Congress. "None of this has to d with rational policy. No one's in favor of a trillion dollar deficit and so it's all politics. It's people protecting their hide and their slot up here . Taking the 'yes' vote is the easy vote. Sure, yes, yes, yes to everything. Put it on the credit card and the kids will pay it off. You know, were $21 trillion in debt right now," said Brat. And that's about to get much worse. "We're going to have over trillion dollar deficits as far as they eye can see. If you're a Republican and you're fine with that, then I don't get it," said Brat. Not only that, the required payments on the interest for the national debt were tamped down in recent years since interest rates were next to nothing. Brat says the markets are facing volatility now because of inflation fears brought on by rising wages. He says the tab to preserve the government's solvency will also be on the rise. "That wage inflation set off a signal. Markets are rational and they say, 'Oh oh, interest rates are going to bump up once wages bump up,'" said Brat. "We're going to have inflation, interest rates going up, and then we've got to pay off $21 trillion in debt at normal interest rates like three, four, five percent, That's going to be hugely costly and the market has properly recognized that," said Brat. In addition to being awash in red ink, Brat is aghast that GOP leaders effectively handcuffed themselves from getting any major reforms done in the next two years. "They deemed the budget and gave up our ability to do budget reconciliation again this year in the budget. It's a huge deal. That's how we tried to get rid of Obamacare and that's how we passed the very successful tax cut. "This year, we were going to work on welfare reform and maybe some mandatory spending programs because they're a $100 trillion unfunded (liability). Now for some reason e just unilaterally disarmed and gave away our power," said Brat. The reconciliation tool allows legislation to pass with a simple majority rather than having to meet the 60-vote threshold to cut off debate. Republicans will now have to keep their entire conference together and pick up nine Democrats to pass any legislation. Brat, who calls this bill "a Christmas tree on steroids," is getting some blowback from critics who want to know why he is so upset at a bill boosting federal spending by $400 billion when he just voted in favor of a tax bill that adds $1.5 trillion to the debt over 10 years. Brat says the explanation is simple. "I did my Ph.d on economic growth and you've got to compete with the mainstream media that doesn't know anything about economics. All you need is an additional 0.75 percent economic growth to pay for our tax cut, So when you put together the regulatory relief we have and the tax cut bill itself. The bill itself won't pay for all of it, but the economy is more than compensating for it. We're only at one-and-a-half or two (percent growth), so if you get to 2.75 you've paid for it and the Fed of Atlanta has us growing at 5.4 next quarter," said Brat. He says this line of attack is proof positive that liberals are clueless on fiscal policy. "The tax cut does pay or itself but government spending does not pay for itself. That's Econ 101 and unfortunately I don't think the Democrats took the class," said Brat. |
| Kurtz Talks Media vs. Trump |
| Wed, 7 Feb 2018 15:49:45 EST Media critic Howard Kurtz says the mainstream media are in grave danger of irreparably damaging their credibility by so blatantly and viscerally attacking President Trump on a daily basis, and he says those reporters are actually doing the president they loathe a huge political favor. Kurtz is a longtime media analyst and columnist. He hosts "Media Buzz" on the Fox News Channel and is the author of the new book, "Media Madness: Donald Trump, the Press, and the War over the Truth." Kurtz says mainstream journalists effectively declared war on Trump from the moment his campaign started in 2015. "There was something about Donald Trump that just gets under their skin. First, they just wrote him off. He was a clown. He was a sideshow. He was never going to win the nomination, and of course he wasn't going to win the election," said Kurtz. Since getting elected, the media have only intensified the negative coverage. "Many journalists try to be fair but the overwhelming tone from most news organizations and many journalists is negative to the point that it's almost a tsunami of negative coverage. I think there's something cultural there, there's something visceral, there's something about Donald Trump that just has made them change the standards they used in the past," said Kurtz. Kurtz also points out that this media wear goes in both directions, with Trump frequently blasting what he considers "fake news," sometimes mentioning reporters by name. Kurtz believes Trump "punches down" against the media too often and that some rhetoric goes too far but he says Trump's frustration with the coverage of his presidency is understandable. "I didn't agree with Steve Bannon when he said the press was the opposition party, but sometimes we do a pretty good imitation. It's not just opposing the policies. It's all the personal stuff, attacking his family. There's a lot in the book about all the horrible unfair press she gets because some social moderates and liberals think she should change her dad's mind on every single subject," said Kurtz. And he says the onslaught often devolves into petty matters. "Trump cheats at golf. Trump had two scoops of ice cream. Trump eats pizza with a fork. It's just relentless, and it's fueled by celebrities that also say very harsh things about him," said Kurtz. In the book, Kurtz is clearly pained by journalists shedding all pretense of objectivity and seeing it as their duty to combat the president and his administration. "But the mainstream media, subconsciously at first, have lurched into the opposition camp, are appealing to an anti-Trump base of viewers and readers, failing to grasp how deeply they are distrusted by a wide swath of the country," wrote Kurtz. "I am increasingly troubled by how many of my colleagues have decided to abandon any semblance of fairness out of a conviction that they must save the country from Trump," he added. Kurtz then details the impact this incessant hostility against Trump is having on journalism as a whole. "My greatest fear is that organized journalism has badly lost its way in the Trump era and may never fully recover. Even if the Trump presidency crashes and burns - in which case the press will claim vindication - the scars of distrust might never heal," writes Kurtz. In our interview, Kurtz expanded on those concerns. "I hope I make the case in this book that there's a real imbalance among some journalists who just think it's their mission to stop Donald Trump from what he's doing and maybe to knock him out of office. I think the damage is very real, really troubling, and it's not good for he country," said Kurtz. However, the great irony, says Kurtz, is that this perpetual media venom over every action Trump takes only helps the president. "It enables him to dominate and drive the news agenda every day. Also, many of his supporters out there in the country not only have more sympathy for the guy they see as their champion when he gets overwhelmingly negative coverage, but they also believe the elite media in New York, D.C., L.A. and so forth, look down on them and view them condescendingly. There are examples in the book of how that's pretty true," said Kurtz. Trump often has a strategy to his media battles, rather than just shooting from the hip or the lip as his critics conclude. In June 2017, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski ridiculed Trump on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," including jokes about his small hands. Trump fired back on Twitter. "I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!" tweeted Trump. While the media reacted in horror and others found it unbecoming of a president, this passage from Kurtz's book reveals that Trump accomplished his real goal. "Trump asked Anthony Scaramucci what he thought of the tweets against Mika and Joe: 'I know what you're going to say - unpresidential. Then what?' "I don't think you needed to go there," Scaramucci said. "'Is Korea off the TV?' Trump asked. Yes, the Mooch replied. North Korea's nuclear buildup had been eclipsed "Is health care off the TV?" True, the impasse over the Senate bill had faded. "Sounds good to me," said Trump. The investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections dominates mainstream media coverage. Kurtz says some developments warrant major coverage but most do not. "It's a perfectly legitimate story. There's a special counsel. There have been indictments and guilty pleas, but every incremental development gets hyped like it's the next Watergate," said Kurtz. He says in the media rush to convict Trump of heinous crimes, they are failing to corroborate critical accusations and losing credibility in the process. I think there's too law a bar and I think there's too much of a trigger finger when it comes to this president. CNN had three high-profile mistakes involving the president last year. One of them was about Anthony Scaramucci, who later became communications director for about 10 minutes, and three journalists got fired over that," said Kurtz. CNN also reported that Trump and his son, Donald Trump, Jr., received copies of Wikileaks releases of hacked emails before they went public. That was also not true. ABC News suspended reporter Brian Ross for stating that Trump campaign officials met with Russian officials, when the meeting actually happened during the transition period. However, Kurtz asserts that Trump operates a bit recklessly as well. "There's a term that some of his advisers have coined called 'defiance disorder.' What that means is they all get together and say, 'Sir, you can't do this. Don't do this. It'll be political suicide, don't do it,' he does it anyway because he's Donald Trump and nobody tells him what to do," said Kurtz. Kurtz also says Trump's constant blasting of the media could wear thin on his marginal supporters. "I think it really excites the people who really like this president and think they're viewed with disdain by the elite media, but I don't think it helps him expand his base beyond that 38-40 percent that are very loyal to Donald Trump," said Kurtz. But long term, Kurtz says the the media is doing themselves the greatest damage. He says the initial results of higher ratings for MSNBC and CNN and higher digital subscriptions for the New York Times show the open hostility is paying off in the short term. So he expects the negative barrage to continue. "I don't see any daylight there. I don't think it's good for the country. I think there's damage on both sides, but I particularly worry about my profession, which I love," said Kurtz. "There's going to come a day when Donald Trump is no longer in the White House, but I think it's going to be hard for us to get much of this credibility back," said Kurtz. |
| Why is the U.S. Still Spending at Obama Levels? |
| Tue, 6 Feb 2018 16:57:36 EST As Congress approaches yet another government funding deadline, the U.S. government is still spending taxpayer dollars at Obama-era levels since lawmakers continue to kick the fiscal can down the road in perpetuity, and one leading economist says that inaction is triggering the return of trillion-dollar deficits that future generations will have to pay. Vance Ginn is senior economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where he also directs the foundation's Center for American Prosperity. Ginn also shared his insights on recent stock market volatility and what it means for the nation's overall economic health. On Feb. 8, the short-term continuing resolution approved last month will expire, triggering another partial government shutdown unless another funding bill is approved. Right now, Democrats and President Trump are drawing competing lines in the sand over immigration policy. As a result, no one is advocating actual changes in spending for the various department and obligations of the government. In essence, the U.S. is still operating at Obama-era spending levels more than a year into the Trump administration. Congress and Trump have repeatedly avoided dealing with the issue by passing and signing continuing resolutions in April, September, December, and January. And there is no indication the next bill will be any different. "What it seems like they're doing is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That's the definition of insanity and that's what we continue to have in D.C," said Ginn. "Congress hasn't taken the opportunity here - and the multiple congresses before this - to restrain the growth of spending over time," said Ginn, and he says political considerations are behind the failure to rein in spending. And while Democrats are doing their best to gum up Republican efforts to trim the federal budget, Ginn says the bottom line is Republicans know cutting spending comes with political consequences, so they're reluctant to do it. "When you're looking at the next election cycle, you want to get re-elected. So it makes it very difficult to make those tough choices to cut spending for interest groups that are there often with their hands out," said Ginn. Recently, Treasury Department officials announced deficits for Fiscal Year 2018 could approach $1 trillion. Most reaction has been quick to blame the recently approved tax cuts. Ginn says that is one factor but not the primary factor. "The driver of deficits and debt is spending. We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. We've got to get the spending under control as quickly as possible. This would be a great opportunity to do that," said Ginn. And he says deficits will continue to bury us until the big ticket items are dealt with. "The president has put out some good ideas like rolling back some of the funds going to the EPA and some other areas, but we really have to have congressional action. This isn't just going to take cuts to spending. At some point, it's going to have to be reforms to entitlement programs to really bend the cost curve so we don't have massive deficits and debt year after year after year," said Ginn. Ginn says every year that lawmakers dither on spending adds another pile to the bill facing our children and grandchildren. "That means future generations are going to have to pay more in taxes. Currently the national debt is around $21 trillion. (This years projected deficit) would push it up to $22 trillion or $23 trillion. If you add in unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare, we're over $100 trillion in debt," said Ginn. Ginn says some states are modeling fiscal responsibility and that Congress could take a lesson from his state of Texas. "When you look at the Texas model of low taxes, relatively less government spending and sensible regulation, what we've been able to do in Texas is pass conservative budgets that don't increase by more than population growth plus inflation. Actually it's been less than that. "It would be great to see the day where Congress can do that. And that would help it to live within taxpayers' means over time," said Ginn. Meanwhile, the past several days on Wall Street have investors reaching for the antacid. Before Tuesday's gains, the markets saw the biggest losing streak in about two years. Ginn says the negative numbers approached the range of a typical correction, but figuring out why takes some work. "Eighty percent of businesses have come in above expectations for earnings in the fourth quarter, so you would expect greater increases in the stock market as well. But there's also anticipation of faster economic growth and higher inflation, and some of those things are starting to contribute to an increase in interest rates, which slows economic growth and reduces the money supply in circulation," said Ginn. But with the Federal Reserve edging interest rates up recently, why is inflation becoming a problem? Ginn sees two reasons. "Part of that is from the economic growth potential from the tax cuts that were passed and people are already starting to see an increase in their pay. As they see an increase in pay, they like to spend more and that increases demand. Without the increase in supply - which I think we will see from increased production from businesses - that would increase inflation," said Ginn. But there's another, very different reason inflation concerns are mounting. "The Federal Reserve has increased the money supply quite dramatically over the last decade, from quantitative easing and everything else. So you're seeing inflationary pressures from that monetary factor as well," said Ginn. The bottom line though, says Ginn, is that Americans should have confidence in the economy going forward. "The fundamentals are strong. The last three quarters of last year averaged three percent growth. That's the long-term growth rate of our economy over the last 100 years," said Ginn, noting the number is significantly better than during the Obama years. |
| Memo Released, Now What? |
| Mon, 5 Feb 2018 16:11:32 EST The memo alleging major missteps by the FBI and Justice Department will not likely result in criminal charges, but a former federal prosecutor says that doesn't mean the issues at stake are any less serious and he says law enforcement officials have done a terrible job explaining the Russia investigation to the American people. On Friday, the memo from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee accused FBI and Justice Department officials of obtaining a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, warrant on American Carter Page based on a discredited dossier. They also allege officials failed to tell the FISA judge that the contents of the dossier had not been verified and that it had been paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The GOP memo also quotes former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe as testifying the warrant never would have been issues without presenting the dossier as probable cause. But is any of this likely to result in criminal prosecution? "I doubt that they've committed a criminal offense. More likely, what they've done is violate court rules and norms for the Justice Department's performance when it refers evidence to the court and asks for use of the court's processes like warrants," said Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and a contributing editor at National Review. McCarthy says prosecution in these cases is unlikely unless it rises to "an egregious level" of obstructing or perverting justice. But he says these allegations are still serious and could carry some major repercussions. "It's a very serious matter and can be grist for all kinds of administrative discipline and even impeachment," said McCarthy. He says it's the difference between abuse of power and criminal conduct. "There are some varieties of abuse of power that we address in the criminal law but there are many we don't. That doesn't mean that the abuses are less serious than crimes," said McCarthy. One of McCarthy's greatest frustrations lies in what he sees as the FBI and Justice Department needlessly confusing the American people on what the Russia investigation led by Robert Mueller is all about. McCarthy does not believe that the memo is grounds for scrapping the Mueller probe, but he says it's understandable why people are reaching that conclusion. "It's the fault of the FBI and the Justice Department that they're taking that position," said McCarthy, who says the government announced a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 campaign and that part of the probe would look at any Trump campaign officials who had improper ties to the Kremlin. "That was a completely inappropriate thing to say publicly because the FBI and the Justice Department should never comment on whether investigations are going on and if they are going on what the focus on them is. The government's not supposed to talk about investigations," said McCarthy. "The real problem is that by doing it the way they did it, they conflated in the public mind the overarching Mueller mission...with this whole idea of a Trump-Russian collusion angle. "And since in the public mind those two things are the same, then it's perfectly understandable that people would say that if the Trump-Russia collusion angle is a complete fabrication and that a lot of it was built on this dossier, that Mueller's investigation is illegitimate. I don't think that's true but I can see how they feel that way. They feel that way because of what the FBI and Justice Department said about this investigation, which was very misleading and very wrong," said McCarthy. The Democrats' counter-memo is likely to be the next development in this political drama. But McCarthy remains skeptical of their motivation in this investigation. "What I'm afraid of is that it'll just be a partisan political attack. The reason I say that is not just because they're Democrats and that's what they do, although I must say on some level I do believe that. "The other reason I'm fearful is that they were invited by the majority of the intelligence committee to make additions or changes to the [GOP] memo. They really didn't want to cooperate in it. I think they just wanted to attack it in a partisan way," said McCarthy. McCarthy says there are only two possible reasons for Democrats not to cooperate and try to add the context to the memo that they claim is sorely missing. "The fact they didn't do that suggests to me either that it doesn't exist or they would rather package it in a way that was more of a partisan attack than an effort to get out one document that more fully explained what we're dealing with," said McCarthy. He also cautions Americans following the story to be prepared for frustrations at how difficult it is to make more information public, noting that intelligence investigations are necessarily secretive so as not to damage national security and intelligence interests. In addition to the response from Democrats, McCarthy says the significance of the memo and more will depend on exactly the role the dossier played in securing the FISA warrant. "If they had other information that would have supported the issuance of a FISA warrant, then the use of the Steele dossier is much less important. "But if the Steele dossier was critical to getting the warrant issued, that means the government brought to a court information that was unverified and uncorroborated to get surveillance authority - in essence to spy on one presidential campaign with what turns out to be opposition research that was provided to the government by the other presidential campaign," said McCarthy. |
| Dissecting the Memo |
| Fri, 2 Feb 2018 16:20:59 EST President Trump declassified the high anticipated memo from House Intelligence Committee Republicans on Friday, and the four-page summary of federal FISA abuses convinces former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that the government manipulated the system for partisan purposes and that the entire FISA system must be reformed. The memo casts a critical eye on actions taken by FBI and Justice Department officials since October 2016, the first time they obtained a foreign intelligence surveillance, or FISA, warrant to keep tabs on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page over concerns about his ties to Russia. The committee Republicans contend the warrant to conduct surveillance on Page was based on a dossier compiled by avowed Trump critic Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent. Furthermore, the memo says recently ousted Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe testified just weeks ago that the warrant would never have been issued without the dossier. The head of the FBI's counterintelligence unit, Bill Priestap, testified that the bureau had not even vetted the dossier before using it to obtain the warrant, telling lawmakers their corroboration efforts were in their infancy at the time the initial warrant was granted. That information was not presented to the court, neither was the information that the dossier had been paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli III says one revelation stands out above the rest. "The biggest single piece of this is that Deputy Director McCabe, no big fan of Donald Trump as best we can tell, testified a little more than a month ago that without the Steele dossier they would not have gotten the initial FISA warrant," said Cuccinelli. "Even today McCabe acknowledges that without that dossier information, which has now been largely discredited, they would not have gotten a warrant in this most super-secretive courts that we have in this country," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli has argued before the FISA court and says the shadowy way it functions ought to be the second biggest headline in this story. "Is this super-secret court working in a way that we as American citizens are comfortable with? I'm not, and I think this memo is going to educate a lot more Americans about what's wrong with how this court works over and above the political gamesmanship that went on with it, coming out of the FBI in the 2016 presidential election," said Cuccinelli. The memo reveals that former FBI Director James Comey signed off on the pursuit of the FISA warrant and two renewals. McCabe signed another, as did former Justice Department officials Sally Yates and Dana Boente. Current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel probe headed by Robert Mueller, also authorized a renewal. Cuccinelli says getting a renewal is much easier than getting the initial warrant since FISA court judges are inclined to continue what one of their colleagues already approved. In addition, Cuccinelli notes that the FISA court approves more than 99 percent of all warrant requests. "It's overwhelming. It would strike you as laughable. It really begs the question of why do we bother having a court that's supposed to act as an independent filter?" asked Cuccinelli. Yet he says politicians keep approving the FISA system to keep functioning in the same way, including a multi-year reauthorization in recent weeks. "Here you have all these people who have voted to let this process go through. Virtually the majority in both parties has voted for this multiple times and now they're upset about it," said Cuccinelli. Democrats worked feverishly to prevent public release of the memo - or at least delay it long enough to release their own counterpoints. In addition to concerns about providing the full context, Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat in the intelligence panel, and other federal officials expressed concern about exposing sources and methods in the memo. Cuccinelli says those need to be feverishly protected but that nothing of that nature appears in the memo. "There's nothing in here and this wasn't changed very much. We understand there was one change made at Schiff's request, but there's nothing in here that touches on sources and methods other than the dossier itself and a Yahoo news article that was also informed by Chris Steele," said Cuccinelli. The bottom line, says Cuccinelli, is that a lot of people "It is Monday morning quarterbacking but this is a constitutional republic and this is what we call accountability. This does not make the decision-making in the FBI nor the use of the FISA court look very good in the rear view mirror," said Cuccinelli. He says Democrats will likely try to make the case that the warrant would have been issued apart from the dossier, regardless of McCabe's testimony. Indeed, the memo does mention that George Papadopoulos was being investigated in July of 2016. Cuccinelli sees the probe of the Trump team and its alleged ties to Russia as a house of cards, and he says there's only one reason it still has any oxygen. "This is genuine conspiracy theory stuff. The only reason it's treated more respectably is because the media wants to. They do it for the same reason they were all covering Donald Trump so thoroughly in the Republican primaries - ratings," said Cuccinelli. In the end, Cuccinelli suggests Democrats ask themselves a serious question. "How would the Democrats feel if the Trump administration's law enforcement arms were able to do this in the fall of 2020? How do you think they would like? I don't think they would like it very much and I think it ought to be fixed before we get there," said Cuccinelli. |
| The Dire Need for Civil Service Reform |
| Thu, 1 Feb 2018 16:20:25 EST President Trump fired a major shot in the effort to enact civil service reform during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, creating what one leading workforce expert hopes will be an effort to root out the "intransigence and incompetence" from the federal workforce. In his speech, Trump hailed the passage of legislation in 2017 that gave more authority for Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin to fire people failing to perform at levels needed to provide veterans the service they deserve. He then said that flexibility should be available to all cabinet secretaries. "Tonight, I call on Congress to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people," said Trump. American Legislative Exchange Council Education and Workforce Development Task Force Director Inez Stepman studies civil service issues and detailed the problem in a Federalist column Wednesday. Stepman says getting rid of most incompetent and uncooperative federal workers is exceedingly difficult. "I think the average American has very little idea how difficult it actually is to fire a federal worker. The process is usually over 300 days long. It includes two appeals that are conducted at the same standard of proof as a civil trial. "That means there is a discovery period. You can call witnesses. You can call Bob from across the cubicle and say, 'Well, Bob says I'm doing a great job. Why are you firing me?'" said Stepman. She says the recent false alert for a missile attack in Hawaii is a perfect example of the problem. "The guy who believed the drill in Hawaii and then sent out that horrible message that basically said, 'Duck and cover, there's a nuclear missile on the way to Hawaii,' that guy was known to be a problem in the department for ten years. but you can't get rid of someone like that under our current civil service laws," said Stepman. It doesn't have to be that dramatic. Stepman says Americans are plagued by slow, subpar service on a daily basis. "Almost anyone who's ever tried to apply for a passport, who's ever tried to go to the DMV, who has ever tried to go to any government outlet - since this is a problem at the state level as well - has been frustrated with how slow and incompetent government employees seem to be. And this has a lot to do with that," said Stepman. Current civil service laws largely stem back to legislation passed in 1883 that was designed to make civil servants apolitical by hiring based on merit and making it very difficult to remove them by the changing of administrations. Instead the system left Americans stuck with with too many slow and incompetent workers. But Stepman says the impact on the functioning of our government is the bigger problem. "It's a deeper constitutional problem. We have 2.8 million federal workers all over the country, but many of them in D.C. They have very little political accountability. They stay in office no matter who the people vote in or what policies the voters want to be enacted," said Stepman. The other goal of the 1883 reforms was to keep civil servants politically impartial. Stepman says Federal Elections Commission records from 2016 prove that effort a failure too. "Ninety-five percent of the donations over $200 that were made by federal employees went to Hillary Clinton in 2016. It was 99 percent at the State Department. That's not an apolitical civil service. That's a civil service that has its own interests in growing government. We're talking about millions of people who make decisions for the American people, where the voters have absolutely no say over whether they stay or go," said Stepman. Stepman says we see this bias rise up against President Trump on a regular basis. "Even in instances where you can see President Trump is trying to shake something up, often times he's dealing with a flood of leaks. He's dealing with openly rebellious staff in most of his departments. "Those people cannot be fired. Donald Trump cannot say, 'You are obviously trying to slow walk my policy...It's time for you to go. If you can't get in line with the program the American people voted for, it's time to get someone else.' He can't do that, nor can any other president. Bill Clinton complained about the same thing," said Stepman. Stepman says some states are addressing the problem. Georgia, for example, changed their hiring policy for state employees and is now seeing a big difference. "The State of Georgia, a couple decades ago, said all their new hires would be at-will. They couldn't do much about the union contracts from the past, but all their new hires were going to be at-will. Now their civil service is about 88-90 percent at-will and functioning a lot better than most other states," said Stepman. She says following the template of the Veterans Affairs reform bill would be a great legislative plan at the federal level. "I think an easy first step would be to take the exact same language from that VA bill that was passed overwhelmingly with both parties and say, 'Why is this only good for the VA? Don't you want the Department of Education or the Department of Energy to have the ability to cultivate a good workforce as well," said Stepman. Stepman expects labor unions and other interests to fight back if this idea gains legislative traction, but she says the push is now on after Trump's speech. "President Trump saying this as part of the State of the Union is the first major coverage this issue has received outside of super wonky circles. So I think it's important that we keep informing the American people about the fact that federal employees enjoy so many job protections that most Americans do not at their jobs," said Stepman. |
| Trump Denunciation of North Korea A Call for Regime Change |
| Wed, 31 Jan 2018 16:11:37 EST A leading expert on the North Korean nuclear threat says President Trump's condemnation of the communist regime through powerful stories also served as an American declaration that it's time for a regime change in Pyongyang, but warned that military action would be a big mistake. During Tuesday evening's, State of the Union address, Trump focused his final foreign policy item at the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and punctuated it by telling two gripping stories First, he recounted the story of American college student Otto Warmbier, who was sentenced to 15 years hard labor for stealing a political poster and was returned to the U.S. in coma last year. Warmbier died days later. His grieving parents were in the gallery for the speech. Next, Trump detailed the harrowing account of North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho, who was also present for the speech. "In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. "He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves -- permanently stunting their own growth," said Trump. He then fast-forwarded to Ji's courageous escape from North Korea. "Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had -- and he resolved to be free. Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death. "Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most 11- the truth. Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all," said Trump. According to North Korea expert Gordon Chang, Trump was not just exposing the horrors of the Kim Jong-un regime but declaring it is unacceptable for Kim to remain in power. "What President Trump did last night was really landmark. He made the case for regime change in North Korea. Of course he talked about the threat to the American homeland, but he linked that back to the nature of the Kim family regime. "He did that by telling those two stories, the one of brutality towards Otto Warmbier and the other of the triumph of the human spirit, which is the escapee Ji Seing-ho. That really was, for me, the most inspirational moment of the night, when Ji held up his crutches in his right hand in a signal of victory," said Chang, who is also author of "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World." "That was just so important, because what President Trump is saying is, 'This is the regime that is threatening us,'" said Chang. While the precise timetable is unknown, Chang says North Korea is getting closer and closer to its ultimate goal. "The ambition for them now, as it was from the very first day of North Korea, is to take over South Korea. That is the core goal of the Kim family and is considered by the Kims to be essential for their own survival. You've got two Koreas, one rich and one poor and side-by-side of course and the people in the poor Korea are not going to put up with this forever," said Chang. "If the Kim family can't do that, poor North Koreans are not going to sacrifice indefinitely," added Chang. But if Kim is inching closer to attacking South Korea and regime change is required, what is the best way to achieve that? Chang says Trump is off to a good start by going after the money. "From the beginning, the Trump administration has tried to cut off the flow of money to North Korea. We've seen this for example in his landmark Sept. 21st executive order, which said if you do business with North Korea or you handle their money, you're not doing business with the United States. That's important. "Also, last year the Trump administration pushed through three sets of UN sanctions. That's a very sound policy," said Chang. Trump also got the Chinese to make promises to clamp down financially on Kim as well. But Chang says the commitment from Beijing is still inconsistent. "They're getting more serious, but they're also violating UN sanctions. They've been doing that almost openly since October. We've seen these ship-to-ship transfers of oil. Also, North Korean ships that are under sanctions, in other words are not allowed to visit ports outside North Korea, they've been turning on their transponders in Chinese ports. "When all of this activity occurs, with China smuggling commodities in and out of North Korea, it also means that Chinese financial institutions are almost surely involved. It's up to the Trump administration to hold China accountable. It signaled that it would do that, but it really has yet to apply the full weight of American pressure to protect the American people," said Chang. Chang says if China was truly serious about defusing the North Korean threat, it would be acting much differently. "They would cut off all financial transactions with North Korea. The Chinese banks would get out of the business of handling North Korean money. Also, we would see China not buying and selling commodities that are prohibited by UN sanctions. We would basically see an end to commerce between North Korea and China," said Chang. But while Chang and most in the Trump administration prefer to tighten the economic screws on North Korea, there are people calling for more aggressive actions. "There are voices in the administration that are thinking that this is not a time for sanctions, this is a time to strike North Korea. That is something where I think the administration has not decided on what to do," said Chang, who strongly discourages that course. "I think it would be an exceedingly bad idea, but right now there are a lot of voices (advocating military action). This is where the contention is, both inside the administration and outside the administration," he said. Chang also hopes the State of the Union message puts an end to the efforts of some Trump critics to suggest Trump and Kim are on a similar level of malevolence and instability. "I've never bought that narrative. That is really a false equivalence. President Trump is trying to contain the Kim family. The Kim family has been a threat, not only to the United States, but to the rest of the international community well before Trump became president," said Chang. "North Korea did not become instantly dangerous on January 20th at noon of last year. This is a problem for the entire planet, and Trump is doing his best on a very dangerous situation," added Chang. Next week, the Winter Olympics will commence in South Korea. In recent weeks, leaders from north and south have agreed to cooperate on some aspects of the games, including having their athletes march in to the opening ceremony together and have a joint women's hockey team. Chang says the cooperation has some positive elements, but fears the South Koreans are doing too much to accommodate the regime that wants to conquer them. "South Korea should not be paying for North Korea's team, which it is doing. And there are a lot of these inter-Korean Olympic projects, which look like violations of UN sanctions. The U.S., for a variety of reasons, has allowed this to continue, but the South Korean public is starting to rebel against this jointness, especially this joint women's ice hockey team. "South Korean athletes have been turfed off their own team to make way for the North Koreans. That's played very poorly in South Korea," said Chang. Nonetheless, he still hopes some good comes from this moment on the world stage.. "I'm happy to have the North Koreans participate in the Olympics. It gives an opportunity for them to see the outside world and to defect," said Chang. |
| GOP Senate Hopeful Believes California Winnable |
| Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:24:20 EST Conventional wisdom suggests 2018 will be a good year for Democrats but one GOP candidate believes not only that Republicans can win but that he can win in California - one of the bluest states in the U.S. John Estrada is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is seeking a fifth full term and her sixth overall election to the U.S. Senate. Estrada is a U.S. Navy veteran, a small business owner, and a decades-long activist in California Republican politics. He ran twice for Congress in the 1990's and once for lieutenant governor in 2014, bowing in the primary each time. Estrada says his reasons for getting in the Senate race are simple. "I care about America. I want to help the America First agenda. I have been in the military and I care about my fellow veterans and the people in the military that are trying to keep us safe," said Estrada. He says his Navy service showed him just how special the United States is. "During that time, I got a chance to travel to a lot of foreign destinations which were pretty incredible. I learned how great America is and how great it has to continue to be," said Estrada. There's a reason that sounds similar to Make America Great Again. Estrada is running as an unabashed pro-Trump Republican. "I think Donald Trump has really put a strong message to America and the world that America needs to be first, so I will work with the president," said Estrada. Estrada is also clear about why he thinks Feinstein ought to lose her job. "If somebody has been in office for 25 years and hasn't done her job yet, I think it's time to move on. I think California and America needs a change," said Estrada. He points specifically to Feinstein's work as the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and what he sees as her lack of effort into determining the role of the FBI during the 2016 campaign. "I hold her as one of the responsible parties. She isn't overseeing the process of what's going on with the FBI and why they're going rogue on us," he said. In 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in California by nearly a two-to-one margin. On that same ballot, two Democrats faced off in the general election as a result of the state's primary system that advances the top two vote-getters to the general election. Since 2016, California effectively became a sanctuary state and passed laws making it a crime to call someone by the "wrong" gender pronouns while significantly lessening the penalties for knowingly infecting someone with HIV. This year Democrats are pushing legislation to raise state taxes on corporations and jail waiters for giving plastic straws to customers without being asked. So is winning in California beyond hope for Republicans? "Not at all," said Estrada, who believes he can win votes other Republicans cannot. "I truly believe I have the ability to cross over party lines, get conservatives and independents and make it a very competitive race," said Estrada. Estrada says Republicans just need to address what really matters in California. "I think (former House Speaker) Tip O'Neill said is greatly many years ago, and that's that all politics is local. What I have found is that the problems in California can be solved by the federal government," said Estrada. He says water access is a good example of this. "We have a great opportunity to bring sustainable, safe, clean, water for our residents. Unfortunately, environmentalists have allowed so much of this fresh water to go into the Pacific Ocean and we keep losing opportunities to save that in water storage facilities," said Estrada. "With federal dollars, I think we can build enough water storage facilities to help everybody out, all water users," said Estrada. Estrada would also take aim at the Endangered Species Act, which he says California and the federal government are using to stifle economic development and even the construction of low-income housing, which he says is a major contributor to the growing problem of homelessness in the Golden State. But while Estrada has issues he is most passionate about, he says his actions will be dictated by what the people of his state want from him. "I will take my personal views, being a conservative and take a look, case by case, at how we can help the people of California, because really, it belongs to them. It's their state and I'll be working for them," said Estrada. But he is quick to add that when he serves the people of California, he means the citizens of California. "We have to help our citizens first. America is a very generous nation. When there's disasters across the world, we're there helping everybody, but there's a lot of corrupt administrations around the world - a lot of dictators and a lot of corruption - and America's got to lead," said Estrada. |
| Toensing Reacts to McCabe Exit, Rips Politics at FBI |
| Mon, 29 Jan 2018 16:21:10 EST Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe is abruptly leaving his position just weeks before his scheduled retirement, triggering a frenzy of speculation from the left and the right, but a former federal prosecutor says McCabe is just one part of a baffling approach to the Russia investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department. Another Monday stunner is the revelation, reportedly in the FISA memo from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ordered surveillance former Trump campaign figure Carter Page based on the dossier compiled by former British agent Christopher Steele and funded for months by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Word of McCabe's rapid exit was first reported Monday afternoon. Democrats and many mainstream media figures quickly wondered whether President Trump forced McCabe out given some critical tweets in the past. Conservatives quickly tied the news to FBI Director Christopher Wray viewing the highly touted FISA memo on Capitol Hill over the weekend. So far, no concrete answers have been given, but former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Victoria Toensing strongly doubts Trump ordered this move. "It's all speculation as to whether it was Wray. I can't imagine it was Trump because Trump probably wanted him out of there months ago. That's my reaction. Why now? So little so late," said Toensing. Toensing notes that McCabe has amassed enough sick leave and vacation time that he can stop working now and still receive full retirement benefits, leaving her to conclude this development may have nothing to do with politics at all. Toensing is highly critical of McCabe on multiple fronts, starting with his allegedly soft handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Even though McCabe recused himself from the probe while his wife was running as a Democrat for state office in Virginia, Toensing says the failure to record Clinton's testimony or put her under oath was inexcusable. She is also furious over what she's sees as McCabe's slick manner in getting former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to talk with the FBI. "He called Flynn's office and said, 'The FBI would like to talk to you,' and made it appear like the talk was going to be about personnel and background. Instead, the FBI showed up with Peter Strzok and surprised the general with, 'What did you say to the Russian ambassador?'" said Toensing. Strzok is the agent removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team for persistent Trump-bashing. Toensing says the FBI's handling of the Clinton email probe and the failure to put any guardrails on Mueller have deeply damaged the reputation of the FBI and the Justice Department. "I've worked with the FBI and I'm such a great admirer of their professionalism. I've worked with them as recently as the last month at the local level," said Toensing. "But the hierarchy came in and took over. That's a shame and it's effecting their credibility. There's a recent poll where 49 percent of the people think the FBI is hiding information from Congress. That's not good. The FBI should be wanting to get it out, not hiding it," she said. What hierarchy is Toensing referring to? Specifically, she lists McCabe, former FBI Director James Comey, former President Barack Obama, and former Attorney General Eric Holder. She says the revelations to date on "unmasking" of figures in the Trump campaign proves Obama was deeply involved in all of this. "The new Trump administration people found evidence of the Obama White House unmasking the Trump campaign and listening in," said Toensing. "The Trump NSC staff found those documents and that's how (House Intelligence Committee Chairman) Devin Nunes was called up to the White House to review documents that he them revealed and the Democrats went after him for revealing classified information," said Toensing. While McCabe's departure cannot be tied to the FISA memo immediately following the reports of his departure, the memo is apparently the source for revealing that Rosenstein used the FISA powers of the United States to spy on Carter Page. Toensing says that news demands answers. "[Page] was an American citizen, traveling to Russia which is what he did. This is what he did. He had Russia as an interest. Why was he being surveilled in any way whatsoever?" asked Toensing. Toensing says Rosenstein has even more to answer for, including how he based a decision to keep tabs on Page based on a dossier that has at least partly been discredited. "I would have hoped that he would have looked behind that dossier and gotten some kind of cooperation, rather than just a document by a political adversary. I would have hoped that he would have asked, 'What is the basis for this document saying all these things?'" said Toensing. "I signed FISA warrants when I was at the Justice Department. I know how to go behind the facts. So I would have hoped he had done that," said Toensing. She also blames Rosenstein for allowing the Russia investigation to get diverted from its original purpose, virtually from the start. "Whatever the Russians did to our election should have been investigated [as a counter-intelligence matter], not as a criminal prosecution. So by setting up a special counsel to make a criminal investigation, Rod really went off the reservation," said Toensing. |
| Trump Blasted from Right Over Immigration Blueprint |
| Fri, 26 Jan 2018 16:45:08 EST Immigration policy conservatives are giving President Trump's immigration reform blueprint a thumbs down after the plan moves to the left on two key issues, leaving activists fearing a more timid final bill and no end in sight to the dangerous flood of illegal immigration into the United States. The Trump framework focuses on four key areas: spending $25 billion on border security including additional portions of a wall, extending legal status and a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who either enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or are eligible for it, limiting chain migration to only spouses and minor children, and ending the visa lottery. The Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS, sees two major problems with Trump's more moderate approach: a sudden embrace of amnesty and a refusal to tighten the screws enough on chain migration. CIS Research Fellow Andrew Arthur says Trump's offer of a pathway to citizenship goes far beyond the DACA recipents and will ultimately include way more than 1.8 million. "We've seen similar proposals in the past. There have been amnesties floated, amnesties passed. Inevitably, the number of people who end up being granted is higher than the number that was anticipated. "Inevitably there is going to be a certain level of fraud in this process. Logically, you're going to have to identify that you've been in the United States since a [certain time] and the documents you can offer are generally fairly vague," said Arthur. And by including illegal immigrants who are not part of the DACA program, Arthur says Trump is inviting a bureaucratic nightmare for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. "If it was simply the 690,000 DACA people, USCIS already knows who those people are and can do a one to one match. When you're talking about an additional 1.1 million individuals, that's going to require brand new files being opened, documents being reviewed, and the fact is USCIS just doesn't have the bandwidth to do that work right now," said Arthur. Arthur is generally pleased with the movement to limit chain migration, keeping it to spouses and minor children, as opposed to current law which allows adult children, siblings, and parents. However, he says Trump is making a big mistake in how he wants to implement the plan. "The problem is that the framework will also make these changes prospectively, not retroactively. It's going to process through the four million people who are currently in that backlog, people who have had petitions filed on their behalf and who are awaiting a number in order to apply and go through the process of being vetted," said Arthur. "That's a pretty big concern of ours because of course you're going to end up potentially giving an additional four million people status," said Arthur. But while some conservatives are wary of Trump's plan, most Democrats are greeting Trump's policy retreat with full condemnation. "Dreamers should not be held hostage to President Trump's crusade to tear families apart and waste billions of American tax dollars on an ineffective wall," said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who says Trump is reaching for a hardline immigration agenda on the backs of young people. Arthur is not surprised. "That's just plain sanctimony. I could have anticipated what Dick Durbin was going to say and I could have written it myself," he said. Democrats and liberal immigration activists accuse Trump of clamping down on legal immigration because of his efforts to limit chain migration and kill the visa lottery. But Arthur says there's a very good reason for imposing limitations. "The proposals set forth in the framework are necessary changes that we need in order to ameliorate the problems that got us here to begin with. The fact is there are huge loopholes in the law that allow unaccompanied alien children to show up at a port of entry. They don't even have to enter illegally. "Once in the United States, United States government officials complete the work of the smugglers that brought them to the border to begin with and reunite them with family members or friends or other individuals in the United States who will take care of them. This is a huge problem and it's a huge magnet that draws minors to the United States," said Arthur. Why is that a huge problem? Arthur says that magnet leaves kids vulnerable to unspeakable horrors at the hands of their smugglers so long as the parents of those kids think their children are virtually guaranteed a chance to live in the U.S. "The people who engage in these activities don't simply smuggle people for money. The fact is they rob, they rape, they hold people ransom for money. They do that with children as well. Turning off that magnet is an absolutely crucial element of any plan that's going to grant any kind of amnesty to any population of DACA people," said Arthur. Arthur sees positives and negatives for the political path forward on immigration. He's deeply concerned that Trump's willingness to compromise at the outset will ultimately lead to a far worse bill. "Inevitably, bills like this are a race to the bottom. If you say (you're going to allow) 1.8 million people who got here on X date, why not people who got here on X date plus one year, or (if we accept) people who came here below the age of 16, why not people who got here below the age of 18," said Arthur. At the same time, he says some House conservatives are not happy with Trump's plan and may be able to improve it. "There are some individuals in the House who are vociferously opposed to any plan like this. You can anticipate that those individuals will attempt to pare back the amazingly generous proposal that the president has made," said Arthur. While he has serious problems with Trump's concessions, Arthur says Democrats are foolish to demonize a major outreach on Trump's part. "Quite frankly, if the Democrats don't take this deal and end up scuttling it, this is going to be on their heads," said Arthur. |
| Humans Now Accused of Making the Earth Cooler |
| Thu, 25 Jan 2018 16:26:07 EST After insisting for more than three decades that human activity was driving the earth's temperatures to dangerous levels, climate scientists and activists now contend that same activity is keeping us artificially cool and that cleaning up our atmosphere will leave us feeling the heat. On January 22, an online article for Scientific American makes the claim that certain parts of the pollution created by human behavior are actually preventing us from feeling the impact of the other emissions we spew into the air. "Pollution in the atmosphere is having an unexpected consequence, scientists say 14it's helping to cool the climate, masking some of the global warming that's occurred so far. That means efforts worldwide to clean up the air may cause an increase in warming, as well as other climate effects, as this pollution disappears," wrote Chelsea Harvey for the Scientific American story. "New research is helping to quantify just how big that effect might be. A study published this month in the journal "Geophysical Research Letters" suggests that eliminating the human emission of aerosols 14tiny, air-polluting particles often released by industrial activities 14could result in additional global warming of anywhere from half a degree to 1 degree Celsius," added Harvey. So after years of telling people their activity is responsible for the climate we experience, climate activists are now claiming our behavior is responsible for not feeling what we've supposedly caused? Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher C. Horner is not buying it. "To put it gently, it is a more recent, if recycled, way of trying to explain how their lurid climate projections have not come to pass," said Horner, who also served on President-Elect Trump's landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency during the transition. "They're now saying, 'My models, which I said were OK, on which we were supposed to base economic policy...were actually wrong.' That's what they're saying here. They're just saying, 'My models are wrong and this is my excuse,'" said Horner. He says the climate change movement is scrambling to explain dire predictions that simply have not materialized. "All of the claimed warming has failed to arrive. There seems to have been a several-decade plateau, Yes, we have El Niño and La Niña Years, but the projected warming hasn't occurred," said Horner. Horner says these supposed experts are flailing and now claim any weather event is directly related to human activity throwing the planet's climate off course. "In just 2014, the New York Times wrote 'The End of Snow.' They do this every mild winter. Then severe winter returns with a vengeance and a great sense of humor and they write 'More Snow in A Warming World, the Science is Clear.' That's an actual headline, just a year after writing 'No Snow in A Warming World, the Science is Settled,'" said Horner. And he says it's not just an issue when winters vary in severity, noting the same response happens with natural disasters. Horner says former Vice President Al Gore responded to the devastating hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005 by proclaiming that the climate problems he warned us about had arrived and the destruction we saw was the new normal. For more than a decade after that, no major hurricanes made landfall in the U.S.. "So the lack of hurricanes was somehow attributable to catastrophic man-made global warming. 'Which time are you lying?' I suppose is the question. The increase in storms, the absence of storms, is it everything? Even when it's just right, Goldilocks, is that because of your faith in catastrophic man-made global warming?" asked Horner. And he says faith is exactly the right term to use for the climate change movement insisting every climate shift and weather event proves their point when none of their projections come true. "It's a non-disprovable hypothesis, which means it's a faith. Their religion requires them to reach for whatever happens outside the window," said Horner. "Nothing they've ever proposed would detectably impact the climate. This is something I come back to every time because the rest is just this increasingly bizarre sideshow," said Horner. Horner says environmental activists and academics routinely tie themselves in knots on these issues, including President Obama's last EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy. "(She) testified that there would be no impact on the world's temperatures from her rules. Then after Boston's most severe winter two years ago, she said, 'This most severe winter is because of carbon dioxide. If you let these EPA rules stand we won't have these storms anymore,'" said Horner. He says the polar bear scare turned out to be another dud. "As a famous EPA memo I found said, 'Make it about children struggling to breathe. That's what people care about because the polar bear stories aren't persuading people,'" said Horner. "As you know, polar bear populations plummeted from somewhere below 5,000 to nearly 30,000, so that one had to go," laughed Horner. But what about this new claim that human activity is creating greater aerosol levels that mask the true damage to our climate? "What we're now hearing is, 'The reason it's not as warm as we promised is because of aerosol pollution.' It's something of a paradox for them because which is it that you want to address?" said Horner, who believes this is yet another effort to control the narrative and advance political goals. "Do you want cleaner air? That's not what global warming is about by the way. Global warming is about controlling the reliable, affordable, abundant energy sources," said Horner, noting that the certainty of the scientists masks just how much they want to change our lives. "You cannot impact the world's temperature. Their models agree on that. You're talking about 1900 levels (in the amount of emissions prescribed). The old PBS show about the house on the prairie, not 'Little House on the Prairie' but 'Prairie Living,' that's what you're talking about. You know, the good old days of drudgery, disease, and infant mortality. What a throwback," said Horner. |
| House Judiciary Chairman: There Is No DACA Deadline |
| Wed, 24 Jan 2018 16:11:13 EST The author of the House of Representatives bill to clamp down on illegal immigration and address the fate of people brought to the U.S. illegally as children says there is no reason for lawmakers to rush immigration legislation and says his goal is to make sure the nation never faces an illegal immigration crisis again. Senate Democrats tried to attach immigration legislation to efforts to keep the government funded past January 19. Three days later, they agreed to fund the government in exchange for a promise that an immigration debate would begin prior to the next funding deadline of Feb. 8. At issue is the fate of roughly 700,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. President Obama granted legal status for anyone who enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, through executive action in 2012. In September, President Trump announced the executive DACA program would end in March 2018. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., is author of the Securing America's Future Act. He says despite some lawmakers waving frantically at the calendar, Congress does not need to race to get legislation done. "We should take our time and not feel we're compelled to do anything by any deadline. There is no deadline. February 8 is not a deadline to solve this bill. It is a deadline to keep the government funded but not to solve this problem. March 5, the deadline the president has set, can be changed if necessary," said Goodlatte, who also notes a federal has ordered a stay on Trump's order. "We should use all the time that's necessary to get this done right and not a minute longer," said Goodlatte. The Goodlatte bill and the Senate's Gang of Six legislation differ significantly in many ways. It allows current DACA enrollees to receive legal status for three years, which they can renew in perpetuity. The bill does not offer them a pathway to citizenship, and it grants no legal status to people eligible for DACA but failed to enroll. The Senate plan offers a pathway to citizenship to DACA recipients as well as the other so-called "Dreamers." It also confers legal status on the very parents who broke the law to bring their families to the U.S. Goodlatte's plan would also greatly limit chain migration to only spouses and minor children, kill the visa lottery, authorize whatever is necessary to beef up border security, and make overstaying one's visa a crime. Goodlatte says his legislation comes from a very straightforward premise. "We agreed we would negotiate on four points: security, chain migration, ending the visa lottery, and DACA. That's what my bill does," said Goodlatte. He also explained his mindset in crafting the legislation. He wants "a fair way way to deal with the problem created by President Obama in this unconstitutional program and ended by President Trump." "But then [Trump] turned around and said these individuals need a solution and Congress should do it. We provided that in our bill," said Goodlatte. He also wants this to be the last time Congress has to deal with the immigration mess. "We also are the only plan that addresses Speaker Ryan's concern and that is that we not allow this problem to happen again," said Goodlatte. While the Senate and the media focus on the Gang of Six bill, Goodlatte says he has assurances from Republican House leaders that his legislation will come to the House floor. He says before that time, he plans to educate his colleagues on why all of the various enforcement mechanisms are required and why he thinks they will be effective. Goodlatte is ready to defend his bill, starting with his refusal to grant DACA enrollees a pathway to citizenship. "We don't object to people who are DACA recipients finding an opportunity to get a green card and U.S. citizenship as long as they follow the existing law like anybody else who has followed the rules and come here legally," said Goodlatte. "Under our bill, DACA recipients would be allowed to live in the United States permanently with three-year renewables but indefinitely. [They can] work in the United States, own a business in the United States, travel in and out of the country and if they find a way under the normal law to qualify for U.S. citizenship that's fine, but not a special pathway to citizenship," said Goodlatte. He says the parents who perpetrated the crime of illegal immigration should not be rewarded in any way. "I am not unsympathetic to the situation, but it is a situation that their parents created for them and one we have to respond to with that in mind. In other words, take care of them but don't give them an opportunity to petition for those same parents who were responsible for coming here illegally in the first place," said Goodlatte. In exchange for granting legal status for DACA recipients, Goodlatte's bill clamps down hard on chain migration, ending the practice of an immigrant sponsoring many extended family members to come into the U.S. It also ends the visa lottery. "The visa lottery is a crazy program that gives 55,000 people green cards every year, not based on family relations, not based on job skills, but based upon pure luck. That is totally unfair and it is a national security concern as well," said Goodlatte. When it comes to border security, President Trump has made it clear that there will be provision for a border wall or he will not agree to DACA legislation. Goodlatte says Republicans are in agreement on what that means. "There is a need to repair fences, to extend the wall and build a wall in some places, particularly in high population areas and in high crime areas where there is a lot of smuggling going on. You do not need it where there are mountains, where there are large deserts, or where there are rivers," said Goodlatte. But he cautions enforcement advocates that there is a lot more to preventing the influx of illegal immigration than just the wall. "That is one tool but it doesn't at all address the 40 percent of [illegal immigrants] who come into this country legally and them simply ignore the laws and overstay their visas. Nor does it address the people who come into the country illegally and are not trying to evade the border patrol but are actually going to them and turning themselves in," said Goodlatte. He says those people are then released into the U.S. and told to show up for a court hearing, which they rarely do. Goodlatte's bill is officially known as H.R. 4760. |
| 'This Wasn't About Abortion, It Was About Infanticide' |
| Tue, 23 Jan 2018 16:12:09 EST Live Action President Lila Rose says President Trump is off to a "promising" start on pro-life issues but she says the president and Congress must do what it takes to defund Planned Parenthood at a time when Democrats are voting in favor of "infanticide." Still in her twenties, Rose has been a leading pro-life activist for a decade, starting when she was 15. She gained notoriety for videotaping her experiences posing as a pregnant teenager at various Planned Parenthood facilities. One year into the Trump presidency and 45 years since the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide, Rose gives the administration a decent grade on pro-life issues. "I think the last year has been promising. I would use that word, especially the folks that he's surrounded himself with, and the appointments he's made, and the confirming of Justice Gorsuch. These are good signs," said Rose. "I think it's good that he showed up to speak from the Rose Garden at the March for Life. I think his appointments are good on [Health and Human Services]. The head of the Department of Justice is now investigating Planned Parenthood. These are good things, but we really have to achieve the biggest thing, which is stopping the government forcing of taxpayers to fund abortion chains," said Rose. "We are urging to administration to really lean on Congress to make sure they get that bill to ensure that we're not funding the biggest abortion chain (Planned Parenthood) $1.5 million every day," added Rose. Republicans did try to include defunding of Planned Parenthood in various forms of Obamacare repeal or reform legislation, only to be thwarted by the likes of Republican Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Rose does worry that congressional leaders and members may be more eager to promise defunding Planned Parenthood than to actually do it. "I am concerned about lip service and I think others in the movement are concerned. This is a really hard thing to do. You basically have to break 50 votes. Depending on how the rules are changed or amended, you could get the vice president to weigh in and be the tiebreaker in the Senate. "There is a path to do it. It's a matter of is this going to be the most important thing for the administration when it comes to upholding the first human right and protecting human life in this country," said Rose. While Rose and other pro-life activists pressure lawmakers to make defunding Planned Parenthood a priority, she is appalled by how Democrats approached Friday's House vote on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. The legislation would require medical personnel to do whatever possible to save the life of a baby if he or she emerges alive from the mother's womb following an attempted abortion. It reinforces existing policy on this front but also adds criminal penalties, including up to five years in prison for failing to pursue life-saving measures. The bill passed, with all Republicans voting for it, but 183 of 189 Democrats opposed it. Planned Parenthood denounced the bill. "Medical guidelines and ethics already compel physicians facing life-threatening circumstances to respond. Doctors and clinicians oppose this law because it prevents them from giving the best care to their patients. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists strongly opposes this legislation, calling it a 1cgross interference in the practice of medicine,'" said a PLanned Parenthood statement. Planned Parenthood official Dana Singiser took it even further. "The political agenda here is clear: to take away access to safe, legal abortion," said Singiser in the same statement. But Rose says this vote just shows how radical Democrats are on abortion now. "I think it just shows the insanity of the Democratic Party today, which is really going to hurt them in elections the more word gets out. This bill, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, wasn't even about abortion. It was about infanticide. It was about protecting children who have been born and who deserve to be protected," said Rose. "The fact that Democrats in a huge voting bloc, tried to reject a bill that would protect against infanticide is extremely troubling. Look, most of the electorate - including in the Democratic Party - want at least some restrictions on abortion. That's the majority of Democrats, including Democrat women," said Rose. Rose says Democrats are increasingly marching to whatever tune Planned Parenthood is playing. "They help elect these people so even though these folks try to mislead voters to say that they were more moderate or they cared about human rights or do what was best once in office, their elections are being funded by Planned Parenthood. "They're going to march to the beat of their drum, even if that beat ultimately includes shooting down protections against infanticide," said Rose. One of the major themes at Friday's March for Life was how science is on the side of the pro-life movement, most especially with the advancements in ultrasound technology, but in other ways as well. Rose says the arguments that life begins at birth or viability should determine personhood are relics from years past. "If you create an arbitrary line at birth, then you are killing children who are viable before birth, children that are separated by inches of a birth canal from human rights protections. It's arbitrary. It doesn't make sense," said Rose. And she says science is winning the viability debate as well. "Viability is being increasingly moved backwards. Children can now survive outside the womb with medical assistance a little past 21 weeks. That's incredible. The more we develop our medical technology, the more and more that viability line will change. People are realizing it's an arbitrary line and that life, as science reveals, begins at the moment of conception," said Rose. Rose says the pro-life movement has a lot of momentum right now both politically and to some extent in the courts. However, she does contend Congress needs to seize that momentum and end taxpayer subsidies for Planned Parenthood for this Congress to be a true success. She also claims cultural momentum, pointing out that more Americans are pro-life and young people a major reason why. Rose also says the personal stories of mothers who carry difficult pregnancies to term and the testimonies of former abortion clinic workers are making a big difference in changing minds around the nation. |
| Brat Discusses End of Shutdown, DACA Fight, FISA Memo |
| Mon, 22 Jan 2018 16:07:31 EST Senate Democrats abandoned their hopes of attaching an immigration bill to legislation to fund the federal government , but Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., warns a fierce fight over immigration policy is still coming that conservatives must win. Brat also expounded upon why he and dozens of other House Republicans want to make public a FISA memo on FBI and Justice Department conduct in recent years. However, the big story on Capitol Hill Monday was Senate Democrats agreeing to a GOP plan to fund the federal government through February 8 in exchange for a promise to start a debate on legislation to grant legal status and possibly a path to citizenship for people brought to the United States illegally when they were children. Until Monday, Democrats has insisted upon immigration being tied to the funding, but Brat says reality smacked the minority party in the face since the government partially shuttered operations at midnight Saturday morning. "I think they heard plenty of feedback coming back that said, 'What are you guys doing?'" said Brat, noting the position of Democrats was tantamount to withholding pay for our military and funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program all for the sake of helping people in the U.S. illegally. Brat says the untenable position of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, and other Democrats even overwhelmed efforts in the media to paint Republicans as responsible for the shutdown since they control the White House and both chamber in Congress. "It's amazing that you have to have a debate on who shut the government down. You've got 95 percent in the House and the Senate on the Democrat side voting to shut it down. If you forego rationality and language in the public square, that's a hint where your society is," lamented Brat. In addition to wanting legislation to provide legal status for 800,000 people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, Brat says Democrats wanted the provision with no conditions. "They got out way over their skis. They're saying they want a DACA debate. We're going to have a DACA debate. What they really mean is they want a clean, Democrat DACA bill and no border security," said Brat. It's not just Democrats pushing for a generous DACA bill. The so-called Gang of Six includes Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo. The legislation they crafted with Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., not only grants permanent legal status to the roughly 800,000 DACA enrollees but to all people here illegally who are eligible for DACA but never signed up for it. All of them would also be allowed to pursue a "pathway to citizenship." In addition, the parents of all of those people would also get legal status despite being responsible for the law-breaking to enter the U.S. in the first place. All told, some 10 million people could gain legal status as a result of the Gang of Six bill. The offsets in the legislation amount to very little. The Gang of Six bill would tweak but not fundamentally change current chain migration and visa lottery policies and only allocate money to maintain existing border fencing. Brat says that approach is reckless, and he is particularly frustrated about the lack of action on chain migration, which allows citizens to sponsor immediate and extended family members to come to the U.S. legally. "You have all of the leading conspirators on the other side - Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin - all coming out against chain migration as early as five years ago. They've totally switched sides," said Brat. Brat says the progression of legalizing DACA recipients and their extended families results in an economic nightmare. "If you allow the DACA piece to go through that will have a lot of unintended consequences like chain migration and extended families. That will lead to millions more, while we're trying to get 20 million American citizens that have left the workforce back in the workforce," said Brat. "We've got to get all of our own citizens back in the labor force and then you see if you have a labor shortage. The other key piece is we're trying to move towards a rational skills and merit-based immigration system instead of the familial piece that has gotten us in this boat in the first place," said Brat. Brat also says following the Gang of Six prescription will result in another huge bill to pay for a nation already more than $20 trillion in debt. "Who's gonna pay the bill? That's where you get the issue: health care, if you've got two kids in public schools that's $26,000 a year. Every person in the country with a certain status is eligible for $40,000 of federal benefits a year. That's one of the reasons we've got a welfare crisis right now," said Brat. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to begin a DACA debate before government funding runs out again on Feb. 8. Given the easy passage of the Gang of Eight bill in the Senate in 2013, passage of the Gang of Six bill seems likely. That would put immense pressure on the House and President Trump to go along, but Brat says 2013-2014 proves stopping a bad bill is not impossible. Brat should know. His upset primary win over the sitting House majority leader in June 2014 was a major factor in derailing the Gang of Eight plan. "It did blow up in the House. I think there was an election that had something to do with it in Virginia's seventh district. I've heard rumors," cracked Brat. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., is sponsoring a far different immigration reform plan. He would grant legal status to DACA recipents with no pathway to citizenship. He would also limit chain migration to spouses and children and ditch the visa lottery altogether. His bill would authorize border wall construction but fails to appropriate money for it. Brat says commitment to Goodlatte's approach and a President Trump veto as a backstop gives amnesty opponents plenty of firepower. "We need to start off strong with the Goodlatte bill. Then you could have a debate between the Goodlatte bill and the Senate. Then the president is the ultimate veto threat, so a lot of it is going to depend on where President Trump comes down on this," said Brat. Brat is also one of several dozen House Republicans who have seen the FISA memo from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that GOP members describe as alarming "alarming" to "stunning" to sure to land people in prison. While specifics are still under wraps, the four-page memo focuses on alleged FISA abuses by the FBI and Justice Department during the 2016 campaign. The top Democrat on the intelligence panel, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., says the memo should not be released because the American people will not be able to understand it without the supporting documentation. Brat says the memo should be made public because the people have the right to make up their own minds about what's in it and what the fallout should be. "We're a democratic republic. The people are our boss. We're not the boss. Maybe he got his eighth grade civics upside down but I still believe in the good old school stuff where the people are my boss and I'm going to let them see the information, let them make up their mind, and then I'm going to represent them. That's my job," said Brat. Despite the strong adjectives used by other Republicans, Brat says he is not worried about the memo being over-hyped. "There's something just very, very wrong at the highest levels of our Justice Department," said Brat. "I'm not too worried about the over-hype on this. You cannot over-hype any corruption at all in the highest levels of government." |
| How Socialism Became 'Cool' |
| Thu, 18 Jan 2018 16:27:30 EST CNN is under fire for a story this week suggesting Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks to our political discourse today, part because 'he was a socialist before it was cool,' a pronouncement that Cold War scholar Dr. Paul Kengor says is a radical departure from what liberals claimed for decades following King's death and he indicts our education system for anyone thinking socialism is "cool." On Monday, in connection with the federal holiday commemorating King's birthday and his civil rights legacy, CNN's John Blake wrote a story chronicling three ways that King, "speaks to our time." The second contention stated that King "was a socialist before it was cool." In his piece, Blake cited several known positions that King held, including advocacy for a "universal health care and education, a guaranteed annual income, and the nationalization of some industries," wrote Blake, noting that King also called for wealth redistribution at times. Kengor says King's sentiments on those issues are not new, but he says the left's willingness to brand King a socialist is a big shift. "[Blake] said, 'There was a time in American politics when calling someone a socialist was a slur.' I would add there was once upon a time in America when if you called Martin Luther King, Jr. a socialist, it was a racial slur. You weren't allowed to do that," said Kengor. Kengor says King's socialist positions were an issue of fierce debate in the 1980's during the debate to create a federal holiday in King's honor. Skeptics of the idea cited their discomfort with some of King's positions on economic issues, and were roundly condemned as bigots or engaging in McCarthyism. Since King's passing, political activists and politicians on both sides of the aisle have suggested that King would support their particular issue. Kengor says the reality is much more complicated. he says on cultural issues, King was rather conservative. Noting that King talked often about laws being unjust if they violated a person's conscience, Kengor says he's pretty confident about where King would line up on some key issues. "I can't imagine that he wouldn't be willing to defend pastors and religious people who want to cite their freedom of religion and freedom of conscience when it comes to begging not to be forced by the state to make a cake for a ceremony that violates their sacred religious beliefs," said Kengor. Even on economic issues, Kengor says the King record is mixed. "I don't know to what extent we would call him a socialist, because I've seen other King statements that aren't very socialistic. He would definitely be more of a mixed bag in where we would want to place him on which side of the aisle," said Kengor. However, Kengor says regardless of where King stood on a variety of economic issues, it is clearly proper to honor the civil rights leader for his leadership and sacrifices for the cause of racial equality. "We do celebrate him for his racial achievements. That's really the key point," said Kengor. Following the posting of Blake's story, a Twitter user named Allie Lynn responded by saying, "The Venezuelan people dying because of socialism would probably disagree about their government being 'cool.'" Blake then replied saying, "I'm not sure a lot of people would link what's happening to Venezuela to socialism; in fact everything I've read and talking to people from there attributes there collapse to other problems." Kengor is appalled, and suggests Blake visit the tomb of the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. "He can go there and say, 'You know, sir, what you called twenty-first century socialism, which is even listed at Wikipedia with your name next to it because you coined the frame, it's not socialism.' Blake could provide the correctives and explain to the ghost of Chavez and also to the live body of Nicholas Maduro that they're not actually doing socialism," said Kengor. Whether or not Blake was being flippant about socialism being "cool," many millennials are more favorable towards socialism than capitalism. A majority between ages 18-29 oppose capitalism. A 2016 poll commissioned by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found a third of millennials and 28 percent of the full population thought George W. Bush killed more people than Josef Stalin, who some scholars believe murdered 60-70 million of his own people. Kengor says students are taught well about the horrors of Nazi Germany and the ten million or more slaughtered in the Holocaust, but he believes our children are done a great disservice by not learning about the murderous trail left behind by communism. "But that's nowhere near the number that Stalin killed. It's nowhere near the number that Mao killed. It's nowhere near the percentage of his population that Pol Pot killed in Cambodia in four years, and on and on and on. They haven't learned any of this stuff," said Kengor. Kengor blames schools, especially universities for ignoring or distorting the truth. However, he also has a firm message for the parents who send their children to such schools. "Socialism is enjoying a popular resurgence. It's very sad. That has to do with our colossal failure in education in this country. And people, if you're sending your kid to one of these colleges where the kid is coming out a socialist and you're paying the college to do it, shame on you.. Shame on you," said Kengor. |
| 'We Want to Help Create the Next Generation of Responsible Young Adults' |
| Wed, 17 Jan 2018 16:18:26 EST An ambitious new program known as Healing the Wounds is underway to build up and mentor the children of fallen military service members and law enforcement officers, combining the Alaskan wilderness with career and leadership training to last a lifetime, according to its founder. The year-long program will be geared towards children aged 12-17. Healing the Wounds President Jeffrey Epstein spent years leading wilderness experiences for families and groups in Alaska and strongly believes the changes he saw in those clients could also do a world of good for young people trying to chart a path forward following the loss of a parent in service to the nation or their community. "I'd like to roll this out for the children of out nation's fallen heroes - and that includes both law enforcement and the military - and provide them with the same opportunities, but actually help mentor them with unprecedented opportunities to blossom and lead productive lives," said Epstein. "We really want to have an impact. We want to help create the next generation of responsible young adults," he added. However, he notes that the program will require the total focus of the young people. As a result, they will have no access to cell phones or other gadgets while in Alaska. Communications back home will be for emergencies only. Epstein says in a world flooded with negativity, he wants Healing the Wounds to focus young people on noble pursuits. "It's a solutions-based initiative. We created the organization to focus on what's possible at a time when so much of society is laser-focused on what's wrong. We want to build character, self-confidence, and leadership skills," said Epstein. And what does that look like? "This is a 12-month program. We're going to continue to mentor them through webinars and tutorials and regional gatherings but also we're going to expose them to a dozen or so potential career paths, and we're going to support them with a call-in center year-round as well," said Epstein. "One of the things we're looking at doing is setting some type of program where we can send them out into different industries, not just the exposure up front but the internships as they work through the years that they're affiliated with us so we can help them prepare, plan and gain experience in those different potential career paths," said Epstein. Epstein already has one critical supporter of Healing the Wounds - the U.S. Army. "I was interviewed early on by a news organization and it caught their eye. They said, 'You know what? We're so enthusiastic about what you're trying to do here. Just let us know when you're funded and when you're ready to go. We have thousands of teenagers that would be in a position to take advantage of this,'" said Epstein. Other prominent military figures are also on board, including retired U.S. Air Force Lt. General Thomas McInerney and retired U.S. Army Lt. General William "Jerry" Boykin. Other recent additions to the advisory board include Gold Star mother Karen Vaughn, retired U.S. Army Green Beret Captain Mykel Hawke, and Taya Kyle, widow of Chris Kyle. But before the program can begin though, Epstein says significant fundraising is needed. "We're ready to go. We're just trying to raise funding and also build membership. We're trying to develop a national team of people that will come aboard as members. They can be as active as they want to be. They'll have the potential to advance any ideas they have," said Epstein, who sets a goal of 90 percent of all donations going directly to Healing the Wounds programs. And how will Epstein and his colleagues gauge the success of the program in years to come? "I think the easiest way to measure results is how happy and productive they turn out in the long run," said Epstein. More information can be found at healingthewounds.org. |
| Gang of Six Pushes Massive Amnesty |
| Tue, 16 Jan 2018 15:52:38 EST While the media and many politicians focus on President Trump's verbiage in response to the immigration legislation presented by the "Gang of Six," one major immigration reform group says the plan itself is nothing but an amnesty push for more than 10 million people. The Gang of Six is led by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. At issue is the effort to provide legal status to young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. In 2012, President Obama unilaterally granted legal status to young people who agreed to sign up with the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, or DACA. President Trump announced in September that he would end the program in March of this year and lawmakers were ostensibly working on a bill to continue granting legal status to DACA enrollees while also tightening some immigration restrictions. Most estimates suggest there are between 800,000-850,000 people impacted by DACA. Instead, Numbers USA reports the Gang of Six bill extends permanent legal protection to all illegal immigrants who fit the DACA criteria rather than those who actually enrolled and sets them on a path to citizenship. "They expand DACA to include the entire pool of dreamer illegal aliens. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that that population exceeds three million and is about 3.3 million," said Numbers USA's Chris Chmielinski. In fact, Numbers USA has released a worksheet comparing the Gang of Six bill with a much more conservative plan from house Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, known as the Securing America's Future Act. It also lines up both plans against President Trump's immigration reform priorities. He says there's a big difference between DACA and everyone who fits under the 'dreamer' label. "When President Obama announced the DACA program, he limited it to folks that entered prior to 2007, had maintained continuous presence until 2012 and were under the age of 31. "The dreamer population is much, much more broadly defined than that. And again, the Migration Policy Institute estimates that population is about 3.3 million," said Chmielinski. So how does the estimate get to 10 million? By opening the doors for the parents of the dreamers. "It also offers an amnesty for the parents of the dreamers. So if you assume that all the parents have two parents, that's another 6.6 million. 6.6 million plus and 3.3. million and you're at 10 million," said Chmielinski, who says that is clear-cut amnesty even though the parents are not in line for citizenship. "We define amnesty as anything that allows illegal aliens to stay in the country and work in the United States," said Chmielinski. Furthermore, Chmielinski says those parents actually could wind up being rewarded with citizenship. "Once the dreamers become citizens, they will be able to sponsor their parents under the chain migration laws, because even though they say they address chain migration, they really don't," said Chmielinski. In fact, it's unclear what immigration enforcement advocates get in exchange for legalizing DACA in the Gang of Six bill. Chmielinski points out the plan does not address chain migration or the visa lottery in any serious way. It does provide almost $1.6 billion for border fencing, but it comes with a massive caveat. "They appropriate a little funding towards border fencing, but they say that this $1.6 billion they're assigning can only be used for existing fencing. They're telling the administration that as part of this deal, you cannot build any new fencing or any new walls. You can only use the money to repair existing fencing," said Chmielinski. The Goodlatte bill, in contrast, gives the government broad authority to build new fences and even walls. However, it does not include funding for such projects, meaning lawmakers would have to approve a separate bill to pay for such construction. Overall, Chmielinski is encouraged by the Goodlatte bill. He says it limits chain migration to an immigrant's spouse and children, although there is an exception for elderly parents to come over without a path to citizenship so that their children can care for them. The Goodlatte plan also scraps the visa lottery entirely, makes overstaying a visa a crime and mandates all employers use E-Verify to confirm their new and existing employees are all in the country legally. Chmielinski also says Goodlatte wants to use cutting edge technology to keep track of who is in the country. "It requires the implementation of a bio-metric entry-exit system. This is something that was actually passed by Congress in the mid-2000's as a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. This is basically a tracking system. Every non-citizen that enters the United States is checked in to the country and then we check them out when they leave, so we know when folks overstay," said Chmielinski. The Goodlatte bill seems to have little traction on Capitol Hill right now and the mainstream media have ignored it completely while often hailing the Gang of Six bill. The issue prominent this week as Democrats try to attach legalization of DACA to legislation to keep the federal government running at full capacity. So what is likely to happen? Chmielinski doesn't expect much to happen for a few weeks. "You'll see a [continuing resolution] passed for about a month. Then over the next three to four weeks, this DACA situation will completely play out. But I think this might be the last time we're talking about it. I think if nothing's taken care of over the next month, then nothing will probably happen on it," said Chmielinski. |
| 'Chasing King's Killer' |
| Mon, 15 Jan 2018 15:38:35 EST As Americans pause to commemorate what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s eighty-ninth birthday, a new book chronicles the civil rights leader's horrific assassination 50 years ago, the harrowing pursuit of his killer, and the legacy he leaves with us today. James L. Swanson is the author of "Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin." Swanson, who writes of these searing moments in history in the style of a novel, has also written on the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy and the pursuit of their assassins. When it come to King, Swanson says one quality stands out strongest. "I think Martin Luther King is one of the bravest men in American history, in a way more so than Abraham Lincoln or John Kennedy. Unlike them, Dr. King was under constant threat of death and harassment for over ten years," said Swanson. Swanson begins the book by recounting the 1958 attack on King's life, when a deranged black woman named Izola Ware Curry stabbed King in the heart at a book signing event in Harlem. Later, the FBI kept very close tabs on King, and one official even sent a letter urging King to take his own life before receiving the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. The threats didn't stop there. "He was threatened countless times with death. His home was bombed. A gun was shot at his house. He was hit with bottles and rocks and stones. He was arrested over 30 times by white sheriffs and policemen," said Swanson. Yet, King endured the threats of violence to pursue his dream of Americans being judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. "He could have gone back to private life and lived quietly as a husband, father, and minister at his local church. But he said for this great cause we must all be prepared to die. In fact, when John Kennedy was assassinated, Martin Luther King turned to his wife and said, 'Well, you know that's what's going to happen to me,'" said Swanson. In 1967, just as King was straining relations with President Johnson over the Vietnam War, a lifelong criminal named James Earl Ray escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in the back of a bread truck. He seemed like the last person to have his name etched permanently in history. "Ray was a longtime, lifelong loser. He grew up poor in Missouri, almost Civil War-type poverty, didn't even have shoes at school, dropped out of school. He was a lifelong petty criminal, who came from a generation and forebears of criminals and grifters and chiselers," said Swanson. After escaping, Ray went out to California and successfully went unnoticed. He spent the next several months on mundane pursuits such as ballroom dance classes, bartending school. "He went to find a new life in California like so many lost people in the 1960's did," said Swanson. "He went to see gurus and psychologists who would teach him self-awareness and self-improvement. It was an odd life," said Swanson. Then, suddenly, after King visited Los Angeles in March 1968, Ray left Los Angeles and headed to the Deep South, apparently determined to kill Dr. King. So what changed? Ray was certainly a racist, but he wasn't in the Klan. He had never participated in racial violence. This hidden alarm clock, this hidden signal went off in Ray, almost like he was a hibernating animal. Something triggered him, and he decided to hunt down Martin Luther King," said Swanson. "I think he did it to achieve significance. Certainly, he wanted to send the civil rights movement into disarray. But I think his innermost motive was to be somebody, because he had been nobody all of his life," said Swanson. Around that time, King was spending a lot of time in Memphis, Tennessee, in support of the city's striking sanitation workers. Newspaper accounts included a picture of King outside the Lorraine Motel, with his room number - 306 - clearly visible in the picture. According to the evidence, Ray then rented a room at a boarding house near the Lorraine Motel. From his room, Ray could see King's room and the balcony outside of it. But he did not have a clear shot from there. He soon discovered that the community bathroom in the boarding house offered the angle he was looking for. Around 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Ray noticed that King was standing alone on the balcony, speaking to associates in the parking lot below. Ray quickly made his way to the bathroom, locked the door, and fired one shot that fatally struck King in the cheek. A couple of police officers had been quietly observing King, trying to assure his visit to Memphis proceeded smoothly. "Two of them were in the (nearby) fire station, observing Dr. King from a distance at the Lorraine Motel. They saw him shot. They yelled to each other, 'Dr. King has just been shot.' So they ran out of the fire station and ran to the Lorraine Motel to see what was going on," said Swanson. While the police rushed to the motel, Ray was making his getaway. But as he approached his car, Ray noticed the patrol cars parked at the fire station. Fearing an officer would see him, Ray quickly ditched his rifle and a suitcase, a decision that eventually provided critical evidence in his capture. Swanson says Ray may have been captured within minutes if Memphis police had set up roadblocks more swiftly, but a prank call at the worst time delayed those efforts. "The Memphis police were distracted because a teenager got on a ham radio and pretended to be someone pursuing James Earl Ray in his Mustang. It was all a crank call and it sent police on a wild goose chase for almost an hour," said Swanson. Ray slipped out of Tennessee via back roads and eventually wound up in King's hometown of Atlanta. From there, he abandoned his car and caught a bus, first to Chicago and then to Detroit, where he then slipped in to Canada. From there, Ray forged a passport and flew to England with hopes of eventually disappearing in Africa. However, the fingerprints from the boarding house and his rifle, along with other evidence, allowed the FBI to track down Ray, with the held of Scotland Yard, just as he was preparing to board a flight. After initially pleading his innocence, Ray agreed to plead guilty, a move with launched a number of conspiracy theories. Ray alleged that he was doing the bidding of a figure known only as Raoul. Others thought there may have been a government conspiracy or that Ray was targeting King on behalf of white supremacists. "There were rumors at the time that a rich, racist white man had offered a $50,000 or even a $100,000 reward for the man who killed Martin Luther King. but how could Ray have found out who that man was? How could he have collected the reward?" asked Swanson. He says the facts of the case lead to an obvious conclusion. "There is overwhelming evidence that it was certainly James Earl Ray in the window of the boarding house from which the shot was fired. There's so much evidence that it was certainly James Earl Ray and James Earl Ray did it alone. "I do believe there's some evidence that one or two of his brothers might have helped him plot it or, more likely, helped him during the initial phases of his escape." said Swanson. However, in the 1990's, Ray successfully convinced one group of his innocence. "One of King's sons (Dexter) went to visit James Earl Ray in prison and said, 'I believe you. My family believes you. You didn't kill my father.' It was one of the greatest con jobs by a lifelong con man,"said Swanson. "There's a very disturbing photo of King's son extending his hand to shake the hand of James Earl Ray. Ray keeps his hands in his pockets and stares at the son. The look on Ray's face is, 'Oh, you expect me to shake that black man's hand?' You can read it on his face," said Swanson. In a speech the night before his assassination in 1968, King told his followers that the movement would reach the "promised land" but admitted he might not be alive to see it. "He said, 'I would like a long life but tonight I'm not fearing any man.' He didn't know that just a couple of miles away on that stormy night that a man with a rifle was lying in wait in a hotel room and was going to come out the next day and hunt him down and kill him," said Swanson. In his voluminous research for the book, Swanson says he came to admire King all the more for his courage and commitment to the cause of equality and justice. He believes that it what Americans should consider on this day. "He loved America. He didn't hate America. He thought America had failed to live up to the promise in the Declaration of Independence. He wanted to carry on Abraham Lincoln's unfinished work and make America a better place," said Swanson. |
| Iran Deal Stands for Now, Trump Sends Clear Message |
| Fri, 12 Jan 2018 17:13:45 EST President Trump is giving the Iran nuclear deal another four months but also warned Congress that will not happen again without lawmakers passing major changes to the agreement, and leading Iranian dissidents urge the U.S. to stop trying to save a fatally flawed deal in the first place. In addition, the Trump administration announced new sanctions aimed the Iranian regime in connection with its crackdown on protesters in recent days. Officially, Trump is waiving nuclear sanctions against Iran until May. He did not say what type of changes would meet with his approval at that time. For the Iranian dissidents, there's no way to salvage this deal. "The main problem is that the entire nuclear structure of the Iran regime has remained intact, and the fact that there's no real access to the key centers and locations that are actually engaged in weaponization, which is a critical part of building nuclear weapons. "There's no access for the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to the military sites where the real deal is. Then there is a sunset clause. At some point down the road, all of those restrictions are going to be gone and the Iranian regime will be free to continue its development of nuclear weapons," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is allied with the main internal resistance group in Iran, Mojahedin-e-Khalq. The group is also known as the MEK. Jafarzadeh says modifications to the nuclear deal will be fruitless because the regime will never abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. He says there's only one effective modification for Iran. "The Iranian regime is intent on building the bomb so the real solutions to all of the problems is to see fundamental change in Iran to change the regime," said Jafarzadeh. The Iranian resistance is also very pleased with the Trump administration's actions, through the Treasury Department, to issue sanctions against 14 different Iranian individuals and entities, largely in response to the repression of protests over the past couple of weeks. One figure targeted financially is he head of the Iranian judiciary, Sadeq Larijani. "He's the one who implements all the repressive measures of the Iranian regime. He's the one who has been prosecuting and putting people in jail. at least 8,000 demonstrators in the past two weeks. He has already instructed the other judges to be very, very harsh against the demonstrators," said Jafarzadeh. "Another entity was the Rajai Shahr prison. It is a very notorious prison that is known for torture and horrible things they have done to prisoners. A number of people who have been detained during the demonstrations are now in Rajai Shahr prison," said Jafarzadeh., who says the head jailer there is also named in the sanctions. Others targeted by sanctions on Friday include elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, specifically for cutting off internet access that prevented protesters from communicating with each other and the outside world. Individuals and entities assisting the Iranian ballistic missile program are also being targeted. Jafarzadeh says Trump is paying attention. "The president showed Friday that while he is so unhappy with the nuclear deal, he's even more unhappy with the other aspects of the Iranian regime's behavior, namely their domestic repression, their censorship and threatening their neighbors in the region," said Jafarzadeh. He also says the pressure is getting to the regime. This past week, Ayatollah Ali Khameini gave a speech vowing to crackdown on the protests even more and blaming them on a "triangle" of organized resistance - namely the United States, hostile Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, and the MEK. He also vowed a fierce crackdown on all elements of the triangle within Iran. Jafarzadeh does not think the threats will work because they don't change the reality of economic misery in Iran. "No matter how much you repress them, the disconnect of the people will not go away. The economic situation is not going to get any better. There's no plan for the government to resolve the issues. There are workers who have not been paid for eleven months. "Even doctors who used to get regular pay haven't been paid for 9-10 months. A lot of factories are not working," said Jafarzadeh. Jafarzadeh says the protests swelled to 141 different cities of all sizes. "This is absolutely unprecedented since the ayatollahs came to power in Iran," he said. The bottom line, says Jafarzadeh, is that pressure from inside and outside Iran is working. "The more pressure the United States builds against the Iranian regime, the more the regime's forces get frightened and the more encouraged the people will get," he said. |
| Rohrabacher: Forget Leverage, Ditch DACA Altogether |
| Thu, 11 Jan 2018 15:10:37 EST While Republicans and Democrats work to produce legislation to grant legal status and a pathway to citizenship for people brought to the United States illegally when they were children, one Republican congressman says Congress should refuse to enshrine that policy into law to avoid a flood of new illegal immigrants looking to benefit from the same policy. In September, President Trump announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, would end in March 2018, but also suggested that the people impacted by his decision ought not to worry. President Obama enacted DACA in 2012 and the program survived despite fierce criticism that such a change in the law could come through an act of Congress. With the DACA expiration now just weeks away, House and Senate leaders in both parties appear united in wanting to pass legislation to protect those impacted by the policy. A "Gang of Six" in the Senate is working on the bill, although President Trump has rejected their first overture. Many conservatives are urging GOP leaders and President Trump to use DACA as leverage to squeeze concessions out of Democrats, including a reduction in chain migration, and end to the visa lottery, expanded E-Verify at businesses and greater border security including at least portions of a new border wall. However, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., rejects the premise of the discussions. He doesn't want DACA as part of federal law. "If we legalize the status of 850,000 young people who are here illegally, we can expect tens of millions of young people throughout the world to notice that. "If they would like the government benefits of health care and education that comes from legally being in the United States, there is no reason for me to believe this won't obliterate out chances of getting control of our border," said Rohrabacher. The congressman says once Congress gives the green to putting "dreamers" on the path to citizenship, it may be impossible to restore integrity to our immigration system. "We're talking about millions of people here who will be brought into this country and there's no way we can build a wall high enough or dig a ditch deep enough to stop it after we've given them a treasure house of medical care and education. We are going to undo any good we can possibly do otherwise," said Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher says even if the legislation agrees to significant limits on chain migration, providing legal status to people who came to the U.S. illegally will still be crippling. "We cannot secure our borders as long as we're giving this ultimate prize to people who have made it across the border illegally. When we have young people like this, we're notifying parents all over the world, 'Whatever you do, get your kid to the United States,'" said Rohrabacher. While Rohrabacher admits many young people are suffering terribly in our own hemisphere and around the world, the resources of the United States only go so far. "There are people who are living in horrible situations overseas. Young people. We cannot afford to take care of every one of them while we don't even have the money now to take care of our own people, meaning the veterans and the seniors, and yes, the young people who need educational training here," said Rohrabacher. At an on-camera negotiation this week, President Trump was open to a two-step approach to immigration offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who wanted a "clean" DACA bill now with a commitment to address comprehensive immigration reform later. Trump later explained he considers a border wall part of a clean DACA bill. Rohrabacher has no interest in that. "The only thing I would have a stomach for if DACA comes first is if it's defeated," said Rohrabacher. With Republicans, Democrats and the president seemingly agreeing to the general path forward to enshrine DACA, Rohrabacher says other critical voices are being ignored yet again. "What hasn't changed is the American people. They keep getting left out of this as if their point of view doesn't count. Up until now, nobody's made the case to the American people of the magnitude of what we're talking about," said Rohrabacher. He says people who casually follow the debate think it's about helping a few impoverished kids from Latin America or Asia when the facts are very different. "They don't know that they're talking about the large number of people that we're talking about and the impact that it will have later on as people all over the world pay attention to the fact that if young people can get to the United States, we don't have the heart to send them back. Then what we'll see is a flood of millions more people coming in," said Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher has been part of efforts to beat back immigration legislation in 2006, 2007, and 2013. He says public pressure clearly makes a difference. "The only thing that's saved us from a massive onslaught of people crossing our borders from all over the world, many of whom probably would have been detrimental to us in terms of terrorism, it's been alerting the American people that's given us the leverage," said Rohrabacher. President Trump campaigned vigorously on enforcing immigration laws and beefing up border security, most famously with a wall. However, Rohrabacher says the performance of Republicans in the televised meeting suggests most GOP members have no intention of pursuing Trump's campaign vision. "I don't think there was anybody in that meeting that was someone who was, on principle and in practicality, opposed to legalization of illegal immigrants," said Rohrabacher, who admits no lawmakers would admit to such a label. However, the congressman says actions speak louder than words and the emerging talks suggest a major disconnect between lawmakers and the voters who sent them there. He says it could have a major impact come Election Day 2018. "We could turn off our base the same way moderate Republicans have turned off their base and lost elections for the last 20 years," said Rohrabacher. Interestingly, despite his vehement opposition to congressional legislation on DACA, Rohrabacher is not guaranteeing a 'no' vote. "I'm not telling you that if I lose in my argument that I will vote against any bill that has DACA in it or any other type of immigration reforms or changes they plan to make," said Rohrabacher. "I'll pay attention to the compromise to see if it's possible that I could vote for it. I'll keep an open mind, but I think it will do us great harm, so I would prefer not to have a legalization, especially of 850,000 young people," said Rohrabacher. |
| Worst Nations Revealed for Christian Persecution |
| Wed, 10 Jan 2018 16:23:22 EST Open Doors USA unveiled the World Watch List Wednesday, revealing the 50 nations around the world presenting the worst persecution for Christians and noting that Islamic extremism is responsible for much of the repression and Christian women in these countries are at the greatest risk. "Christian women are the most vulnerable population in the world. We can show, with data, so many sexual assaults and so many forced marriages," said Open Doors USA President and CEO Dr. David Curry. "We had a 14-year-old girl walking to school in northern Nigeria kidnapped, sold by tribal Sharia law for $160. Her parents had no legal recourse. This is happening over and over again, 2,260 cases that we can document," said Curry. Of the 50 nations on the list, 36 are there because of repression in Islamic nations, including nine of the worst ten nations. Atheistic North Korea is still worst, but the next nine - Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan, Eritrea, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran - are all Islamic. Afghanistan not only shot up to the second spot on the list, but fell just short of North Korea, which has topped the list for years. Curry says the re-emergence of the Taliban is a big reason for the negative surge. "The Taliban has extended their management of a larger portion of the country so they control somewhere around 47 percent of Afghanistan now. So in these tribal regions run by the Taliban there are very extremist views. You just have a very difficult position for anybody who has any alternate views. "Under Sharia Law, what people need to understand is that the Taliban and Islamic extremists see themselves as judge, jury, and executioner. So they will just execute somebody who commits their life to faith as a Christian. That just makes it exceptionally difficult," said Curry. However, the eleventh worst persecutor of Christians is not an Islamic state but a nationalistic Hindu state in India, which has rocketed up the list in recent years. "Prime Minister Modi and his entire party, the BJP party, has committed to a one religion policy, a nationalistic push that says if you're not Hindu then you're not an Indian. They're forcing everyone by 2025 to be a Hindu," said Curry. He says the human rights abuses committed in the advancement of this policy are shocking, including the persecution of a nun who insisted in helping people in the name of Jesus. "They raped her. They drugged her. They left her unconscious tied to a bed. She wasn't discovered until she failed to show up for prayer. And what did the police and the local authorities do? They destroyed evidence and they let the attackers go. There's no justice for Christians in India right now," said Curry, who had even more disturbing numbers about the world's most populous democracy. "There were 635 Christians held in prison without trial in India. It's very difficult in India right now. It's an extremism, a nationalism," said Curry. The name radical nationalism is wreaking havoc in neighboring Nepal as well. Nepal was not on the list in 2017 but now sits at twenty-fifth on the list. The scores and rankings on the World Watch List incorporate several criteria, including government repression of religious freedom and state-sanctioned violence against those who do not submit to the wishes of the state. Each nation listed comes with a report and a fact sheet describing the persecution taking place in that country. Curry says some nations are improving, including Vietnam and Tanzania, who are slowly expanding religious freedom, but much of the world is seeing greater persecution. Syria has dropped out of the worst ten persecutors and the immediate instinct is to credit the military losses by ISIS. However, Curry says that's not the case and the drop isn't even good news. "There is some good news in the list. Unfortunately, that's not one of them. Here's the factor in Syria dropping. A lot of Christians have left. ISIS is rolling back but don't be deceived , their ideology of hate is alive," said Curry. Other points of concern include Turkey, now up to 31st on the list, as the government quashes religious freedom in its tightening grip on power. Only two nations in the western hemisphere made the list - Mexico and Colombia. Curry says the threat posed to Christians by drug cartels and other organized crime groups stifles religious freedom. Curry says he wants governments and fellow Christians to take proactive steps in response to this report. "We want the government of the United States and western countries to make this part of their diplomacy, part of their commerce strategy. There are countries on the list that we do billion, nay trillions of business with - India, Saudi Arabia. You just go down the list and yet they don't have any freedom for religious minorities," said Curry. As for the churches, Curry says his request is simple. "We need to let our voice be heard. Share these stories. Share it online. Share it on social media. Talk about it. Every church, every Sunday should be praying for one of these countries and one of these stories - an American pastor held in Turkey, the nun attacked in India, the 14-year-old girl sold into marriage against her will. "Pray for these people. Let's not let it drop off of our consciousness," said Curry. |
| Cold Snap Forces Shifting Climate Narrative |
| Tue, 9 Jan 2018 16:23:05 EST Less than a decade after predicting climate change would lead to winters without snow, former Vice President Al Gore and other climate change activists say the recent cold snap is another clear sign of a "climate crisis" and media refuse to point out the contradictions. Colder than normal temperatures hung around the Midwest and Northeast for weeks, exacerbated by stiff winds and even a bombogenesis of "bomb cyclone" along the east coast last week. However, for Gore and his allies, the stretch of frigid temperatures serves as further confirmation of the impact human activity is having on our world. "It 19s bitter cold in parts of the US, but climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains that 19s exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis," Gore tweeted. However, researchers at Climate Depot point out that as recently as the year 2000, scientists had a far different expectation from climate change - then referred to as global warming. That year the UK Independent declared "snow is starting to disappear from our lives" and "children just aren't going to know what snow is." Dr. Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, says Gore is scrambling now that his forecasts have proven wrong. "In his 2006 documentary, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' Al Gore said absolutely nothing about rising temperatures leading to colder winters," said Cohen. Cohen asserts that the the liberal narrative had to change once global temperatures failed to keep rising last decade. He says there are too many political and financial investments for the activists to turn back now. "Because they were still interested in scaring us to death so that we would undertake steps to regulate ourselves and to mandate the use of renewable energy and to take other steps we otherwise wouldn't do, they had to slap a new label on all of this. So out went 'global warming' and in came 'climate change,'" said Cohen. And with the new terminology came greater flexibility for climate change activists to steer reality to their narrative. "Regardless of what happens - a tornado in Oklahoma, a hurricane that slams into Texas or Florida, a typhoon that churns up the Pacific or whatever - they are covered. 'Aha, this is further proof of climate change,' when in fact it's proof of absolutely nothing other than the climate doing what the climate has always done," said Cohen. Now that the narrative is shifting, are the news media highlighting the very different statements from Gore and others over the years or simply giving them a platform for their latest contentions? "They adopted this 'extreme weather event' explanation. We are somehow supposed to believe that we are experiencing extreme weather conditions that we have never experienced before. "They are, in effect, giving cover to Gore and giving cover to the whole agenda. Of course, these people are every bit as ignorant of our climatological past, including our recent climatological past, as is Mr. Gore," said Cohen. And Cohen says the media, just like Gore, will keep the narrative going regardless of the evidence. "You can count on all of these people still beating the drums of what is now called climate change simply because I think the mainstream media is too invested in this to admit that it has been taken to the cleaners by climate alarmists, who have an agenda which I assure you has nothing to do with the climate," said Cohen. "I don't expect these people to undergo any change in their course whatsoever," he added. So what did happen during the cold snap? "It's evidence that it's winter. This is something that we've all seen before. This was a combination of two things occurring simultaneously. One was a typical Nor'easter, that is a storm that made its way up the Atlantic coast. "This one coincided with extremely cold weather which originated over land, namely Siberia, made its way on prevailing winds to North America and eventually to the Midwest, the Northeast, and even the Southeast as far south as North Florida," said Cohen. Cohen says history has recorded plenty of these storms, most notably the blizzard of 1888, which left snow drifts 50 feet high in New York City. "Whatever may have been behind the storm of 1888 and similar storms which have occurred, I can tell you one thing that did not cause them: man-made emissions of greenhouse gases through the burning of the burning of fossil fuels, which is supposed to be behind all of this," said Cohen. |
| Rauner Ought to Beware Ives in March |
| Mon, 8 Jan 2018 13:58:44 EST Calling incumbent Illinois Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner a "failed governor," conservative State Rep. Jeanne Ives says she cannot leave the GOP field to a man who broke countless promises and ended up doing the bidding of the Chiacgo Democrats. Ives, a West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran, was first elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 2012. The GOP primary in Illinois is March 20. Rauner was elected in 2014 on a platform of reforming government in Illinois and seriously addressing the state's looming fiscal crisis. Instead, he is branded now by National Review as the worst Republican governor in America, after raising taxes instead of cutting them, signing a bill that forbids law enforcement from checking the immigration status of people they stop, and enacting taxpayer-funded abortion in the state. "Let's be clear. Gov. Rauner is a failed governor. He's specifically a failed Republican governor, which is why I'm challenging him," said Ives. She says one issue in particular triggered her primary challenge. "The tipping point really became when he signed taxpayer funding of abortion, because that's the point at which I started to get calls from colleagues and other Republicans around the state saying, 'We do not want him to run unopposed. We need someone else to stand up for us,'" said Ives. Rauner tries to downplay the abortion bill by saying he's pro-choice but the party is a big tent and he has supported pro-life candidates in the past. Ives says all Republicans in Springfield, regardless of their position on abortion, were appalled by Rauner's actions. "No Republican, even Republicans who consider themselves pro-choice in our legislature, none of us signed on for taxpayer funding of abortion. None of us did. He told us he was going to veto that bill and then did not and decided to sign it anyway, based on his wife being very pro-choice and based on his own propensity of being pro-choice," said Ives. "He enacted with that bill the economic agenda and the social agenda of the Chicago Democrats, rather than a Republican conservative reform agenda," added Ives. In addition to the moral revulsion of Rauner's support for the abortion legislation, Ives says the governor saddled Illinois taxpayers with another massive tax bill. "He lied to us. He betrayed who we are as Republicans and he put in a brand new entitlement program in a state that it literally bankrupt. Nobody does that," said Ives. Rauner also took a lot of heat from the right for failing to stop Democrats from pushing new tax increases into law when the state's budget hung in limbo last year. The governor said people need to realize he does not run Illinois and that Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan is actually more powerful than he is. Ives finds that excuse revolting. "He needs to resign over that comment, quite frankly. The idea that the governor says, 'I'm not in charge.' Are you kidding me? It just tells you where he is in terms of his fight and his stance. That's just nonsense," said Ives. Democrats do enjoy large majorities in the state legislature, including a 67-51 margin in the state house and a 37-22 edge in the state senate. However, Ives says Rauner needed to do more to get Democrats to join him in doing the things he promised in 2014. "There's much you can do in terms of turning the state around and getting the buy-in from the legislators to do that, and Gov. Rauner just didn't do that. He picked a personal fight with our longtime serving Speaker of the House Mike Madigan, who does wield a lot of control. However, he didn't build the coalitions that would make the bills possible for a turnaround," said Ives. So how would Ives be different? "We're just the worst-run state in the nation. We need to reverse course on nearly every policy. We need policy revolution and I'm ready to lead that revolt," said Ives, who says she knows where she would start. "We'll go after public corruption. Corruption is an everyday event in the state of Illinois and it is something that the executive is charged to deal with, which is enforce our laws. "We're all about spending reform. Look, Illinois pensions are the worst in the nation and it's crowding out all the other services we need to spend money on," said Ives. Ives says the pension bubble is a major problem at both the state and local levels, and old methods of kicking the can down the road won't work anymore. "Chicago's got a huge, massive balloon payment due that's going to nearly double its pension costs by 2023. That's an extra billion dollars that they don't have and can't find because they've already raised taxes and fees to the hilt," said Ives, who says Chicago pensions are only 20 percent funded. Unlike Rauner, Ives says she's ready to engage in talks with Democrats to fend off the crisis. "We have a very powerful governorship, we just have a weak man in it. He didn't want to take on the fights that needed to be taken on after a while and he just got beaten down. Time for new leadership. Time for someone who's willing to win the conversation and actually do the work to lead this state," said Ives. She says that approach is the only hope for Illinois to stay solvent. "We've had the worst job growth in the nation. We've had the worst income growth in the nation. We lead in out migration because our taxes are too high. I got involved in politics for economic reasons, so we're going to focus in on the economic stuff," she said. If she can win the nomination, Ives would then run statewide in a deep blue state come November - most likely against billionaire J.B. Pritzker. So how would Ives convince voters with Democratic instincts to give her a chance. "Most people think that J.B. Pritzker will be the Democratic nominee because he's supported by Mike Madigan. I think that's a losing ticket for Illinois. I think you're going to have a lot of disaffected Democrats not vote for that ticket and instead look for a reformer, look for somebody who's actually got a record of leading a revolt and speaking out on behalf of taxpayers and working across the aisle when the legislation is good," said Ives. First, however, Ives needs to knock off another another billionaire in Rauner. The battle is even more uphill with the state Republicans squarely in Rauner's corner. "They want to stick with Rauner because he's got so much money that he can feed the rest of the legislative races. I think that's all just a bunch of junk. It's Gov. Rauner who cannot win in 2018. Nobody is going to re-elect him in 2018 and that's a bipartisan feel," said Ives. Ives says the energy behind her campaign is palpable, as she acquired 16,000 petition signatures without spending any money. There are no recent polls of the race. One from several weeks ago shows Rauner up double figures but below 50 percent among Republicans. Ives believes the race is now neck-and-neck and thinks the trust issue will determine the nominee. "He may have a lot of name ID but it's negative and you cannot buy back trust after betrayal. Rauner has betrayed our party. His base is no longer with him. He can't win in 2018, which is why Republicans deserve an alternative, and an alternative to hiring a plutocrat like Pritzker for the job too," said Ives. |
| 'This is a Giant Move' |
| Fri, 5 Jan 2018 16:28:32 EST The Trump administration is advancing plans to open up the vast majority of the Outer Continental Shelf to energy exploration and development, a move that a leading national security voice in Congress says will be another major boost to our economy and protect American interests by end any dependence upon rogue states that sit on a lot of oil. On Thursday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced he was moving forward with ambitious plans to increase America's domestic energy supplies. Zinke says the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program "proposes to make over 90 percent of the total OCS acreage and more than 98 percent of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in federal offshore areas available to consider for future exploration and development." He says that is a dramatic shift from the policies of the Obama administration. "By comparison, the current program puts 94 percent of the OCS off limits. In addition, the program proposes the largest number of lease sales in U.S. history," he said. Wittman says the Obama administration often pointed out that it allowed energy companies to locate deposits of oil and gas but companies refused because they knew the government would deny them leases to actually extract the energy, making the exploration costly and pointless. Zinke notes that the 47 potential lease sales as part of the Draft Proposed Program, including "19 sales off the coast of Alaska, 7 in the Pacific Region, 12 in the Gulf of Mexico, and 9 in the Atlantic Region." Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Virginia, sits on the House Natural Resources Committee and is thrilled with this development. "I think this is a giant move," said Whitman who, unlike some other congressional Republicans, says he would be fine with productive, safe energy production off the coast of his state. Wittman points out there is much more process to go through to get the production going. There are multiple public comment periods and other hurdles to clear, including putting together the infrastructure to determine where oil and gas can be tapped on the Outer Continental Shelf. For his district in southeast Virginia, the impact of energy production on the operations of the U.S. Navy will be a key issue to address. When it does come, he expects the first action to come in the Gulf of Mexico since the infrastructure is better built there. While activists and lawmakers in both parties worry about the environmental impact, Wittman says the technology is getting better all the time. "I believe we can put the proper controls into place to protect the environment but also develop our energy offshore. I think this is a significant step forward and certainly cements United States energy security well into the future," said Wittman. He says disasters like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion offered many lessons for energy producers. "There's been some criticism that the lessons learned in Deepwater Horizon haven't been put in place in the regulatory realm. I think where that should be reflected is in the permitting realm. Make sure the permitting is there with the proper construction guidelines and protections. Those are absolutely critical," said Wittman. He says many critics forget that Deepwater Horizon was a result of human error, trying to stretch equipment beyond what it was capable of doing. While critics of the plan, including many Democrats, believe our national energy policy ought to be focused on renewable forms of energy, Wittman says reality dictates that this type of exploration and production is essential to meet our needs. "You're going to have to have hydrocarbons as part of that future energy portfolio. If we don't, then we put the United States at a distinct strategic and economic disadvantage. We do not want to do that," said Wittman, who says efficient production and use of traditional energy sources will provide more time to develop more effective renewable options. If the Zinke plan does come to fruition, Wittman expects it to be an economic windfall for Virginia and other states. "For Virginia, it would mean thousands of jobs, not only in the construction but also the maintenance of these rigs. Remember, there are boats that go back and forth to tend these rigs. There are highly skilled technicians that operate these rigs. There's a whole maritime industry that goes with it," said Wittman. Wittman also serves on the House Armed Services Committee and chairs its Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee. He says energy production brings national security by providing economic security. "We have seen in the past when we are at the mercy of nations that don't like us and are aggressively going after us by trying to kill our men and women around the world that serve this nation in uniform and then we rely on them for our energy. That's a not a good strategic situation to be in," said Wittman. "And it gives us the ability to create better situations around the world because we're not held hostage to relying on those nations for our energy," he added. Congress does not need to authorize the program. However, liberal interest groups are likely to slow it down in court. Wittman denounces lawsuits designed solely to grind policy to a halt. He says the bottom line is that the executive branch has the power to do this regardless of whether all Americans support the plan. |
| Trump Ends Voter Integrity Panel After States Refuse to Hand Over Records |
| Thu, 4 Jan 2018 16:27:27 EST President Trump scrapped the commission he created to investigate problems with alleged voter fraud on Wednesday, blaming state leaders for refusing to share data that could help to determine the extent of any problem. However, Trump is now asking the Department of Homeland Security to pick up the investigation and urging Congress to pass a national Voter ID law. "Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry," said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a statement Wednesday. "Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and he has asked the Department of Homeland Security to review its initial findings and determine next courses of action," she added. Hans von Spakovsky manages the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation and served on the commission until its termination. "I'm disappointed but I understand why President Trump did this. The commission has basically been unable to do its work for more than two months," said von Spakovsky. He says the inability of the commission to make progress is a result both of state officials refusing to cooperate and lawsuit-happy activists grinding the work of the panel to a halt. "We have all these state election officials refusing to provide us with the data we need with state voter registration lists so we can do the research we need to do. Also, liberal progressive groups have filed about a dozen lawsuits to stop the commission from being able to operate. The staff of the commission is spending all their time in this frivolous litigation," said von Spakovsky. One of the most common arguments made by state officials in refusing to turn over voter registration lists is that the federal government has no business barging in and demanding states provide the information. Von Spakovsky says that argument rings hollow given what states constantly do with the same information. "The information we asked for is information that all of these states routinely sell to candidates and political parties. So why they think they shouldn't give it to this commission looking at election integrity, I don't really understand," said von Spakovsky, who contends the federal government has every right to see the same records. "The federal government is entitled to that information because those voter registration lists are what are used for federal elections, elections for Congress and the president. Obviously, the federal government has a right to that information," said von Spakovsky. Despite the dearth of records to study, von Spakovsky says the commission's work shows there is clearly a problem. "Some folks who got the voter registration lists - the same information we wanted - from 21 states that represent just 17 percent of the voters in the country, and yet they found more than 8,500 people who illegally voted in more than one state in [the 2016] election," said von Spakovsky. On Thursday, election officials in Virginia determined the outcome of a race for the House of Delegates that would also determine the majority in that chamber. The race was deadlocked after recounts and court challenges, and Republican David Yancey's name was drawn out of a bowl, giving the GOP a 51-49 majority. Von Spakovsky says that race may well have been impacted by illegal voting. "That's a legislative district in which a group that I'm associated with discovered that in just one town, Newport News, in the last few years they've removed a couple hundred non-citizens who had registered in that city and had voted almost 300 times in prior elections. So it's very possible that particular race may have been decided by people who shouldn't have been voting," said von Spakovsky. So what happens now? As Trump indicated, the issue will now be referred to the Department of Homeland Security. However, von Spakovsky says DHS is going to need a lot of help. "They can't look into this problem without the help and cooperation of the U.S. Justice Department. That's going to take Jeff Sessions helping them too. It looks like it's going to have to be private groups and others like myself still trying to look into this problem," said von Spakovsky. Trump has one other suggestion. "As Americans, you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form, for almost everything you do.....except when it comes to the most important thing, VOTING for the people that run your country. Push hard for Voter Identification!" he tweeted Thursday morning. Voter identification has been pushed in many states governed by Republicans, but the more liberal states want nothing to do with it. It's unclear whether Trump is advocating for a national voter identification law, but von Spakovsky believes it would be constitutional. "I agree with the president. Congress could impose an ID requirement for federal elections. If they did that, that would virtually guarantee ID for all elections because in most states the state and federal elections are held at the same time," said von Spakovsky. However, he does not believe there is nearly enough political will to get the idea through Congress. "Politically, don't think it's possible because you would have huge fights between both Democrats and Republicans over this issue. There are some states that are moving forward with this. Iowa just put in an ID requirement, but there are other states that are adamantly opposed to it like New York and California, which are two of the largest states in the country," said von Spakovsky. |
| Individual Mandate Repealed: Now What? |
| Wed, 3 Jan 2018 16:55:20 EST Republicans succeeded in repealing the individual mandate in the 2010 Affordable Care Act as part of the recent tax reform package, but a leading health care expert urges President Trump and members of Congress to do even more this year to bring financial relief to Americans saddled by high premiums and deductibles. Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner has been on the front lines of the health care debate since before the Clinton administration attempted to give government a greater role in the sector in the 1990's. A fierce critic of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, Turner is relishing how the individual mandate was sent to the scrap heap starting in 2019. "The lovely irony is that the least popular provision of Obamacare was repealed in the tax bill. It's a bit of a touché to the Supreme Court," said Turner, noting that the court upheld the individual mandate as constitutional only if it was considered a tax. Beyond the political and legal drama, Turner says the mandate improved nothing and was a major burden on people. "It was ineffective. It was not doing what it needed to do. Health insurance was so expensive that it was driving people away from policies. Even with the tax penalties, people still found it was cheaper to pay the penalties than to buy this expensive coverage," said Turner. "The people who were most effected by these penalties were people making less than $50,000 a year. It was backfiring from all perspectives," said Turner. As a result of the mandate being ineffective, Turner does not expect costs to rise noticeably when people can refuse to buy health coverage with no penalty next year. As Congress was voting the tax bill into law, President Trump suggested in comments to reporters that ending the individual mandate was akin to repealing Obamacare. "The individual mandate is being repealed. When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed because they get their money from the individual mandate," said Trump on Dec. 20. Turner says Trump is right to be excited over nixing one of the most burdensome aspects of Obamacare, but she says Trump and Republicans in Congress need to stay focused on even more health care policy changes. "There's still lots of things on the books. We're spending hundreds of billions of dollars still on subsidies for people who may decide that they would rather purchase a different kind of coverage. "All the rules and regulations are still on the books about the kind of coverage that we have to purchase, the expansion of Medicaid to the point where many states are finding they can't begin to afford their share of the costs of Medicaid; all of that is still on the books," said Turner. And Turner know Trump is fully aware of this, as evidenced by his impending plan to offer expanded temporary health insurance. The Obama administration allowed only one-time, three-month temporary insurance policies for people between jobs or going through other transitions. The Trump plan will approve year-long policies that can be renewed year after year. Trump is also expected to give the green light to association health plans through executive orders in the coming days. Turner say this will allow smaller companies that share a similar focus to band together so employees can be offered plans at competitive rates. "Let's say you're a small contractor or you run a barber shop or a beauty parlor. You really can't afford to compete with the big guys in offering good health insurance to your workers. But if you were able to aggregate your policy with a lot of other similar businesses, then you can get the economies of scale. You could get more choices for your employees," said Turner. She believes getting Washington bureaucrats out of health care also ought to be a top legislative priority. "Give states a lot more authority in being able to approve the kind of health insurance policies that people want to buy, to allow the market to work to bring more players into the market. In many parts of the country, people are still only going to have a choice of only one plan. That's not a choice," said Turner. Turner admits Republicans will be less motivated to address health reforms in 2018 since they repealed the mandate in the tax bill and want to avoid a repeat of of their Obamacare failures in 2017. But she says that is not an option and voters will demand results. "If Republicans don't act, they are going to be on the defensive," said Turner. "I believe the voters are going to insist they take action this year." She says Republicans have about six months to get these reforms through Congress and onto Trump's desk, otherwise the improvements will not appear in premium forecasts just weeks before Election Day. |
| Iran Protests Swell: 'The Unrest is Everywhere' |
| Tue, 2 Jan 2018 16:13:31 EST The popular uprising engulfing Iran is growing bigger by the day and base of unrest dwarfs even the massive protests we saw in 2009, according to a key figure in the Iranian resistance movement. The protests began Thursday in Mashad, Iran's second largest city, and spread like wildfire to 80 different cities. The ensuing government response has led to the deaths of at least 20 people. "It's growing every day, both in terms of the level of anger that you can see displayed by the population but also how rapidly it's spreading," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, the deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of the Resistance of Iran. The NCRI has played a critical role in uncovering Iran's nuclear ambitions and violations of nuclear agreements. Jafarzadeh says the protests have a strong foundation in economic animus towards the autocratic regime in Tehran, led by Ayatollah Ali Khameini and President Hassan Rouhani. "The whole issue of the rise in cost of living and government corruption effects everybody. In 2009, it was mostly the middle class and the intellectuals. Now, the unrest is everywhere. You're talking about the poor, the workers, the impoverished, those who really have nothing else to lose," said Jafarzadeh. Corruption is a major factor as well. Jafarzadeh says a number of "spooky" operations sponsored by the government encouraged Iranians to invest in plans which guaranteed high returns. Instead, the Iranians who invested lost big and their frustrations were compounded by watching the mullahs funnel huge amounts of money to Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. He says the people have simply had enough. "The people feel there is really no solution for any of their problems - either economic problems or the repression they've been facing - other than changing the regime," said Jafarzadeh. In addition, the Iran people are no longer buying the notion that Iranian President Rouhani is some kind of reformer or significantly different at all than the hard-line mullahs. "The common denominator to all the slogans in various cities is, 'Death to Khamenei. Death to Rouhani,' rejecting both factions within the regime - the so-called reformers and the hard-liners. In some cases, they were specifically chanting, 'Reformers, hardliners, the game is now over,'" said Jafarzadeh. "I think this put an end to this myth that there are some moderate elements within the Iranian regime and that if you reach out to them, empower them or negotiate with them and give them what they want then things will go in the right direction. The population rejected that entirely with these extensive demonstrations," said Jafarzadeh. But it's not just the depth of of the revolt in Iran that's different than in 2009, Jafarzadeh also says the regime's response is very different this time compared to 2009. "The regime is in big disarray. Each faction is trying to put the blame on the other faction. The dissatisfaction is actually affecting some of the people within the ranks of the security forces, which is unprecedented," said Jafarzadeh, noting some troops sent to quell protests have switched sides and joined the demonstrators. He says the Iranian government also appears torn about how to respond to the protests in general, with both brutal repression and holding back both seen as fueling the protests rather than hastening their end. And something else is very different: the American response. Jafarzadeh says President Obama looked the other way when the Iranian people were begging for help in 2009. "President Obama didn't side with the demonstrators and didn't say any words that would be supportive of them. He basically waited until the demonstrations were crushed so he could go back to negotiations," said Jafarzadeh. President Trump has taken a very different approach in a series of tweets. "Iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration. The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!" Trump tweeted on Monday morning. "The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their 1cpockets. 1d The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!" Trump added on Tuesday. Jafarzadeh says that makes a huge difference. "President Trump has publicly said that he's standing on the side of the people. The president has been tweeting repeatedly since day one," he said. And how does U.S. encouragement make a difference in the outcome? "You want to show the protesters that they're not alone," said Jafarzadeh, noting that outside support is just as important as maintaining domestic intensity for the protests. "They're connected with the rest of the world. The world is actually watching them. The world actually cares about them. The world actually stands on their side, not just in terms of the sentiment but also does practical things that will make a difference," said Jafarzadeh. Specifically, Jafarzadeh would like to see President Trump declare Iranian leaders as human rights violators and slap new sanctions on the regime for restricting internet access in an attempt to suffocate the demonstrations. He also urges the U.S. to forge a close alliance with the MEK resistance group, which is organizing the protests and is ideologically similar to the NCRI. Jafarzadeh says the biggest thing is forcing the issue sooner rather than later. "We need to act quickly . This cannot and should not take very long. We need to act very quickly and talk about days instead of months. The sooner the world acts, the less violence and the better the prospects for success," said Jafarzadeh. |
| Famous Passings - Television, Film and Music |
| Fri, 22 Dec 2017 16:59:19 EST Each year brings the passing of those whose work we loved in the arts and entertainment. From television to the movies to music and more, we bid many final farewells to our favorite stars in 2017. In television, one of the biggest hits of the 1960 19s was 1cThe Dick Van Dyke Show 1d and a critical factor in that success was Mary Tyler Moore 19s portrayal of Laura Petrie. Four years after that show ended, Moore rocketed to superstardom as the star of 1cThe Mary Tyler Moore Show. 1d The program was a smash hit throughout the seventies, with Moore playing Mary Richards, who tried to maintain sanity at a Minneapolis television station. Mary Tyler Moore, who turned the world on with her smile, died at age 80. Another iconic program from the sixties was 1cThe Andy Griffith Show, 1d and one of the great ensemble characters was Gomer Pyle, played by singer and actor Jim Nabors. Pyle was so popular, Nabors started in the spinoff 1cGomer Pyle USMC. 1d Nabors also recorded many albums and famously sang 1cBack Home in Indiana 1d each year before the Indianapolis 500. Nabors was 87. There 19s never been a comedian like Don Rickles. After all, how many people feel honored to be insulted? Rickles was known for his good-natured haranguing of celebrities and audience members for decades. Also the star of TV 19s 1cCPO Sharkey, 1d Rickles was 90 when he died in April. Perry Mason wouldn 19t have won so many cases without the help of his faithful assistant Della Street. Street 19s character in the original television series was the work of actress Barbara Hale. She was 94. 1cBatman 1d was only on television for a couple of seasons, but Adam West made a career out of portraying the caped crusader in the campy sixties series and for millions of fans will always be the true Batman. West was 88. David Cassidy rose to fame as as Keith Partridge on the classic 1970 19s television series, 1cThe Partridge Family. 1d But Cassidy quickly became a teen heartthrob and branched out into a very successful music career most famous for songs like 1cI Think I Love You. 1d Cassidy was 67. Robert Guillame also shot to stardom in the seventies, playing Benson DuBois, first in a supporting role on the racy sitcom 1cSoap, 1d and then starring as a government official on 1cBenson. 1d Among the first leading black actors on a primetime sitcom, Guillame was 89. Joe Mannix was one of America 19s favorite private eyes in the sixties and seventies. Actor Mike Connors starred as 1cMannix. 1d Connors died in January. He was 91. Richard Hatch became a household name for his role as Captain Apollo in the original 1cBattlestar Galactica 1d series. Hatch was 71. Erin Moran was America 19s little sister in the seventies as she portrayed Joanie Cunningham on 1cHappy Days. 1d After a long and successful run on that program, Moran starred in the spinoff 1cJoanie Loves Chachie. 1d Moran died of cancer in April. She was 56. On 1cMagnum P.I., 1d Thomas Magnum was the free-wheeling private eye and Higgins was the exact opposite. The uptight character was the work of actor John Hillerman. He was 84. Anyone who was 1cTouched By An Angel, 1d was touched by the acting excellence of Della Reese. Also an accomplished singer, the beloved Della Reese died in November. She was 86. Jay Thomas was a highly respected comedy actor in the eighties and nineties. Known for his recurring guest appearances on 1cCheers 1d and 1cMurphy Brown, 1d Thomas also starred for three seasons on the sitcom 1cLove and War. 1d Thomas was 69. Two legendary game show hosts left us in 2017. Monty Hall usually had a trinket in his pocket and set the stage for contestants to win big or leave the show embarrassed. It was all part of the appeal of 1cLet 19s Make A Deal. 1d Hall was 96 when he died in September. Chuck Barris hosted the 1cGong Show, 1d which hosted legitimately talented acts and some real stinkers - who would get gonged off the stage. Later in life, he claimed to have been a CIA assassin for years prior to his time as a game show host. Barris was 87. Long before there was Judge Judy or any other reality tv court programs, Judge Joseph Wapner ruled over 1cThe People 19s Court. 1d A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge for 18 years prior to his television years, Wapner settled small claims issues in the hugely popular syndicated series. Wapner died in February. He was 97. June Foray was a voice actor for some of our most beloved animated characters, including both Rocky the flying squirrel and Natasha on 1cThe Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle 1d as well as Cindy Lou Who from 1cHow the Grinch Stole Christmas. 1d June Foray was 99. At the movies, Jerry Lewis was famous for 60 years. Known for his comedic partnership with Dean Martin and film roles such as 1cThe Nutty Professor, 1d Lewis later became known for hosting the annual Labor Day telethon for Jerry 19s kids at the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Jerry Lewis was 91. No character on the big screen has ever been as smooth as British agent James Bond. In seven installments of the long-running franchise, including 1cLive and Let Die 1d and 1cThe Man With the Golden Gun, 1d Bond was played by actor Roger Moore. Moore died in May. he was 89. 1cThe Exorcist 1d remains one of the most terrifying movies ever made. The film was based on the book written by William Peter Blatty. Blatty died in January. He was 88. Bill Paxton starred in a number of blockbusters, ranging from 1cApollo 13 1d to 1cTwister 1d to 1cTitanic. 1d Paxton died from surgical complications in February. He was 61. One director said John Hurt was simply the greatest actor in the world. Best known for his work in 1cAlien 1d and 1cA Man for All Seasons 1d among many other acclaimed performances, John Hurt died of cancer in January. He was 77. Martin Landau was a fixture in American cinema for several decades. Highly regarded for his performances in 1cNorth by Northwest 1d and 1cTucker: A Man and His Dream, 1d Landau also won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1cEd Wood. 1d Stephen Furst did a lot of projects throughout his acting career, including stint on TV 19s 1cSt. Elsewhere. 1d But he 19ll always be known as Flounder in 1cAnimal House. 1d Furst was 62. Glenne Headly turned heads for her acting ability in films such as 1cDirty Rotten Scoundrels, 1d 1cMr. Holland 19s Opus, 1d and 1cDick Tracy. 1d Glenne Headly was 63. Robert Osborne was best known for talking about movies as extolled the legendary films on Turner Classic Movies. Osborne died in March. He was 84. In music, rock and roll has had few figures more influential or more famous than Chuck Berry. Known for his stellar guitar playing, his duck walk and classics like 1cJohnny B. Goode, 1d 1cRoll Over Beethoven, 1d and the Christmas favorite 1cRun, Run Rudolph, 1d Berry was 90 when he died in March. Fats Domino was another figure who transformed the music scene in the early days of rock and roll. Known for classics like 1cBlueberry Hill, 1d 1cAin 19t That A Shame, 1d and 1cI 19m Walkin 19 1d, Domino later narrowly survived the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He died in October. Fats Domino was 89. Tom Petty 19s versatility knew no bounds. Regarded as one of the greatest guitar players in the business, Petty thrilled fans for four decades as the leader of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and also for his work with the Traveling Wilburys. Tom Petty was 66. One of the greatest country music legends also died this year. The Wichita Lineman himself, Glen Campbell, succumbed to Alzheimer 19s Disease at the age of 81. During his decades-long career, Campbell was also known for hits like 1cRhinestone Cowboy 1d and 1cGalveston. 1d One of the most popular country duos in modern times is Montgomery Gentry. Nashville was stunned in September when Troy Gentry was killed in a helicopter crash. He was 50 years old. The Allman Brothers drew a huge following in the 1970 19s for their easily recognizable sound and hits like 1cWhipping Post, 1d 1cMelissa 1d and 1cMidnight Rider, 1d all of which were written by the talented Greg Allman. Also known for his brief marriage to Cher, Allman was 69 when he died in May. On the heavy metal scene, no group is as easily distinguishable as AC/DC. Guitarist Malcolm Young was a critical part of the band 19s success. Young died in November. He was 64. Another fan favorite in the early 1980 19s was the J. Geils band with hits like 1cCenterfold 1d and 1cFreeze Frame. 1d Guitarist John Geils was the man behind the band 19s name. He died in April age age 71. That 19s a look at the famous people we lost in television, film, and music. Please look elsewhere on this site to remember those who passed away in politics, the media, and sports. |
| Famous Passings - Politics, Media, Sports |
| Fri, 22 Dec 2017 16:47:30 EST Greg Corombos takes a look back at the famous figures from politics, the media and sports in 2017. As 2017 heads for the finish line, it is appropriate to look forward to all the possibilities of the coming year. But it is also important to reflect upon the past 12 months. And for the next few minutes, we 19ll be remembering the famous figures from many different walks of life who left us this year. For the next few moments, we pay tribute to those who passed away in the arenas of politics, media, business and sports. In politics, Helmut Kohl was a voice for freedom in a divided Germany as chancellor of West Germany and then led the reunification of east and west after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Helmut Kohl was 87. Two other prominent players on the world stage died this year who will be remembered in the U.S. as villains. Panama strong man Manuel Noriega once enjoyed a friendly relationship with the United States but a long track record of drug trafficking, suppressing democracy and eventually the death of a U.S. Marine led to an American invasion to depose Noriega late in 1989. Later sentenced to decades in prison, Noriega died in May. He was 83. Before Osama bin Laden, there was Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. In 1993, the blind sheikh masterminded the first bombing of the World Trade Center. He also plotted to blow up other New York City landmarks. Successfully prosecuted by our friend Andrew McCarthy, Rahman spent the last two decades behind bars. He died in February at age 78. Saudi billionaire Adnan Kashoggi was an international wheeler and dealer for decades, but he became best known for serving as a middle man in the Iran-Contra affair, as the U.S. traded arms with Iran in exchange for American hostages to be released from Lebanon. Adnan Kashoggi was 81. Years earlier, foreign policy crises from the Iran hostage crisis to Soviet aggression in Afghanistan exposed some weaknesses in the Carter administration. One of Carter 19s key aides was National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. He died in May at the age of 89. Charles Manson wanted to start a race war back in the 1960 19s. He succeeded in starting a cult that murdered several people, including actress Sharon Tate in 1969. The evil head of the Manson family died in November. He was 83. Last decade, one of the biggest cultural scandals was the revelation that some in the Catholic Church had reassigned pedophile priests instead of reporting them and removing them from ministry. Boston Archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law was perhaps the highest profile figure in the U.S. to be discovered doing this. In response to the scandal, Law was reassigned to Rome. He was 86. This past summer an international political and medical debate played out in Britain over the fate of a baby named Charlie Gard. Officials in the UK determined Gard 19s rare condition was irreversible and refused to let his parents take their critically ill son to the U.S. for therapies. After losing several legal fights, the end was inevitable. Little Charlie Gard died a month shy of his first birthday. Two longtime Republican congressional figures died. Pete Domenici served 36 years in the U.S. Senate and was the top GOP member on the budget committee for 12 years. Domenici was 85. Bob Michel spent 38 years as a Republican congressman from Illinois. From 1981-1995, he served as House Minority Leader. Bob Michel was 93. John Anderson was a liberal Republican congressman from Illinois for 20 years. In 1980, he sought the Republican presidential nomination and lost badly to Ronald Reagan. Undeterred, Anderson launched a third party bid against Reagan and President Jimmy Carter. Anderson carried no states and finished with about seven percent of the vote. Anderson died in December. He was 95. Two prominent political activists also died in 2017. Norma McCorvey was the plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case and while she won the case, McCorvey later became a vigorous pro-life activist and lobbied for the abolition of abortion. McCorvey was 69. The space race was a major political endeavor in the 1960 19s, and the U.S. met President Kennedy 19s goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The last man to set on the moon was Gene Cernan in 1972. Cernan died in January. He was 82. Dick Gregory was a comedian who became more famous for his political activism on behalf of the black community and the poor. Gregory was 84. In the media world, past and present figures from the Fox News Channel died this year. Roger Ailes built Fox News from a fledgling newcomer to the dominant player in cable news. Sexual harassment allegations led to his ouster in 2016. He died from complications of a fall at his home. Roger Ailes was 77. Alan Colmes was a frequent liberal voice on Fox News for two decades, including a long primetime stint as co-host of 1cHannity and Colmes. 1d Colmes died of cancer in February. He was 66. Brenda Buttner was a longtime business report at Fox and hosted the weekend financial program 1cBulls & Bears. 1d Buttner also died of cancer. She was 55. Before Fox News took to cable, CNN 19s 1cCapital Gang 1d made stars out of conservative writers, including National Review 19s Kate O 19Beirne. A brilliant political mind who was beloved on both sides of the aisle, O 19Beirne died of cancer in April. She was 68. Two of America 19s greatest columnists also died this year. Jimmy Breslin was a legendary New York City writer for Newsday, the New York Daily News and several other publications. Breslin was 88. Frank DeFord brought the human touch to the sports pages and to his television commentary. DeFord died in May at age 78. Hugh Hefner turned the Playboy lifestyle into a business empire and became a major flashpoint in the culture wars, with liberals crediting him for somehow empowering women while conservatives blamed him for objectifying women and sexualizing society. Hefner was 91. Liz Smith was perhaps the best known and most widely read gossip columnist in America. Writing for several New York papers, Smith was 94. One of the most famous sports broadcasters left us at the end of the year. The versatile Dick Enberg was NBC 19s top play-by-play man for the NFL, college basketball, tennis, golf and the Olympics for many years, always punctuating the game 19s biggest moments be exclaiming 1cOh my! 1d Also a hall of of fame baseball announcer, Dick Enberg was 82. In the sports world, Ara Parseghian revitalized Notre Dame football in the sixties and seventies and led the Fighting Irish to a pair of national championships in eleven seasons. Later a broadcaster, Parseghian was 94. Parseghian arrived in South Bend in 1964, the same year Arkansas stunned the college football world by winning the national championship. Frank Broyles was the architect of that memorable season. He spent 19 seasons on the sideline in Fayetteville and 33 years as athletic director. Broyles was 92. Dominant quarterbacks with rifle arms are commonplace today in the NFL, but one of the trailblazers in developing the modern passing game was Y.A. Tittle of the New York Giants. Tittle took the Giants to the brink of multiple titles, but fell just short each time. Y.A. Tittle was 90. Aaron Hernandez was a dominant tight end who was a favorite target of Tom Brady for the New England Patriots. But just a few years into his career, Hernandez was charged and convicted of murder. He committed suicide in prison in April. Hernandez was 27. Cortez Kennedy was a dominant hall of fame defensive lineman for the Seattle Seahawks. Kennedy died suddenly in May. He was 48. Two championship-winning college basketball coaches died this year. Jud Heathcote coached Magic Johnson and the Michigan State Spartans to the 1979 national title in a game that effectively launched March Madness. Heathcote coached the Spartans for 20 years. He was 90. Rollie Massimino coached at multiple schools but will always be remembered for leading the Villanova Wildcats to a huge upset over the heavily favored Georgetown Hoyas in the 1985 championship game. Massimino was 82. Jerry Krause was a very successful NBA general manager for the Chicago Bulls. But he also rubbed his star players and coach the wrong way. Krause was the architect of six NBA championship teams in the 1990 19s. Krause died in March. He was 77. In baseball, we lost a pair of hall of famers. Bobby Doerr was an outstanding second baseman for the Boston Red Sox during the Ted Williams era. Also a World War II veteran, Doerr was 99 when he died in November. Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964 and was an ace for three other teams as well over a 17-year career. Bunning won 224 games and had the second most strikeouts in history at the time of his retirement. Bunning later served six terms in the House of Representatives and two terms in the U.S. Senate. Bunning was 85. Roy Halladay was a dominant pitcher for the Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays and helped Philadelphia win the 2008 World Series. Halladay was just 40 years when he died after crashing a plane he was piloting in Florida. Darren Daulton was an all-star catcher for the Phillies and was a critical factor in the team capturing the 1993 National League pennant. Dutch Daulton died of brain cancer. He was 55. Dallas Green also pitched for the Phillies and later managed them to the their first championship in 1980. Green also managed the Yankees and Mets and served as general manager for the Cubs. Green was 82. Don Baylor played for six teams, most often as a designated hitter or first baseman. Baylor picked up a World Series ring with the Minnesota Twins in 1987. He later managed the Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies. Baylor was 68. Jimmy Piersall was probably better known for his mental health issues than for his play on the field. Piersall played for five teams, most notably the Boston Red Sox. His book and the subsequent film, 1cFear Strikes Out, 1d greatly raised his profile. Piersall was 87. Mike Ilitch was the billionaire founder of Little Caesar 19s Pizza who later bought the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings. The Tigers never won a title during Ilitch 19s reign but the Red Wings captured four Stanley Cups. Mike Ilitch was 87. In the fighting world, Jake LaMotta was a middleweight champion in the late forties and early fifties. Later immortalized in the film 1cRaging Bull, 1d LaMotta was 95. Jana Novotna was an elite tennis player for years on the women 19s tour. She gained worldwide notoriety for losing a commanding lead in the 1993 Wimbledon finals and sobbing on the shoulder of the dutchess handing out the trophies. Five years later, Novotna secured the Wimbledon crown. She died of cancer in November. Jana Novotna was 49. Two famous pro wrestlers also left us. Jimmy 1cSuperfly 1d Snuka died in January at age 73. George 1cThe Animal 1d Steele was known for his green tongue, incomprensible babbling, and eating turnbuckles. In reality, he had a master 19s degree and was a high school teacher and coach. Steele was 79. That 19s a look at the famous people we lost in politics, the media, and sports. Please look for our look back at those we lost in television, the movies and music. |
| Sabato Reviews Year in Politics |
| Fri, 22 Dec 2017 16:36:18 EST President Trump's first year in office was full of fierce debate, controversy and accomplishments. What was the most significant success for Trump in 2017? What were his low points? Why are his poll numbers so low? And what does the political landscape look like heading into 2018? We discuss it all with Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. |
| Bolton Lauds Trump's First Year, Warns of Big Decision Needed in '18 |
| Fri, 22 Dec 2017 15:40:19 EST Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says President Trump did an excellent job of identifying and confronting the greatest threats to national security in 2017, but warns those threats still persist and Trump will likely have to make a fateful decision in the coming year. Trump is the first president in U.S. history never to hold prior public office or serve in the military. Nonetheless, Bolton says Trump quickly got his "sea legs" and emerged with a foreign policy that should be recognizable to most Americans. "I think it has been very much in the mainstream of conservative Republican thinking. That may upset some of his supporters and some of his opponents, but the fact is it's been a responsible foreign policy. It's corrected so many mistakes from the Obama administration," said Bolton. "In particular, I think Trump's view of the threat posed by Iran's and North Korea's nuclear weapons programs is probably the most important," added Bolton. "Decertifying the Iran nuclear deal and the very tough line he's taken with respect to North Korea are very important." The North Korean nuclear threat reared its head many times in 2017, with the Kim Jong-Un regime firing off numerous missile tests that performed competently enough to convince top U.S. intelligence officials that the window of opportunity for diplomacy is quickly closing. "CIA Director Mike Pompeo said sometime back that North Korea could be within months of getting the capability to hit the United States with thermonuclear warheads carried by ballistic missiles," said Bolton. As of now, Bolton says the U.S. still has multiple options for dealing with North Korea, but none of them appear very attractive. He says Trump will have likely have to make the toughest decision any president has to make sometime in 2018. I don't think there's any serious dispute that in the next 12 months we're going to have to make a very important, very hard, very unpleasant decision over whether we allow North Korea to have this capability to threaten us from now as far as the eye can see, threaten Japan, threaten South Korea and sell that capability to anybody with enough money to pay," said Bolton. He says Iran, ISIS, Al Qaeda and other bad actors could well end up as customers of the North Korean regime. He says the other option will be using military force to achieve Trump's demand for the denuclearization of the communist state. "This isn't a choice President Trump wanted to make. Nobody wants to make it. It's unattractive whichever option you pick. But it's a consequence of 25 years failure on the part of American foreign policy," said Bolton, a clear criticism of the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations in dealing with the emerging threat. Bolton stresses the decision is not just limited to North Korea. He says failing to check Kim now could have massive worldwide consequences. "We're very nearly at the stage where our ability to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons will have failed irretrievably and that's not a happy place to be. It's going to be in the Trump administration where these key decisions are made. So in the new year, all of us are going to have to be thinking about what we think is best for the country," said Bolton. Another major accomplishment in recent months is the rout of ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria at the hands of U.S. air power, American coordination on the ground and the fighting of Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Bolton is dumbfounded at how little coverage this accomplishment gets in the mainstream media. Regardless, he says the impact of the military success is significant. "It's a very significant victory. It was critical to eliminate the physical caliphate that ISIS had set up," said Bolton. "To deny ISIS that base of operations. It's very, very important. It just means the war on terrorism into a different phase." "The next question in the region is how to deal with Iran, making sure that they're not empowered by the defeat of ISIS to extend their control as they're trying to do with some success through Iraq, through (Bashar) Assad's regime in Syria, through Hezbollah in Lebanon, all the way to the Mediterranean," said Bolton, who also urges Trump to scrap the Iran nuclear deal once and for all. The former ambassador to the UN also weighed in on the recent uproar in the General Assembly as 128 nations voted to approve a non-binding resolution declaring America's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel "null and void." Just nine nations (including the U.S. and Israel) voted against the resolution and 35 countries abstained. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the U.S. would take note of those countries looking to strip our nation of its sovereignty. And Trump has suggested those nations might see less foreign aid in the years to come. Bolton likes the American response. "For two long, countries had a completely free hand at the United Nations. They could denounce the United States. They could attack our allies. They could vote against us. It was all cost-free to them. So it shouldn't be any surprise to us that their behavior in many respects was purely irresponsible," said Bolton. "I think if the president follows through and says we're going to make sure there are consequences, it's a potential game-changer, and not just directed at the countries that vote the wrong way but to use this as a wedge for substantial change in the way we fund the United Nations itself," said Bolton. But as 2018 dawns, Bolton says the far more immediate priorities are what do do about the emerging nuclear threats in North Korea and Iran. "I expect 2018 to be a year of considerable activity," said Bolton. |
| Brady Talks Tax Reform |
| Thu, 21 Dec 2017 16:03:55 EST The man who spearheaded the tax reform effort in the House of Representatives says the new provisions will accelerate America's economic growth and surpass previous expectations thanks to middle class tax relief and a far more favorable environment for corporations and small businesses. On Wednesday, both the House and Senate approved the $1.5 trillion package without any support from Democrats on either side of Capitol Hill. The win for the GOP ends the year on a political high months after the deep frustration of failing to pass an Obamacare repeal or reform bill. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, led the tax reform push in the House of Representatives. He says the key to success on this package was Republicans all starting on the same legislative page. And Brady says the credit for that belongs at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. "We started off from a good place. There was a lot of common ground. That's because President Trump agreed this summer to work with the House and Senate tax writers towards one tax reform approach. That really made the difference in my view," said Brady. There were some important differences between the original House and Senate bills that needed to be ironed out in a conference committee. The Senate got its way in keeping seven tax brackets, although they were adjusted to make sure the vast majority of Americans got a tax cut, and repealing Obamacare's individual mandate. The House also won some tussles in conference, including what Brady believes might be the most important provision in the bill. "The most important economic issue was to make sure that these tax cuts occurred for local businesses as well as our companies that compete around the world now, on January 1st of next year. We need that growth and expansion now," said Brady. In the end, Brady says the final bill was better than either the House or Senate bills, something he says almost never happens in Congress. The passage of the tax reform package comes at a time when the stock market is booming and economists see GDP growth of three percent or more for quite a while. Brady says the new laws will accelerate our growth even more. "[Economists] think that will stay this way for another decade or more, so the question for the country is do we just settle for this very slow growth where paychecks never move and kids come out of school without good paying jobs or do we shake it up?" asked Brady. "This tax reform plan was about shaking it up, giving people back more of what they earn, creating an economy where their paychecks grow and getting our jobs back from overseas. This tax reform plan achieves that in a big way," said Brady. Brady says virtually everyone will benefit from the new law, starting with middle class families. "If you look at the typical family of four in America, they make $73,000, so two blue-collar workers. They save $2,059. I know Washington doesn't think that's much. But for American families, that really matters," said Brady. A dozen House Republicans voted against the bill over the issue of state and local tax deductions. Previously, Americans could deduct those against their federal taxes. The new bill restricts the deductions to the first $10,000 in state and local taxes, meaning wealthy people in high tax states like California, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey may well see higher tax bills. But Brady says everybody else will have more money in their pockets. "I don't believe it will. Even the Tax Policy Center, which is very, very liberal and doesn't even count growth and pretends the economy never changes - even they say 90 percent of Americans will see a tax cut, a real tax cut. Five percent will be close to break even. So this is real tax relief," said Brady. The biggest cuts, however, are for businesses, with corporate rates dropping 40 percent from 35 percent to 21 percent. Democrats assert that the money won't go to new jobs or company expansion but will instead line the pockets of executives and shareholders. Brady disagrees, contending businesses have been begging for tax relief for years in an effort to get more competitive. "That 21 percent rate was all about making our businesses able to compete and win anywhere in the world, including here at home in America, then to be able to bring their earnings back to be reinvested in America. They can't do that today. "So that rate wasn't a giveaway. It was a 'get-them-back' tax rate to bring our jobs back to America and make sure our workers and their businesses can compete," said Brady. Critics aren't so sure. In a column for the Weekly Standard, Matt Labash excoriated Republicans for throwing crumbs to the middle class while giving a big wet kiss to big business. Labash points out that of the $1.5 trillion in tax relief, one trillion goes to businesses and $200 billion comes in estate tax relief, leaving just $300 billion over ten years in personal income tax relief. Brady believes that's a bad interpretation of the impact this bill will have on middle class families. "Middle class tax relief is the top priority. You'll see in there, up and down those income brackets, people are going to be able to keep more of what they earn and, more importantly, get those paychecks up by encouraging businesses to invest in workers in their companies. That is good for middle class America," said Brady. Leading liberals in Congress have used very strong language to condemn the legislation. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called it the worst piece of legislation ever to come to the House floor. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, predicted it would lead to the deaths of 10,000 Americans each year. "I think they're so obsessed with these things that they've ignored what this really does, which is to get America growing again and get people back on their feet in the economy," said Brady. "When they talk about the worst piece of legislation, I think most people look at Obamacare that's the worst piece of legislation that's been approved. Getting the individual mandate removed so people have choice about whether they want that health care is very critical," said Brady. |
| Brat Hails Final Tax Bill |
| Wed, 20 Dec 2017 16:31:22 EST Republicans are celebrating Wednesday after both the House of Representatives and Senate approved major tax reform legislation, laws which supporters claim will put badly need money in the pockets of American families and giving an already improving economy an even bigger boost. The final bill is a compromise hammered out between differing House and Senate versions that were approved separately in recent weeks. House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, says the new law is far better than what he expected to emerge from the congressional negotiations. "I was fairly shocked. Up in D.C., usually at year-end when you go into conference I usually don't like the outcome. But in this case, we fixed a lot of the issues. We had a college student loan issue, a graduate student piece. There was a Medicare piece, a small business piece. All of those got major improvements," said Brat. Brats admits he wishes the the final bill would have called for three tax brackets instead of seven, but he says there's still good news there. "By rearranging those brackets, they ensured that way more people get a tax cut. A single woman with a child gets over a thousand dollars back. That's great. A family of four with two kids, married and making $70,000 - that's the typical income in my district - they're getting $2,059 back," said Brat. "The corporate rate goes down from 35 percent to 21 and it takes place this year. In the Senate plan, they were going to lag that a year. In conference, we fixed it so it goes into place. That's probably the most important piece," said Brat, who says the stock market has been soaring in anticipation of this bill getting passed. Brat says another big group of winners are young people looking for work. He says businesses will now be in better position to hire people for good jobs. "I think the kids I taught for 20 years are going to go out. They're going to have multiple job offers and go out and live the American Dream. That's the goal of this thing. The kids go out and get good jobs. That's a virtuous cycle, so I'm proud of it," said Brat. And while Democrats all voted against the bill, claiming Republicans were giving big tax cuts to businesses and rich people at the expense of the middle class, Brat says the facts prove otherwise. "The Democrats on the floor today were just apoplectic on the thing. I've never seen such emotion and misinformation. We've (supposedly) raised taxes on the middle class for the rich. They just can't overcome the basic facts," said Brat. Some Democrats admit that middle class families will get some tax relief but suggest the $1,000 or $2,000 in extra income only amounts to a few dollars a day and makes no tangible difference. Brat disagrees. "They're making fun of giving back money to lower income folks, which I thought they would applaud. A thousand dollars or two thousand for a family of four, that's some big bucks. That pays for a lot of stuff that families don't currently have," said Brat. He says the emotional denunciations from the Democrats are designed to distract from their dearth of ideas. "If you want to reject a hypothesis, you have to offer a better hypothesis and they don't have that," said Brat, noting the the Democrats' budget called for $10 trillion in new taxes and $11 trillion in new spending over the next decade. "If you raised taxes $10 trillion, you would go into a massive recession next year. Period. End of sentence," said Brat. He says eight years of Obama economic policy led to anemic economic growth. "You saw the evidence over the last ten years. You didn't have growth. Your growth was at one and a half or two (percent) tops. Now we're at three percent and the Federal Reserve has us at four percent next quarter," said Brat. While Brat admits the bill does not pay for itself and projects a $1.5 trillion deficit over ten years, he says the impact of the bill should easily lead to additional revenues to cover that amount. "If you put the tax package together with capital incentives and lower rates and less regulation, all you have to do is come up with $150 billion a year in growth, and we're going to blow by that with ease," said Brat. |
| Rep. Jordan Details Pursuit of Truth on Dossier, Unmasking |
| Tue, 19 Dec 2017 16:07:37 EST Rep. Jim Jordan says the connection between the Democrats and an anti-Trump dossier is well established and he says the big questions now are whether the dossier was the grounds for a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign and whether the FBI and Justice Department used it as an "insurance policy" against a Trump presidency. Last week, Jordan and other lawmakers grilled Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about the work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team, with a special emphasis on recently fired FBI official Peter Strzok and recently demoted Justice Department official Bruce Ohr. Strzok was fired by Mueller, allegedly for his barrage of anti-Trump text messages to his mistress, FBI attorney Lisa Page. However, in addition to the political chatter came a Strzok text suggesting he expected Trump to lose the election but was planning to take action if the GOP nominee won. 1cI want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy 19s office 14 that there 19s no way [Trump] gets elected 14 but I 19m afraid we can 19t take that risk, 1d texted Strzok. 1cIt 19s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you 19re 40, 1d he added in a text dated Aug. 15, 2016. Jordan thinks there is a major story behind that text and likely explains why Mueller kicked Strzok to the curb in the Russia probe. "Remember, Peter Strzok is Mr. Super Agent Guy at the FBI. He ran the Clinton (email) investigation, interviewed (Cheryl) Mills, (Huma) Abedin, and Sec. Clinton. He's the guy who did the famous exoneration letter that changed the term 'gross negligence' - a crime - to 'extreme carelessness.' He's also the guy who ran the Russia investigation and interviewed Mike Flynn. "So he gets kicked off the Mueller team and we're told it's because of anti-Trump text messaging and Lisa Page. My belief is it's got to be more than that. Because as I said in committee a couple of weeks ago, if you kicked everyone off the Mueller team who is anti-Trump, you wouldn't have anybody left," said Jordan. So what might be the real reason for Strzok's dismissal? "It has to be something more and my contention is it goes to the dossier, the dossier that I believe was used for securing the warrants to spy on Americans, the dossier that was put into the application that was taken to the FISA court to get warrants to spy on Americans associated with the Trump campaign. "I believe Peter Strzok, who was the deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI and ran both the Clinton and Russia investigations, probably has his fingerprints all over that application," alleged Jordan. While Strzok's direct involvement with the dossier has yet to be proved, Jordan says the FBI's connection to the dossier seems pretty clear. "Did they pay Christopher Steele, the guy who wrote the dossier? It's been reported that he was reimbursed by the FBI. Why are they paying the guy who was paid at the same time by the Clinton campaign. If the answer to that question is yes, I think that shows that this took place," said Jordan. He says the rest of the money trail is very well established. "The Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Russians to influence the campaign. They paid the law firm, who paid Fusion GPS, who paid Christopher Steele, who took that money and paid Russians to get false information that was used to go get warrants to spy on Americans. Jordan adds that if the FBI did pay for the dossier, the other lingering question is even more troubling. "If that in fact happened, that definitely shows there was an effort to go after the Trump people and the Trump campaign with this ridiculous report the Clinton campaign paid for that we call a dossier," said Jordan, who is stunned that Mueller is spending all his energies looking at possible crimes on the GOP side of this campaign. "[The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee] paid Russians with campaign dollars to influence the election and what's Mueller's investigation looking at? The other campaign," said Jordan. When it comes to Bruce Ohr, at first blush there appears to be circumstantial evidence of impropriety, as a result of Ohr's consultation with Fusion GPS Co-Founder Glenn Simpson and the revelation that Ohr's wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS during the final months of the campaign. Jordan says it goes a lot deeper than that. "His wife not only worked there, she was hired specifically for the Russian project. Second, Bruce Ohr met with Christopher Steele during the campaign. So at the same time the DNC is paying Christopher Steele to put together this dossier, he's also meeting with a top Justice official. That's kind of strange," said Jordan. But he says the unlikely coincidences keep coming, mostly notably the post-election meeting between Ohr and Simpson. "Did they meet to get their story straight and get their story straight and figure out, 'We did this. What do we have to do to correct it and get our story straight.' Or - maybe and - did they meet to say, 'Maybe it's time to double down. Maybe it's time to go after President-Elect Trump," said Jordan. Jordan is increasingly confident his suspicions are correct given that the "unmasking" of Trump campaign officials began during the transition period. "Never forget, it was during the transition, from Election Day until Inauguration Day, that we started to see all of this unmasking and all of these leaks from the intelligence community," said Jordan, suggesting that timeline alone requires detailed testimony from Ohr. Jordan says Congress will continue to pursue answers, beginning with deposing Strzok, Ohr, Page, and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He also wants to see the FISA application and what evidence was submitted to obtain warrants. He also wants all of this to take place in public so the American people can evaluate the facts for themselves. The congressman also demands a second special counsel to look into all this since - if there's any fire to the smoke - the Justice Department and FBI are incapable of investigating the matter. "I don't like special counsels. I never have. But I don't know any other remedy," said Jordan. |
| Conservatives Urged to Lead on Criminal Justice Reform |
| Mon, 18 Dec 2017 16:54:11 EST The exploding opioid crisis in America is fueling a renewed push for criminal justice reform, and a prominent grassroots activist says conservatives would be wise to take up the mantle in order to shrink the size of government and put more productive citizens back into our economy. In October, President Trump declared a public health emergency over the horrifying number of opioid deaths and addictions around the nation. James Madison Institute President and CEO Dr. Bob McClure says the way states treat drug addicts is costly and counterproductive. "Our criminal justice system is overloaded and in dire need of reform. The effort needs to be led by states, not bureaucrats who want to protect their turf," said McClure. According to McClure, the turf wars consist of prisons fighting for every penny they can get, just like every other office in government. He says the rising incarceration rate leads to stretched resources at the prisons and a lack of money where it could do a lot more good "Every dollar that is spent incarcerating an addict is a dollar we cannot spend treating the addict, getting him or her a path to becoming a productive, tax-paying citizen. It's a dollar we can't spend on funding schools or the environment or whatever pet project there may be. There is not an unlimited amount of money, so that is where the turf wars begin," said McClure. He says the impact of so many able-bodied Americans languishing in prison is major kick to the shins of the U.S. economy. "It's becoming an economic issue. Typically, in states around the country, the prison system or penal system - however you want to define it - is one of the top two or three budget items. It continues to grow at a rampant pace," said McClure. McClure's vision is for the criminal justice system to stop looking at all drug offenses the same way. He says the violent drug pushers should be treated much differently than the addicts and the small time dealers. "Those folks deserve to be locked up with the key thrown away. But what we're talking about is an addict who is struggling, who needs more mental health and needs an opportunity to take a substance abuse and mental health approach as opposed to a lock 'em up approach," said McClure. For McClure, the criminal justice reform movement is, for the moment at least, focused on drug crimes and making the distinctions that give addicts a helping hand. Some law and order conservatives have thus concluded the movement is little more than going easier on drug offenders. McClure not only disputes that but says the get tough on crime approach is a proven failure. "We've tried 'three strikes and you're out.' It doesn't work. Prison becomes a revolving door for the really, really bad guys and it becomes a destructive problem for those who end up in prison because they had a few extra pills," said McClure, who says tying judges' hands with mandatory minimum sentencing is another stain on the system. McClure's reference to inmates who had a few extra pills highlights cases like Cynthia Powell. A grandmother in her forties, Powell is spending 25 years in prison because she decided to be kind to her neighbor and give him some Lorcet pills - combination of Tylenol and hydrocodone. "She'd never been arrested, never been in trouble. She never had a violent history or anything. She gave [the neighbor] her prescription Lorcet pills because he said he had a bad back. he turned out to be a DEA agent and now she's in jail," said McClure. "Because the judge had no discretion and there were mandatory minimums here in Florida, she now sits in jail with a mandatory minimum sentence. Those are the kinds of egregious stories that we see around the country that need to be addressed," said McClure. McClure firmly believes the scrapping mandatory minimums is not only best for the addicts but also for the taxpayers. "If we are able to fix this issue without the kind of mandatory minimums [where we just] 'lock 'em up,'you also shrink the size of government. So it's public safety, it's economics, and it's shrinking the size of government," said McClure. But while law and order conservatives may have their own misgivings, the libertarian argument is that the drug wars are a very costly failure. Would decriminalizing drugs lead to more sweeping changes? McClure is not ready to go there. "It's smart justice reform. It's not just for legalizing drugs," said McClure. "Take care and treat those who have a problem. Lock up those who are violent criminals. I don't think the libertarian view would say to allow the violent criminals to roam the streets. Our smart criminal justice reform would do what libertarians want, however, and that is shrink the size of government," said McClure. |
| 'The Vitriol We're Seeing Clearly Crosses the Line' |
| Fri, 15 Dec 2017 16:22:53 EST Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr is vigorously defending the panel's decision to revert to the regulatory framework that applied to the internet until 2015 and he is blasting critics for hurling racist insults at the FCC chairman and even disrupting Thursday's meeting with a bomb scare. Advocates of the move argue a heavier government hand stifles innovation and upgrades by the major internet service providers. The critics suggest the deregulation leaves consumers at the mercy of telecom giants like Comact, AT&T, and Verizon. "This is something people are pretty fired up about and I get it. Americans cherish the free and open internet. They don't want to see the FCC doing anything to undermine that. The vote we took doesn't do that. We returned back to the 2015 regulatory framework and we make sure there's consumer protections in place," said Carr. Led by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission voted Thursday to classify the internet under Title I of the 1934 Communications Act as opposed to Title II, which is where the Obama-era FCC classified the web in 2015. "Title II is what applies to your traditional landline telephone service. Title I, up until 2015, is a lighter regulatory framework designed for what we call information services. That's what the internet was and that's what the internet is again after our decision," said Carr. Critics see things far differently. Late night talk host Jimmy Kimmel took aim at the FCC Thursday night, offering a number of ominous scenarios that he says are now possible because of Thursday's vote. "The FCC did something absolutely despicable today. They voted to put an end to net neutrality. This is the rule that says everyone gets equal access to the internet: a big company or somebody selling crocheted owls from their house in the Midwest," said Kimmel. "As long as they tell us they're doing it now, internet service providers will now be able to slow down or block web traffic to any website or streaming service they like, which benefits the big telecom companies and does the opposite for all of us," he added. "There's a lot of myths in there to bust," said Carr, contending Kimmel and other net neutrality advocates have it backwards. "That's what the law was under Title II. Title II said that a broadband provider could block websites, could throttle traffic, due paid prioritization as long as they disclosed it to their customers. What we're doing is going back to the 2015 framework. "The key is it's not going to be a free-for-all. Federal antitrust law is going to apply and it's going to regulate the type of hypothetical harms that we heard him talking about," said Carr. Carr says that incorrect understanding is leading to a lot of the tensions in this debate. "I'd be very concerned if we were turning over the reins of the internet completely to ISP's and letting them dictate your online experience. That's simply not what we're doing, but I understand why people that perceive that we're doing that are pretty fired up about it," said Carr. "I think why people are getting so much wrong information about this is because it's a very technical issue at the FCC at the end of the day. Is this a Title II service? Is this a Title I service? "It really doesn't get any more wonky than that and I think people are trying to characterize this and pitch it in a way that the mass audiences will understand it and that is resulting in some hyperbole that is really apocalyptic and is not reflective of the reality of what we're doing," said Carr. But when the vigorous debate spills into activists posting Chairman Pai's home address on social media and even disrupting FCC proceedings or people like Kimmel referring to Pai on national television as a "jackhole", the passion has gone too far. "There's a lot of passion. I get that. but the vitriol that we're seeing certainly crosses the line. Our meeting was interrupted with a bomb threat. There's been racist and other attacks. There's been death threats against commissioners. "People can strongly disagree about the merits of this issue and they should. We should have a vigorous debate. But when you dehumanize people and call them jackholes and shills, that doesn't advance the debate in a substantive way. I think it gives cover for people who then go further with these racist attacks and death threat attacks," said Carr. Carr is not worried about the courts striking down the FCC decision although several states appear poised to try. He says the Supreme Court gave the green light to classifying the internet under Title I 15 years ago. The net neutrality reversal will also take a few months to take effect, while various government agencies take part in the process. |
| Free Market Advocates Hail 'Net Neutrality' Repeal |
| Thu, 14 Dec 2017 16:46:55 EST The Federal Communications Commission voted to reverse Obama-era 'net neutrality' regulations Thursday, cheering free market advocates and sparking fierce resistance from opponents who fear customers will be at the mercy of service providers. The final vote, as expected, came along party lines. Three GOP appointees voted for the change, while the two commissioners appointed by President Obama voted against it. In recent weeks, critics of the reversal intensified their protests, claiming that reversing net neutrality would allow internet service providers to gouge consumers and force them into buying more of their products. They also suggest removing government control increases the likelihood of fewer players in the industry. However those verbal protests have escalated in ways that draw alarm, going so far as to publicize the names of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's children. Thursday's proceedings were briefly interrupted by a security scare. After the vote, the mainstream media posted alarming headlines. "End of the internet as we know it," stated the headline at CNN.com. On the CNN cable channel, the bottom of the screen read, "Party-line vote ends rules to keep internet open and fair." On Twitter, the Associated Press reported, "BREAKING: The FCC votes on party lines to undo sweeping Obama-era 'net neutrality' rules that guaranteed equal access to internet." But is that what happened? "Those folks obviously don't need to know what they're talking about to put out what they call news," said former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is now director of the Regulatory Action Center at FreedomWorks. "What happened today is that the internet was returned today to the state of light regulation. The word 'light' was used by Congress - you know the people who write the underlying laws for this stuff - way back in the nineties, that it had for its entire life until 2015," said Cuccinelli. Nonetheless, in recent weeks, critics of the reversal intensified their protests, going so far as to publicize the names of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's children. Thursday's proceedings were briefly interrupted by a security scare. "Violence is acceptable to many on the left to achieve their political goals. Let me say that again. Violence is acceptable to many on the left to achieve their political goals. Those goals always involve more government control and power," said Cuccinelli. For those fearful of what a reversal of net neutrality might mean, Cuccinelli offers a challenge. "I would challenge any of the conspiracy theorists on the left to identify one thing that was impaired before 2015 that was suddenly fixed by those regulations or in the whole two years since then that is suddenly imperiled again. The answer is they can't. What has been provided is certainty of the freedom of the internet again," said Cuccinelli. But while opponents of the reversal face that challenge, critics might fire back by asking how the internet supposedly got worse over the past two years, thus requiring such a move from the FCC. Cuccinelli says internet service providers slowed down the expansion and upgrading of their networks long before 2015 in anticipation of net neutrality from the Obama administration. "Investment in the internet began to drop. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars. The internet doesn't just exist. It has to be built and the government didn't build it. Private entities built it and it's expensive to build. "So what the Obama administration was trying to do was tell people who built pieces of the internet what they could and couldn't do with their own property. If that's your option, are you as likely to build stuff if the government's going to tell you what to do with it. Of course not," said Cuccinelli. "We were freed from that with Chairman Pai's proposed and now adopted freeing of the internet, the actual freeing of the internet from government. Leftists believe freedom comes from government," he added. But what about the concerns that rolling back federal regulations will be bad news for consumers? Cuccinelli says there are still plenty of provisions in the law to help any customers being gouged by their service providers. "When consumers are preyed upon on the internet, the [Federal Trade Commission] is still there and state attorneys general - something I know about - are there to police fraud and that sort of behavior, whether it's on the internet or not. That opportunity still exists," said Cuccinelli. He also says there's little reason to worry that competition among service providers will suffer. "The ability to capture market share with no one else having any option to close in on you doesn't exist anymore because of technology," said Cuccinelli, who asserts that there is a much greater likelihood of competition eroding with the government picking winners and losers with respect to the internet. Cuccinelli says if any regulations need to be added, they should not spring up from government bureaucrats. "Let's do it in the accountable body, the Congress, the one people vote for," said Cuccinelli. "Although I hope they end up right where they are now, that Congress looks at all this and decides we don't want more regulation on the internet. That has never worked," said Cuccinelli. With one side proclaiming freedom reigns on the internet and the other dreading the future with net neutrality kicked to the curb, Cuccinelli says reality will prove who is right. "Thankfully, we're going to have years of experience without this Obama-era regulation in place. People are going to see productivity is going up, more access, more opportunity, more products available," he said. Cuccinelli says when it comes to opportunity, expecting progress through the federal government is a proven failure. "More regulation from government has never expanded opportunity, freedom, or productivity in the marketplace. There's no reason to expect it to happen on the internet," said Cuccinelli. |
| Mueller Team Partisanship 'A Monster Red Flag' |
| Wed, 13 Dec 2017 16:53:28 EST A top lawyer in Texas says the Mueller investigation appears to be nothing more than effort to charge people with crimes unrelated to Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and he says recent revelations of rampant partisanship on the part of prosecutors on the case ought to be the death blow to this probe. Robert Henneke served a an assistant attorney general and a top litigator for former Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. He is now general counsel and president of the Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Within recent weeks, Mueller fired Peter Strzok for highly partisan texts to his mistress. However, three other figures are also under scrutiny. Top Mueller deputy Andrew Weissman attended Hillary Clinton's 2016 election night party and later lavished praise on Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to enforce President Trump's first travel ban. Justice Department official Bruce Ohr was severely demoted for improper contact with officials at Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to dig up opposition research on Donald Trump. This week, Fox News confirmed Ohr's wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS during the campaign. Another Mueller prosecutor, Jeannie Rhee, represented former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes. On Tuesday, thousands of text messages between Strzok and his paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, revealed a lot of ugly but not illegal Trump bashing. However, one other text is getting scrutiny as possible intent to use the FBI as a weapon in case Trump won the election. "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy 19s office 14 that there 19s no way [Trump] gets elected 14 but I 19m afraid we can 19t take that risk," texted Strzok. "It 19s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you 19re 40," he added in a text dated Aug. 15, 2016. Henneke is stunned. "It's a monster red flag. The role of the prosecutor, the role that I had when I served as a prosecutor, really gives you so much power in making choices that can put people in prison or ruin careers. It can result in serious consequences," said Henneke. "It is so critical in that role that you and everyone you associate with hold themselves out as being the utmost objective, impartial and strong champions of the law and of justice," said Henneke. "Of course people have opinions. But it's not when people have opinions. It's when those people are so partisan or when those opinions seem to be driving the outcomes rather than the duty to the oath that you swore in upholding the Constitution and executing the duties of your office," said Henneke. He says in the American system, the people grant the government certain powers, but when politics supersede the law, all Americans suffer. "It's a grant, not an entitlement. All of that is under the premise that the government is going to discharge its duties safely. Otherwise, if you conceded that power to parties who are going to further their own interests and their own partisan objectives, that's when you get into tyranny," said Henneke. "If you can vest this much power in a special prosecutor that's going to use agents that have more allegiance to Hillary Clinton than they do to justice and the Constitution in going about this situation, then how can we trust that government in looking at other types of citizens, maybe with less political power," said Henneke. It's not the Mueller personnel that bother Henneke. He says the process Mueller is pursing also strikes him as odd. "The overall approach is very concerning and puzzling. Unpacking the layers of this, there doesn't seem to be anything at the core," said Henneke. Henneke believes the whole probe is based on a flimsy premise offered up by Obama holdovers in the intelligence community. He also blasts the Mueller team for their irresponsibility with the information they may be gathering. "It seems that this has just been packed by innuendo, speculation and leaks and accusations that have led into a reactionary launching of this investigation when really the parameters and the need for it I don't think were defined from the get-go," said Henneke. Leaks are commonplace in the Mueller investigation, and Henneke says that's another clear sign that the prosecutors are not even-handed. "If there is a significant issue that would require this type of special counsel outside investigation, there's no reason that all of this should be happening in the public arena through leaks, through anonymous sources, through innuendo and so forth," said Henneke. "Furthermore, it just underlines what I see as a lack of integrity in this. This is all some sort of capital intrigue-type drama and not what it is supposed to be, which is a criminal investigation of supposedly serious allegations," said Henneke. Based on suspect prosecutors and a shaky premise, Henneke says the sooner the Mueller probe shuts down the better. "I think that this special counsel prosecution should be shut down. I don't think there was a sound basis for creating it. I think the reason it continues to churn is not because of having uncovered any real substance, but because of the partisanship and media perception stepping in," said Henneke. He also thinks the special counsel should be used much more sparingly. "We need to be putting people in positions of government that we can trust to have the integrity to not need to create special counsels to do the job of what these positions should stand for in the first place," said Henneke. While he thinks the probe should be shelved, Henneke thinks the actual results will be far more damaging, both to individuals and the nation. "I think people's lives and careers are going to be ruined, not because of uncovering the original basis for the investigation. I think that's already happening with some of the results," said Henneke, who believes the damage to the U.S. will be far worse. "The end result will be some bitterly fought partisan outcome that most of the American people will look at and see from either side of the political spectrum as untrustworthy, corrupt, and providing further evidence that the problem in our country really is in Washington, D.C.," said Henneke. "This is just one other example of how our government is no longer serving the interests of the people," said Henneke. |
| 'The Bills Are Getting Better All the Time' |
| Tue, 12 Dec 2017 16:35:18 EST House and Senate negotiators are working to forge a final tax reform bill that will stimulate job growth and provide significant tax relief, according to the leader of the nation's largest grassroots taxpayer organization. "The bills are getting better all the time," said National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp. Sepp admits there are still some important differences to be hammered out between the House and Senate versions of the legislation, beginning with how to provide relief to small business owners. "How will small business tax relief be provided. The Senate does is through a deduction. The House does it through rate reductions. That needs to be reconciled," said Sepp. And while he prefers the House approach, Sepp suspects the Senate will get its way. "I think the House's action to provide a special nine percent tax rate for small businesses on the low end and maintaining a cap at 25 percent is attractive to senators, but I think that the boosted deduction - that started at a little over 17 percent but went past 20 in the final version - is probably going to prevail there," said Sepp. Another battle looms over whether to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent in the final version, or make it 22 percent as some Republicans are suggesting. Sepp is vigorously pushing lawmakers to insist upon a 20 percent rate and NTU spearheaded a letter from many groups urging no softening on that issue. Sepp says the difference the two rates is more significant than many people realize. "Twenty-two percent or so is roughly the current rate that most of our trading partners are averaged at in terms of the corporate income tax. That doesn't include the state corporate rate that's on top of the federal rate. If we go with 22 in our bill, we're not at parity with our trading partners. We're still higher," said Sepp. Many critics of the bill - and particularly the big cut in the corporate tax rate - contend that the higher revenues will not result in business expansion and job creation. Sepp says the Congressional Budget Office begs to differ. "History does show strong job creation as well as wage growth among workers by reducing corporate income taxes. Even the Congressional Budget Office, which is one of the more skeptical agencies about the impact of tax reform says that at least 25 percent - 25 cents on every dollar of corporate tax rate reduction - accrues to the benefit of wages among workers," said Sepp. Another common complaint from Democrats is that the plan gives massive tax cuts to the wealthy while the middle class gets stiffed. Sepp says that is dead wrong. "When you look at the Joint Tax Committee's own score of where the distribution of the tax relief will be and you isolate it for the income and estate tax effects, we'll find that the income level of $50,000-$75,000 will receive a 28 percent tax cut, millionaires (get) a four percent tax cut. That is an incredibly progressive tax reduction," said Sepp. Sepp does point out some other differences need to be ironed out, including the aforementioned estate tax. "Will the death tax be repealed as the House wants to or will the exemption simply be raised, which is what the Senate wants to do?" said Sepp. He also urges negotiators to side with the House is fully scrapping the Alternative Minimum Tax. Sepp is increasingly optimistic something will actually get done, but he says the American people need to push this effort over the finish line. "I'm now 80 percent confident. If we want to get to 100, more citizens have to contact their members of Congress and tell them to keep working on this deal. We're almost there," said Sepp. |
| Court Rejects Transgender Military Ban |
| Mon, 11 Dec 2017 16:22:51 EST A federal judge fully rejected the Trump administration's proposed ban on transgender service in the military and also refused to delay the onset of transgender enlistment while the administration considers appealing the decision. Back in October, federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected much of the Trump administration policy on transgenders in the military. On Monday, she ruled there was no compelling reason to for military to postpone enlistment of transgenders. According to the Washington Post, Kollar-Kotelly said she "is not persuaded that defendants will be irreparably injured" by mandating that the Defense Department begin accepting applications on January 1. 1cWith only a brief hiatus, Defendants have had the opportunity to prepare for the accession of transgender individuals into the military for nearly one and a half years, 1d the judge added. Family Research Council Senior Fellow Peter Sprigg says the judge's decision is alarming on a number of fronts. "I'm not terribly surprised given the obvious bias on the issue that she has shown. She has simply shown herself determined to impose her will upon the executive branch and not show any respect for the constitutional prerogatives that the president and the Defense Department have for making decisions regarding military personnel policy," said Sprigg. While not an attorney, Sprigg says Kollar-Kotelly's legal reasoning seems backwards when it comes to the burden of proof in this case. "She apparently said that there's no emergency for the government, that it's not going to cause any irreparable harm to the military if they begin this process. "The standard is supposed to be the question, 'Is there irreparable harm to the plaintiffs?' I think that it hasn't been demonstrated that there will be irreparable harm, particularly with respect to this issue of new recruits," said Sprigg. Without the policy being implemented, Sprigg says no plaintiff could be suffering irreparable harm. "Where is the irreparable harm if someone who has not joined the military perhaps has to delay for three more months?" asked Sprigg. In a brief statement, the Justice Department disagreed with the decision and said it was considering which legal steps to take next. Sprigg hopes the DOJ appeals soon. "I hope that the Justice Department would appeal this to a higher court and that they would consider at least giving a delay in the implementation, particularly of this portion of the policy," said Sprigg. Sprigg says that without a delay until the legal dispute is resolved, Kollar-Kotelly could be the one inflicting damage to transgenders seeking to serve in the military. "If they are allowed to join the military beginning on January 1 and then the ultimate disposition of the case is that in fact that they can be discharged, you could argue that they would be worse off than if they had never been permitted to join in the first place," said Sprigg. He insists the effort to prevent transgenders from joining the military is entirely a question of readiness. "The reason for this policy is not because the president or the Defense Department just does not like transgender people. It's because they have a unique medical condition which make them ineligible for military service because they have limited deployability," said Sprigg. "To be fully deployable in military terms, you are supposed to be able to be sent anywhere in the world at any time without the need for specialized medical care. People that are undergoing transgender hormone therapy or have undergone gender reassignment surgery inherently have a need for specialized medical care," he added. With the Army suggesting and then scrapping an effort to allow recruits with some history of mental illness to enlist, the military revealed that it is struggling to meet recruitment goals. Sprigg says instead of pushing harder on a political agenda, recruiting numbers would probably improve. "Perhaps if we moved away from these politically correct social engineering, then we would have an uptick in our overall recruiting picture," said Sprigg. |
| 'I've Always Been Confident About the Case' |
| Fri, 8 Dec 2017 18:12:58 EST The Supreme Court will probably not render a decision for months on the case of a Colorado baker being sued for refusing to bake and decorate a cake for a same-sex wedding, but the legal team representing the baker says the Constitution is clearly on their side and is encouraged by some of the comments of the justice likely to swing the outcome. Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, represents Masterpiece Cakeshop Owner Jack Phillips and several other clients who contend their sincerely-held religious beliefs on marriage preclude them from providing services for a same-sex wedding. Phillips points out that he willingly serves homosexual customers so long as they are not asking him to affirm same-sex marriage. In addition, Phillips refuses to provide cakes for heterosexual bachelor and bachelorette parties or for weddings that constitute a second heterosexual marriage. But David Mullins and Charlie Craig see it differently. When Phillips refused to decorate a cake for their same-sex ceremony, they complained to state officials who filed suit against Masterpiece Cakeshop for refusing service to the men based on their sexual orientation. Oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Right Commission took place Monday at the Supreme Court. ADF Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco says his team went in expecting the justices to uphold the Constitution. "Our assumption going in is that the right to be free from compelled speech, the right to have a situation in our country where the government doesn't coerce - in this case artistic professionals - to create artistic expression that goes against their beliefs would be upheld," said Tedesco. He says the verdict in this case could have wide-ranging impact. "The ruling in this case is ultimately going to bind other people. It's going to effect other people. This time is may be a religious objector to same-sex marriage, but the next time it might be somebody who's liberal, who's objecting to something they don't want to do," said Tedesco. Both sides are nervous about the outcome in this case. Just two years ago, the court ruled 5-4 that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Since then, the complexion of the court hasn't changed much. Conservative justice Antonin Scalia was replaced by Neil Gorsuch, who is believed to have similar views on religious freedom issues. That leaves Anthony Kennedy as the likely swing vote. Kennedy has authored three landmark decisions that sided with the LGBT lobby in 2003, 2013, and 2015. However, some of his questions during Tuesday's arguments give allies of Phillips hope and allies of Mullins and Craig reason for concern. "[T]olerance is essential in a free society. And tolerance is most meaningful when it's mutual. It seems to me that the state in its position here has been neither tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips' religious beliefs," said Kennedy. Tedesco says that quote was encouraging to him because it shows Kennedy understands their position. "That's ultimately what this case is about. How do we live together in a pluralistic society like this, with deeply different beliefs about core issues like marriage and what that is. We don't live together peacefully when one side of the debate has the ability to use the government to silence and punish the other side," said Tedesco. Another Kennedy comment also raised eyebrows. As an American Civil Liberties Union attorney tried to make the case that rejecting the message of Mullins and Craig was the same as rejecting them, Kennedy quipped, 'It's not their identity; it's what they're doing.' Tedesco says that is a crucial point. "That's always been the distinction we've made and it's the right distinction. The Supreme Court has even recognized the distinction in past cases - all the way back to 20 years ago - that there's a difference to objecting to the message than objecting to the person. When you're rejecting the message, you're not considering the person's protected characteristics," said Tedesco. "When you object to the message, you exercise your first amendment right to say there are certain messages, ideas, and events that I'm not going to promote through my artistic expression or speech. That's far different than saying, 'I'm not going to serve you because of who you are,'" said Tedesco. "The other side always tries to mischaracterize what these cases are about by analogizing them to class-based discrimination," he added. But Tedesco cautions that Kennedy was tough on everyone on Tuesday. "Justice Kennedy asked difficult questions of both sides and made comments during argument from attorneys on both sides that were difficult questions and telling comments. So it's hard to say Justice Kennedy will lean our way and rule for us," said Tedesco. Tedesco knows these cases often get decided along ideological lines but he hopes all nine justices see the fundamental rights at stake for Phillips and all Americans. "I've always been confident in the case because those kind of first principles are the things that make our society great. We don't want to see those rights and those privileges of living in this country be chipped away," said Tedesco. Nonetheless, Phillips lost earlier rounds in court and florists, artists, and videographers represented by ADF are also facing legal setbacks. So if the constitutional principles are clear, why are the verdicts going the other way? "My best explanation of it is that there have been times throughout American history where things that have seemed culturally imperative were used at least temporarily to overrun first amendment rights," said Tedesco, noting that the Supreme Court once allowed states to mandate schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before later reversing course. "I think what you're seeing is there's so much cultural, political, legal momentum related to same-sex marriage that some of these principles are getting muddied and mischaracterized and maybe overrun for maybe a temporary time by lower courts," said Tedesco. Tedesco says even people who strongly supported the Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage are very uncomfortable with the idea of the government telling people what they have to do. "It's illiberal and it's contrary to the best practices and traditions of our country. It's one thing to have same-sex marriage established as a constitutional right. It's a completely different thing to force people to agree with and promote that idea against their will and their convictions, especially when you're dealing with people who, like the Supreme Court said, who have decent and honorable beliefs about what marriage is," said Tedesco. And for those adamantly opposed to ADF in this case, Tedesco says their rationale could one day put them in the same position as Phillips. "That kind of rule can quickly be turned around and used to punish people on different issues. You can't take this ruling, if it's against Jack Phillips, and just limit it to him and just same-sex marriage. And that's why I think ultimately, free speech and a free society, tolerance for different points of view will ultimately be the way this plays out. We will ultimately prevail on that point," said Tedesco. |
| Bolton: Trump's Jerusalem Move Sends Clear Message to the World |
| Thu, 7 Dec 2017 16:04:11 EST Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a very good move that aids the pursuit of peace, does not concern our closest Arab allies and tells the world Mr. Trump will do what he says. On Wednesday, Trump announced the United States was formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital, noting it was simply a confirmation of reality. Bolton agrees. "We've been living in a delusion by not acknowledging the fact that Jerusalem is Israel's capital," said Bolton. "Israel is probably the only country in the world where the American embassy is not in the capital city of the country to which our diplomats are accredited. What Trump did was nothing more or nothing less than making Israel the same as every other country where we've got an ambassador." Bolton says in the seven decades of the modern Israeli state, it's clear where the center of government is, but adds that Trump left room open for the Palestinians to still get some of what they want. "West Jerusalem has been Israel's capital ever since the creation of the new state. Trump was very careful in his statement that putting the embassy in West Jerusalem, where it's obviously going to be, doesn't prejudice discussions about the borders of Jerusalem or the borders of Israel itself," said Bolton. Bolton says the fate of Jerusalem has been debated since the aftermath of World War II. Originally, the United Nations wanted the city to be under its control and not part of a Jewish state or an Arab state. The Arab nations rejected the deal, but ever since the status of Jerusalem was thought to be a major negotiating point towards a two-state solution. Nonetheless, Trump is getting substantial blowback from Democrats, U.S. allies and the American foreign policy establishment, even though presidents and lawmakers from both parties have overwhelmingly endorsed recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital for decades. So what's changed now? "Political talk is cheap and there's a lot of cheap talk in Washington. What Trump has done here is throw all of that into perspective. He not only said he was going to do this on the campaign trail. He has actually set it in motion," said Bolton. Bolton expects Trump to reap some domestic political benefit for keeping the promise, but suspects the greater impact will be other world leaders observing what Trump has done. "This guy actually does what he says he's going to do. So when he says on North Korea, 'My only acceptable result is denuclearization," he may really mean it. So I think it builds his credibility domestically and internationally and distinguishes him from his predecessors in the White House and a lot of other American politicians," said Bolton. But Bolton says it wasn't just cheap talk that delayed this recognition for so long. He says the U.S. was effectively bullied into never following through on the issue. "What this has really boiled down to for a long time is the threat of using brute force to intimidate the United States not to acknowledge the reality of where Israel's capital is. Unfortunately, I think the lesson has been that the threat works. The intimidation works. We didn't move the embassy to Jerusalem," said Bolton. In the wake of Trump's announcement, Palestinian leaders have called for "days of rage" and the lead Palestinian negotiator says the goal of a two-state solution is now dead and only a one state solution is now viable. Bolton is hopeful the protests will not be overly violent and says lashing out will not accomplish anything for the Palestinian cause. "People, whether they're Palestinians or citizens of other Middle East countries, or people around the world, ask yourselves what violence would do at this point that has any possibility of changing the situation," said Bolton. While the Palestinians and other Trump critics fear Wednesday's actions could damage the peace process, Bolton says there's not much of a peace process happening right now at all. "The peace process was already in very difficult shape. Honestly, if moving a building from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem end the peace process, then I have to say it was a pretty delicate snowflake to begin with," said Bolton. Conversely, Bolton believes the U.S. action could actually facilitate peace talks. "Those who really want a durable, secure peace have to base it on realistic foundations. You can't base it on illusions. And Trump's decisions cleared away a lot of debris from the past. When people calm down, and they will in a few days, they'll see that it's really a step toward a possible Middle East peace, not something that's going to interfere with it," said Bolton. The timing of Trump's action is also of concern to some, given the cooperative roles that Egypt, Jordan and increasingly Saudi Arabia play in our regional policy and the effort to prevent Iran from deploying nuclear weapons. All of those nations urged Trump not to recognize Jerusalem, but Bolton is not worried that our relationships will fray as a result. "They're just as realistic in private as the president was in public. They don't have any interest in destructive demonstrations in their country. The leaders understand Israel is a permanent fact of life in the Middle East, that it does have a capital and it's in Jerusalem just as the president said," said Bolton. However, he says those same leaders will publicly condemn the move to achieve solidarity with their people while working behind the scenes to move on. "There are always situations where politicians are playing to their domestic audiences. So this move will be criticized in public. But in private, I think the leaders will be doing everything they can to tamp down the demonstrations and hopefully do what they can to make sure they don't turn violent," said Bolton. |
| Israelis Cheer Trump Recognition of Jerusalem as Capital |
| Wed, 6 Dec 2017 16:25:53 EST President Trump Wednesday became the first U.S. president to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced the process would begin to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move hailed in Israel as a stepping stone to peace but fiercely condemned by the Palestinians. "Today, we finally acknowledge the obvious, that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality," said Trump during a White House statement Wednesday afternoon. He also said recognizing Jerusalem as the capital means the U.S. will be moving its embassy there. "Consistent with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, I am also directing the State Department to begin preparation to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem," said Trump. Retired Israeli Brigadier General Elihu Ben-Onn is now a radio talk show host in Jerusalem. He says Trump's announcement is of great historical significance. "For us, it's a very important day," said Ben-Onn. "I'm very happy with the announcement of President Trump. This is history after all. Now, for the first time in 70 years, we hear that the President of the United States declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of of the state of Israel." Ben-Onn says Israeli claim on Jerusalem does not just date back to the creation of the modern state of Israel following World War II, but thousands of years. "I live in Jerusalem. I was born in Jerusalem, and all my family is in Jerusalem. Also, I know that King David was here 3,000 years ago. King David and the Jewish people were here for so many years, so many decades. It is clear to everyone that Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Israel and the Jewish people," said Ben-Onn. The Old Testament dates the connection back several centuries before David, beginning with God's call for Abraham to get up and go to the land of Canaan. Given that historical connection, Ben-Onn hopes Trump's decision will be followed by the decision of many other nations to move their embassies to Jerusalem. "All Israelis believe that Jerusalem is our capital. The government is here. The parliament is here. All the embassies are in Tel Aviv but they go every day to Jerusalem. What kind of game is this? Maybe today this game and this hypocrisy will end," said Ben-Onn. He says there were some embassies in Jerusalem decades ago. However, following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Ben-Onn served, pressure from Arab states compelled those nations to move their installations to Tel Aviv. In his announcement, President Trump also argued that recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital is an important step in the peace process. Ben-Onn agrees. "If you do not recognize my capital city, how can you sign a peace treaty with the state of Israel. Peace is like marriage. It's like a wedding. The two sides have to recognize the rights of the other side for the right to exist," said Ben-Onn. "As long as the Palestinians and the Arabs before that didn't recognize the state of Israel and the capital of Jerusalem, wee couldn't go forward. Now I believe President Trump opened a new direction for peace," said Ben-Onn. That's not how the Palestinians see it. Those leaders are calling for three "days of rage." Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says this action eliminates the United States as a credible mediator in the peace process and will lead to "endless wars." Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is taking it much further. He tells Haaretz that Trump's recognition of Jerusalem means the Palestinians are no longer seeking a two-state solution but a future in which Israel does not exist. "President Trump has delivered a message to the Palestinian people: The two-state solution is over. Now is the time to transform the struggle to one of one state with equal rights for everyone living in historic Palestine, from the river to the sea," said Erekat. While concerned about the immediate reaction, Ben-Onn hopes the Arabs and Palestinians see Wednesday's developments as a major opportunity. 'I believe the Arab states will not do anything but maybe the radical Palestinian groups will try. But I'm sure that they will stop because they have more to lose than to win if they start violence," said Ben-Onn. If a two-state solution is still on the table, how will Israel deal with the Palestinian demand that the capital of a Palestinian state be East Jerusalem? Ben-Onn says with the compressed geography of the region, the Palestinian capital could be very close to Jerusalem. "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a clear fact. Everybody knows that. Which part, North or South, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Abu Dis to the east, will be the future capital of the Palestinian state if they will agree to accept that," said Ben-Onn, noting Bethlehem is just five minutes from Jerusalem and Ramallah is just over 10 minutes from the city. Ben-Onn says both sides need to realize the conflict will never end until they try to reach common ground. "We are not going to leave this area, and our neighbors, the Palestinians, are not going to leave this area. The only solution is to go back to the negotiation table and framework and find solutions for the conflicts with the help of the United States and the rest of the world," said Ben-Onn. "I'm very optimistic." |
| McCarthy: No Underlying Conspiracy, Mueller Fishing |
| Tue, 5 Dec 2017 16:09:19 EST Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says there is still no discernible evidence of any conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign, and he says special counsel Robert Mueller is effectively on a "fishing expedition" to find criminal behavior of some kind. McCarthy is also explaining what a Trump attorney likely meant when suggesting the president cannot obstruct justice. Mueller, a former FBI director, was originally tasked with an open-ended counterintelligence investigation to determine whether any outside forces interfered with the 2016 presidential campaign. However, Mueller's mandate from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein came with no formal limits. McCarthy says Mueller's task was the opposite of how prosecutions normally function. "The usual thing in the United States is that there's a crime so we assign a prosecutor. Here, there's no crime. We assign a prosecutor . We tell him to go find a crime," said McCarthy. And thus far, McCarthy says Mueller hasn't found what he was hired to find. "He's gone about his investigation as a kind of broad fishing expedition within those very broad parameters. If they had a crime that was the predicate for this investigation, it would have been conducted a different way. But he wasn't directed to investigate a crime. He was given this very broad mandate," said McCarthy. The investigation is receiving enormous coverage in the wake of Mueller indicting former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for making false statements to the FBI in January. McCarthy says many people assume this is a sign that bigger charges are coming for the likes of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, Jr., and possibly even the president himself for colluding with Russia. He says that assumption is based on a flawed understanding of law. "Collusion is kind of a loaded word. All it means is concerted activity. What prosecutors care about is conspiracy, not collusion. Conspiracy is an agreement to violate a particular federal law. In this case, the law that they're most likely talking about is some form of espionage by the Russians targeting the 2016 election," said McCarthy. "I never thought they had a case on that. I haven't seen anything to suggest it. What we've seen with the three sets of charges is quite the opposite," said McCarthy. He says from Paul Manafort and Rick Gates to George Papadopoulos and now Michael Flynn, there is still not a single charge related to the 2016 election. "They've had charges against Manafort and an associate, Rick Gates, that had nothing to do with the 2016 election, and these two guys, Flynn and George Papadopoulos, who pleaded out to process crimes of lying to the FBI, charges not having anything to do with supposed collusion in the Russian effort against the 2016 election," said McCarthy. There were Trump campaign contacts with Russia, but McCarthy says the lack of any related charges is telling. He says Papadopoulos only being charged with making false statements likely means there is no conspiracy case. "With [the Papadopoulos indictment], Mueller files a 14-page statement of facts explaining the offense, and collusion pours off every page of it. You have a meeting with people who say they are agents of the Russian government. He meets with someone who represents herself, apparently falsely, to be Putin's niece. They're talking about setting up meetings with the Russian regime, possibly setting up meetings between Trump and Putin themselves," said McCarthy. "Yet, after all of that, he pleads guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about when his first meeting with a Russian official was. The case against him, even though it's immersed in collusion, doesn't have anything to do with collusion in the 2016 election. That's the sort of thing that's led me to believe there's no collusion case," said McCarthy. The Mueller prosecutors, however, are now coming under scrutiny. Peter Strzok was tossed from the team after anti-Trump statements were made public. Andrew Weissman is still on board despite a recently uncovered email in which Weissman praises then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to enforce President Trump's first travel ban. McCarthy says we should not be shocked that federal employees are politically liberal. He says that alone is not evidence of corruption, at least in this investigation. "I need to see a lot more about Strzok before I jump to the conclusion that he let his political opinions - we all have them - interfere with the way he enforced the law. But I think there are a lot of very questionable judgment calls that were made in the Hillary Clinton case," said McCarthy. Among those concerns are reports that Strzok changed former FBI Director James Comey's language, so that Sec. Clinton was not labeled "grossly negligent" in the way she handled her emails as well as the FBI's decision not to charge Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin for making false statements to the FBI during that probe. As for the Russia investigation, other political and legal experts disagree with the argument that there is no whiff of a criminal conspiracy. They specifically point to the June 2016 meeting involving Trump, Jr. and Manafort and Russians who said they represented the Russian government and promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Even though no damaging information was turned over, the critics contend the Trump's campaign's willingness to engage with the Russians that way proves it was willing and eager to go down that path. McCarthy says that sort of activity might be unseemly but it's not criminal. "What a prosecutor is interested in is not collusion. A prosecutor is interested in conspiracy. That means you have to have an agreement to violate a law, and there's no against taking information from the Russians about your political opponents "Is it something you should do? No. Is it something we should endorse? No. But the narrow question for Mueller as a prosecutor is not whether it's unsavory behavior. It's whether it's criminal behavior," said McCarthy. Democrats and the media are also actively wondering whether a recent Trump tweet suggests he knew about Flynn's lies to the FBI before he fired Comey in May. Some believe it amounts to obstruction of justice, leading Trump attorney John Dowd to declare that the president cannot obstruct justice. "The 'President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution's Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,'" Dowd told Axios. McCarthy says on one hand it it "absurd" to claim a president cannot obstruct justice, but he says the president can legally derail virtually any investigation he wants, including deciding who should be investigated and which executive branch officials ought to be fired. He says the issue get complicated when a president exercises those powers for what is perceived to be a corrupt purpose. But even then, McCarthy says the proper recourse is impeachment, not criminal prosecution, because a sitting president can always make it go away. "Practically speaking, the president holds all of the Trump cards against being indicted. He can pardon himself and everybody else, which stops the investigation in its tracks. He can order the investigation to be dropped. He can fire the prosecutor. He can do all sorts of things to prevent him from ever being indicted," said McCarthy. |
| Trump Slashes Size of Two Major National Monuments |
| Mon, 4 Dec 2017 16:36:11 EST President Trump announced Monday he was significantly reducing the size of two national monuments in Utah, infuriating environmentalists and leaving his supporters wanting the president to do the same in many other parts of the country. Speaking in Utah, Trump announced he was reducing the monument designation at Bears Ears National Monument from 1.3 million acres to 220,000. He also reduced the monument footprint at the Grand Staircase-Escalante from 1.9 million acres to roughly one million. The National Center for Public Policy Research is pushing for a very aggressive approach to rolling back national monument designations. Senior Fellow Bonner Cohen is gratified Trump went further than Interior Secrertary Ryan Zinke originally recommended. "He has shoved that aside and has reduced the size of the two monuments in Utah far beyond that which Zinke originally proposed. I think that's an important first step," said Cohen. "This is just a first step. There are other national monuments that were created in recent years, mostly by Presidents Clinton, Bush, and particularly Obama, that are gigantic national monuments," said Cohen. Clinton designated the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument in 1996 and Obama signed off on Bears Ears shortly before leaving office. Cohen says the federal government grabs land with little to no regard to the impact on the local community. "They were created with precious little, if any, input from local effected communities and were created for the sole purpose of putting these lands completely off limits to any economic use whatsoever, to the detriment of the local communities," said Cohen. Democrats and environmental activists are outraged by Trump's decision, a develop Cohen says was entirely predictable and proves Trump is making the right choice. Cohen says the aggressive liberal use of the monument designation has little to do with the stated purpose of protecting sacred American Indian lands. He says the real goal is to squelch American energy production. "Many of these lands do in fact contain very valuable natural resources, which is precisely why the Clinton administration and the Obama administration created them in the first place. The goal was to create an artificial shortage of natural resources and to limit Americans' access to their own very abundant natural resources," said Cohen. Not only that, Cohen says the use of national monument designations is illegal. He says the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president designation powers, specifically instructs that the smallest parcel of land be cordoned off to protect Indian sites. In addition, he says a 1963 law specifically gives Congress the power to add federal wilderness lands, but Democrats and environmentalists are using the Antiquities Act as a run-around. "The environmentalists, working hand-in-glove with the Clinton administration and the Obama administration, found a way of using the Antiquities Act and turning it on its head," said Cohen. "It is a de facto wilderness designation, circumventing Congress in the process, and also circumventing the will of local communities, who are rarely consulted about any of this," said Cohen. Trump's critics also claim his actions are unprecedented, that no president has ever rolled back the monument designations of a predecessor. Cohen says that's simply wrong. 'There's nothing unprecedented about a president shrinking national monuments. It has happened 18 times before," said Cohen, who says the federal government already owns 30-35 percent of all land in the U.S., including 83 percent of Nevada and 63 percent in both Idaho and Utah. Cohen says he expects more announcements like this from Trump in the days to come. "I sincerely hope, and I have reason to believe, that other actions will be taken in the not-too-distant future, meaning in the next few weeks," said Cohen. "I believe what we saw today will be the first of several steps the Trump administration will do in ending the abuse of the Antiquities Act," said Cohen. |
| 'Mick Mulvaney is in Charge' |
| Thu, 30 Nov 2017 14:40:24 EST The power struggle at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is an easy legal decision in favor of the Trump administration and Sen. Mike Lee says he hopes the change at the top will also lead to the bureau getting reined in or killed entirely. Last week, CFPB Director Richard Cordray resigned from his post and handed the position to his deputy, Leandra English. The Trump administration claimed it has the power to name an acting director, and tapped budget director Mick Mulvaney to take over the job. English then filed suit to block Mulvaney's installation but a federal judge sided with the administration. Sen. Lee, R-Utah, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, says this is a very simple legal question. "The legal issues sound intricate but they paint a pretty clear picture, which is that Mick Mulvaney is in charge," said Lee. "There's a law called the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. That law grants the president the power to appoint acting department heads. The idea, of course, is that the President of the United States, having been duly elected by the American people, should be able to choose someone who has been confirmed by the Senate to lead each department," said Lee. The CFPB was created through the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation that was created on the premise of protecting Americans from predatory lenders and other shady financial professionals who helped lay the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis. Cordray, English, and their allies contend that the legislation allows the deputy director (English) to assume the job if the permanent director is absent. Lee is not buying that interpretation. "The problem with that argument is that Cordray isn't really absent or unavailable because those words connote a temporary absence. Cordray has resigned. He's not returning. "Although she was his deputy, he's no longer absent or unavailable in the sense in which that term operates and so the Federal Vacancies Reform Act applies. That gives the president the power to appoint a Senate-confirmed person to serve as acting director, and that's Mick Mulvaney," said Lee. Lee isn't sure if English will try her luck in another court but he's confident she'll lose in every forum. English also argues that the CFPB was created to be fiercely independent of politics and therefore President Trump should not get to choose Cordray's successor. Lee says the Dodd-Frank bill made no mention of bypassing the vacancies law for the sake of the CFPB. He says that argument also bolsters his contention that the CFPB is unconstitutional. "That would cause it to come ever further untethered from the Constitution. The executive branch of the United States government is supposed to be run by the President of the United States. If we're going to set something up that is completely insulated from the American people, other than the judiciary, you end up with a problem," said Lee. And Lee believes it's that unchecked power that Democrats are reluctant to give up. "They've got a good thing going. They run this agency that has de facto lawmaking power and law enforcement power and law interpretation powers. They've taken all the branches of government and rolled it into this little mini-autonomous government. It's one of the reasons I have so many issues with the CFPB. "While it was created with the best of intentions, it was poorly designed. It was set up to be unaccountable. Ultimately, it's an unconstitutional agency," said Lee. "They dress it up in terms of saying, 'We want this up to operate outside the political winds of change. Think about what that means. What that means is they don't want the American people to have a say in the operation of their own government as it relates to the CFPB," said Lee. Lee was encouraged by reports of Mulvaney being "appalled" by the power he now has in leading the CFPB. "That is exactly the kind of person we want in an office like that as long as it continues to exist, which it shouldn't in its current form. We want somebody in there that is appalled by the breadth, the scope of the unconstitutional powers his agency wields," said Lee. And what is the CFPB doing with this unaccountable power? "[It has the power to] come up with new laws and new regulations governing reporting requirements, imposing new affirmative obligations legally on anyone who interacts with consumers or whether that's ordering the consolidation or restructuring of this or that business. They've got all kinds of authority that is very susceptible to being abused. "When they come up with new rules, those rules have the effect of generally applicable federal law. And yet it's a law that's put in place without the assent of anyone that's been elected to public office. That's very disturbing," said Lee. Lee is also bullish that this public spat over who should run the CFPB will spur momentum to kill or greatly reform the bureau. "I'd like to see it either eliminated or to have its wings significantly clipped. I'd like to see it operate in a manner that leaves it accountable to oversight by Congress. Currently, its funding is provided not by Congress but through the Federal Reserve. So it's not even accountable to Congress for the way it spends money. "I think it needs to be operating in the capacity of an executive branch agency rather than a sort of fourth branch of government that's super-powerful and that's above the restraints imposed by the Constitution's structure," said Lee. While Lee is not guaranteeing any legislative wins on this issue, he says a lot of his colleagues are ready to act. "There's a lot of appetite for doing so. I am reluctant anytime to predict anything in particular will certainly pass, but I will say there is a lot of appetite for doing it. We should be doing it. We ought to put it on a must-pass vehicle and get it passed," said Lee. |
| FCC Commissioner Explains Push to Roll Back Net Neutrality |
| Wed, 29 Nov 2017 15:35:58 EST On December 14, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to roll back Obama-era internet regulations, a move that one commissioner says will reinvigorate broadband innovation and reduce the government's influence over the internet while keep important consumer protections in place. "We have five commissioners at the FCC. Each commissioner gets to cast their own vote their own way. I'll be voting 'yes' in favor of this plan. So we should know right then as soon as the gavel strikes where the votes are and the public will get to see it," said Brendan Carr, who was nominated to the FCC by President Trump earlier this year. He was confirmed and sworn in to his post in August. The FCC effort is in response to a 2015 decision to apply Title II of the 1934 Communications Act to the internet. Democratic appointees controlled the panel at the time and made the changes out of fears that internet service providers, or ISP's, would soon be in a position to demand the purchase of services at whatever prices they wished. Known as net neutrality, Carr says the new rules badly misapplied laws designed to address telephone service and actually wound up with the federal government micromanaging the internet and its providers. "[Title II] arises from the 1930's and was designed to regulate the Ma Bell telephone monopoly. It's not designed to regulate a fast-moving, competitive marketplace. Pursuant to that re-classification, it then adopted a series of open internet rules," said Carr. Other than keeping some consumer protections, Carr says the policing of the ISP's will effectively revert to the way the internet operated before 2015. Nonetheless, opposition to the plan is fierce. Critics fear the major ISP's - AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon - will force smaller players out of the marketplace and be free to burden consumers with mandates and higher prices. Some activists go so far as to accuse FCC Chairman Ajit Pai of murdering democracy through this initiative. "There is a lot of fear-mongering out there. Someone wrote me, saying that without the FCC's Title II, Justin Bieber never would have been discovered online because he was discovered through YouTube videos. He was discovered long before the FCC's 2015 Title II decision. "I get it. This is the internet. This is the government being in this space. People are naturally reacting very passionately but it's misplaced at the end of the day," said Carr. For casual internet users, perhaps little seems to have changed since 2015. So what impact has net neutrality had in the past two years? "Over the last two years, we've seen a decline in investment in broadband networks as a result of the Title II re-classification. "We've also seen ISP's that were going to upgrade the networks, that were going to deploy new antennas, to get get new services out there pull back on those new deployments. We've seen some innovative new offerings from providers that have been kept on the shelf because of this massive regulatory overreach that's associated with Title II," said Carr. He says reverting to the previous standards, known as Title I, many of these frustrations will fade away. "We're going back to the model we had in 2015. There's a lot of confusion about eliminating all protections that consumers have online. Far from it. There are numerous consumer protections that are going to be at the core of net neutrality that are going to stay in place, just like we had them in 2015," said Carr. In fact, Carr says Title II actually eroded key consumer protections provided by the Federal Trade Commission and the current FCC proposal would revive them, "By reversing Title II, we re-vest the Federal Trade Commission with authority to protect consumers that come into place because of that. "Relatedly, consumers care passionately about their personal information and privacy online. The FTC is the nation's premier enforcement body when it comes to online privacy. But again, because of Title II, that authority as it applies to ISP's has been carved out. We haven't had those protections for the past two years. We're going to get more privacy protections as a result of this vote," said Carr. One of the great fears of those opposed to the current FCC plan is that rolling back net neutrality would give too much power to internet service providers. For example, they're concerned providers could force you to use their products as a condition of being a customer and then jack up prices as much as they wish. Carr says he's heard that concern but doesn't think there's much evidence that it will happen. He says net neutrality did nothing for the price of internet service. "Title II is not the thin line between where we are today and some of those stories that you're talking about, price regulation for instance. Title II, right now, is not directing the prices ISP's charge. Title II is not stopping them from offering bundled services or a curated internet experience. "We didn't see it before Title II. We're not seeing it during Title II. There's other reasons for that, including competition, fear of subscriber loss from engaging in that conduct. Those other reasons that we're not seeing will stay in place after Title II. It's a misplaced view of what Title II is doing right now," said Carr. Carr believes all sides will benefit from the government taking more of a hands-off approach to the internet. "I don't think there's going to be a downside after moving forward with this. I think ISP's are going to continue to invest, consumers are going to continue to have a free and open internet. And the edge providers - like NetFlix, Twitter and Facebook - are also going to continue to be able to benefit from a free and open internet," said Carr. |
| Economy Depends Upon Tax Cuts Becoming Law |
| Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:25:32 EST The Senate Budget Committee approved a tax reform bill along party lines Tuesday, sending legislation to the Senate floor that a key fiscal conservative lawmaker says is vital to pass if Americans want to see the economy continue growing and eventually booming. The vote in the committee was 12-11, and included 'yes' votes from Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn. The bill already cleared the Senate Finance Committee and will now be considered by the full Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted Tuesday that getting to 51 votes in favor of the bill is still a work in progress, but Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, says Republicans must push this bill across the goal line or the economic consequences will be severe. "Our economy needs it and you see every day on the financial channels that if anyone hiccups and there are two 'no' votes then the market goes down," said Brat, contending that investors are bullish because they are assuming tax reform will get done. "That's an objective reality that's out there. This is baked in the cake and if we don't come up with these tax cuts, the economy will not continue to grow like it has been. It's been flying high and consumer expectations are high and that's where we want to keep it," said Brat. The effort to sway moderates took a bit of a hit this week, when the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, estimated that the Senate bill would add $1.4 trillion to the national debt over ten years and would hurt middle class and poor Americans the most. Brat is firing back on multiple fronts, first challenging the CBO's recent history of badly inaccurate estimates. "I think that's probably based on the teachings of Karl Marx. They've been wrong so many times on every thing they do," said Brat, noting a recent report on health care costs in Charlottesville, Virginia. "The CBO said Obamacare was going to lower the cost of health care. Now the premiums for a family are $30,000. The deductible is $9,000. So you've got to pay $39,000 before you see one dollar of insurance. There's CBO's infinite wisdom on scoring the costs of these things," said Brat. Despite the frequent criticism of capitalism, Brat says world history proves the free market is the surest path out of poverty. "Is capitalism good for the poor or is communism and command systems and top-down (better)?" said Brat. "The history of nations is the history of poverty unless you have capital accumulation." Brat says the GOP approach of allowing deductions for all capital will not only be a boon for business owners but will likely mean more money in pockets of employees. He says that's a far cry from the Democrats calling for higher taxes and much higher spending. "They want to increase $10 trillion, increase spending $11 trillion and they end up with more debt than wee do in our tax piece even after they they raise taxes $10 trillion in the Progressive Caucus budget and tax plan," said Brat. While confident Republicans have a good plan, Brat says they need to do a better job of messaging. "I wish the mainstream media was more fair in the messaging and our team needs to do a much more aggressive job of messaging about the benefits of free markets," said Brat. Sen. Johnson and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, had earlier said they could not support the existing Senate bill because it provided far more benefits to corporations than to small businesses. Johnson says he's encouraged by some changes made to address his concerns. Brat says Johnson and Daines are right that pass-through businesses that file at the individual rate need more help in the legislation. He says the House worked to beef up tax breaks for those small businesses, including just a nine percent tax rate on the first $75,000. He also says Americans will be helped by married couples paying just 12 percent on income below $90,000. The next bracket, 25 percent, stays in place up to $260,000. Brat would like to see more help for small businesses, but he says math is a real challenge for the GOP in making all of this work. "There's about $6 trillion in tax cuts and $4.5 trillion in pay-fors, so on net they know there's only so much you can put around, so you want it to be as pro-growth as you can be," said Brat. But Brat says time is of the essence and Republicans need to get the job done. "They all know we have to have these tax cuts go into effect," said Brat. "It's going to be a net win for everybody." |
| Women to Demand Answers on Congress 'Slush/Hush' Fund |
| Mon, 27 Nov 2017 16:09:53 EST Accusers and activists will be in Washington on Wednesday, demanding the resignations of three members of Congress and an end to the Capitol Hill practice of secretly settling sexual harassment claims with taxpayer money. On Wednesday, the Media Equality Project will insist upon action and answers at a 10 a.m. press conference at the National Press Club. Those expected to appear include four different accusers of former President Bill Clinton. Radio talk show host Melanie Morgan will also be there, just weeks after accusing Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., of harassing her multiple times after a television debate. Longtime talk host Blanquita Cullum plays a leading role in organizing the press conference. She says one goal is to put the heat on Franken to resign, along with Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Joe Barton, R-Texas. Franken is accused of groping multiple women, including radio host Leann Tweeden, who also accuses Franken of forcibly kissing her. Conyers reportedly settled a sexual harassment complaint with tax payer money. Barton was in the headlines last week when nude pictures he texted to a woman he was not married to were leaked online. "There are members we feel have dishonored their office and the American people by conduct unbecoming an elected official. As you can see, it's not partisan. We feel that way about the left and the right. We're out there saying it's not the politics of the right and the left. It's the politics of the right and the wrong," said Cullum, who has hosted radio programs on the east coast and now hosts "The Hard Question" based in Chicago. Perhaps even more galling to Cullum and others involved with the Media Equality Project is the idea of lawmakers secretly paying off sexual harassment victims with taxpayer dollars. "The other thing we're going to demand is the release of the list of the slush/hush fund that taxpayers funded to the amount of $17 million over the past 10 years, covering up their private sexual peccadilloes, fights that have involved members from both sides of the aisle and some very high-ranking chiefs of staff," said Cullum. "One thing the members have forgotten is who their real bosses are. We hired them. It's our money that's paid for it. We feel it's the right thing for them to do to let us know what we've been paying for. And if it's something bad, they need to go," said Cullum. In the spirit of bipartisanship, Cullum says the group has invited leaders and activists from both parties and both chambers to be part of the press conference. So far the response from lawmakers has been tepid. "We reached out to many members of Congress to meet with us and to be there with us, some of them high-profile Republicans. They say, 'No, no, no. We want to handle it in-house.' In other words, even though they know that it's wrong and they're out there on the cameras, some of them won't show up with us because they don't want a target on their backs too," said Cullum. Cullum says sexual harassment and even assault have taken place in Washington politics for a very long time, but she she says the American people should demand better. "You have to understand that when you raise that arm and you take that oath that you're committed to serving. If we can't have America on a better ethical standard, what does that say for our direction? If we let this go, if we let this pass, what does that mean for our children?" asked Cullum. "Those people are making decisions about your life, my life and everyone's that's listening's lives in the United States. And you can't trust them because they're going to lie to you," she added. Cullum also has tough words for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who on Sunday's "Meet the Press" said Conyers was entitled to due process before she determines whether Conyers ought to stay in office. She also claims to be unaware of any accusers despite the settlement papers and another accuser who abandoned settlement negotiations. "She puts the 'ick' in politic. She should be ashamed of herself. It reminds me of the old George Orwell 'Animal Farm.' All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. In other words, if he's going to help her politically, she's going to close her eyes to this stuff," said Cullum. Cullum says if Pelosi keeps running interference for Conyers, her job should be on the line as well. "If she doesn't take that position too, she needs to go too because she's aiding and abetting bad conduct," said Cullum. On Monday, Franken apologized to any women who felt mistreated during their encounters with him, but insisted the best way for him to proceed was to rebuild trust with his constituents by doing his job. Cullum says that's not an option. "It's too late. The innocence is broken there. We know who he is. He can apologize all he wants but would you really trust him from now on?" said Cullum. Bill Clinton may not be in office but his longtime accusers, including Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey will be at the press conference. Cullum says it's time for those victims to get the respect they deserve and did not get at all during the Clinton administration. "Those women were victims and they were very brave to step out against a press and a machine that was ready to make them bimbos, they were going to be 'nuts or sluts. They're there to shine the light of what that abuse can cause," said Cullum. She says the Clinton accusers were vilified with the most horrible of epithets and their physical health has suffered. She says the children of some Clinton accusers use different last names to escape the stigma that the media and political operative attached to them. Cullum does not buy the sudden media epiphany in which they suddenly realize Clinton was a predator and probably should have been forced to resign. She says the media need to apologize to the women and do a much more professional job of vetting accusations in the future. As for the perpetrators currently serving in Washington, Cullum says she hopes the time for tolerance for such unprofessional behavior is over. "Americans have a standard of ethics. We're not always perfect. Everybody has something to hide. But when you're doing the job that you asked us for and you blatantly abuse it, you need to go," said Cullum. |
| Boykin Rips Army's 'Insanity' |
| Thu, 16 Nov 2017 17:31:10 EST The U.S. Army is rescinding its recently announced policy of allowing people with a history of mental illness to get waivers in order to serve in our military, a welcome move but one that should never have been necessary according to a former U.S. Army special forces commander. Earlier this week, the Army announced it instituted a policy in August that allows waivers to be issued so that potential recruits could circumvent the ban on service members with a history of mental illnesses ranging from bipolar disorder to depression to self-mutilation and alcohol or drug abuse. The Army admitted the move was designed to boost sagging recruiting numbers. On Wednesday, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley said the Army is reversing course. Milley says the policy on waivers was never actually implemented but was being debates with the Army's leadership. Retired U.S. Army Lt. General William "Jerry" Boykin, who spent most of his career in special forces, says the Army is making the right call after entertaining a terrible idea. "I will take the chief of staff of the Army's word for the fact that it was still being studied but it's disturbing that we're even studying this," said Boykin, who believes the Army's sudden shift is due more to public relations than because it believes this was a terrible idea. "I think they were unprepared for the blowback. I'm appalled that in a world that's so transparent today you'd think you could do something like this and that this is not going to be a major story," said Boykin. He says the idea of allowing people with mental illness to serve in combat arms has never been embraced even when manpower was desperately needed. "We didn't even do this in Vietnam," said Boykin, who says the biggest shift in standards was allowing GED recipients to serve rather than insist upon high school graduates. "This is as low as the Army has ever dropped in terms of a lack of focus on readiness and quality people," said Boykin. "It's hard to brag that we have the highest quality people that we've ever had in our military - which our Army does regularly - and then look at the fact that we're bringing people in that have a history of self-mutilation." Boykin says combat already takes a great toll on the mental health of our soldiers and that putting people with mental health problems into the fray is a recipe for disaster. "Combat itself is probably the most stressful thing that a human can do. It;s not just the fear associated with it but it's the long-term effects of seeing people that you care about die and be wounded in severe ways. That marks you. "That has an effect on an individual that is different for each individual but ultimately becomes a very emotional thing. To bring people in that are already struggling is just insanity. It makes no sense," said Boykin. Boykin says the very top of our military's chain of command can and must do better. "I'm disappointed in the leadership of our military. Also, our president needs to step in and say, 'Stop this nonsense. We're not going to do this. We'll do whatever we have to do to recruit a professional Army but we're not going to do this nonsense," said Boykin, who adds there is no way recruiters could weed out all the people with mental health issues who might pose a threat to themselves or members of their units. One reason the military brass did not immediately kill the waivers idea is because they wouldn't be tasked with dealing with problem recruits or the punishments related to their conduct. A retired senior non-commissioned officer who served in Operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom who prefers to remain anonymous says it's young officers and enlisted men who would be tasked with diagnosing these issues. "The lowest level leadership are corporals, SGTs, SSGs, SFCs, lieutenants. All guys 18-24 years old, have no inkling how to spot a potential suicide or mass shooter. They're also the guys that the command is going to hang out to dry if something happens for being "poor leaders" and not spotting something in time," the Army veteran said. He also says there is no protocol for dealing with mental health issues once a person is in the service. "The low level leadership hasn't been trained to deal with these people. There is "suicide prevention training" which is a joke, but it's more oriented towards a normal guy that's had too many deployments, combat stress or family issues - it's not tailored at all to somebody that already mentally ill," he said. Boykin also also appalled that at the very time when mental health problems tend to be an issue in many mass shooters, yet the Army either decided or was close to deciding to give guns to people with some of those same diagnoses. Boykin also says this slide in standards is an ongoing symptom of the way the Obama administration treated the military. "It is a reflection of eight years under a commander-in-chief who paid no attention whatsoever to readiness of our military. That's why you're having trouble recruiting," said Boykin. "It's because moms and dads during those eight years, when their son or their daughter had to give up their faith for example, or had to come in a military that was being used for social experiments, people got turned off to coming into the military," said Boykin. He says parents will have the same reaction to the Army considering allowing to people with a history of mental illness to take up arms. Boykin urges the military to make all decisions based on one simple criteria. "No decision regarding our military should be made until the question has been asked, 'How does this impact the readiness?' Is it a positive? If it's a positive, it's OK to do it. Is it a negative, it's not alright to do it. If it's neutral, then it could go either way. In this case, you have to know that this is a negative," said Boykin. But what if recruitment numbers aren't met? Boykin says there are more important things. "I'd rather go into combat with ten good men that were reliable that I could trust than a thousand that were questionable," he said. Boykin says a laser focus on readiness will make the U.S. military the dominant fighting force it always ought to be. "We can turn this around. Stop the social experiments. Change the rules of engagement, where men and women can go into combat to win and restore the military budget to where they know that they have the necessary equipment to fight the nation's wars and be victorious," said Boykin. |
| Are Politics Distracting Christians from Proclaiming Christ? |
| Tue, 14 Nov 2017 16:15:05 EST Are politically active Christians a critical force in changing public policy towards a more biblical perspective or are they getting drawn into ugly political infighting that distracts them from sharing the gospel and ultimately damages their witness to unbelievers? America's most widely syndicated columnist fears it's the latter. In his latest column, longtime conservative activist and writer Cal Thomas says many Christian conservatives get so immersed in politics, they become convinced they are indispensable to God's plans. "There is an unstated conceit among some evangelicals that God is only at work when a Republican is elected, even a Republican who does not share their view of Jesus, or practice what He taught. It is the ultimate compromise, which leads to the corruption and dilution of a message more powerful than what government and politics offer," writes Thomas. In an separate interview, Thomas says the endless flurry of controversies and scandals keeps believers away from their primary mission. "The first thing we learn about Satan in scripture is not that he's evil - that comes later - but that he's subtle or crafty. And I think there's a lot of effort in this country to get evangelicals especially off their focus on Jesus of Nazareth and onto the kingdom of this world," said Thomas. While the debate plays out over the allegations against Alabama U.S. Senate Roy Moore, some Christians in Alabama have used scripture to defend Moore even if he did engage in sexual contact with a 14-year-old., with the state's auditor comparing the alleged relationship to Mary and Joseph and other likening the offense to stealing a lawn mower. Because of the political, cultural, and moral issues at stake, Thomas says many believers they have no choice but to vote for Moore no matter the facts from 38 years ago. Thomas disagrees. "The argument I'm getting on Facebook and other social media is, 'Well, the Democrat opponent is pro-abortion and you want to continue the murder of babies and Judge Moore is pro-life.' Well, I don't think that's the real issue. "Even if Moore got elected, one more vote in the Senate is not going to stop the killing of babies in this country. The pregnancy centers and sharing the gospel for a changed life is what's going to change them. And that's the greater power," said Thomas. The bottom line, says Thomas, is that too many Christians are looking to politics for the solutions to life's problems. "Too many of us are worshiping at the shrine of Washington politics and especially the Republican Party. That is always bound to disappoint, as we've seen with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress and a supposed Republican in the White House that [are not] getting anything done," said Thomas. Thomas has plenty of experience at the intersection of faith and politics, teaming up with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell in the late 1970s to urge evangelical Christians to get involved in politics and to make a positive difference. He says he learned some hard lessons from that experience. "I was vice president of Moral Majority. I was there. We thought we were going to organize conservative evangelicals and conservative Catholics and Orthodox Jews into a voting bloc that would give trickle-down morality from Washington. It didn't work because none of that changes the human heart. The gospel of Jesus Christ changes human hearts, and when hearts are changed, nations are changed," said Thomas. So what is the proper role of Christians in the public square? Thomas says there are some things they should be doing. "We should vote. We should pray for those in authority, but we shouldn't expect more from government than it can deliver," said Thomas. What believers should not do, according to Thomas, is mistake earth for their permanent home. "This is not our kingdom. This is not where we're going to spend eternity. The world is going in the direction that the scriptures forecast. These people who say they're going to make the world a better place, no you're not. That's left up to Jesus when he returns. "He's the only one who's going to make the world a better place because he's going to restore it to the way it was. We're not going to be able to do that through the political system," said Thomas. Many Christian conservatives push back on that argument by pointing out they are active precisely to resist movements antithetical to scripture, including abortion, the changed definition of marriage and other secular movements aimed at culture and their children. Thomas says Christians have always been persecuted, including the crucifixion of Christ Himself, and urges Christians to live out the gospel rather than responding in kind in contentious debates. "We should turn the other cheek. We should be respectful and kind to our enemies. We're to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, visit those in prison, care for widows and orphans, feed the hungry and clothe the naked. "Not as a social gospel as our friends on the left do - salvation by works - but as a means of demonstrating God's love for the physical self so that you can share the greater message of their greater need, which is transformation, not reformation," said Thomas. Thomas says embracing Christ's commands to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself would give non-believers a radially different view of what it means to be a Christian. "The average unbeliever looks at believers today and what do they see? We're against all kinds of stuff. We've got a long, long list of everything we're against, but what are we for? Who are we for? [Jesus' commands] are the greatest evangelistic tool that Jesus ever gave us. But how many people actually apply it?" asked Thomas. "If we obeyed the calling of Jesus and His instructions, this world would be turned upside down," said Thomas. |
| Army Lifting Mental Health Ban on Recruits |
| Mon, 13 Nov 2017 16:37:13 EST The U.S. Army is lifting an ban on recruits with a history of mental illness as a means of boosting recruiting numbers, a unilateral decision that could damage readiness and actually hurt the effort to recruit quality young Americans into serving their country in uniform. The Army made the decision in August, but is only making it public now as it fears efforts to recruit 80,000 new soldiers by September 2018 may fall short. Americans who deal with bipolar disorder, depression, self-mutilation or drug and alcohol abuse are not eligible to be recruited although the Army insists it will screen such applicants vigorously to ensure they are fit for service. That's not good enough for Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly. "This is not a good sign," said Donnelly. "At least one expert quoted in the USA Today story said that when you induct people who have psychological problems, it is definitely a red flag. Those psychological problems often get worse in the military. Rates of suicide in the military are much higher than in the civilian world." She says one of the recruiting headaches is that a growing number of young people are not physically fit for the military, but she says that shouldn't trigger a sliding standard on mental health. "Issues of mental competency also are important. Mental conditions that detract from readiness to deploy, that interfere with unit cohesion, that contribute to stress and controversy within a given unit, these issues also are important," said Donnelly. She it's not the first time the military has gone down this road. "We have pressures to include transgenders in our military. Gender dysphoria is one of those mental conditions that render a person unqualified for military service. It's one of many. Now we see the list being edited to include some mental conditions in the same way," said Donnelly. Donnelly says the policy decision makes life more difficult for others in the military, starting with the recruiters, who may soon be urged to accept applicants that ought to be rejected. "I think the pressure will be on to meet the quotas," said Donnelly. She also says problem cases who slip through recruiting and training have and could again become major headaches for battlefield commanders. An in an ironic twist, Donnelly says the effort to relax standards may actually hurt recruiting of the people the military want and need to sign up. "The military is a very special institution. It requires special young people to join. If you start playing games with standards and making excuses for including people who are not suited for military service, that's only going to make the problem worse," said Donnelly. "We have to be very careful. Not everybody is eligible to serve in the Armed Forces. And if you pretend like it is an equal opportunity employer, then you put everybody's lives at greater risk," said Donnelly. So why is the Trump administration allowing this? In short, it may not have much of a say at all. Donnelly says the Army can change the policy without any input from Congress. Furthermore, she says President Trump's people still aren't on the job. "It was only last week the new Secretary of the Army was confirmed. So this was a decision made by people from the Obama administration, not the Trump administration," she said. "The person in charge of personnel matters in the Department of Defense hasn't even been confirmed yet, the Trump appointee. So this may be an open issue that may be revisited and I hope it will be," said Donnelly. |
| Mixed Bag for Vets in First Year of Trump |
| Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:10:06 EST As America pauses for Veterans Day this weekend, a leading advocate for improving the VA system that cares for those who have served this nation in uniform says the VA system has made made some important improvements in the first year of the Trump administration but she says some badly needed reforms are happening far too slowly. Jessie Jane Duff served as a gunnery sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. She is now a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. She gives the Trump administration a 'B' grade thus far in improving the health care system for veterans. Duff says Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin has made progress on some bureaucratic issues, including closing down 430 vacant buildings around the nation and another 284 that were underutilized. "That can save $23 million a year. That money can now be going to health care or receiving mental health care for these veterans," said Duff. She says other efficiencies are also now in place. "They have improved same-day services for primary and mental health care at all of their medical centers. They're making it easier for veterans to file online health care applications. They're receiving eight times as many online applications this year. That's good," said Duff. Duff also applauds collaborative efforts with the private marketplace to allow veterans to get minor health care needs, such as flu shots, taken care of outside of VA facilities. Veterans living in rural areas more than 40 miles from a VA hospital also have greater access to private sector health care. She is also encouraged that Shulkin is informing the public of any disciplinary actions within the VA in real time. "They also became the first agency to post information on employee disciplinary actions online. That's a must. How many times did we hear about disciplinary actions after the fact, after they had either resigned from a position or transferred to a new job. They had covered up in the past," said Duff. But while those positives are making life easier for veterans, other major priorities are moving at a glacial pace. Duff says is taking entirely too long to implement a modern system to seamlessly transfer medical records from the Department of Defense to the VA. "This ordeal, which should have been corrected ten years ago, has fallen on President Trump's lap and on Secretary Shulkin's lap, is apparently going to take another eight years," said Duff. Another major frustration is the slow turnaround on veterans' health care claims. She says in a digital world, the kind of backlog we see at the VA is simply unacceptable. "There should not be any kind of backlog. A backlog means you've been waiting over 125 days for your claim to be addressed. In my opinion, it should be no more than a 30 to 60, no more than a 90-day turnaround," said Duff. "We're not sending anything by the Pony Express anymore. We're not even sending anything by the Postal Service anymore. Everything is electronic. Everything should be expedited and that should immediately shave off 30 days," said Duff. While Duff is adamant about the turnaround times, she admits forcing standards on bureaucrats often leads to the scandals we saw just two years ago. "The problem when you give these deadlines is you start having people fraudulently putting down numbers. That's what created the basic backlog in the first place," said Duff. So while progress has been made at the VA in 2017, Duff says there are still great concerns. "It's just very dismaying to me to see that these things still are going to take long to happen. How many more veterans are going to die waiting? How many more veterans are not going to get adequate care?" asked Duff. While she hopes to see rapid improvement on issues like claim turnarounds and record transfers, Duff warns that a federally-run health care program is always going to have problems. "The fear I have is that government health care is always going to be muddied down with government bureaucracy," said Duff, once again urging the VA to partner with outside health care providers. "Let Blue Cross or whatever health care system that's willing to take on veterans that are away from hospitals. Let's get this moving," she said. |
| GOP Tax Bill: Several Good Parts but Needs to be Improved |
| Thu, 9 Nov 2017 16:53:29 EST The House tax reform bill is now out of committee and headed for a vote on the House floor, and a leading advocate for small businesses says there is a lot to like in this legislation for businesses and individuals but she says there is definitely room for improvement. Karen Kerrigan is president of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council and an influential voice on tax and regulatory policy impacting small businesses. Just last week, she sat to the left of President Trump at a White House meeting on tax reform. Kerrigan says a number of key provisions are very good, especially dropping the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. "It's a really solid bill in terms of lowering rates, making those lower rates permanent, advancing simplicity for small businesses. That was very important, both on the business side and on the individual side," said Kerrigan. "We think those lower rates are going to be very helpful to allow them to reinvest more of their capital, more of their profits into their business at the end of the year," she added. And tax rates are not the only component that excites Kerrigan. "If you do have these immediate cuts on the business side and also the expensing piece - you can't forget about that - full expensing or expanded Section 179 expensing. That's really going to trigger a lot more investment and a lot more confidence. Then you're going to see higher growth in the economy as well," said Kerrigan. While corporations would see their tax rate plummet more than 40 percent, businesses other than corporations may face a murkier future. While dropping small business taxes to 25 percent, the GOP bill also keeps the top individual rate - through which many small businesses files with the IRS - unchanged at 39.6 percent for those making over a million dollars per year. So will those businesses, known as pass-throughs, get relief? "It really depends," said Kerrigan, who says those making less than a million per year ought to benefit greatly from lower business taxes and lower individual rates. But that relief will not be happening for everyone. "As it stands, there is a complicated formula, the 70/30 formula, that basically says from a pass-through perspective that 70 percent will get taxed from a wage perspective, which is the individual rate which may be higher for some small business owners. Thirty percent would get that lower rate," said Kerrigan. "What we're trying to do is improve that pass-through rate. So maybe there's better parity, perhaps 50/50, perhaps 40/60. "The key right now is allowing more small businesses, particularly those that are in the upper income bracket, to get that 25 percent rate. We think those are resolvable and hopefully we're going to get to a point where many small businesses are going to benefit from the lower rate," said Kerrigan. A major tactical consideration for lawmakers is how to craft the bill so senators can pass it with a simple majority. Senate rules only allow that to happen if the tax bill does not create additional deficits. The Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, says the House GOP plan would add $1.7 trillion of deficits over the next decade. Kerrigan pushes back on the CBO in two ways. First, she points out the CBO's refusal to factor in economic growth in projecting deficits, a policy known as static scoring versus the dynamic scoring that Kerrigan and others believe is more accurate. "They leave out the reality in terms of dynamic scoring and the impact that incentives and reduction and putting more money back into the private economy has on growth and people's behavior and business behavior and that drives growth," said Kerrigan. Second, Kerrigan says the CBO has a lousy track record with its projections. "You've got to remember the CBO has been notoriously wrong on a whole range of things over the past 5-10 years. If you look at their predictions on Obamacare, how many people would be insured under Obamacare, really wrong on that. The cost of coverage on Obamacare? They've been dramatically wrong on that as well," said Kerrigan. As the debate heads to the full House floor and begins separately in the Senate, Kerrigan is confident that Republicans are largely headed in the right direction, but she still wants to see it get better. "We are working on a bunch of issues so that small businesses will be able to keep the value of that lower rate and get that 25 percent rate. It's a process and we're at the table and we're trying to improve this bill as much as possible so that it will have the best effects for small business and for the economy as well," said Kerrigan. |
| Huge Dem Wins Due to GOP Inaction in D.C. |
| Wed, 8 Nov 2017 15:59:03 EST Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says Democrats there turned out in droves to register their animosity towards President Trump and he says Republicans didn't see the same passion from their voters because of failure after failure from the GOP in Washington. On Tuesday, Democrat Ralph Northam coasted to an easy nine-point win over Republican Ed Gillespie. Democrats also won the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general and are on the brink of a stunning capture of the majority in the House of Delegates, where Republicans had enjoyed a 66-34 margin. Pundits around the nation are offering endless analyses for the results, but Cuccinelli - the man who led the GOP ticket as the party's nominee for governor four years ago - says the dominant performance from Democrats really boils down to one party's base being fired up and the other one discouraged. "On the Democrat side, it is correct to say that Trump motivated their most left-wing voters," said Cuccinelli, who says exit polls show voters who backed Bernie Sanders in 2016 were far more energized than those who sided with Hillary Clinton. "If you look at Hillary Clinton's top 50 precincts in 2016, the voter turnout there only went up about one percent from the last election. If you look at Bernie Sanders' top 50 precincts, the voter turnout exploded almost 20 percent," said Cuccinelli. He says that kind of enthusiasm was only evident on one side of the aisle on Tuesday. "You're never going to keep the left from being upset about Donald Trump and the Republicans. They're going to come, right? So, the way to deal with it is to turn yours out. And unless you can deliver victories for them when you have both houses (of Congress) and the presidency, they will wonder what's the point. That's what happened yesterday," said Cuccinelli. Despite no members of Congress being on the ballot in Virginia on Tuesday, Cuccinelli firmly believes unfulfilled promises in Washington depressed the GOP turnout. "Republicans are demoralized and dispirited at the complete failure of Republicans to keep their promises in Washington. As far as ordinary Republican voters can remember, they haven't delivered on anything," said Cuccinelli. He says the most glaring example is the inability to repeal Obamacare, but he's unimpressed with the rest of the track record as well. "You're hearing what amounts to a muddling debate over the tax bill. Yes, Neil Gorsuch is on the Supreme Court, and I hate to say this, but that was a long time ago," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli does not believe Tuesday's results guarantee another political tsunami in the 2018 midterm elections, but he says it will happen if Republicans don't put some legislative wins on the board. "Are we going to be in a position, like we were in Virginia, of unilateral disarmament. And by that I mean where we have nothing to motivate our side "They have something to motivate their side and it isn't going away. Unfortunately for America, what this is going to lead Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to do is simply be more obstructionist because lack of accomplishment is the Republicans' Achilles heel," said Cuccinelli. He says the solution for that is simple. "Pass Obamacare repeal, not a watered-down version but the real deal. Pass a real tax cut bill, not some mealy-mouthed thing there's no reason to get excited about. They can fix this and one result of this will be to put a lot more pressure on congressional Republicans to perform," said Cuccinelli. Many of the House of Delegates seats won by Democratic challengers came in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington. And Democrats did not win those races with moderates but with very liberal candidates. "In Northern Virginia, there was a transgender, (and also) a self-declared socialist. These are wild-eyed radical lefties. Antifa is very happy with the outcome with some of these people," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli doesn't think Virginia voters embraced liberal politics in voting our their delegates. He says the liberal candidates just rode the wave. "People in those districts weren't electing a socialist because somehow the city of Manassas in Prince William County suddenly turned socialist. Those were simply the down ballot candidates at a time that the anger wave on the left carried them over the finish line," said Cuccinelli. He says Republican incumbents were done in by an unenthusiastic base that once again points to a lack of accomplishments in Washington this year. "Good candidates down ballot were not in a position to resist the environmental wave that they were in: the negative one from the Democrats and then the lack of a wave of momentum coming from Republican accomplishment. "Imagine how this would be different if five weeks ago Obamacare had been repealed instead of having some watered-down, mealy-mouthed go down anyway. Would Ed Gillespie have made up a nine and a half point difference? No, but down ballot would your delegate have lost like that? Probably not. Would mine? Probably not," said Cuccinelli. However, Cuccinelli says Republicans do face a bigger and bigger problem that has nothing to do with this year's political dynamics - the influx of big-government liberals into Northern Virginia. "The astonishing growth of the federal government over the past two decades has led to a massive importation of pro-government voters into Northern Virginia. Somebody's got to run that growing leviathan, right? "They haven't moved to Maryland for the past 35 years. They moved to Virginia because the taxes are lower and quality of life is higher. But they vote like where they come from: New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli blames both parties for the explosive growth in the federal government and says that tells the story of Democrats winning elections in Virginia far more than demographic shifts. "What it really is is the growth of the swamp. Northern Virginia is home of the swamp. It's where government lives is in Virginia. That has been killing us for a long time," said Cuccinelli. |
| Saudis, Iran on Path to 'Very, Very Bloody' War |
| Tue, 7 Nov 2017 17:01:00 EST While the world tries to interpret Saudi Arabia's moves to clamp down on corruption and and watches the kingdom accuse Iran of an "act of war," a former Reagan administration Pentagon official says Saudi Arabia is gearing up for the very real possibility of a "very, very bloody" war with Iran. Within the past several days, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is next in line to the Saudi throne, has ordered the arrests of many government officials, including 11 princes, on allegations of corruption. More recently, the crown prince accused Iran of an "act of war" after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched an Iranian missile towards the Saudi capital of Riyadh. The Houthis admit firing the missile and Saudi investigators say the fragments prove the missile is from Iran. Furthermore, the Saudi-friendly prime minister of Lebanon abruptly resigned and many other elements of the Lebanese government are loyal to the Shia regime in Iran. So are the events of the past week just the latest developments in an unstable region or something far more significant? Frank Gaffney is president of the Center for Security Policy and served as an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. He says these recent events are very significant. "Something is moving for sure. I think this is a lot bigger than chess pieces. I think this is nothing less than tectonic shifts taking place throughout the region," said Gaffney. Gaffney says Iran's goal of creating a "Shi'ite Crescent" is greatly disturbing to the Saudis. The crescent is a continuous stretch of Iranian-dominated areas that stretches from the southern end of the Red Sea through Yemen to Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. He says Crown Prince Salman is bracing for a major fight to prevent Iran control of the entire region. "I think what is teeing up, as I see it, is probably a very, very bloody war in that part of the world and it may not be confined to that part of the world," said Gaffney. He says the Iran threat is growing in multiple respects. "The Iranians are establishing hegemonic control of large parts of this very strategically significant region. They aspire to do more and I think they are willing to do everything from Shi'ite militia in Iraq and Syria through their own Quds force and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps," said Gaffney. He also also suspects Iran is prepared to use ballistic missiles with non-conventional warheads (chemical, biological or nuclear) in order to assert an iron grip on the region, and he would not be surprised to see the fighting spread to other parts of the Middle East. "It could go beyond that. Turkey is a factor in all of this. The central Asian republics beyond (are also at risk). This could get extraordinarily messy and then it goes without saying that Israel may be drawn into it," said Gaffney. So is this "tectonic shift" a result of the natural tides of history in the region, dating back to the Shia-Sunni divide over a thousand years ago or have specific policies accelerated the specter of an ugly sectarian war in the region? Gaffney says the forces of history are obviously a major factor but he says policy moves made in the Obama and George W, Bush administration are also coming back to haunt the neighborhood. Gaffney blasts Obama for the 2015 nuclear deal and slams the Bush administration for eliminating the Iraq army in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. "The principle impediment to Iranian ambitions (the Iraqi army) was removed. The damage done during the Bush years in that respect has been greatly compounded by the policy of Barack Obama in greatly enhancing the power of the Iranian regime," said Gaffney. But why the crown prince focused on rooting out corruption when so many national security concerns are on the front burner? "It seems pretty clearly aimed not so much at dealing with the corrupt officials, because if that were in fact the object, I think every single one of them would be rounded up. It's about power. It's about consolidating his hold on it before his father (King Salman) passes from the scene," said Gaffney. "He's clearing the decks for action against the principal, and increasingly existential threat to the kingdom, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran," he added. Gaffney insists that labeling Iran an "existential threat" against Saudi Arabia is not an exaggeration. "If they don't do something about this, presumably with the help of the United States, they will be encircled and the resources on which they still rely on very heavily - namely the sale of petroleum - can be cut off at will through the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea by the Iranians or their proxies," said Gaffney. Even with massive military resources courtesy of the U.S., Gaffney does not believe the Saudis can match the Iranians without help. He says Egypt and Jordan would be heavily recruited to join the fray, along with possible U.S. air power. Her says the Saudis don't have the personnel to do the job. "They've got an enormous amount of very advanced equipment. They just don't have many people who have either the skills or the will to wield it in defense of the kingdom or their interests more broadly," said Gaffney. As for the Trump administration's position as events unfold in the Middle East, Gaffney says the U.S. ought to be publicly on the side of the Saudis. However, he says the most important tactical policy is to stop Iran's nuclear program. "Our interests at the moment lie with trying to deprive the Iranians of their nuclear and other ambitions. And that's going to be vastly harder today than it was before Barack Obama started greatly enabling those ambitions," said Gaffney. |
| 'They Really Don't Understand Prayer' |
| Mon, 6 Nov 2017 16:50:06 EST A church family in Texas is devastated and other congregations need to lift them up in prayer and take the necessary steps to protect their own worshipers, according to a Virginia pastor who says church leaders have a responsibility to "protect their flocks". Steve Holley is pastor of ministries at Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. He is also speaking out in response to the many activists who bristle at messages of prayer for the victims of mass shootings, such as those impacted by Sunday's horrific assault on First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which left 26 people dead and at least 20 injured. Those activists, most of whom want to see new gun control legislation, suggest that people stop praying and "do something" to prevent future atrocities. For example, House Speaker Paul Ryan urged all Americans to pray for the people of Sutherland Springs in a tweet sent Sunday afternoon. "Reports out of Texas are devastating. The people of Sutherland Springs need our prayers right now," stated Ryan. Reactions from prominent critics were fierce. Former cable news host Keith Olbermann urged Ryan to "shove your prayers" in a vulgar way and then urged him to "do something with your life besides platitude and power grabs." Actor Wil Wheaton also raised eyebrows in response to Ryan by tweeting, "The murdered victims were in a church. If prayers did anything, they'd still be alive...," tweeted Wheaton,who later apologized to people of faith for insulting them but not for his views on prayer. Pastor Holley says there is clearly a great misunderstanding of prayer. "I don't think it's platitudes at all. It're really beseeching God to help out nation in its time of need. That is what's taking place. It seems like every two weeks these events erupt and they're horrific," said Holley. He also strongly disagrees with the idea that the prayers didn't do anything. "Prayer accomplishes much. The scriptures say that. The scriptures encourage people to pray. The psalms are a songbook of prayer in many ways. So I think they're really having a limited view of what prayer can do," said Holley. "Prayer sustains the spirit of those who endure and persevere through it. Prayer helps to readjust our focus, to understand that God is sovereign and that His will is in effect so we need to trust in Him and to seek after Him," said Holley. Holley says prayer should not be seen as a time of expecting all our prayer requests to be instantly granted. He says it's something far more powerful. "It shows that they really don't understand prayer, that prayer is actually talking to the Creator of the universe, who called all things into existence, who loves us, who cares for us, cares for our every need and sent His Son into this world to die for our sin, and then by the power of His resurrection to give us life for eternity," said Holley. Rather than immediately promoting a political agenda in the wake of horrific shootings like the one in Texas, Holley says more valuable steps could be taken much closer to home. "What are some things we can do to help people even curtail this, maybe even teaching our children that there is a God and that He has plans and purposes for everyone's life, and that there is a right and there is a wrong and that human life is valuable and that we cherish human life," said Holley. On Monday, authorities said the killer came to the church because that's where his mother-in-law worshiped, although it turns out she wasn't there. Holley says another takeaway here is to seek conflict resolution long before it could escalate into the carnage we saw on Sunday. "I think it's training children along the way. how do you handle conflict? How do you handle difficulty? How do you work through those things and not have it end up with many people killed because you couldn't resolve the issues you were struggling with?" said Holley. Holley is no stranger to ministering to families suffering from terrorist attacks. One member of his church was killed in the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and another severely injured. Another church member was killed in the 2013 attack at the Navy Yard in Washington. He says there's no magic formula for consoling believers devastated by the sudden loss of loved ones. "We immediately try to get to their homes and just put our arms around them and love them and stay with them through the shock and horror that they're facing. You try to comfort them with God's word because His word brings comfort," said Holley. He encourages those around the grieving families in Texas to reach out and to know the families will need that kind of ministry for a very long time. "This is going to be a hard road for a long time for some of those families. There won't be a day that somebody goes by that church from now on that they don't think about what took place in there yesterday. "So the larger community around that small town need to think, 'What can we do to stand by these folks and to encourage these folks and to show them God's love. That's what I would encourage them to do," said Holley. He says the most important thing is to be available. "Just be there as sort of an anchor, as a means of encouragement, and just express your love for them and that you're with them," said Holley. Holley says Sunday's massacre is another reminder that none of us know how long we have to live. He says that should raise eternal questions in everyone's mind? "The hard news is it is appointed once for man to die and after that there's a judgment. So each of us, somewhere in God's day timer, has an appointment where we will face Him. The real issue is did I seek forgiveness of my sins through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ and am I ready for that time? "There nothing that can prevent our death. We will not live one day longer than God wants us to or one day shorter. He will have us at His appointed time. People need to understand that's a significant thing. We don't live forever. We need to make sure that our eternal security is taken care of and that we've placed our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ," said Holley. At the same time, Holley says church leaders have a responsibility to protect their family when they gather for worship. In the wake of the Sandy Hook school murders, Immanuel Bible Church got even more serious about security. "At Immanuel Bible Church, we've done everything that we possibly can to try to provide an environment where people can worship Christ and also where they can be safe," said Holley, noting that approach requires a security team made up of volunteers. "It requires putting together a safety and security team that will be vigilant, that will be communicating with each other, that will be keeping an eye on things as people come to worship," said Holley. "They have helped tremendously in the past with various situations that have arisen and many in the congregation never hear about or never know about." Holley also recommends churches work together with law enforcement to develop the best possible security strategy. "I would encourage churches to run through various scenarios and maybe contact your local law enforcement agencies and see if they would come out and do an assessment of your church to see what things you may need to consider as you try to bring about security to your church," said Holley. Holley grew up in the same church he now pastors. He says attacks like the one in Texas never even crossed his mind until recent years, but he says good leaders will take the steps needed to keep their people safe. "This is the world we are living in and so have to respond to it. We have to do it in love but we have to do it with very wise precautions and providing an environment for our congregation to enjoy a good worship experience," said Holley. |
| 'This Judge is a Disgrace' |
| Fri, 3 Nov 2017 16:42:33 EST Retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash is blasting the military judge who ordered no jail time for admitted U.S. Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl as a "disgrace" and says the actions of both men strike a serious blow to good order and discipline in the U.S. military. He also says this episode is just the latest wound absorbed by the military due to the advancement of political correctness and social engineering. Bergdahl is the U.S. Army soldier who recently pleaded guilty to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for walking away from his unit in Afghanistan in 2009. He was subsequently captured by the Taliban. Six U.S. service members were killed looking for Bergdahl and others were severely wounded. In 2014, the Obama administration agreed to free five high-value detainees from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Bergdahl, whom then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice said "served honorably." On Friday, the judge in Bergdahl's court martial, Col. Jeffrey Nance, decided there would be no jail time for the crimes of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Instead, Bergdahl's rank will be lowered from corporal to private, he must pay $10,000 in fines, and he is to be dishonorably discharged from the Army. Bergdahl plans to appeal the dishonorable discharge. Bergdahl's attorney repeatedly tried to have the case dismissed based upon statements from presidential candidate Donald Trump since 2014 suggesting Bergdahl is a traitor and that past traitors were shot as punishment. Judge Nance said that was not grounds for dismissing the case but said it would be a mitigating factor in sentencing. Regardless of the rationale, Nance's decision is hitting a very raw nerve in the military community. "It's insane," said retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash, who is also a military analyst for the Fox News Channel. "This judge is a disgrace. He should have recused himself. By doing this, he just brings more discredit upon himself." Nash says the military will suffer as a result of Nance and Bergdahl. "The rules are the rules and everybody in the military is held to the standards," said Nash. "The whole thing about the military and good order and discipline and all of that is just taken a serious hit today by this guy's actions," said Nash. "And I mean both of these guys: Bergdahl for doing what he did and this judge for doing what he did. Just disgusting." Nash further asserts that the military is built on the understanding that orders will be followed and rules enforced. He says the overwhelming majority of American service personnel fulfill their oaths despite countless tours and immense disruptions for their families and Nance's decision shows a lack of respect for that. "You have someone who admits he did two really heinous things - desertion and cowardice in front of the enemy - and this judge says Donald Trump, when he was a candidate, said something that actually affected [his] ability to sentence?" said Nash, who would not be surprised if Bergdahl wins his appeal on the dishonorable discharge sentence. "He'll probably find some Obama appointee who will back him on it," said Nash. The Bergdahl sentencing comes just months after President Obama commuted the sentence of Bradley Manning, who was convicted on 19 charges - including six counts of espionage, for illegally leaking nearly 500,000 military reports to Wikileaks. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in military prison but immediately announced he was identifying as a woman named Chelsea. As a result, Manning became a popular figure in the LGBT community. President Obama commuted Manning's sentence earlier this year, less than four years after the convictions. Nash says Bergdahl is just the latest example of a cultural agenda infecting the military. "If this were the only thing to have happened, that would be one thing," said Nash. "But it's not. It has been a constant erosion and politicization of the military. And it's got to stop, because the military is that shield for this nation." He says the erosion has been underway for decades. "It has been since the early '90s. What you're seeing is social engineering that is corrupting the military ethos. It's corrupting good order and discipline. It is the political left in this country that has always been trying to weaken America and now they've gotten to the last vestige of true meritocracy," said Nash. Nash contends that the politically correct bedrock of dividing people based on gender, race, and other criteria is a direct contradiction with the message drilled into the armed forces. "It doesn't matter what service. They all have one thing in common, and that is the training programs. Those are to soften personal identity and build team identity, where it's "us," it's "we," it's "team." Once that is inculcated, then that person fits into that military organization," said Nash. "Now all of a sudden it's, 'Let's go back and break that cohesion up. Let's identify the differences.' It's not differences that really help in a team. It's one team, one fight. That's what helps," said Nash. |
| 'Worse for Hollywood than the Church Scandal was for the Vatican' |
| Thu, 2 Nov 2017 15:48:46 EST The sexual assault accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and now actor Kevin Spacey have Hollywood bracing for a "flood" of abused actors to come forward in the coming days and name the predators who targeted them, a scandal that one activist says will reach epic proportions. "This is big. I consider this is going to be worse for Hollywood than the church scandal was for the Vatican," said Matt Valentinas, one of the executive producers behind the 2015 documentary, "An Open Secret," which pulled back the curtain on the sexual abuse of children in Hollywood and named many producers, agents and other figures who work with kids in show business. The effort to unmask the predators gained even more steam on Sunday, when actor Anthony Rapp accused Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey of sexually assaulting him three decades ago, when Spacey was 26 years old and Rapp was just 14. Spacey says he does not remember the alleged incident but suggested in a statement that alcohol would have been a factor if something did happen. Spacey also used the statement to confirm that he is homosexual. Valentinas says for those in the know, the allegations against Spacey did not come as a shock. He says Spacey's name came up in the research for "An Open Secret." "Yes, it did, in the sense that he's very close friends with Bryan Singer. Bryan Singer is the director of "X-Men" and is currently shooting the movie on (the rock band) Queen. That's how we came upon some of these rumors about Kevin Spacey. It wasn't really the focus of our investigation, but his name was definitely brought up all the time for sure," said Valentinas. In addition to directing "X-Men" and it's five sequels, Singer also directed "The Usual Suspects," "Valkyrie," "Star Trek: Nemesis," and "Superman Returns," among many other films. In recent days, Singer has been accused of sexual abuse. In a series of Twitter posts on November 1, actor Justin Smith accused Singer of repeatedly inviting Smith to expose himself and inviting him to parties with his "posse" with an obvious purpose. "This was always him, 2-3 older 50-70 year old men who were obviously on drugs but still wearing their dress shirts & pants (he introduced them as producers) and at least 5 to sometimes 10 young men. I should really say boys, none of them could 19ve been older than 16 or 17," tweeted Smith. "They were all aspiring models/actors who were always doped up & partially naked. Bryan always made a point to tell me they were going to his place for a 'private party' & asked me to come with them. I said no every time," added Smith. Smith says Singer eventually thrust his hands down Smith's pants and violated him. In 2014, two other actors accused Singer of similar predatory behavior when they were child actors. Even on set, underage extras say Singer forced them to strip naked and remain that way for hours while shooting the 1998 film "Apt Pupil." Valentinas believes Rapp and Smith will only be the beginning of an avalanche of current and former child actors coming forward to name their abusers. "We're already getting calls from many other survivors so I think we're going to start seeing floods of survivors coming out in the next couple of weeks or even days with stories," said Valentinas. "The truth cannot be kept back." High-profile Hollywood child talent agent Tyler Grasham is also under the microscope, accused of sodomy by former child actor Tyler Cornell. "Just last week, one of the largest child actor agents in Hollywood, named Tyler Grasham at APA Agency, was fired for inappropriate behavior. He represents some of the biggest child actors out there today, who are currently starring in things like "It," which was just the biggest horror movie possibly ever, and "Stranger Things," which is now on NetFlix. "Stranger Things" star Finn Wolfhard severed ties with APA upon learning of the Grasham news. Grasham is not the only figure supposedly devoted to looking out for child actors to be involved in allegedly abusing their clients. "An Open Secret" features an interview with Michael Harrah, a former child actor who spent decades leading the Screen Actors Guild's Young Performers Committee. That conversation took an unexpected twist. "You had an accused pedophile running that operation. We did an interview with him in March 2014 at SAG headquarters," said Valentinas. "This guy admits he was molested and was recalling how he might have tried to molest one of the survivors in our film. It's a jaw-dropping interview." What was the response from the Screen Actors Guild? "Instead of SAG saying, 'Oh my God, that's a problem. How can we help you,' they sent us threatening letters to take out the interview from the movie, take out all mention of SAG from the movie. It might have been the first instance of a creative guild trying to go after a director and a producer and censor content. It was unprecedented," said Valentinas. In a Guardian story from October 31, actor and director Alex Winter, best known as Bill from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," said he was abused as a child actor and claimed it's virtually unavoidable for boys in Hollywood. 1cI don 19t know of any boys in any pocket of the entertainment industry that do not encounter some form of predatory behavior," said Winter. "It 19s really not a safe environment. 1d Valentinas says that is no exaggeration. "There's that many predators in Hollywood," said Valentinas. "He's speaking the truth." Worse yet, Valentinas says the abuse epidemic in Hollywood is not just a bunch of random, independent predators. "It's not just a lone pedophile. This is a highly organized group of people who all run in the same circles with a hierarchy, from people who scout for new talent to inviting kids to parties and grooming them there, to them picking who they want to be with. "They entice these poor kids with a television role, or a role in a movie, or an invite to a premiere, or a writing job on one of their shows," said Valentinas, who says the perpetrators are usually careful not to abuse the children on set or in public. It's away from the formal business of Hollywood that the attacks take place. "A lot of Hollywood is very casual and non-corporate in the sense that a lot of the grooming and the groups that are in these pedophile operations, a lot of that stuff happens at private residences off the sets through unspoken words, through actions where you have to participate in these parties. Then once you're in, you're in," said Valentinas. And while most survivors featured in "An Open Secret" are boys, Valentinas says little girls are preyed upon just as much. "I can't give you an exact percentage number, but of course it happens quite often to women as well," said Valentinas, who estimates half of Hollywood's sexual abuse victims are female. While predatory behavior towards kids in Hollywood is a major crisis, Valentinas is quick to point out that the aggressors make up a rather small percentage of people in the industry. The problem, he says, is that many of the villains in this real-life horror show wield a lot of power. "I'm not saying that this is a large part of Hollywood, but the one or two percent of pedophiles that are out there are at a high level. If they get involved in a project, that effects so many other people that they might not want to choose to believe the rumors that they're hearing," said Valentinas. He says a scandal involving one director or leading actor can create havoc on a project. "One person's bad behavior on a major film can affect the careers of hundreds if not thousands of people, tens of thousands of hours of time and tens of millions of dollars," said Valentinas. "That's why they really need to start getting a handle on this, because no other business is run in the way that Hollywood is right now. I think they're going to be bleeding money for a long time the more they act this way," said Valentinas. He says until the Weinstein scandal broke, few in Hollywood were interested in determining whether the rumors about alleged pedophiles were true. "It might not be happening on the set, but somebody might be hearing about, 'Oh, this guy might be having inappropriate relations with a minor,' and then they say, 'Oh that's just gossip. Let's not talk about it because you don't want it to effect your film," said Valentinas. Valentinas says Hollywood studio executives are largely focused on creating successful movies and television shows and may not be deliberately looking to bury allegations against their employees, but he says the lack of interest in finding answers is deeply troubling. "They're not really interested in combating pedophilia in the industry. They're focused on getting films out and being competitive and making money for the company. At the end of the day, it comes down to they don't want to lose money. "It's not maybe that they're intentionally covering this stuff up, but they're definitely intentionally not looking into it. And that's the problem," said Valentinas. |
| Bloated Budget Limits Tax Reform Plans |
| Wed, 1 Nov 2017 16:38:03 EST Republicans cleared a major hurdle on the march towards tax reform legislation last week when the House and Senate agreed on a budget bill, but one House member says GOP members have their heads in the sand and are limiting the scope of tax reform by scrapping their own conservative budget for a status quo approach from the Senate. Rather than head to a House-Senate conference committee, the House agreed to vote on the Senate's budget bill. It passed 216-212, with 20 Republicans voting against it. One of the them was Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida. Critics accused Gaetz and the other Republicans opposed to the budget of opposing tax cuts. Gaetz says the explanation for his vote is simple. "While I'm all about getting the economy moving with productive tax cuts, we've got to be honest with ourselves about the challenged we face with spending. I'm going to use my position on the budget committee to try to advocate for spending cuts so that wee don't drive up deficits while we're working to get the economy moving again," said Gaetz. He says the original House budget bill was one he was proud to support. "The House of Representatives passed a conservative budget that cuts spending by over $200 billion. We actually laid out a plan to accomplish those spending cuts, by ensuring that able-bodied, childless adults, who can choose to work, would actually have to meet a work requirement before getting benefits from the government," said Gaetz. He says the Senate wanted no part of that. "When we sent these conservative ideas over to the United States Senate, unfortunately the Senate did not agree to cut a single nickel in spending. Instead, they merely sent a budget back that kept things the way they were and preserved the status quo," said Gaetz. He says that not only kicks the can down the road on fiscal responsibility but chokes off a more aggressive approach to tax reform. "I was very disappointed that the swamp creatures over in the Senate didn't have the guts to cut spending. We're going to keep fighting for spending cuts in the House. I think that's the way that we get the full value out of tax reform. If businesses in our country have the capital to be able to hire more people, it will all be for naught if we don't deal with the workforce challenges that incentivize people to stay home," said Gaetz. He's also tired of the House playing second fiddle to a Senate that can't make good on the GOP agenda. "I didn't run for the House of Representatives to come here and be a rubber stamp for the Senate. I think too often in the House, we're the Senate's lapdog. Look at health care. We would have passed whatever the Senate passed. Look at the budget. We take whatever the Senate gives us. "My hope is when we get to tax cuts, we won't whittle down the value of tax cuts, we won't fail to deliver on the promises President Trump has made regarding massive tax cuts, just because the Senate cannot do both things," said Gaetz. Gaetz is also frustrated with the Senate catering to the whims of the most liberal Republicans who he says ran on the same agenda of cutting spending, repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes only to embrace the status quo once they came back to Washington. He says tax reform is going to present more hurdles as senators get bombarded by special interests to keep their special provisions in the tax code. "[Fiscal conservatives} are becoming a bit of an endangered species on Capitol Hill. It's indicative of the environment we live in, where every special interest wants the government to spend more money because then there's more room in the trough for their respective snouts," said Gaetz. He says the bottom line is lawmakers must stop piling up debt for future generations, a problem he says ought to be blamed on both parties. "They're all fighting for more spending in different areas. So we've got to have courageous conservatives ready to stand up and say, 'No more. We are not going to participate in this great wave of generational theft. In the last 15 years, we've stolen more than $15 trillion from the next generation. And they're going to have to pay that back with interest,'" said Gaetz. He says the mounting debt is also a burden on efforts to jump start the economy. "The debt is a wet blanket over our economy and there is no amount of tax cuts that will ever allow us to grow to meet the obligations we've set forth in the absence of spending cuts," said Gaetz. |
| Judge Halts Most of Trump Ban on Transgenders in Military |
| Tue, 31 Oct 2017 16:01:30 EST A federal judge is placing injunctions on two critical aspects of President Trump's ban on transgenders serving openly in the military, but a key supporter of Trump's policy says the judge is jumping the gun since no has been harmed by the policy and appears to be sympathetic to the media's perspective that this is a civil rights issue. On Monday, Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly placed an injunction on Trump's reinstatement of the ban and also blocked any ban on recruitment of transgenders. However, Kollar-Kotelly did not block Trump's order not to use taxpayer dollars to pay for gender reassignment surgery and related treatments. Kollar-Kotelly is a Clinton nominee to the federal bench, but was also a Reagan nominee for the D.C Superior Court earlier in her career. She gained widespread notoriety years ago as the judge in the government's prolonged antitrust suit against Microsoft. The case is Jane Doe v. Donald Trump, as multiple unnamed transgender service members are behind the suit. But given that the Obama administration unilaterally ended the ban on transgenders serving in the military, does the law side with Trump in his efforts to put the ban back in place? Family Research Council Senior Fellow in Policy Studies Peter Sprigg thinks so. "I certainly think that this is an executive branch decision and not one for the courts to interfere with," said Sprigg. "This was a policy decision on the part of the Obama administration to reverse the longstanding policy that excluded transgender persons from the military. It is a policy decision of the Trump administration to reverse that. This is really not a constitutional issue, although the judge tries to frame it that way," said Sprigg. Sprigg believes the sympathetic media coverage of LGBT issues is influencing judges like Kollar-Kotelly. "I think that the judge has internalized the way that the media covers this, which is that it's a civil rights issue. It's a matter of discrimination. It's a matter of irrational animus towards people because of who they are. They're simply failing to look at the real issues," said Sprigg. So what are the real issues? First of all, Sprigg says no one has standing to challenge the ban yet. "The presidential memorandum (issued in August) basically said, 'We are going to have the Pentagon look at this and make plans for how to undo the Obama policy and to report back on those by March 23, 2018. "At the moment, the practice of the military remains as it was after July of 2016 under the Obama administration. In other words, people who came out as transgender are serving as openly transgender service members in the military, right now are continuing to do so even following the president's announcement and will continue to do so until March of next year," said Sprigg. Sprigg says there is also no grounds to contest the ban on recruitment yet. "No one has ever been recruited into the military as a transgender person. That policy was supposed to begin on July 1 of this year. Secretary of Defense James Mattis had already postponed that policy by six months before the president announced his decision on the overall policy," said Sprigg. "The July 2016 status quo is still in place right now. Therefore, these plaintiffs don't really have an injury they can point to," said Sprigg. Once the timetables play out, the debate will continue. The argument in favor of allowing transgenders to serve is that anyone who is willing to serve and can meet the requirements ought to be given the chance to serve. Sprigg says there are three compelling reasons to bring back the ban. "[It's] not because of any sort of discrimination or animus towards them because of who they are. It is for very specific medical reasons, both because of mental health and physical health considerations. "People who identify as transgender do suffer from a mental disorder that is known as gender dysphoria. That has always been a disqualifying condition from a mental health perspective," said Sprigg, who says there are physical standards in play as well. "People who have had sex reassignment surgery are disqualified from a physical health perspective, as is anyone who has some sort of abnormality or mutilation of the genitalia for any reason," said Sprigg. He also points out that the military refuses to deploy anyone undergoing specialized medical treatment, and hormone treatments associated with gender reassignment would render service members unable to be deployed. Sprigg says the judge doesn't seem to care about why the previous policy existed. "Although she quoted the previous policy about the physical and mental health issues when she actually analyzed whether this policy was justified, she didn't address those issues at all. For the most part, the media does not address those issues either," said Sprigg. |
| 'This May Very Well Save Christianity in the Cradle of Christendom' |
| Thu, 26 Oct 2017 16:36:45 EST Human rights advocates are vigorously applauding the Trump administration's decision to stop sending aid to Iraqi Christians and Yazidis decimated by ISIS through the United Nations and to provide the help directly from now on. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence announced the shift in policy. "Christians in the Middle East should not have to rely on multinational institutions when America can help them directly. Tonight, it is my privilege to announce that President Trump has ordered the State Department to stop funding ineffective relief efforts at the United Nations. "From this day forward, America will provide support directly to persecuted communities through USAID," said Pence, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, was a leading human rights advocate in Congress for more than three decades. He is now a distinguished senior fellow at the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative. He is very happy to see the Trump administration make this move. "It's a very good decision that the administration and President Trump and Vice President Pence have made," said Wolf. "This may very well save Christianity in the cradle of Christendom. more biblical activity took place in Iraq than any other country of the world other than Israel." Wolf says relief efforts organized by the United Nations failed for a number of reasons. "Many in the Christian communities say they were afraid to go in some of the UN-run camps," he said. "Secondly, the aid was not getting to the Christian communities. Many of the Christian communities and Yazidi communities wanted to return to where they were from. Their towns were liberated but they were not getting any assistance through the UN." Wolf says Christians were fearful of entering UN camps because of the Sunni Muslim refugees there. Not knowing which families had relatives fighting alongside ISIS, the Christians were afraid the Sunnis in those camps would report them and put their lives in danger. Now that ISIS has largely been rooted out of Iraq, Wolf says the displaced people are eager to return home. However, with the UN failing to provide aid, going home if almost impossible. "They were concerned about security. They were also concerned that they were seeing the money funded to different groups but not to them. They couldn't rebuild their water treatment plant, couldn't rebuild their electrical grid, couldn't restore some of their communal property," said Wolf. But while the removal of ISIS is a good thing, Wolf is very concerned about the Shia militias, called Hastashabi, that seem to be filling the vacuum. "The Hastashabi are Iranian-backed, sometimes paid for by the Iranian government, Shia militias who are now filling in the gaps. We went to checkpoints where there were Shia militias who had taken over for the others," said Wolf, who was in northern Iraq just two weeks ago. He says the rise of Shia militias is greatly concerning given Iranian ambitions in the region. "The Iranians want to create what they call a land crescent or a land bridge, so you'll be able to drive from Tehran, through Iraq, through Syria, to a port on the Mediterranean, whereby they will be able to aid terrorist groups with guns and missiles and weapons," said Wolf. "So there are problems as you see ISIS defeated. There are some potential problems out there, particularly with regard to the militias," said Wolf. |
| McCarthy Breaks Down Dossier Revelations |
| Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:44:24 EST The revelation that Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the ongoing production of the infamous anti-Trump dossier leads former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy to assert there are even more critical questions that need answers now. On Tuesday, the Washington Post revealed that after months of denying any connection to the dossier, it is now confirmed that the Clinton campaign and the DNC provided part of the funding for the ongoing work into the dossier after the still unknown Republican who first started the project backed down. The Post story points out the funding from the Democrats and the Clinton team ran from April-October 2016. It was only after the Democrats got involved that former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was brought onto the investigation. In addition, the report states the FBI briefly picked up the tab for the work on the dossier to continue even after Election Day. The bureau dropped the effort after Steele's identity was made public. McCarthy says some things are now clearer about this controversy. "What we now know is that the source of all this, to the extent that it was funded, were obviously opponents of Donald Trump. "Apparently, it was initially a Republican outfit or rival of Trump's that started this ball rolling. Around April or so of 2016, the effort was taken up by the Clinton campaign and the DNC through a law firm called Perkins Coie," said McCarthy. As the Washington Post explained, the Washington-based research firm Fusion GPS was already working on the dossier when the Democrats and the Clinton campaign started funding the effort. Perkins Coie did the finances, paying Fusion GPS from the Clinton campaign and the DNC through the law office. And McCarthy says that's not the only odd role played by Perkins Coie in the sordid 2016 campaign. "That...is the same law firm that retained Crowdstrike, which is the cybersecurity outfit that examined the Democrat National Committee servers when they learned that they were hacked, also around April of 2016. I think it's a very interesting coincidence that these two scandals seem to be colliding at this point," said McCarthy. The reaction to the Democrats being deeply connected to the dossier is drawing an interesting response from the left. Just months after accusing Trump campaign officials of collusion and possible treason for being willing to meet with Russians at Trump Tower to get a look at opposition research on Clinton, they say there's nothing to see in Clinton and the DNC funding an effort, based largely on Russian contacts, to torpedo Donald Trump. 1cThe first I learned of Christopher Steele or saw any dossier was after the election, 1d former Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told the Post. 1cBut if I had gotten handed it last fall, I would have had no problem passing it along and urging reporters to look into it.Opposition research happens on every campaign, and here you had probably the most shadowy guy ever running for president, and the FBI certainly has seen fit to look into it. I probably would have volunteered to go to Europe myself to try and verify if it would have helped get more of this out there before the election, 1d said Fallon. McCarthy says the differing responses are jarring. "The media acts horrified that Trump would be doing opposition research on Hillary and with respect to this story on the dossier, we're now supposed to see it as politics as usual. So there is a double standard in the coverage," said McCarthy. However, McCarthy is not letting the Trump team off the hook. He says they created their own public relations nightmare. "The biggest problem the Trumps had is that they weren't forthcoming about the reason for the meeting. When they were originally asked about it, they said there had never been any such meeting. Then when it turned out there was a meeting, they said it was about one thing and then when it turned out the New York Times had their emails, they came clean about what the meeting was about," said McCarthy. McCarthy says there are many critical questions going forward. For him, the most important issues concern the federal government use of a dossier funded by partisans to instigate surveillance on Trump associates. "Specifically, there's a claim that they've used information that was in this dossier that we now know was paid for by the Clinton campaign. The report is that they used information from that dossier in presenting their warrant application to the FISA court and then they were given authority to do this eavesdropping," said McCarthy. He says that may or may not constitute a scandal depending upon the facts. "That's not necessarily a scandal, as long as they corroborated whatever information from the dossier they used before they brought it to the court and as long as they had a good faith reason for the people they wanted to surveil were actually acting as Russian agents. "If any of those things isn't true, that would be a big problem," said McCarthy. He says another key question is what the court was told about how and where the feds go their intelligence. "It would also be very useful to know what representations did they make about the source of the information that they got from the dossier, assuming they did that as reported," said McCarthy. The dossier story is just one headache for the Clintons and their associates. In the past week, reports also reveal special counsel Robert Mueller is now conducting a criminal inquiry into the Podesta Group, which has close ties to Clintons. John Podesta served as chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. In addition, congressional hearings will soon be held to follow up on revelations that the FBI conducted an undercover investigation into the Russian bribery scheme to steer U.S. nuclear policy in Moscow's favor, including the awarding of 20 percent of America's uranium supply to the Russians. Despite years worth of evidence, the FBI did not intervene to stop the Uranium One contract. McCarthy says there are two critical questions to be answered on that emerging story. "I'd like to see testimony from this witness who's been identified as they informant in that Uranium One deal, where Russia ended up getting 20 percent of our uranium reserves and the Clinton Foundation was grotesquely enriched," said McCarthy. He's especially dumbfounded that the uranium deal was allowed to proceed. "Not only how did it help the national security to allow Russia to acquire these reserves, but why was that allowed to be done when we had a pending provable, prosecutable racketeering investigation on the outfit that was acquiring the reserves?" said McCarthy. |
| Tax Bill is Put Up or Shut Up Time for GOP |
| Tue, 24 Oct 2017 16:28:56 EST After a frustrating failure on repealing or even reforming Obamacare, Senate Republicans are about to embark on a tax reform debate that prominent House conservative says will either pass and spark badly needed economic growth or spell doom for the GOP majority in Congress. "If the Senate doesn't vote yes for tax reform, we're out of business. They might as well pack their bags and head for home," said Rep, Dave Brat, R-Virginia, a former economics professor and member of the House Freedom Caucus. He also sits on the House Budget Committee. The first step towards unveiling and advancing specific tax reform legislation is for the House and Senate to agree on a budget. The House version contains far more in spending cuts but GOP leaders are urging House members to approve the Senate bill as it stands since nothing better will emerge in a conference committee. Brat bristles at the thought of losing so many cuts because that limits how aggressive Republicans can be in their tax cut proposals but he says getting tax reform done soon is vital. "We had $200 billion in mandatory reforms that we were pretty happy about achieving. We're going to be giving that up, but if we don't move on taxes right now the alternative is giving up about three weeks and then maybe not getting tax (reform) done before Christmas," said Brat. And why would that delay be so bad? "The longer you wait, the more the swamp engages and takes away their special loopholes and deductions. Those are called pay-fors. If you lose that money, then we will not have the money we need to lower the rates for the middle class," said Brat. Given the Senate's inability to pass anything on the health care front, Brat understands why skepticism abounds over this legislation as well. However, he says the crafting of this legislation has been far different, with key leaders in the House, Senate and the White House agreeing strongly on the framework for legislation. That includes dropping the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, the S Corp or small business rate to 25 percent, providing middle class tax relief and easing the repatriation process for business to return to the United States. While nothing is guaranteed in this political climate, Brat is confident about the progress to this point. "If five or six folks in the Senate decide to put up a roadblock, we're going to be in trouble again, but so far, no one's put up any stark red lines yet," said Brat. One reason for that, Brat suspects, is that politicians who scuttle tax reform will pay a severe price back home. He says the people who flocked to Trump - and to some extent Bernie Sanders - want more money in their paychecks. And he says tax reform is the key to making that happen. "They haven't had a wage increase in 30 years. They rightly know that the swamp and the system up here is rigged in favor of elites and against them. They're demanding attention, so I wouldn't want to be the senator who holds that up. I don't think it'll go too well for them," said Brat. Finding support among Democrats is going to be difficult in any meaningful numbers, as leaders on the left accuse the GOP of catering to the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class and being unconcerned about adding to the deficits after spending eight years castigating President Obama for doubling the national debt. Brat says a look at the facts proves who is more serious about fiscal responsibility. "The progressive Democrat budget they put in two weeks ago: we put in tax cuts and we've got to overcome $1.5 trillion in 10 years with economic growth, which we think we can pull off with some of the other levers as well. "But the Democrats put in a $10 trillion tax increase over 10 years and $11 trillion in new spending and end up with more debt and deficits than we do even though they raise taxes by $10 trillion," said Brat. Brat is also weighing in on a couple other controversies associated with the legislation that still hasn't been introduced. Earlier this week, a tweet from President Trump poured cold water on the reported plan to cap 401(k) contributions at $2,400 per year. Brat says that was never on the table. He also defended the GOP goal of eliminating federal income tax deductions for state and local taxes, saying national tax policy shouldn't be formulated based on what states decide to levy in taxes. "I don't think the federal government should be in the business of picking winners and losers and subsidizing rates that vary across states," said Brat. Eliminating the deduction would hit taxpayers hardest in high-taxing states like New York, California, and New Jersey. "They have high taxes. They have high government services and they like it that way. Why should someone in a low-tax state like Texas or the Midwest be paying for elites on the beaches," said Brat. Brat did not weigh in to a large extent on the Twitter feud between President Trump and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn, other than to say he prefers discussing policy goals rather than social media zingers. "I'm in favor of getting rid of picking winners and losers, saving $1.5 trillion, giving everybody a tax cut, getting economic growth going, putting a couple thousand dollars back in the average family's pocket and getting their kid a job when they get out of college," said Brat, He says this will be a moment of great possibility for young people. "The one thing I can tell them with a straight face is, 'I'm going to pop this economy for you. I'm going to give you a chance. If you want to jump in and go pro-business, I'm going to provide an opportunity for you to set up the rest of your life. I highly encourage everyone to take advantage while we get this economy moving right now," said Brat. |
| Property Rights Advocates Plead with Trump |
| Thu, 19 Oct 2017 16:33:34 EST Property rights advocates are pleading for President Trump to get much more aggressive in rolling back national monument declarations on federal lands, asserting jobs and communities are scarce because of Uncle Sam's tight grip on any sort of activity in those areas. At issue is a 1906 law called the Antiquities Act. Originally designed to protect sensitive areas containing fossils and petrified wood from looters in the sparsely populated western United States, the law gave the president the power to unilaterally protect vulnerable sites, with the specific instruction of taking control of as little land as possible to get the job done. Over the past 111 years, however, the government has gotten far more aggressive in designating larger and larger swaths of lands in the West and elsewhere as national monuments and grinding business and recreational activity to a halt. "They just use it to prevent the American people from using their own land. That's what president Trump said he would end, that he would end this egregious abuse of federal power and return the decisions on how these lands are used to the people who live on the land," said Robert J. Smith, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research. Smith's organization is leading a push consisting of 37 different groups and activists in getting Trump to take decisive action on the issue. They are worried that Trump will tread lightly since Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke conducted a study of what many property rights advocates consider the 27 greatest abuses of the Antiquities Act. They were not impressed with Zinke's conclusions. "I don't think he has really followed the directions he got from President Trump to really look at these and end this abuse of federal power. On most of them, he has essentially left them as they are. I think all these that were under consideration - all 27 - should be rescinded," said Smith. Smith is urging the president not to accept Zinke's recommendations. "When he has finally had a chance to go through Zinke's report, he should send him back to the drawing board and say, 'That's a nice start but now you really have to do what I suggested and that's end this abuse of federal power," said Smith. The Antiquities Act was first used by Theodore Roosevelt to protect Devil's Tower in Wyoming, a designation that put two square miles under tighter federal control. Smith says that cautious approach was largely honored until 1996 and presidents of both parties have pushed the envelope ever since. President Bill Clinton stirred major controversy by designating in 1996 by designating Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante as a national monument without ever conferring with any Utah officials. That move locked up 1.9 million acres of land by the federal government with the stroke of a pen. Smith says there was an ulterior motive than just keeping certain lands pristine. Environmental groups were threatening to boycott Clinton's re-election that year unless he gave them what they wanted in terms of national monument declarations. And why did the green movement have their eyes on that particular land? "Among other things, it included the Kaiparowits coal deposits, one of the two largest EPA-compatible clean coal deposits on the planet, enough clean coal to run the U.S. for hundreds of years," said Smith. Smith says Clinton authorized other major land grabs, so did George W. Bush and he says Barack Obama did it "in spades." In fact Bush and Obama teamed up for an unthinkably huge monument designation that didn't even involve land. "One of those was called the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, created first by George W. Bush and then expanded by Obama. It's 500,000 square miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean," said Smith. Smith says the economic impact of national monument designations has been devastating to job creation and the economies of the local communities. With no development allowed, good jobs in energy exploration, forestry and mining are gone and only low-paying service jobs remain to cater to the tourists visiting the monuments. He says the creeping of federal control also makes if harder for ranchers to let their cattle graze, as locks on grazing areas will suddenly be changed. Even vehicular traffic is greatly restricted in many of these areas despite government promises that would not happen. Smith hopes Trump will push Secretary Zinke to be much more aggressive in his recommendations. But he says Congress ultimately holds the key on this problem and needs to repeal the 1906 Antiquities Act. "It's an antiquated act. These western lands are not unpopulated and unwatched and being looted and pillaged and destroyed today. In fact you just about can't do anything on these lands. Almost everything is now illegal," said Smith. |
| EPA Sinks 'Sue and Settle' |
| Wed, 18 Oct 2017 16:06:33 EST Limited government advocates and property rights champions are cheering Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt for publicly announcing he will scrap the tactic known as "sue and settle" for as long as he is in office. 1cWe will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where doing so would circumvent the regulatory process set forth by Congress, 1d Pruitt said in a statement. So what is "sue and settle?" In short, it's a way that politicians and bureaucrats shift policy by pretending to be in a legal fight with a political ally and altering a specific rule in order to supposedly avoid a lawsuit. Patrick Hedger, manager of the Regulatory Action Center at the FreedomWorks Foundation, offers a more detailed description of how this political and legal charade plays out. "(Government) agencies will sometimes collude with private actors, such as third party non-governmental organizations, non-profits, and other activist organizations in order to facilitate an expedited rule-making process that goes outside the normal rule-making," said Hedger. "There will be a faux lawsuit and instead of taking that suit to court, they will settle it out of court, generally behind closed doors, in a process known as a consent decree. That consent decree will force the agency to act in a way that's normally a lot faster and more aggressive than a normal federal rule-making process," said Hedger. Hedger says this bureaucratic maneuver then provides political cover for an administration that wanted to change the rule all along. "This is a way for agencies to avoid political accountability for controversial decisions. Usually, we've seen very expensive and aggressive regulations being passed, particularly environmental regulations. This is a way for agencies like the EPA, in the past, to say, 'We had our hands tied by this lawsuit,' even though this was their ultimate political goal," said Hedger. Hedger is quick to add that no party is innocent when it comes to using "sue and settle" but some administrations have utilized it much more than others. "This has basically been a bipartisan practice but it accelerated greatly during the Obama administration," said Hedger. He also offered some examples of the more onerous rules established through "sue and settle," including the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule. "It basically forces power plants to put in expensive new infrastructure to achieve extremely stringent emissions standards. That's estimated to cost almost $10 billion annually. There were Clean Water Act rules that applied to the Chesapeake Bay. Those are estimated to cost anywhere from $18-20 billion per year. All of these were achieved through 'sue and settle' litigation," said Hedger. Hedger is thrilled that Pruitt declared an end to a practice that subverts the normal rule-making process. "This is a process that has been used by both Republican and Democratic administrations. This just shows that the Trump administration is very much still committed to getting back to regular order and the proper way of doing things. "Instead of using this political end around to achieve its own goals, the Trump administration is just trying to bring the government back in line with the Constitution and the Administrative Procedures Act, which is supposed to govern regulations," said Hedger. Scrapping "sue and settle" is just one of several moves from Pruitt's EPA that is drawing high praise from limit government activists. Earlier this month, Pruitt announced what many see as the beginning of the end of President Obama's Clean Power Plan, which required substantial decreases in carbon emissions and was considered the death blow to the coal industry. Earlier this year, Pruitt also started the rollback of the Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS. That update changed the definition of navigable waterway from one you could actually navigate with a boat and was usually connected to a larger body of water to virtually and standing water in a drainage ditch or even a puddle. Hedger likes Pruitt's policies but likes his fidelity to his oath even more. "I think Administrator Pruitt is doing a phenomenal job of, first and foremost, putting the Constitution first," said Hedger. "There is a way to achieve a clean environment while also adhering to the rule of law and I think that's the structure that we're seeing from Pruitt's EPA." But while Pruitt is making a lot of big moves, Hedger says the next EPA boss could easily reverse it all. He says lawmakers need to get involved. "This does, at some level, have to fall back on Congress to stop passing these vague laws. Particularly in the case of 'sue and settle,' there are parts of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act that encourage that encourage this type of practice. So Congress should go in and clarify that they never intended for this 'sue and settle' and consent decree practice to happen," said Hedger. Hedger says Pruitt's moves on process and on existing rules are a breath of fresh air to property and business owners. However, he says much more can be done to relieve the regulatory burden on American families and businesses. "Right now, there's so much focus on tax reform, which is good, but if you look at the estimates of the economic burden of federal regulation versus the economic burden of taxes, they estimate that the regulatory burden in this country approaches two trillion dollars per year, which is more than is collected in individual and corporate income taxes," said Hedger. |
| Bolton Talks Iran Deal, ISIS Defeat, Tillerson & Trump |
| Tue, 17 Oct 2017 16:10:40 EST Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says President Trump took a good first step in decertifying the Iran nuclear deal but he says the whole thing must be scrapped in order to remove the smokescreen that Iran is an honest player and end the financial windfall for the the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. Bolton is also cheering the collapse of ISIS and commending President Trump for policy changes that expedited that outcome, however he is deeply concerned about the fate of the Kurds as Iranian-backed militias and even the official Iraqi forces look to force Kurdish fidelity to the regime in Baghdad. And he is also urging Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to get on the same page quickly for the sake of American foreign policy. On Thursday, Trump announced he was decertifying the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, negotiated among the Obama administration, Iran, and five other nations in 2015. Decertifying the agreement does not kill it but gives Congress 60 days to act on it. If Congress cannot reach a consensus on how to move forward, Trump could then decide to abandon the deal. Bolton has long called for a complete withdrawal from the JCPOA, but he is encouraged by Trump's decision to declare Iran non-compliant. "It's certainly much better than recertifying that the deal is in America's national interest. What he did is to at least serve notice that it's not. Nobody should be under any illusions that we're still in the Obama administration," said Bolton. But he says it is vital for Trump to kill the deal once and for all in the next couple of months. "The reason that United States needs to withdraw entirely is to create a new reality, to strip away the camouflage that Iran is provided by this deal, where it gains resources from trade and investment deals from all over the world but basically continues to pursue its nuclear weapons program without adequate inspection or verification," said Bolton. And Bolton is confident that Trump will have the chance to kill it because he has no confidence in Congress. "This basically gives Congress 60 days to see if they can come up with some kind of comprehensive strategy. I have no faith whatever that Congress will be able to do that. "So at 60 days, it'll be back to the president. I'm hoping then that having given the supporters of the deal and the people who think the deal can be improved time to play out their option and failing, that he'll then take the next step and get out of the deal entirely," said Bolton. Bolton says "camouflage" of a compliant, responsible Iran is nonsense. "The argument to stay in the deal is that somehow the deal is constraining them and I believe that it's not. They gave up temporary, easily reversible concessions in exchange for hundreds of billions of dollars of trade and investment and assets being unfrozen," said Bolton. Furthermore, Bolton says Iran's supposed transparency is also a farce. "Every time that the Iranians have made a disclosure about their nuclear program for the last 20 years, it's only been after U.S. intelligence uncovered it or Iranian opposition groups made it public," said Bolton. He says Iran did have one brief moment of honesty that also reveals the futility of the JCPOA. "Just about two months ago now, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that if they made the decision themselves to withdraw from the deal, they could get back to pre-deal levels of uranium enrichment in five days. "Now, you take everything the Iranian leadership says with a big grain of salt but in that case they happen to be right, and it's an indication of just how minimal their concessions were," said Bolton. But if the JCPOA is not an effective nuclear deterrent for Iran, what would be? First, he says it's time for the U.S. to see Iran and North Korea as part of the same nuclear threat instead of separate challenges. He says the following step is to make sure neither rogue actor has nukes. "I know people don't like to hear it but you can't leave the military option off the table because if you believe, as Trump said in his UN speech just about a months ago, that only way forward with North Korea is denuclearization, and I think the same is true with Iran, that means we can't leave the current scenario with them still in possession of nuclear weapons. "Otherwise, they're available to extort and blackmail the United States as far as the eye can see," said Bolton. In neighboring Iraq, the news is better at least for the moment. On Tuesday, U.S.-backed militias said they had routed ISIS in its home base of Raqqa, Syria. U.S. officials indicated there is still work to do but that the vast majority of Raqqa had fallen. Bolton says the speed of military success against ISIS is a big change from the previous administration. "The president is right to say that he significantly speeded up the end of the ISIS caliphate. I think we are at the point where there may still be resistance here and there, but functionally the caliphate is over," he said, while being quick to point out many ISIS figures fled to other hostile nations, so the ISIS threat itself lives on. However, Bolton is worried that the Iraqi forces and the Shia militias backed by the U.S. and Iran are now taking aim at the Kurdish forces in the north, already wresting control of Kirkuk away from the Kurds who saved the city from ISIS. Bolton says the Iraqis and militias are now moving on the Kurdish capital of Irbil and they're doing it with American weapons. He says the Trump administration ought to respond in two ways, help the Kurds now and depose the Iranian government in the long term. "The safety of the United States depends upon the ayatollahs being overthrown. I've believed that ever since the Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979. "In the near term, I think we need to provide the Kurds with the armor and the artillery that, ironically, we've provided the forces of the Baghdad Iraqi government and the Shia militias. The Kurds are now being attacked with American weapons," said Bolton, noting the Kurds have not been given such weapons. Finally, Bolton says only President Trump and Secretary of State Tillerson know the true state of their relationship, but he says it is vital that they get on the same page fast as these two men are at the center of executing American foreign policy. "It's not something you can let drift on and paralyze our decision making. It's just too important of a combination not to have both ends of it working effectively," said Bolton. Bolton has some criticism of Trump on the personnel front. Unlike Trump, he believes it is vital for Trump to nominate good people to fill a myriad of vacancies at the assistant and deputy level in the State Department. He says Trump can't bring about the change in bureaucracy and policy he's promised without putting the right people in critical positions. "The bureaucracy is like a big aircraft carrier. The way it was sailing when the president took office on January 20th is the direction it's going to sail in until somebody says to turn it around. If you don't have people around, your ability to turn it around is greatly reduced. I think that harms the president, ultimately," said Bolton. |
| Iraqis, Kurds Clash in Iraq |
| Mon, 16 Oct 2017 16:17:52 EST While ISIS is pushed to the brink of extinction, the Shia militias and Kurdish fighters who drove the purported caliphate out of Iraq are now fighting each other over control of key areas in northern Iraq and a decorated U.S. general says the ones who benefit are the mullahs in Iran. NBC News reports Monday that Shia militias are launching a "major, multi-pronged attack" aimed at taking away the critically important city of Kirkuk from Kurdish control. The Kurdish peshmerga successfully defended Kirkuk from ISIS three years ago as the Islamists were sweeping through northern and western Iraq and prompting the official Iraqi forces to throw down their weapons and flee from the invaders. Further complicating matters is the non-binding Kurdish referendum on independence last month. The vote passed easily but was seen by the Iraqi government and other anti-Kurdish elements as inflammatory. When ISIS was routed out of Mosul earlier this year, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. General Tom McInerney was sobered by the key role of Shia militias loyal to Iran in that victory. He says the same groups are now turning on the Kurds. "The people attacking them are primarily Shi'ite organizations that the Iranians set up for the Iraqi military. So I think we've got to get our hands on it very quickly and not let it get out of control," said McInerney. When asked if any U.S. sympathy for the Kurdish position would drive the Iraqi government even closer to their Shia brethren in Iran, McInerney says that ship has already sailed. "Let's not kid ourselves. The Iraqi government is already in the hands of Iran. Whether they can go further or not is another question "We're having out own challenge with the Iranian government on the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement. I think you can see this is only going to get worse because of the expansive nature of Iran," said McInerney. While acknowledging this is a complicated and delicate diplomatic dance for the U.S., McInerney says the sacrifices of the Kurds over the years need to be recognized. "This is very complex. My gut feel is clearly that we should be supporting the Kurds. They resurrected Kirkuk when ISIS tries to take it over an d the Iraqi government fled. So they should be given credit for that. "I'm not sure where our government's going to go, but I do believe that we ought to make it so that since the Kurds saved Kirkuk from ISIS that they ought to be given credit for that," said McInerney. McInerney is quite sympathetic towards the creation of an independent Kurdish nation, known as Kurdistan, but also points out that creating that state is contrary to the interests of several nations in the region, since the Kurdish population centers would lead to a nation carved out of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. While admitting the issue is so thorny that he does not have any specific proposals to solve the sectarian schism that's now turning deadly, he says decisive U.S. leadership could well play a key role in preventing the escalation of these renewed tensions. "It's going to take State Department and Defense working closely together with all parties to create a solution that is satisfactory. But it will take U.S. leadership, strong leadership to do that. "I'm delighted that we've got President Trump who'd be willing to make some of the hard decisions on what transpires over there right now. No clear, easy answer," said McInerney. Ultimately, McInerney believes any long term stability will require dealing with the Iranian regime. McInerney says Iran will likely work behind the scenes to kill any agreement that the U.S. finds palatable. He says as long as the mullahs are pulling the strings there and in their own nation, peace will be elusive. "Iran is on a path that we need a regime change with the mullahs. We ought to admit it and there are so many allies over there that will help us change that regime and create a different calculus over there. We need to be looking at that very seriously," said McInerney. |
| John Adams Takes Aim at Activist Attorney General |
| Fri, 13 Oct 2017 16:07:49 EST He's not the same John Adams that played a key role in America's founding, but he is related to our second president and is running for attorney general in Virginia to restore the rule of law and adherence to the Constitution to an office he says is being used for political activism. "I actually am from the same family in Massachusetts and I always tell people I think we're going to be in good shape as long as Thomas Jefferson doesn't get into the race," said Adams. The contest for attorney general is one of three statewide races in Virginia, along with contests for governor and lieutenant governor. The Old Dominion is one of only two states in the U.S. electing top leaders in 2017. New Jersey is the other. Adams is an attorney in private practice who has never before run for public office. But he points to plenty of public service, including time in the U.S. Navy and serving as a federal prosecutor, a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and associate counsel in the President George W. Bush administration. He is challenging incumbent Democrat Mark Herring, who scored a razor-thin and controversial victory over Republican State Sen. Mark Obenshain in 2013 to become attorney general. Adams says Herring has turned the office into a political apparatus for the Democrats. "Our attorney general in Virginia has politicized the office and he's taken it from being the law firm of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which has a lot of important things to do, and he's turned it into almost a political weapon for his causes. To me, that's just entirely improper," said Adams. "In our form of self-government,once the citizens of Virginia decide what they want the law to be and the law is passed, it's the job of the attorney general to defend that law and to support the citizens of Virginia as their lawyer, not to pick and choose what laws he'll defend or even attack," said Adams. Adams says there are several issues on which Herring abdicated his responsibility to defend existing and instead held the opposite position. The most well-known example came on the definition of marriage. Virginia voters approved a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. As a state lawmaker, Herring himself voted to preserve traditional marriage. However, upon entering office in 2014, Herring soon announced he would not defend the amendment against court challenges and actively supported the couples challenging it. Adams says regardless of what voters think about the definition of marriage, Herring's actions were way out of line. "Setting aside what your belief is on the issue, it was not his right as our attorney general to sue his own client on that case and take a position opposite to the people who hired him to be their lawyer. That's really problematic," said Adams. But Herring's activism extends to many more issue and costs Virginia taxpayers a lot of money. "Our voter ID law was challenged. He refused to defend that. That cost Virginia taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, going out and hiring another law firm to do the job the AG should have done," said Adams. Another alleged abdication came on the issue of right to work, a which Virginia law embraces. "He doesn't like right to work laws. He filed briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in a case last year, arguing that public schoolteachers in California should be required to join a union to get a job. but that's not the law and policy of Virginia. And we shouldn't have an attorney general using our attorney general's office to pursue his own political agenda," said Adams. Adams is also slamming Herring for being a political activist on issues such as concealed carry and illegal immigration. "(Herring) singlehandly revoked concealed carry reciprocity, which was so outlandish that he was overruled by that bastion of conservatism, (Virginia Democratic Gov.) Terry McAuliffe. Mark Herring did that and people remember it and they know it. "His decision on allowing in-state slots and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants is something he did on his own," said Adams. In addition to defending laws on the books, Adams says the attorney general needs to exercise good judgment in deciding which cases to prosecute and he says Herring has dropped the ball there as well. "As the attorney general, when do you use the power of the attorney general's office to go on offense to sue, typically the federal government, could be another state or other entities. Clearly Mr. Herring uses that power in a very highly political, highly partisan way," said Adams. As an example, Adams pointed to Herring challenging the Trump administration's travel ban. "His challenge to the immigration executive order, which he called unconstitutional and un-American. They lost 9-0 in the U.S. Supreme Court. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't agree," said Adams. There are also major ethical concerns, including Herring's repurposing of money from a fund created from seized assets that the previous attorney general had set aside to assist victims of human trafficking. The Associated Pres reported earlier this year that Herring used that money to give raises to his lawyers and other staff. "As a policy matter, we don't allow them to use that money for pay raises or bonuses because that gives terrible incentives to give those in the government [reason] to seize assets," said Adams. With that track record over the past four years, Adams says it's not hard to make a case against another term for Herring. "He's actually not running on his record. I'm running on his record. He's trying to run from it. but he's got it. We've gotten a lot of attention and we feel great about it coming down the homestretch," said Adams. Adams is well-versed on his indictment of Herring, but how would he conduct himself as attorney if elected. "I'm a lawyer. I have a client and my client is Virginia. If the federal government, for example, exceeds its legal authority and harms Virginia, then I will go on offense because that's my job. I'm a lawyer and I know how to do it," said Adams, noting that he has experience as a prosecutor and Herring does not. He says he has no problem filing suit against an administration of either party if he believes it is violating the law and harming Virginia. "I'll go against the federal government whether there is a Democrat president or a Republican president. It doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is I have a client. That client is the sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia. The citizens of Virginia have a right to govern themselves. If their rights are infringed by the federal government, I will take action to defend those rights," said Adams. Adams says it goes without saying that he will vigorously defend all laws on the books in Virginia and that he will also take aim at growing problems like the opioid epidemic and rising crime due to the scourge of gang violence in several Virginia cities. With federal politics playing out just across the river in Washington and two other races higher on the ballot, it would be easy for the attorney general's race to take a very low profile, but Adams says Herring's record is well known by the voters even before they hear his message. Adams promises Virginians will "be sick of me by the end of the next few weeks" as he plans an aggressive campaign to highlight Herring's record and his own promises. As always, Adams says the results come November will depend upon turnout. "This is coming down to the wire. The most important thing is for people to get out and vote on November 7th. Call all your friends, your family, your friends from church, your co-workers. If we're going to restore some sanity to the attorney general's office, we need to get everyone out to vote on November 7th," said Adams. |
| 'They're Desperate for Relief and This is Going to Help the People' |
| Thu, 12 Oct 2017 16:24:08 EST Frustrated by congressional gridlock and endless reports of massive premium hikes for the coming year, President Trump Thursday signed an executive order that utilizes the free market to give struggling Americans more and cheaper health care options until lawmakers come up with something permanent. The executive order directs the Department of Labor to allow the creation of association health plans, or AHP's, which give the green light for Americans to pool resources and negotiate better rates for premiums, deductibles, and co-payments. It also suggests current law can be interpreted to allow for the purchasing of health coverage across state lines. Free market health policy experts have been pushing these policies for years as a way of leaving the power and flexibility with the people rather than force everyone onto government-approved plans. Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says President Trump just couldn't wait any longer for Congress to move. "Clearly, the president is using the authority he has under existing law to give people relief from Obamacare. Congress has tried and has not yet succeeded in getting actual legislation passed," said Turner, who expects the GOP-controlled Congress to try again on health care early next year. But even as Trump signed the executive order to advance conservative policy goals, critics on the right and the left publicly question whether he can do that unilaterally or whether that sort of change can only come through an act of Congress. Turner is confident that Trump is on solid constitutional ground. "This is legal. They have to go through a rule-making procedure in order to be able to propose the rule, get public comment, then go to the final rule. Then it will be awhile before it can be implemented. So this is not going to be something that's implemented overnight," said Turner. She is hopeful that at least some aspects of the executive order can be in place by the start of 2018. Turner is bullish about several options afforded to Americans through the executive order, staring with association health plans, which she says are a great alternative to those trapped in the Obamacare exchanges. "As we know, many people say those (Obamacare) plans are so generous and so rich that they just can't afford the premiums. This will allow people to purchase policies that fit them better and can aggregate people across state lines," said Turner. Another area of relief could be Trump's expansion of low cost short-term limited duration insurance, or STLDI. "The Obama administration limited these policies to simply three months, a one-time purchase. What that meant is that if somebody was in a transition between jobs and they wanted to keep their health insurance and they've taken a year to find a new job, then they could be without health insurance for three or four months or longer," said Turner. The Trump version of STLDI would last one year. The executive order also offers greater flexibility in the use of Health Reimbursement Arrangements, or HRA's. "They're sort of like Health Savings Accounts, but run by employers and allow people to use those deposits to purchase their own health insurance," said Turner. "The way that might work is if two people, a husband and wife, both have the offer of health insurance at work, they can decide which policy they want as a family policy. Then the other person could contribute to the premium out of their Health Reimbursement Arrangement or use that money to pay deductibles or co-payments," said Turner. Watching insurer after insurer announce major premium increases in the individual market exchanges is forcing the issue here. Turner says Trump had to act. "Without this, we are going to see uninsured rates rise. We've got to give people relief," said Turner. Turner says the renewed flexibility patients will have in deciding what their plans cover will invariably lead to lower premiums. While the price drop will vary from state to state, Turner is confident many people could see premium reductions of 20 percent or more. Democrats are hammering the executive order as a terrible idea that will lower the quality of coverage and still leave Americans with steep premiums. Turner says the status is simply no longer an option. "They're saying, 'Oh, this is going to destabilize the pools and all the younger, healthy people are going to join these plans and they're going to leave the exchanges.' The exchanges are collapsing anyway. They're being pushed out of Obamacare," said Turner. "People who don't get subsidies are getting hammered by Obamacare because they can't afford the policies. You just can't have premiums continuing to go up 20 and 30 percent a year. Right now people are paying more for their health insurance in many cases than they're paying for their rent or their mortgage. "That is not sustainable so they're desperate for relief and this is going to help the people who are not getting subsidies," said Turner. "We've got to give tens of millions of struggling Americans help. This is a step in that direction," said Turner. |
| 'It Leads to A Trail of Corpses' |
| Wed, 11 Oct 2017 16:29:03 EST Free college, free health care, and government-defined income levels are all increasingly popular notions among the political left in the United States, but they are also raising concerns among opponents that some of the basic tenets of communism are alive and well in the United States. This month marks 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia that led to the creation of the Soviet Union and the murders of tens of millions of people. After a century of economic and humanitarian horrors, the growing embrace of socialist and communist principles in the political and academic realm is clear. But why are these ideas still popular given communism's track record of bloody failure? "Education, education, education. Or maybe I should say miseducation, miseducation, miseducation or ignorance, ignorance, ignorance. It all kind of goes together," said Grove City College Political Science Professor Paul Kengor, who is also the author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism: The Killingest Idea Ever." "This is the natural byproduct of our K-12 public schools, our government schools, and especially our universities failing to teach people the horrors of communism," said Kengor. He says academia at all levels dropped the ball on the atrocities of the past 100 years and beyond. "They've done a bang-up job teaching the evils of Nazism and fascism. But for the 100th anniversary of Bolshevism and the Communist Revolution, which is what we're at right now in October 2017. Everybody should be able to say, 'Oh yeah, they killed a hundred million people, didn't they?'" said Kengor. Kengor says parents need to stop sending their kids to expensive schools only for their kids to be indoctrinated by '60s radicals who are sympathetic to communism. "If you took Johnny or Susie, who you spent the first 18 years of his or her life teaching them the right things and then you send them off to that secular college, that liberal insane asylum, and handed twenty to thirty to forty thousand dollars a year of your life savings and at Christmas-time came back with their own definitions of marriage and gender and telling you why you're a fascist for not supporting government funding of Planned Parenthood, you helped make this possible. You should not send your kids to these colleges," said Kengor. He says knowingly sending your kids to schools to embrace socialist and communist ideas is doing exactly what radicals like Lenin would have wanted you to do. "These are academic indoctrination centers and if you send your kids to these schools, you are going to be paying for them to have their minds destroyed. "Vladimir Lenin said, and I quote this in the book, 'Give me four years with a child and the seed that I plant will never be removed," said Kengor. In the book, Kengor says the education on communism is so bad that a survey a few years back showed roughly a quarter of Americans thought George W. Bush killed more people than Joseph Stalin. He points out Stalin's death toll even dwarfs that of Adolf Hitler. "I'm sure that the vast majority of Americans think that Hitler killed more people than Stalin, when in fact Stalin killed - by some accounts, including Alexander Yakovlev - he said Stalin alone killed 60-70 million people. Hitler killed about 10 million. "Stalin's not even the greatest killer. Mao is," said Kengor referring to communist Chinese despot Mao Zedong. "This is a frightful dangerous ideology. People don't know that because we fail to educate them," added Kengor. Defenders of Marxism and communism suggest bad leaders are responsible for the genocide rather than the ideology itself. Kengor says the record is clear. "People have done it right. That's what it comes down to. What other ideology or system that has been tried by so many different people on every different continent and every different ethnic group and nationality, and yet everywhere it goes it leads to a trail of corpses," said Kengor. He says genocide is a necessary aspect of communism, and the proof is right there in "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. "Like Marx and Engels themselves said, 'Despotism will of course be necessary in implementing this," said Kengor. |
| EPA Scraps Obama 'Clean Power' Plan |
| Tue, 10 Oct 2017 16:30:19 EST An Obama-era plan to drastically reduce carbon emissions is on its way to the regulatory scrap heap after the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday announced a repeal of the Clean Power Plan. For Americans already struggling with much higher energy costs, this news will be welcome in many households trying to make ends meet. "This was designed to cause electricity rates, according to [Obama] to necessarily skyrocket. So that won't happen. The seniors, the poor on low and fixed income who had to choose between heating and eating will now, we hope, not have to," said Horner. The Trump administration projects this move will result in $33 billion in avoided costs due to the proposed policy. Horner suspects the actual number is much higher. Even though the plan was never implemented, Horner says it still exacted a heavy toll on blue collar America. "He put a lot of people out of work. A lot of communities were devastated. There's an inescapable connection between the opioid epidemic in that region and the devastation that was wrought by what was clearly a political and not an environmental agenda," said Horner. "He thought he was punishing corporations. He harmed badly many communities and the people in them," added Horner. Horner says the outlook is getting brighter and will be helped by Tuesday's EPA action. But he says a lot of the damage is permanent. "Employment in that industry is rebounding. I don't know that it will ever get to where it was before it faces the awesome power of the federal government," said Horner. What makes the toll even more tragic, according to Horner, is that the Obama administration freely admitted the crackdown on carbon emissions wouldn't actually accomplish anything. "The former EPA administrator under President Obama (Gina McCarthy), who is decrying the climate impact of this decision, testified that there was no detectable climate impact from this rule. There is actually a consensus on this," said Horner. So what was the point of the tougher emissions standards if they weren't going to improve our climate? Horner says Obama was very clear about it. "He said in four speeches, in the exact same deliberate phrase, 'This to finally make renewable energy profitable in America. That's what this was about. It was never about the climate," said Horner. But while Horner and his allies celebrate Tuesday's decision, he says the fight is far from over. "We will start a rule making process. Today begins the repeal, a 60-day comment period to be followed by another request for comments about what to replace it with if anything," said Horner, who is urging Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to scrap another Obama-era finding. "They also made a declaration that carbon dioxide, a marginal greenhouse gas produced at the margins by man - not just through exhaling but by combusting hydrocarbon energy, the stuff that works, the reliable, affordable, abundant stuff. The administration now has to determine whether that really does endanger human health and welfare," said Horner. In urging the EPA to go further, Horner also applauds Trump and Pruitt for a move on Tuesday that he believes many other Republicans would be reluctant to take. "We say pull it out root and branch. This is a very good start. I have to say most establishment Republicans would have shied from it and hoped for the best from the courts. We're asking, now that these people have shown that they're serious, fix the problem and undo the endangerment finding," said Horner. He says that explicit step is critical since domestic activists and even the United Nations are asking the courts in the U.S. to effectively make policy instead of the executive branch. "You will have to replace it because this doesn't have to go through Congress anymore. There's enough on the books that the courts will take this over. The UN is issuing reports calling on attorneys general and private parties to ask the courts to take over this policy now, including the United States, to impose the Paris Treaty on us and so forth," said Horner. He says defenders of freedom need to stand in the gap against that unconstitutional effort and any future efforts to repeat Obama's moves. "It was a cruel gesture. It was virtue signaling. Thank God the EPA has said, 'We're going to formally repeal this rule.' Let's fix the problem and make it more difficult for someone like a President Warren to just come in and do this again," he said. |
| Lott: Gun Control Ideas Would Accomplish Very Little |
| Thu, 5 Oct 2017 15:10:04 EST In the wake of the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas, many politicians, celebrities, and activists are calling for a variety of gun control measures to be enacted to prevent such carnage again, but leading gun scholar Dr. John Lott says the proposals either already failed to stop killers or would do little more than serve as a political win that doesn't make anyone safer. Lott is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and is the author of multiple books on guns, including "More Guns, Less Crime." He says an irresponsible media started parroting the talking points of gun control advocates long before we had any idea of how the alleged shooter obtained his firearms and says the press has no intention of being impartial on this issue. "The politicians say things like, 'We need universal background checks.' No one in the media would say, 'We don't know whether it would have stopped this one yet but can you point to one of the past mass public shootings it would have stopped. Just one. Can you point to one?' But the media doesn't ask questions like that," said Lott. Not only will most television reporters and anchors refuse to ask challenging questions, but Lott says all of their guests think in lockstep as well. "I'd love to be on CNN or MSNBC. Instead they have panels of four people that all agree with each other," said Lott. In the days since the atrocities in Las Vegas, several consistent proposals have been raised, ranging from universal background checks to blocking anyone on the No Fly List from buying a gun, and from reinstating the "assault weapons ban" to banning bump stock, which is used to convert a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic one. Lott responded to each of these demands, starting with a push for universal background checks that he says restricts freedom. "Universal background checks would have background checks on the private transfer of guns. It wouldn't have stopped this attack. It wouldn't have stopped any attacks in the Obama administration and wouldn't have stopped attacks for years before that," said Lott. He also says the cost of background checks, which start at $55 in Oregon and get progressively higher in other states, could be a barrier to poor and minority Americans affording a firearm, and he says they often need that protection more than the rest of us. Both President Obama and Hillary Clinton urge gun rights to be tied to the No Fly List, arguing that anyone suspicious enough to be kept off our airplanes ought to be prevented from owning a gun. Lott says that would be a bureaucratic nightmare that would be far more complicated than most people think. "The No Fly List under the Obama administration doesn't have anything to do with whether the person is trusted or not. The Obama administration increased the number of people on the No Fly List by tenfold over what it was before. They have lots of people who are people of interest to talk to because the people might know something that might be useful in their investigation," said Lott. Nonetheless, he says Republicans have offered to meet Democrats halfway on the No Fly List approach to gun rights, but the Democrats won't play ball. "The Republicans have said, 'Fine, you can put people on the No Fly List and you can ban them from buying a gun but you have to give the person an option to be able to go to court and go and get his name removed from the list.' "The Democrats think that's horrible. They think once some unnamed bureaucrat puts you on a list there, you should be stuck on it and there shouldn't be judicial oversight of that. That's been the whole crux of the difference," said Lott. Another frequent Democratic allegation is that President Trump and congressional Republicans made it easier for mentally ill people to obtain firearms earlier this year. Lott says that is a gross distortion of the truth. "At the end of the Obama administration, they pushed through a rule that for Social Security recipients, that if you receive help on your finances - such as you had somebody you had given power of attorney to to handle them for you - you would be declared mentally incompetent and banned from owning a gun," said Lott. Lott used his own mother as an example of someone losing their constitutional rights in this scenario, since she has given her daughter power of attorney in financial matters. He says the Obama rule effectively disarmed 4.2 million Americans. "My research shows that it's basically people who are relatively weaker physically, women and the elderly, who benefit disproportionately from having the option to go and defend themselves," said Lott. From 1994-2004, the so-called assault weapons ban was in effect. It was passed into law during the Clinton administration but the George W. Bush administration allowed it to expire. Senators like Minority Leader Chuck Schumer , D-N.Y., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are once again demanding that the ban be reinstated. Lott says the assault weapons ban was entirely about appearances. "They picked a lot of guns (to ban) based on how they look rather than how they function. Assault weapons were semi-automatic guns that looked like military weapons, although the inside guts of the guns were the same as any small caliber hunting rifle. "I don't know why anyone would expect any impact on crime rates by banning guns based on how they look," said Lott. Lott says there are three types of guns. "There's manually loaded guns. Pull the trigger, a bullet fires, and then you physically have to put another bullet in the chamber of the gun. You have semi-automatics. One pull of the trigger, one bullet comes out. The gun reloads itself. Then you have fully automatic or machine guns, where as long as the trigger is depressed, you'll see lots of bullets coming out," said Lott. He says the attempt to ban semi-automatic firearms puts the law abiding gun owner at a major disadvantage in a crisis. "If you have two criminals attacking you and you fire a warning shot or you miss, you may not have luxury of time to go and manually reload your gun to be able to go and shoot it a second time. I don't think most civilians who want to defend themselves want to be there. The vast majority of guns sold in the United States are semi-automatic guns. So that would be a ban on most guns," said Lott. The idea getting favorable bipartisan reviews as well as a thumbs up from the National Rifle Association is greater regulation or outright banning of bump stocks. Lott has no problem with that move but warns it won't accomplish much. "People shouldn't be led to believe that somehow some guy like this guy (in Las Vegas) isn't going to be able to easily make these types of things on his own. Maybe not easily, but he'll be able to figure out how to do it. And he'll do it," said Lott. So is there any gun policy that Lott would change to help eliminate mass shootings to at least limit the carnage? "In 98-plus percent of these mass public shootings since 1970, these attackers have gone in places where they knew victims weren't able to defend themselves, so-called Gun-Free Zones where general citizens weren't allowed to have guns for protection," said Lott. "The reason why they go and do that is because they may be crazy in some sense, but they're not stupid. They want to kill as many people as possible. And they know if they go to a place where people can't protect themselves, they're going to be able to go and kill more people," said Lott. |
| Huckabee Talks Trump, New TV Show |
| Wed, 4 Oct 2017 16:29:38 EST Mike Huckabee has a new TV show and he has plenty to say about it and his first guest. "We had a little difficulty getting somebody who makes news, but we got the next best thing we could. President Trump is going to be our very first guest on our very first show," said Huckabee. Huckabee was governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007 and later sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016. In between those campaigns for the White House, Huckabee hosted the highly-rated "Huckabee" each week on the Fox News Channel. His new program, also entitled "Huckabee," premieres Saturday, October 7, at 8 p.m. ET on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, or TBN. As he prepares to interview Trump, Huckabee says he, like many other Americans, is frustrated by the lack of progress of major legislation. "I think he's got to get the Republicans to understand they weren't elected to go up there and sit on their hands. Many of us are extremely frustrated that after seven-and-a-half years of saying they would repeal and replace Obamacare if they had an opportunity. They've had two great opportunities and they've blown both of them. There's just no excuse for that," said Huckabee. However, he is quick to assert that Trump does not deserve the blame. "I can't blame that on the president. I've got to blame it on the members of the Congress who were very disingenuous in saying they were going to do something and it turns out they didn't have any intention of getting it done. That is a leadership issue in the Congress. The president has done his part," said Huckabee. Huckabee also has strong words for GOP members who he believes allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. "Some of the Republicans have to understand that if it's an all-or-nothing, now-or-never proposition for them, they're going to get nothing and they're going to get it forever. You can't have people walking into the kitchen, 535 members of the House and Senate, all bring their spoon and their spice and saying, 'I want it just like I want it.' Doesn't work like that," he said. Huckabee is known for his good-natured political sparring, so what does he think of Trump's combative style with the media? He sees Trump doing an excellent job of taking his message straight to the people. "Clearly the media does not care much for President Trump and I think they make that so very vividly clear. But he has a way around them. He has social media. He can go on shows like mine, which he's going to do this weekend. He'll be able to talk to America, where he doesn't get filtered by a reporter from the New York Times or the Washington Post," said Huckabee. Huckabee has a very personal connection to the Trump administration's confrontation with the left-leaning press. His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, serves as White House Press Secretary. Huckabee says her unflappable style is very impressive in a fairly hostile atmosphere. "People ask me, 'Are you nervous when she goes up there?' Absolutely not. I have every confidence that's she's absolutely capable of doing that job and doing it well. I watch, basically saying, 'Way to go, girl. Good job,'" said Huckabee. He says the secret to Sanders staying calm is her refusal to escalate the tensions in the press room. "She never takes that stuff personally. She's lived her whole life, since the time she was a little kid, in the world of politics. So she's not shocked by all of the stuff that she sees and hears every day. It's kind of old hat to her. They're just not going to be able to get under her skin," said Huckabee. From his daughter's work in the West Wing to his own endorsement of Trump last year after ending his own campaign, Huckabee has spent plenty of private time with President Trump. He is very impressed with the man he's gotten to know. "He's really an incredibly gracious, personable, warm individual. His relationship to his children is enviable. There's no father in America that would not to have the kind of closeness and repoire with his adult children any more than he does," said Huckabee. "I've seen a lot of political people who would come from backstage, they would walk out to the crowd. They would hold hands, they would wave and they would smile. I would see them backstage and it was anything but that. With Donald Trump, the most warm moments are the ones backstage when no one is there but his family," said Huckabee. While some Republicans are wary of Trump doing business with key Democrats on immigration and federal spending, Huckabee says it sets a positive precedent. "It's kind of like how we're going to approach issues on the show. I want to get Democrats on the show and ask, 'How do you fix this? What is your idea?' They may have some good ones. And I'm not going to yell and scream at them and talk on top of them so we can't hear what they say," said Huckabee. "Sometimes what they say may come across as ridiculous. If it does, it does, but we need a country where there really is that kind of give and take that I feel like we have been missing for a long time," he added. In that vein, Huckabee vows his show will not be the traditional fare of competing talking heads. "I want to make sure that we don't do it in a way that's become increasingly prevalent, which is what I call political ping pong. You get a couple of people, one on the left and one on the right, and they just bounce back and forth between very predictable talking points," said Huckabee. How will his program be different? Huckabee says he's taking a "vertical" approach as opposed to a horizontal one. "Rather than focus so much on the left versus the right, I want to talk about what makes [things] better, what makes [them] worse, what are the real solutions and not just to play the blame game and point fingers. How could we fix health care? Why haven't we? I want to give the viewer an understanding of how government actually works and why things either happen or don't," said Huckabee. The show is not just politics. Huckabee says there will be a lot of music and other entertainment. He is excited to host the show from Nashville and tap all the talent in Music City, but he also plans to highlight the uplifting stories found all across America. He says the heroes in Las Vegas this week are a perfect example. "There were people who were laying their lives down for others, risking their lives. Many people came out of their without their shirts because they had torn them to make tourniquets and bandages for people they didn't even know," said Huckabee. "That's who we are as a country. We're not the guy on the thirty-second floor indiscriminately killing people. We're the people who rushed to the sounds of the guns so that we could help those who had been shot. That's the America that we need to put a big focus on and shine the spotlight on it," said Huckabee. |
| Billy Graham Team Reaches Out to Las Vegas |
| Tue, 3 Oct 2017 16:29:36 EST As countless families and friends grieve the deaths of loved ones, pray for the recovery of the wounded, or search frantically for news about their loved ones, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is deploying chaplains from the area and around the nation to minister to those impacted by the horrific shooting. The Rapid Response Team was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has ministered to people following more than 300 acts of violence and natural disasters since that time. Just this year, chaplains responded to the Berlin truck attack, terrorism in Barcelona and Manchester, and in the wake of deadly hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. It's mission is simple. "We do it to share the love and compassion that we know comes from the only God that we serve and comes through His Son, Jesus Christ," said Jeff Nader, manager of chaplain development and chaplain relations at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Monday morning, the group immediately made plans to help in Las Vegas. "We stopped everything else we were doing in the office and dedicated every minute to moving chaplains in this direction," said Nader. "Today we have 18 chaplains here on the ground, many of them just landed. We had chaplains out near the site of the shooting last night and around Mandalay Bay until midnight." Nader says the Rapid Response Team ministers in multiple ways, but he says the biggest focus is on the ministry of presence, literally just being there for hurting people. "Most people can probably look back on a time when they were sitting in an emergency room waiting area or someplace else, wishing someone else was there with them during their lonely time. Having a chaplain walk up just to be there with them is over half the work that we do," said Naber. "That's going on right now and I ask you to pray at this very moment for people who are talking with and for people who are standing next to one of our chaplains, that they would feel the love and they would feel the compassion that flows from our chaplains to them from Christ," said Naber. The next focal point is praying with the people impacted by the massacre. "Since I've been here, I've prayed with people at the airport. I've prayed with people who were serving me food. I prayed with the person at the (hotel) front desk. We ask people if they would like to pray, not to pray for them but to pray with them," said Naber. "In this town, with what happened, everyone just stops what they're doing and openly says yes when we ask that question about prayer," said Naber. The third element of the Rapid Response Team is to share the gospel. "We pray that the Holy Spirit will open the hearts of people. Its not everyone we come in contact with but specific people, that their hearts are open and that they would be accepting of not only hearing the message of salvation, but of accepting Jesus as their savior," said Naber. As the days march on, the team will look to connect people they minister to with local churches. The Rapid Response Team is accustomed to getting some blowback to its presence in these places. Naber says some don't want them there, but that doesn't change the mission. "We know there are people and groups that oppose us. But we're to love on them the same as anyone else. We will probably have opportunities here to meet people who are opposed to what out mission is and may be opposed to God," said Naber. He says the ministry is to the entire Las Vegas community because virtually everyone has some sort of personal connection with people impacted by the attack. "An event like this can have such a devastating impact on the emotional and spiritual parts of us. It can effect the whole community and that's what we're here for is to help people through that time and to show them the love and the comfort that only comes from our Savior, Jesus Christ," said Naber. |
| 'We Are Hurting and Only God Can Heal America' |
| Mon, 2 Oct 2017 16:53:34 EST As Americans stand horrified by the atrocities in Las Vegas, a leading Christian author says turning to God is the only way to heal this nation from wounds of division, violence, and even natural disasters. Dr. Michael Brown is a national radio host and a contributing editor at thestream.org. His latest book is "Saving A Sick America." "America is hurting, be it from the hurricanes ravaging our nation, be it from the murders that take place in our inner cities every single day, be it from the racial strife and division that's in our nation to the mass murders. We are hurting and only God can heal America," said Brown. He says with the onslaught of horrible news in recent weeks and recent years, it's easy to lose sight of just how devastating events like the concert shooting in Las Vegas is, with at least 58 people dead and more than 500 injured. "We become so desensitized that I don;t even know if we understand how evil evil really is, how dark dark really is. What's going to make it apparent? The light shining. Martin Luther Kind said, 'The church has to be reminded it's not the master of the state or the servant of the state but the conscience of the state,'" said Brown. "My greatest concern is not so much with the presence of darkness but with the absence of light," added Brown. Brown says a reliance on God is vital to America thriving again. "America can only be great if America is good. America cannot be good without God. The founding of our nation attached our freedoms to morality and morality to God," said Brown. However, Brown is very quick to clarify that the carnage inflicted in Las Vegas is the responsibility of one depraved gunman with massive firepower and should not be interpreted as dive judgment. "This [isn't] because of gays or abortion. No. There's a madman who's a murderer. He and anyone who's complicit with him, he or they alone are responsible. I am not saying, oh this is because they're in Las Vegas and it's in Sin City. Come on. These are people attending a country music concert. They're just like anybody else, any other family," said Brown. "To make it as if they're the worst of sinners or this because of is Las Vegas or this is God's wrath. No, this is human evil," said Brown. So what does a nation turning to God look like? Brown begins by explaining what it doesn't include. "I'm not talking about a theocracy. I'm not talking about imposing the Bible on the culture and hitting people over the head with it. I'm saying that our very liberties, our very foundation are based on scriptural principles, on human beings being created in the image of God and our need for him as a creator. If we turn back to Him, I believe He'll help us," said Brown. "The problems are too big. This is not a gun control issue. This is a political issue. There's no social band-aid. We need to say, 'God, right now we need you.' I don't think there's any other solution," said Brown. Brown says it's clear to him that's there's only one smart direction for America to turn. "Where are we going to go? Who can help us? Who's big enough? You going to look to the president? You going to look to the Republican Party, the Democrat Party, the media? Even the church itself is often so compromised. Many times our pulpits sound like they're entertaining people than challenging people. "We need a fresh awakening. The bad news is I think America's in critical condition. The good news is we've had really dark times before in our nation and those were followed by Great Awakenings," said Brown. He says such an awakening is possible because God rescued him from being "a heroin-shooting, LSD-using hippy rock drummer" in 1971. Brown says Christians need to be the light that Jesus called them to be. "I don't believe people are really turning away from God. They're turning away from religion as they know it. I believe if we could come - not with just a pep talk message but with a real message of truth. If those who claim to follow Jesus and believe the Bible can demonstrate there's a better way, I believe our families will be healthier, our kids would be healthier, our country would be healthier," said Brown. |
| Moore Victory Sends Shockwaves Through GOP |
| Wed, 27 Sep 2017 16:59:59 EST Roy Moore defeated interim Sen. Luther Strange in the run-off for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Alabama Tuesday, a decisive win that the Senate Conservatives Fund says is already having reverberations throughout the nation. Moore, twice elected Chief Justice of Alabama and twice removed for refusing to follow federal court orders on the Ten Commandments and same-sex marriage, defeated Strange by roughly ten percentage points. Strange was appointed to the seat earlier this year by disgraced former Gov. Robert Bentley following the confirmation of former Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. Not only did Moore win and win easily, he also overcame millions of dollars in attack ads from the Senate Leadership Fund, which is closely aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Moore also won despite President Trump's active support for Sen. Strange. Senate Conservatives Fund President Ken Cuccinelli says the impact of Moore's win is huge. "Judge Moore's spectacular performance and the support of the Alabama's grassroots was a sign across this country that the grassroots is serious about draining the swamp, about repealing Obamacare, about getting rid of amnesty and building the wall and all of those substantive reasons that motivated people to give the Republicans the majority in the first place," said Cuccinelli. He says the willingness of GOP voters in Alabama to defy Trump showed how deep the frustration goes with the status quo in Washington. "The people of Alabama were serious about that. They were so serious about it that they disregarded the president's endorsement of Judge Moore's opponent because they knew the president was just trying to be nice to Mitch McConnell and this race really turned into Moore vs. McConnell," said Cuccinelli. "Ten million dollars and the president and the vice president could not save Luther Strange from the albatross around his neck in Mitch McConnell and the Gang of Five, the leadership team that loomed so large to the grassroots in Alabama," he added. Cuccinelli says a look at Strange's voting record over the past few months wouldn't necessarily alarm most conservatives but he says Strange's alliance with McConnell turned into a liability. "Luther Strange bought a ticket on the first-class cruise liner that was the SS McConnell. It turned out to be the Titanic," said Cuccinelli. "Luther is no Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski, but he made it very clear from the moment he arrived in Washington that he was going to be on the McConnell team and Mitch McConnell is bad for America." pronounced Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli didn't stop there. "People think in terms of Republican-Democrat. Everything isn't Republican Democrat. When we talk right-left, Mitch McConnell is part of the left. He's part of the big government cronyism that is destroying this country," said Cuccinelli. "If we're going to get America on a track to saving it for our children and grandchildren, Mitch McConnell is part of the problem, not the solution," added Cuccinelli. So how does this reverberate beyond Alabama? Cuccinelli says McConnell allies started sprinting before the exits even before the polls closed on Tuesday. "Roy Moore didn't just unseat appointed Sen. Luther Strange. He also forced the retirement of Bob Corker," said Cuccinelli, alluding to the decision of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn,. not to seek a third term in 2018. Cuccinelli says the private data from the Moore-Strange race was clear days ago that Moore would win handily, and he believes Corker saw the handwriting on the wall for his own re-election bid. "Bob Corker wanted to get out before it looked like he was running scared from his own grassroots. But, you know, that's exactly what he was doing with his retirement yesterday," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli also asserts that the fact the Senate Leadership Fund was even involved in a GOP primary belies what McConnell's goal really is in campaigns across the country. "Mitch McConnell says, 'Donate to my Super PAC so we can keep a Republican majority. That is not what the Senate Leadership Fund is about. It's about protecting the Gang of Five and keeping Mitch McConnell leader. It has nothing to do with making America better. It has nothing to do with a Republican majority," said Cuccinelli. He says the Senate Leadership Fund will go all-in for candidates who are kindred spirits with McConnell but will leave strong conservatives twisting in the wind. "Last year, they wouldn't lift a finger - well they lifted their middle finger - but they wouldn't lift a finger to help Darryl Glenn in one of only two states Republicans could win last year. and you know why they wouldn't help Darryl Glenn in Colorado? Because he's a conservative who wouldn't knee-jerkingly support the leadership. "Here's a black conservative veteran, graduate of the Air Force Academy elected in one of the biggest counties in Colorado. They refused to support him despite the fact that he's a candidate practically out of central casting from the 2012 Republican autopsy," said Cuccinelli. "They wouldn't support him because they wouldn't support Mitch McConnell. They were willing to risk the majority rather than support conservative Darryl Glenn last year. So no one should be fooled by Mitch McConnell's so-called commitment to the Republican Party or the Republican majority. Mitch is for Mitch," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli is bullish on the midterm elections, not only in the possibility of insurgent conservatives replacing existing Republicans loyal to McConnell but in conservatives winning nominations and defeating Democrats in states Trump won big. Specifically, he's excited about the candidacies of Matt Rosendale against Sen. Jon Tester in Montana, Josh Mandel versus Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio and West Virginia Attorney General vying for the nomination to face Sen. Joe Manchin. "This is the best cycle we've seen for conservatives that we've seen, frankly, since 2010," said Cuccinelli. "There's an awful lot of opportunity, not just to get Republicans replacing Democrats but to get good Republicans replacing Democrats." |
| 'That Is a Direct Assault on the First Amendment' |
| Tue, 26 Sep 2017 16:29:11 EST The lawyers for the Christian owners of a Minnesota video services company are firing back after a federal judge there called the couple's efforts to limit their wedding work to heterosexual couples "akin to a 18White Applicants Only 19 sign." Carl and Angel Larsen operate Telescope Media, a video business that the Larsens want to include wedding videos. But they have a problem in the recently amended Minnesota Human Rights Act, which forbids businesses to treat people differently based upon 1crace, color, national origin, sex, disability (or) sexual orientation. 1d Violation of the Human Rights Act could result in fines as high as $25,000 per violation. The Larsens launched a pre-emptive lawsuit that was rejected last week by federal Judge John Tunheim, who wrote that the effort by the Larsens to film weddings but decline requests to video same-sex ceremonies was "akin to a 18White Applicants Only 19 sign." The Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, is representing the Larsens. Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs says Judge Tunheim's rationale is way off base. "That comparison is entirely false. The Larsens do not discriminate based off of any status. They are willing to serve all people, including people of all different sexual orientations. They just can't promote messages they disagree with and events they disagree with. That's a common sense distinction," said Scruggs. He says the judge's disturbing language did not stop there. "The court acknowledged that this law was raising first amendment concerns yet said that was only an "incidental burden" on the Larsens first amendment rights, when they are compelled to create and promote videos of a same-sex wedding ceremony," said Scruggs. "That is a direct assault on the first amendment. We're hopeful that the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the appellate court, will be receptive of our arguments to protect the Larsens' rights," said Scruggs. Scruggs says a bedrock American constitutional principle is at stake here. "All Americans should have the right to choose what messages they promote or the messages they don't promote. It is a great burden on our clients' freedoms for the state to come in and say, 'You've got to create from scratch a video that promotes and honors a same-sex wedding ceremony," said Scruggs. In just over two years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled there was a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Scruggs says states are clearly putting Christians on the defensive - in this case as well as the legal battles over bakers, florists, and other business owners often dealing with weddings. "What you see in all these cases is states using these laws really to attack and restrict the rights of Christians to choose the messages they can and cannot promote," said Scruggs. "All these laws are telling people essentially to either toe the line or get out of the marketplace. Literally, Christians are being excluded from the marketplace because they can't in good faith promote a message they disagree with," said Scruggs. He says that leaves Christians in a no-win situation. "We represent people all over the country who are literally facing the choice of closing their business or giving up their religious beliefs about marriage," said Scruggs. As the legal battle proceeds, Scruggs says precedent is on the side of his clients. "The Supreme Court had held that these public accommodation laws cannot compel speakers to voice messages they disagree with. It really runs right in line with that," said Scruggs. Among ADF's clients is Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who is at the center of oral arguments at the Supreme Court later this year. While Scruggs says all of these cases have different wrinkles, the precedent set in the Masterpiece case will have a huge impact on all the others. "It is likely that whatever the Supreme Court rules in Masterpiece will have a large impact, even if it's maybe not a decisive impact but a large impact, on how these cases [proceed]. There is a lot of attention on the Masterpiece ruling, and for good reason," said Scruggs. No date has been set for oral arguments in that case, but Scruggs suspects they will be scheduled for sometime in November. |
| Age of Consent Laws Under Attack? |
| Fri, 22 Sep 2017 16:31:22 EST Twenty years after politicians and researchers howled in protest at research suggesting no lasting harm for minors who engage in same-sex sexual relationships with much older adults, similar research is being met with the silence of the scientific community and may be used to challenge age of consent laws. University of Texas Sociology Professor Dr. Mark Regnerus is at the forefront of the debate on sexual research and has come under withering criticism for his work concluding that children in homes where a parent is in a same-sex relationship fare worse than kids in homes with their biological moms and dads. Regnerus is sounding the alarm on research quietly published in the "Archives of Sexual Behavior". Researcher Bruce Rind has led studies reaching similar conclusions in the past, and was also behind the 1998 study that drew widespread condemnation from Congress and the American Psychological Association.. In the new studies, Rind declared there was no noticeable difference in long-term regret, shame or other negative reactions when compared to the teenagers' long-term response after having sex for the first time with boys or girls of the same age. In the Rind studies, the minor girls studied were age 15 on average, while their same-sex partners were 26 years old on average. For males, the boys were an average of 15 years old and their partners were 28-years-old on average. Regnerus says the efforts to remove the stigma from such sex are making a comeback after being scored almost two decades. "And now here they are, back again in respectable academic journals," said Regnerus. "Here they are teeing up the kind of evidence to overturn age of consent laws." "I'm not sure there's another way to read that. That's what I saw when I read them. They all come from the same person," he added. But the reaction from the scientific community is deeply troubling to Regnerus, mainly because there isn't one. "It's not as if (the studies) are being praised or lauded. It's that they have been released and published, largely to quiet. To be quiet here is to be complicit. And so I thought we have to call this out," said Regnerus, who can only shake his head when comparing the reaction to his own research. "It's disturbing that this guy publishes stuff on minor-adult sex to quietness and anything I say is shouted down from the rooftops, which is distressing to say the least," said Regnerus. He says the lack of outrage suggests this could be the first step towards trying to normalize such behavior. "Downstream from documenting something becomes acceptability, which becomes something that's legal. I don't know that we'll ever legalize this sort of thing. I pray not. But there is a bridge being built in that direction," said Regnerus, and he says that bridge is being paid for in part with our tax dollars. "There's not just foundation money underwriting this. Even the federal government, via the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, is tacitly complicit in this type of research," said Regnerus. Regnerus says this disturbing foothold is another direct consequence of the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. "The quest for marriage, I say in my new book entitled 'Cheap Sex,' was actually a sort of cultural land grab. Here we're seeing a little more evidence that what's at stake here is human decency and the dignity of children and persons in general," said Regnerus. Regnerus also condemns the research methods, from tiny numbers of sample cases to questionably gathered data. He says LGBT activists often use small samples to conclude there is no harm to children in same-sex parenting situations as well. Also disturbing to Regnerus is that Rind admits many of the boys and girls went along with the same-sex experience and did not resist even though they did not want it. He says Rind seems to brush off a very serious aspect of this type of encounter. One of the ploys going on here is the, 'Oh, regardless of the situation in which the first sex occurred, the outcomes long term are OK and going along with it is some form of consent,'" said Regnerus. "That's a ridiculous notion to suspect that somehow we're talking about power that's equal between a 13-year-old and say a 27 or 28-year-old. It's a ludicrous notion," said Regnerus. Regnerus further asserts that because such events can convince young people that they must be of a certain sexual persuasion, that they don't look back on such experiences negatively and may even look back on them as enjoyable, a metric he says Rind also equates with consent. He says it is very difficult to quantify the true impact of such an event years or even decades later. He says the ongoing goal of the cultural and scientific left remains clear. "What we're looking at is sort of a comprehensive union when we're talking about the sexual union. It's just frightening to me that people want to pick apart at that until there's almost nothing left," said Regnerus. |
| Bolton Cheers Trump's UN Performance |
| Thu, 21 Sep 2017 16:21:29 EST Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is cheering President Trump for a strong address to the United Nations this week and for perhaps already reaping critical results in his effort to isolate North Korea. On Thursday, Trump announced a new round of U.S. sanctions aimed at North Korea and also reported that China is vowing to deal a major financial blow to the communist regime in Pyongyang. "Today I'm announcing a new executive order I just signed that significantly expands our authorities to target individuals, companies, financial institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea," said Trump. Bolton says this could be a very significant move. "It's potentially significant because if we were to sanction companies or banks doing business with North Korea, that could have a knock-on effect to other countries doing the same and could effect their ability to do transactions in the United States," said Bolton. He says it leaves those banks and corporations with a stark choice. "Do you want to do business with us or do you want to do business with North Korea? Your choice entirely, but it's going to be one or the other," said Bolton. Bolton likes the aggressive nature of the sanctions. "Why didn't we do this about eight or ten years ago? Why is it that we've waited this long? I think we have the answer. I think President Trump is determined to do something about North Korea and Iran and their nuclear programs," said Bolton. Bolton served as ambassador to the United Nations for President George W. Bush. So why didn't these sanctions come then? "There was a lot of discussion in the Bush administration about sanctions but (there was) a lot of opposition to really squeezing North Korea. Ultimately, I don't think we did really anywhere near what we could have," said Bolton. He says there was virtually no chance for stiff penalties in the Obama years. "There was no appetite for sanctions against North Korea. They were exercising what they called 'strategic patience' in the Obama administration. That's a synonym for doing nothing and the North Koreans took advantage of it," said Bolton. Just as importantly, Bolton says the new sanctions turn the screws on China as well. "The vast bulk of the institutions doing business with North Korea - financial, commodities, machinery, you name it - are Chinese. China, for 25 years, frankly, has two-timed us on their concern about the North Korean nuclear program. So this gives the president some bite," said Bolton. That may have already paid off Thursday, as, Trump announced news that seemed to surprise even him, as China appears ready to play hardball with Kim Jong-Un as well. "China, their central bank has told other banks - and it's a massive banking system - to immediately stop doing business with North Korea," said Trump. Bolton says if China is serious about taking this step it could have a huge impact on North Korea. However, he says it is very tough to determine if China is making good on such a policy. "I think that's difficult from the outside. God knows how many banks there are and how many new banks can be created that might be able to facilitate North Korean trade, for example with Iran," said Bolton. Trump made major headlines with his blunt talk about North Korea in his speech on Tuesday. "The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary," said Trump. Bolton says Trump struck exactly the right tone. "I thought it was entirely appropriate. Some of these people who talk about what's becoming or unbecoming to say at the UN. Honestly, the United Nations is not a church. You're not supposed to be reverential towards threats to international peace and security and innocent American civilians," said Bolton, who thought the Trump approach was refreshing after the past eight years. "After eight years of global governance kind of rhetoric from Obama and the weakness that he projected, maybe some people are shocked when they hear what a real American president has to say. All in all, I think it's the right thing for the president to do. In America, plain speaking is a virtue and it's important that these other countries hear it," said Bolton. Bolton also lauded Trump for labeling the Iran nuclear deal an "embarrassment" and "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into." He says that puts the onus on Trump to get out of the deal soon. "If you don't certify but stay in the deal that you've described already as embarrassing, I think that's unpresidential. It's sort of a one shoe on, one shoe off foreign policy. He needs to lead with moral and political clarity. I think the way you do that is to say this deal is a disaster for the United States and its friends and allies and we're getting out of it," said Bolton. |
| 'Crushing the Collective' |
| Wed, 20 Sep 2017 16:05:16 EST From the podium of the United Nations to domestic U.S. politics, socialist ideas are frequently discussed and in many cases seem to be advancing in our society, and a new book concludes that the far left has been on the march for a full century in this country and is now on the verge of victory. President Trump took heat for denouncing the socialist regime in Venezuela during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday and for pointing out socialism and communism result in poverty and misery whenever it is tried. On the domestic side, in just the past few weeks, over a dozen Senate Democrats have lined up in favor of single payer health care, meaning the government would be in complete control of one-sixth of the economy. Charles Sasser is a veteran of U.S. Army Special Forces. He's a history teacher and a prolific author. His latest work is "Crushing the Collective: The Last Chance to Keep America Free and Self-Governing." He says history is replete with examples of people being convinced to give up their rights for the supposed good of the larger community. He says collectivism still pushes the same message today. "Collectivism means the collective is of more value than the individual. That's been used by every tyrant ever. It's always for the cause, for the people. You give up this freedom for this and this," said Sasser. "Throughout history, the individual has always devolved into the collective. That's been the historical movement, from individualism to collectivism, and collectivism always ends in tyranny," he added. To prove the rise of collectivism in our own society, Sasser says we only need to examine the widespread popularity of avowed socialist Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race. "He could have won it because so many of our young people have been indoctrinated into this idea that you can have free college. You can have everything free now. So like pigs squealing at the trough, we're all running for that trough to get whatever is thrown into the trough for us. As a result, we give up our independence," said Sasser. He says we're already well down that road as a nation. "We're already socialist. Right now we have 47 percent of the people living off the government. When you've got that many people dependent, guess what? They continue to want more and more. You can hear them at the trough, demanding more and more," said Sasser. Sasser says it's not just Sanders. He says Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are also clear that they embrace collectivism. "Obama revealed one of his slogans at the 2012 Democratic convention. He said we belong to the government. That sounds fascist to me. It's definitely collectivism. Hillary (said) deep-seated cultural codes and religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed. In other words, we have to condition the people to change it," said Sasser. He says the course America chooses to chart in the coming years is critical since most of the modern world, including western Europe, are already lost down the road to collectivism. "Europe's gone. It's declined already. It's on its way to collapse," said Sasser. "And now the U.S. is collapsing. As a result of this, we're no longer seen in the world as a stabilizing force," said Sasser. "So what happens? We're not longer a stabilizing force. The world is going bonkers. Who's going to stabilize it? Nobody. We're in for some interesting times," said Sasser. Sasser refers to the Tytler cycle, a concept created by Scottish historian Alexander Tytler in the 1780's. The cycle suggests people in bondage turn to faith, which in turn leads to courage and then liberty. According to Tytler, liberty creates abundance, which then brings on complacency, apathy and dependence before resulting in bondage again. He says we're frighteningly far along in that progression. "Every society throughout history has gone through that same cycle and end up in bondage. The average endurance of any empire has been about 200 years. We have exceeded that so far, but in Tytler's liberty-tyranny cycle, we're back to the stage of dependency," said Sasser. While there may be an historical process to observe, Sasser points out this erosion of the American experiment doesn't just happen. He says a very organized and determined effort from the far left has been applying pressure for a full century, with the Frankfurt School in 1917. He says a key tenet of the Frankfurt School was a "long march" to take over or destroy institutions, from education to the church to the family. "You take over or destroy whatever stands in the way of socialism. Never mind that socialism has never worked, never throughout history has it worked and it's always ended up in tyranny. It's just that we call it by different names, but it always ends the same way," said Sasser. The Frankfurt School emigrated to London and eventually to the U.S. Sasser says a key figure in the movement, a German professor named Herbert Marcuse who later taught at the University of California-Berkeley, pioneered the type of selective tolerance we see rampant on campuses today. "He said to tolerate whatever ideas and movements the left does, but have intolerance for the right. As a result of that, [they] just destroy everything and take it over in the march through the institutions," said Sasser. Sasser says many colleges now cater to keeping the students ignorant, ushering them away from learning history and economics and instead focusing them on gender and race studies. However, he says opponents of the march to collectivism are fighting with their hands tied behind their back due to the intimidation of political correctness. "Did you know America now ranks 46th in the world when it comes to first amendment rights of freedom of press and freedom of speech? Forty-sixth in the world, somewhere near Albania. Primarily it's because of political correctness and self-censorship. We won't speak out," said Sasser. He says the recent debate over the transgender movement is a prime example. "Men are calling themselves women. Women call themselves men. We have 50 different genders now, and we're not supposed to say something is absurd here?" "We don't. We keep silent. We accept it. Once you tolerate something in the first generation, you accept it in the second generation, and then in the third generation you extol it and light up the White House in rainbow colors," said Sasser. He says winning the fight against collectivism is very difficult and may well end up being a losing cause, but he says those who want to preserve the best of America must stand up and have their voices heard as the push form the left gets more fierce. "We have to have courage. We have to have the courage to say something is wrong. This is insanity. It is total insanity and if we follow that over the cliff then we all go over the cliff," said Sasser. "That's what I try to do in this book, to lay it out in a cohesive order so people could understand where we came from, how we got here, what is occurring around us at this moment, and what it's leading to, and what we can do is mainly speak out," said Sasser. |
| Why Was Manafort Wiretapped? |
| Tue, 19 Sep 2017 16:31:54 EST After months of current and former federal officials insisting there was no merit to allegations the government conducted surveillance on Donald Trump or his campaign during the 2016 cycle, there are now reports that former campaign manager Paul Manafort was being wiretapped. After Trump tweeted his frustration at the Obama administration for greenlighting the alleged wiretapping, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper rejected and validity to such an assertion. "For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect as a candidate or against his campaign," said Clapper on NBC's "Meet the Press" back in March. But CNN's revelation that the government did procure a FISA warrant against Manafort and conduct surveillance in on him in 2016 and 2017 brings such denials under the spotlight once again. Most importantly, did they lie? Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says the way Clapper and others carefully worded their denials earlier this year probably leaves them some wiggle room. "I always thought that the denials, as indignant as they were by people connected to the Obama administration and even from the Justice Department after Trump took it over were always carefully couched and very narrow," said McCarthy. "What I took the denials to mean was that they were saying they never targeted Trump himself for surveillance and even more specifically that Obama did not do it," said McCarthy. "I always thought that was quite narrow because as we know, the president does not go to the FISA court and get the authorization to do these surveillances, much less do the physical work to set up the surveillance himself," said McCarthy. "I always thought that the loudness and indignation of the denials was much broader than what the denials actually said read carefully," he added. According to CNN's reporting, Manafort was under surveillance from 2014 to early 2016 and again from late 2016 to sometime earlier this year, including time when Trump was president. At issue, according to sources, was Manafort's cozy relationship with the ousted pro-Putin regime of Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine, and ultimately whether he was tapping those connections to aid Trump's campaign in any way. Still, the government's pursuit of a FISA warrant is much different than a standard criminal search warrant. "You have to show there's probable cause that the subject is an agent of a foreign power. That's importantly different from a criminal warrant. In a criminal case, you have to show that there's probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed and that evidence of a crime is likely to be recovered in the place that you want to search," said McCarthy. McCarthy says the political circumstances surrounding the case should not impact the enforcement of the law but he says there is usually great sensitivity exercised when political events could be impacted. As a result this decision, should have been deliberated at the highest levels of government. "That gets scrutinized, not only much more carefully at the FISA court, (but) it also should be scrutinized very heavily in the Justice Department, the FBI, and the upper ranks of the administration before you would even go to the FISA court to seek the surveillance," said McCarthy. The New York Times is reporting that special counsel Robert Mueller is using "shock and awe" tactics, meaning he is threatening witnesses with considerable punishment for not cooperating fully with the Mueller team. McCarthy says we already saw that when the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid of Manafort's Virginia home in July. He points out that any raid conducted before 6 a.m. and allowing agents to pick the locks at a home require special permission from the court. But perhaps the most curious part of the FBI's physical raid on Manafort's home was the timing of it. "The search warrant that Mueller did came on the day after Manafort met with Senate Intelligence Committee investigators and on the very day he was supposed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee," said McCarthy. McCarthy suspects there could be multiple motives at work. One is simply that investigators are eager to determine exactly how much Russia did to influence the 2016 elections, which he believes is warranted. However, in a politically charged atmosphere like Washington, he says some could be trying to make whatever evidence is in hand fit a political goal. "I think there are other people looking to cement a political narrative that it was Trump collusion and Russian espionage that cost Hillary Clinton the election. There's all kinds of factors and considerations that go into it. But certainly Manafort and his prior connection to this Ukrainian faction gives a lot of ammunition to the investigators," said McCarthy. |
| Is Trump Second-Guessing Decision to Ditch Climate Deal? |
| Mon, 18 Sep 2017 16:19:34 EST Key White House officials are denying any change in President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords, but supporters of Trump's position are increasingly concerned by the growing number of treaty supporters in the president's inner circle and by he unwillingness to kill the treaty once and for all. Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal quoted European Union's Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete as suggesting Trump may be mulling a change in policy. "The U.S. has stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris accord, but they will try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this agreement," said Canete, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Trump administration immediately sought to pour cold water on the report. "Our position on the Paris agreement has not changed. @POTUS has been clear, US withdrawing unless we get pro-America terms," tweeted White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. On Fox News Sunday, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster called the speculation a "false report." "The president decided to pull out of the Paris accord because it was a bad deal for the American people and a bad deal for the environment," said McMaster. Trump's top economic adviser also joined the chorus. "Per the White House statement on Saturday and consistent with the president's announcement in June, we are withdrawing from the Paris Agreement unless we can re-engage on terms more favorable to the United States," said Cohn. But that statement actually raises more questions than it answers for those concerned about Trump sticking with his decision to withdraw from the treaty. "The position itself is inherently ambiguous. What President Trump announced June 1 in the Rose Garden was that he was going to withdraw in November 2019, taking effect the year after that, unless he found better terms. They have yet to define what those better terms are," said Christopher C. Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who served on Trump's transition landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency. Horner says the debate within the White House before Trump's announcement in June was a battle royale and he says it still hasn't stopped. "The struggle that led up to the June 1 announcement and was particularly acute in May among administration staff, not just Obama administration holdovers and not just career resistance types at the State Department, but some Trump appointees at the White House in the National Security Council and elsewhere, who are fighting to reverse this," said Horner. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has consistently advocated for staying in the treaty. On CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, Tillerson said remaining in the deal is still possible. 1cThe president said he is open to finding those conditions where we can remain engaged with others on what we all agree is still a challenging issue, 1d Tillerson said. Horner says Tillerson's position is not surprising because the State Department bureaucrats are licking their chops to implement this agreement. "This is the biggest boon for the State Department, possibly ever. You're talking about the creation of an enormous climate diplomatic corps," said Horner. "They think, oddly enough, when you rob Peter to pay Paul, Paul thinks it's a great idea." "The politicos they've brought on board are not the ones you'd want if you wanted to keep the president's promise," said Horner. Horner says the issue is simple. On Trump's present course, the debate could rage for another two years. "The struggle continues. Until President Trump sends that letter on November 5, 2019, this fight goes on," said Horner. Trump's decision to exit the treaty via letter in 2019 is what aggravates Horner most, pushing fiercely for Trump to declare the agreement a treaty and force the Senate to vote on and likely kill the agreement. He says by taking unilateral executive action, Trump's decision is only good for the remainder of his presidency. "If he wants a durable withdrawal, meaning something that President Warren cannot turn the key on on January 20, 2021, you're going to have to have the Senate vote," said Horner. Horner sees multiple options by which Trump can bring an end to the issue, whether by submitting the treaty to the Senate now or renegotiating the plan and then submitting the amended plan for a vote that would still likely fail, since ratification requires two-thirds of senators to approve. But Horner says one reason Trump may not be taking that action is because the Senate doesn't want to touch it. "So far the Senate has not stirred. In fact, to my understanding, the Senate told President Trump they don't want him to involve them," said Horner. The treaty is non-binding, leaving many to wonder why Horner and others are wringing their hands over a possible Trump reversal or his allowing his successor to rejoin the agreement. Horner points out the deal tightens the screws on emissions every five years, so the longer we're attached to the deal the more pressure we'll be under to comply. Already, he says the Germans are desperately trying to keep the U.S. in the fold. "We have obtained records from the State Department, a cable, saying the Germans are worried that if the rest of the world doesn't do this to themselves too they will lose billions," said Horner. "In other words, 'It's not fair that we did this to ourselves. You're mean if you don't do it to yourself too,'" said Horner. Horner also explained that the real strategy is for the climate change movement to enforce the plan - both at home and abroad - is to use the courts to their advantage. "The United Nations, just before the president made his announcement, issued a report about how activists could use the Paris treaty to really put the screws to signatories who are claiming it's not binding," said Horner. "The pointed to a decision out of the Hague that's fairly recent, in which the court said, 'I know you've got your agreement and you've got your number here and you've also got decades of saying I'm so awful. I'm so responsible, I'm so obligated,'" said Horner. Horner says the court at the Hague assigned an even more aggressive plan for reducing carbon emissions and liberal activists in the U.S. are already trying to get federal judges in the Ninth Circuit to enforce the treaty and make the terms even more burdensome. "So you can say non-binding, but the people behind this know what they're up to and they know who occupies our judicial benches here," said Horner. Not only does Horner warn that failing to get the Senate to vote on the treaty allows the next president to reverse Trump's decision, but he says keeping the Senate out of the fray will permanently damage the separation of powers. "This is simply a beginning point for the courts. That's a key reason why it's so dangerous. The other is, of course, that you have outsourced policy making to this body instead of to our Senate as our Constitution dictates. You've gutted the treaty power, probably forever, if you just shrug at this usurpation of the Senate's treaty role," said Horner. |
| America's Stunning Civic Illiteracy |
| Fri, 15 Sep 2017 08:45:37 EST A new survey shows huge swaths of the American people don't know the most basic tenets of our government, and a Hillsdale College politics professor says the lack of knowledge is playing a huge role in the politics of outrage and violence since the perpetrators have no idea how our system works. Earlier this month, the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania released a survey showing a dismal comprehension of constitutional basics. A third of Americans could not name a single branch of government. Another 27 percent could only name one. Only 26 percent could list the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. When asked to name one of the freedoms enshrined in the first amendment to the Constitution, 37 percent could not name any. Forty-eight percent did come up with freedom of speech, but when asked to name another, only 15 percent could name freedom of religion, 14 percent cited freedom of the press, 10 percent knew of the right to assembly, and just three percent were aware of their right to petition the government to address their grievances. Hillsdale College Politics Professor Adam Carrington says these numbers are pretty consistent with what we've seen in recent years. "Polls have shown this consistently. This is not an anomaly. This is a consistent lack of knowledge of that by which we are supposed to govern ourselves. So it's a fundamental and massive problem," said Carrington. Carrington says the problem is especially acute given the responsibility placed in American citizens to run their government. "If we were in a monarchy, I would say it doesn't matter at all, but we're a republic, where people rule through laws and they particularly rule through the Constitution. For those who exercise the people's rule to be held accountable, you actually have to know the standard by which you've established to hold them accountable," said Carrington. In addition, he says ignorance about our system feeds the rabid political environment we're in today. "People believe that what's constitutional is what I like and what's unconstitutional is what I don't like, and that's just not the way that our system of government works," said Carrington. Carrington says critical concepts like the separation of powers and checks and balances are part of the genius of our system, and when people are clueless about these ideas and why we have them, politics become toxic and even dangerous. "I think when people are ignorant of how those things work, they basically get frustrated with the system and reject the very things that make it effective. I think that's why you see some people wanting to turn to violence, some people not understanding the way the system is supposed to work," said Carrington. "This kind of government can't survive, at least for long, unless you have that bedrock principle of government of the people and a people who are worthy of governing themselves," said Carrington. How did our civic illiteracy get to this point? Carrington sees a couple of prime factors, starting with the greater emphasis on education being a pipeline to a good job and an almost exclusive focus on the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math. He says there's nothing wrong with those subjects but insists education is about much more than that. "A place like Hillsdale and other places that have an older view of education and say, 'Well, no, actually learning to be a good citizen is an essential part of education.' Sure, you can be a nurse or a teacher or a lawyer in your day job, but when are you not a citizen? I think that lack focus has caused a massive problem as far as our civic literacy," said Carrington. But in addition to schools steering the focus of education away from citizenship, Carrington says another troubling reality to consider. "I think it is also due to a rejection by many of the American founding and of the Constitution. Some people believe it's not worth studying, not just because they are focused on getting jobs as the role of education but they've rejected the very principles that undergird the Constitution itself," said Carrington. Nonetheless, Carrington says education is the key to turning this civic illiteracy around. "It has to be through education and I think it has to become a commitment of the society in general. It has to be a commitment of our curriculum in our schools. It has to be something that's taught in entertainment and that's taught in homes," said Carrington. In recent years, Hillsdale College has offered free online courses on the Constitution and other aspects of our system of goverenment. "Hillsdale's really been trying to push civic education, having online courses and other things, because until the people know their own government it's not going to get better. I think there has to be a concerted, dedicated effort to doing that," said Carrington. He encourages anyone who feels like they're lacking in civic knowledge to rectify that by learning about our founding and helping to turn civic literacy in the right direction. "Hillsdale has tried to offer a lot of free resources and classes online - on the courts, on the Federalist Papers, on the presidency, on the Constitution - to try to give you the resources to bridge that gap, so that you can be a good citizen. You can be a knowledgeable citizen that can take part in the kind of renewal of self-government that we so sorely need," said Carrington. |
| 'I'm Afraid the President is Getting Rolled' |
| Thu, 14 Sep 2017 16:12:14 EST President Trump and Democratic Party leaders in Congress say they are closing in on a deal that would have Congress enshrining the legal status of illegal immigrants who came here as children in exchange for what Trump calls "massive border security," but a leading immigration activist thinks the president is getting snookered. "I'm afraid the president is getting rolled," said Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian. "He simply let (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer set the terms of this debate." Trump met with Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Wednesday night at the White House to discuss the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Following the meeting, Schumer and Pelosi released a statement suggesting a deal was done to approve legislation to give young people here illegally and enrolled in the program permanent legal status. Trump later tweeted that there was not a done deal and all later said the details still needed to be worked out on border security, although the Democrats reiterated that they would not approve funding to build a wall on the southern border. Krikorian says Schumer has the upper hand in this debate, as he's been immersed in it for decades. "Chuck Schumer has been doing immigration for 30 years. He was responsible for the 1986 amnesty, the last push to get it over. He was in the House of Representatives then," said Krikorian. "He was the motivating force behind the Gang of Eight that passed the Senate." Krikorian says Trump is not well-versed at all in immigration policy and he can see Schumer winning Trump over in the language Trump is now using. "President Trump doesn't know anything about the immigration issue. So Schumer tells him, 'This wouldn't be an amnesty, Mr. President, because they wouldn't get citizenship.' Trump just mouths those cliches that we have been hearing now for years that are straight out false," said Krikorian. "The president has no idea about any of this stuff. I am happy to stipulate that he is good at real estate deals. That may well be the case. But dealing with mob and labor bosses and crooked building inspectors, those guys are much more reliable negotiating partners than Chuck Schumer. The president is like a babe in the woods. He's getting taken for a ride," said Krikorian. Krikorian suspects the challenge for Trump is getting even steeper given the myriad of staff changes that leave very few immigration hawks in the White House. "Everybody with a position of authority is either a liberal Democrat or is a non-political retired general who really don't have strong political views. They just want to see things fixed and work better. And that's a recipe for the president alienating himself from his base," said Krikorian. He says Trump and everyone else in the debate needs to see that granting permanent legal status to young illegal immigrants enrolled in DACA amounts to amnesty and they must proceed accordingly. "Every amnesty - and that's what this is is an amnesty, if you let illegals stay that's an amnesty - every one always draws new illegal immigration into the country and then causes a surge of legal immigration down the stream as their relatives come in," said Krikorian. Krikorian believes Obama's creation of DACA through the executive branch in 2012 was blatantly illegal, but he says that's not the fault of the people who enrolled and the humanitarian thing to do is to make good on that promise. However, he says only those actually enrolled in DACA, and not all illegal immigrants brought here as young children, should be considered for the legislation. He also urges businesses to use the E-Verify system to check the immigration status of job applicants and for the government to crack down on employers who knowingly hire people in the U.S. illegally. Krikorian urges Trump to use this moment to make tough demands of Democrats in exchange for relenting on DACA. "What kind of provisions do you include in a bill like that to make sure that an amnesty that may be 700,000 or 800,000 people doesn't do more harm than good," said Krikorian. He strongly encourages Trump and congressional Republicans to insist that portions of the RAISE Act be included in any bill. In addition to favoring prospective immigrants with college educations and the ability to provide for themselves, the legislation would also tighten which family members could later be brought in by immigrants. Krikorian says giving DACA enrollees the ability to confer legal status on their parents must be prevented. "Their parents knew what they were doing when they came here. They weren't children. They don't deserve the benefit from this amnesty, so what we need is to change the family immigration system so that it only focuses on husbands, wives, and little kids and not all these other adult relative categories we have now," said Krikorian. And he says all of this must be included in the same legislation as the enactment of DACA or the Democrats will win everything they want in exchange for nothing. "It absolutely has to be in one piece. If they get everything they want then it'll be just like 1986, where they got their amnesty first and the enforcement never happened," said Krikorian. |
| McInerney Sizes up War 16 Years After 9/11 |
| Tue, 12 Sep 2017 16:28:17 EST On Monday, Americans observed a solemn remembrance of the lives lost in the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but retired U.S. Air Force Lt. General Tom McInerney says victory will be tough to achieve unless the U.S. gets serious about specifically identifying the enemy as radical Islam and getting Muslim leaders to publicly condemn the perpetrators. "We still have not identified the threat's ideology, that is radical Islam. Until you do that, you can't defeat the threat," said McInerney, who rose to the number three position in the U.S. Air Force and also served as vice commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe. He says President Trump did identity the ideology correctly on the campaign trail but has not been nearly as bold since taking office. "We do not use the term 'radical Islam' very much in this administration. I'm a little disappointed in the Trump administration because the president was using it quite a bit and then has since restricted his use of the term," said McInerney. Another reason he can't call the war a success is the volatile state of the entire Middle East. "Now you have the Middle East. It's the most unstable it has ever been in its history, so that's why I'm not giving us high marks for being successful," said McInerney. Another major priority after 9/11 was the state of American intelligence capabilities. Here again, McInerney sees disappointment compared to what was possible. "They haven't identified these threats. They haven't articulated the issues. Our special ops are good at getting high-value targets, so our intelligence people are doing a good job with all of our censors, etc. But we haven't bundled it in the proper way, so our leaders can properly express the threat and the ideology I talked about earlier," said McInerney. So how can the U.S. prosecution of the war become more effective? McInerney says it all starts with prominent Muslims clearly and frequently denouncing terrorism. "The only people that can really defeat radical Islam are the Muslims themselves. So we need fatwas out of Mecca and Medina. We need Arab leadership to declare those radical Islamists to be unholy warriors and that they will forever live in damnation for attacking the West," said McInerney. McInerney says critical mistakes from both George W. Bush and Barack Obama made the fight more difficult. He says Bush's decision, through Amb. L. Paul Bremer, to disband the Iraqi army after toppling Saddam Hussein was a major error that only teed up experienced fighters to be part of the subsequent insurgency. He says Obama's decision to withdraw all U.S. forces in 2011 then created the vacuum that fostered the rise of ISIS. McInerney says to pursue stability now requires a concerted confrontation of Iran. "We cannot have the mullahs running wild over there. They're developing ICBM's and nuclear weapons covertly. We cannot accept that," said McInerney. He calls the Iran nuclear deal another major mistake by the Obama administration and says extensive collaboration with allies in the region will be need to to neutralize Iran. "We need to take care of Iran, because they are the most destabilizing group in the Middle East. They are driving a lot of this (radical Islam-inspired terrorism)," said McInerney. McInerney also asserts that 2016 campaign tactics are hampering our ability to work with Russia, which is a key player in any effort to stabilize the region. "The Russian collusion was always a deceptive move by the Democratic Party to shield the wrongdoings that the Democrats under Obama did, with the unmasking, with a whole host of other things - Hillary Clinton's emails, which was a violation of the Espionage Act," said McInerney. So now our relationship with Russia is tense. If we're going to solve the problems over there, we need to be working with the Russians. All those things coupled together can bring the stability we need, but we must replace the current Iranian regime," said McInerney. Since 9/11, terrorist attacks in the West feature fewer grand, sweeping plots and many are carried out by individuals or small cells. McInerney says our intelligence efforts should be able to sniff out these plots much better because we know where to look for the potential terrorists. "When you look at the incidents we've had in Europe and the United States, it always goes back to the mosques. We have not taken the appropriate actions to infiltrate them and to get rid of the bad ones," said McInerney. |
| 'It's Whack Job Economics' |
| Mon, 11 Sep 2017 16:18:32 EST Five Senate Democrats are now publicly endorsing a government-run, single-payer health care system in a sign the party is quickly rallying to that goal, however the idea promises to be a financial and regulatory nightmare that should compel Republicans to revisit the issue and get it right before the 2018 elections. On Tuesday, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, announced he would support the "Medicare for All" legislation sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont. "It 19s time to simplify health care and lower patients 19 costs, and embrace Medicare for All," said Merkley, who is now the fifth Senate Democrat to join the cause publicly. In addition to Sanders, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., are all co-sponsoring the bill. In addition, roughly half the House Democrats are on board with the idea. Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Robert Moffit says the Democrats are making their moves now because Republicans failed to get their health care reforms passed in the Senate. "The immediate reason is the abject failure of Senate Republicans - and it's the Senate's fault here - to enact a health care reform bill to repeal and at least partially replace Obamacare," said Moffit. "It has created a major health policy vacuum, so the liberals in Congress and elsewhere are ready to fill it, and they're preparing now for a total government takeover of health care, which is a single-payer system," said Moffit. But while touting "Medicare for All" and health care as a right, Moffit says Americans should not miss what is really at stake here. "What they are proposing is nothing short of a government monopoly over the financing and the delivery of health care," said Moffit. "Ultimately what this means is that politicians will be in direct charge of health policy." He says Democrats in 2017 are making the exact opposite promise that President Obama made in 2009 and 2010, only this time they would actually keep it. "When Obama promised he would not take away your plan, that turned out to be false, especially if you were in the individual market. Here the Democrats in the Senate - Warren, Sanders, Sen. Merkley, John Conyers in the House - they are telling you they are going to take away your health plan," said Moffit. With Medicare already in deep debt and staring at $33-44 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities, Moffit says adding the rest of the nation to the program would require a major wallop to the wallets of taxpayers. He says California is an important test case. The state senate there has approved a single-payer plan that would result in a a spending hike of anywhere from 53-110 percent. "Frankly, it's whack job economics. The Senate legislative analysts themselves say that this will require a 15 percent payroll tax," said Moffit. Moffit also took aim at Merkley's assertion that having Medicare for everyone would somehow simplify the health care system. He says the story of Medicare shows exactly the opposite. "I think that Merkley is living in an alternative universe. Anyone who has had to deal with Medicare, members of the medical profession are very familiar with it. Medicare today is governed by tens of thousands of pages of rules, regulations, and guidelines and medical paperwork is eating up more and more of the time and energy and effort of physicians," said Moffit. "If you think that Medicare is a model of administrative efficiency or that Medicare is somehow simple, you've got to have rocks in your head. you're living on another planet. Medicare is the Godzilla of government regulation," said Moffit. "It imposes enormous administrative costs on doctors, hospitals, clinics, and home health agencies, who have to bear the real costs of complying with Medicare's regulatory systems," said Moffit. Moffit says this is also another clear signal of how far Democrats have moved to the left. "They're consumed by identity politics. They're eager to impose political correctness as part of an aggressive, counter-cultural agenda. Now their economic agenda boils down to heavier taxation, higher spending, larger government programs, and even greater government control over our personal lives. Frankly, if they want to have that debate, I'm ready to go," said Moffit. He says the key to foiling a complete government takeover of health care is for Republicans to roll up their sleeves and do health care legislation right this time. He says failure is not an option. "This is not an optional matter. The individual market in the United States is in crisis. They have no options here. It's not a question of what the hell they want to do, pardon me. They have got to do their job. If they don't do their job, millions of Americans get hurt, especially the millions of middle class Americans who today do not get any subsidies whatsoever," said Moffit. "Congress has got to get its act together. They have no choice," he added. |
| Hope In the Midst of Harvey's Misery |
| Thu, 31 Aug 2017 15:52:17 EST The devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey is hard to even fathom for residents along the Texas coast, but as the heroic rescues continue, the harrowing individual stories are emerging, including the dramatic saving of family members of a local reporter. Jessica Morales worked for many years as an anchor and reporter for Fox television affiliates in Beaumont and Tyler, Texas. A Beaumont native, Morales is now a video reporter for Hart Energy in Houston. She says the 50-plus inches of rain in the Houston area rendered many local neighborhoods - many of whom had never flooded in recent memory - vulnerable to intense flooding. And the intensity of the rainfall often left people very little time to get out of their homes. "It could be minutes once the water starts coming in, depending on how close you are to a creek or a bayou, which is where the current was really picking up on a lot of people," said Morales. And while much of the media attention is understandably focused on Houston. Nearby cities such as Port Arthur and Beaumont are also devastated. On Wednesday, officials in Port Arthur reported that the entire city was flooded. In Beaumont, Thursday, the high waters shut down the city's water supply. "They're having to get the patients out of the hospitals because there is no water supply at all for the city of Beaumont," said Morales. "That's happening as of right now, where they're trying to evacuate people. The rain has stopped, but the water supply is compromised and that could be for days." Mendoza and her husband live in southwest Houston and their home did not flood. However, she became involved in a dramatic rescue of her aunt in Beaumont on Tuesday. "[Tuesday night], my aunt started texting and putting on Facebook that water was coming into her house. She wasn't sure what point she should call for a boat rescue. I knew at that point that she couldn't get out of the house. If water's coming in the house, there's no way she can get her vehicle out. So I just got on social media and started finding rescue groups," said Morales. She says that was critical because the typical rescue methods were not an option. "My cousin was calling 911 and they weren't answering. They weren't able to do anything as far as getting to anything. They don't have the boats, so a lot of people were being rescued by Good Samaritans and people coming from Louisiana with their boats. So I just started contacting groups like that on social media," said Morales. "Someone told me there was a boat near my aunt's neighborhood when I posted her address. They told me to tell her to go outside and just start yelling and waving for the boat. That's what she did. Then a boat came by and got her and my cousin and their three cats and go them to safety," said Morales. A similar story played for Morales's great aunt. "She opened her front door when her neighbor came to check on her and the water started rushing in her front door. So they called rescue for her," said Morales. Morales says the rising water at her aunt's house highlights the stress an uncertainty of whether to evacuate. "I said, 'Is the water rushing in? How quickly is it coming in?'" "She said, 'I wouldn't say it's rushing, but it's rising quickly.' I told her to open the door to see how the current was in the street, because I heard a lot people didn't realize how heavy the current was when it picked up," said Morales. "By the time she got out, she walked out of her house and it was up to her hips in her yard," said Morales. Morales says the relentless spirit and resolve of the emergency personnel and private citizens is stunning. "It is truly amazing and it is very empowering. I think that the spirit of people wanting to keep helping and not quit is helping the survivors, just to give them a little more energy," said Morales. She says the selflessness of those saving lives is a powerful example. "Restaurants were trying to bring them in and feed them a hot meal. Some of those rescuers right now are saying, 'No, we don't want to stop to eat right now, we still have people to rescue,'" said Morales, who also witnessed an example of this spirit. "Yesterday, we were able to get out a little bit and we drove past a group of men who were just standing in a parking lot on their phones next to their boat. One man just had his socks on. You could tell he was soaking wet. They were looking on their phone, I'm sure to find out where they could go next for a rescue," said Morales. "These people are not stopping. You know they haven't slept. Some of them are not stopping to eat. It's incredible that people will sacrifice themselves like that just to help someone else. It's amazing," said Morales. In addition to highest priorities of saving lives and getting survivors basic necessities, there is a significant economic impact on the region and the nation. The Texas gulf coast is the center of America's oil refining industry, and right now it's largely at a standstill. "They still have to get all the refineries' power back up. That's going to take awhile. They can't do that in flood waters," said Morales, noting that those refineries provide a huge amount of the fuel we get at the gas station. She says gas prices will rise throughout much or all of the U.S. and in the immediate region, gas is already scarce. Morales says tropical storms and hurricanes are nothing new to the region but the extent of this one dwarfs even the destruction from Hurricane Rita in 2005. "This magnitude is much greater as far as flooding. A lot of people can't even get back into their homes. I was talking with one of my friends who was able to get back in her home last night and they already started ripping up carpet because they're afraid of mold setting in," said Morales. She says those who cannot return for days can do nothing to mitigate mold or other horrific effects of the waters. Nonetheless, she says there are already other signs of people ready to clean up and rebuild. "There are people already out there with chainsaws and things like that. People know how important it is to get moving quickly, and I think they're feeding off of each other too, knowing that they're not doing it alone," said Morales. She says the spirit of community that is getting so much attention in the media is very real and is keeping spirits as high as possible. "You see hashtags out there, #HoustonStrong and #PrayforBeaumont, but it really is true that southeast Texans take care of each other. Even our neighbors in Louisiana are coming in and just texting people and asking where they can go next to rescue someone," said Morales. In addition, the confidence and apparent competence of local officials is doing a lot of good. "It really seems like there's a lot of preparing going into this. You can't possibly know what all is going to come, but it really seems like everyone is working together to figure out the best way to move forward, whether that's getting people back into their homes or getting people the help they need for contractors," said Morales. Morales and her husband spent part of Wednesday driving relief supplies to different areas of need in the Houston region. She says despite the devastation, the people in Houston acutely feel the prayers and love of the American people for those suffering. "I appreciate the outpouring of support. It's come from all over the U.S. Everyone in this area is absolutely feeling it, and it's helping people power on," said Morales. |
| Is GOP Ready for Fiscal Fights? |
| Wed, 30 Aug 2017 16:26:32 EST Congress returns to Washington next week with a full plate of urgent fiscal issues awaiting it, but how well-prepared are the Republican majorities to tackle these priorities in a fiscally disciplined way and respond to Democratic opposition? Lawmakers will quickly need to steps to address the debt ceiling, spending for the new fiscal year that begins October 1, how to structure a disaster relief bill for the Gulf Coast, and how to accomplish tax reform. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., sits on the House Budget Committee and is a member of the House Freedom Caucus. He expects any debt ceiling hike to include significant spending restraints going forward. "In the past, Republicans wouldn't even put a clean debt ceiling increase on a Democrat president's desk. much less a Republican, without any reforms or discipline going forward," said Brat. Even if Congress hits a stalemate over the conditions of the debt ceiling hike or faces the threat of a government shutdown, Brat expects there to be no worries over U.S. solvency as the debt and the interest on the debt are still paid. But going forward, Brat says lawmakers must acknowledge the fiscal realities staring the U.S. in the face and begin to address them with significant spending restraints. "We're $20 trillion in debt and we've got about a $600 billion deficit just this year under Republican stewardship. That's our brand. We all run on fiscal responsibility. We have to give the American people some assurance we take this seriously and it's got to show up on paper," said Brat. He says Washington needs to answer a simple question. "Should we be doing more spending at the federal level or less. We've got to start showing some restraint or we're going to put the kids in a real world of hurt," said Brat. Brat points out that the burden on the next generation is not just a talking point. He says kids starting kindergarten this year will graduate college facing a fiscal catastrophe if major changes are not made. "Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid are all insolvent about 2034, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. So those kids, when they graduate from high school, that's 2030. When they graduate from college, that's 2034. That's when all of our major programs are insolvent, upside down, and will experience severe cuts," said Brat. In April, Congress passed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through September. At the time, Republican leaders said it was not the time for major battles over spending, and the proper time for that would be during the appropriations debates in September. So will they happen? Brat says not to hold our breath. "No, I don't think so," said Brat. "It's kind of like the health care debate. The surest sign that you're going to get it right is you've got to have messaging coming from the White House and then from the Speaker's office and then from Mitch McConnell's office, that we're going to get serious. That probably takes a year or two of prep work. On health care we didn't do that. So we failed on health care." Brat admits pushing spending cuts that will actually make a dent in the debt and deficit are not popular. "It's hard because it's like telling people you've got to eat spinach but some discipline is in order," said Brat. "We've got to get our ducks in order and we've got to make some hard decisions and the American people want to see us stand up and start leading on the fiscal side." Brat is also urging Trump to go on offense when it comes to the debate over spending. He says Trump and the GOP need to stay on message that any shutdown is the fault of Senate Democrats. "Eight Democrat senators are threatening to shut down anything you do that are in the president's wheelhouse or the Congress' priority list unless they get their way. I don't think it's on the president for the shutdown. I think he just needs to go to the bully pulpit and explain to the American people how government works," said Brat. When it comes to tax reform, Brat sees plenty of collaboration and coordination among the White House and GOP congressional leaders. He says Republicans have not choice but to get tax reform done this year, especially after the failed attempt to address health care. "We tanked on health care after we said we're going to repeal it for seven years in a row and then the Senate couldn't even pass a skinny bill, which was more like a Madison Avenue tag line than a responsible policy position on how to run one-fifth of the economy," said Brat, who also says Congress cannot give up on fixing a badly flawed health care system. Brat is also siding strongly on the side of those pushing for generous disaster relief for the recovery and rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey. But he says unrelated pork barrel spending needs to be left out. He says the type of pet projects that often make into these bills were roundly rejected by Americans of all political stripes in 2016. "It was a movement pretty much all the way across the spectrum from Bernie (Sanders) all the way over to Trump. The American people are just sick of the cronies, and the earmarks, and the pork spending, and the idea that the system is rigged and that the cronies, and lawyers, and lobbyists are getting the money and they're not," said Brat. He says the people in his Virginia district made it very clear over recess that they expect Republicans to restore fiscal sanity in Washington. "They're frustrated. They're like, 'You guys can't shoot straight. Get it done,'" said Brat. |
| Humans Aren't Responsible for Harvey |
| Tue, 29 Aug 2017 17:20:16 EST Within the dramatic coverage of Hurricane Harvey and the historic flooding that ensued, the mainstream media repeatedly assert that climate changes triggered by human activity are responsible for the amount of devastation seen along the Texas coast, but a leading critic of the climate change movement says science tells a very different story - that cooling is playing a key role. Since Friday, record amounts of rainfall have inundated the Houston area, flooding countless homes and roads, and forcing thousands of rescues of stranded residents by emergency responders and area residents. But as the media share the dramatic stories of rescue and loss, they are also suggesting human activity played a role in the severity of this storm. "What is the role of man-made climate change in disasters like this one?" asked CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. CNN political contributor Ron Brownstein was even more assertive. "There is no doubt that climate change, particularly because of the warming of the ocean waters and the gulf waters, makes storms like this more common," said Brownstein. CNN anchor John Berman presented climate change as a reason when speaking with former National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read. "One of the thing we've from scientists over the last ten years is that climate change does impact the intensity of many of the storms that we see," said Berman. Read did not agree. "I probably wouldn't attribute what we're looking at here. This is not an uncommon occurrence," said Read. So did human activity play a role in the misery being inflicted upon Texas? "Man-made climate change is not occurring. There's no evidence for that whatsoever, and climate changes all the time naturally," said Dr. Tim Ball, a former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg and the author of "The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science." He says partisans are cherry-picking information to advance a narrative. "They're taking things out of context. You're looking at one event. When you look at the long-term history of hurricanes and severe weather events, this is well within the normal variability and nothing unusual at all," said Ball, who posits that government agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is using Harvey to further a political point. "NOAA especially, and the media amplifying it, are doing everything to hype these things because they want to push this whole human-caused global warming agenda," said Ball. Even worse, Ball says anyone with the temerity to dispute the government and media line is targeted for ridicule and humiliation. "To try and get to the truth and to calm things down is almost impossible. If you dare to even question any of this, it's 'Oh, you don't care about the people that are drowning or the loss of life and so on. How dare you say that?' This is what's going on. you're immediately bullied into silence if you dare to try to bring some semblance of reason and evidence and facts to the issue," said Ball. So why have we seen record rainfall topping more than 50 inches of rain in Texas and why did the storm just linger on the coast for days? Ball says it's actually just the opposite of what the climate change activists would have people believe. "The reason it parked itself day after day is because the world is cooling down and the cold air is pushing down from the north. If you look at the weather maps, you'll see that there were two high pressure ridges to the northwest of where the hurricane would normally go inland and they were preventing it from moving inland. So it's actually global cooling that's causing the problem," said Ball. He says tropical storms and hurricanes typically lose steam very quickly once they hit land but Harvey stopped at the worst possible place. "With Harvey, that's not fully happening. Half of it is over the land and half is over the water, so it's continuing to pick up some of the moisture and that's feeding the steady rainfalls that are associated with it," said Ball. While Harvey's rainfall totals are the worst on record, Ball says that's no reason to jump to conclusions about human activity playing a role. "Has this happened before? Of course. It's just that it hasn't happened as far as I know in the modern record of hurricane events. To understand the meteorology of it and to say that this would have occurred in the past is perfectly reasonable," said Ball. However, experts who agree that humans do play a role in the changing climate say the volatility and severity of events such as Harvey are proof of their conclusions. Ball says it's just the opposite. "The increased variability of weather, that is what you get when the world starts to cool down. The cold air starts pushing farther south, That's what's caused the problems with Harvey, and what it does is amplify the variability of the weather and the climate and that's what we're seeing happening," said Ball. Ball says the cooling planet is just the latest failure of most climate scientists to predict what will happen. "The fact that all the predictions of temperature that have been made since 1990 have been wrong. If your forecasts are wrong, your science is wrong," said Ball. Ball points to a new British study suggesting 2016 is the warmest year on record as an attempt to keep the political narrative in place in spite of the science. "They cooked the data to show this. There is a warm patch down in the southeast of England right now, but the rest of England is below normal temperatures. So it's this cherry-picking of data and selectivity of data to push the agenda you've sold to the public," said Ball. He says the politicians pushing the climate change agenda are too far down the road to turn around now. "As a bureaucrat, you don't want to come out and say to the politicians who put their political lives on the line with this, 'Hey, what I told you was wrong.' That ain't going to happen. This is the difficulty. When you get it in a bureaucracy, it takes on a life of its own," said Ball. Ball says the cooler the earth gets in the coming years, the more the public will see the truth in the climate debate. "There will be a continued attempt to keep it going but the evidence for cooling will continue to grow. Gradually, people will start to realize that they've been fooled by it," said Ball. |
| Why Cops Are Standing Down in Berkeley and Beyond |
| Mon, 28 Aug 2017 16:17:32 EST On Sunday, a large group of Antifa activists descended upon a small number of people the group surmised were supporters of President Trump and assaulted them viciously while Berkeley, California, police largely stood by, and policing expert Heather Mac Donald says the passivity from the cops is a result of withering demonization from politicians and the media. The Washington Post headline described the violence as an Antifa "attack" against "peaceful right-wing protesters." This is not the first time Berkeley police have let the violence play out. Earlier this year, extensive property damage ensued from riots connected with a scheduled University of California speech by Milo Yiannopoulos. Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of the best-selling "The War Against Cops: How the New attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe." She says the seeds for police reticence to intervene were planted in yet another episode of Berkeley unrest in December 2014, as part of a four-day protest against the police by Black Lives Matter. "The first day of the anti-police, Black Lives Matter riot, the police actually used conventional riot tactics of skirmish lines, of not allowing protesters to get dangerously close," said Mac Donald. "The left-wing Berkeley council and mayor, the next day, blamed the police for the violence, rather than the people who were using Molotov cocktails and attacking businesses and police officers and other people," added Mac Donald. She says the police could draw only one logical conclusion from that political response. "The Berkeley police learned their lesson and said, 'OK, our policy is going to be to allow certainly the destruction of property and if there's collateral damage to people, so be it. We are not going to risk again the claim that we are an occupying, fascist force,'" said Mac Donald. "They're so worried about a lawful act of force being captured on video and the inevitable press reaction that it was the police's fault, that they have simply moved into a hunkered down, passive position that, given our current levels of civil hatred in this country, I think is extremely dangerous," said Mac Donald. She says despite the political slings and arrows, the police still have a responsibility to their communities. "I hope...they will realize that they really owe it to the law-abiding people of this country to maintain order," said Mac Donald. "Police use of force is never a pretty sight, but there are times - whether you are subduing a resisting suspect or trying to keep order in a public anarchy situation like we had again this weekend - where it is necessary." She says the tone and extent of police intervention in these situations will ultimately be up to the voters in each community. "It's really up to the public to decide how much policing it wants. If the public decides we would rather have crime, we'd rather have anarchy than have the police use their lawful authority, well that's their decision to make," said Mac Donald. If the police continue to hold back, what will we see? "I fear real civil violence, whether it's race war of left-right war. Both sides at the extremes are becoming more emboldened," said Mac Donald. Mac Donald makes clear that the most heinous act we've seen to date in this escalating violence is the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville earlier this month. She says that carnage is squarely on the hands of the white supremacists. However, she also points out that many of the instances of non-lethal are instigated by the likes of Antifa. "The left certainly has the bit in its teeth at this point. I hope that Trump still has the moral authority to say this is simply not acceptable. He ran rightly as a law and order president. He alone among the candidates saw what was going on with the demonization of the police, with the rising crime levels, with the resistance to cops, with the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers last year," said Mac Donald. So how do we get to what most Americans expect in terms of law and order? Mac Donald says it is going to be tough so long as the media casts such a negative eye on police. "The media has just been soaked, it's been saturated in anti-cop hostility for the last 20 years but it has certainly gotten much worse with the Black Lives Matter surge that began in August of 2014," said Mac Donald. She says the tragic irony is that the media are hypocrites when it comes to caring about minority deaths. "The overwhelming victims in the rising crime increase are black. Nine hundred more black males were killed in 2015, thanks to the Black Lives Matter de-policing, than the previous year. Even though the media think of itself as so Social Justice Warrior-like, it actually doesn't give a damn about black lives unless they're taken by a cop," said Mac Donald. |
| 'They're Furious at Our Senators' |
| Fri, 25 Aug 2017 16:50:08 EST Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, is fully behind President Trump's demand for full congressional funding for a border wall and both he and his constituents are exasperated with the state's two Republican senators for offering no solutions of their to overhaul or repeal Obamacare. Gosar is a member of the House Freedom Caucus who fended off a primary challenger backed by national party allies in 2016. He says the GOP Senate is a major disappointment, with the failure to address Obamacare as the prime example of its inability to get things done. "What has the Senate done? They copped out on Obamacare. And to my senators (Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake), if you didn't like what the House put forward, where are your ideas?" said Gosar, a dentist who first ran for Congress as part of the tea party wave in 2010. He says while politicians are posturing, people in his state are suffering from Obamacare. "We're catastrophically moving down this pathway where we're seeing Americans getting a 40-90 percent increase in their premiums coming up. Obamacare is failing. There's not enough money to fix it. We're seeing Medicare being implemented in all the group plans, so it behooves us to be big boys and girls and have that conversation," said Gosar. Gosar says the anger of Arizonans towards McCain and Flake is palpable everywhere he goes. "They're furious at our senators. There isn't one meeting I don't have where people are going off on our two senators. Leadership comes at a price and that means you have to put solutions on te table. That means that 'No' can;t be your answer, it's going to be what it takes to be 'Yes,'" said Gosar. In addition to hearing his constituents vent about their senators, he's also hearing about their hardships created by our current health care system. "I have represented most of the rural parts of Arizona. They've got a piece of paper that says they have health insurance but they can't afford to pay the co-pays and deductibles. It's a travesty. They see no job growth out here. They don't see opportunity. Those were all the things they were promised," said Gosar. Gosar says Trump has done what we can to improve conditions but Congress needs to do the heavy lifting. "Whether it be tax breaks, tax cuts, getting government out of the way, this president has done his fair share with the Congressional Review Act and with executive orders to streamline the regulatory process. Now Congress has got to respond. It can't continue working in a broken, dysfunctional fashion," said Gosar. Dr. Kelli Ward, a former Arizona state senator, is already running against Flake in next year's GOP primary. Ward challenged McCain last year and lost badly in the primary, leaving some conservatives to push for Gosar and other conservatives to enter the fray. Gosar says he's thought about but is not close to any decision. "We'll see. That's as good as we can say at this point in time," said Gosar. "We want to make sure that we're doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason. I don't need another title, I've got four titles above congressman: that's a husband, a father, a citizen, and a doctor," said Gosar. Just a few days ago, President Trump held a campaign rally in Phoenix. In addition to sparring with the media and defending his response to the chaos in Charlottesville, Trump demanded Congress fund his central campaign promise of a wall along the southern border, even vowing to shut down the government to make it happen. Gosar says no one should be surprised by Trump's blunt tactics. "This gentleman is not built as a politician and that's why America voted him in. He's a disrupter. The business as usual has got to stop. We're $20 trillion in debt," said Gosar. He also says not approving the money would be a huge mistake. "I don't think I would cross the president and I don't think I would cross the American people. This is something the American people want. So far the Senate has let them down in regards to promises they made on Obamacare and so I think they're getting restless. They don't see solutions but they see a man that's struggling to make sure that he honors the promises that he made to those people," said Gosar. Gosar also asserts that the controversy over the wall is only a creation of the past decade. "The wall was authorized over a decade ago and it was a bipartisan effort. A sovereign country has a right to defend and dictate it's borders," said Gosar. So how did this become such a political lightning rod? "It's because the political correctness in the media has gotten into people," he said. Another hot-button issue is the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. He says all contracts ought to be renegotiated every few years and NAFTA has been on the books for more than two decades. He says the issues of border security and trade are very closely linked. "I think these are all interwoven and I think the president has a good thought process about how to drag all these together to get what he believes the American people want because they voted for him. He made no qualms about border security and building the wall," said Gosar. Gosar also applauds Trump sending more border patrol agents and immigration judges to stem the tide of illegal entries and to adjudicate cases much more quickly. He does, however, urge the president to make more personnel nominations in the Justice Department and elsewhere to improve the effort even more. But with Trump in a very public battle with members of his own party about blame over Obamacare and other issues, will any big ticket items on the GOP agenda actually get done when Congress returns next month? Gosar says they have no choice. "Winston Churchill made the famous analogy saying, 'You can always count on Americans to do the right thing when they've exhausted everything else. Well, here's our sign looking at Congress.. We've exhausted everything else, at least from the House. We've got over 200 bills over there waiting on the Senate to take a look at," said Gosar. While he can't say for sure what will get done, Gosar says if one big thing can get to Trump's desk, other major priorities will fall like dominoes. "The atmosphere is going to be very confrontational. It's going to be very high stakes. But once that first brick falls, a lot of this stuff is going to fall right in line," said Gosar, who personally hopes Obamacare repeal is the first brick to fall. "I would hope that it's health care, because I think that sets the stage for tax breaks [and] the budget and that looks at a positive influence for the American people to move forward," said Gosar. |
| Texas Judge vs. Voter ID |
| Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:39:35 EST A federal judge in Texas shot down a proposed voter identification law for the fourth time, citing intentional discrimination against minorities, but a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity says previous court decisions and existing federal law are on the side of the Lone Star State. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos prevented Texas from implementing parts of a 2011 voter ID law and completely rejected a reworked law crafted by lawmakers to comply with an earlier defeat at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ramos says the legislation clearly has the hallmarks of discrimination, both for amending the previous law rather than starting over and for increasing penalties for anyone caught lying as to why they don 19t have government-issued photo identification. But critics of Ramos say her decision is far less complicated than that. 1cThis judge, an Obama appointee, has shown her bias from the very beginning, when her first opinion said that there was no reason to pass a voter ID law other than to discriminate, 1d said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. He is also a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Von Spakovsky says the original Texas law required government-issued photo identification from all voters. He says the amended version offered far more leniency. 1cThey changed it to say if you show up at a polling place and you don 19t have an ID, you 19ll still be able to vote if you simply sign a form that says I had a reasonable impediment that kept me from getting a photo ID and you show some document that 19s got your name and address on it, 1d said von Spakovsky. He says that could include a bank statement or a utility bill and adds there are no barriers in Texas to getting a photo ID or bringing an acceptable alternative to the polls. 1cTexas provides a free photo ID to anyone who doesn 19t already have one. Second, they 19ve even gotten rid of that requirement by saying all you 19ve got to show is a document with your name and address on it . It doesn 19t cost you anything to bring a utility bill, or a bank statement, or some other government document, 1d said von Spakovsky. He also laughs off Ramos for considering tougher penalties for lying on a government form to be discrimination. 1cShe claims that 19s voter intimidation. Again, punishing lying on a voting form is not voter intimidation, yet that 19s the claim that she makes, 1d said von Spakovsky. Von Spakovsky says Texas has another thing on its side as it prepares to appeal: existing federal law. 1cTexas copied a federal requirement. Under federal law in the Help America Vote Act of 2002, anyone who registers by mail, the first time they go vote they have to show some form of ID, and the forms of ID are specifically listed as exactly the same thing, 1d said von Spakovsky. 1cSo [Ramos] is basically saying that the same kind of requirement Texas put in, which is identical to a federal requirement 13 a federal law 13 that 19s been upheld in the courts, that that 19s somehow intentional discrimination . I mean that 19s just crazy, 1d said von Spakovsky. As a result, von Spakovsky fully expects Texas to win its next battle in the appeals court, in part because doing otherwise would be tantamount to ruling against itself. 1cI have a hard time believing they 19re going to uphold what this judge is saying, also because of the fact that the changes that were made by Texas actually followed a guide or outline that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals itself wrote in its prior opinions, 1d said von Spakovsky. A dozen states require some form of government-issued identification. And within those states, von Spakovsky says there is proof that such policies do not discriminate. 1cAll of the claims that this will keep, for example, minority voters out of the polls we know is not true. States like Georgia and Indiana have had their ID requirements in place for more than a decade. In fact, turnout of African-Americans in Georgia went up after this law. A lot of people think it 19s because it improves public confidence in the election process, 1d said von Spakovsky. While von Spakovsky admits many opponents of voter ID laws truly believe minorities and the poor are being disenfranchised, he says others just don 19t like closer scrutiny of the voting process. 1cThere are other people who don 19t want anything that will make elections more secure. These are people who want to be able to easily steal votes. Texas has a history of voter fraud, including a lot of people who go into poor neighborhoods and purchase and buy votes, 1d said von Spakovsky. |
| Immigration Battle Awaits Congress Upon Return |
| Wed, 23 Aug 2017 16:54:46 EST Along with tax reform, the debt ceiling, spending bills, and maybe another crack at health care legislation, Congress also has the chance to address immigration policy, and a leading advocate of tougher immigration standards says compromises can be made so long as the most important elements wind up in the final bill. Center for Immigration Reform Research Director Steven Camarota says President Trump has already improved our homeland security and positioned the country better for reform simply by enforcing the laws on the books. "Having Trump in there, whatever else you may think of him, he's pushing enforcement. He's going after illegal immigrants and those who are criminal aliens. He's trying to increase work site enforcement and get the cooperation of local law enforcement. All of that makes sense and that's a very big deal," said Camarota. But he says enforcement of current laws only goes so far. "It doesn't do that much to address the overall issue of numbers. How many people can we assimilate? What is the absorption capacity of America's physical infrastructure? What is the absorption capacity of schools? That's why numbers all matter so much," said Camarota. "Unless we start bringing the legal numbers, which are enormous and account for three-fourth's of all immigrants, we're not going to deal with many of the problems the country faces stemming from immigration," said Camarota. Earlier this summer, President Trump introduced the RAISE Act, which most notably lower levels of legal immigration and also require immigrants to be able to support themselves financially and be proficient in English. A quick head count of the Senate shows that bill essentially dead on arrival. In addition to most or all Democrats lining up against the legislation, several Republicans are also balking at it, including members of the 2013 Gang of Eight, such as John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. But Camarota believes a good bill can still get done and he is willing to offer a major priority of Democrats as enticement. "One of the ways it might pass is if it were part of a compromise that gave some kind of legal status to those illegal immigrants who came at young ages in return for the provisions of the RAISE Act. These are the people currently covered by the program called DACA (often called 'Dreamers')," said Camarota. But Camarota was very clear about what he believes needs to be in the bill. "Obviously, (we need) enforcement, controlling the border, going after the employers who hire people who are illegally here, and an entry-exit system that records the arrival and departure of people," said Camarota. "Foreigners come into the United States 200 million times or more a year on a time-limited basis. That means they have a temporary visa, a tourist, a guest worker, a foreign student. We don't keep track of the time we're here, so we don't know if the time limit has been honored," said Camarota. Camarota would also like to see a much stricter definition of family members who can be allowed in, primarily limiting the option to spouses and dependent children. However, he also says the benefits of immigration to the immigrant, and not just the nation, ought to considered. "I realize that the immigrants themselves may benefit by coming here and maybe that's something to think about. Maybe that's why we should continue to have a reasonable pace of immigration. But it doesn't, to my mind, justify, the enormous amount of legal immigration, nor does it justify tolerating illegal immigration," said Camarota. The immigration issue is a political tinder box right now. The debates over the Trump travel bans grew very intense that will likely spill over into this struggle. Camarota says Trump brings good and bad qualities into this debate. "To his credit, Trump has at least been willing to address some of the big issues. Not to his credit, he has not done so in a careful and sensitive way and he's contributed in that way to polarization," said Camarota. But he says it's not just Trump who has to take a more sober look at this debate. "Careful, intelligent, fact-based discourse is hard for most people and a polarized environment makes it harder," said Camarota. |
| Can Tarkanian Trump Heller? |
| Tue, 22 Aug 2017 16:30:32 EST Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, is seen as the most vulnerable Senate Republican in 2018 and now he may have a fight just emerge from the GOP primary thanks to a vigorous, America First challenge from businessman Danny Tarkanian. In 2018, Republicans are defending just eight seats, while Democrats are trying to protect 25 different seats, many of them in states President Trump carried in 2016. Heller is one of those eight Republicans on the ballot next year, but his approval numbers in his home state are very low. Just 22 percent of Nevadans approved of Heller's job performance in a left-leaning poll released August 1. The same survey found Nevadans ready to support a generic Democrat over Heller by a 50-31 percent margin. Tarkanian sees those same numbers and says Heller's performance in Washington, particularly on Obamacare, is a big reason for the disapproval. "The people of Nevada are very frustrated with the representation they've had from Sen. Heller over the years and I think it culminated with his vote not to repeal Obamacare after he promised to," said Tarkanian. "They expect him to keep his word from what he promises when he campaigns when he's trying to get elected," said Tarkanian. "Everywhere I go in this great state of Nevada, I hear people say they're sick and tired of politicians who promise one thing when they run for office and they do the exact opposite when they get elected." Defenders of Heller point out he did not help to kill the Obamacare repeal in the debate because he supported the "skinny repeal" that was eventually sunk by GOP moderates Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain. Tarkanian is not impressed. "The skinny repeal was a joke. It was the worst bill that was proposed out there and it didn't do anything to lower the premiums for the hard-working middle class Americans that have seen their premiums go up like my family's: $12,000 a year, our deductibles 500 percent (higher), our co-pay for a specialist doctor 400 percent (higher)," said Tarkanian. "Dean Heller's skinny repeal that he brags about that he signed, actually raises the premium another 20 percent more than it's already going to raise. It was the worst possible bill out there," said Tarkanian. But Tarkanian says Heller was on the wrong side when the chance for real repeal was on the table. "He promised he would vote to repeal Obamacare. That is what he did in 2015, when he knew that President Obama would veto it. Then in 2017, the exact same bill came before him, and he joined six other senators, who had signed for the repeal in 2015 that voted against the repeal this year, knowing President Trump would sign it. That's what's infuriated the people of Nevada," said Tarkanian. Tarkanian admits he doesn't have a lot of political experience but notes that Heller has been in politics for 30 years. The challenger says his principles are very clear. "I have worked in the Republican Party as a very strong advocate for conservative principles, America First principles that Donald Trump is talking about. I never wavered on that support, even though it cost me quite a bit in previous elections because I had the conviction to stand up for what I believed in," said Tarkanian. He is running as an enthusiastic supporter of the Trump agenda. "We have a president who really has the courage and conviction to really try to make substantive and meaningful changes to the way D.C. operates. Some good things are happening through executive order. But for him to get his America First agenda passed, he's going to need senators to support that agenda. And I fully support the president's America First agenda," said Tarkanian. Aligning so closely with the Trump agenda could be risky in a state Trump lost in 2016 and stands at 40 percent approval. Tarkanian sees it as a matter of principle. "It's the right thing to do. It's the only strategy you should look at. What's the right thing to do? The right thing to do is to get President Trump's America First policies passed," said Tarkanian. Tarkanian makes it clear he doesn't necessarily subscribe to Trump's political style but they do see eye to eye on policy. He says the media spend far more time on Trump's personality, and other than Obamacare, spend hardly any time on policy. "The only (other) time I've seen them attack his policy was on the travel ban. They haven't said a single thing about the other things he's trying to accomplish. We're seeing stock market highs virtually daily, unemployment at a 16-year low. Border crossings are down 70 percent for illegal immigrants. ISIS is being destroyed in Iraq and Syria," said Tarkanian. He is also confident that a conservative can win in an increasingly blue state like Nevada. Tarkanian points out the GOP swept all the major races in 2014 and a coalition is there for him as well. "It's a tough state but it's not a state that's out of reach. There's six percent more Democrats in the state. Twenty-three percent of the state is independent. So if you win the independents and hold you base,a good strong Republican can win," said Tarkanian. Tarkanian is the son of the late University of Nevada-Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, who won a national championship in four trips to the Final Four but also clashed with the NCAA for decades over alleged infractions. Danny, who played for his father, says he was prepared for politics after watching his father get hammered in the media. "I had the unfortunate opportunity to watch how the media crucified my father when he was coach," said Tarkanian. "So, I'm used to seeing the criticism, and how unfair it was, and how my father handled it. I think that's allowed me to handle it much better than almost any other person who has run for public office." Tarkanian has run twice for statewide office, twice for the House and once before for Senat. He lost his most recent race, a 2016, House campaign, by less than 4,000 votes. "I've had some very tough and agonizing losses. I learned that you fight back from those losses. You don't give up. You show perseverance and a never quit attitude. That's the only way you overcome those things. I think a lot people would have thrown in the towel by now if they were in my shoes. Because of the way I was raised, that isn't me," said Tarkanian. |
| Still Unanswered Questions in House Dem IT Scandal |
| Mon, 21 Aug 2017 16:45:24 EST Indictments and allegations are piling up concerning the information technology specialist that was used in the offices of several different House Democrats, and an IT specialist running to unseat a congressional Democrat suspects there is a lot more that will emerge in this case. Imran Awan was arrested at Dulles International Airport last month while allegedly trying to leave the country. Other family members have already left and appear to have no intention of returning. At the time of his arrest, Awan, native of Pakistan, was charged with one count of bank fraud. But the list of indictments is growing. He is now staring at a four-count indictment, including conspiracy and making false statements. His wife is also now indicted. Critics are not just concerned that Awan and other family members worked on Capitol Hill but the details are also unnerving. "He was working for several members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Those members seem to have been paying him maybe two to three times what typical IT staffers should be making on the Hill. That in itself is a very interesting situation," said Jeff Dove, a U.S. Army veteran, an IT specialist and a candidate for Congress in Virginia's 11th congressional district. Records show that members of the Awan family raked in roughly four million dollars for providing IT services on Capitol Hill, and Dove says some of them had no qualifications to be there. "Those people that were working with him didn't necessarily have the skills to be accessing those computers that they had access to," said Dove. "So there are a lot of questions that need to be answered about what they were doing and what they had access to at the time." Dove is also very concerned about what the Awans got their hands on given the work of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "If they had access to so many members' information, that means they would have access to any memos or any communications between the entire committee," said Dove. While no indictments are in place alleging mishandling classified information, there are reports that FBI investigators are looking in that direction. While other members of Congress cut ties with Awan and his family prior to his arrest, Wasserman Schultz still had him on staff until the day after he was taken into custody. Dove says that raises even more questions. "He had access to stuff on the Hill. They took his access away, yet he was still getting paid for his services. What were his services after he no longer had access to that information?" asked Dove, who also says the length of the FBI probe suggests there's plenty of fire to go along with the smoke in this case. "I believe the investigation started either in 2015 or 2016, so this has been going on for quite some time. For this investigation to be going on for so long, they have to have found something to keep going on with this investigation," said Dove, noting evidence of destroyed hard drives on Awan's property in Virginia. Dove is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge five-term Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Virginia. While Connolly is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he did not hire Awan to do IT work in his office. Nonetheless, Dove says Connolly's arrogance in condemning Awan speaks volumes. "He's not thinking about the people anymore. He's become complacent. He even said in an interview recently, where he was talking about the IT scandal with ABC News, that the offices of Congress are 'princely courts.' He's become so complacent that he feels he's somewhat of a monarch now," said Dove. Dove says his path to a congressional run started on Election Day in 2016. "When I went to the ballot box, on one side of the ballot I saw the presidential election, and on the other side of the ballot I saw one man's name and that was Gerry Connolly. How in the world did this happen in a democracy where we only had one person running in a congressional district," said Dove. After remembering his mother's words that anyone who wants to see change needs to step up and do it, Dove says his candidacy took bloom. "I've had this need to serve people my entire life. That's part of the reason why I joined the military. That's why I'm continuing this quest to try and unseat Connolly, who is someone who's been entrenched in D.C. for a very long time," said Dove. What kind of congressman would Dove be? He says getting the most out of taxpayer dollars and targeting abuse and waste would high on his priority list. "I want to see more accountability, not in one of the agencies people talk about all the time, which is Veterans Affairs and that is very close to my heart, but every agency should have to prove out every year that they're meeting what they set out to do as their mission on a yearly basis in order to get the money that should be allocated to them," said Dove. "He says eliminating waste is the best way to drain the proverbial swamp. "Getting rid of the outside influencers is key to being able to move forward with legislation that will actually benefit the people. I believe you have to get people who are really motivated to work for the people in office to help the people," said Dove. "And I'm one of those people." |
| IRS Rehires Personnel Fired in Targeting Scandal |
| Fri, 18 Aug 2017 16:51:19 EST More than 200 IRS personnel who were fired for unethical and even criminal actions in connection with the targeting of conservatives are now back on the job, according to a report from an inspector general's report. According to the Office of Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, 213 people were rehired by the IRS despite a checkered history with the agency. Those allowed back in between January 2015 and March 2016 include four people who were fired or resigned for failure to properly file their own income taxes. Four had been axed for improperly accessing taxpayer information, 86 others left while being probed for questionable leave, disrupting the workplace or failing to follow instructions, and 27 failed to disclose a conviction or being fired on their applications. The inspector general's report shows the audit was requested by an unnamed U.S. senator who was concerned about lax hiring practices at the IRS. The report concludes there was reason to be concerned. "The IRS has not effectively updated or implemented hiring policies to fully consider past IRS conduct and performance issues prior to making a tentative decision to hire former employees, including those who were terminated or separated during an investigation of a substantiated conduct or performance issue," said the report. Out of 7,500 hires in the evaluation period, 213 raised red flags, and six of those were also flagged for improper conduct since returning. "Although the IRS may have had a valid basis to rehire some of the more than 200 former employees with prior conduct or performance issues, TIGTA has serious concerns about the IRS 19s decision to rehire certain employees, such as those who willfully failed to meet their Federal tax responsibilities," the report stated. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is a fierce critic of the IRS. He says it's pretty easy to distill this story. "You could simplify all that and say they rehired 200-some people who were cheating, lying, and snooping on the American taxpayer. That's what they were doing and, 'Oh, we're going to rehire them now and let them work in the Internal Revenue Service,'" said Jordan. "You can't make this stuff up, can you? Just when you think you've heard it all about the IRS, they go and rehire people who have had this kind of background. It is truly unbelievable," said Jordan. Jordan led the charge to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen for obstructing congressional efforts to investigate the IRS targeting of conservative organizations applying for non-profit status. GOP leaders tabled the impeachment push, but Jordan says the same corrupt culture obviously still exists at the IRS. "Remember what they did when they got caught targeting, systematically, for a sustained period of time, they were going after people based on their political beliefs. Political speech rights were under attack by an agency with the power, the clout, the potential influence on your life that the IRS has, that's what they were doing," said Jordan. "It boggles the mind that the same people are still. You almost want to laugh, but you can't because it's so serious," said Jordan, with clear exasperation in his voice. He says this type of government corruption and incompetence grinds the gears of honest Americans. "There are a lot of things that make taxpayers mad but a couple in particular: one is when politicians don't do what they said. A second one is when you have this kind of egregious behavior from the people whose salaries we pay," said Jordan. "And frankly, the third is - and it goes along with the second - is this idea that there are two standards, one set of rules if you and I do something wrong but a different set if you're part of the politically-connected class. If your name is Clinton, Comey, Koskinen, Lerner, Lynch, you get a different set of rules than us regular folk. That's the part that really bugs the American taxpayer, as well it should," said Jordan. Jordan says the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a subcommittee that he chairs will be having hearings on this but Congress has no power over IRS personnel decisions other than to shine the spotlight on problems. He says the most important step in the coming months will be President Trump's choice to replace Koskinen as IRS Commissioner. Koskinen's term ends in November. While the IRS has tremendous power to meddle in Americans' finances, Congress has its own financial deadlines coming up, namely a looming debt ceiling fight and spending decisions for Fiscal Year 2018. Democrats are already demanding a clean debt ceiling hike. Jordan says GOP leaders would be foolish to embrace that idea. "I would find it hard to believe that the Speaker of the House (Paul Ryan) would go along with a clean debt ceiling," said Jordan. "He understands that we've got a $20 trillion debt. You don;t just increase the limit on the credit card without also putting in place things that begin to help you address the real problem, which is that $20 trillion debt burden we now have." "At the Freedom Caucus, we are opposed to a clean debt ceiling. We've been very clear about that. Every time we've increased the debt ceiling, we've done something that begins to help us with the huge debt problem that we have," said Jordan. "Republicans control all of government. We just can't do that." Jordan is not sure what to expect in the appropriations process, which seems destined for another continuing resolution or omnibus package rather ran regular order on individual bills. However, Jordan is resolute in keeping the taxpayer dollars out of the hands of insurance companies. "One of the big issues that we'll face is the idea that we're going to provide these (cost-sharing reduction) payments, these bailouts to the health insurance companies. I think that is a big problem, a big concern and something we should not do," said Jordan. Jordan is bullish on tax reform getting done in the coming months because "it has to." He is also hoping to resurrect the Obamacare repeal effort. Jordan and two other Freedom Caucus members are circulating a discharge petition, which would force a floor vote on the 2015 "clean" repeal that passed the House and Senate. But Jordan says getting anything through the Senate will be a very tall order. "As someone said the other day, 'I don't know if the Senate could pass a resolution right now that says motherhood is wonderful.' It just seems like they can't get anything passed over there. That's a problem," said McConnell. |
| Return to Campus is 'Gonna Be A Mess' |
| Thu, 17 Aug 2017 16:28:07 EST As colleges and universities prepare for the return of students in the coming weeks, one of the few administrators willing to criticize the tidal wave of intellectual intolerance on campus is expecting "a mess" when the new semester dawns. Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Dr. Everett Piper gained tremendous notoriety in 2015 when he wrote an opinion column decrying universities for coddling student demands for safe spaces and the eradication of ideas that don't mesh with the orthodoxy of political correctness. In that column he famously declared that a college is not a daycare. He is now the author of "Not A Daycare: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth." Piper says America needs to brace for more campus unrest. "Oh, it's going to be a mess. You will see protests. You will see riots. You will see the results of teaching victimization and vice for decades. When you teach victimization, you don't get anything but vengeance and violence," said Piper. "The only thing that rescues us from this vicious cycle is to start teaching virtue. Virtue is selfless. Victimization is selfish," said Piper. He fears many Americans still don't see how dangerous this campus intolerance and group think really is. "What we see on the college green from Berkeley to Brown is going to consume our whole culture. What's taught today in the classroom will be practiced tomorrow in your courtrooms, in your living rooms, and in your communities," said Piper. "The proof of that is turn on the news, listen to your show, go Google the news and you see these angry red faces of 21-year-olds who are demanding that any contrary idea, anything they don't like and makes them feel uncomfortable be silenced. "It's ideological fascism. It isn't academic freedom. We must confront this with the truth . Otherwise we will not be a free society and a free culture," said Piper. Piper rejects the idea of safe spaces at college, often referring to the quote from C.S. Lewis in "The Chronicles of Narnia" that the great lion, Aslan, is not safe but he is good. Piper says the same approach ought to be applied to today's culture. "There's a huge difference between goodness and safety. I'd much rather have good education than safe education. Safe education will coddle you and comfort you. Good education will challenge your character and ask you to grow up. That's what the university is for," said Piper. Piper says that challenge ought to come from the pursuit of truth. but he says the left has made "truth" an ugly word. "In days gone by, the academy recognized that there was an objective truth to judge the debate, not the power of the professor and not the pout of the pupil. It was objective truth that judged the debate. When we started disparaging objective truth and dumbed it down to nothing but a collection of opinions, we started losing the battle and it was inevitable that this intellectual freedom would succumb to fascism over time," said Piper. But he says the result of no longer valuing truth gets far uglier. "We've dumbed down the definition of hate to nothing but a disagreement. When you dumb down hate to nothing but disagreement, you make hate meaningless and disagreement dangerous," said Piper, who says we see his on sexual issues in a disturbing way. "Right now, just because people disagree on issues of sexual behavior and morality, that makes them haters in the mind of the general public. This is very dangerous and it squelches debate because people are afraid to express their views. They're afraid to disagree because they'll be labeled a phobic or a hater as the result of a simple disagreement on a behavioral choice," said Piper. The question over truth is nothing new. The Gospel of John recounts a critical exchange between Jesus Chris and Pontius Pilate shortly before Pilate consented to the crucifixion of Christ. "Therefore Pilate said to Him, 1cSo You are a king? 1d Jesus answered, 1cYou say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice. 1d Pilate *said to Him, 1cWhat is truth? 1d (John 18:37-38). Piper says the standard for truth hasn't changed. "I define truth as an objective reality. It is out there. It can be known. It can be embraced. It can be pursued. It's something other than your opinion or mine. It's not a social construct. It's a revelation of God. Even outside of scripture, it's defined that way in our seminal documents, where we are told that we are endowed by our Creator with certain self-evident truths. "These truths that give us a free society, constitutional republic, are given by God. They aren't made up of power," said Piper. And he says history proves that terrible things happen when opinions trump truth. "Pol Pot and Mao (Zedong) and Robespierre and all the despots of history had opinions and it didn't end well. Christ told us, 'You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free,'" said Piper. Piper realizes his critics will reject his argument, but he says their logic only proves his point. "If anybody disagrees with me and says, 'That's just your opinion of education. I think you're wrong,' the very claim that they're making - that I'm wrong and they're right - presupposes an objective standard...that makes them right and me wrong. Therefore, they've agreed with me without even knowing it," said Piper. Piper also has a strong warning for parents who honor the truth as they search for the right college for their children. "Stop sending your kids off to institutions that teach this pablum. Why would you do this? "You're spending tens of thousands of dollars to send your kids off to an institution, that after you spend 18 years of your life training up a child in the way he should go, in the first 18 minutes while you're driving off campus, they take pride in tearing his heart, mind, and soul out. Why are you paying for that? Don't do it," said Piper. "Seventy percent of your sons and daughters will walk away form their faith and their convictions before they're juniors. There's a reason for it. You're paying money to make it happen, Stop it," added Piper. To avoid this frustration, Piper offers key questions to ask at any college visits. "Ask the president, 'What's your view of truth and what's your view of scripture?' Then be quiet and listen. If truth is an objective reality, good answer. If scripture is a revelation of God and not just an interesting literature book constructed by man, good answer. If he doesn't say that, why are you spending your money," said Piper. While Piper suspects "ideological fascism" is about to engulf our culture, he says he and others who love and pursue truth have no choice but to stand and fight back. "I'm gonna wave the banner of the truth of Christ and of the truth of scripture. I'm going to wave the banner that scripture is inerrant and revealed and that truth is an objective reality. If I win waving that banner, that's great. That's God's grace. If I lose waving that banner, frankly I don't care. It's the right banner to wave. I'll go down fighting," said Piper. Piper has no illusions about how this struggle could damage our culture, but he knows who wins in the end. "I know the end of the story. I believe that truth will prevail. Between now and then, there may be discomfort. There may be dissonance. Iron may have to sharpen iron. God may have to redeem for good what others have intended for evil," said Piper. |
| Police and the Protests |
| Wed, 16 Aug 2017 16:31:47 EST While the debate rages on about the violence and ideology on display in Charlottesville on Saturday, a prominent black conservative is fuming over the lack of an appropriate police presence to prevent the clashes and says whether or not we see a replay in other American cities probably depends upon the politics of the political leaders there. The Charlottesville police admit they should have done more to separate the different protesters, but that's not good enough for former constitutional law professor Horace Cooper. Cooper is now co-chair of the Project 21 National National Advisory Board. Project 21 is a leadership network of black conservatives. He says law enforcement has an obligation to plan for the worse. "In the event that we are apprehensive that a particular public expression could lead to heightened tensions between communities, you don't send your officers home for the weekend. You, in fact, call some of those who are taking off and say, 'I want you on standby,'" said Cooper. And he Cooper is dumbfounded that police were not at least ready to intervene as the likelihood of violence increased. "The second that you get concerned that something is happening that's going to be very aggressive and dangerous, you bring those people in. Our Constitution allows for peaceable expression. Freedom of expression does not include burglary, does not include theft, does not include rape, does not include mayhem," said Cooper. But while Cooper says the police could have prevented at least one death and many injuries by keeping order more aggressively, he says this is just the latest incident where he believes politics trumped public safety. "We've seen it in Ferguson. We've seen it in Baltimore. We've seen it in Berkeley. In all too many instances, the voices of condemnation call off the responsible authorities to see to it that all parties stay in their lanes, and instead allow private mayhem to occur," said Cooper. "It looks like it's precisely to let the private mayhem have its way over the so-called injustice that the media and the political leaders that are doing this have identified," said Cooper. So will the revolting images we witnessed from Charlottesville play out in other American cities? Cooper says that largely depends upon who is in charge in those places. "If these things happen in jurisdictions where people are willing to allow the space for mayhem to occur, it will occur and it will not be good. If they happen in jurisdictions where leaders are willing to hold individuals accountable, we can stop this. I am hopeful that the latter is true," said Cooper. He says leaders can set a proper tone long before tensions and passions rise, noting stark differences in how protesters responded to the George Zimmerman verdict in Florida verus the rioters in Ferguson, Missouri. "[Florida Gov. Rick Scott] insisted that they were going to hold all people who rioted and committed mayhem criminally liable and it killed off almost all aspects of the over-the-top rhetoric. The governor of Missouri (Jay Nixon) did exactly the opposite and we saw nights and nights of criminal activity," said Cooper. As for his personal thoughts on Charlottesville, Cooper says he urges everyone to always wait for the facts before leaping into outrage mode. He says an online mob mentality almost devoured the wrong person for the deadly vehicle attack. "The prior owner of the 2010 Dodge Challenger had been identified all across social media and threats were being made to his family and his household even though this was a car he had already sold years ago," said Cooper. Cooper clearly finds the views of the white supremacists "repugnant" but takes solace in the fact that their views are representative of just a tiny fraction of the American people. "That is not a significant number of the American polity. It is not a major influence in our country today, and when the attention is given to them, it is my hope that the little attention that they get helps to remind people this isn't your next door neighbor. This isn't the person you work with. These are very, very marginal individuals," said Cooper. |
| 'The Left Wants to Have a One-Way Hate Campaign' |
| Tue, 15 Aug 2017 16:19:03 EST Best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza says there were fascists on both sides of the violence in Virginia on Saturday and he posits that Democrats and their allies in the media are now focused on painting all Republicans and conservatives as responsible for the racism that still exists in the United States. Last week, prior to the violence in Charlottesville, D'Souza likened the Antifa movement and their pattern of stopping speech through violence to Adolf Hilter's brown shirts and Benito Mussolini's black shirts. But with white supremacists and neo-Nazis on one side and Antifa on the other, which side is the fascists? "Clearly, there's a fascist streak running between both sets of violent activists. The mayor of Charlottesville said, 'These people all came to fight.' They didn't come to peacefully protest. They wanted to tangle with each other," said D'Souza, author most recently of "The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left." While many in the media and in Democratic circles suggest that the white supremacists are Trump voters, D'Souza says that's not true of the organizer of the rally. "What's really strange is that the white supremacist who organized the rally is a former Obama guy and a former Occupy Wall Street guy. So right away you know that something fishy is going on here," said D'Souza. When it comes to the rest of the neo-Nazi and KKK figures in Charlottesville, D'Souza says the story is more complicated. "This white nationalism was actually invented in the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party has moved from embracing white nationalism to embracing every other type of minority nationalism. So the Democrats like black nationalism, black pride, black solidarity. They're telling every ethnic group - blacks, Hispanics, Asians - be proud of what makes you distinctive," said D'Souza. He says Democrats now mobilize all of these groups against white nationalists, and that has created some changing voting patterns among white supremacists. "Today if you're a white nationalist, you don't find a hospitable home in the Democratic Party. You don't find much of a home in the Republican Party either, because Trump is not a white nationalist. Trump is an American nationalist. So I think that's why some of these white nationalists are for Trump," said D'Souza. "They normally would be Democrats, if the Democrats hadn't created a type of multiculturalism in which these guys are not welcome at the multicultural picnic," said D'Souza. But rather than acknowledge these bigoted elements as a fringe of the American political landscape, D'Souza says liberals and the media are trying to paint the political right with a very broad brush. "The media is up to something very vile and very cunning. They're trying to excuse the much more dangerous fascism on their own side. Think about it: the driving of speakers off campus, not just the Antifa violent guys, but the deans and the studio bosses in Hollywood. If you have a different point of view, they'll run you out of town. They'll make sure you never work again," said D'Souza. "This is the fascism, not just of the street but of the institutions. The Democratic Party today has much more of a fascist ideology and fascist tactics than anything you see in the Republican Party," said D'Souza, who says he's never seen a white supremacist at a GOP event in more than 25 years of speaking around the country. D'Souza says this effort is a massive exercise in blame-shifting. "There's an effort to transfer responsibility from the actual guilty party, the Democrats, onto the non-guilty party, the Republicans," he said. "What's underway here is an effort to create a national shaming of the right. For example, look at the stuff about, 'Trump is a fascist.' Trump has never said one kind thing about fascism," said D'Souza. "The left wants to have a one-way hate campaign." He says there's plenty of evidence of Democrats praising the most vile fascist regimes in history. "When you had real fascism, very dangerous fascism, I'm talking about Mussolini's Italy and Nazi Germany. We have [Franklin Roosevelt] praising Mussolini, sending members of his braintrust to fascist Italy to study Italian fascism, which he thought was more progressive than the New Deal. He wanted to bring fascist ideas over here," said D'Souza. In the wake of Charlottesvile, the debate is turning once again to the fate of Confederate memorials and monuments. Some want to destroy them, others believe they should be limited to museums and cemeteries, while others fear tearing them down is tantamount to erasing history. D'Souza says this North vs. South debate raging around the Civil War is badly misplaced. "The real slavery debate was not between the North and the South. It was between the pro-slavery Democratic Party and the anti-slavery Republican Party . Most southerners did not own slaves. Most Confederate soldiers did not own slaves. The northern Democrats led by Stephen Douglas were actively and cunningly protecting slavery and did so for 40 years," said D'Souza. He says that should mean plenty of statues and memorials getting razed in the North, since so many figures openly or tacitly approved of slavery. D'Souza also notes that the Democrats are never under any pressure to denounce any figures from their party's past, even those as recent as longtime Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, who spent years in the KKK. "No one is pulling his statues down. He was lionized in the Democratic Party. Hillary called him her mentor. So you know there is a big lie underway. It's just a matter of getting our fingers on it so we can expose what's really going on," he said. |
| Media Made Charlottesville About Trump |
| Mon, 14 Aug 2017 16:25:01 EST Ugly violence rooted in bigotry broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia, Saturday, but media analyst and American Women's Alliance President Gayle Trotter says the media instantly made the story about President Trump instead of the people responsible for the violence that left one person dead, two state troopers indirectly killed, and and many others hurt. Trotter says it didn't take long for political figures and the the media to demand a statement from Trump on Saturday as the violence unfolded. And they didn't like what they got. "We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, one many sides, said Trump, Saturday afternoon. The media and politicians of all stripes condemned Trump for not specifically condemning white supremacists, the KKK, and neo-Nazis. Trotter believes it was a cautious but clear statement in the midst of a developing crisis. "He was condemning violence from all sources. He made a very strong statement about how he wanted to make America great again and we were going to make America great for all people. It was a very judicious statement, given right as events were unfolding," said Trotter. She says that statement led to wall-to-wall media condemnation. "All you heard was criticism of him, that he had not specifically named names. If you were listening to CNN on Monday morning, every single panelist and the hosts were apoplectic that he had not 'named names,'" said Trotter. Monday afternoon, Trump got specific. "Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," said Trump. "We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our Creator. We are equal under the law. And we are equal under our Constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America," he added. Trotter says the criticism then continued but shifted in focus. "You would think that would answer the accusations that President Trump did not name names. Yet, as soon as he issued that statement, the media continued to criticize him for being two days late," said Trotter, who suspects the criticism would be just as intense if Trump "named names" on Saturday. "Even if what he said on Saturday included specifically naming white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and fascists, it would not have been enough. he would have continued to have been criticized," said Trotter. What galls Trotter most about the media treatment of Trump is their assessment of why there's so much coverage of the president's response as opposed to the carnage on the streets of Charlottesville. "I heard a Bloomberg reporter today saying that President Trump made this episode about himself. If anything, that charge should be laid at the feet of the media, because they turned it from being a news story where they were reporting on what was happening and they turned all of the focus over to President Trump and his reaction," said Trotter. By Monday morning, CBS was pushing the claim that since September 12, 2001, nearly three times more terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by "right-wing extremists" than Islamic radicals, although the attacks from radical Muslims still resulted in more deaths. Trotter is appalled at the reporting for two reasons, first over the obvious manipulation of the data by starting the count the day after the worst terrorist attack in American history, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives. "If this wasn't such a serious topic, this would be so laughable. How can you possibly start any type of calculation about terrorism that doesn't include that doesn't include 9/11," said Trotter. Second, she says there is a clear political agenda afoot. "When CBS and these other news stations make reports like this, they're not making these reports to ensure that Americans are safer. They're making these reports in order to support a political proposition that Republicans and conservatives are dangerous to the American experiment," said Trotter. While condemning the bigots in Charlottesville as possessing a "demonic ideology of white supremacy," Trotter says there needs to be full rejection of all who would use violence to suppress constitutional rights, and she says this is a good time to call all of them out and repudiate them. "It must be repeated over and over again that these groups: radical Islamic terrorists, Antifa, any white supremecists, the KKK, they are all part of the same type of ideology. They believe in violence to achieve political means. They do not believe in the rule of law," said Trotter. Trotter says discussing and exposing those tactics from all who use them is part of a "continuing conversation" that ought to proceed from the ugly events in Virginia on Saturday. |
| Trump Tactics Already Yielding Results |
| Fri, 11 Aug 2017 16:52:42 EST While the media and former Obama administration officials wring their hands over President Trump's tough talk on North Korea, retired Navy Captain Chuck Nash says the president is not only charting the right policy but is already reaping results from it. Nash is also blasting the Obama administration for it's handling of the North Korean threat in recent years and it's "insane" recommendations now. Trump roiled the political establishment by promising "fire and fury" in response to any acts of North Korean aggression against the U.S. or our interests. His comments came in the wake of revelations that North Korea has miniature nuclear weapons that can be placed inside missiles. On Thursday, Trump waved off suggestions that his remarks were too incendiary and even suggested they hadn't gone far enough. But while critics on both sides of the aisle worried that his words were "reckless" and could trigger horrific actions from North Korea, Nash says Trump is playing this exactly right. "The administration is taking the exact right messaging tone, which is not just to Kim Jong-Un. That message is to Russia and specifically to China. And this president is saying, 'Look, if that guy does anything to make me itch, you're not going to like it because we're going to do something,'" said Nash. And Nash says it's clear China already got the message. On Thursday, the Chinese announced they would stay neutral in any conflict between the U.S. and North Korea unless the U.S. struck first. "It's clear that it's working because the Chinese just backed off by telling the North Koreans, 'If you do something stupid, you're going to get the results and we're not going to stand up for you," said Nash. Nash is pleased to see Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Defense Secretary James Mattis staying on message. He says everyone underneath them needs to stay on script as well. "The last thing that the United States needs now is for anybody to break ranks and, as [former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher] said to George Bush, 'This is no time to go wobbly.' We don't need that right now. Too much political capital is on the line here," said Nash. Nash points to a Washington Post story this week revealing the U.S. knew North Korea had deployable miniature nukes four years ago. But instead of confronting the crisis, Obama tried to pretend it didn't exist. "The Obama administration did everything it could to downplay it and in fact made it disappear because they were trying to pursue a policy of what was termed strategic patience," said Nash. And he says leaving the nuclear threat unaddressed was a major error. "We're starting to come to the realization that they do have a capability, that the intelligence community did know about it but that the Obama administration buried that information. As we say in the Navy, bad news does not get better with age. This is aging out and it's starting to stink," said Nash. Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice is actively condemning the Trump approach. While acknowledging that Obama failed to stop the North Korean nuclear program, she says any conflict with North Korea would be catastrophic and believes the world must simply come to grips with the communist regime being a nuclear state. "That absolutely insane," said Nash, likening Rice's posture to deciding to accept living near a crazy neighbor who threatened to kill you and then accumulated the weapons to do it. "The time for pussyfooting around and being really diplomatic is over, just as Tillerson said. Strategic patience, that's over. We're now at the point of having kicked the can down the road. The road has come to a fork. As [Yogi Berra] said, 'When you come to a fork in the road, take it,'" said Nash. "Something's going to happen. Either we are going to acquiesce to having a madman with nuclear weapons, who is only going to continue to pursue and refine that capability, or we're going to do something different than what we have been doing, which is kicking a can down the road, hoping - which is not a strategy - that things would get better," said Nash. Nash says North Korea's current threat of aiming four missiles near Guam would meet the threshold of a first strike by the enemy. He also expects the U.S. would try to bring down those missiles rather than hoping they don't hit Guam. "You can't just sit there and hope that he wouldn't really target Guam when you've got missiles that could be nuclear-armed headed in that direction, an intolerable situation," said Nash. Nash says one other major problem in the this standoff lies squarely at Obama's feet, namely that rogue nuclear states have no incentive to give up their arms or ambitions. "I think Iran and North Korea took the lessons of recent history. What happened to Moammar Ghaddafi when he gave up his weapons of mass destruction, mostly chemical but he also gave up some nuclear material. When he gave up those programs, that didn't help him. In fact, the United States partnered with NATO and went and deposed him," said Nash. And it's not just Libya. "Look at the Russians with Ukraine. The Brits, the United States, and the Russians all signed an agreement that they would protect the political and territorial integrity of Ukraine if they gave up the nuclear weapons after the USSR fell. How'd that work out for them?" asked Nash. He says rogue nations learned the exact opposite lessons we hoped they would learn from those examples. "The lesson is if you've got nuclear weapons capability, don't give them up. Because if you do, you're in trouble," said Nash. |
| Feds, Insurers Creating Fearful Doctors |
| Thu, 10 Aug 2017 16:51:01 EST Tightfisted insurance companies and dizzying government bureaucracy are squeezing the art out of medicine, forcing doctors to use one-size-fits-all approaches with patients, and needlessly putting the lives of patients at risk, according to a patient advocate and "My Life is Worth It" Co-Founder Bob Tufts. Tufts pitched in the major leagues, went on to become a Wall Street executive, and now teaches at Yeshiva University. He says he never missed a day of work in 30 years before getting a series of small colds a number of years ago. His doctor ordered tests that confirmed Tufts was suffering from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. Thanks to excellent instincts by his doctor and the embrace of a novelty drug therapy including thalidomide, Tufts says he felt largely back to normal within nine months. But he says his experience is far from normal, starting with doctors willing to do extra tests to hunt down possible ailments. "They're getting scared to do it because many doctors have been forced, due to the cost of electronic health records and all the government mandates into hospital systems. And the more you're into a system, they'll over-regulate what the doctor can and cannot do," said Tufts. He says the art of medicine is lost as a result and doctors are instead practicing the science of medicine and simply treating patients based on the odds. Tufts says if he lived in the United Kingdom or some other country with government-run care, he's probably be dead. "When I was diagnosed, my drug was just approved for off-label use in the United States. It was not approved in the UK. And frankly, for front line use it was not approved until much later," he said. "Considering the way my cancer was high-risk, by the time I'd have begged, borrowed or whatever to try to get this drug and maybe used other ones which were harsher, I'd probably have been dead under the [National Health Service] and [National Institute for Health and Care Excellence] system," said Tufts. He says anytime the government gets involved in making the rules and paying the bills, the health care priorities move farther and farther away from what's best for the patient. "Unfortunately, as we have more and more government use and control of health care, it becomes a budgetary issue, as we're seeing in many of the debates going on. The more the government controls, the more it's on a budget line and people start thinking about what that number is on the line and look at people as little pixels on a chart, not as humans trying to fight to survive," said Tufts. "We create a bureaucracy and what does a bureaucracy do? It feeds upon itself. It creates more layers and makes it more confusing for patients and anyone who enters this Byzantine system," said Tufts. And Tufts sees that frustration up close. "Let the doctors practice the art of medicine and the science of medicine as opposed to spending 50,000 a practice to fill out these forms. It drives me crazy. Even though I love my oncologist, of our 15 minutes together, over half is spent looking at the computer entering codes so he can be paid appropriately. That's nonsense and a waste of time and money," said Tufts. But Tufts is clear to point a major finger of blame at insurance companies who increasingly challenge their responsibility to pay for novel courses of treatment. He says the insurers force patients to jump through cruel hoops in an effort to save money. Again, it's not something he's been faced with but many of the people he helps deal with it every day. "You found out how other people were being basically denied care by step therapy or fail first. You are to take the older, cheaper medicine for at least 30-60 days before they would allow you to try another medication," said Tufts. "I had a dear friend who they did that to who had terrible neuropathy, who the insurance company made go through the hell of pain for 30 days before they gave him the meds. What was the cost difference? Four dollars. Over four dollars, they made a man suffer," said Tufts. At other times he says insurers force patients down an unnecessary, far more expensive track. "[They are] making people go to the hospital and having the liquid transfusions as opposed to, in my case, being able to take a pill at home. The cost out-of-pocket of going to hospitals twice a week for a transfusion versus taking a pill every day. Those two things really got me going and I found out I was really fortunate compared to many other cancer or rare disease patients," said Tufts. And Tufts says the bean counters at the insurance companies are making doctors' lives miserable too. "I have personally seen my oncologist get on the phone and, in my early stage of treatment, and spend 15-20 minutes arguing with an insurance company that, 'This person needs this treatment. This is what I recommend. This is a standard of care,' and having the hemming and hawing and seeing the time wasted by my doctor basically having to beg for me to keep the care that would keep me alive," said Tufts. Tufts says he would like to get lawmakers in a room and "knock heads" until they agreed on solutions for the current health care system. He also thinks doctors and patients should be helping to draft legislation and that lawmakers should not just rely on number crunchers to arrive at a final bill. |
| Big Labor Loses Again |
| Tue, 8 Aug 2017 17:01:38 EST Organized labor leaders are licking their wounds after workers at a Mississippi Nissan plant overwhelmingly voted to reject unionization and maintain a direct relationship with their employers, and that's view that's becoming more and more attractive to employees in Right to Work states. By the lopsided vote of 2,244-1,307, Nissan employees resisted the high-dollar effort by the United Auto Workers, or UAW, to become the voice for all workers at the facility. And while labor officials are protesting the vote, Right to Work activists are cheering a major win. "I don't know that the UAW ever made a case for why joining the union and having the union have monopoly control over all these workers' situations and their contract and everything else was a good deal for the workers in Mississippi," said Patrick Semmens, vice president for public information at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. He says the UAW leaders seemed to focus mainly on why unionization would be good for them. "It was very clear why the UAW, from an organizational standpoint, wanted a victory in the South in a Right to Work state to show that they can organize a plant that wasn't part of the traditional Big Three (of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler)," said Semmens. "The fact that that's in the institutional interest of the UAW from their headquarters in Detroit doesn't do much for workers in Canton, Mississippi, where they see these jobs as far better than any of the other options in their community," added Semmens. In the end, the UAW lost the vote by more 25 percent despite spending huge amounts of money and bringing in pro-union figures to help make the sale. "We don't know exactly how much they spent on Nissan but I would not be surprised if it's seven figures. They've been working there for years. They flew down Bernie Sanders and Danny Glover just in the past couple of weeks. This is an all-out, full court press but obviously they didn't make the case to workers, who ultimately voted against the UAW," said Semmens. And what would be the impact if the workers did choose to unionize? "If this vote had gone the other way, the UAW would have been installed as the monopoly bargaining representative. That means they represent every single worker, not just those who voted 'yes' but all of them, including those who don't want anything to do with the union and think they'd be better off representing themselves," said Semmens. "A worker's freedom is being taken away, where they're told you can no longer go into your boss and say, 'Hey, maybe I have an idea for how to make things work better,' or 'Here's a problem I have. I'd like to work to find a solution.' Instead, you have to go through the union as an intermediary between the worker and management," said Semmens. Semmens points out that UAW membership, which is now a bit more than 400,000, is a about a quarter of what it was a few decades ago. And he says it's not because of a lack of jobs in the auto industry. He admits times are tougher for the Big Three, but that's only part of the story. "In the Right to Work states, we've seen a booming auto industry: Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, all these foreign-based automakers are creating massive investment and tens of thousands of jobs," said Semmens. However, the results in Canton are not official. That's because the UAW accuses Nissan of pressuring workers to reject unionizing and the National Labor Relations Board is now investigating the issue. Semmens says the overwhelming vote should put an end to the protest but he acknowledges that the process has to play out. "It's certainly true that this is not completely over yet, but obviously the margin of victory for those who opposed the UAW in Mississippi is pretty substantial. It's certainly going to make it more difficult for union organizers to get this election overturned," said Semmens. Semmens also finds the accusations against Nissan curious given what he says are frequent heavy-handed tactics from the unions themselves in these votes. He says a recent ordeal when workers tried to get rid of their UAW affiliation in neighboring Alabama is a good example. "It took them five votes because the UAW kept overturning the vote to actually vote out and remove the UAW. In one case, they even got the vote overturned because a worker from another facility owned by the same company came and told the workers, and this was totally truthful, factual information, that he made more money than workers under the UAW contract," said Semmens. Semmens says the UAW would be smart to encourage voluntary unionization, but he says the thirst for power inside big labor makes that impossible. "Unfortunately, organized labor as a whole, and the UAW as one of the major unions, has embraced the idea that what they need is more government power to compel workers to be part of the union, to make it easier to organize workers and that sort of thing," said Semmens. "So they've focused far too much on getting the government to give them power over workers and over companies instead of actually convincing workers that joining voluntarily would be a good decision for them and that paying dues might actually be a good use of their money," said Semmens. |
| D'Souza Details 'The Big Lie' |
| Mon, 7 Aug 2017 15:55:16 EST Best-selling author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza says American liberals are guilty of peddling the falsehood that fascism was a creation of the political right rather than the left and engage in fascistic ideas and methods today, all while claiming to be fighting the ideology thought to be buried in the ashes of World War II. This is what D'Souza refers to in the title of his new book, "The Big Lie:Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left." In an interview, the conservative scholar says we see this concept espoused every day in our political environment. "Since Trump's election, we've heard ad nauseum that Trump is a fascist, the Republicans are neo-Nazis party. The underlying idea here is that fascism and Nazism are a phenomenon of the right, that they're somehow right wing. This goes way beyond Trump. This has been argued by progressives ever since World War II. I'm showing that this is actually the big lie," said D'Souza. "It isn't just that Trump is not a fascist. It's much deeper than that. Fascism and Nazism have always been on the left," he said. Comparisons of American political figures and ideas to Nazi Germany and even Adolf Hitler are increasingly commonplace on social media and beyond. So why D'Souza going there? First, he says, many Americans use those terms with zero context. "It is true that the use of the word Nazi or the Hitler comparison has been absurdly misused, and it's partly because people don't know what those words even mean," he said. When it comes to the history of fascism, D'Souza says it's pretty clear where those nefarious figures thought they were lining up politically. "(Italian dictator Benito) Mussolini was a lifelong socialist. He was the most famous Marxist in Italy when he created the fascist party and became the first leader of a fascist regime. Hitler's party, of course, was called national socialism. Hitler changed the name of the German Workers Party to reflect that. These guys were firmly on the left. They were seen by their critics as on the left," said D'Souza. "It's only after World War II that the big lie set in and fascism was somehow cunningly moved into the right-wing column so it could be promiscuously used against Republicans and conservatives," said he added. So how did this happen in the wake of World War II? D'Souza says fascism became forever synonymous with the Holocaust and became "completely morally discredited." He says that's when the revisionists got to work. "Anti-fascism, in a sense, became the only morally reputable way to go. The left realized that and the moment they realized that, the progressives who were coming to power in academia and the media, they covered up the long, cozy relationship between the Democratic Party and the left on one hand and the fascists and the Nazis on the other," said D'Souza. "Then they basically said, 'From now on, we're going to be the anti-fascists. We're still going to believe what we did. We're going to act like we did. We're going to pursue some of the same thuggish tactics that we've been using all along, but we will now use the moral credentials of anti-fascism so we can get away with it. We'll act like we're fighting Hitler in the 1930's,'" said D'Souza. And it's that mentality that he believes is at work among the American left when it comes to the president. "That's how they act with Trump. Trump is supposed to be the new Hitler. These guys think that any tactics are justified in order to get rid of him," said D'Souza. Besides fascists being far to the left politically, D'Souza says Democrats use the same tactics of transference = accusing their opponents of the heinous things they're actually doing. In Nazi Germany, he says Hitler accused the Jews of desiring world domination when it was really Hitler's ambition. "This is exactly what the left does in America. In my last book, 'Hillary's America,' I show how they do it with the race card. The Democratic Party has been the party of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow and the Klan. But somehow they blame the Republican Party for being the racist party," said D'Souza. "And similarly with fascism, it is the left that has had the actual ugly history of fascism. It was the left that was in bed with Mussolini in the '20s and Hitler in the '30s. Yet, these are the guys today who turn around and say, 'Oh Trump. He's a fascist. The GOP, that's the party of fascism. This is pure transference. This is the classic use of the big lie in exactly the way that Hitler used it," said D'Souza. D'Souza points out that "the big lie" was a term used by Hitler, not to secretly admit his own tactics but for the empty charge he aimed at the Jews and other adversaries. He says we see it today in the Antifa rioters who shut down conservative speech in the name of fighting fascism. "They wear masks. They cover their heads. They carry bike locks and baseball bats as weapons. They threaten, they intimidate, they use violence. These are the exact equivalent of Mussolini's Blackshirts of the '20s or Hitler's Brownshirts of the '30s, with the only difference being that the old fascists called themselves fascists, whereas the new fascists call themselves anti-fascists," he said. But while there may be a few messaging techniques in common, surely that's where the parallels between the Democrats and fascists end, right? Not at all, says D'Souza. "Hitler himself admired the extermination of the American Indians by the Jacksonian Democrats in the 19th century. So in a sense, what Hitler is saying is that the Democrats did the first genocide. I'm going to do sort of the second one," said D'Souza. He also says racial and ethnic wedge politics are another common bond. "Second of all, the deep history of racism that characterized the Nazi regime, of course in the Nazi case it was anti-semitism, but it mirrors the deep history of racism in the Democratic Party," said D'Souza. He says the Democrats' transference on race is a narrative even high-profile Republicans are buying hook, line, and sinker. "There's a poor guy, Ken Mehlman, the (former) head of the Republican National Committee, who was traipsing from one black church to another, apologizing for the Republican Party's history of racism. This poor fool doesn't know that the Republican Party actually has no such history. It's the party of emancipation, shutting down the Klan, fighting against segregation," he added. "He had bought into the big lie. He was so dumb that he actually didn't know his own party's history. So if you don't have the knowledge, you're not going to be able to fight back," said D'Souza. Not only do D'Souza's critics dismiss any connections between the Democratic Party and the Third Reich, they repeatedly slam his characterization of the Democrats as the party of racism. They say slavery and Jim Crow are discarded policies from a party that has undergone a major shift over the past 50-60 years and that Democrats have been the champions of minorities and the poor for more than a half-century. D'Souza says things there are still more similarities between the Democrats and the fascists than the left wants to admit, starting with their view of government. "Let's look at the fascism in the Democratic Party right now. First of all, the Democrats today remain the party of the centralized state. When Obama and Hillary and Bernie Sanders talk about increasing government control over all these sectors of the economy, this is actually classically fascist," said D'Souza. While right-leaning critics often describe Democrats and their policies as socialist, D'Souza says fascist is actually a more accurate label. It's not even really socialist because in socialist countries the government nationalizes an industry. We still have private hospitals. We have private health insurance companies. It's just that the government tells them what to do. This notion of state-directed capitalism, this is the essential economic meaning of fascism," said D'Souza. In his book, D'Souza also decries the inability of conservatives to compete as broadly as the left in the battle of ideas. He says it's time for the right to engage all of our culture, just has the left has done for generations. "Republicans fight in one corner of the battlefield, electoral politics, and the left is making the long march through academia, the media, the whole entertainment world, including the world of comedy and including Hollywood," said D'Souza. He says pulling the strings on the media is another tactic used effectively by the fascists. "Hitler said he understood that the media was the most important place to be to not only define what you stand for but get your message out. One of the first things the Nazis did when they came to power was that they made sure the media, the press, the German film industry and entertainment industry were all brought into line with Nazi ideology," said D'Souza. He says we're seeing something similar in our pop culture today, only it goes by a different name. "For the left in America today, we have political correctness, but political correctness reflects the success of the left in using its enormous power in media, in entertainment, and in Hollywood, and in academia, to enforce it's own narrow ideology," said D'Souza. |
| 'It Is Absolutely Prosecutable' |
| Fri, 4 Aug 2017 16:18:11 EST Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats announced a joint effort Friday, designed to track down and prosecute whoever is leaking classified information to the media, and former federal prosecutor Victoria Toensing says this problem can be addressed by putting the media on notice, limiting the number of people who see key documents and rooting out Obama holdovers from the National Security Council staff. Toensing also urged caution before jumping to conclusions over Special Counsel Robert Mueller's assembling of a grand jury into the Russia, probe but she fears serious mission creep is afoot and wonders why there still isn't a grand jury investigating Hillary Clinton over her email scandal or examining the actions of the Clinton Foundation. The issue of leaks jumped to the forefront again this week, after the Washington Post published classified transcripts of President Trump's conversations with other world leaders during the first days of his administration. Toensing says there is clear-cut criminal activity involved. "It is absolutely prosecutable. It is a leak of classified information. What the Washington Post is doing is effecting President Trump's ability to do his job, because the Washington Post is absolutely committed to bringing down this presidency," said Toensing. "You know 'Democracy Dies in Darkness,' their new label, their new motto? Well, democracy dies in fake news in publishing classified information, which provides no news value. What did we learn in the publishing of that transcript? Nothing," said Toensing. Toensing says the most important thing to come out of the Sessions-Coats press conference is the warning that journalists will get subpoenaed if necessary to expose those responsible for the leaks. She says they don't need to be prosecuted to assist an investigation. "They don't have to go that far. They can subpoena them and bring them before the grand jury, remember? Patrick Fitzgerald did that in the Scooter Libby-Valerie Plame situation and there hadn't even been a crime there we all know," said Toensing, referring to the investigation into the alleged leaking of the identity of a covert CIA operative. No one was ever charged for the leak, which came from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Libby was charged with perjury and making false statements. While bracing for cries of suppressing the free press, Toensing says using reporters to track down leakers is a far cry from how former Attorney General Eric Holder treated the media during the Obama administration. "They went after 20 [Associated Press] reporters. There was hardly a peep. AP peeped a little but there was not any massive outcry in the press," said Toensing. "They subpoenaed their phone records from Verizon. AP didn't even have notice that these subpoenas had taken place," said Toensing. "Eric Holder's people went after James Rosen from Fox News an called him a co-conspirator, a criminal, and he was a flight risk. Look what the Obama administration did without much of a murmur," said Toensing. But while that debate plays out, how can the Trump administration zero in those responsible for leaking classified information? Toensing says it starts with tightening the inner circle. "The Post also said these are notes from staff people and that they are routinely shared with a number of people. I think that 'routinely shared" has got to stop. They're going to have to limit the number of people who get these kinds of documents," said Toensing. Toensing also urges a detailed numbering system for all classified documents, so that investigators can zero in on what seems to be getting leaked to the media. She says some reporters may go to jail rather than give up their sources, but the government needs to start applying pressure. "I think the message has to go out there. I think they have to start intimidating some of these people who have just been blatant in providing and publishing classified information," said Toensing. She is also frustrated by reports than many staff from the Obama National Security Council are still working there. "That's the president's fault. The president has been told, I know, whom to get rid of. He hasn't done so and he only has himself to blame," said Toensing. But Toensing is also increasingly leery of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster given some of his recent decisions. "He's gotten rid of some very excellent NSC staff who seem to be more conservative, like hardliners against Iran, which I thought was a good idea. Evidently, McMaster doesn't and he's gotten rid of them," said Toensing, who is also fuming over McMaster choosing to allow Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice to keep her national security clearance. "That concerns me. If Susan Rice is talking, she's lying. That has been her modus operandi throughout the whole Obama administration from Benghazi to Sgt. (Bowe) Bergdahl," said Toensing. "I have not seen her take on any major issue that she did not provide false statements. So why he stuck up for her I have no idea." When it comes to the revelation that Mueller has convened a grand jury over the Russia probe, Toensing is less concerned at least for now. She says a leak may not even be responsible for this news. "That could or could not be a leak because you could have a witness called before the grand jury or someone who was asked to provide documents who provided that information, and that is not a crime," said Toensing. But Toensing is bothered by some aspects, including how the Mueller investigation appears to be delving into areas far afield from the the original focus of the probe. She says the Justice Department should have avoided that problem at the outset. "It should have been circumscribed by (Deputy Attorney General) Rod Rosenstein. He should have said, 'For the purpose of investigating Russian collusion only.' And if investigating only Russian collusion you come across a crime, well then that can be prosecuted. But expanding this to business dealings before Donald Trump even thought about running for president is certainly mission creep," said Toensing. Some Trump defenders are alarmed to see several top ranking FBI officials on the apparent witness list for the grand jury, asserting that they are allies of ousted FBI Director James Comey and thus unfair to the president. Toensing disagrees. "When I was a federal prosecutor, I would bring in federal agents all the time because they're doing the investigation. We don't know whether they'd be fact witnesses, which would be one thing, or whether they are coming in because they have done X,Y, and Z and they need to tell the grand jury about their investigation," said Toensing. Toensing says assembling a grand jury may be an appropriate move in this case, but she is still puzzled over the FBI's failure to have one looking into the Hillary Clinton email scandal and for its unusual habit of offering immunity to key figures in exchange for documents. She says it's still a good time for a grand jury to look at all questionable activities by the Clintons. "They should do so now because the foundation has not been examined. There are a lot of new emails now, acquired by Judicial Watch, showing that there was lots of play-for-play back and forth, (such as) million dollars coming in, can you get my friend an ambassadorship," said Toensing. |
| Is the Right Retreating in Culture War? |
| Thu, 3 Aug 2017 16:48:09 EST Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage the LGBT movement remains on offense and on key cultural issues many Republicans seem far less interesting in continuing the fight than their adversaries on the left. And a leading expert on cultural and family issues says it is time for conservatives to engage in the debates that are engulfing our culture and threaten liberty, but she says the battle must be approached intelligently. Last month, President Trump's ban on transgenders serving in the U.S. military was met by fierce protest from Democrats, LGBT activists and a surprising number of Republican lawmakers, including Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, Richard Shelby, R-Alabama and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, as well as multiple House members. Hardly any GOP members offered strong support for Trump's move, with most Republican lawmakers remaining silent. Then a new Reuters poll showed 58 percent of Americans are in favor of allowing transgenders to serve, including 32 percent of self-identified Republicans. In yet another survey, this one from Gallup, a record high 17 percent of Americans say they find polygamy morally acceptable and libertarian arguments are emerging that maybe the government has no business prohibiting polygamy since marriage isn't even mentioned in the Constitution. So is the political right engaging in a quiet surrender on some core cultural issues? "Surrender suggests there was ever a fight," said Ruth Institute Founder and President Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse. "On the political front at least there has never been a real, sustained effort to push back in a sustained and logical and forthright manner against some of the truly irrational things that have been coming at us from the sexual revolution." "It's not surrender so much...but just a refusal to show up to the battle in the first place. The Republicans would much rather talk about taxes and things like that than to go and talk about the cultural issues," said Morse. She says the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is crammed full of cultural issues, including the debate over taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, but the GOP usually defaults to economics alone in advancing their arguments. "Those are a huge part of the Obamacare issue. So to pretend that we can avoid that and just talk about economics or just talk about foreign policy or something like that, that's just putting your head in the sand," said Morse. When GOP lawmakers join Democrats in alleging discrimination or bigotry in Trump's ban on transgender military service, Morse says they not only buy into the liberal talking points but prove they don't see the real goal behind the liberal push on LGBT issues. "To try to make everybody go along with the idea that you've just changed a person's sex is a huge power grab. Republicans and conservatives generally I don't think have recognized how big of a power grab it is and how much it's really expanding the power of the state," said Morse. For those on the right with some inclination to defend traditional values, Morse says two more problems tend to keep them silent in these debates. "Number one, people don't know how to respond to these issues. And number two, they're afraid. There are a lot of fear tactics that have been used by the cultural left, not just transgenders. Transgenders have just perfected the art form," said Morse She says the strategies used by the left have been standard since the dawn of the sexual revolution. "The art form has been developed and cultivated over the years, starting with feminism. You know, a man's not allowed to have any opinion on a whole range of topics or else he'll be called a male chauvinist pig and basically silenced. That process of silencing people over cultural issues has been going on a long time," said Morse. Another intense source of pressure is a one-sided advocacy coming from all sectors of popular culture. "if you have two sides of an issue and one side you hear every day, steadily, steadily. You hear it on the radio. You hear it on TV. You hear it on the news. You see it in sitcoms. You see it in movies. You see it on billboards. You see it everywhere, and the other side you hear nothing," said Morse. "No matter what the substance of the issue is, eventually the side promoting itself constantly is the side that's going to win. That's why institutions like the Ruth Institute and other pro-family organizations need to be getting their message out," said Morse. Another element in the silence on the right is embarrassment. Morse says most conservative people feel awkward talking about sex in public. She says folks on the right must get over that. "That gives the radicals a huge advantage because they're not embarrassed at all. They're not shy at all. You can't shut them up. They're talking about it all the time," said Morse. "Every time you cringe and turn your face away, your opponents are moving forward. You're giving them an opening. We must equip ourselves to deal with these issues in a logical way, in a non-panicked way," said Morse. Morse says social conservatives need to engage now because each win for the cultural liberals creates a push for another assault on traditional values, just as the legalization of same-sex marriage instantly triggered an intensification of the transgender movement. "We're trying to create a whole world where the sex of the body and the gender of the body and our physicality is somehow ruled out and written out of law. And since nobody's ever confronted it, the crazier it gets the more confused people are," said Morse. But when it comes to engaging the culture, especially young adults, Morse says cultural conservatives cannot just dive into the debate in today's headlines but need to extol the unparalleled value of marriage between one man and one woman for life. "If we start from that perspective, we will at least have some credibility with the millennials. If you just drive right in and say gay people shouldn't have kids and transgenders shouldn't serve in the military and never acknowledge the 40 or 50 years of suffering that divorce has caused, you have no credibility at all," said Morse. Morse says that is why the Ruth Institute is leading the way in addressing this root issue through its Healing Family Breakdown Spiritual Workshop. She says even though the sexual revolution has gone far down the road from the explosion of divorce, that is where the battle must be waged. "You want to talk about silent surrender, we surrendered on the divorce issue a long time ago. We've got to go back and fight that battle. We've go to go back and stick up for the rights of children to know their own parents," said Morse. She says young adults have never known anything but the carnage triggered by the divorce culture, whether in their own homes or among their friends. "What that means is that the idea that marriage has something to do with the stability of a child's relationship with their parents, that idea is completely foreign to them. When I stand in front of a college audience and I say kids have a right to their parents, they burst into tears sometimes. They've never heard anybody say that," said Morse. The concept of kids having a right to know and be raised by their biological parents is also why Morse believes polygamy must be rejected before it gains any more traction. . "The reason you need some kind of institution like marriage is to protect the interests of children to have their own parents. If you start from the premise that children are entitled to a relationship with their parents, the two people who brought them into being, if you start from that position and you reason your way outward, you will end up with traditional Christian sexual morality," said Morse. She has no use for the libertarian argument of the government staying out of marriage altogether, even if it means the emergence of polygamy. "To try to legislate against the law of nature on the scale we're trying to do in our culture is one more example of the irrationality of the sexual revolution as we've seen it unfold here in the last 50 years," said Morse. While acknowledging the tide of forces advancing the sexual revolution into its next phase, Morse says the battle must be engaged and can be won. "We're being maneuvered and manipulated by the sound bite culture that is very, very noisy and unless you give yourself some silence, unless you give yourself some time to think, you're going to be pushed and pulled by the latest noise making machine that comes near you," said Morse. |
| What's Behind Murkowski's Obamacare Flip-Flop? |
| Wed, 2 Aug 2017 16:44:26 EST Sen. John McCain is getting most of the blame from the right and praise from the left for his vote to scuttle Senate legislation to repeal parts of Obamacare, but another GOP member is coming under fire for reneging on her vow to repeal the law and offering a weak explanation for her reversal. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, campaigned twice on ditching Obamacare and even voted for the straight repeal in 2015, when the bill was vetoed by President Obama. This year, Murkowski opposed the motion to proceed on the health care debate and then consistently rejected a wide variety of GOP amendments, including the "skinny repeal," which McCain famously opposed. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was the other no vote. Of the three, only Collins opposed the 2015 repeal as well. After seven years of railing against Obamacare, why did Murkowski end up as a deciding vote to save it? "Number one, she's a big government leftist. Anything that grows government, grows federal control, she's for," said Joe Miller, who ran against Murkowski in 2010 and 2016. In 2010, Miller defeated Murkowski in the Republican primary, only to see Murkowski launch and narrowly win a write-in campaign in the general election. In 2016, Miller was a late addition to the Libertarian ticket and came in second to Murkowski by a wider margin, while still outpacing the Democrat in the race and a well-funded independent candidate. Murkowski's approach to the recent Obamacare repeal votes is especially galling to Miller, given the prominence of the issue in their 2010 campaign. "Most Alaskans that have political contact remember what she did in 2010. She actually called me out and said I was a liar about her position on Obamacare because we had a YouTube clip of her waffling statements on Obamacare. We said, 'Look this gal isn't really for full repeal,'" said Miller. "So she doubled down and said, 'Yes, I am for full repeal.' Of course, what did she do when push came to shove? She actually voted not to repeal even on the skinny act," added Miller. Murkowski voted for repeal less than two years ago, so has something changed or was that earlier vote purely political? "When the vote actually counts, you know how she's going to vote. She knew at that point, of course, that Obama was going to veto it. So there was no cost to what we would call her principles - those of expanding government. That was entirely a consequence, in our assessment, of knowing where the outcome of that vote was going," said Miller. Murkowski added more confusion to her shifting position on Obamacare by refusing to explain why she did it. After the early morning vote, Murkowski dodged efforts by The Daily Caller to get some answers. "I am really very tired, and so you're asking for a very thoughtful response. I actually appreciate your question, but rather than respond to each and every individual request from all of these cameras around me, I'm going to take a pass," said Murkowski. After laughing heartily at Murkowski's comments, Miller said he was not surprised. "That is so typical Lisa Murkowski. That's what she does. I mean what do you you do when you're confronted with a lie?. You evade. You don't answer the question, and that's what she's done there," said Miller. "She knows who she is. She's not motivated by any principle of good government. She motivated by principles that at least constitutional conservatives and libertarian-oriented people are against," said Miller. Miller believes the vast majority of right-leaning voters in Alaska want a full repeal of Obamacare and he suspects they won't forget what Murkowski did. "I think it's woken up a segment of Alaska. Hopefully, they'll remember it in five years but we'll wait and see," said Miller. "If this continues to incur cost to the average American as it already has in increased health care costs, increased premiums, and loss of benefits, then of course the memory is still going to be there," said Miller. But while Miller is perfectly happy to point out his frustrations with Murkowski, he says the problem is bigger than one senator or even the three GOP members who killed health care reform for the short term. "I think it's wrong to just focus entirely on Murkowski, although that's kind of my area of expertise since I ran against her. It's really the system of government in D.C." said Miller. Miller minces no words when it comes to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, whom he blames in part for the results in 2010 and for the failure of the Senate to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. "I saw what he did to me in 2010. Mitch McConnell is the reason that the United States has Lisa Murkowski. He and his colleagues stirred up [the write-in campaign] with Lisa Murkowski to defeat us," said Miller. "I think Mitch McConnell likes the ACA. I think it's all a scam when he says he is against it. If you think he didn't count the votes before that vote, then you really don't know Mitch McConnell," said Miller. "This is an ingrained problem with people out there that call themselves conservative Republicans, or Republicans, and they have absolutely no principles that are connected with the party platform, and they're scamming the voters," said Miller. Miller says a successful repeal of Obamacare would put the GOP in dominant political position. Instead, he says the party is in huge trouble. "The Republican Party needs to get it's head screwed on straight. Leadership is where it starts. Right now there is none. I think if we had done the right thing on ACA, there's a real chance that it could have grown in the future. I don't see that now," said Miller. In addition to the changes Miller wants to see at the national level, he is also intent on ripping control of the Alaska GOP from big government Republicans like Murkowski. "I think she can be defeated. It's going to take a real grassroots effort in Alaska to clean up a lot of stuff in this state. The establishment has controlled the state for a number of decades. Every once in a while we'll see a brief glimpse of sunshine. We has Gov. (Sarah) Palin for a couple of years. But for the most part, that's not happened. It's time for a change and maybe this is what's going to do it," said Miller. |
| The Obamacare Trump Card |
| Tue, 1 Aug 2017 16:29:18 EST With Senate Republicans unable to pass a health care bill, President Trump might be able to shake up the debate and motivate swift congressional action by ordering the end of the Obamacare exemption for lawmakers and their staff members. As Obamacare was debated in 2009 and 2010, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, proposed an amendment that would require all members of Congress and their staff members to be subject to the new law. Eventually, that amendment got watered down to allow exemptions for committee staff members. Columnist John Fund says lawmakers and office staffers soon realized they didn't like how the new law impacted them. "They quickly discovered as the exchanges were being set up that the exchanges were going to prohibit the payment of subsidies to anyone with an exchange policy who was getting that policy from their employer. In other words, you could have your own policy, but you couldn't have your employer pay for it," said Fund. Before long, lawmakers and their employees were looking for special favors from the president. "That meant that Congress would lose about 70 percent of its subsidies for health care. They were, of course, traumatized by this. They went behind the scenes to President Obama, who quietly made a call to the Office of Personnel Management. That's the group that manages all federal employees," said Fund. "[The Office of Personnel Management, or OPM,] decided that the exchange would include Congress and its staff, that Congress qualified for a 'small business exemption,' which meant that it had fewer than 50 employees. Well, Congress has a thousand employees, so that's preposterous. This was clearly an illegal interpretation of the law," said Fund. Of course, Congress has no interest in addressing that misinterpretation of the law. "It has persisted because Congress doesn't want to go and vote on reimposing the same restrictions that all Americans labor under with Obamacare on itself. In other words, it doesn't want to do it in public. It wants to do it more sneakily behind the scenes," said Fund. Fund says if Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, really wanted to take a principled stand on Obamacare, he would have focused on this issue instead of his vote to kill the so-called skinny repeal last week. "Rather than John McCain voting against Obamacare reform and shutting the whole process down, if John McCain had really been courageous what he would have done is offered an amendment on the Senate floor, saying whatever happens, Congress should not be exempt from Obamacare. He didn't do that," said Fund. After Obama directed the OPM to exempt Congress and the staffers, then-Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, repeatedly pushed legislation to reinstate the requirement for the rules of Obamacare to apply to everyone on Capitol Hill. Not only did neither party act on his efforts, but some lawmakers were so irate that they asked staffers to draft legislation to remove the exemption for any lawmakers who supported Vitter's bill, as well as the staffers for those members. That idea went nowhere but Fund says it typifies the attitude of too many officials in Washington. "What's sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. They believe they're above the law. They don't come out and say that because it sounds awful in a democracy. But the bottom line in Washington is you watch what people do, not what they say," said Fund. The good news, says Fund, is that President Trump can reverse this policy just as easily as President Obama put it in place. "It wasn't even an executive order. Believe it or not, it was just a phone call to the Office of Personnel Management saying, 'You work for me. You issue this,'" said Fund. "Donald Trump could literally pick up the phone tomorrow and declare Congress is now covered by Obamacare fully and completely." A poll conducted by Independent Women's Voice just prior to Obamacare's implementation in 2013 shows 93.7 percent of American voters wanted Congress to abide by the rules along with every other American. "The only ones who don't think it's unfair are the friends and family of Congress," quipped Fund. However, Fund says there is one condition under which Trump should consider allowing the exemption to continue. "I think the best way to get Congress to, shall we say, see the light is to reform Obamacare for everyone. Let Congress keep its exemption if other Americans can do the same thing," said Fund. But given the entrenched polarization in Congress, would threatening to remove the exemption really move the needle? "If Donald Trump took this issue to the people and said, 'I am sending a bill to Congress that will transform health care and reform Obamacare, and included in it is the provision that Congress should be covered by Obamacare and I demand a vote on it,' Congress is going to have to do something," said Fund. Fund says Trump would be wise to give Congress fair warning rather than to rescind the exemption in a surprise, but he believes the president needs to hang this threat over lawmakers' heads. "Before Trump did it publicly, he should meet privately with members of Congress and say, 'Look, I'm putting you on notice. Fair warning. I might do this. Let's work out something now and let's get something to the floor that we can vote on, so I don't have to do this,'" said Fund. |
| 'Wage the Battle' |
| Mon, 31 Jul 2017 16:06:38 EST A strong America means secure borders, free trade, and putting American citizens first when focusing on national security and job creation, according to businessman turned congressional candidate Paul Nehlen. Best known for his high-profile but unsuccessful primary challenge to House Speaker Paul Ryan in 2016, Nehlen is already running against Ryan in 2018 and is author of the brand new book "Wage the Battle: Putting America First in the Fight to Stop Globalist Politicians and Secure the Borders." The book focuses on several major goals, including restoring American sovereignty and reinvigorating American economic nationalism and an America-first foreign policy. Nehlen has Fortune 500 business experience and points to success in bringing companies to the U.S. from all over the world. He says America need policies that allow our workers to thrive because he knows they are second to none. "Hands down, America is number one. We have got just a fabulous workforce," said Nehlen. "There are pockets of great work forces out there. I worked in Poland a lot. They're great. But there's nothing the American work forces can't do, unless they are hamstrung by our government." He says convoluted government policies that play favorites in the economy is hurting our competitiveness. "If, like Speaker Ryan, you try to give certain corporations a leg up on other small and mid-size businesses, you're really undermining America. We can't have a strong military, we can't have a strong nation unless we have strong trade," said Nehlen. Nehlen contends the current structure of our economy is a far cry from what it was intended to be. "This country wasn't founded on free trade deals. This country was founded on protecting our manufacturing base, protecting our natural resources, and tilting the playing field in the favor of our manufacturers. That's not what's happening now," he said. Instead, Nehlen says our current course has actually landed us in the midst of economic hostilities with multiple nations. "We are literally at economic war with countries like China and South Korea and Taiwan, many of whom are manipulating their currency to undermine our ability to do business in the global marketplace. That has to stop," said Nehlen. According to Nehlen, even the recent history of American trade agreements shows the government is choking the freedom out of our trade relationships. "Back in 1985, we negotiated a free trade agreement with Israel and it was 13 pages long," said Nehlen. "Fast forward about 10 years, they passed NAFTA. It's 1,700 pages long. Fast forward another couple decades, the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes along, 5,500 pages. There is nothing free about trade that is described in 5,500 pages. It just doesn't happen." Nehlen is thrilled that Trump is more than making good on his pledge to eliminate two regulations for new one placed on the books, operating at a clip of scrapping approximately 16 regulations for every new one. But he says that success has a lot of people wanting to share the credit, including the Speaker of the House. "We see Speaker Ryan trying to take credit for that now. He's had 18 years in Congress and he's abdicated his role to the executive branch. Now he's trying to take credit for what the executive branch is doing," said Nehlen. Congress has yet to approve funds for the construction of a border wall, which was one of President Trump's most common promises on the campaign trail. Democrats threatened to shut down the government when a spending bill was approved in April. Now, reports suggest Republicans are still reluctant to approve the funds. Nehlen is appalled. "I'm disgusted with this Congress not voting on the wall and essentially just attaching some spending which will get us about 60 miles of new border fence," said Nehlen. "It's ridiculous. I've been to the border and there are areas of the border where there is - they call it Jurassic Park - the fencing looks like enormous spikes coming up out of concrete. Adjacent to it is your normal, run of the mill barbed wire, put up by ranchers to keep their steer from going into Mexico because the water is inches deep. To suggest we've got the border secured is absurd," he said. Getting the wall done is right at the top of an ambitious laundry list that Nehlen hopes to accomplish if elected to Congress. "One would be to advocate for this wall. Another would be to advocate for national reciprocity for anybody who has concealed carry. If you leave your state and go to another state, you shouldn't have to relinquish the ability to protect yourself," said Nehlen. He would also slam on the brakes when it comes to refugee resettlement. "Nine voluntary organizations - they're not really voluntary - are getting paid by U.S. taxpayers to move people, predominantly Muslim - 99-plus percent I might add - to the United States. We are funding our own demise right now. It has got to stop," said Nehlen, who also wants Congress to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. "We have got to get the Muslim Brotherhood out of the United States. We have got to root them out. That will roll back 60 years of their efforts to undermine the United States from within," said Nehlen. One reviewer declared Nehlen's book a plan of action for Trump-like candidates. It's a label Nehlen welcomes. "I am very flattered by that. That is exactly why I wrote the book, because we need hundreds of good, righteous candidates who believe in securing the border and putting American workers, American retirees, and American children first," said Nehlen. |
| How the Obamacare Flop Impacts Tax Reform |
| Fri, 28 Jul 2017 17:00:04 EST The implosion of the Senate's attempt to address Obamacare also makes effective tax reform more difficult, but the leader of the nation's largest grassroots taxpayers organization is still optimistic big things can get done. But make no mistake, repealing the Obamacare taxes was supposed to grease the skids for the tax reform effort. "The task has not been made easier by the lack of progress on Obamacare repeal and replace, but we're going to have to approach this with a lot of vigor right now. The American people are waiting to see that this Congress and this administration can get something comprehensive done," said National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp. How does the failure of the Obamacare repeal specifically impact the tax reform push? "We're going to have to deal with some of the Obamacare taxes in some fashion, through tax reform or outside of tax reform simply because several of those Obamacare taxes directly effect conventional income tax rates," said Sepp. "I'm talking about, for example, the earned income surtax of 0.9 percent, also the net investment income tax of 3.8 percent. Those types of taxes will actually increase the rate that members of Congress are trying to lower over the long term," said Sepp. Nonetheless, Sepp is bullish, even after watching the flop on healthcare in Congress because it appears congressional leaders and administration officials are all singing from the same songsheet this time. "That means lower tax rates, simpler tax filing procedures, making sure that small businesses don't pay a higher tax rate than larger ones and, in fact, should pay a lower rate. There are also things that will help to address the lack of competitiveness of our companies overseas and the tax disadvantages there," said Sepp. Sepp is pleased that the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee are working in tandem on legislation rather than crafting completely separate bills. He also says GOP friction should ebb greatly now that all the major players agree to stop pursuing the Border Adjustment Tax, which would place taxes on goods entering the U.S. In addition, Sepp is excited about Republicans trying to drop the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to somewhere between 15-20 percent, and he says the rate for small businesses should be even lower. He also is hopeful that Congress can remove the massive paperwork burden for business owners. "We also need to look at how business claim their expenses and write them off. This is an incredibly complex area of the tax code. It amounts to anywhere between 30-50 percent of the paperwork burden that a business faces," said Sepp. On individual tax policy, Sepp wants to see Congress pursue much lower tax rates in exchange for removing the vast majority of deductions that are currently available to taxpayers. He says rates really need to plummet before that trade is a good deal for most Americans. "The rates range from 10 percent to over 40 percent currently. We need to get the rates down even lower, five percent or even zero if we expand the standard deduction and perhaps a top rate of 30-35 percent. If we do that, the trade off of deductions will be worth it," said Sepp. Sepp stresses that the status quo is not an option. He says America suffers more each year as America fails to use the tax code for our economic advantage. "Tax reform needs to happen because companies are inverting every day. They're taking their headquarters overseas and with it a lot of profits that could be taxed here. The tax code is getting more complex every year. Even if we don't pass new laws, implementing old ones and designing all the regulations around them add to that burden," said Sepp. |
| Minnesota 'Chilling' Free Expression |
| Tue, 25 Jul 2017 16:12:48 EST A Christian couple looking to add wedding videos to their business repertoire is suing the state of Minnesota after official there made it clear that their laws require anyone working as a wedding vendor to accommodate same-sex couples. Carl and Angel Larsen operate Telescope Media Group. In a statement provided by their attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, the Larsens contend their business "exists to tell great stories that honor God." It also points out the couple is expanding into wedding video services to "reanimate the hearts and minds of people about the goodness of marriage between a man and a woman." But the state of Minnesota is placing a major hurdle in front of their business plans. "They're unable to do so because the state says if they do them for marriages that are consistent with their beliefs - marriages between a man and a woman - they have to do them on behalf of same-sex marriages as well," said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco, who is lead counsel for Telescope Media Group in this case. The state is relying on an updated version of it's Human Rights Act to force vendors into accepting clients for all legal forms. "The law bars discrimination on a whole bunch of different categories and the state has added sexual orientation to the law. But [the state] has also announced that it interprets the law to require people in the wedding industry to promote concepts of marriage, including same-sex marriage, that they disagree with, even if that violate their religious beliefs," said Tedesco. "The state has put that on official websites. They've announced that in various different places. They've basically put people on notice. They're looking out for faithful Christians in the wedding industry, and they're going to prosecute them if they act in a manner that's consistent with their beliefs when it comes to marriage," said Tedesco. Punishment for wedding vendors refusing to accept same-sex clients can be up to 90 days in jail and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Tedesco says a pre-emptive lawsuit was clearly needed. "No one in their right mind , when 90 days in jail is on the line and the state is saying the exercise of your first amendment rights could wind you up in jail is going to exercise their rights. They chilled their expression. They go to court to try to get a judgment from the court before that even happens," said Tedesco. "Rather than take that risk, Carl and Angel filed a lawsuit to try to get the court to say that it was unlawful for the state to even apply the law to force them to say things they don't want to say through their films," said Tedesco. Tedesco says the Minnesota Human Rights Act is a blatant violation of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "These kind of pre-enforcement challenges are something that's been used for years in the civil rights context," he said. "When laws like this go on the books, the state is saying, 'We're going to apply this to expression,' the courts are very concerned and they've said many times in opinions they've issued in this area that people will respond to those laws simply by stopping their speech, chilling their expression. Then everybody loses," said Tedesco. Right now the court is weighing competing motions. Officials from Minnesota are asking for the case to be dismissed. The Larsens are asking to be able to video wedding of their choice until the issue is resolved in court. Tedesco says Minnesota is among a growing number of states being pressured by liberal politicians and activists to forbid vendors from acting on their consciences. "There are activists on the left that are pushing very, very hard for these same kind of laws to be adopted in states that don't have them. There's at least 20 states that have them right now and they want all 50 states to have them. They want the federal government to have them," said Tedesco. "Those activists say there are no compromises. You have to comply with the law. Speech is not a defense. Your speech can be compelled. You can be forced to speak and act in ways that are completely inconsistent with your core beliefs," said Tedesco. "This is very problematic in the marriage context right now. These laws adding sexual orientation to non-discrimination laws are the tools the other side uses to coerce uniformity of thought and belief when it comes to the marriage institution," he said. |
| 'I Don't Expect Anything to Change' |
| Mon, 24 Jul 2017 16:32:00 EST One college is now handing out punishment to students for disrupting free speech on campus, and while the speaker impacted says she is glad there are some consequences for those protesters, she still believes colleges may be hopelessly immersed in the movement of racial victimhood. On April 6, Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald was prevented from giving her scheduled address at Claremont McKenna College. Protesters denounced Mac Donald over her best-selling book, "The War on Cops," and physically prevented students from attending the lecture. They also led chants of "F--- the police." Unlike other disruptions at schools like the University of California-Berkeley and Middlebury College, Claremont McKenna is now handing out punishments. In a statement, the school condemned the blockade. "The blockade breached institutional values of freedom of expression and assembly. Furthermore, this action violated policies of both the College and The Claremont Colleges that prohibit material disruption of college programs and created unsafe conditions in disregard of state law," read part of the statement. While acknowledging 170 students were involved in the demonstration, just seven were disciplined: three were suspended for a year, two others for one semester and two more were put on conduct probation. Mac Donald sees the results as a mixed bag. On one hand, she's grateful that Claremont McKenna was willing to take action. "For once, I'm gratified that there's some discipline with teeth, unlike in Middlebury. True academic suspensions are serious punishment. That's going to show up on a student's record," said Mac Donald. But while seven students are paying the price, she's a bit puzzled as to why there weren't more discipline cases stemming from the event. "It's a very small number of people who have been punished. Five receiving suspensions is much less than (the number) people complicit in the blockade. There's no explanation by Claremont as to how they reached that number and whether it's because they didn't have evidence for other people or not," said Mac Donald. But while giving the school leaders some credit, Mac Donald says the larger response to the chaos surrounding her visit shows the administrators still don't get it. "Ironically, the Claremont-McKenna statement said that it was calling on its faculty to try and help us understand how to mitigate the forces that divide our society. What divides our society is precisely this preposterous idea that to be a minority student at an American college today is to be the victim of oppression," said Mac Donald. Mac Donald says that approach is only hurting the very students it intends to help. "CMC and every other college has vast bureaucracies dedicated to that proposition. Students that are brainwashed with that idea in college are going to go on into American society unable to see the opportunities that are available to them, with a big chip on their shoulders. We're going to see racial tensions and possibly even racial violence continue," she said. "This is ludicrous," said Mac Donald. "There is no more privileged position in society today than to be a student at an American campus." Far from seeing Claremont-McKenna's actions as a turning point in tolerance for differing opinions on campuses, Mac Donald believes things are worse than ever because the people who should be standing up for free speech and free expression are on the other side of the debate. "We're fast approaching a critical mass, where the majority of faculty are themselves perpetrating this idea that speech from a student from a favored victim category finds disagreeable is itself a form of violence," said Mac Donald. She says faculty at the University of California-Berkeley were even defending the rioting that forced the cancellation a Milo Yiannopoulos event on campus. "There were two faculty at Berkeley, in an email chain, that were dismissing the Antifa black block fascists as just doing what was necessary and in a very nice, surgical manner of trashing buildings and creating fires," said Mac Donald. She also says no one should expect college administrators to suddenly get a surge of courage and stand up for academic and constitutional freedom in the face of hostile students. "Ever since the '60s, they caved in then in a very, very bad way and they've absolutely been cowards since then," she said. Mac Donald believes a major alumni revolt could change the minds of administrators on some campuses. But even if the money dries up, she fears some schools are too far down the social justice pathway to turn back now. "It's a real tension because by now the universities have really been taken over by this left-wing zealotry. I'm not even confident that a drop in alumni donations would lead them to say, 'OK, no more of this nonsense,'" said Mac Donald. She says the only true recourse is for parents with children at all levels of education to demand better. "You've got to fight back against it and give your children alternative sources of knowledge," said Mac Donald. |
| Trump's 'Unfortunate Decision' on Iran |
| Fri, 21 Jul 2017 16:43:56 EST President Trump made an "unfortunate mistake" by re-certifying the Iran nuclear deal on Wednesday and he was pushed into a decision he didn't want to make through the power of an entrenched government bureaucracy, according to former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. On Monday, after almost an hour of animated debate with his national security team, President Trump reluctantly declared that Iran is complying with the terms with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, hammered out by the Obama admnistration, Iran, and five other nations. "It was an unfortunate decision for the administration to issue this certification," said Bolton. "I think the president was blindsided by the bureaucracy." Bolton, who served in the State Department during the first term of the George W. Bush administration, says the foreign policy bureaucracy is a powerful force in Washington. "It was the bureaucracy on autopilot from the Obama administration. If you don't tell them to change direction, they just keep doing what they were doing before," said Bolton. But it's not just Obama holdovers pushing the status quo. Reports confirm that Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford all pleaded with Trump to re-certify the agreement. Bolton says the bureaucracy has a way of winning over new cabinet members to embrace existing policy. "The bureaucracies have a way of capturing the appointees. Some of those (Trump officials) are still in the bureaucracy or never really left it. It's an art form. People who know Washington, particularly who have watched the State Department seduce political appointees, especially Republicans and they make reasonable-sounding arguments that are simply justifications for continuing the prior policy," said Bolton. The Iran deal has now been re-certified twice in the first six months of the Trump administration. Each time, the official recognition of Iranian compliance has been accompanied by a Trump administration denunciation of Iran's human rights record and sponsoring of terrorism. Bolton says the disconnect is jarring. "It's a committee camel that came out and it reflects the confusion that happens when you don't give the president options and when you don't allow time for a full debate. Those mistakes will not be made again," said Bolton, who firmly believes Trump will not certify the agreement again. Those who applauded the decision to re-certify say abrogating the deal would create a great deal of chaos, particularly with our allies who were part of the negotiations with Iran. Bolton doesn't think that should be a deterrent from doing the right thing. "If the allies are going to be upset by something, what you do is a vigorous diplomatic campaign to explain why we think the deal was a mistake, indeed why they made the same mistake we did, and why we've got to correct it before it's too late," said Bolton. "The consequences of a bad deal are a regime of religious fanatics in Iran getting nuclear weapons," said Bolton. Bolton says the problems with the JCPOA are legion, starting with the painfully unclear language that he says Iran can manipulate and insist it is meeting its obligations. "Many provisions of the deal are so badly worded, they're so ambiguous, that a reasonable person could say, 'The Iranians came right up to the line of their interpretation of the deal and they didn't cross it so it's hard to say it's really a violation.' That's the argument," said Bolton. "That argument fails for several reasons. First off, the fact that the agreement is badly worded is one more reason to junk it. It shows just how poorly our negotiators, including Secretary of State John Kerry, did. It shows the leeway that it affords Iran. And it shows the way forward. They're going to press the ambiguities right to the outer limit," said Bolton. And he expects Iran to eventually blow right past those limits. "If they can hide what they're doing, they're going to press beyond the outer limits and make it impossible to enforce the deal strictly. That's part of the problem. The deal is so bad that trying to enforce it strictly is like trying to nail jello to the wall," said Bolton, while also nothing the deal offers no inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and has no binding provisions concerning ballistic missile development. Bolton says the bottom line is that nothing has changed as a result of this agreement. "Iran has never abandoned its policy to get deliverable nuclear weapons. It's exploiting this deal. It's made temporary, easily-reversible concessions. It's cooperating with North Korea, which is getting ever closer to its own deliverable nuclear weapons capability," said Bolton. "We're living in a delusion if we think this deal is slowing Iran down," he added. So what is the right U.S. posture? Bolton says the U.S. bring back economic sanctions immediately and be prepared to do whatever needs to be done to prevent Iran from being able to deploy nukes. "To be realistic, if we don't want Iran to have deliverable nuclear weapons, if that's really what we believe, we and Israel have to look at a military option," said Bolton. |
| Inside the Election Commission |
| Thu, 20 Jul 2017 16:21:15 EST One of the newest members of the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity says he is impressed that the bipartisan group appears to be on the same page of protecting the rights of eligible voters while putting provisions in place for those who shouldn't be casting ballots. He also categorically rejects assertions from the political left that the commission's actual intent is to disenfranchise vulnerable segments of the population who are unlikely to support President Trump, such as minorities, immigrants and the poor. On Wednesday, the commission held its first meeting, a public session at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. Vice President Mike Pence is chairman of the commission, while Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach serves as co-chairman. Hans von Spakovsky is among the most recently appointed members and is excited that the group seems clear on its task. "This is a bipartisan commission but I was really struck by the unanimity of all of the commissioners on all of the issues we need to look at, the kind of data we need to gather, and the work that needs to be done," said von Spakovsky, who also serves as the manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. He says the goal of the commission is clear. "This commission is going into this with an open mind, no preset conclusion, and we were directed to do everything we can to take a look at, review, and examine the American election process and make sure, in essence, that every American who's eligible can vote and no one's vote is stolen through voter fraud or administrative mistakes," said von Spakovsky. President Trump has ordered the commission to report on its findings and offer recommendations by next year. Von Spakovsky says gathering data is the first big step and getting voter information from the states is the key to understanding whether people who shouldn't be voting are gaining access to ballots anyway. "That's obviously important data when it comes to looking at the kind of problems that may be out there," said von Spakovsky. However, the request for data is sparking significant controversy, with many Democratic state officials refusing to comply with at least parts of the request. Critics of the president's decision to create the commission allege that the commission will end up sparking action to disenfranchise poor and minority voters, who are unlikely to back the president or have the means to protect their rights. Von Spakovsky says that assertion is ridiculous. "That's really an absurd claim," he said. "It's really just a nutty claim, frankly. Look, this is an advisory commission. It has no power of any kind. It has no ability to tell anyone what to do. It's only purpose is to research the issues. And all it can do at the end is to make recommendations to the president, to the states," said von Spakovsky. When the formal recommendations come next year, von Spakovsky says there could well be calls for Congress or the Justice Department to take action, but he says any meaningful clean-up of the voter rolls will have to happen state by state. While the data continue to come in, von Spakovsky's own research shows three major areas of concern when it comes to election integrity: non-citizens voting, citizens voting in multiple jurisdictions, and the names of dead people remaining on the rolls and being vulnerable to abuse. Von Spakovsky says getting everything right is a major task. "It is a big job. About five years ago, the Pew Center did a study and they found almost three million people registered in more than one state and almost two million people who were dead still on the voter rolls," said von Spakovsky. |
| 'Tone Deaf Up in the Bubble' |
| Wed, 19 Jul 2017 16:36:20 EST Senate Republicans appear unable to pass a straight repeal of Obamacare or a more comprehensive plan, and one of the most fiscally conservative members of Congress says the GOP either needs to do what it promised or prepare to watch the rest of the Trump agenda wither away. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he still plans to hold a vote on repeal, identical to the one that passed Congress in 2015. However, four Republicans are already opposed, including three who voted for the the 2015 plan which was ultimately vetoed by President Obama. Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, are the ones now opposing the plan they backed two years ago. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is also opposed, but she also opposed the 2015 bill. For those pounding the table for repeal, the dashing of hopes in the Senate is stunning. "I thought there would be some movement toward the 2015 plan, but then the three senators who previously voted for the 2015 bill came out and said they were going to vote against the 2015 bill. That is fairly shocking," said Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, a member of the House Freedom Caucus and the House Budget Committee. "When you vote 50 times to repeal and you say you're going to repeal, then it's fairly simple. You ought to do what you told the American people you were going to do. So now these folks are really, really hurting the Republican brand," said Brat. He says the GOP needs some serious soul-searching. "What do we stand for? Do we stand for small federal government? Do we stand for free markets? Do we stand for fiscal responsibility or are we just going down the Democrat path and bankrupting the country?" asked Brat. "The rest is just pure politics and I don't care for that realm. The first principles are what made us the greatest country on earth. You put Adam Smith and James Madison together and you get some great outcomes. We're departing from those first principles every day," said Brat. He says what many Republicans are focused on in Washington is a far cry from what voters want from them. "I just don't understand how you can be that far off the reservation politically and that tone deaf to what the American people want. Everybody back home is just yelling to get it done. We're once again tone deaf up in the bubble," said Brat. Brat is also frustrated by how Republicans have tortured a simple policy approach into something far more complicated. "Once you change the definition of repeal...to a health care thing run by the federal government with all sorts of subsidies and billions of dollars for other programs attached, you're getting too far away from Republican first principles. The messaging hasn't been good because we keep twisting the meaning of common sense words," said Brat. Brat is also concerned about how the failure to pass health care legislation will impact other major priorities in this Congress, especially major tax reform. He says between not eliminating Obamacare taxes and the expected scuttling of the border adjustability tax, Congress is already starting with a two trillion dollar disadvantage. As a result, the Trump administration is now adjusting it's push for a corporate tax rate. Instead of dropping it to 15 percent, Brat says the president's team is now gunning for the 20-25 percent range. He says the GOP simply cannot screw up tax reform. "The worst thing we can do is to goof up tax reform and not get this economy rolling again. Everything hinges on that," he said. Brat still hold out hope for a health care bill since President Trump is still energized to get something done, although Brat suggests the president has been more "transactional" in his approach and needs to be more specific about what he wants. However, Brat is not enthused about bringing Democrats into the talks since that would lead to government in health care. "I think he's starting to recognize that when you move toward the Democrat side, the policy end up utterly complex and fails," said Brat. The congressman also laughs off the assertion of Democrats that Republican opposition to Obamacare - and not the law itself - is responsible for uncertainty that drives up the cost of premiums and deductibles for many Americans. "What's a central planner going to say about the monopoly. It's never their fault because they own it," said Brat. "They have to give that kind of response because they don't have a free market system that is sustainable over the long run." |
| 'They Have Promised This for the Last Four Election Cycles' |
| Tue, 18 Jul 2017 16:42:47 EST Republican hopes of repealing or even drastically reforming Obamacare appear more bleak than ever after enough lawmakers emerged in the past day to scuttle an amended health care bill and sink a promised vote on a repeal bill. Nonetheless, free market health advocates believe there is a way for this Congress to make headway while the GOP still controls the levers of power in Washington. Moderates and conservatives are glum Tuesday. Senate Republican leaders were clinging to hopes of squeaking their amended bill through, even after Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced their plans to vote against the motion to proceed to the bill, albeit for completely different reasons. However, on Monday evening, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, publicly opposed the plan for not doing enough to eliminate taxes, reduce premiums, or kill regulations. With all 48 Democrats firmly opposed, four GOP defections spelled defeat for the legislation. "I think there are just too many factions within this Republican caucus and with only two votes to spare, there just was not enough room for differences of opinion," said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner. She says moderates were not willing to give up the federal Medicaid dollars. "You've got the moderates who are very worried about losing the incredibly generous Medicaid match that their states are getting. Most of them are from states that expanded Medicaid. Remember, the federal government initially paid a hundred percent of the cost of the usually joint federal-state program if the states would put more people on their Medicaid rolls," said Turner. She says conservatives had their own reasons to balk at the larger GOP bill. "Many conservatives are worried, rightly, about the regulations in Obamacare that are so difficult to reach through this narrow pathway that the Senate has to pass legislation with only a simple majority of votes," said Turner. "There's some conservatives, like Rand Paul, who feel that any effort to try to do something else to provide subsidies to people going forward is really perpetuating Obamacare," said Turner. In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bring forward a bill to repeal much of Obamacare and trigger a two-year sunset to give lawmakers time to craft a replacement. While hailed by conservatives, those hopes were also soon dashed as Collins and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, revealed they would not vote on a repeal without seeing a replacement bill. Both Capito and Murkowski voted for the same repeal bill in 2015 despite the absence of a replacement plan. President Obama vetoed the earlier repeal. Turner says lawmakers act differently when a bill has no chance of becoming law than when it does. "They knew President Obama was going to veto it, so there's a difference between messaging and governing," said Turner. With Senate leaders unable to bridge the narrow divide between conservatives and moderates and the straight repeal apparently headed to defeat, many on the right believe it's time to move on to other priorities. Turner says that is not an option. "They can't not do something on repealing Obamacare. They have promised this for the last two election cycles. Every single member is going to have to go to his or her constituents and explain why, after all of this debate over Obamacare, they can't get it done," said Turner. "They known they have to do something." President Trump now suggests he may just let Obamacare collapse and blame Democrats since they did nothing to solve the problem. Turner says that strategy won't work. "They are going to be blamed for the millions of people that would lose coverage if nothing is done because these exchanges are failing, insurance companies are signing up to provide coverage next year because they are losing so much money providing so-called insurance under Obamacare rules that don't work," said Turner. "Republicans own it. How can you have the White House and both houses of Congress and say that you don't own this problem," said Turner. That being said, Turner is also slamming Democrats for asserting that Republican promises to repeal Obamacare are creating uncertainty among insurers and that is why premiums and deductibles are skyrocketing, rather than the Obamacare provisions themselves. "That is just so completely beyond the realm of reality. The reason that costs are going up under Obamacare is because of the flawed structure of the bill that, for one thing, encourages people to wait until they're sick to sign up for coverage and that provides all sorts of opportunities for people to drop coverage and game the system," said Turner. She still holds out hope that lawmakers will send power back to the states to address health care problems in the most effective way. "Washington-centralized solutions are not the answer, whether Republicans are developing them or Democrats are developing them," said Turner. |
| Parents vs. The Left |
| Mon, 17 Jul 2017 16:49:02 EST The Charlie Gard case in Great Britain is stirring fierce debate over whether parents ought to have the final decision for their children or whether the government or children themselves ought to have that power. But this debate goes much further than the UK or whether the parents of an 11-month-old boy ought to be able to seek additional treatment for their son. In fact, one of the experts weighing in on behalf of the hospital in the Gard case says the American notion of parental rights is now more the exception than the norm thanks to action at the United Nations. "Unlike the USA, English law is focused on the protection of children's rights," said Jonathan Montgomery, professor of Health Care Law at University College London told the Associated Press. "The USA is the only country in the world that is not party to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child; it does not recognize that children have rights independent of their parents." For family advocates in the U.S., that statement is troubling both in terms of its low regard for parents but also because it's not at all true. "If he asserts that children have absolutely no rights separate from their parents in the United States, he ought to lose his tenure," said Center for Family and Human Rights President Austin Ruse, who is also the author of "Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ." "Children do have some rights separate from their parents. They have rights in criminal law. They have rights in inheriting money. Even an unborn child has rights sometimes separate from his or her mother," said Ruse. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child took effect in 1990. The U.S. never signed on but most nations have. "The Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of these crazy UN documents that most of the world has signed and ratified and most of the world ignores it," said Ruse. However, it's tenets concern Ruse greatly. "The Convention on the Rights of the Child does separate the child from his or her parents in terms of all rights, which is one of the reasons the United States has never ratified it," said Ruse. "It also gives the child complete access to any form of information from any source. It's a downright crazy document and it's a good thing the U.S. has never ratified it," said Ruse Why doesn't the U.S. sign it? "The main reason the United States has never ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the same reason the U.S. has never ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on Persons with Disabilities, so on and so forth, is because they put us before treaty-monitoring bodies," said Ruse. Whether it's asserting the rights of children or the superiority of the collective, progressive activists are outwardly calling for parents to have less influence in the lives of their children. In 2013, then-MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry sparked controversy with an ad for the cable channel that called for Americans to think of children as belonging to all of us instead of their parents. "We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we've always had kind of a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very collective notion of these are our children," said Harris-Perry in the ad. "So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it's everybody's responsibility and not just the household's, then we start making better investments," concluded Harris-Perry. Ruse says the end game for these activists is obvious. "The endgame of the sexual radicals is to destroy the family. There's no question about that. It is radical individualism run amok. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is simply part of that," said Ruse. "The endgame is to supplant the family. It's to supplant the church. At the French Revolution, the main idea was to overturn the traditional structures that kept people from being free, the family and the church. So this is all of a piece with those musty ideas from the French Revolution," said Ruse. |
| How Donald Trumped the Experts |
| Fri, 14 Jul 2017 16:39:36 EST Donald Trump found common ground with tens of millions of Americans in 2016, confounding national Republicans and large swaths of the conservative movement, and talk show host and author Chris Buskirk says the GOP better warmly embrace the Trump agenda if it wants to succeed in the next few election cycles. Buskirk is also co-author of "American Greatness: How Conservatism Inc. Missed the 2016 Election and What the D.C Establishment Needs to Learn." Trump's political inexperience and his brash personality led political professionals from across the spectrum to write him at countless stages of the campaign, but Buskirk says it wasn't Trump that was missing what voters wanted. "This is someone who understands America in a way that, believe it or not, so many voices on the right that we've listened to, that I've listened to for a long, long time just don't," said Buskirk. So did the American people respond to Trump or did Trump understand what millions of frustrated voters wanted in their next president? Buskirk says it's both. "I think he had and has fully-formed opinions about this country, about the right way to govern and about what's right for America, and the American people responded to him," said Buskirk. "Did he respond to them in kind? I think so. If we look back at the late summer of 2015 and Donald Trump started to talk a whole lot more about immigration. Why? Because every time he did it, his lead in the polls over his primary rivals would grow and grow and grow," said Buskirk. Millions of Americans believed Trump was speaking their language, but most of the GOP establishment and many figures and institutions within the conservative movement rejected him. The latter is a group that Buskirk calls "Conservative Inc." "This is the intellectual infrastructure of the American right, has been for 40 years and they've done a lot of good over those years. Reagan I don't think was possible without Bill Buckley and National Review. All honor to them for that work, but something changed," said Buskirk. He says conservative groups and media outlets based in Washington spend about $500 million per year with increasingly little to show for it. He says the conservatives based in D.C. simply didn't like Trump as a result of his abrasive demeanor and they also feared that their comfortable positions in Washington would be jeopardized. "We have developed our own class on the right of people who never, ever leave Washington. They're permanent fixtures in Washington and, over time, that has made them beholden not to people and not to principles but to Washington itself," said Buskirk. "[Trump] was signaling up front, 'I'm going to change things,' and that means that he threatened a lot of people's livelihoods, their prerogatives and their power. They wanted one of their own. If you're one of these institutions, you want somebody who comes and kisses the ring. Donald Trump explicitly didn't kiss the ring," said Buskirk. Buskirk says while reporters and activists focused on Trump's style and antics, the American people he spoke to over the radio were paying attention to what he wanted to do if elected. "Even the people for whom Trump was a second, or a third, or a fourth, or a fifth choice call us all the time and they say, 'We agree with his agenda. We support that agenda. We do not support the agenda even of the establishment Republican Party. We support this idea of an America first foreign policy, a pro-worker trade policy and a pro-citizen immigration and border policy,'" said Buskirk. As a result, Buskirk says the people passionate about the Trump agenda could not care less about the media's focus on the Russia investigation. He says more casual conversations at his recent book launch bear that out. "To a person, nobody cares. Nobody cares. They say, 'Why are we still talking about this?' The prevailing opinion is this is a D.C. story. It's manufactured by D.C. media to talk about process. Meanwhile, people out here in Phoenix, people in Bangor, Maine, people in Wichita, Kansas, are wondering, 'What is Washington doing for us?'" said Buskirk. And because it's the agenda that Buskirk believes put Trump over the top, he says the movement will outlast Trump and the GOP better get on board with the issues that propelled the president to the White House. "The Republican Party needs to come to terms with his agenda. They need to come to terms with what he represents, with the agenda that he has outlined, because that is what won him the presidency. It wasn't his personality. In fact it was explicitly the opposite. There were a lot of people who were turned off by his personality but they rallied to the agenda they outlined," said Buskirk. He says if the GOP doesn't grasp what voters want, voters will find people who do. "It'll be very, very interesting to see what the Republican Party does. I think it's going to be a new crop of candidates over the next two, four, six, eight years, who figure out this is actually a very traditional Republican agenda. If we get back to basics, we can win elections the way Republicans have been doing at the state level very successfully for 20 years," said Buskirk. |
| Filibuster Forcing Tortured Health Care Bill |
| Thu, 13 Jul 2017 17:51:09 EST As Senate Republican leaders scramble to find the votes to pass a health care bill, their fidelity to a warped understanding of the filibuster rules is deeply impacting the content of the legislation and the odds of passing anything in a deeply divided chamber. The filibuster is a powerful tool by which the minority in the Senate can delay or kill legislation simply by preventing the 60 votes necessary to open or close debate on a bill. However, a top official at the conservative Hillsdale College believes that embracing the original understanding and implementation of the procedure would provide for much more robust debate and a stronger legislative branch. Matthew Spalding is the dean of educational programs at Hillsdale and also runs the school 19s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center in Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington. He says the filibuster is diluting the purpose of Congress. 1cThe underlying problem here is that Congress doesn 19t really legislate in the way it was supposed to. It gave up on that, in many ways, decades ago, as it delegated its powers away, 1d said Spalding, who says the filibuster was never intended to give the minority that much power. 1cThe filibuster was not intended to stop legislation. It was intended to delay it. It was intended to slow walk it. It was intended to allow the minority to say whatever they wanted to say in objection in a public forum, in a deliberate legislative way, 1d said Spalding. Instead of the traditional filibuster, which required exhausting speeches that lasted hours on the Senate floor, Spalding says the tool has become the lazy way to stop what members don 19t like. 1cA filibuster (now) becomes a silent veto. They no longer have to debate and keep the floor open. It doesn 19t force deliberation the way the filibuster is supposed to. It 19s essentially this silent killing mechanism that stops legislation in its tracks, 1d said Spalding. As a result, he says the American people glaze over while the Senate plays parliamentary games instead of publicly debating the best course for the nation. 1cI think Congress too often hides behind processes, whether it 19s the filibuster or reconciliation or omnibus legislation rather than doing the hard work of legislating. That 19s the Madisonian answer here, and in the long run, that 19s the best thing to solve our problems, 1d said Spalding. He says that problem is front and center right now as GOP efforts to address Obamacare are complicated by the inability to get to 60 votes to do anything. As a result, Republicans are trying to shoehorn changes through the Senate by way of the budget tactic known as reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority of votes to begin or end debate but also restricts what can be considered in such circumstances. 1cThe Senate is forced to try to go around the filibusters so they use things like reconciliation, an obscure budget process rather than regular legislation to get policy matters done, 1d said Spalding, who also says the GOP should have been crafting and debating the bill in public rather than writing it behind closed doors like the Democrats did with Obamacare in 2009 and 2010. Spalding says two simple changes in approach to the filibuster would maker a world of difference. First, he wants the Senate to return to the policy where all other business is halted until a filibuster is resolved. He also encourages Senate leaders to embrace the 1ctwo-speech 1d rule, which would allow each member two opportunities to speak as long as they want in opposition to a bill. However, once all the opportunities for speeches are done, the bill would proceed to a simple up-or-down vote. Spalding says this would be very simple to accomplish. 1cOne of the reasons I point to these two reforms is that neither one of them requires a rules change. All they actually require is for the majority leader to agree to do this. This is merely a procedural move, 1d said Spalding, noting that those policies used to be in place before getting changed by leaders back in 1970 19s when Democrats ran the chamber. Such moves would still allow for filibusters, but would require real filibusters where lawmakers are forced to stand for hours on end to demonstrate how fiercely they oppose a bill. 1cSo I 19m in favor of legislating but also keeping the filibuster so you can object. But if you 19re going to object, you 19ve got to get up, you 19ve got to debate and you 19ve got to really filibuster, 1d said Spalding. 1cYou force the opposition to a piece of legislation to each get up there, and they can speak twice at whatever length they want, but it does come to an end at some point. The political point is made. Everything stops. The Senate shuts down and you get a filibuster. You have the effect but it does not stop the legislative branch from fulfilling its constitutional duties, 1d said Spalding. The instant concern for those in the minority now or in the future is that Spalding 19s approach all but guarantees the majority gets its way and that the minority 19s ability to scuttle bad legislation is limited. He acknowledges that 19s true but says there is a remedy for that too. 1cWe shouldn 19t hide behind it to stop bad things. We should argue to stop bad things and have more politics better elections and get better people in there, 1d said Spalding. Left to the status quo, Spalding says the legislative branch of the U.S. government will only get weaker and weaker. 1cCongress is the weakest branch. It doesn 19t legislate. It doesn 19t budget. Its muscles are so atrophied (that) we should think about the underlying reforms needed to revive it as an institution, which is good for constitutional government, 1d said Spalding. |
| 'All Because of This Stupid Obamacare' |
| Wed, 12 Jul 2017 16:22:57 EST Senate Republican leaders are still scrambling to craft a health care bill capable of attracting 50 GOP votes, and while success appears elusive right now, a prominent House conservative still believes a good bill can get passed thanks to the pressure from voters and the resolve of President Trump. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the revised Senate GOP will be revealed on Thursday. The first bill was shelved after several conservatives said it didn't do enough to repeal Obamacare, while half a dozen or more moderates worried that it didn't provide enough Medicaid spending or other federal assistance. Democrats are increasingly brazen about their pursuit of single payer, a euphemism for government-run health care. They also accuse Republicans of seeking to repeal various Obamacare taxes as a means of benefiting the rich while millions of poor people scramble for coverage which would no longer be mandatory. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, says that's complete fiction. "It's the rank-and-file, middle class and people that are just struggling to get by, that have been hurt more over the last eight years than in the last hundred years. They're the ones whose health care is hurting. It's not the rich guys. We're not going to help them. They're all set," said Gohmert. "We've got to help that just don't have much, that are often referred to as poor and the middle class, that are working and doing everything to provide for health care for their families," said Gohmert, who says those families are very stressed over skyrocketing premiums they can't afford and don't even provide much in benefits because their deductibles are also stratospheric. However, Gohmert is fully aware of the problems the GOP is having in cobbling together 50 votes for anything in the Senate. While he says most Republicans have good intentions, others are gumming up the works with demands for big spending. "There are others, including some Republicans, who say, 'If we're going to give people their freedom back, then you're going to have to give us this many billions of dollars. Those people, if they want their freedom, when it comes to health care, they're going to have to pony up tens of billions of more dollars before we let them have their freedom back," said Gohmert. "Really? Republicans are going to make people buy their own freedom? That's just untenable," said Gohmert. Despite the rock road on Capitol Hill, Gohmert believes something effective can make it out of Congress, and he says the resolve of President Trump is the main reason for his optimism. "One of the things that gives me that hope is having a president that says he's not going to take no for an answer," said Gohmert. While Democrats expound on the horrors that would accompany a GOP health bill, Gohmert says there's no theorizing about the damage done by Obamacare. He says he hears about it all the time from constituents. "Business owner after business owner in my district and from around the country have complained directly saying, 'Look, this is killing us. We want to hire more people, but we can't because of Obamacare and that 50-employee limit you've got and the part time hours that were changed," said Gohmert. "People come up to me in tears saying, 'Look, I've had to go to two part-time jobs now and I lost the benefits I had, all because of this stupid Obamacare,'" said Gohmert. He also says seniors are feeling the brunt of President Obama's slashing of more than $700 billion in Medicare spending. "(Before Obamacare, if) they needed a procedure, they could get it done immediately. Now, they're given months to wait on a waiting list. This is where rationed health care goes and it's what happens when the government is put in charge of people's health care," said Gohmert. Gohmert says he hears from many supporters who are resigned to single payer as a result of Republicans being unable to get a bill passed. The congressman says he will never concede that. "I'm not giving up. There's too many people in this Congress who want to do what we said. We've just got to push the leaders of the Senate, and maybe our own leader some, to get it done effectively," said Gohmert. |
| Bolling Urges Trump to Drain the Swamp |
| Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:20:05 EST Fox News host Eric Bolling says corruption in Washington has been around since D.C. became the nation's capital but that it's getting worse, is a plague on both parties, and that President Trump is in a unique position to uproot the system. That's the focus of Bolling's latest book, "The Swamp: Washington's Murky Pool of Corruption and Cronyism and How Trump Can Drain It." Bolling, an unabashed Trump supporter, says politicians have been corrupted by all sorts of vices since our founding but says the infusion of big time lobbying money really changes the game into what we witness today. "As more and more money got introduced, the type of scandal changed and they all became money scandals. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars come to D.C. on an annual basis to find a home in lawmakers' pockets for votes. Everyone became corrupt. Everyone became up for sale," said Bolling. He says many lawmakers come to Washington with the best of intentions but the system quickly swallows them up. "Some actually think they're actually going to go there and make a difference and be difficult from the typical swamp creature that resides in D.C. But when they get there, they realize how lucrative it is," said Bolling. He offered an example of how the swamp gets deeper. "A senator's salary is $174,000 a year. You say that's a lot of money but not if he were in the private sector. So he gets there and says, 'After taxes, I make a hundred grand, but I can go and have a lobbyist pay for my dinner every single night of the week, maybe even fly my family to Mexico for a vacation as long as we talk about something of material importance to my district.' "They come back from these dinners or these trips, and then the lobbyist says, 'Thanks for the time, but the people I represent want you to vote this way on that water issue coming up next week.' That may be something the lawmaker was going to vote against. All of a sudden it's, 'I like these things and my family loves these trips, so I'll vote for it to keep the gravy train coming,'" said Bolling. Bolling stresses that this is a problem afflicting both parties. "There's so much special interest and corporate money flying around on both sides of the aisle," said Bolling. "I'm getting phone calls from some Republicans in the book. Well, let's call them ex-friends. They don't want to talk to me anymore." While lobbyists and lawmakers find themselves entangled, critics of President Trump suggest his history of back scratching in the business world makes him more likely to perpetuate the problem than to solve it. Bolling strongly disagrees, starting with the notion that what Trump his in his real estate ventures was anything like what happens in Washington. "Back scratching is one thing. That's not what they're doing. They're buying and selling influence. If you and I were to do some of the things they're doing, we'd go to jail," said Bolling. Despite the entrenched swamp in Washington, Bolling believes Trump is uniquely qualified to effectively undermine business as usual. "He's going to treat the country like a business rather than how the politicians have treated the people over the last 24o years, where, 'It doesn't matter. I'm not paying for it. Go ahead and buy it it no matter what the price is,'" said Bolling. He says Trump's actions over the first six months are encouraging. "He continues to call out and get rid of people. It doesn't matter if they're on his staff or are Republicans or Democrats. If you're not holding your end of the bargain, if you're not treating the country and the taxpayer and the voter the way you would treat an investor in a company, get out. There's no reason for you," said Bolling. Bolling is also bullish on the policies coming out of the White House. "He stepped into D.C. and he started rolling back regulations," said Bolling. "People's eyes glaze over when you talk about that until you realize that the rollback of the regulations is the reason the stock market is making new highs every week and the reason we have more Americans employed now than ever in history." Bolling says another key is Trump making good on not allowing people in his administration to jump over to a lobbying position until at least five years after leaving government service. "If he holds by that, that'll be a big, big, big start to draining the swamp," said Bolling. |
| ISIS Defeat Spawns New Threats |
| Mon, 10 Jul 2017 16:26:08 EST The U.S. and other coalition partners are celebrating the defeat of ISIS in Mosul, but a prominent national security expert says the victory is actually jump starting the most dangerous part of the ISIS strategy and paving the way for Iranian domination of Iraq. "The global Coalition fighting ISIS congratulates Prime Minister al-Abadi and the Iraqi Security Forces on their historic victory against a brutal and evil enemy, 1d stated Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve. 1cMake no mistake; this victory alone does not eliminate ISIS and there is still a tough fight ahead. But the loss of one of its twin capitals and a jewel of their so-called caliphate is a decisive blow," he added. On Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went to Mosul to declare victory in the eight-month-long battle to take back Iraq's second-largest city from the Sunni radicals. The win comes just three years after Iraqi forces humiliated themselves by throwing down their weapons and taking off their uniforms as ISIS advanced. Retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash says U.S. involvement played a key role. "The United States has been back in there. We've been training. I know some of the special forces people who have been over there and did a fantastic job. Now they've got some good, solid leadership in the junior officer and middle ranks and they're still working on some of the senior ranks," said Nash. But as ISIS rapidly loses control of territory in Iraq and Syria, including control of the supposed capital of the caliphate, Nash says the West is about to see the evolution of the group that presents the most danger to us. "It's a big deal. That's going to hurt their recruiting efforts somewhat, but what they're doing is going into ISIS phase three," said Nash. He says the first phase was to build up up troops from the former Al Qaeda in Iraq into a large fighting force and the second phase was to expand the territory of the caliphate. Now that those gains are being quickly rolled back, Nash suspects we'll see more of the latest strategy from ISIS. "Phase three is, 'What happens when we lose that ground? How do we reinvent ourselves?' What's happening is they're sending hundreds of these foreign fighters back to their countries of origin and the countries of origin are taking them in. So they're going to metastasize this," said Nash. As horrific as the ISIS control over parts of Iraq and Syria have been, Nash says we knew where to find them and kill them. He says this dispersion strategy makes the job of free societies a lot harder. "At one point, it was a cancer but it was a tumor, it was observable. We could see it growing, but it was localized. Now as they lose and they go into phase three, that cancer is going to metastasize," said Nash. He says the means Islamic radicals are going back to their home counties and the leaders of those countries are rolling out the red carpet. "Now they're going to be among us and what are they going to do? The whole vehicle into crowds, the knifing attacks and all that, and it won't take long until the bombs start going off either. This is a very dangerous phase, which is why these governments are near suicidal by allowing these people back into the countries," said Nash. Back in Iraq, it's not just better trained Iraqi soldiers who are defeating ISIS. He says the best fighters are actually a combination of Iranian Quds forces and various Shia militias from the southern part of Iraq. Nash says Iran and it's satellites are not just fighting to uproot ISIS, but because Tehran has visions of dominating the region. "The Iranians are looking to connect the Persian Iran, the Shia Iran, through Shia Iraq, through and into Syria and Lebanon where they have Hezbollah. They're looking at what's been termed the Shia crescent, that now covers an arc spanning from the east in Iran all the way westward to the Mediterranean," said Nash. Given the Shia domination of Iraq's government, Nash suspects there will be little resistance in Baghdad to doing Iran's bidding. "When we deposed Saddam Hussein, that opened the door for the Iranians and now the Shia population vastly outnumbers the Kurds and the Sunnis. So it is a Shia country and it is a Shi'ite government and it is aligned with Iran," said Nash. However, Nash believes that Iraq can be convinced to take a different course, premised on the boundless economic potential of remaining fiercely independent. On a trip to Iraq shortly after Hussein was deposed, Nash and others received a briefing on the economic possibilities resulting from Iraq's location at the fertile crescent and their vast oil reserves. "The reason is because of Mesopotamia. [The briefing officer] said, 'This is the richest soil, the rainfall and the water from the Tigris and the Euphrates could be the breadbasket of southwest Asia and the Middle East. Add in oil, and all of a sudden you have a monster of an economy," said Nash. Nash says there's an obvious foot in the door for the President Trump and our allies by showing a willingness to partner with Iraq in rebuilding Mosul and other cities devastated by ISIS. "He needs to engage the Iraqi government and let them know when they come out of this that the United States is willing to trade and continue to work with Iraq to help them re-establish," said Nash. |
| 'Illinois Is Going in the Wrong Direction' |
| Fri, 7 Jul 2017 16:40:06 EST Illinois Democrats fended off their Republican colleagues and a governor's veto to pass the state's first budget in three years, including new income tax hikes, in an effort to ward off a fiscal crisis that conservative critics say was devoid of any effort to address the issues driving the problem. On Thursday, the Illinois House of Representatives followed the lead of the state senate in overriding Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto of the $36 billion budget, including five billion dollars in new income taxes. The vote was 71-46. Fifteen House Republicans went along with the Democratic plan on the initial vote. Ten voted to override Rauner's veto. Democrats are celebrating a political victory and claim they prevented the state's bond rating from sinking to junk status with this legislation. That fiscal peril catapulted the Illinois budget fight into a national news story about whether tax increases or difficult reforms are the proper path to sustained stability. Conservatives say ignoring the state's biggest problems will not make them go away. "The trend over the last eight to ten years is that states recognize you cannot put these problems off," said Illinois State Rep. Tom Morrison, who was first elected in 2010. "You have to reform. You have to deal with your growing pension problem You have to make your state as friendly as possible to business, to private investment, so that you have a growing economy, so that you have more people working so that you increase your tax revenues via a growing economy," said Morrison. He says Illinois Democrats refuse to follow that path. "Illinois is going in the wrong direction, in the sense that we are increasing taxes rather than making the state friendlier to taxpayers," said Morrison. The tax hike comes in the form of a 32 percent increase in the state income tax, which now rises from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent. Even though Illinois has a flat rate for the state income tax as mandated by the state constitution, Morrison says the income tax rate is not as benign as it looks. "A lot of people would say, 'What's the big deal in Illinois? You've got a flat tax. You're still under five percent. That seems to be fairly reasonable,'" said Morrison. "What that argument is excluding is the overall tax burden in Illinois. We're only behind New Jersey in terms of property taxes. We also have a very, very significant sales tax," he added. "When you put all of those factors together, it is a very high tax burden, especially compared to our neighbors. The other things is we haven't dealt with our unfunded pension liabilities. No real reform was done to those," said Morrison. Instead of figuring out a way to bring major programs like the pension and health insurance systems under control, Morrison says the state often burdens local governments with massive unfunded mandates, which translate into sky-high property taxes for residents. Morrison says the failure to address the key drivers of government spending will leave the government scrambling for even more money before long. "So with $130 billion-plus in unfunded pension liability, there's going to have to be another tax increase to help cover that and/or cuts in services," said Morrison. The tax burden in Illinois has already triggered the exodus of some businesses. Morrison says it's impossible to predict what higher income taxes will do to the business climate, but he's confident they won't help. "There will be an increase in revenues in the short term. People can't plan to move in 24 hours (since the tax increase was enacted). these things take time to roll out," he said. "Unless we address the underlying cost drivers, we're really not going to get out of our situation. Even if tax rates go up, if your tax base shrinks, you could - over time - actually get less tax revenue," said Morrison. While Democrats tried to pin the state's financial woes on a stubborn Gov. Rauner, Morrison says years of Democrats whistling past the financial graveyard led to the balance sheet nightmare of billions in deficits and unpaid bills. "We had 12 years of total Democrat control, between Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and his successor, Gov. Pat Quinn, a supermajority of Democrat House members and Senate members and these problems have been growing and growing and growing," said Morrison. He says Democrats have shown zero interest in working with Rauner. "Finally, a reformer, Republican Bruce Rauner gets elected and the Democrat-controlled legislature continued to just stand in the way of the reforms he needed to get done. "They would not agree to compromises, so as this impasse has dragged on, unpaid bills continued to rise and the pressure points on social service providers, universities and K-12 schools came to this head," said Morrison. So what reforms would Morrison like to see? He used insurance as an example. "One of the major issues in Illinois is our worker's compensation insurance costs. We're significantly higher than our Midwestern neighbors, so as a consequence it's very difficult to operate a business in Illinois. If you're heavy on labor, your costs are going to be significantly higher," said Morrison. He says even when Democrats address such issues they dance around the heart of the matter. "About six years ago there was an attempt at reform but didn't really deal with the driver of worker's compensation costs, that is causation. Was the worker actually injured because of the job or were they injured during their off hours but then getting covered on the employer's worker compensation plan?" said Morrison. "Any attempts at reform that don't include that (kind of ) reform aren't really going to save businesses money," he added. Morrison believes Illinois is poised in many ways to see vigorous growth but he says the politicians need to let it happen. "This state can thrive if we get our policy right. Illinois has so much going for it: the natural resources, the human resources, the diverse economy, the access to world markets, the Central Time Zone, fresh water. We've got so much going for it but the people are frustrated and upset because the policy has been so wrong," said Morrison. "I continue to fight for better policy that will make this state grow again. I think we can recover but not if we keep choosing policies like these," he said. |
| 'Do What You Told the Voters You Were Going to Do' |
| Fri, 7 Jul 2017 15:48:28 EST Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says it may not be possible to unite 50 Republicans on any health care overhaul and that the only action may be a collaboration with Democrats to adjust certain parts of the system, an evaluation that a leading House conservative finds unacceptable. On Thursday, McConnell told a town hall-style event in Kentucky that political realities inside the Senate Republican Conference make it very difficult to find consensus. "I'm in the position of a guy with a Rubik's cube, trying to twist the dial in such a way to get at least 50 members of my conference who can agree to a version of repealing and replacing" said McConnell, according to NBC News. "That is a very timely subject that I'm grappling with as we speak." 1cIf Republicans are not able to agree among themselves, the crisis will still be there and we'll have to figure out the way forward at that point," added McConnell, who later said that could mean working with Democrats to provide options for Americans in the individual insurance marketplace but have no plans available where they live. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is also a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, says Republicans had an obvious path to avoiding this political mess. "Sometimes we forget what our responsibilities are in Congress. Some are pretty basic. Do what you told the voters you were going to do. We were very clear over the last six years when we told the American people we were going to repeal Obamacare. That's what we should have done. That's what the Freedom Caucus proposed," said Jordan. Jordan wanted the same approach in the House but didn't get it. "I actually introduced that clean repeal, the same bill we voted on [in 2015] that we put on President's Obama's desk, we thought we should put it on President Trump's desk and have a two-year phaseout where we had time to do the replacement. Unfortunately, that's not the path that was chosen by our leadership," said Jordan. While congressional leaders insist Senate rules limit what legislation can pass with a simple majority of votes, Jordan says the passage of the 2015 repeal proves otherwise. On December 3, 2015, the Senate approved the Obamacare repeal by a vote of 52-47. All current Republican senators who were in office then voted for the repeal, with the lone exception of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. As many as 14 Republicans have expressed opposition or reservations about the Senate bill, which McConnell pulled off the Senate schedule late last month. Some insist Congress must make good on vows to repeal and replace Obamacare and make sure that any legislation drives down the cost of premiums. But moderates who are opposed to the measure are upset that there is not a greater role for government, as they demand more generous Medicaid expansion, Planned Parenthood funding, billions for opioid addition treatment or other priorities. Despite the individual issues raised, Jordan says there's a more discouraging fact behind the GOP's inability to move this effort more smoothly. "When you boil it all down, read Byron York's column a few months back, where he said that the reason that Republicans aren't doing a full repeal is because some Republicans don't want to repeal Obamacare. Jordan suggests that fact can be seen in how some GOP members are worried about limiting Medicaid expansion just 18 months after backing a much more conservative approach. "That bill said Medicaid expansion goes away after two years. You don't add to it. You don't phase it out. It's done. It's a two-year wind down and the expansion part is no longer the law. That's what we passed a year ago. Now we can't do it, so that's the frustrating thing for all of us," said Jordan. But all hope is not lost. Jordan says the Senate could be salvaged from a conservative perspective if lawmakers there embrace an amendment from Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah. "The Cruz Amendment creates what we call freedom of choice or a consumer choice option, which would say as long as an insurance company provides one plan in each category that meets with all the Obamacare regulations, they could then also offer any other plan that consumers and patients also want," said Jordan. "That would be moving us back toward a market that would bring down premiums for so many families and just makes good common sense to me. If that amendment goes in, I think the bill is good and you would see conservatives support it on the House side. Let's see if that amendment gets in the Senate bill," said Jordan. While some Republicans in Washington bemoan the complexity of the issue and the legislative process, Jordan says the business owners and families in his district see things very clearly. "Traveling in our district, we hear from employers all the time. Even this morning they said, 'Here's what's happened to our health care costs. These aren't even people who are in the small group or the individual market. They're in the large group market. They're costs are going up too. "They want changes. They know what Obamacare has done. They want changes there, they want changes in the tax code. They want us to do what we said. They want us to secure the border," said Jordan. "Let's get after doing what we told them we were going to do. After all, that's what our job is. We better get doing that and the sooner the better," said Jordan. |
| Trump Urges West to Cherish Values that Made it Strong |
| Thu, 6 Jul 2017 16:30:21 EST President Trump hailed Poland as a great success of western civilization, on Friday, holding up the eastern European ally as a model of how a commitment to faith and freedom can overcome great challenges and oppression. In the speech, Trump urged other western nations to follow in Poland's footsteps and embrace the heritage that made the West great. "Through four decades of communist rule, Poland and the other captive nations of Europe endured a brutal campaign to demolish freedom, your faith, your laws, your history, your identity -- indeed the very essence of your culture and your humanity. Yet, through it all, you never lost that spirit. Your oppressors tried to break you, but Poland could not be broken," said Trump. Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Chairman Lee Edwards says steering the West back to a position of championing its values was hugely important. "The United States are Poland are coming together and sending a very clear signal to the rest of Europe. 'Let's remember where we came from, what has made us great and powerful, making the West an invaluable part of history over the last 1,000 years. Let's not cast that all aside and get caught up in bureaucracy,'" said Edwards, who is also a scholar in conservative thought at the Heritage Foundation. He says Poland's remarkable resilience against the scourges of fascism and communism - among many other challenges over the centuries - is a testament to it's fidelity to western values. "Poland proves it is possible to be a people of faith and a people of independence and to do well economically," said Edwards. Trump noted that western civilization is under siege from within and without, starting with radical Islam. We are confronted by another oppressive ideology -- one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe. America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We 19re going to get it to stop," said Trump. "We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism, and we will prevail. We cannot accept those who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent." Edwards says it's an ideological battle the Polish people know well. "Just as we were able to defeat communism, so too can we defeat radical Islam if we come together, if we pull together, if we work together, if we are united by a common faith and a common commitment to democracy and to liberal ideas - to those basic ideas of free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion," said Edwards. Trump also noted the crushing growth of government. "[O]n both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger -- one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles: the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people. The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies," said Trump. And he extolled the value of faith and family in the rise of the West and as a vital key to its future. "We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive," said Trump. Edwards says the message was perfectly clear and critical for Europe to hear at a time when cultures are changing and faith plays a smaller and smaller role in society. "What Mr. Trump was trying to do was say, 'Look, let's go back to the tried and to the true, to those values which did bring us together, did unite us, made us a strong continent and a strong West," said Edwards. |
| 'They Need to Know We Mean Business' |
| Wed, 5 Jul 2017 16:16:12 EST The successful North Korean test of an intercontinental ballistic missile proves the U.S. must be ready to do whatever it takes - even readiness to use nuclear weapons - to prevent Kim Jong-Un from launching a nuclear attack on our nation or one of our allies in the region, according to retired U.S. Air Force Lt. General Tom McInerney. Gen. McInerney spent 35 years in uniform upon graduation from the United States Military Academy. He rose to vice commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe and served as vice chief of staff, the number three position in the Air Force. He says North Korea's successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, on Monday raises the stakes in this standoff to a whole new level. "He is a man who is unstable enough that if he ever got a nuclear ICBM that could reach the United States, that we must fully respect that and understand it. It is unacceptable to us as Americans that we could have North Korea being able to put U.S. cities at risk," said McInerney. McInerney is advocating a multi-pronged approach to confronting North Korea that he hopes won't require military force. However, he says our current posture is untenable and says we cannot rely on our existing missile defense technology to protect us. "We are at risk," said McInerney. "That's all I can say. We are at risk." McInerney urges the Trump administration to start with an aggressive diplomatic and economic campaign to force Kim Jong-un into line. "Number one, increase the diplomatic pressure on China and Russia by the global community, starting this Friday during President Trump's visit to Germany," said McInerney. "Next, we've got to increase the economic sanctions on China and Russia and other countries that are doing business with North Korea, and I mean very tough sanctions," said McInerney. He also wants to see the creation of a NATO-like organization in the Pacific, whereby the U.S. could partner with the likes of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines in putting pressure on Pyongyang. The general says North Korea's increased belligerence is due in part to President Obama's lack of action with respect to missile defense, sanctions, or tough diplomacy. "Clearly, the Obama administration was not interested in pursuing an aggressive missile defense capability, as he was not interested in getting the North Koreans to slow their program down. So we have not had much help in this dangerous area for the last eight years," said McInerney. McInerney is confident that aggressive sanctions can succeed against North Korea and China, which helped to facilitate Monday's ICBM launch. But he says leadership also requires a significant buildup in the event peaceful efforts fail. He foresees the need for a multi-faceted buildup. "First, we've got to build up the forces in [the western Pacific] to include more air power, to include our latest aircraft - the F-22's, F-35's, B-2 stealth aircraft," said McInerney, who also wants to see accelerated production of massive munitions like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB, and the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, and cruise missiles. "We need to build up the Marine amphibious forces in the western Pacific out around Okinawa. We need to build up some of the ground forces," he added, noting that South Korea's competent ground troops would minimize the need for U.S. troops on the peninsula. McInerney is also pleading with South Korea to allow the implementation of the THAAD missile defense program to proceed. Currently, the South Korean government is holding up the effort while waiting for an environmental review. "And we've got to build up our Naval forces to include at least two carriers. I believe we need three, as well as both missile defense forces...as well as cruise missile capabilities," said McInerney. But he goes a step farther in urging the military to be ready for the nuclear option, including the staging of personnel in Japan and South Korea and readying nuke-carrying bombers in Guam. He also urges the U.S. to allow allies in the region of have access to nukes. McInerney says the U.S. knows exactly where all the critical military sites are in North Korea and just one B-2 bomber run with conventional weapons could have a devastating impact. "One B-2 can drop 80 500-pound bombs with GPS guidance and take out 80 of those artillery sites right away. A MOAB could knock out 50 artillery sites at once perhaps," said McInerney. Again, McInerney believes military action can be avoided but he says being ready for a fight is prudent. "They need to know we mean business and if we have to, we will use the full conventional and nuclear retaliatory capabilities of the United States against this threat," said McInerney. |
| 'All the Wrong Moves in the Obamacare Direction' |
| Fri, 30 Jun 2017 16:56:33 EST A key member of the House Freedom Caucus says the Senate health care bill drifts too far towards the existing framework and that the smartest approach would be to repeal Obamacare and then get to work on a replacement, although he does not expect GOP leaders to choose that path. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, taught economics for 20 years before pulling off a stunning defeat of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 Republican primary. He could not support the Senate bill unveiled by leaders last week. "The original bill coming out of the Senate kind of made all the wrong moves in the Obamacare direction, which is shocking," said Brat. "It's not just about adding more coverage or helping more people. That's the way most people are thinking about this. What I think people lost track of is Economics 101. Obamacare is in the ditch because of its own economic logic," said Brat. He says lawmakers on both sides struggle to see the big picture. "That Obamacare logic was just about 100 percent attention paid to coverage and no attention paid to the price of health care. As a result, people were covered with gold-plated health insurance policies, but no one could afford health coverage," said Brat. With Senate Republicans now unable to move their own bill, Brat enthusiastically endorses the suggestion of Sens. Rand Paul, R-Kent., and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., to repeal Obamacare now and then get to work on a replacement that can pass. "The rational politics would have been, initially, to repeal Obamacare, which all of those senators voted for when it didn't count. They all voted for the 2015 package to repeal Obamacare," said Brat. He says that's exactly what Republican voters expected after the 2016 elections, but they aren't getting it. "When you vote 50 times to repeal and then you tell the American people you're going to repeal and then you end up very close to Obamacare logic. That is not good for the Republican brand," said Brat. Brat is confident that if repeal came first, there would be plenty of interest across the spectrum in getting on board with the replacement bill. "Then you have the leverage to work with the Democrats. There's no shortage of people who want to add programs in D.C. in the swamp, right? So you first repeal and then the floodgates are open to add. You can get as many votes as you want from any politician to say yes. Politicians love to say yes. That would have been a brilliant move back in January," he said. So will House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell embrace that idea now that a comprehensive bill is flailing in the Senate? Brat is not holding his breath. "I went to seminary so I'll be praying for it, but I'm doubtful. That would be too good of news. I don't think we've got a big enough spine to carry that off," said Brat. But why? Republicans scored decisive wins in three separate election cycles, due in large part to their promises to repeal Obamacare. So why aren't they following through? Brat sees three key reasons: keeping the special interests happy, the effort to protect vulnerable Senate incumbents from unpopular votes, and a relentlessly hostile media. "Up in D.C., you've got to appease the swamp, so there's all sorts of moneyed special interests you have to appease, " said Brat, noting that the insurance companies love what the Senate GOP produced. "Then if you're in tough seats, you've got to try to support those tough seats." Brat says the influence of the major insurance companies is a big problem, one that James Madison and Adam Smith warned against long ago. "Both of them had the exact same logic. You want a large number of small competitors duking it out in this country. We've lost that. That's the American way. Instead, we've got a few huge oligopolies running from D.C., which the elites can put their thumb down on and that's why the American person is getting hammered right now," said Brat. As for the media, Brat says the avalanche of false, negative coverage is tough for many members to weather. "After we passed the House bill, the mainstream media repeated misinformation and fake news for the next week. It was one simple line: House bill gets rid of pre-existing conditions. Everybody with pre-existing conditions is on their own and there's going to be death in the streets," said Brat. "It is daunting to have confidence in the people back home, that they can see through that message when that's all you see as a politician is that mainstream media. CNN, New York Times, Washington Post: House guts, destroys obliterates - all these crazy words. Then they say, 'Politicians, you guys have to be more civil,' as they lambaste us with falsehoods constantly," said Brat. One of the main reasons Brat opposes the Senate bill is because it fails to deal with what he sees as the fatally flawed framework of Obamacare. "At least the House package had a little bit of room to negotiate some of the regulations and the regulations are Obamacare. If you don't get rid of the Obamacare regulations, a young person cannot go out and buy a catastrophic package out of college, so they're left with a gold-plated plan with a $2,000-$3,000 deductible. And I don't know a lot of college grads with two or three grand in their pocket," said Brat. He is imploring his fellow Republicans to proceed on the principles they constantly espouse about the success of the free market. "If you believe in free markets and the standard American package of free enterprise, etc., that will deliver the goods. Everybody knows these eye surgeries that started out at $6,000 per eye are down to $450 per eye to get your Tiger Woods eye surgery," said Brat. "That's what the market can do if you let it alone. If you let the government intervene, you end up with Medicare, which is insolvent in 2034. You end up with Social Security, which is insolvent for the kids in 2034. $20 trillion in debt, $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities to those major programs, and we're going to add more government," said Brat. |
| 'We Have to Be Watching Out for Regular Americans' |
| Thu, 29 Jun 2017 16:41:10 EST A new government report estimates that 1.4 million illegal immigrants are using the stolen Social Security numbers of Americans, a problem that is getting worse and being exacerbated by the inability of key federal agencies to work together. It's a problem that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., says demands congressional attention to protect the interests of American citizens and those in the U.S. legally. According to the report from Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Robert George, only half of those 1.4 million Americans were even notified that their Social Security information was compromised. He also concluded that tracking the fraud is more difficult than it needs to be because the IRS is forbidden from working with the Department of Homeland Security to find those responsible. Rohrabacher finds that unacceptable but not surprising. He says the problem is getting worse because more and more people are coming to the U.S. illegally with the expectation of receiving federal benefits. "You have got a large number now, millions of people who are coming to this country who thought they were going to get government benefits,just like Americans" said Rohrabacher. He says failing to address this issue "Today, we've evolved into a situation where if people are here illegally can end up compromising the Social Security system or any of our systems designed to help Americans and legal immigrants, it'll just destroy the whole system. It's in the process. We are in the process of collapsing now," said Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher says the problem also persists because of leaders who encourage the problem. "This is the same mentality as people who are in elected office who are telling us they are going to provide sanctuary in cities and states around the United States for people who are here illegally, even when they're criminals. I mean how absurd is that," said Rohrabacher. He says the bureaucratic wall that prevents IRS-DHS collaboration is from the same mindset. "This same gang has managed to sneak this type of restriction into law or into practice here at the federal level. We need to make sure it's dealt with as quickly as we can. Now that we have a president and two houses of Congress, we need to prove we can act," said Rohrabacher. The congressman says there are definitely good, honorable people working inside the federal government, but he warns the number of political operatives who are embedding themselves into the bureaucracy is a problem. "There are a lot of other people who have been making their way through the bureaucracy that have been helped along by liberal-left political connections, sort of wormed their way into the system. I know a lot of people in the last eight years have made sure they're in positions throughout our government," said Rohrabacher. While Rohrabacher isn't immediately sure of what exact legislation is needed to allow greater interagency cooperation and to crack down on Social Security fraud, he says the process is clear. "We'd have to name those legal impediments to say specifically that the cooperation that's necessary to track down this type of fraud committed against the American people by illegal immigrants and that all areas of government should be legally able to work together," said Rohrabacher. On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed multiple bill addressing illegal immigration, one to ratchet up the punishment for repeat illegal immigrants and the other to threaten the withholding of federal dollars to cities and other jurisdictions that impede the work of federal immigration officials. Rohrabacher says addressing Social Security fraud and bureaucratic hurdles is another test the public expects Republicans to pass. |
| POTUS Sinks WOTUS |
| Wed, 28 Jun 2017 16:47:40 EST President Trump made good on a major campaign promise Tuesday, as the Environmental Protection Agency announced the beginning of a process that will roll back the Waters of the United States rule, a move that has champions of private property rights cheering loudly. On Tuesday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt made the policy shift official. "We are taking significant action to return power to the states and provide regulatory certainty to our nation's farmers and businesses," said Pruitt in a statement. "This is the first step in the two-step process to redefine 'waters of the U.S.' and we are committed to moving through this re-evaluation to quickly provide regulatory certainty, in a way that is thoughtful, transparent and collaborative with other agencies and the public," he added "It's a big day for freedom for property rights and the Constitution," said R.J. Smith, a senior fellow in environmental policy at the National Center for Public Policy Research. Smith says he Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS, which was put forward during the Obama administration, was nothing more than gross distortion of what Congress intended for the EPA to regulate as part of the Clean Water Act. The act specifically allowed government to regulate "navigable" waterways, which Smith said was well-understood to mean bodies of water on which commerce traveled through shipping. But he says the government was content to leash its authority. "'Navigable waters' kept getting stretched by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers year after year. First it would go to tributary streams. Then it would go to smaller streams. Then it would go to creeks and it would go to irrigation ditches, things that nothing could navigate," said Smith. It didn't stop there. "Then it began to control the lands that were adjacent to navigable waters and lands that were adjacent to things that ran into navigable waters," said Smith. "By vastly expanding this,they've reached a point now where something that was only supposed to protect major rivers to see that commerce could take place in America now controls whether a farmer can plow his own land," said Smith. And that creeping government control forces property owners to beg Uncle Sam to use their own property. "It takes an endless amount of time, years of time, money and still uncertainty to try to get a permit to use your own land. Anything that rain falls on now could technically be considered waters of the United States," said Smith, noting that building a home on seemingly dry land on your own property could lead to millions of dollars in government fines. The rescinding of WOTUS is not the end of the story. Pruitt's announcement triggers a 30-day comment period, which will be considered in revising the existing rule. "EPA and the corps together will come up with a revised rule, hopefully a rule that protects property rights and puts the EPA and the corps back into the constitutional mode they're supposed to be in," said Smith. He also wants Congress to make sure the EPA can never stretch the definition of "navigable waters" ever again. "The United States Congress needs to go back and revisit the Clean Water Act of 1972 and amend it so that it unequivocally says that "navigable" means navigable and it means by commercial shipping, not by somebody in a motor boat, not by somebody in a canoe or a kayak or a rubber raft or even floating down a little tiny creek in a tube," said Smith. |
| Ex-INS Official Hails Court Ruling on Travel Ban |
| Tue, 27 Jun 2017 15:24:22 EST The law is very clear that the president has the power to exclude any person or group of people from entering the United States and the Supreme Court was right to rule in his favor, according to a former high-ranking Immigration and Naturalization Service official. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected appellate court decisions striking down President Trump's executive order that calls for a 90-day travel ban from six nations with significant terrorism problems. The justices lifted some of the injunctions against the executive order and agreed to hear oral arguments on other components later this year. Temple University School of Law Professor Jan C. Ting served as assistant director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the Justice Department during the George W. Bush administration. He says the Supreme Court's stark reversal from the lower court decisions is striking. "The unanimity of the high court was surprising. Even the liberal wing of the court concurred in the judgment that the positions of the lower courts in striking down the ban were overly broad," said Ting. He fully expects the court to rule in Trump's favor on the outstanding issues as well given what Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a separate opinion that both concurred and dissented from the majority opinion. "It seemed like the travel ban was very likely to be affirmed by the high court on the merits when the high court gets to that point, and I think that's reflected in the unanimous decision of the high court to push back on the lower court injunctions," said Ting. Ting has weighed in at various points of the travel ban debate, pointing out that Trump's first version was perfectly legal based on existing U.S. statute, specifically 8 USC 1182(f). "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate," the statute reads in part. Ting says that makes this fierce political battle an open and shut case. "The law is very clear. The president has the authority to exclude any alien from the United States for any reason and for any period of time the president chooses. That is unmistakably clear," said Ting, noting the ruling is a rebuke to lower courts straining for reasons to block the order. "The role of the courts is and ought to be very limited. These are political questions, whether people should be excluded from the United States. The political branches of government, the Congress and president together, should be making these decisions," said Ting. Critics often call the executive order a Muslim ban and cite first amendment concern. Ting says that argument simply doesn't hold up. "I think it's pretty clear that there's not a religious issue there. I mean anyone who reads the first amendment can see that we're not establishing a religion in a travel ban," said Ting. Furthermore, he asserts that non-citizens in other countries don't have constitutional rights. "The notion that people who are outside the United States who are not citizens have some rights that they can assert under our Constitution is, I think, an erroneous claim. Those issues will all be decided when the high court rules on the merits," said Ting. "It would be startling if people outside the United States had some constitutional right either to come to the United States or, frankly, whether they could assert any constitutional rights while as non-citizens outside the United States," said Ting. "We think the United States is an exceptional country, but our Constitution is not so great that it governs people all over the world who are not citizens," he added. In it's decision, the Supreme Court allows people to travel to the U.S. from the six nations listed in the executive order only if there is a clear connection for them in this country, ranging from a new job to admission to a college or university or if they have close family in the U.S. Alternatively, the ban remains firmly in place for those without such connections. Ting finds the distinction unhelpful. "I'm with the three dissenters (Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito), who say this is going to give rise to a lot of unnecessary litigation before we get to the merits. It's really not necessary. Since it's going to be overturned anyway, why don't we just restore it in the interim?" said Ting. He says the answer to that can probably be found in in the man who leads the high court. "I think we see the hand of Chief Justice Roberts here. He's trying to preserve the dignity of the court and he would like to have unanimous opinions," said Ting. "He negotiated this compromise just to get everyone on board so the Supreme Court could speak with one voice, heightening the respect of the high court and its decisions." |
| 'A Tremendous Day for Freedom' |
| Mon, 26 Jun 2017 17:46:43 EST Religious liberty activists are celebrating Monday, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled decisively in favor of a Missouri church that sued the state, alleging it was wrongfully denied state grant money for a playground upgrade in violation of the free exercise clause of the first amendment. The 7-2 decision in favor of the church included liberal justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer joining with the four conservative justices and moderate Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a stinging dissent that was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trinity Lutheran Church applied for state funds being offered by the state to upgrade the surface of playgrounds to rubber made from shredded tires. The request was denied by Missouri officials, suggesting the money would constitute state endorsement of of a particular religion or denomination. Chief Justice Roberts says Missouri held Trinity Lutheran Church to an unconstitutional standard. "The State in this case expressly requires Trinity Lutheran to renounce its religious character in order to participate in an otherwise generally available public benefit program, for which it is fully qualified. Our cases make clear that such a condition imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that must be subjected to the 1cmost rigorous 1d scrutiny," wrote Roberts. "The State has pursued its preferred policy to the point of expressly denying a qualified religious entity a public benefit solely because of its religious character. Under our precedents, that goes too far. The Department 19s policy violates the Free Exercise Clause," he added. " [T]he exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion," concluded Roberts The Alliance Defending Freedom worked with Trinity Lutheran on this case. Senior Vice President of U.S. Legal Advocacy Kristen Waggoner says this was a huge verdict for the cause of religious freedom. "I think today's decision is a tremendous day for freedom. The court ruled very clearly that discrimination against people of faith and religious groups is unconstitutional," said Waggoner. Waggoner says this was discrimination pure and simple. "In the text of the law, the state was discriminating against this church because of who it was. The government can't do that. Neither the establishment clause nor the free exercise clause permit class-based discrimination against people of faith and that's exactly what this was," said Waggoner, noting that the state's argument could be extended to deny fire and police protection from churches. Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says this decision is even more pivotal than that. He says a decision in favor of Missouri would have massive consequences in arenas ranging from education to health care. "That would mean that vouchers - when parents provide vouchers to a school of their own choice - could be blocked across the country," said Staver. "It also could mean that, in fact, hospitals that are religiously affiliated, particularly those that are affiliated with churches...could be disqualified from treating Medicaid and Medicare patients for the same reason," said Staver. "The good news is that's not the direction the court went." Waggoner sees Monday's decision as a ray of sunshine after what she sees as a long string of high court rulings against religious and she hopes a new trend is beginning. "Over the course of the last two years, we've seen a number of bad laws and bad lower court rulings that have eroded our freedoms. Today's decision, I think, that that pendulum is swing back towards freedom, which benefits everyone," said Waggoner. She also says the gravity of this decision can be seen in the intensity of Sotomayor's dissent. "This case is about nothing less than the relationship between religious institutions and the civil government 14that is, between church and state. The Court today profoundly changes that relationship by holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church," wrote Sotomayor. "Its decision slights both our precedents and our history, and its reasoning weakens this country 19s longstanding commitment to a separation of church and state beneficial to both," she added. Staver says Sotomayor has a wrong understanding of history and of the Constitution. "The intent of the Constitution never ultimately wanted to put this huge separating wall so that you can't ever have any interaction. The first amendment is designed to prevent an establishment of religion, a preferential treatment of religion or a religious denomination over another, not equal treatment," said Staver. Staver also challenges another assumption Sotomayor made in her dissent. "Today 19s decision discounts centuries of history and jeopardizes the government 19s ability to remain secular," wrote Sotomayor. Referencing one of the nation's early justices, Staver says secularism was never understood to be the posture of government in the early days of the republic . "Justice Joseph Story said that the first amendment was designed to encourage religion, so far as it's not incompatible with the rights of conscience. It was designed to prohibit rivalries among denominations ...not to remain secular," said. Story served on the high court from 1811-1845. Staver says if that's not an early enough interpretation of the government's relationship with religion, the founders themselves were pretty clear as well. "Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, all the founders, they consistently said that the people had to be religious and moral. Therefore, people needed to be taught Christian principles even in the public schools, so they would have a moral people, so that our liberty would be preserved," said Staver. "It's frankly shocking (for Sotomayor) to suggest that this is centuries of history that the government is to remain secular. That's absolute nonsense," he added. Neither Staver nor Waggoner appear concerned about the debate among the more conservative justices about the scope of this ruling. The majority opinion includes a footnote from Roberts that seems to limit the decision to the present circumstances. "This case involves express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing. We do not address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination," he wrote. In a concurring opinion, newly-minted Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged the specifics of the case but argued that the ruling had farther-reaching impact. "Of course the footnote is entirely correct, but I worry that some might mistakenly read it to suggest that only 1cplayground resurfacing 1d cases, or only those with some association with children 19s safety or health, or perhaps some other social good we find sufficiently worthy, are governed by the legal rules recounted in and faithfully applied by the Court 19s opinion," wrote Gorsuch. "Such a reading would be unreasonable for our cases are 1cgoverned by general principles, rather than ad hoc improvisations," he wrote. Waggoner sees the debate over the footnote as a "red herring" offered up by people looking to diminish the decision. Staver hailed Gorsuch's approach. "It is a great opinion by Gorsuch because it shows that he is committed to the original understanding and intent of the Constitution," said Staver. "I think it really bodes well for the future that we've got a great justice who is precise and will be committed to the original understanding of the Constitution," said Staver. Both lawyers were also pleased to see the Supreme Court agree to hear to case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Right Commission. It's at the center of the conscience debate that will set a major precedent in determining whether artistic merchants can decline certain projects if those jobs conflict with their closely held personal beliefs. Christian vendors declining services for same-sex ceremonies are at the heart of this debate at the moment. Waggoner says that case cuts to the core of freedom in America. "What we're finding is that Christians who are in the creative profession are being forced to choose between their professions and their business and their beliefs on marriage," said Waggoner. "Every American should be free to choose the art that they create and they shouldn't fear unjust government punishment for not agreeing with the government's ideology on any issue, especially marriage between one man and one woman," said Waggoner. |
| 'This Has Become A Question of Us, Not Them' |
| Fri, 23 Jun 2017 16:44:16 EST North Korea murdered Otto Warmbier and a fierce response is needed, says a prominent expert on China and North Korea, but he warns the increasingly belligerent actions of the communist regime are a result of the U.S. failing to hold it accountable for more than two decades. Earlier this month, North Korea released Warmbier after imprisoning him for 16 months. He spent the vast majority of that time in a coma and died just days after returning to Ohio. North Korea claimed Warmbier's coma stemmed from a bout of botulism and that he was released on humanitarian grounds. U.S. doctors found no evidence of botulism. "At this point, we have to go with the overwhelming evidence and that is indeed an issue of murder," said Gordon Chang, a leading scholar on China and North Korea and the author of "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World." "There is just no other explanation for a healthy 22-year-old - then a 21-year-old - would end up in a permanent coma and then death. We have to just follow the evidence and just realize that the North Korean explanation is not accurate," said Chang. "It may have been guards who got overzealous, but it probably was an order from the top of the regime to send a message to the United States," said Chang. "It was as horrific as we can think. This is a good reminder when we start to talk about negotiating with the North Koreans of who we are actually dealing with." On Friday, the North Korean regime vigorously denied torturing Warmbier, insisting it provided him medical care and then released him on humanitarian grounds. 1cAlthough we had no reason at all to show mercy to such a criminal of the enemy state, we provided him with medical treatments and care with all sincerity on humanitarian basis until his return to the U.S.," the foreign ministry said, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency. The North Korean government also claimed it was the biggest victim in this story due to an alleged smear campaign by the U.S. and South Korea to accuse it of torture. "It's a typical North Korean response that it's all the Americans' response. Any problem in the world can be traced to Washington. This is just the way that they operate. They're certainly not going to accept any responsibility for the treatment of Otto Warmbier, although they had total custody of him since January 2, 2016," said Chang. While the actions of Kim Jong-Un's regime infuriate the Trump administration, Chang says increased North Korean aggression is simply a result of the U.S. doing virtually nothing in response to provocations for decades. "We have not imposed costs on North Korea for their brutalized treatment of Americans: the seizure of the (USS) Pueblo in 1968, the shoot down of the Air Force EC-121 with the loss of 31 lives. Again, no penalty was imposed. We never do so, so of course the North Koreans think they can kill us," said Chang. "Yes, the North Koreans are villains, but this has become an issue not of North Korea. It's become an issue of the American response to North Korea, he views of the American policy establishment, the views of American administrations - Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives," said Chang. "The north Koreans will continue to act in this way until the United States imposes some costs. So this has become a question of us, not them," he added. And what is an effective response? "Regardless of what they think about North Korea, the Trump administration needs to impose costs on Pyongyang. We need to do that because we cannot allow anyone to kill anyone with impunity," said Chang. He believes going after North Korean money would send a crystal clear message. "I think the most important thing would be to cut North Korea off from the global financial system by cutting North Korea off from Chinese banks, which are participating in illicit North Korean commerce and North Korean crimes," said Chang. In addition to providing an appropriate wake-up call to North Korea, Chang believes China would also receive the message loud and clear. "If were to start to do that, I think that we would start to see a new Chinese attitude, much more positive and much more cooperative. But until we are willing to take political risk and show political will, they're going to continue with their support of North Korea. They've weaponized North Korea against us. We have not responded," said Chang. He says demonstrating diplomatic backbone is vital for U.S. national security. "It's becoming essential for the United States to show the rest of the world that, first of all, we're going to enforce our own laws regardless of what we think about China or North Korea policy," said Chang. "Second, we need to send a message to the Chinese that for the first time since 1994 that we are serious about protecting the American homeland. We haven't done that, and because of that Beijing and Pyongyang haven't taken us seriously," he said. President Trump has said the approach of previous administrations toward North Korea does not work, but he has yet to lay out a new policy. In the meantime, Chang says we're still getting pushed around. "So far they've adopted the policy of their predecessors and they're, again, getting no results from the Chinese. I don't know if the president has genuinely been taken in by Beijing or whether he's just giving them enough rope and he's decided he's eventually going to do something on his own," said Chang. |
| 'This Is A Rescue Effort' |
| Thu, 22 Jun 2017 17:02:42 EST Senate Republican leaders revealed their closely guarded health care bill on Thursday, predictably outraging Democrats and leaving some conservative senators insistent that the bill doesn't go far enough. Known officially as the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017, the legislation kills Obamacare's individual mandate, scraps many of the current taxes on the books, and gives more power to the states to define the health care market. On the flip side, the bill increases subsidies over what House Republicans approved last month and offers a slower phasing out of Medicaid expansion. Both plans keep the Obamacare provisions of forbidding insurance companies from rejecting patients with pre-existing conditions and allowing young adults to stay on their parents' policies until age 26. Some of the top conservative health care policy leaders are effusive in their praise. Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity President Avik Roy says, "If it passes, it 19ll be the greatest policy achievement by a GOP Congress in my lifetime." Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner also likes the plan, noting that it addresses the four areas she believes must be dealt with as a result of Obamacare's many problems. Specifically, she says any final product must provide a safety net, create a bridge to new coverage, allow states greater flexibility on regulations, and reform Medicaid. "This bill does all four of those key things," said Turner. "Yes the Senate moves the dials in slightly different ways and they learned from the reaction to the House bill, particularly in the way the refundable tax credits were structured for people who need help in purchasing coverage." Turner admits the Senate bill spreads taxpayer dollars around more liberally than the House plan. "Young people, people that are in lower income categories and people (nearing) Medicare age will get more help than they would have through the House bill," said Turner. That approach extends to Medicaid as well. "It gets back to a more normal way of spending the federal-state match for Medicaid spending, but it does it over a longer period of time. So the states have more time to adjust to reductions in their Medicaid payments," said Turner. "But they are also going to have a lot more flexibility with this bill than they would have otherwise had. Obamacare just basically added millions more people to a faltering Medicaid program instead of building in reforms," she added. While many on the right see the legislation as a significant improvement over the status quo, some changes must be made if Republican leaders want the votes needed to pass it. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Mike Lee, R-Utah, Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., say they cannot back the bill in its present form because it doesn't do what the GOP promised to do the past four election cycles. "Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor," the senators said in a joint statement. "There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current healthcare system but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their healthcare costs," they added. Turner says she is encouraged by the language of the statement and expects their concerns to result in a stronger bill. "I think the leadership knows they are going to have to make tweaks and adjustments to this bill. Fortunately, we're now sort of out of the policy realm and we're in the vote-buying realm. 'What do you need, Sen. Paul? What do you need Sen. Johnson, etc. to be able to vote for this bill," said Turner. "We saw on the House side they made it better when people started to push back strongly," said Turner. She also says the underlying arguments from the four senators are spot on but she says the parameters for moving this legislation make things more complicated. "They are right that we've got to do more to get costs down and to give people more choices. But they're also so constrained by this process they have to go through, this reconciliation process, to be able to pass this with 51 votes, means that everything in the bill has to directly pertain to federal spending and federal taxation," said Turner. "That means that it's really hard to get to the regulatory structures through this bill, which is why I think we need to think about this as a first step - breaking the logjam - so we can begin a process of making changes that effect this one-sixth of our economy so that we can begin to move forward to give people the choices that they want. but we can't do it on the Obamacare platform," said Turner. Turner says with Medicare and Medicaid on the books, the conservative goal of wrenching health care away from the clutches of government will remain just that. However, she says the key provisions allowing more latitude to the states is a major step in the that direction. "There's always going to be a federal footprint. The question is whether it's Bigfoot and it crushes the health sector or whether it has an appropriate footprint of helping people in need while allowing the private market to work," said Turner. The greatest howls of protest came from Democrats, who denounced the bill as cruel and likely to kill many people the moment it was released. "That sort of tells me they were against it before they even knew what was in it," said Turner. While fully aware of the partisan divide in Washington and the Democrats' intention to defend President Obama's signature domestic achievement, Turner is stunned that Democrats are fine with what Obamacare is doing to health care right now. "Are they really defending Obamacare, that has caused health insurance costs to double for an individual since the year before this law was passed, 140 percent higher for families. You have many counties that are at risk of having no options for people to use. Obamacare has not worked," said Turner. "There have been no changes in any meaningful way, other than one regulation, for the Trump administration or this Congress to precipitate this. This is failing of its own right," said Turner. Given the current numbers in the Senate, Turner believes this legislation is about the best the GOP can do on its own and that lawmakers must act. "This is a rescue effort and they've got to get this done," she said. |
| 'March Against Sharia' Organizer Hails Results, Rips Critics |
| Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:43:11 EST Act for America's "March Against Sharia" unfolded in more than 20 American cities on Saturday, with the group's chairman declaring great momentum from the events and blasting the groups behind the counter-protests in several locations. "The growth out of this movement has been phenomenal. We have added 250,000 followers to Act for America," said Act for America Founder and Chairman Brigitte Gabriel. "A quarter of a million patriotic Americans stepped up and said, 'We are joining you.' We are excited. This is the movement we have been waiting for." She says many Americans are realizing that if they don't stand up to Sharia law now, they may not have the chance years from now. "We need to come together to save America because it's the last man standing. Europe is gone. Nobody else in the world can stand up to Islamofacism the way we can. We need every American who loves this country involved," said Gabriel. Gabriel says thousands of Americans turned out for the marches across the nation and many more supported the effort on line, some because they had to work and others because they feared for their safety. She says the absence of injuries ought to convince many more people to get involved. "The most important thing that this rally showed to every conservative out there is that you can get out and nobody's going to kill you. Nobody's going to harm you. The worst they can say to you is you are an Islamophobe," said Gabriel. Sharia is the Islamic law that is increasingly seeping into western courtrooms. Even in the United States, Gabriel says 143 cases in 22 states have allowed Sharia law as a defense. She says issues like female genital mutilation and honor killings are very real issues in American culture. Gabriel says Americans may be shocked to know just how many girls have suffered as a result of Sharia's endorsement of female genital mutilation as a means of supposedly tamping down "hypersexuality." "[The Centers for Disease Control] came out and said over a half a million girls - 513,000 girls - in the United States today in 2017 are at risk of female genital mutilation or have already been victims of female genital mutilation. That's over half a million American girls," said Gabriel. "Who would have thought that in America today we were going to be discussing or sealing with such a barbaric practice that people think is only practiced in the backwoods of Africa and the Middle East," said Gabriel. Gabriel says honor killings also continue in our own communities. "These are girls and women who are killed by a male in their family for simple things such as asking for a divorce, wanting to wear make-up, wanting to go out on a date, or wanting to go out to a cafe with male and female friends," said Gabriel. When critics accuse the March against Sharia of being anti-Muslim, Gabriel points to these issues to stress the movement is explicitly anti-Sharia. "We welcome people to our country from all over the place, from different backgrounds, different religions, different sexual orientations, whatever it is. I am an immigrant to America. But we want people who come to the United States to abide by our rules, obey our Constitution. adopt our culture and become part of the American fabric and live in a way that is compatible with our western democracy and respect for human rights," said Gabriel. She says that is clearly not happening. "We do not want people coming here genitally mutilating young American girls, killing American girls in the name of honor or teaching the hatred and encouraging the killing of gays and lesbians, etc.," said Gabriel. Gabriel says the active involvement of many Muslims in the March Against Sharia is also evidence of what its focus truly is. "Our rally included a former imam who helped us organize the rally, four practicing Muslims speaking at our rallies. The Muslim that organized our Atlanta rally was named Mohammed and he's the one who pulled it all together. We had acid attack survivors who spoke at our rallies. We had Miriam Ibrahim speak at our rally in Virginia Beach," said Gabriel. Ibrahim was the woman sentenced to death in Sudan for converting to Christianity and forced to give birth while shackled in prison. Fierce international pressure eventually led to her release. Despite those testimonials, Gabriel says the Muslim groups and their liberal allies had no intention of listening. "Their voices were drowned and that is such a shame because the left is not listening to those voices crying for help and standing up for America's liberty and security and our western values. They don't understand what we're dealing with and they are being used as useful idiots," said Gabriel. She also says the anti-Muslim label is an example of "intentional confusion." "Because they could not argue with the facts that we were presenting, they had to change the conversation and make us look like we are Islamophobes and this is anti-Islam," said Gabriel. Gabriel says the nexus of groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and far left groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter are joining forces to "drown the voices of patriotic Americans." Act for America is looking to build on its momentum at an October conference in Washington, D.C. "We are going to descend on Washington, D.C., put pressure on elected officials and remind them that America's national security is the number one concern for the country. We will not follow the path of Europe," said Gabriel. |
| Sessions Kills Obama-Era 'Slush Fund' |
| Fri, 9 Jun 2017 16:37:43 EST Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pulling the plug on a Justice Department policy instituted during the Obama years that effectively forced corporations to settle lawsuits by, in part, donating to leftist political organizations, a practice many critics considered a liberal slush fund. 1cWhen the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people 14not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power, 1d said Sessions in a statement. Former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky is now with the Heritage Foundation. He is also co-author of "Obama's Enforcer: Eric Holder's Justice Department." He calls the former policy nothing more than the government stealing from the American people. "It's pretty clear the Obama administration figured out a way to rob the public and help their political allies," said von Spakovsky, who adds that we're talking about a lot of money going to Obama's political friends. "We're not talking about chump change here. My understanding is in the last 30 months before the new administration came in, the Justice Department had funneled about a billion dollars to outside third party groups," said von Spakovsky. And who exactly received the money? "Environmental groups, civil rights groups, ACORN-type groups, that's who was getting this money," said von Spakovsky. He then explained how the process worked. "When the Justice Department sued defendants such as Volkswagen or the Bank of America claiming they had violated federal law, they entered into settlement agreements with those defendants, in which the defendants agreed to pay a large sum of money to end the litigation," said von Spakovsky. "The Obama Justice Department would come in and say, 'We want you to give a portion of this money to such-and-such organization.' These were not organizations that had anything to do with the lawsuit. They weren't parties to the lawsuit. They didn't have members who were injured by whatever the misbehavior was of the company," said von Spakovsky. "These are simply third-party, mostly advocacy organizations who were big political allies of the administration. That, frankly, is really stealing money that is due to the American taxpayer and funneling it to political friends of the government," added von Spakovsky. He says this wasn't just unethical but illegal. "I actually think it was illegal. There is a federal law called the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, which requires DOJ lawyers to deposit settlement checks into the U.S. Treasury Department. That was not happening, so I think it was illegal. Thanks goodness Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said this is not going to happen anymore," said von Spakovsky. However, Sessions appears content to end the program. Von Spakovsky suspects there will be no legal danger for anyone who created or operated this program. "It sounds like he's just going to end the practice and move on. There doesn't appear to be an effort by the Justice Department to apply this [retroactively], in other words to go backwards and go to some of these settlements of lawsuits, open them, and try to get the money back. I don't think they're going to do that," said von Spakovsky. |
| 'Trump Had a Good Day,' Political Troubles Persist |
| Thu, 8 Jun 2017 17:38:54 EST Thursday's highly anticipated testimony of former FBI Director James Comey delivered devastating blows to the legal accusations against President Trump, but a former federal prosecutor says the political damage inflicted by Comey and the overall investigation could end up being a major wound. In the hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey confirmed that Trump is not and never was personally under investigation by the FBI as part of the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and, critically, that there is no evidence of collusion between Trump and his team and Russia. He also said Trump never directly ordered him to cease any probe and that media reports suggesting extensive communications between the Trump campaign and the Russian government were almost entirely false. However, Comey also said he took Trump's overtures on behalf of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as a directive. He also indicated that he started keeping memos only when Trump was elected to protect himself if there were any future dust-ups. In his opening statement, Comey also slammed Trump for changing his public explanation for firing him, initially indicating that it was about the handling of the Hillary Clinton case before admitting it was about the Russia probe. Comey then called Trump a liar for publicly suggesting that FBI personnel had lost confidence in him. Between the media hype and the Democratic talking points leading into Thursday, Trump critics were preparing for an event that would be the tipping point towards his legal or political downfall. They didn't get it. "If you just look clinically at the legal facts that came out, Trump had a good day as far as the allegations we've been looking at over the last six months," said former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, who led the prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning to attack other landmarks. "The testimony undermines the case for obstruction of justice, which I've been trying to argue was not strong at all to begin with. There's still no evidence of collusion and they acknowledged Trump was not the subject of an investigation," said McCarthy. He says the definitive remarks on collusion may well be the biggest stories of the day. "Today probably puts to bed the notion that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin regime. So Comey, who would have had every motivation to suggest such collusion if there had been any, really was very clear on the fact there was no evidence of that," said McCarthy. McCarthy says the intense politicization of Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 elections has distracted officials from focusing on the actual, ongoing threat. "What I've been concerned about is that our consideration of Russia has become so hyper-politicized that a lot people have a motivation to downplay it. To me it's very serious, so I hope we can put the politics part of that aside and start to focus on the Putin regime, which is a real problem for the United States," said McCarthy. But while Trump's legal concerns ought to be greatly eased, McCarthy warns Comey's blistering attack on Trump's character may do lasting damage. "Even in not formally or informally accusing Trump of not committing a crime, Comey paints a very unflattering portrait of the president as somebody who is conniving, dishonest, and a real operator in a sense," said McCarthy. "I'm not smart enough to know how this is going to play itself out, but I wonder if people will care more about the fact that there doesn't seem to be any evidence of criminal wrongdoing or even deeply inappropriate behavior that straddles the line of the law versus how unflattering the portrait of the president painted by Comey is," said McCarthy. McCarthy notes Hillary Clinton never faced any charges over her private server or for mishandling top secret classified information, but the revelation of her conduct ended up carrying immense political consequences. Shortly after Comey finished his public testimony, Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz, publicly highlighted what he sees as Comey's exoneration of Trump while simultaneously disputing Comey's assertion that Trump demanded a loyalty pledge or asked for the Flynn probe to be dropped. McCarthy says it makes sense for Kasowitz to point out the testimony that boosts Trump's legal standing, but he says accusing Comey of not telling the truth in other areas was not smart. "I wouldn't be asking for a credibility contest between Trump and Comey. Trump has a long, long history of not having at 7 p.m. the position he took at 7 a.m. and he may have changed it two or three times in between. Whereas, Comey has contemporaneous notes and is pretty solid as he moves from event to event to event even when he tells the same story multiple times," said McCarthy. "Trump's going to lose a credibility contest with Comey and there's no reason for his lawyer to get him into one," said McCarthy. Another key revelation from Comey centers on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Comey confirmed he went public with his summary on the Clinton case and his recommendation not to prosecute because of Lynch's clandestine meeting with Bill Clinton on an Arizona tarmac. He also revealed that Lynch pressured him not to publicly describe the Clinton probe as an "investigation" but rather as a "matter." Nonetheless, McCarthy says Lynch is not in any legal danger. "I don't think she's in any legal trouble. I think Comey's point, and it was a good one, is that it's not one side that tries to massage and politicize law enforcement," said McCarthy. |
| 'All About Nothing' |
| Wed, 7 Jun 2017 16:26:01 EST Politicians and media are salivating over Wednesday's Senate testimony from the top figures in the intelligence community and the opening testimony expected Thursday from former FBI Director James Comey concerning the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, but a former House intelligence committee chairman says so far nothing has really changed. On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein joined Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers before the Senate Intelligence Committee. While each of the men seemed reluctant to say there had been no prodding from the Trump administration on the Russia investigation, all of them rejected the idea that Trump or his team did anything inappropriate. "In the three-plus years that I have been director of the National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate," said Adm. Rogers. "And to the best of my collection, during that same period of service, I do not recall ever feeling pressured to do so." Former House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra says that is the most important takeaway from Wednesday. "What the senators did learn is exactly what they needed to learn, that the heads of these agencies and these departments did not feel any pressure at all from the president or from the White House to stop their investigations of what Russia did in the 2016 election, said Hoekstra, who served 18 years in the House. He is now chairman of Hoekstra Global Strategies. He says those hoping for a room full of smoking guns came up empty. "It really ended up being all about nothing. I think there were people expecting that they'd hear more about conversations between President Trump and some of these individuals who work with him and that there might have been a revelation that said they felt pressure from the president. Really, nothing materialized today," said Hoekstra. However, Hoekstra says he is glad to see strong bipartisan cooperation from the Senate committee, a process he says ought to bring confidence to the American people that the investigation is being handled responsibly. That's also what Hoekstra expects to materialize on Thursday, when the immensely hyped Comey testimony takes place before the same Senate committee. On Wednesday, the committee released Comey's opening statement for Thursday. Both parties are already seizing on different passages. Trump critics cite Comey's contention that Trump demanded loyalty from Comey and repeatedly asked Comey to find a way to ease up on former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. At the same time, Comey seems to confirm that Trump himself was never personally under investigation and that Trump's comments to him, while awkward and possibly inappropriate, did not constitute obstruction of justice or any other crime. In the end Hoekstra suspects few minds will be changed. "What the American people will probably see as a result is that the talking heads, for the next 24-48 hours, will both claim victory and some justification for their points of view. Then we'll get to next week and something else will take over the headlines," said Hoekstra, who says investigators should then focus on where the evidence is screaming for them to go. "(Special Counsel Robert) Mueller's got to focus on what the original intent of this investigation was: the Russians. What did the Russians do, not what did Trump do or what did Hillary do, what did their teams do or anything. What did the Russians do? That's where the focus will hopefully now move to," said Hoekstra. Hoekstra says the American people will be the ultimate judges on whether the Democrats take their accusations too far. He admits Republicans would be fiercely critical if Comey had ever suggested President Obama had asked for his loyalty or to go easy on a political ally. Still, he says Republicans could do themselves a world of political good by actually doing what they promised to do, rather than letting the Russia story suck all the oxygen out of Washington. "They'd like to have better roads, better bridges, more income, more jobs and those sorts of things. They're sick and tired of Washington," said Hoekstra, who says there's not reason for the GOP not to plow ahead on its legislative agenda. As for the ongoing intelligence probe, Hoekstra says we also need to dig deeper into reports of extensive Obama administration surveillance on American citizens. "I think there should be a lot of focus on the surveillance issue. This is an issue that I'm not totally comfortable with. I'd really like to better understand where NSA has evolved in terms of monitoring and unmasking Americans, where that has evolved to over the last seven to eight years since I've left the Hill," said Hoekstra. |
| The British Battle on Terrorism |
| Tue, 6 Jun 2017 16:36:57 EST Cherished freedoms make the fight against radical Islam more difficult in the United States and the United Kingdom but the battle can be won through the ideas and by putting an end to cultural coddling of radical ideologies, according to a terrorism expert with extensive ties to the UK. Frustrations over recent, deadly terrorist attacks in London and Manchester are more aggravated by stories revealing one of the terrorists was featured in a documentary called "The Jihadis Next Door" and made no secret about his support for jihad and that more than 20,000 people in the UK are of concern to authorities. However, Anglosphere Society Founder Amanda Bowman says rounding up these suspects is much tougher to do in a free society. "The problem that we are dealing with in the United States and the United Kingdom is that you can't actually detain people until they do something, because in our countries we respect the right to speak out," said Bowman, who also ran the New York office of the Center for Security Policy for eight years. "We are now, both in the U.S. and the UK and in western Europe, the victims of our own tolerant societies and what makes it so worthwhile to be American or to be British," said Bowman. But that tolerance has a limit, as British Prime Minister Theresa May said in the wake of the London attacks. "There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country. So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out, across the public sector and across society. That will require some difficult and often embarrassing conversations," said May. Bowman says May is right on target but has also contributed to the problem at times. "I think she in many ways has, like much of the UK, in the name of multiculturalism, has been tolerant for the intolerant," said Bowman. Bowman says there has to be much stronger resistance to the Islamist ideology behind the attacks. "We tolerate the intolerable and we don;t stand up and make our values the values that they need to embrace if they want to be part of British society. That's a lesson for Americans as well," said Bowman. Bowman says May has a tough balancing act in getting tough on radical Islam while also reaching out to Muslims for cooperation on who is actually planning to carry out deadly attacks. She says May and others should be pointing out that it is in the best interest of Muslims to root out the evil from their midst. "What she's recognizing she has to do is to galvanize the more tolerant Muslim population so that they take on this as their problem and not look upon it as our problem. They have to stand up and be British before they're Muslim," said Bowman. A big part of that, says Bowman, is gutting the allure of terrorism. "Part of the problem is that for a lot of these young people, it all seems very glamorous and it's not. It's just wicked and evil and deeply against everything we stand for," said Bowman. Bowman says it's impossible for any nation to marshal the resources to monitor 20,000 people 24 hours a day, but she says having vigilant eyes in key places is important, especially in the mosques. "If you see something in your mosque, say something. Much of this radicalization, while much of it is online, a great deal of it happens in the privacy of mosques with radical imams. The United Kingdom has allowed radical imams in the name of free speech to speak out and to galvanize and to inspire these terrible acts," said Bowman. Bowman does expect May and the Conservative Party to win Thursday's parliamentary elections, but by a much narrower margin than if the London and Manchester attacks had not taken place. She says Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has his own issues in the wake of the attacks since he has aligned himself very publicly with some radical Islamic figures. Thus, Bowman does not expect many May supporters to switch sides, but she does fear a substantial number will stay home. |
| 'They Have to Do It By September' |
| Mon, 5 Jun 2017 16:34:02 EST Republicans in the Senate have been pouring cold water on expectations of producing a health care reform bill anytime soon, but a leading health care expert says the GOP realistically has just over three months to get it done. "If they're going to do this with only 51 votes in the Senate, they have to do it by September," said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner. "Frankly, I think they want to do it before the August recess so that they can get on with the rest of the agenda." The can officially start working on the bill now that House leaders have finally sent it to the upper chamber. It was on hold while lawmakers waited on the Congressional Budget Office scoring of the bill to make sure their calculations on how the legislation would impact the deficit were accurate. They were. Despite moderate Republicans like Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Dean Heller, R-Nevada, saying the House bill was a non-starter for them, Turner suspects the final Senate version will end up looking pretty familiar. "They will make some changes to the House bill and they will very much call it their own, but I think a lot of those structural elements of the safety net, the bridge to new coverage, the state flexibility on regulations and the Medicaid reform, I think we're going to see all of that in there," said Turner. She says those four components are critical and are in the House bill: providing help for individual market consumers who no longer have reasonable coverage options, creating a transition to a market-based system, giving states more power to define plans and foster competition and changing Medicaid so it doesn't devour state resources for all other priorities. Turner says the House crafted it's bill with Senate rules in mind. "The House did try very hard to bend over backwards so that it's version of the legislation complied with Senate rules," she said. "They didn't want the Senate to have to change it too much." Still, Turner does expect the Senate to spend more tax dollars on providing for people with pre-existing conditions. "The Senate is going to dial things back in different ways and probably provide even more protections than the House bill did for pre-existing conditions protections. I do think that that has been an inflamed issue that is very much overstated," said Turner. "The House bill provided $138 billion to the states to be able to take care of people who have pre-existing conditions and have high health care costs. All evidence is that would be more than enough to do it," said Turner. Turner also suspects the Senate may be less conservative in curtailing Medicaid expansion than the House bill. And another issue that GOP moderates are likely to fight is the slashing of tax dollars for Planned Parenthood. With the House bill passing precariously in May, it's unclear what impact any substantial Senate changes will have on final passage. But Turner warns the House that whatever they get back from the Senate - if they get anything back from the Senate - may be their one chance to get anything done this year and maybe in this Congress. "I think everybody knows that whatever the Senate gets through, the House is going to have a very difficult time changing it. I think it's very likely going to be take it or leave it," said Turner. If we get to that point, Turner suspects voter outrage over the possibility of getting nothing done will likely compel passage of an imperfect bill. "I don't think any of them want to go back to the voters in 2018 next year and say, 'Sorry, for four elections we told you we were going to repeal Obamacare and we just kind of couldn't figure out how to do it.' They all know they have to figure out how to do it," said Turner. |
| Coburn Details Convention of States |
| Fri, 2 Jun 2017 16:46:56 EST After concluding Washington is incapable of solving some of America's biggest problems over his 16 years in Congress, former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says a constitutionally provided convention of the states is the only realistic remedy to what ails us. Article V of the Constitution allows for amendments through a convention of two-thirds of the states proposing changes that would then need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states. Currently, 34 states would need to get on board to force Congress to call a convention and 38 states would need to approve any proposed amendments. "Before our constitutional convention, everything was decided through a convention like this," said Coburn, who points out George Mason insisted on the inclusion of the convention of the states option after pointing out no government in history has ever given back power to the people. Coburn further explained the process. "You have to an application that aggregates (among the states). You have to have the same application everywhere. You can't have one application for a balanced budget and one application for something else. You have to have 34 that say the same thing," said Coburn. The current push for a convention of the states calls for three amendments: one to balance the budget, one to rein in the reach of the federal government , and one to limit the length of terms in the House and Senate. Coburn says a balanced budget amendment is desperately needed. "We think the federal government ought to be fiscally responsible. They ought to have to live under the same accounting guidelines everybody else does and they ought to have to live within their means," said Coburn. "That's a balanced budget amendment but it also means you can't just go and add mandates to the states to balance the budget. You have to make hard choices." Congress came within one vote of approving a balanced budget amendment in 1995, just months after Republicans won control of both chambers. The plan passed the House 300-132, but the 65-35 tally in the Senate was just shy of sending the amendment to the states. The vote was really 66-34, but when it was clear the measure would fail then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, changed his vote to no so he be eligible under Senate rules to reconsider the issue. A subsequent vote also failed. Since 1995, no balanced budget proposal has come anywhere close to passing, and Coburn says that should come as no surprise. "They don't want to balance the budget, because then they have to make hard choices, then they have to be accountable to their electorate. If the electorate doesn't like the choices that they made, they'll replace them. It's an insurance policy if I don't have to have a balanced budget," said Coburn. "The easiest thing in the world is to spend somebody else's money and that's what they do every day. They spend our grandchildren's money because we're certainly not spending our own right now," said Coburn. Next on the amendment list is to "limit the scope and jurisdiction of the federal government." Coburn says a ridiculous case from 1942 effectively gave the federal government to meddle far too intimately in our lives. "An Ohio wheat farmer grew 18 acres more wheat than he was allotted, but he used every bit of it to feed his own cattle, his own family and used it for feed the next year. The federal government said that's interstate commerce because you didn't buy that 18 acres worth of wheat from somewhere else," said Coburn. "So they expanded the commerce clause and that is what has allowed the federal government to tell every state - in everything they do now - what to do," said Coburn. Coburn says returning power to state and local authorities also heightens accountability, pointing out it is much easier to get an appointment with your state representative than a member of the House or Senate. Coburn cited a recent poll showing 86 percent of Americans don't trust the federal government. He says that places America in a crisis that returning power to states and locales can help to address. "When you quit trusting the central authority, then you will no longer follow its will. That's called anarchy. So we have to take back our freedom. We have to re-establish the rule of law and make sure it's followed. But also it has to have the integrity of the central government in terms of a limited federal government," said Coburn. The third and final amendment Coburn and his allies are pushing would limit lawmakers to 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and 12 years in the U.S. Senate. "Prior to a Supreme Court ruling in 1994, 26 states had limited the terms of their members of Congress. In an Arkansas case, the Supreme Court decided that we as citizens can't decide whether we want to limit the terms of our federal representatives. Well that's ludicrous. So what you do is pass an amendment that puts a limit on the amount of time people can serve," said Coburn. Coburn says 12 states are already on board. He expects another 10-12 states to join the effort in the next 12 months and another 10-12 in the year after that, meaning a convention of states could take place within two to three years. He is quick to stress that the convention itself cannot ratify the amendments. That role still belongs to the states. Coburn is bullish on that front as well, noting that Republicans are just 24 seats away from controlling the legislatures in 38 states. Ultimately, Coburn believes the success or failure of this campaign will depend upon the courage to do what has to be done. "Do we have the moral structure with which to make these hard decisions for the future or do we just let this train run out of control down the mountain? That's the real question," said Coburn. "If you love your kids, you love your country, and you love your future, you ought to be about choking down the federal government and having it live within its means, lessening it's impact on the economy so the economy can actually grow," said Coburn. |
| 'I'm Glad Trump Had the Fortitude to Stick It Out' |
| Thu, 1 Jun 2017 16:51:43 EST President Trump officially withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, and one of the leading climate experts disputing the purported consensus on climate science is praising Trump for making the right decision for the American economy and for sound science. "I'm glad that Trump had the fortitude to stick it out despite all the attempts to waylay him," said Dr. Tim Ball, a retired climatologist at the University of Winnipeg and author of "The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science." "He didn't have to rely on the false science. He relied strictly on the economics of it, that it's a very very bad deal for the United States. In fact, it's deliberately designed to punish the United States," said Ball. Ball says the Paris Climate Accords were simply the latest incarnation of the old Kyoto Protocol from the 1990's which sought to redistribute wealth from the industrial nations. He contends the Green Climate Fund, which is part of the Paris agreement, is latest effort in that regard. Ball points out the non-binding nature of the agreement - which is the only way the deal could be struck - means most nations have not contributed what they've pledged to the Green Climate Fund. Nonetheless, Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the non-binding deal resulted in howls of protest from critics, with environmental activist Tom Steyer claiming the action was treasonous and CNN's Fareed Zakaria insisting the move means the U.S. is surrendering its role as leader of the free world. Ball says none of the criticism is based in actual science. "They use the environment and they use the climate as a vehicle for a political agenda. All they can do when you say I'm not going along with the political agenda is invoke that the sky is falling," said Ball. Ball says many of the political opponents of Trump are simply led to their position by perpetrators of bad science. He says Pope Francis is the perfect example. "One of the most egregious ones was the pope. The pope got co-opted by (Hans Joachim) Schellnhuber at the Potsdam Institute in Germany. He was the key author for the pope's encyclical against global warming," said Ball. He says the notion that humans can dictate radical changes to the earth's climate are the height of arrogance. "The reality is that the levels of energy involved and the amount of energy that humans put in are so miniscule that it is actually laughable to think that we can control the climate in any way," said Ball. Trump did say he was open to renegotiating the Paris agreement or forging new deals with other nations that would be more beneficial to the United States. Ball says those talks should be done only after Trump gets a better handle on genuine climate science. "What I hope will happen is that this will now allow a focus more on the science that is purportedly behind the claims that CO2 is a problem," said Ball, noting every United National climate change prediction has been badly incorrect. "It's got to be real science, proven science. Their science has failed. We know that because their forecasts have failed. If your forecasts are wrong, your science is wrong," said Ball. |
| Coburn Details Why We Need Convention of the States |
| Wed, 31 May 2017 16:22:16 EST Dr. Tom Coburn spent 16 years in Congress and quit because lawmakers refused to make tough choices to spare future generations the burden of crushing debt, and he is now calling for a Convention of the States so state and local leaders can do the work Washington politicians refuse to address. Coburn served Oklahoma in the House of Representatives from 1995-2001. He was elected twice to the U.S. Senate before resigning in 2015. He is also the author of " Smashing the DC Monopoly: Using Article V to Restore Freedom and Stop Runaway Government." Article V of the U.S. Constitution provides two ways for amendments to be enacted. The more common way is for both chambers of Congress to approve an amendment by two-thirds majorities, followed by three-quarters of the states ratifying the proposal. However, Article V also allows for two-thirds of states to convene and approve amendments which would still require approval by three-quarters of the states. Coburn says business as usual in Washington proves politicians are not up to the task of reining in government. "Everybody said things would change in 2010. Then they said things would change in 2014. Then they said things would change in 2016," said Coburn, who contends there's a very simple explanation for why those campaign promises are not kept. "Most members of Congress are conflicted and the conflict is this: Do I do what's best for the country and maybe lose my election or do I do what's best for my political career so I can maintain my status as an elite?" said Coburn. "The desire for power, which our founders very well knew, trumps everything else." Among Coburn's biggest frustrations is how public service has become a career for so many, rather than lawmakers serving for a brief time and then returning to their private lives. "If you didn't have career politicians, they wouldn't be looking for the next office. It's not the public service is in any way dishonorable. It's that motives for most of those that run today is to get and hold and advance power," said Coburn. As a result he says people who want to make tough choices to tackle problems like debt and spending are scorned for putting their colleagues in a difficult position. "Their peers say, 'Don't do that. We'll have to make all these hard choices. We'll get beat up here.' What they need is an excuse to do the right thing" said Coburn. "They need an excuse to be able to come home and say, 'I'm sorry I had to cut this program because we have to balance the budget. It's dishonorable to borrow against your children. We're going to make these hard choices and if you don't want to re-elect me it's fine. I'll be happy to go back to my real job,'" said Coburn. "But the problem is two-thirds of the people in Washington have never had a real job," said Coburn. Coburn says the 1995 federal government shutdown is a perfect example of lawmakers refusing to stick to their principles and allowing government to spiral out of control. The Republicans eventually buckled in the face of intense media and political pressure, and GOP leaders have been very reluctant to even threaten such a move ever since. Coburn was a House freshman at the time and says Republicans snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. "What we saw post-collapse of the Republican leadership was that the president was getting ready to cede the spending cuts that we wanted to make. Had we had those spending cuts, you wouldn't be running half-trillion and trillion dollar deficits," said Coburn. "Leadership can either go on the basis of courage or on the basis of fear, and what you're seeing in Washington from the career politicians is fear." he said. "If you're going to shut the government down, don't open it up until you've won everything you need to win. Take the heat and lose your slot. Is it better for a politician to lose an election and the country to be better off or is it better for the politician to maintain power and the kids that come after us suffer dearly," said Coburn. Coburn was re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, but walked away in January 2015 with two years remaining in his term. Was it because Congress was doing nothing to honor its promises to get the nation's fiscal house in order? "It was 100 percent (that)," said Coburn. "I had told the majority leader two years before I left that I was going to leave if things didn't change, if we didn't start addressing the real issues, if his leadership wasn't going to address the real issues. If he didn't put people in position to address the real issues, there's no reason to stay there and participate and get an 'Atta boy' because you're a senator but you're not actually accomplishing anything for the future of our country," said Coburn. "Nothing happened so I went to him and said, "I told you I was leaving. I'm leaving.' I did and it was a good decision because now I'm working on the solution big enough to solve the problem,and that's the Article V amendments convention," said Coburn. He says this is America's best chance to get the ship headed in the right direction. "The real question for you and the average American family, whether you're liberal or conservative, is who gets to decide. Is it an un-elected bureaucrat in Washington or is it you as a free citizen in this country," said Coburn. |
| 'Written Out of History' |
| Tue, 30 May 2017 17:10:37 EST Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, says some of the most important names associated with the push for limited government at our nation's founding have been shoved out of history and the effort has coincided almost perfectly with America's push for a bigger and bigger federal government. Lee, who was just elected to a second term in the U.S. Senate, is the author of "Written out of History: The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government," which he says is designed to give adults and children a better idea of what the vision of our founding fathers truly was. Lee says limited government isn't some anachronistic vestige of the colonial era, but the fundamental premise of our system of government. "It's very important for parents to emphasize to their children at a young age that that's the whole reason why we have a constitution is to limit the power of government. Those limits need to mean something, but they can only be meaningful if we recognize them, enforce them, and talk about them," said Lee. Reiterating the famous James Madison quotation that if men were angels, no government would be necessary, Lee says we do need government, but not one that smothers the people who rule over it. "It's important for us to remind our children that they should respect government. Government is a good thing. It is a tool for good, as long as it remains subject to the limitations brought about by elections," said Lee, who says the book is not meant to address current partisan squabbles but return America's focus to the point of government as envisioned by our founders. "I'm talking in this book about advocating any particular conservative vs. liberal or Republican vs. Democratic agenda. What I'm talking about here is returning power back to the people, allowing more of the people in America to have access to more of the kind of government they want and less of the government they don't want," said Lee. "That's what our founding-era principles do and that's what they could do for us if we were to follow them more consistently," said Lee. Lee says the founders are of greater interest these days, even to young people, as result of the smash Broadway musical, "Hamilton." In addition to the performance, Lee says there is always fascination with that part of our history. "They respond this way in part because the American people intuitively understand something about the founding generation. They understand that generation knew something about who we are as a people and that we have a lot to learn if we learn from their stories," said Lee. And Lee says getting American to understand the lessons from our founders, especially the less known figures, is the point of the book. "I knew there were a whole lot of founding fathers that the American people know little or nothing about, in part because they don't fit our modern, progressive narrative. I wanted to reintroduce the people to those stories," said Lee. According to Lee, that "modern, progressive narrative" has been chipping away the key figures and principles of the American founding for generations. "We tend to remember those whose narratives fit with our world view from our day. Over the last 80 years or so, we have - within our public education system and our higher education system - seen a big push toward a centralization of power. People are taught to have a whole lot of faith a whole lot of confidence in the federal government, almost as if it were endowed with certain deity-like qualities," said Lee. He says it is no coincidence that the push to adjust history to fit more of a big government narrative began about the same time our own leaders were pushing for great expansion of federal powers. "There's nothing coincidental about it at all. The fact is that since the New Deal the American people have been asked to simply trust government, to have faith in government almost as they would in God. That narrative isn't supportable by the facts. It's not supportable by history," said Lee. As such, Lee believes his book is ideal for high school or college graduates who likely heard little to nothing about the virtues of limited government. "These are things not likely to have been taught in any high school or college history course, for the simple reason that they conflict with this modern narrative that says that government in general is great, you don't need to fear it as much as some people might think and the federal government in particular can be trusted," said Lee. In the book, Lee highlights multiple figures forgotten or marginalized by history, starting with an unlikely figure from before the American founding. "I chose, for example, Canasatego, the Iroquois Indian chief who hardly ever gets mentioned but in many respects is the father of American federalism, this concept of vertical separation of powers that says most of the governing is supposed to take place at the state and the local level," said Lee. "A few powers are given to our federal government in Washington, but everything else is supposed to remain with the people. That's the essence of the 10th amendment and the rest of the Constitution even prior to the 10th amendment," said Lee. Lee also focuses on Aaron Burr, whose legacy goes far deeper than killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. "We forget about the fact that one of America's most revered presidents (Thomas Jefferson) actually became quite dangerous in the case of Aaron Burr, had him prosecuted based on a perceived political fit of rage and very nearly won, but the Constitution held out and Aaron Burr was found not guilty," said Lee. "This is a reminder to us that even a revered man like Thomas Jefferson could abuse power and tried to abuse power," said Lee. Lee is also struck by how similar the debates over the intrusion of government are today compared with the founding era. "Back then they were intrusions that, prior to the revolution, were considered against the right of Englishmen as established by laws of England, using things like Writs of Assistance, whereby law enforcement personnel would kick down doors, search people's homes just looking for anything they might want to find to use as evidence against someone," said Lee. "This is one of the reasons why we ended up with protections found in the 4th amendment requiring that any searches be conducted pursuant to warrants and that those warrants be substantiated by probable cause and a warrant signed by a judge," said Lee. Lee says he is well aware of the conditioning Americans have undergone over the past 80 years to expect and accept big government, but he believes the momentum can be reversed. "The hardest part is getting people to think about it, to talk about it, to read about it in books, to talk about it around the dinner table. Because once you have that part done, you can quickly move and bring about real change, the kind of change that returns power to the people," said Lee. |
| Breaking Down the Budget Battle |
| Fri, 26 May 2017 16:13:38 EST President Trump's budget proposal for the coming fiscal year is coming under fierce criticism from Democrats and the media but a House Budget Committee member who spent 20 years as a college economics professor is impressed by Trump's goals while warning that the president will need to address entitlement spending at some point. The Trump administration released it's $4 trillion budget proposal while Trump himself was overseas. It calls for robust increases in national security spending while calling for considerable cuts to various government departments. Democrats have labeled the budget as cruel and likely to cause children to die. Republicans warn the final appropriations bills probably won't look much like the Trump plan. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, spent 20 years as an economics professor at Randolph Macon College. He believes Trump is generally on the right track. "Overall, I'm impressed, It's got the big pieces in the right place," said Brat. "The major piece I like is the policy aimed at getting three percent growth. That will solve a lot of problems going forward," said Brat, while praising the policies Trump is clearly emphasizing in the budget. "It pluses up the military. It tries to clean out the swamp. It reduces some bureaucracy. It balances in 10 years. All of these are good conservative policies," said Brat. Brat says the Trump plan is a great improvement over what the Democrats are proposing. In fact, he says they have no solutions at all. "As a visionary document, we're moving in the right direction. Across the aisle on the Democrat side, they haven't even ever put forward a budget that balances, not even in a 75-year window," said Brat. Brat and other Republicans admit getting what they want in the appropriations process won't be easy since Senate rules require at least eight Democrats to approve any spending bills. But while Democrats can gum up the process, Brat is acutely aware that voters will not accept failure when it comes to fiscal discipline. "We should compromise but we shouldn't give away the store. In my view, the other side has given away the store too often. On our side, we need to clean up some of this, rearrange the (entitlement) programs so the kids get sustained benefits over their lifetimes. We've got to get the economy moving and some of that requires discipline," said Brat. "So our side gets hit hard but we need to step up to the plate and take it. That's our job and the American people expect us to get it straight," said Brat. But what about Democrats alleging children will die as a result of the Trump budget? That allegation was especially targeted towards a proposed $800 billion in Medicaid cuts. Brat says that's dishonest reporting of the facts. "The Democrats call them cuts. They're cuts from the baseline. Medicaid still keeps increasing. It just doesn't increase at the pace it was going at, and that pace is bankrupting the country," said Brat. "Lot of politics going on right now but not much substance offered by the other side. They're great at hurling the insults but they're short on the economic studies," said Brat. He also says White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney made it very clear how he want about finding places to cut in the Fiscal 2018 budget. "He said, 'Look, there's no mystery. It's just like running a business. You look at each of these programs one by one by one and you compare the benefits against the cost.' He made it very clear the safety net is not in question," said Brat. Brat says Democrats and Republicans need to realize that calling for a trillion dollars in cuts is just the tip of the iceberg. "Some on the left are giving us a hard time over trying to save a trillion dollars or so, but even if we save one trillion that leaves you with another hundred trillion dollar shortfall with Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc," said Brat, who says failure to address the key entitlements will make 10-year spending cuts seem like loose change. "Either you reform them and update them or else the kids get nothing. The left is acting like 'draconian' cuts are going to hurt people. Those cuts are nothing in comparison to the mandatory piece," said Brat. He says the clock is ticking loudly and time is short before entitlements engulf the entire budget. "Those mandatory programs will account for 100 percent of all federal revenues in about 15 years. That's not a typo. All federal revenues will be spent only on the mandatory. That means there's no money for the military, transportation, running government," said Brat. With that kind of looming fiscal crisis, Brat says the only path forward is to get every able-bodied adult into the workforce, and that's where tax reform and tax cuts come in. He says the demonizing of so-called supply side economics is bizarre. "That term is used as a pejorative right now in D.C., supply-side tax cuts. I taught economics for 20 years. The demand side is all the people out there called consumers. The supply side is also everybody out there that works for a living in business. That's the supply side," said Brat. He says it's time for Washington to embrace the supply side again, since pumping up the demand side was a major flop. "We've tried demand side stuff. We've had bailouts, etc. that pumped money back into people's pockets. It gives you an instantaneous jolt, but if you're serious about getting the economy growing you better incentivize business. Trump probably won the election on that," said Brat. Brat believes doing tax cuts and tax reform right will set the stage for economic growth, which is the best hope for avoiding fiscal disaster in the near future. He says tax cuts give businesses reason to hire, thereby beefing up the labor participation rate and bringing in more federal revenues through taxes. "If we solve that one it's huge," said Brat. "I think a lot of the worries go away if we get this economy rolling again." |
| A Weekend to Honor |
| Thu, 25 May 2017 15:32:35 EST Memorial Day is a time to remember the sacrifices of Americans who gave their lives in defense of our nation, and National Memorial Day Concert Host Joe Mantegna says those sacrifices allow us to enjoy all the freedoms we cherish this weekend and every day throughout the year. "To me it's our most important holiday," said Mantegna. "Without Memorial Day, you don't have the Fourth of July, you don't have Christmas, you don't have Labor Day. You have nothing." "I'm not saying everybody has to look at it that way. What I am saying is do understand how important this holiday is and give it its proper respect," he added. "Go ahead and barbecue. Go ahead and watch the Indianapolis 500. Do all the wonderful family things you'll do this weekend. If watching he concert is part of it, great. But pause a moment and say to yourself how lucky we are that these men and women over the course of our history made these sacrifices," said Mantegna, who had five family members serve in World War II. Mantegna will share hosting duties with fellow actor Laurence Fishburne. The concert airs live on Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time from the West Lawn of the Capitol. The program will feature honored veterans but also note what Memorial Day truly commemorates, those who gave what Abraham Lincoln called "the last full measure of devotion." That includes a tribute to America's Gold Star Families, a designation to those families who lost a member in service to America. "I remember the first concert I did 15 years ago. I remember seeing this whole section of women in white dresses out there. I said, 'Who's that?' They explained those are the Gold Star mothers and explained to me what that organization was," said Mantegna. "Luckily, I had five uncles who all fought in World War II. They all came back so I was fortunate enough to not have to experience what it was like to be part of a Gold Star family. But I can certainly relate because these these five uncles of mine were so important in my life," said Mantegna. The concert will also honor Luis Avila, who suffered severe injuries from an improvised explosive device. Mantegna says Avila and his wife are an inspiration to him. "Americans will be so moved and taken by their story. Talk about people who have taken what would be a major, major tragedy in anyone else's life and trying to look at the positive side of it and just push forward and overcome it," said Mantegna. Legendary veterans will also be part of the program. 2017 marks 75 years since the famed Doolittle Raid that bombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities just four months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. 101-year-old Richard E. Cole will be there. Cole served as Doolittle's co-pilot in the lead plane and is the last surviving member of the 80 men whose heroism rallied a nation in desperate need of morale. Fishburne, who is filling in for Gary Sinise, will share the story of the Tuskegee Airmen as part of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the U.S. Air Force. At least two of the surviving airmen will be there, including Lt. Col. Robert J. Friend. Mantegna says the 97-year-old friend still goes to work every day. Most of all, Mantegna says he hopes the concert will help Americans take that pause and appreciate every single life laid down for the United States. "Without those sacrifices, who's to say what our country would be today. 'Freedom isn't free,' is an often-used phrase, but it's so true and the military are those who have to cash the checks," said Mantegna. |
| 'This Is the Difference Between a Culture of Life and a Culture of Death' |
| Tue, 23 May 2017 16:47:34 EST British Prime Minister Teresa May says it is hard to comprehend why anyone would want to indiscriminately kill so many innocent people at Monday's concert in Manchester, but terrorism victim and expert Brigitte Gabriel says there is a clear explanation for why this happens and she also blasting the UK for worrying more about diversity than condemning radical Islam in the wake of the attack. On Tuesday morning, Prime Minister May condemned the attacks and was at a loss of words for how anyone could want to kill children. "We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children not as a scene to cherish but as an opportunity for carnage," said May. Gabriel, president of Act for America and author of "They Must Be Stopped," says there is a clear explanation for such a mindset. "This is the difference between a culture of life and a culture of death. The reason this Islamic radical would target such a location is because they look at things differently than we do," said Gabriel. In the case of Monday's Arianna Grande concert, Gabriel says Islamic radicals and westerners see the event very differently. Whereas most people in the West view the concert as young people having fun on a lovely night, she says our enemies see something very different in Grande and her fans. "He sees a skanky young, what they call a bad word, somebody dancing on the stage with a bunch of wannabe, will be as they grow up, women that will become just like her who are of no value. He saw no value in their life and that's why he killed them," said Gabriel. The terrorist is identified as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, the son of Libyan refugees. Gabriel says this appears to be another example of refugees coming west and refusing to embrace the culture of their new home. "These refugees who are coming into our western countries are not really assimilating, even though we give them homes, we give them jobs, we give them money, and we welcome them with open arms," said Gabriel. "These radicals are not grateful. A radical like this person, even though he was taken in, he was given refuge, given money, given support by the tax dollars of the parents of these same girls that he blew up," said Gabriel. While condemnation among UK leaders has been swift, Prime Minister May and others have been quick to ascribe responsibility to the bomber alone. In her statement, May did not address the larger threat posed by radical Islam. Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins was quick to cheer the diversity in the city and promised reprisals for any mistreatment of specific groups. "More than ever, it is vital to have diverse communities that make Greater Manchester such a strong place that actually stand together and support each other," said Hopkins. "We will, therefore, not tolerate hate towards any part of our community. Should communities be suffering from hate incidents or crime, then I would please urge them to report it to us." Gabriel is disgusted by that approach. "We are tired of being lectured about, 'Oh, this is not a time for hate.' Who's hating anybody? If there is any hate directed towards anybody it's from that Islamic radical and the Islamic radicals that support him, that harbor him, that finance him, that encourage him, that encourage him to go out and kill innocent, young, beautiful young girls, enjoying a beautiful evening," said Gabriel. She says there is great unity where it ought to matter most. "We are already diverse. We are already unified as people who love freedom. We come together as Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and everybody who loves our freedom and condemn the terrorist attacks conducted in the name of Islamic terrorism," said Gabriel. "It is Islamic terrorism. It is not Buddhist terrorism, Mennonite terrorism, Maronite terrorism, or any other terrorism other than Islamic terrorism," said Gabriel. Gabriel says British officials and anyone else who chooses to ignore the central issue in these attacks is begging for more of them. "If Europe is going to continue going down the path of speaking nonsense and empty words and feeling sorrow and seeing the British flag reflected on the Eiffel Tower on everybody's Facebook and #WeStandwithEngland and #We StandwithManchester, that doesn't change anything. It's about time they come up with solutions for how they're going to control the problem. Otherwise, they're going to end up getting exactly the same thing," said Gabriel. So what are those solutions? Gabriel says all governments need to ramp up their technological expertise to keep up with terrorists and, preferably, stay a step or two ahead of them. She also recommends greater scrutiny of where incitement breeds, starting with the mosques. "Start monitoring the mosques. A person cannot live in a vacuum. A person like this, who is very devout, is a part of a community that harbors and preaches that kind of violence," said Gabriel. "When you attend mosques in Europe on any given Friday, they are talking about killing the infidels and going on jihad. It has already been documented how radical Islamic mosques are, especially in Europe," said Gabriel. She says social media is another area where counter-terrorism officials must get serious. "Start working with the communities of social media and the companies that own social media, where they can immediately crack down on all these people that are posting these things on their websites or tracking them as saying something suspicious on Twitter," said Gabriel. She says without getting proactive, people like Abedi - who was reportedly known to police - are harder to stop. "The lesson for us is where there is smoke there is fire. If there is anybody being monitored by the FBI, by the CIA, by the intelligence community, whether here or any other country in the world, if somebody is on your radar do something before it's too late," said Gabriel. |
| Is U.S. Oblivious to Muslim Invasion? |
| Mon, 22 May 2017 16:22:02 EST The man who unsuccessfully challenged House Speaker Paul Ryan in a Republican primary last year is now releasing a documentary highlighting what he sees as a threat to the United States through a coordinated Muslim migration strategy. Paul Nehlen is host of "Hijrah: Radical Islam's Global Invasion." He is also the author of the forthcoming book, "Wage the Battle." Nehlen says hijrah can refer to multiple ideas, ranging from leaving sin behind to Mohammed's journey from Mecca to Medina. However, he says Islamic texts clearly speak about strategic migration. "Hijrah means 'migration in the name of Allah,'" said Nehlen, who says the ultimate goal is to populate non-Muslim nations to the extent needed to impose Sharia law. "The hijrah is one way of spreading the Sharia, spreading the law of Islam, this political doctrine, to land where Islam isn't. That's what this documentary covers. It talks about the bigger picture here of what we saw here . It stems directly from their fundamental texts," said Nehlen. He says hijrah is another method by which Muslims can earn their salvation. "Quite unlike a Christian, who believes you can't earn your way in and only by the grace of God are you granted access to heaven through Christ's sacrifice on the cross, Muslims believe they can earn their way in. They believe they have to earn their way in," said Nehlen. In addition to explaining hijrah in his documentary, Nehlen says he made the film to counter the conventional wisdom offered by the media. "What is portrayed in the mainstream media is so far from the truth that what I learned prior to and during my campaign compelled me to make this documentary to expose it for what it is and really to point out the massive hypocrisy in our refugee resettlement mechanisms in this country," said Nehlen. Specifically, Nehlen takes aim at the nine voluntary agencies, or volags, that facilitate refugee resettlement in the U.S. "[They] receive over a billion dollars to resettle people who are predominantly - almost exclusively - Muslims into this country," he said. And he says the financial research he's done shows more refugees admitted to the U.S. mean a lot of money for the volags. "I researched these nine volags and all of their top people - I researched five deep into their salaries - and they're making six-figure salaries. In fact, the highest-paid individual is making over $650,000 a year," said Nehlen. "When you have a profit motive that large to bring people in and you're making more money by bringing more people in, you can't argue that this is a humanitarian-only issue. This is a profit-driven issue," he added. He also claims not all the volags are as they seem based on their names. "You have groups that have very Christian-sounding names, but the reality is they are being co-opted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. They are working on behalf of the United Nations, which is clearly working at odds to the United States," said Nehlen. Nehlen says this concern over a de facto Muslim invasion is not just theoretical. He says the apprehension of a suspicious person photographing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge years ago ultimately led to a trove of unvarnished Muslim Brotherhood documents. He read from one that directly references strategic migration. "The process of settlement is a civilization jihadist process with all the word means. The Iquan, Arabic for Muslim Brotherhood, must understand that their work in America is kind of a grand jihad, eliminating and destroying the western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that is it eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions," read Nehlen. Nehlen is strongly urging Congress to pass HR 377, the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act. "It will roll back 60 years of work the Muslim Brotherhood has done," said Nehlen. Defenders of refugee resettlement and general Muslim migration contend the vast majority of Muslims are looking for a peaceful opportunity to pursue physical and financial security for their families. However, Nehlen says polling shows more than 50 percent of Muslims in the U.S. want to see Sharia law trump the Constitution as the final legal authority in the U.S.. "We are seeing Islamist Muslims who are reading directly from their documents and doing what is prescribed in their documents. It is inarguable. You cannot argue that this religion is being perverted. It is not being perverted. It is being practiced in a fundamental way to spread Sharia around the world," said Nehlen. And he says giving ground at the margins is a sure-fire way to lose the fight. "There is no reason that a country should give up its culture, its heroes, its holidays, its traditions in order to make way for a new culture, new traditions, new holidays, new heroes. That's not what a nation state is all about. I for one will not stand by and watch it happen," said Nehlen. |
| 'Swamp' Aligns Against Trump on Climate Treaty |
| Fri, 19 May 2017 16:56:16 EST President Trump is running out of time to make good on his promise to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement on climate policy obligations, and the delay is largely due to many different interests imploring him to back away from his campaign pledges. As Trump embarks on an ambitious eight-day trip to the Middle East and Europe, the pressure is only growing on him to keep the U.S. committed to the Paris deal. However, Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher C. Horner, who served on Trump's transition landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency, says all Trump needs to do is make good on his word. "We have to go back to the campaign and remember that a decision was made and it was to get out," said Horner. "He gave reasons why. He said this would give others control over our energy use, how much we could use the things that are reliable and affordable, as well as the massive wealth transfer. He made the decision." The Competitive Enterprise Institute released an advertisement last month urging Trump to stay true to those campaign promises. What has changed? Horner says a lot of different interests are pushing him to accept the status quo. "The brakes were put on it because different influences came into play. There were what I'll call swamp considerations, which were not obviously considerations in the campaign. In fact, he ran against the swamp. Once he got here, those interests are considerable," said Horner. Horner says there is a long list of people and interests looking pressuring Trump to keep the U.S. in the agreement. "(There are) tremendous business lobbies, tremendous resistance among (the government) holdovers. I could tell you blow by blow about a lot of these officials as well as some Trump appointees. But as you also know, some family members are feeling and exerting what we'll call Manhattan social pressures to not have to defend keeping this promise," said Horner. Some businesses and industries are at the forefront of protesting climate-inspired restrictions, but Horner says much of big business is on board with the climate agenda for multiple reasons. He says a lot of big companies are eager for the federal subsidies that come with compliance with the Paris accords. "The reason is simple. When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you're guaranteed Paul's enthusiastic support and sometimes it was Paul's idea. So you've got this base of industry support, the ones who would benefit," said Horner. He says those same businesses also see more restrictive policies as an advantage against the competition. "They love instituting policies that are barriers to entry to new participants or that smaller competitors can't handle as well. Some businesses were publicly saying in news reports that, 'We've planned for this so we need this to happen,'" said Horner. Even among Trump's top diplomats, there is deep division on the issue. "The UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is reportedly very strong on this, even though, as I've said before, State will do what's in the State Department's interest and (withdrawing from the accords) makes Rex Tillerson's life more difficult and not easier," said Horner. Horner also expects Trump's time in Europe to be one long lobbying effort to keep the U.S. in the agreement. "The Group of Seven, the leading economic nations who want - as a State Department cable that I found in litigation shows - they want us to share the pain, to relieve the burden of our competition of not having this agenda saddle our economy," said Horner. Published reports suggest multiple deadlines to make a decision on U.S. involvement in the accords have come and gone. He says that's largely because Trump is trying to resist the tide aligned against his instincts. "We've got it on pretty good authority what the president still thinks. He wants out and wonders aloud why he can't just keep his promise. He's surrounded by influencers saying, 'You can't do it for the following reasons.' But some people are saying, 'You have to (withdraw) for these reasons, the same reasons you said you would," said Horner. If Trump relents, Horner says President Obama's promise that our electricity rates will "necessarily skyrocket" will come true and the cost of everything related to energy costs will also shoot up. "The price will go up, leaving you with less disposable income and a less resilient lifestyle, less healthy because you're less wealthy. There'll be more hypothermia, more of seniors and the vulnerable dying from energy poverty. That's what it's going to mean for you," said Horner. Horner fears that if Trump was going to withdraw the U.S. from the agreement, he would have done so already. However, he is not giving up hope given Trump's adamant campaign promises. If Trump doesn't make good on that vow, Horner says it will be a strong example of how difficult it is to reverse the tides in Washington. "It means the swamp isn't as easily defeated as a lot of people hoped," said Horner. "This is really, so far, the ultimate test of his battle against the swamp." |
| How to Avoid 'Ransom' Payments |
| Thu, 18 May 2017 14:53:58 EST One ransomware attack seems to be behind us but experts warn one or more could be right around the corner, making it more important than ever to protect your information and your wallet. The WannaCry ransomware attack hit Europe and Asia hardest, with the perpetrators demanding victims pay up in order to get their own information back. Cyber Scout Founder and CEO Adam Levin says ransomware is a more modern version of hacking but is one where the criminals have even more leverage. "Ransomware is basically malware. It gets on your computer and it encrypts the files. Then you have to pay a ransom in order to get those files decrypted," said Levin, noting that paying the ransom usually does result in you getting your information back. "Ransomware is the new black. Instead of having to break into a system, get your hands on the data, exfiltrate the data, put it on the black market, hope you can sell it for a certain amount of money depending upon what it is," said Levin. "With ransomware, it's almost instant return. You basically lock up a computer, terrify the computer user and basically say, 'It's not longer about what your information is worth to someone else. It's about how much is your information worth to you.' Unless you have a backup system in place, you're in a lot of trouble," said Levin. How does ransomware get in a position to take over your files? "Ransomware can get on your computer in a variety of ways. One, which we're seeing occur right now worldwide, has to do with a vulnerability in a Microsoft program. Generally, it involves expired but not supported Microsoft systems as well as pirated Microsoft software," said Levin. So far, Levin sees little impact on Apple customers, pointing out that they are very unlikely to install Microsoft programming. However, neglecting to use updated software isn't the only way ransomware can burrow into your system. "Another way to get ransomware is if you click on a link or you download an attachment. It could put malware on your computer. All of a sudden there will be a skull on your screen with a tacking clock, counting back from let's say 90 hours. If you don't pay a certain amount in Bitcoin, either your files will be deleted or they will be encrypted forever," said Levin. Levin says the Bitcoin aspect of the attacks makes it very difficult to track down the perpetrators. Even worse, many of the hackers operate in nations where the governments are OK with that sort of extortion. But even in the United States, the government is way behind in dealing with this threat. "If the NSA had notified Microsoft when they found the vulnerability, as opposed to theoretically notifying Microsoft when they learned that hackers were going to release information about tools and vulnerabilities, then we might be better off than we are today," said Levin. "When you hear things like the Apple vs. FBI debate and you hear people in government saying, 'We need a back door to encrypted systems,' this is a perfect example that when government gets their hands on a back door it is highly unlikely that they will be able to properly protect it," said Levin. Levin says there are plenty of steps you can take to reduce your chance of becoming a victim, starting with paying attention to and installing your software updates. "Don't think of these things as mosquitoes to be flicked away. There's a reason why these updates are sent to you. Often times it's because a vulnerability has been discovered. That vulnerability has been patched, and they're trying to get you to make sure that what you have on your system is as up to date as possible so you can be best protected," said Levin. Levin says if Microsoft customers had installed their patches, they would not have been hit with the WannaCry ransomware. He also says Asia and Europe got hit hardest because people there are far more likely to use expired or pirated software. Another key to avoid being stuck at the mercy of internet criminals is to back up your information. "Make sure that the data on your network or the data on your device is backed up. But you can't just back it up on your device or on your network. You literally have to back it up to an independent system that is not connected 24/7 to your network or your computer or your mobile device," said Levin. He says the independent system should only be connected to do the backup work and then disconnected or else that source can be compromised as well. If you've already been targeted, Levin says you really don't have many options. "In general, if you get hit with ransomware, the bottom line is either you pay or those files could be encrypted forever or deleted," said Levin. |
| Dem Double Standard on Obstruction of Justice |
| Wed, 17 May 2017 16:53:40 EST Democrats, media figures, and even some Republicans suggest President Trump's alleged request for former FBI Director James Comey to end an investigation into fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn amounts to obstruction of justice, but a former federal prosecutor says what we know thus far does not rise to that level and is no different than Barack Obama's efforts to exonerate Hillary Clinton. Andrew C. McCarthy led the prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots to blow up other New York City landmarks. In his latest column for National Review, McCarthy says those purporting outrage now said virtually nothing when President Obama arguably took more egregious actions with respect to Clinton. "In a few ways, the Obama situation with Hillary Clinton is worse than what we've heard about here. What Obama did was make a very public statement, which is obviously a statement to his subordinates as well as everyone else, that he didn't want Mrs. Clinton prosecuted and didn't think she should be prosecuted," said McCarthy in an interview discussing his column. "He articulated a legal theory for why she shouldn't be prosecuted, this claim that she wasn't trying to harm the United States and that her classified emails, while they exhibited carelessness on her part, were really a small part of a much larger overall picture and had been exaggerated out of proportion," said McCarthy. He says that same logic was used again a few months later. "Lo and behold three months later, when Director Comey announced his view that Mrs. Clinton shouldn't be prosecuted, he adopted precisely the legal reasoning Obama had announced three months before," said McCarthy. McCarthy's analysis follows the breathless reporting of an alleged Comey memo following a February 14 meeting with Trump at the White House. According to the memo, Trump cleared the room before engaging Comey on the Flynn investigation. Trump reportedly told Comey, 1cI hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. 1d M McCarthy says that tidbit alone is a far cry from constituting obstruction of justice. "I don't think we're close to being there yet because even though I am sure that then-Director Comey must have found the conversation with President Trump to be awkward and inappropriate, I don't think there's anything corrupt about it," said McCarthy. First of all, McCarthy says it's hard to draw any sweeping conclusions from a few scraps of a conversation. "The most important thing about obstruction of justice is context. We don't really have context here. We have one statement that's mined out of what must be a larger memo," said McCarthy. He says there needs to be concrete evidence of corruption to pursue obstruction of justice allegations. "Corruption is the heart of obstruction of justice. The person has to act intentionally, knowing that what he's doing is wrong, and intend to subvert the truth-seeking process," said McCarthy. Trump critics suggest the subsequent firing of Comey after the director refused to back off the Flynn case is evidence of obstruction. McCarthy says you need a lot more than that. "I think the corruption that would be involved would be if you were to pressure the FBI to drop an investigation, rig that result and then use it to suggest the person had been exonerated when you knew that you had actually rigged the result and not allowed the FBI to do an investigation," said McCarthy. Furthermore, McCarthy says Comey's actions over the subsequent three months shows he did not consider Trump's comments as an attempt to obstruct justice. "Obviously, Comey, who is a highly-decorated and highly-experienced former prosecutor and FBI director and who well knows what obstruction of justice is, he clearly didn't feel like he'd been obstructed. If he had, I'm certain he would have resigned and then gone up and down the chain of command and perhaps to Congress to report why he was resigning," said McCarthy. "Instead, he ended the conversation. He did write the memo. The investigation of Flynn continues. In fact, we now here that there's a grand jury in Virginia, so he must not have perceived that he'd been obstructed. Obviously they weren't obstructed because they're proceeding with the investigation," said McCarthy. For the same reason, McCarthy says the wringing of hands and panting for impeachment inside the beltway is greatly overblown. "Democrats will say that Trump fired Flynn because of the Flynn investigation and because of the fact that it hadn't been closed down and that he did it as a signal to the FBI and the Justice Department that he doesn't want Flynn proceeded against. That'll be their interpretation of it," said McCarthy. "The reason I think that's a loser, even though I understand why they're making the argument, is that the investigation is continuing," said McCarthy. "There's a lot more to the relationship between the president and the FBI director than a single criminal case, even against a one-time aide of Trump's in the administration. There could be a million reasons why the president might want to fire the FBI director," said McCarthy. McCarthy says Democrats have been trying to bring down Trump since the day after the election, and perpetual outrage is often an effective way of preventing much from getting accomplished. "In the long term, what they're looking at is trying to make it impossible for him to govern so the parts of his agenda, to the extent that they object to them, can't be implemented and also make it look like his government - and he's helping them with this by the way - is so chaotic and so in over its head that it helps their electoral prospects in 2018 and 2020," said McCarthy. While McCarthy notes that Republicans have a long history of not defending their party's president during times of controversy, at least compared to Democrats, he sees no actual traction for impeachment despite the growing demands from the left. "I see the fervor (among Democrats) to want to get a president impeached, but I don't see any grounds for doing it. Given what Republican numbers are at the moment, I don't see any prospect of it," said McCarthy. |
| 'It's Not Just What I Say, It's What I Have Done' |
| Mon, 15 May 2017 16:34:41 EST Republicans in Washington are fiercely lining up behind Sen. Luther Strange in this year's special election to finish the U.S. Senate term of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the nation's best known state judge says he is ready to battle big GOP dollars in the primary and defend the Constitution in Washington. "I think I can take the values of this state and my particular qualifications to the Senate to help us get this country back to what it should be. I have had a lot of study in the Constitution of the United States. I understand it's meaning and I understand how far away we've drifted from that document. Underlying all of this is virtue and morality which comes from God and we're trying to deny that God upon which our morality is founded," said Moore. Moore is most famous for twice being elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and effectively removed twice as well. Moore lost his job the first time in 2003 for refusing to obey a federal court order requiring a Ten Commandments monument to be removed from the court. In 2015, he was suspended without pay and benefits for telling probate court judges that the Supreme Court decision on marriage did not impact the Alabama Supreme Court's injunction that preserved marriage as the union of one man and one woman in the state. Moore says his public stands on those issues tell Alabama voters exactly who they would get as a senator. "It's not just what I say. It's what I have done. I have stood for the principles of this state and the people of this state. I've stood against the federal government in a legal manner," said the 70-year-old Moore. Moore finds himself in a crowded field for the GOP nomination. With the filing deadline set for Wednesday, six Republicans are officially in the field. In addition to Judge Moore and Sen. Strange, the most recognizable name is Rep. Mo Brooks, best known for his work in combating illegal immigration. Prior to Brooks officially joining the race on Monday, Moore held a 10-point lead over Strange in a poll conducted by Brooks. The national GOP is coming out with guns blazing against Moore and Brooks and is promising an initial down payment of $2.6 million in advertising on behalf of Strange. Moore finds it a bit odd that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, or NRSC, is all-in for a man appointed to the Senate just three months ago. "He was appointed by the (former) governor and the law provided that an election should be held forthwith, so treating him as an incumbent isn't exactly what they should be doing," said Moore, who points out the NRSC's money plans were announced after Moore got in the race last month. "They didn't do it about anybody else but me. They did it after I announced that I was in the race," said Moore. "They restricted consultants. They imposed large amounts of money for Sen. Strange. They did it because I'm in the race and they know that I will not follow the agenda of anyone else. I'll do what I believe is right under the Constitution and in the sight of the people of this state," said Moore. Moore's comments on consultants refers to the NRSC warning any political operatives that they will never work with the group again if they offer assistance to any of Strange's rivals. However, Moore also thinks the NRSC is wasting its money. "Trying to control the people of Alabama just doesn't work and it's futile to do so. They know better than to be controlled by people in Washington, D.C. They see me as an outsider. I recognize I'm not an insider to Washington, D.C.," said Moore. Moore is speaking out most strongly on issues like immigration, health care, education, and the military. However, he says he uses the same approach with everything. "All the issues that arise in the Senate, whether it be foreign relations, the military, health care, domestic issues, immigration all go back to a basic understanding of what the federal government should do and what it should not do," said Moore. "The tenth amendment, as we know, says the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution or prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or the people. Yet we see the federal government, particularly in the judicial branch, stepping into state powers like marriage and divorce and dictating issues they have no jurisdiction over," said Moore. He cited the Obama administration's effort to mandate transgender accommodation at all public schools as another example of the federal government trying to usurp power intended for the states to have. So what did Moore do in response to the Supreme Court's 2015 marriage decision to get him suspended from the bench? "I advised the probate judges that they were still under the injunction that was issues by the Alabama Supreme Court and had not been removed. For that, the opposition said I told the probate judges to disobey a federal court order. I never did such a thing," said Moore. He says there's a simple explanation for why the Supreme Court's decision did not apply to Alabama. "The United States Supreme Court, in Obergefell, did not rule on the Alabama case, did not rule on anything in the Eleventh Circuit. It rules in the Sixth Circuit, from the states of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee," said Moore. He says until the high court rules on Alabama's case, the injunction stands, although that injunction is not currently being enforced. On federal policy, Moore says he would demand a full repeal of Obamacare, ripping out common core, which he considers educational "indoctrination." The West Point graduate also favors a beefing up of the military and wants to see an end to the nation's armed forces being used to advance "the homosexual agenda." The first Alabama primary is slated for August 15. The primary runoff will take place September 26. The final election will be held December 12. |
| Forgiveness and Resolve |
| Fri, 12 May 2017 16:39:56 EST The testimonies of persecuted Christians and policy proposals to address the brutality highlighted the World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians this week in Washington, and both left religious freedom activists ready to work even harder to protect the right of free religious expression around the world. Persecution of Christians is on the rise throughout the world, with some experts concluding we're seeing the worst oppression of believers in recent memory. "We are definitely seeing an expansion of persecution issues around the world. Pew Center estimates that 79 percent of the world lives in a place that faces high or very high social hostilities and government restrictions on religion and religious expression. That's true for the persecuted church but it's also true for all sorts of other places as well," said 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative Director of Policy Relations Nathan Wineinger. He says this week's summit had a two-fold purpose. "The main focus was on figuring out how people around the world can call leaders to account and make sure that the persecution of Christians is addressed in policy and in practice on the ground," said Wineinger. "We (also) heard from people who experienced really horrific moments of persecution. Also people from Iraq and Syria talked about the importance of Christian forgiveness in confronting persecution issues," said Wineinger. He says the testimonies of persecuted believers were the most gripping moments of the summit. "I heard the story about a pastor who had been abducted in Iraq and for nine days was held and tortured, and then after that is finally released. When he gets out, he goes and tells his congregation to forgive the people who had persecuted him and to not take vengeance," said Wineinger. He says similar acts of love were also heard. "It was extremely powerful to hear those people talking about how they're moving forward, how they're bringing healing to their communities, about how they're bringing aid, food and shelter to displaced people. That was really powerful testimony about how to respond to persecution," said Wineinger. While the scourge of ISIS in Iraq and Syria dominates headlines related to persecution, Wineinger says there are plenty of other places where persecution is rampant, including countries most Americans rarely think about. "Sri Lanka faces dozens of situations where churches are attacked or individuals are attacked. That's a country we don't hear about very much because it's a small country but persecution is happening there," said Wineinger. The 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative is calling for some specific steps around the globe, namely for the United Nations to appoint a special envoy to the Lake Chad area of Africa, where Boko Haram is still wreaking havoc on believers. Here at home, the group is urging President Trump to put forward a nominee to be U.S. ambassador for religious freedom. "Now that we have a new administration, we need to see that administration maintain that commitment with a highly-qualified individual and they need to put that individual in quickly so that the work of the International Religious Freedom office at the State Department can continue," said Wineinger. Wineinger says there is already a dedicated staff in place but it cannot do much until a leader is in place who will not only chart a clear course but also have the ear of the president and secretary of state. He also says another priority is to implement a new religious freedom training program for foreign service officers that became law last year. "The Frank R. Wolf International Freedom Act that President Obama signed into law last year requires that foreign service officers take training on the importance of religious freedom and how that composes part of our human rights initiatives. It;s very important that that training be put into place so that foreign service officers have the tool and training they need to be advocates for religious freedom in embassies around the world," said Wineinger. |
| Trump Targets Voter Fraud |
| Thu, 11 May 2017 16:30:04 EST The Trump administration announced the creation of a new commission Thursday that is tasked with studying the scope of voter fraud and voter suppression in the United States, a move that a former Justice Department attorney says is long overdue after eight years of voter fraud that resembled the "wild west" during the Obama years. The commission will be led by Vice President Mike Pence and co-chaired by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a strong supporter of clamping down on voter fraud through measures like mandating all voters produce photo identification before casting a ballot. Public Interest Legal Foundation President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams worked in the civil rights division of the Justice Department during the George W. Bush administration and the beginning of Obama's first term. He says this focus is long overdue. "We know of election crimes that have gone on in the last seven years, one after another after another, that the federal government never prosecuted and never investigated, never did anything about and creating this wild west atmosphere with voter fraudsters," said Adams. For examples, Adams cites Wendy Rosen, the 2012 congressional candidate in Maryland, who also voted in Florida. He says there have been over 1,000 non-citizens discovered voting in Virginia since 2011 and more than 800 others in Ohio. He says North Carolina found 41 ballots cast by non-citizens last year and Nevada found three. Not only is the fraud not being investigated, in some cases it is celebrated. "You have Melowese Richardson, a woman in Cincinnati, who said on camera that she voted six times for President Obama. She was actually celebrated at an event that Al Sharpton was at. They treated her like a hero," said Adams. The new commission is not without it's critics however. A group called the Citizen's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law immediately issued a statement referring to the commission's work as "blocking the black vote." While the argument that voting reforms disenfranchise minorities and the poor is rather common, Adams says it is baseless. "That narrative is a lie. More often than not, the people losing the right to vote because of election crimes are people in minority communities," said Adams, who says his work at the Justice Department bears out his position. "When I was at the Justice Department, I brought a case that was afflicting the minority community in a small town in Mississippi where political operatives exploited the weak and the vulnerable. They voted for them. They stole their votes. So often it is the minority communities who are being harmed by voter fraud," said Adams. But he didn't stop there. "The dirty little secret is these groups that send out these press releases like it that way, because they benefit from controlling the process. They benefit by telling people how to vote, by voting for them, by running an organization that covers up crimes, just to get certain people elected," said Adams. That's why Adams suspects criticism of the commission's work will not focus on the facts. "The critics of the commission are essentially want to hide the facts. They don't want us to know the truth about the extent of voter fraud. They're accessories to the crime. If they want to cover up and obstruct the investigation into voter fraud, then those people deserve our criticism," said Adams. A more bipartisan criticism of the effort suggests that while voter fraud ought to be prosecuted, the problem is being blown out of proportion, After all, three votes usually don't decide statewide elections in Nevada, 141 didn't tilt any big races in North Carolina and even 1,000 votes would be unlikely to change results in Virginia. Adams quickly offered two responses to that argument, starting with the crime itself. "Changing the outcome of the election is not an element to the federal crime. That is not in the law. That is something people have invented to give people a pass and to shut down enforcement of the law," said Adams. But he also says voter fraud certainly can alter the outcome of elections. "The fact that it effects elections is real. We have found at the Public Interest Legal Foundation that over 4,000 aliens have been caught on the voter rolls, many of them voting, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. These are the ones who have self-reported essentially. So there's tens of thousands more most likely," said Adams. Adams has long favored requiring voters to display photo identification at the polls and for state and local officials to regularly update voter rolls to clean out names of people who are dead or no longer live there. He says another effective step would take very little effort. "The easiest thing to do is to compare the voter rolls of the country to the list of aliens in federal databases. Nobody has ever done that. It's a simple operation. It would not take very much to simply see how many people in the alien database are also registered to vote, and those who have voted should be prosecuted," said Adams. "It doesn't take many prosecutions to chill criminal activity," he added. However, for Adams, the most important aspect of the commission may be to punch a hole in the movement of those trying to stop voting reforms. "Those loud voices on the left have done all they can over the years to silence any examination of the vulnerabilities in our system. They have intimidated and yelled and done everything they could to hide the facts of election crimes. What they're most upset about it that that's ending. So I'm optimistic this is going to be a good process," said Adams. |
| Why Comey Had to Go |
| Wed, 10 May 2017 16:46:46 EST While the media and politicians from both parties look for deeper reasons for President Trump's firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, a former Justice Department official says the decision was long overdue and needed for obvious reasons. Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Victoria Toensing says she and others in the the justice and law enforcement community urged Trump to dismiss Comey from day one. "It just came too late, 109 days too late. Those of us in the swamp knew who the alligators were in the swamp, and we all tried to warn the White House and they didn't listen to us," said Toensing, who also served as a federal prosecutor. And why did they implore Trump to fire him? "Comey was a narcissist. It was all about Comey and he delighted in wanting to bring down powerful people if they were Republicans," said Comey. Toensing also points to how Comey, during his days as deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, tapped his close friend, Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the alleged exposing of a covert CIA operative. That probe resulted in a criminal conviction for Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney. But that's not who Fitzgerald really wanted. "Throughout that investigation, Scooter's lawyer was told consistently by the Fitzgerald people, 'If you give up Dick Cheney, this will all go away.' They were trying to bring down Dick Cheney, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Comey was talking with Fitzgerald while he was doing this," said Toensing, who represents Libby in his quest for a presidential pardon. On Tuesday, the Trump administration released its rationale for the Comey firing, focusing on his public announcement that no charges should be filed against Hillary Clinton in the wake of the FBI probe into her use of a private, unsecured server through which she sent and received classified information while she served as Secretary of State. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein accused Comey of usurping the authority of the attorney general in making such a pronouncement and for exposing Clinton's misdeeds when he was effectively closing the investigation. But Toensing says Comey made far more mistakes, starting with his repeated misstating of the statute in question. Comey insisted that intent to break the law was required to bring charges, while gross negligence is the standard laid out in federal law. She also savaged Comey for refusing to impanel a grand jury to probe Clinton and for allowing the same attorney to represent multiple witnesses in the case. "That's called a conflict of interest, because that lawyer can get all of her clients together and they can all read from the same music. You never do that," said Toensing. Toensing is also dismissing the intense reaction from Democrats, who she says are now appalled after calling for Comey's head for months. She says the idea that Trump fired Comey because of the ongoing Russia investigation is ridiculous and so are any comparisons to Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre." "In Watergate, there was a crime. There was a burglary. There was a break-in. What's the crime here? What's the crime? Do we have a crime? No, there's no crime," said Toensing, noting that Russian involvement in U.S. elections is nothing new. "That's been going on since Richard Nixon. Why is it all of a sudden an issue this time, just because Hillary lost? If Hillary had won, there would not be any inquiry into whatever the Russians did regarding this election process," said Toensing. Toensing is also upset with congressional Republicans, both for not doing more at recent hearings to point out that Russian interference in elections is not the same as collusion with the Trump campaign. She also says the past 24 hours show Democrats are far better at messaging than the GOP. Finally, Toensing believes former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly would be an ideal successor to Comey at the FBI and is someone who has worked for Republicans and Democrats. "He is a lifetime career cop. That's what we need at the FBI now to gain confidence," said Toensing. |
| The College President Who Fights Back |
| Tue, 9 May 2017 16:33:32 EST Across the country, loud and sometime violent campus protesters are often met by administrators who ultimately give into the demands related to perceived slights on issues ranging from race to gender and sexuality to alleged to hate speech, but one college president is fighting back and says the pursuit of truth - not unanimous political ideology ought to be the goal of higher education. Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Dr. Everett Piper burst on to the scene in late 2015, when he wrote an open letter to his students and famously explained their campus was not a day care but a university. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, "Not A Day Care: A Coddled Nation is a Crippled Nation." Dr. Piper is also speaking up after the latest round of campus unrest, specifically the saga over Ann Coulter's scheduled appearance at the University of California-Berkeley, an which ultimately never happened. In his column for The Christian Post, Piper unloads on what he sees as an assault on free speech and an abdication of role played by higher education. "The liberal arts institution was founded some 1,000 years ago, let's say at Oxford, for what? To educate a free man and a free woman, to educate culture and what it means to enjoy liberty, and liberation, thus the word liberal," said Piper, in a follow-up interview to his column. He says that original purpose is now almost recognizable at most schools. "The classical liberal is someone who stands for freedom, for liberty, and for liberation. What we see today within the American academy is the shutting down of ideas. We see ideological fascism rather than academic freedom," said Piper. "The conservative voice is actually more classically liberal because we're arguing for an open, robust exchange of ideas. Why? Because we can trust truth to judge the debate rather than politics or power," said Piper. Piper says the problem has been brewing for many decades, when ideology became more important than truth. "We've taught lousy ideas for decades in the academy and we're seeing lousy behavior on the campus green and in the campus quad today. These student rebellions, these snowflake rebellions, trigger warnings, microaggressions, and safe spaces are being called for because we've taught these kids this intellectual mush and this ideological narcissism and nihilism," said Piper. "We hear people say things like, 'I hate these hateful people. I'm sure that nothing's sure. I'm absolutely confident there are no absolutes, and I can't tolerate your intolerance.' It's self-refuting at every turn. The reason we see this is because we started teaching this type of nihilism and intellectual relativism and intellectual mush some three, four, five decades ago," said Piper. "When you teach good ideas, you get good culture, good kids, good community, good government, good church, etc. When you teach bad ideas, you get the opposite," he said. So why aren't more administrators pushing back? "I'll be very blunt here: lack of spine, lack of courage, lack of conviction. They're more interested in capitulation and compromise. We're more interested in a conversation than we are in demonstrating conviction and purpose and principle. We don't seem to have the heart and the soul to engage in the things that are right and just and true," said Piper. And he says the administrators are often ideologically in sync with the protesters. "We call for justice but deny that there is a Judge. We argue that we want tolerance but then act intolerable to anybody we can't tolerate. Our administrators and our presidents and our professors parrot this pablum. They don't have the conviction and the spine," said Piper. Piper also pushes back hard against the notion that free speech somehow began at Berkeley in the 1960's. He says the people who believe that are about 2,000 years behind. "Free speech was not born at Berkeley. It was born at Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago, because without the truth you shall never be set free," said Piper. Piper says history shows that removing God and His word from a society never results in freedom because man's rules then intervene to fill the vacuum. He says true freedom is like playing music or sports in that one has great freedom within certain boundaries. "You are only set free with the context of truth, judging the activity you want to be free to engage in. When we abandon the concept of truth, you don't get freedom, you get tyranny. And that's what you see in the snowflake rebellion in the streets of Berkeley," said Piper. He says the very notion of safe spaces misses the point of education. "Safety is not what good education is about. Goodness is what good education should pursue, but you've got to have a measuring rod outside of those things being measured or you can do no measuring, according to C.S. Lewis," said Piper. "You have to have the measuring rod of Truth with a capital T, and goodness and justice, and mercy. Those things all come from the Judeo-Christian ethic that our country was founded upon. If we don't have that ethic any longer, we're going to see fascism and tyranny and power prevail, rather than live by principles that give us freedom," said Piper. His immediate advice is for families to refuse to send their children to colleges that don't embrace truth. "Moms and dads, stop sending your kids to these institutions that teach this pablum and send them to places that teach what's actually objectively right and real and true and good," said Piper. |
| The Iranian Terrorism Funding Machine |
| Mon, 8 May 2017 16:26:31 EST The Iranian exile group that recently unveiled evidence of Iran violating the terms of the nuclear agreement is now detailing how the regime is allegedly fleecing its own people to fund the military and bankroll Hezbollah. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, is responsible for exposing Iranian nuclear ambitions some 15 years ago. Now the group is releasing, "Iran: The Rise of the Revolutionary Guards' Financial Empire." An additional subhead reads, "How the Supreme Leader and the IRGC Rob the People to Fund International Terror." The book maintains that despite appearances of an active private sector, the regime and its elite military wing, the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, really have a stranglehold on economy. The regime touts an emphasis on privitization, but that means something very different in Iran. "Back in 2005, the supreme leader basically brought this nice looking plan called privitization, turning everything to the private sector," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI's Washington office. "In fact, that was really a restructuring of the Iranian economy to give the ownership of a wide range of industries and institutions to those either associated directly with the supreme leader or with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," said Jafarzadeh. He says there was nothing fair about this embrace of "privitization." "The government, based on the constitution, has the right to seize and confiscate property if that property is obtained through what they call illegitimate means. 'Illegitimate means' is something they can define any way they want to," said Jafarzadeh. In essence, most of the Iran economy is in the hands of just over a dozen government cronies. "We're talking about 14 major powerhouses that are controlling the entire economy. All of these 14 are either entirely controlled by the supreme leader or by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," said Jafarzadeh, who says just one of these entities is sitting on about $90 billion and together the 14 are rolling in hundreds of billions of dollars. All major sectors of the economy are involved. "We're talking about large mines, primary industries including downstream oil and gas industry, power generation, foreign commerce, banks, insurance, roads, railroads, airlines, shipping companies, food companies, agriculture, you name it," said Jafarzadeh. Jafarzadeh says the Iranian people are struggling more than ever to get by, so where is this money going? He says it's not hard to figure it out, it's going to the military, meaning the buildup of the nuclear program. "The official budget is anywhere from 30-35 percentof the budget is allocated to what they call defense-related issues. On top of all of that, the money they make from running the economy is directly funneled to these programs, including the nuclear weapons program," said Jafarzadeh. But that's not the only places the money goes. Jafarzadeh says a lot of money also goes to foundations with troubling ties. "It's supposed to be a religious foundation to help the poor, but it has turned into a foundation that actually funds terror in Lebanon. Another foundation...sends a lot of money to Lebanon to support Hezbollah there," said Jafarzadeh. While Jafarzadeh believes the evidence of Iran commandeering the economy through a private facade to build nukes and fund terror is strong enough to take to the United Nations, he says there is something even more effective that the U.S. State Department could do by itself. "By designation the IRGC as a terrorist organization, they can close all of these loopholes. It would make it illegal for any U.S. person or U.S. entity to deal with any of these institutions run by the IRGC or associated with them," said Jafarzadeh. "It would make life a lot more difficult for the IRGC to transfer funds and to all kinds of things they're doing in the region," said Jafarzadeh. Jafarzadeh says the dire straits of the people is also on the brink of boiling over as they watch their government hoarding resources rather than developing ways to help the people. "Over the past year, we had over 6,000 anti-government demonstrations and protest acts, a lot of them economically driven to begin with but they quickly turned into political slogans by the people who hold the rulers as big thieves who are plundering their resources," said Jafarzadeh. "If people thought that things were volatile in 2009, it's even more volatile now and there is certainly great prospects for change," he added. |
| Previewing the Senate Health Care Fight |
| Fri, 5 May 2017 16:27:58 EST The House health care reform bill faces an uncertain future in the U.S. Senate, but one of the nation's leading health care experts says the legislation ought to make the Senate's job easier while assuring wary consumers that the plan is poised to rein in costs without kicking anyone to the curb. On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 217-213 to advance the American Health Care Act. A number of Republican senators have indicated that they want to see the bill overhauled, but Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says the House did most of the Senate's work for it. "The House bent over backwards to write it's legislation in such a way that it could get through the torturous process in the Senate to get this to the floor only needing 51 votes," said Turner, referring to the Byrd Rule, by which legislation is gauged to determine whether it can proceed under reconciliation and avoid a Democratic filibuster. Turner says senators have a long history of believing their own rhetoric about the Senate being the world's greatest deliberative body and, thus, seeing House legislation only as advice for them to write their own bill from scratch. Either way, Turner says certain principles must be part of the Senate bill as well. "They're going to have to devolve more power to the states. They're going to have to give people more regulatory relief in order to be able to make these premiums more affordable. They're going to have to make sure there continues to be a safety net for those currently on coverage so they don't lose it, as the House bill does," said Turner. "And they have to provide a structure of subsidies going forward for people to be able to afford health insurance who are at the lower end of the income scale or who just can't afford the full cost of the premiums," said Turner. However, Turner expects the Senate to push for more generous subsidies for those struggling to afford insurance but make too much to qualify for Medicaid. She also wouldn't be surprised if senators extended the expansion of Medicaid or devoted more dollars to the expansion while it lasts. Senate leaders have indicated they plan to take a deliberate approach on this issue, but Turner says there is good reason to pick up their pace. Insurers need to decide whether they will participate in the individual market exchanges by June 22. "So the Senate has to show some real progress over the next six weeks and help those insurers see what this legislation is going to look like so they can make their own decisions about whether they're going to be participating in the health insurance markets," said Turner. The House bill failed to reach a floor vote back in March because too many conservatives and moderates balked at the original text. Conservatives, in particular, demanded a bill that would project lower premiums immediately. That led to the MacArthur-Meadows amendment. "What they said was, 'We will provide some additional funding to the states, very generous funding - $130 billion to the states. If they decide they want to take this as a grant instead of the entitlement structure of existing Obamacare, then they can have flexibility in revising the regulations in their own states," said Turner. The idea is to allow states to set their own standards for what qualifies as an approved health care plan, and then giving patients the chance to decide what type of plan and price structure best meets their needs. Democrats allege patients with pre-existing conditions will find themselves on the outside looking in again. Turner says that's just not true. "There are three layers of protection for people with pre-existing conditions. Current law stays in place decide not to take the grant and make their own changes. But states also have a responsibility to their citizens, and now they have this money from (Michigan Rep.) Fred Upton's negotiations to provide extra payment for people with pre-existing conditions," said Turner. However, Turner is adamant that reckless behavior by millions of people are adding to the problem, that they don't get coverage until they have a medical problem. She says that drives up premiums for everyone else when healthy people signing up for coverage would bring costs down. She says the difference between that and a mandate is that no one would order people to buy coverage but would provide more incentive by offering more plans at lower rates. Turner says the current law has led to young people in California, for example, to go from paying $50 per month for coverage to more than $600. As a result, they don't buy anything. Another concern is that millions will lose their coverage under the AHCA. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 24 million would lose coverage under the original version of the AHCA. Turner says that statistic is horribly misleading. "What they're saying is people would decide to not purchase, not that the coverage wouldn't be there for them or that it wouldn't have subsidies for people that are currently on the coverage. But over time people would just say, 'I don't want to buy those policies.' The thing the CBO can't put into its formulas is realizing that the markets and consumer choice can make those policies more affordable so people will want to buy them," said Turner. |
| 'This Bill Does Not Reflect Republican Values' |
| Wed, 3 May 2017 16:39:50 EST The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed an omnibus spending bill Wednesday, despite conservative disgust that many GOP priorities were left on the cutting room floor even though Republicans control Congress and the White House. The 309-118 vote keeps the government funded through September. Republican leaders tout the increased funding for the military and border security and cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency. However, conservatives are grousing about what's also in the bill, namely full funding for sanctuary cities and Planned Parenthood and nothing for construction of a border wall. Democrats had threatened to filibuster over wall funding. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colorado, is among those fuming over what he considers a bill that fails to do what GOP lawmakers promised to do during the 2016 campaign. "It's a big loss and it's not the best we can get," said Buck. "The people of America elected a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican in the White House. We should be reflecting Republican values and this bill does not reflect Republican values." "This is the first chance we had to show the American people that there is a difference between the Obama administration and the Trump administration, between Harry Reid as a Senate majority leader and Mitch McConnell as a Senate majority leader. If we're going to make that clear distinction for the American people, so they know when they go to the polls they're going to be voting for more spending or less spending, we should make that with this bill," said Buck. Even more baffling to Buck is that congressional Republicans insisted on extending funding only to this point late last year so that Trump could get a head start on his priorities. "The reason that we didn't pass a two-month continuing resolution last fall was because we wanted a president in place. We wanted his administration in place. We wanted his priorities in place and that's not what happened," said Buck. In addition to the individual programs that are addressed in the omnibus bill, Buck says the red ink is now piling higher under Republican stewardship. "Last year, we incurred $600 billion of debt in a bipartisan omnibus bill. I was told recently that it will take two trillion dollars to service the debt of that $600 billion. This bill is even more deficit spending. Between last year and this year, we will have incurred four trillion dollars of expenses to pay off the debt, just in two years," said Buck, who is also the author of "Draining the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse then You Think." He says this bill follows on the heels of the Obama administration insisting on a dollar of domestic spending for every new dollar of military spending. Buck says Washington is delivering a gut punch to future generations. "We have increased spending across the board in ways that are just unfair to future generations. I think the people who put this bill together are wrong. It went through the wrong process. It was 1,657 pages that were dumped on us just a couple of days ago. It is not the way to govern in this country," said Buck. Buck also dismisses the argument by some Republican leaders that a showdown with Democrats over spending should happen, but not until the appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2018 begins. "I have heard that for two years as a congressman. I heard it for the two years before that, when I was a candidate. I imagine that if I am here another three or four years, I will hear the same thing. We're always going to fix this problem tomorrow. We're not going to fix this problem today," said Buck, "Today is the day we (should) fix this problem." How does this cycle get reversed? Buck says it begins with regular order. "Conservatives win when our leadership in the House says we are going to pass twelve appropriations bills, send those to the Senate and make them do their job," said Buck. In the previous Congress, Senate Democrats refused to consider individual appropriations bills. Buck says the GOP needs to force their hand. "If Chuck Schumer wants to filibuster and hold things up in the Senate, that's their problem. That's not the problem of the House. The Senate needs to either get rid of he filibuster and go with a 51-vote majority or they need to let the Senate filibuster and hold those Democratic senators accountable," said Buck. Buck is not upset with President Trump for vowing to sign the omnibus, suggesting the president does not have much of a choice this time. However, he hopes to see Trump drive the process come September and he warns the American people are not going to tolerate many more bills like this one. "If we have another spending bill that looks like this, I think the American people are going to be very upset. They don't have anywhere else to turn right now. They've seen trillion-dollar debts accumulate with President Obama and a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. Now they're seeing hundreds of billions of dollar debts with a Republican president, Republican Senate, Republican House," said Buck. |
| May Day Meets Reality on Communism |
| Mon, 1 May 2017 16:35:22 EST Monday marked May Day, which was punctuated by scores of "workers" marches around the world, but on of the leading experts on communism says movements like this always end in death, poverty, and misery. More than a quarter century after the end of the Cold War, political movements at home and abroad are once again embracing ideas of equality for all and casting the wealthy as villains who keeping working people from climbing higher in society. Lee Edwards is the chairman of the board of trustees for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He spearheaded the effort for a national memorial to those victims that was dedicated in 2007. Edwards is also a distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the Heritage Foundation and a prolific author on the conservative movement. He says the promises always sound so good. "People say, 'Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful. Let's do away with all classes. Let's do away with all conflicts and have some utopia in which we're all going to be friends.' That just works against human nature. Even (Karl) Marx said the only way we're going to get to communism is through a dictatorship of the proletariat," said Edwards. But 100 years of communism and practice expose the promises for what they really are. "The communists are the biggest liars in human history. If you think about it, they promised peace, land, and bread to the people in the beginning way back in Russia and then in China. Instead of peace, they got them involved in wars. Instead of land, they took away their land. Instead of bread, they gave them bread lines," said Edwards. Perhaps the most chilling result of a century of communism is the death toll. "There are over 100 million victims as a result of communism. One hundred million," said Edwards, noting that China's Mao Zedong and the USSR's Joseph Stalin are by far the most murderous of dictators, killing their own people by the tens of millions. And why does does communism lead to systematic government genocide? "Because they say that we're going to arrive at this Utopian society, and if you get in our way and you deny us, then we're going to kill you," said Edwards, pointing out how Stalin starved 5-7 million Ukrainians to death by ordering the communizing of agriculture there. In short, Edwards says everyone suffers under communism except the leaders. He says rationing was rampant in the old Soviet Union, except for vodka. "Everything else was rationed. Everything else was only available to what we call the nomenclatura, the members of the party and members of the army, who were running things in Soviet Russia and still in communist China," said Edwards. And while just five official communist governments exist today (China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba), many others are de facto socialist dictatorships, most notably Venezuela, which is currently in a state of major unrest. But Edwards is concerned about the rise of communist and socialist sympathies here in the U.S., starting with how Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, attracted a great deal of enthusiasm and support during his 2016 presidential campaign. "The line between Bernie Sanders' democratic socialism and socialism outright is probably pretty thin. Frankly, I'm concerned that too many young people are not adequately educated or informed about the real failures, about the deaths, about the murders, about the purges," said Edwards. "They never heard about the gulag, for example, that series of forced labor camps in which Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and millions and millions of people lived in and many of them died. So this is really an educational process that we need to get into," said Edwards. That in itself is difficult because he says academia is often sympathetic to communism. "There are still Marxist professors who are saying, 'Oh well, communism is this marvelous idea, it's just never been tried adequately and therefore we can&aposapos;t dismiss it,'" said Edwards. The issue also hit close to home for Edwards recently when protesters in Washington posed while extending their middle fingers to the Victims of Communism Memorial. He says education has to be the answer and his foundation his leading the effort. "We have created a curriculum on communism from Marx to Mao, which I'm happy to say is being used in high schools, public schools, private schools, home schools. We've got to begin very early on. We can't wait for colleges and universities to begin to tell the truth," said Edwards. While he acknowledges a major battle for the direction of young minds, Edwards is fully confident freedom will win. "I believe there is an instinct within all of us, within our breast, for the desire for freedom. We can see that with people challenging, even today, challenging China, challenging the authoritarian ways of Russia. I believe that is there but it must be encouraged. It must be educated. It must be developed. It's not going to develop all by itself," he said. |
| Will Republicans Pass A Health Bill? |
| Fri, 28 Apr 2017 16:47:29 EST Just days after winning conservative support for an amended bill to gut the taxes and mandates associated with Obamacare, Republicans are still struggling to find the votes for passage, but the man leading the legislative effort is confident the votes will eventually be there. GOP leaders have given their blessing to an amendment championed by Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., and House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. But while giving states more say in the health plans offered to their residents is winning the applause of conservatives, moderates seem to be leaving in numbers big enough to sink the bill. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas., is confident the votes will eventually come around. "I think the hesitation has only been to be able to digest this, to be able to think about how it applies back home, before they commit their vote. The conversations that I've been in are very positive and we're just going to keep working on it," said Brady. And despite the pressure from Democrats and the media on the timetable for getting this done, Brady says he's less concerned about meeting a specific deadline. "I'm a big believer in letting the consensus drive the timing. So don't set a date. I want to deliver on my promise to repeal Obamacare: all the taxes, all the mandates, all the subsidies, defund Planned Parenthood and return control to the states. That is what I am intent on doing," said Brady. Brady, who played a key role in crafting the original American Health Care Act, says the current bill is an improvement. "Centrists and conservatives sat down and said, 'How can we make this better?' As a result, the MacArthur amendment , as well as the Palmer amendment before it, continue to lower premiums , which is what we want for every American, gives states more flexibility to design plans that are right for the state and the community rather than Washington control," said Brady. Brady says if this bill can get through and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price acts to roll back regulations, much of Obamacare will be history. "Getting steps one and two done with the White House repeals 90 percent of that or more and puts in place free market options but we still have more work to do," said Brady. "Allowing types of business to join together, to buy across state lines, to have much better options, (as well as) malpractice reform, where we get those junk lawsuits out of medicine. All of those are going to have to be standalone bills," said Brady, noting that Senate rules cannot allow everything to be done by reconciliation, which would skirt the possibility of a filibuster. Brady says some of the more popular provisions in the current law would stay, including no one being refused coverage for pre-existing conditions, allowing children to stay on their parents' policies until age 26, abolishing lifetime caps and more. Brady says it is not only vital to pass the AHCA in order to bring relief to struggling Americans, he says it's vital for the next major priority - tax reform. "We never anticipated in tax reform having to also repeal another trillion dollars of taxes that were included in Obamacare. All these taxes hurt the economy. They raise costs on patients. They hammer small businesses. We need them gone, but if we had to do that through tax reform, that would mean we couldn't lower the rates as much for families or local businesses or to become competitive against China and Europe," said Brady. In fact, Brady believes getting the AHCA through is really the trigger for accomplishing much of the Trump agenda. "This is all about momentum for the Republican conservative agenda in Washington. This president wants to shake things up. We need to be right there to deliver on these big changes, so building the momentum off of health care into tax reform, I think, is helpful," said Brady. |
| Big Wins and Losses on Trump's Immigration Scorecard |
| Thu, 27 Apr 2017 16:29:57 EST President Trump is making greater strides to enforce immigration laws than any recent predecessor but his apparent willingness to back down in two key areas has allies concerned at the 100 day mark of the Trump presidency. Trump made immigration enforcement, cracking down on illegal immigration, and the construction of a border wall one of the focal points of his 2016 campaign. Those promises, plus active enforcement seem to already be having a major impact. Depending upon whom you ask, illegal border crossings are down 40 percent, 61 percent, or even 93 percent since Trump took office. Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian credits the Trump administration for choosing excellent people for key positions at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS. "The personnel that he's appointing in a lot of the immigration positions within DHS, not at the top of Homeland Security but the people who actually matter where the rubber meets the road really are outstanding," said Krikorian. He also credits the Trump administration for greater scrutiny of guest worker visas, which Krikorian says makes it tougher for American workers to get jobs. But it's another kind of visa, where Krikorian finds his greatest disappointment with Trump, namely the administration's continuation of the Obama policy of extending work permits to so-called dreamers, people who came to the U.S. illegally before they turned 16 years old. Obama granted a number of freedoms to that group in an executive order that Krikorian and others believe is tantamount to amnesty. "He's kept that going. He hasn't done anything to change it. He hasn't even stopped issuing new work permits to illegal immigrants who didn't have them before, and that's very disturbing," said Krikorian. "I can see the point of wanting to trade a proper amnesty for these people that Obama basically already amnestied, in exchange for something that he needs from Congress. So I get it as a bargaining chip, but there's no excuse for expanding the program to more people who were not part of it," said Krikorian. Krikorian also thinks Trump is making a major mistake by dodging a showdown over border wall funding until later in the year. "It strikes me as a pre-emptive surrender and it's going to embolden both the Democrats and those Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, who are anti-immigration enforcement as well. I think it's a mistake. I hope I'm proven wrong and it turns out OK in the fall, but I'm not hopeful that's the way it's going to turn out," said Krikorian. Not only does he expect Senate Democrats to threaten another government shutdown whenever Trump makes a push for funding, but he says Trump is wasting time an political capital by waiting until the fall. "It does need to be a top priority for the president politically in order to get other things done. I actually am really disturbed by this because it suggests a weakening of the White House's commitment, despite whatever tweets may come out, and potentially a strengthening of the Chuck Schumer Democrats who are increasingly dominant inside the White House," said Krikorian, alluding to Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner as an example of that influence. However, Krikorian is highly supportive of Trump's efforts to root out sanctuary cities and get localities to cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing immigration law. Right now, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is threatening to withhold some Justice Department grants for cities that refuse to comply, although a federal judge has blocked that effort for the moment. Krikorian says the administration has even tougher tactics is could employ to get the city leaders in line. "Ultimately, they're going to have to sue these jurisdictions in federal court to get an injunction to get them to stop," said Krikorian. "And the administration does have the nuclear option, which nobody's really talked about yet but is still there, which is criminal prosecution of the city council for instance in San Francisco, for knowingly harboring illegal aliens," said Krikorian. He admits that option is one the Trump administration should try to avoid, especially given the uncertainty of obtaining convictions. However, Krikorian believes Trump may will win the public relations war over how criminal illegal immigrants ought to be treated. "Part of that plan is this thing that they had started and they're going to restart, which is reporting weekly all of the criminal aliens that sanctuary cities let go," said Krikorian, who says the reports would also include any offenses for which those people were then arrested after local officials refused to cooperate with the federal government. "That's an important part of building the case to weaken the Democrats' support for sanctuary cities. If they play their cards right, that can be more powerful even than filing lawsuits against them, because ultimately it will undermine the political support in these hard left-wing cities among the voters to keep the sanctuary city policy going," said Krikorian. |
| Lower Courts Await Trump Nominations |
| Wed, 26 Apr 2017 16:26:44 EST President Trump received wide acclaim from his supporters for the selection and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, but legal experts are urging Trump to make good selections soon for scores of vacancies on lower federal courts. More than three months into his administration, Trump has sent just one nominee for a federal appeals court opening. There are 18 others to fill. He also has the opportunity to nominate more than 100 federal district court judges, but has yet to act. Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel and Policy Director Carrie Severino says it is vital to get strong defenders of the Constitution on these courts as soon as possible. "They're incredibly important," she said. "All of these are lifetime seats on the federal courts. Remember, the Supreme Court takes less than one percent of the cases appealed to it every year. That means well upward of 99 percent of cases are decided at the lower courts." "Many of those district court cases don't even get up to the appellate level. They might end there. So it's a huge, huge impact on American law," said Severino. Severino says we can just look to the Obama years to see how much impact a president can have on the judiciary. "Normally, a two-term president can turn over two-thirds of the judiciary. Barack Obama certainly did that. When he came into office, one out of the thirteen courts of appeal had a Democratically nominated majority of judges. When he left, nine of thirteen did," said Severino. During the campaign, Trump rolled out a list of 21 possible choices for the Supreme Court vacancy. The list included Gorsuch. While Trump may not have a formal list for all these other vacancies, Severino fully expects the same careful vetting to pick quality judges. "[Gorsuch] has been one of the signature accomplishments of his first hundred days in office. I can't imagine why the president would want to diverge from an incredibly successful strategy so far and frankly, some of the people on that list could be candidates," said Severino, noting that District Judge Amul R. Thapar, who was on Trump's list, is now nominated to serve on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A big reason for Severino's confidence in the Trump administration to get these picks right stems from what she observed in the Gorsuch process. "Candidate Trump always said, 'I'm going to ask the smartest people and get all the experts.' When it came to judges, boy, he really did. He didn't come up with a list for the Supreme Court by himself. He knew the right people to ask and I think they know the right people to ask for these spots as well," said Severino. She says what they should be looking for is simple and should be familiar to Trump by now. "You want someone who is going to be faithful to the text of the law, faithful to the original understanding of the Constitution, putting the law before one's political instinct on where they want the case to come out. We want people who are going to be judges first. I think that's what we got with Gorsuch. I think it's going to be the same type of vetting process," said Severino. With so many politically charged cases now coming before courts, Severino says it is vital to get judges whose character can withstand the firestorm. "You don't know what the next issue is going to be. We couldn't have seen all these issues coming when the people currently on the bench were nominated. That's why it's so important to have a vetting process that doesn't just say, 'Here's some topics. How do you feel about free speech? How do you feel about immigration or this and that?'" said Severino. "We don't need to know what their politics or policy preferences are in these things. You need someone who actually understands the judicial philosophy here, because that's what's going to help them get the next question down the road - that we haven't even seen yet - correct," said Severino. But while Obama, succeeded in steering the federal judiciary to the left, Severino says Trump can have a huge impact in the opposite direction. "A two-term president gets to replace two-thirds of the judges. Currently, our president is Donald Trump and it looks like he's going to make some great picks for those slots," she said. Severino says Trump's influence on the bench may actually be bigger. "He may have more front-loaded opportunities than most presidents do, because this does seem like a very large number of vacancies. There are a lot more, I think upwards of half the federal appellate judges who are either retired or eligible to take senior status. So there could be many more coming," said Severino. |
| Iran Caught Cheating on Nukes |
| Tue, 25 Apr 2017 16:31:45 EST Despite U.S. government conclusions to the contrary, Iran is cheating on the 2015 nuclear deal and is actively weaponizing nuclear weapons, according to the group who uncovered Iran's most recent nuclear ambitions in the first place. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, unveiled intelligence and satellite imagery in recent days that is says it proof of Iranian actions that violate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. It also alleges that the activity is taking place in areas and facilities that are off limits to regular inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The NCRI is very confident in the validity of its reports. "These are the very same sources that have been proven accurate in the past. The network of the movement inside Iran, the MEK, was responsible for exposing the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the Arak heavy water facility back in August of 2002," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI's Washington office. Those revelations triggered the international response that has played out for the past 15 years. He says the group's sources inside Iran have also made many other discoveries that have panned out over the years. And Jafarzadeh says outside experts back up those conclusions. "Those that have seen the satellite imagery that we disclosed during our press conference have confirmed that the satellite imagery shows the construction, the way the buildings are configured, basically corroborates what we're saying, that this facility is being used for nuclear weaponization," said Jafarzadeh. He says further proof that the intelligence is right can seen in the official Iranian response. "None of them denied our claim outright. Instead, they started attacking us, saying how bad we are and why the United States should not listen to us, without addressing the particular revelation we made. They made no reference to it, nor did they invite the IAEA to come and visit," said Jafarzadeh. Jafarzadeh says the specific facility shown in the satellite photos depicts a location specializing in detonators. Much of the secret activity is believed to be going on at Iran's Parchin facility, a spot that Jafarzadeh says Iran blocked inspectors from for years until finally relenting two years ago. He says it makes sense for Iran to do clandestine work there. "They thought they closed the chapter on Parchin. Now with this new information and new evidence, there is a renewed call among nuclear experts that the IAEA should be able to go back to this place among other locations that the IAEA has never inspected," said Jafarzadeh. He also outlined what the process ought to include. "The IAEA now has to have access to all of those buildings, to be able to interview their top nuclear scientists, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who has been the top person behind the whole program over the past 15-20 years," said Jafarzadeh. So why hasn't Parchin been part of regular inspections since the JCPOA was enacted in 2015? Jafarzadeh says the Iranians successfully limited inspections to "declared sites." "I'm not very comfortable with the term "declared site" because these are not really sites declared by Iran. It was exposed by us and then Tehran said, 'Oh yes, we have those sites,'" said Jafarzadeh. "[The IAEA] basically keeps track of how many centrifuges they have, how much uranium hexafluoride was produced. They have a checklist they go through, and of course Tehran is very shrewd and they know this is not the place they need to cheat," said Jafarzadeh, noting the violations happen at facilities the IAEA cannot access or does not know about. Jafarzadeh says the actions of the West over the past 4-5 years have clearly emboldened the likes of Iran and he notes there are close ties between the two nuclear programs. "There is a very, very close relationship between North Korea that is helping Iran, not just on their missile program but specifically on their nuclear weapons program," said Jafarzadeh. "It's a very scary situation." |
| DNC Chair: Pro-Lifers Need Not Apply |
| Mon, 24 Apr 2017 17:00:30 EST Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez says all Democrats should support line up in favor of abortion and calls the position "not negotiable," a clarification for which pro-life groups are exceedingly grateful. The issue arose after Perez publicly backed the pro-life Democratic nominee in the race for mayor of Omaha, Nebraska. After criticism from pro-choice forces, Perez released a statement insisting he and the party were not straying from their stance on abortion. 1cEvery Democrat, like every American, should support a woman 19s right to make her own choices about her body and her health, 1d stated Perez. 1cThat is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state. 1d "At a time when women 19s rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country, we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice, 1d added Perez. Democrats supporting abortion is nothing new but even pro-life groups are a bit surprised that Perez would publicly such a blanket position for the party. "I think it's a clarifying statement but I think these are always good to really hammer home to the grassroots that there's a huge disconnect here. There's such an extreme disconnect about what Perez said and the way that rank and file Democrats act in their state legislatures and in the way that they vote," said Susan B. Anthony List Communications Director Mallory Quigley. But she appreciates Perez offering the real position of Democrats on abortion. "He is the perfect chairman for a party whose platform says, 'We support abortion on demand up until the moment of birth, paid for by tax dollars,'" said Quigley. Quigley also says Democrats are stifling candidates at the state and local levels because of abortion. "At the state level, there are still a decent number of pro-life Democrats but we see that they're not moving up. There's only less than a handful of pro-life Democrats in the House," said Quigley. She says the pro-life Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., are buckling under the pressure to conform. "Joe Manchin, who for a long time now has been the only reliable pro-life vote in the Senate, took a picture with Planned Parenthood supporters and said that he's all in for Planned Parenthood," said Quigley. Some Democrats tried to soften the party line, at least semantically. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., claimed the Democrats had room for pro-life lawmakers. But the number two Democrat in the upper chamber told CNN that room did not extend to actual policy. "We need to be understanding of those who take a different position because of personal conscience, but as long as they are prepared to back the law, Roe v. Wade, back women's rights as we'ved defined them under the law, then I think they can be part of the party," said Durbin. Quigley says that explanation and similar efforts by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are really no different than what Perez said. "That's not a pro-life position. It is not enough for the pro-life movement for you to say, 'I personally wouldn't have an abortion or encourage an abortion, but I'm not going to do a single thing to help a baby at 20 weeks or beyond, capable of living outside the womb, and I'm not going to protect that child from abortion.' That is not a pro-life position," said Quigley. She adds that the mild rebukes from Pelosi and Durbin are most likely just for public relations. "What seems to be a disagreement is actually just a show to try to continue to obfuscate their abortion extremism because some people, like Pelosi and Durbin, know that it sounds better to allude to some sort of right to conscience in the Democratic Party, which of course is non-existent," said Quigley. With Republicans in charge of Congress and in the White House, Quigley is hopeful that this will be the year to move federal dollars away from Planned Parenthood and into community health centers that provide health care to women without performing more than 300,000 abortions per year. She also wants to see passage of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban most abortions after weeks of pregnancy. She says the shifting of money away from Planned Parenthood should happen through reconciliation on the health care bill. However, with the 20-week ban needing 60 votes to advance in the Senate, Quigley suspects the GOP will need to pick up several seats in 2018 to push that bill over the finish line. |
| Virginia Battle Continues Over Transgender School Policy |
| Thu, 20 Apr 2017 16:31:48 EST The Virginia Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the new transgender accommodation policy at one of America's largest school districts, but the lead attorney for the plaintiffs vows the case will come back and his side will win when the decision focuses on the facts and the law. Last week, the Virginia Supreme Court dismissed the case against Fairfax County Public Schools - the largest school district in Virginia and one of the ten largest in the United States - because it concluded the plaintiffs lacked standing before the court. "They ruled on what's called standing, whether there was an actual injury here. What we have here is the school board passed the policies but they haven't actually enforced them yet against any student to the point of disciplining them," said Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver, who represented the unnnamed student, the student's parents and another parent with kids in the Firfax Public Schools. "Fear of discipline should be enough. That's what we argued," said Staver. "But the Virginia Supreme Court ultimately ruled that it's not ready for a decision yet until someone actually has standing. They have to have a real injury, rather than just fear that they're going to have an injury, even though the fear is very real and very legitimate," said Staver. He says once the case comes back with standing, the court will be compelled to side with his clients. "Whenever we get them to rule on the actual merits, that is whether the school board can add additional non-discrimination categories that are not included in the state law, then we win. It's an easy decision at that point in time," said Staver. Staver strongly disagrees that a student must be disciplined to have standing to challenge the policy, noting that a formal punishment, even if later reversed, could tarnish a student's efforts to be accepted at a military academy or work in sensitive areas like national security and intelligence. He also says students shouldn't have to negotiate a policy that doesn't meet state law. "The school can't do something that's clearly illegal, which it's done, hang it over the heads of the students and threaten that they will be disciplined and then simply void legal repercussions by not disciplining them, but threatening discipline. The fact that they threaten discipline is enough to deter someone's actions. For the good students, they're not going to want to walk into a buzzsaw of discipline," said Staver. Staver is confident of winning on the merits because of the Dillon Rule, which states no local non-discrimination policy can add protected classes beyond what has been added under state law. Virginia has not added transgender or sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy. He says the looming fear of punishment based on an illegal policy is already condemned in legal precedent. "If you have a violation of free speech, you can file for that action. But if you're threatened in your free speech, you don't have to go through discipline or threat or arrest, if the law or the rule or the policy or the ordinance actually creates a chilling effect so that you refrain from speaking, because you are fearful that you will be disciplined or charged or arrested, that's enough," said Staver. Nonetheless, Staver says he is already gathering evidence that will argue his clients has suffered injury because of the policy. In fact, Staver says evidence came in during the lead-up to oral arguments before the court that would have greatly strengthened his case, but he points out evidence discovered after filing the case is inadmissible. Staver is unsure whether other left-leaning school board in Virginia will take the court's dismissal as a green light to enact their own policies. He strongly urges districts not to follow the lead of Fairfax County or else they will end up paying massive court fees when they lose on the merits. On the other hand, Staver says the more school districts pursue the transgender accommodation policy, the easier it will be to gather evidence to being the case back to the Virginia Supreme Court. Another advantage for Staver, is the Trump administration's repeal of the Obama Justice Department's directive that all public schools adopt transgender accommodation policies. "It definitely strengthens our case on the merits because Fairfax County or any other county could say, 'We're just doing it because we're compelled to do so by this federal directive. They can't do that anymore. That particular argument , that crutch has been taken away from them," said Staver. |
| 'An Opportunity That May Not Come for Another Several Decades' |
| Tue, 18 Apr 2017 16:02:31 EST As Americans sprinted to the mailbox or their computer to file their income taxes Tuesday, the leader of the nation's largest grassroots taxpayers organization says major tax reform is necessary, is still doable and there's no better time than now. National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp says Republicans may well have the best political opportunity to tackle tax reform in this lifetime. "We have an opportunity here that may not come in another several decades to do something more comprehensive with the tax system. And we can't afford to pass it up, not because of the politics but because of many other situations, a perfect storm if you will, that has both opportunity and peril," said Sepp. He says American must realize that if major reforms don't happen, Americans will be much more burdened by the system in the years to come. "Standing still on tax reform means falling behind. It does not mean more of the status quo. It means something worse, and lawmakers need to remember that," said Sepp. How will it get worse? "Otherwise, we're going to get into a situation where we have a small cut in tax rates, the overall tax burden shifts only slightly, and the horrible burdens of having to comply with the system remain and actually worsen," said Sepp. In addition to wanting to see individual and business tax rates drop, Sepp says aggressively simplifying the system needs to be a huge priority, after Americans suffered through seven billion hours of compliance headaches this year, plus an addition billion hours on paperwork to comply with the tax code. "For most families, that would mean increasing the standard deduction and personal exemption so that most households don't really find it attractive or worthwhile to itemize all of those deductions. That cuts down the time and effort spent on the filing process. For businesses, it means simplifying the reporting of expenses," said Sepp. "Right now, all of the depreciation schedules and the clawbacks and the exceptions to the rule require tremendous amounts of calculation and record-keeping," said Sepp. Many experts believe the approach and scope of the tax reform effort was kneecapped by the failure of Congress to address health care reform in March. Sepp says there's an argument to be made that repealing and replacing Obamacare would have made tax reform easier, and that the effort now is complicated by weak political momentum and the many Obamacare taxes that are still standing. Nonetheless, Sepp believes a bill can still get done, with congressional committees crafting bills in the fall and sending a final version to President Trump early next year. While Republicans do have the votes to pass reform without help from the Democrats, the legislation would be more effective if the Senate could find 60 votes to pass the eventual plan. With 60 votes or more, the tax reforms are made permanent unless Congress acts again in the future. Without 60 votes, the provisions would sunset after 10 years and return to the rates and policies in existence now. Sepp thinks it may be possible to win over some Democrats. "If Republicans try hard enough to involve Democrats in the process, especially on the Senate side, they might very well be surprised by the cooperation they'll get. Ron Wyden, for example, the ranking minority on the Senate Finance Committee, has long supported revisions and simplifications to the tax system," said Sepp. "It won't be easy. There'll be a lot of arguments along the way, but engaging both parties in this effort will produce a stronger bill and a longer-lasting one," said Sepp. But how badly do lawmakers want to simplify the system? Politicians created the current maze and various interests benefit from it, so is there really enough will power to get this done? Sepp says it's up to the people. "What we need to do it harness the power of the grassroots to say to politicians, 'Look, all these favors you have attempted to extend to us in the name of providing us constituents with relief is not worth the distortions to the economy, the long run costs to us as families and business owners. It's got to stop," said Sepp. Given the current political climate, Sepp believes ideas like a flat tax or a national consumption, or Fair Tax will struggle to find their way into a final bill, but he reiterates this is the best chance to get this right in a long time. "It's going to be difficult to convince Congress to go whole hog on this effort, but that's why groups like National Taxpayers Union exist, to make sure that we push the art of the possible to its maximum, so that we can get the best, strongest bill that will help the economy, that will makes taxes simpler and will stand the test of time," said Sepp. He says the simple rule of thumb ought to be for reform to benefit the greatest number of people possible. "This isn't just about cutting rates for large businesses that have operations overseas. It's about reducing rates and complexity for small businesses and allowing the filing process to be more transparent and less burdensome for families as well," said Sepp. |
| 'The Brainwashing Is Very Effective' |
| Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:22:10 EST Liberal groupthink is nothing new on college campuses but resorting to violence and intimidation to stifle views contrary to the progressive orthodoxy is a dangerous escalation, according to a prominent scholar who was recently targeted by an angry mob of students and warns free speech is under fierce assault in the United States. Earlier this month, the Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald experienced the hostility first-hand, while visiting the west coast, first at UCLA and then at Claremont-McKenna College. Her visit to Claremont-McKenna was the most harrowing, with protesters blocking access to the auditorium where Mac Donald was to give her presentation. Organizers then tried to have her speak via video access before the event was finally cancelled over security concerns. "The day before Claremont-McKenna, I had an effort to storm the stage. That was at UCLA. At Claremont-McKenna was a blockade around the building where I was supposed to speak to prevent anyone from entering to be able to listen to me in person and interact with me. That's certainly the most extreme that I've experienced," said Mac Donald. Protesters targeted Mac Donald in response to her book "The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe," accusing her of being a racist and a fascist. This is the latest in a series of campus unrest as a result of a speaker who does not subscribe to standard liberal views. Riots broke out at the University of California at Berkeley when Milo Yiannapoulos was scheduled to speak. A professor at Middlebury College in Vermont suffered a concussion while trying to protect American Enterprise Institute scholar Dr. Charles Murray. Mac Donald says the intolerance of the left is reaching new heights. "I had a direct experience of how a student body reacts to a non-conforming opinion. It basically reacts like an immune system does, surrounding the alien virus with corpuscles to try to expel it from the body politic," said Mac Donald. "There is no an increasing insistence that everybody hew to the same line and that line is something very, very dangerous for the future of America. It hold that this country is rife with oppression, that minorities in particular are the victim of non-stop bigotry and anybody who dares propose facts to the contrary is simply not to be tolerated," said Mac Donald. Colleges are often billed as the place to explore and compare different ideas, yet administrators seem to do little or nothing to punish students who stoke violence or prevent the exercise of free speech. Mac Donald is not surprised. "College administrators are reluctant to discipline students for clear violations of their rules for fear of alienating the parents, alienating the student darlings. That's a purely economic self-interest explanation for the passivity of administrators in the face of this," said Mac Donald. But she sees another factor at work as well. "The campus bureaucracies are being colonized now by people of the left who believe in identity politics and have a stake in students thinking of themselves as victims because that necessitates, allegedly, an ever-growing student service and diversity bureaucracy," said Mac Donald. One of the great ironies of this campus groupthink for Mac Donald is the insistence the students are fighting fascism by forbidding alternative viewpoints to be expressed. "I'm amazed anybody has the sheer gall to label themselves anti-fascist, who then says [they] are shutting down me, or Charles Murray or Ann Coulter and nobody else gets to hear that person without anybody taking a vote. I mean it is the very definition of at least soft totalitarianism," said Mac Donald. Mac Donald says liberal academics are succeeding in their mission to groom the next generation to consider only the ideas of the far-left. "The brainwashing is very effective. Students are told that the police are racist and that mass incarceration is a reality aimed at re-enslaving blacks. If you're hit with that enough, you do start to believe it," said Mac Donald. As intimidation and violence becomes more common on campus, where does this kind of development ultimately lead our society? "It ends badly," said Mac Donald. "These students graduate. They take levers of power in government, in corporate HR departments. They are absolutely committed to the view that America is profoundly racist, sexist, mysogynist, you name it. They will put in policies to support that view," said Mac Donald. But in addition to the impact on the culture and the workplace, Mac Donald fears for the future of free speech. "Traditionally, America has had the greatest degree of freedom of speech of any western, industrialized country. There's much stronger speech codes in Europe. I think we could be moving in that direction and that means less and less possibility for correcting the errors that guide so many members of the cultural and political elite," said Mac Donald. |
| The Case for the Fair Tax |
| Thu, 13 Apr 2017 17:40:00 EST As the deadline to file federal income tax returns approaches, multiple protests are planned, and while some critics of President Trump will take to the streets to demand he release his tax returns, another demonstration will urge him to drastically reform the tax system. On Saturday, Americans for Fair Taxation will rally outside Trump Tower in New York City Saturday between 11 a.m.-1 p.m. ET, with a very simple message. "The message is it's time to actually do real tax reform," said Americans for Fair Taxation President Steve Hayes. The Fair Tax would scrap federal income taxes for individuals and businesses, along with payroll taxes and state sales taxes and replace it with a 23 percent national retail sales tax. Hayes says there are multiple reasons for pursuing a simpler system like the Fair tax, starting with the need to curb deficits. He says paying taxes with each purchase makes tax evasion virtually impossible, which is not the case with the more traditional reforms currently being discussed in Congress. "You're going to continue to have legal evasion which, according to the study just released by Professor (Richard) Cebula using IRS and government numbers, (there will be) nine trillion dollars dollars of evasion over the next ten years," said Hayes. He says the alternative to the Fair Tax is a lot more audits. "There's less than 0.7 percent audits of which three-quarters are no longer face to face audits but through the mail. They're going to have to do 10-15 times more actual audits than they are now to even start to put a dent in evasion," said Hayes. "The 80 percent who obey the law are going to get harassed, just like the 20 percent that are not following the law," said Hayes. Hayes says politicians and special interests benefit from the perpetuation of the current system, but the American people do not. He says a Fair tax would also help people see how big government is. "Everything is funded through a retail sales tax. People, when they make purchases, will see the real cost of government at the time of a retail good or a retail service," said Hayes. He says that makes politicians nervous. "If there's anything that's going to help reduce the urge of these guys to reduce the urge to spend and look for ways to cut, it's going to be everybody watching them closely, because every time we make a purchase we see the cost of government," said Hayes. One of the most common arguments against the Fair Tax is that a sales tax is a heavier burden on lower income Americans. Hayes says that's not true, noting that Americans living under the poverty line would get monthly assistance on top of any income, in essence lowering their effective tax rate from what it is now. He also notes that the payroll tax system is far more regressive, since it starts taxing the very first dollar earned by an employee. While getting the Fair Tax to be part of tax reform this year seems like a steep climb, Hayes is encouraged that President Trump seems eager to hear all ideas. And while he says the current framework of reform is an improvement, the Fair tax would make things far better. "Anything is better than we have now. No question about it. The Brady plan is better than we have now, but it's all temporary because the lobbyists will start changing it once it's there. We need to make a fundamental change. We need to give our freedom back and put in a system that works for everybody," said Hayes. |
| 'Drain the Swamp' |
| Wed, 12 Apr 2017 17:41:05 EST A Republican congressman's new book details why it's so difficult to bring about meaningful conservative reforms in Washington and how even GOP are quickly conditioned to go along to get along, a practice he says is driving up the debt and deeply eroding confidence in Washington. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colorado, is beginning his second term in the House of Representatives, but his first two years in Congress provided enough fodder for his new book "Drain the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse Than You Think." Buck narrowly lost the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Colorado. Four years later he easily won a seat in the House after incumbent Cory Gardner embarked on a successful U.S. Senate bid. Already convinced Washington was broken, It didn't take long for Buck to discover it was far worse than he realized. "What surprised me was learning the specifics of the corruption, learning the details and how the establishment and leadership uses certain influences to try to create discipline and order to a certain extent but to also make sure that the special interest groups are taken care of," said Buck. One of the first big surprises was the pressure put on all members to fundraise on behalf of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is tasked with winning House races. Buck says all members are obligated to raise money and those on lucrative committees are tasked with raising even more. The most high-profile committees include Appropriations, Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, Rules and Financial Services. "We have dues and if you're on an 'A' committee your dues are higher than if you're on a 'B' committee. By higher, I mean $450,000 this year for being on an 'A' committee," said Buck. For members to reach that bar requires groveling to special interests. "They are reached by approaching special interest groups and asking for money. The challenge is those groups expect something in return. So there is a quid pro quo. There is a system in place. you are required to pay dues and you are required to raise money. Part of that is going to be being influenced by people that you may not agree with," said Buck. And as the parties try to placate their special interest donors, spending keeps rising and debt keeps increasing. Buck says leadership, in turn, tries to protect members from having to cast controversial or unpopular votes. "The long-term effect is that members of Congress are reluctant to take tough votes and they are not reluctant to add more debt to our national balance sheet," said Buck. In addition to raising money, members are also expected to toe the line in backing the leadership's agenda. "Drain the Swamp" is filled with first and second-hand accounts of former House Speaker John Boehner forcefully demanding members vote a certain way, punishing them for voting against the his wishes by stripping committee assignments and congressional travel opportunities, and berating members in front of their colleagues. Other GOP figures, all of whom are named in the book, are called out for refusing to allow members to see the text of what they were voting on in Appropriations Committee hearings or for excoriating colleagues for voting against the wishes of Chairman Hal Rogers. Buck says it's easy to be convinced to go with the flow in Washington and that's why he says electing men and women of strong character is critical. "Our founding fathers created a system of government that really depends on a moral people and principled elected officials. A lot of the individuals coming to D.C. are very well meaning and principled when they get to D.C," said Buck. "I think there is a corrupting influence in the swamp. Ultimately, I think most people who are members of Congress start to compromise their values and start to figure out how they can get re-elected and avoid taking tough votes. That's really the central issue in what's corrupting the system," said Buck. Buck is very tough on Boehner in the book but says current House Speaker Paul Ryan runs a much better process. "Paul Ryan is a policy wonk. He is a very bright individual. He can talk policy with anybody and does his best to convince people through good policy rather than through threats and intimidation or any kind of benefits. The policy and the politics are much more separated with Paul Ryan than they were with John Boehner," said Buck. But he notes Ryan has some key tests to pass in this Congress. "We'll see soon with the health care initiative and other initiatives on tax reform and immigration, whether Paul is going to be able to bring a coalition together to get that job done," said Buck. And how can the culture of Congress be turned around? "I think we get out of this with good principled people. I think we get out of this with Americans reading this book, understanding what is going on in D.C. in some detail and exercising and exerting influence from the outside to make sure that we reform," said Buck. "We need to make sure that the pay-to-play system is ruled unethical by the Ethics Committee and that it stops. I think there's a lot of reforms that we can enact inside Congress. I think we also need to work from the outside to pass important measures like a balanced budget amendment," said Buck. One of Buck's greatest concern is the nation's $20 trillion in official debt, especially with entitlements and unfunded liabilities set to explode over the next decade. He suggests one the most irresponsible patterns in Congress is to pass government funding through emergency omnibus measures, rather than through the individual appropriations bills. Buck says there hasn't been regular order on appropriations since 1994. "When we don't go through regular order and pass 12 appropriations bills that are discussed on the floor and open for amendment, we end up with a last-minute crisis management situation, where we're told we have to keep government open," said Buck. "A lot of spending programs are put into the omnibus bill that members don't know about because we have very little time to review that bill, and it costs taxpayers more money," said Buck. Buck says he wrote the book to get Americans even more motivated to clean up our politics. "I'd like to make sure people understand that D.C. is broken and that it is each American's responsibility and to stand up and take action. I hope it motivates people to be involved in the system," said Buck. |
| 'A Tremendous Victory for America's Gun Owners' |
| Tue, 11 Apr 2017 16:29:21 EST Former National Rifle Association President David Keene says the second amendment dodged a major bullet when the vacant seat on the Supreme Court was filled by Neil Gorsuch, but he warns the threat to gun ownership is far from over. Keene gives credit to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for refusing to advance President Obama's choice of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court and for doing what was necessary to get Gorsuch confirmed. "If Garland had won confirmation, that would have reversed the majority favoring the second amendment as defined by the founders and as ratified by the Supreme Court in the Heller decision some years ago as an individual right to keep and bear arms," said Keene. "Preventing the Garland confirmation and replacing Antonin Scalia with Justice Gorsuch is a tremendous victory for America's gun owners, for believers in freedom and for the second amendment," said Keene. Keene, who is now opinion editor at The Washington Times and co-author of "Shall Not be Infringed," firmly believes that the gun issue and the Supreme Court vacancy was a big reason for President Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton and for winning over voters in swing states who had supported Democrats in the past. But Keene is quick to warn second amendment supporters that the fight is not over. "It does not mean that gun owners can be comfortable in terms of what might happen during the course of the next year or so at the Supreme Court level because it simply re-establishes the majority that existed with Scalia on the court, a very shaky majority," said Keene. Another major threat, he says, comes from Obama's handiwork in signing on to the United Nations Small Arms Treaty. Even without Senate ratification, Keene says the agreement puts pressure on the U.S. to violate its own Constitution. "Even if it's not ratified, under international law, a nation is supposedly prohibited from acting contrary to the spirit and letter of a treaty, even though it has not been ratified through processes within the country itself," said Keene. The U.S. can ignore the treaty, but Keene is urging decisive action against it. "It really needs to be killed. There are two ways to do that. One, the President of the United States has the authority to withdraw this nation's signature from the treaty. I hope that President Trump will consider doing that. The other way to handle it is for the Senate to bring it up and put a stake through it's heart," said Keene. Keene says the treaty is just an international version of the gun restrictions that many Democrats want to impose here in the U.S. "They want bans on so-called assault weapons that are in fact semi-automatic weapons rather than real assault weapons. They want limits on magazines. They want all the things that Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wanted here," said Keene. Despite the wind being at the back of gun rights advocates, Keene says his side must realize that gun control supporters are never going to to give up. "They actually believe that if they snap their fingers and if firearms would disappear, there'd no longer be burglaries. There'd no longer be robberies. We'd all live in peace and I assume unicorns would dance across the horizon. It's almost a religious fervor with which they go after firearms ownership," said Keene. And Keene says pro-second amendment Americans must be equally relentless in protecting their constitutional rights. "Like most freedoms, this is a freedom that if you don't stand up for it and if you aren't wiling to defend it and if you're not vigilant, it's liable to disappear on you," said Keene. |
| 'The Obama Era in American Foreign Policy Is Over' |
| Fri, 7 Apr 2017 16:31:31 EST Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is praising President Trump for ordering a missile strike against a key Syrian airfield in response to Syria's latest use of chemical weapons against it's own people, and Bolton says it tells the rest of the world that this administration sees the world much differently than the last one. "The Obama era in American foreign policy is over and there's a president in the White House with a very different worldview," said Bolton, pointing to Obama's repeated threats of military action in response to using chemical weapons. He says the Syrians, Russians, and Iranians clearly didn't expect Trump to act so decisively. "I think they're so stunned that Trump acted, given the performance of Obama over the years, saying that that he would view even the movement of chemical weapons as a red line and not enforcing it," said Bolton. On Thursday, Trump green-lighted the launch of 59 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles from American ships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The missiles targeted Shayrat Air Base, the installation from which the latest chemical weapons attacks were launched. Reaction has not fallen along traditional lines. Mainstream Republicans and many liberals are hailing the decision, while some of Trump's most ardent supporters during the campaign were very critical. Bolton believes it was the right call. "Anytime you have an authoritarian regime like this that joins a treaty like the Chemical Weapons Convention, says it will give up these weapons of mass destruction and lies about it and uses the weapons, that is a direct threat to the national security of the United States," said Bolton. He is also hopeful that other bad actors around the world will act differently when they see the consequences of Syria's behavior. "It's important around the world that people know that we're simply not going to tolerate countries entering these treaties and then violating them by using weapons against innocent civilians. I think it'll have an impact well beyond Syria. I think North Korea and Iran, in particular, should draw a lesson from this. I think China and Russia should as well," said Bolton. But is this an isolated strike or the start to a more entangled involvement in the region once again? Bolton says Trump's actions are unlikely to trigger a slippery slope of U.S. engagement. He also says the region is about to look a bit differently and the U.S. must be positioned well. "We're going to defeat ISIS, hopefully in a short period of time, maybe by the end of the year. We need to think ahead to what the Middle East is going to look like post-ISIS and I certainly hope it does not include a Russian airbase at Latakia in Syria, which the Obama administration allowed them to have," said Bolton. Bolton says this episode should make it clear that assertions of Trump being a Vladimir Putin stooge were grossly unfounded. "I think this is very interesting commentary for all those in Washington that basically argued that Trump was a Manchurian candidate with his strings pulled by Moscow. That's not quite the way this has worked out," said Bolton. The timing of the strike played out in response to Syria's use of chemical weapons, but Bolton says launching the mission while the Chinese president is in the U.S. sends a direct message about North Korea as well. "It was more than an amazing coincidence that President Xi Xinping of China was in Mar-A-Lago with President Trump when he decided on the airstrike against Syria, certainly people have looked at that possibility with respect to North Korea," said Bolton. He says there is great urgency for Trump and Xi to act on North Korea as the communist nation's nuclear program and missile system continue to advance. "They're so far advanced toward putting a nuclear device on an intercontinental ballistic missile and hitting targets on the west coast of the United States in the very near future. Some people have estimated that to mean next year," said Bolton. Bolton believes the common ground for Trump and Xi would be for the two Koreas to be united again and erase the nuclear menace. |
| Tea Party Cheers Nuking of Unprecedented "Partisan Filibuster" |
| Thu, 6 Apr 2017 16:36:59 EST Senate Republicans voted to end the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees Thursday after Democrats refused to advance the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to a final vote, a move grassroots conservatives say had to happen out of respect for the Constitution. Republicans cited the precedent of Democrats from November 2013, when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led a rules change to kill the filibuster for lower court judicial nominees and executive branch personnel requiring confirmation. The move came after a 55-45 vote to end debate on Gorsuch, five votes short of the 60 votes needed. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell then moved to consider the Gorsuch nomination under the rule change instituted by Democrats. His motion was denied, but McConnell then appealed the ruling of the chair and the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees was killed in a party line vote. While Democrats call the move an attack on democracy, Tea Party Patriots Founder Jenny Beth Martin says it's the Democrats who took an extreme position with their filibuster. "When it comes to Supreme Court nominees, never in the history of our entire country have we had a partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. It just hasn't been done. What the Democrats are doing right now is breaking the tradition and the practice that we've had in this country for over 200 years," said Martin, whose group has been aligned with the Judicial Crisis Network in pushing for the confirmation of Gorsuch. The Tea Party Patriots are best known for advocating smaller government and lower taxes, but Martin says the Supreme Court fight is very much in her organization's interest. "We understand it is critically important that if we want to have constitutionally-limited government, then we have to have a Supreme Court that upholds the law and judges laws based on the Constitution," said Martin. She is convinced the Democrats don't really have a case against Gorsuch but are still bitter over 2016. "They are just frustrated that it's not their person, that they lost the election in November, that it is President Trump who won the election and therefore won the ability to nominate Judge Gorsuch and they are doing all they can to resist what President Trump was elected to do," said Martin. Martin says the public is engaged on this issue and overwhelmingly in support of Gorsuch, but she says Democrats aren't listening to all of their constituents. "Democrat senators are listening to their base. They're not listening to the whole of the American people, but they are listening to their base. So they are doing what they think their base wants them to do," said Martin. She believes the effort to filibuster Gorsuch will backfire on red state Democrats like Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., in 2018. "She has said that this would be a very political maneuver if they filibustered Gorsuch. That's what she's doing and she's doing it out of pure politics, not out of what's best for the country," said Martin. "I know that it is a political job and the things the elected officials do they are going to look at things through the prism of politics. Sometimes you need to do what's best for the country because you have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution for your country," said Martin. And Martin is firmly convinced fidelity to the Constitution will be a hallmark of Gorsuch's time on the Supreme Court. "He looks at the law and he respects the law as it's written. He doesn't intend to make law and create law out of whole cloth from the bench with his decisions, and he is going to look at the law through the prism of the Constitution," said Martin. With the filibuster nuked, a final Senate vote on Gorsuch is expected Friday evening. |
| A Grotesque Abuse of Power? |
| Wed, 5 Apr 2017 17:20:37 EST A former federal prosecutor says it is highly unusual for anyone in a political position to request the "unmasking" of U.S. citizens and he says it is vital for congressional investigators to determine the full scope of the federal government's incidental surveillance of Donald Trump and his associates during the campaign and the presidential transition. On Tuesday, Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice admitted to requesting the intelligence community unmask Americans captured in communications with foreigners under legal surveillance. However, she insists there was nothing unusual about it and that she did not leak any of the classified information. Andrew C. McCarthy was a federal prosecutor, most famous for leading the prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his associates for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and their plots to attack other New York City landmarks. He's written about the Rice revelations this week at National Review Online. He says Rice's actions were very unusual. "We're talking about what's supposed to be incidental collection. It starts to look a whole lot less incidental if you're doing the same thing again and again with respect to the same people or group of people," said McCarthy. "By the time someone like Susan Rice gets a finished intelligence product or report in her hands, the unmasking question has already been answered by the people who know it best, which is the collecting agency. It's highly, highly unusual for consumers of intelligence to go to the collecting agencies and ask them to unmask the identities," said McCarthy. With Rice admitting to requesting the unmasking, the question now becomes what President Obama knew. McCarthy says every administration has safeguards in place to protect the president and give him plausible deniability in situations like this. But he says it was clear to the intelligence-gathering agencies (CIA, NSA, and FBI) who they were responding to. "If you were the NSA and you got a call from Susan Rice, who says, 'You know, I'd really like to see the identity of this American that you haven't identified in your report," when you hear that question, you're not talking to just any government official. You're talking to the president's right hand," said McCarthy, who says the NSA still should have denied the request. He also believes it's highly unlikely that Rice personally did any leaking. But he is beginning to connect the dots on how all of this played out. "I think what happened here is you had very high people at the top who did the unmasking. You had this executive order by Obama which pushed this information out across the intelligence community. And then you have people like Evelyn Farkas, who tell us that the administration was putting pressure on members of Congress to ask the intelligence community for as much disclosure as possible," said McCarthy. "So what you did is you set up a situation where leaking of classified information, probably about Trump people, became inevitable. And what ended up happening over the last five months? There was lots of leaking," said McCarthy. McCarthy says his experience leads him to some simple conclusions. "Where I come from, the best evidence of conspiracy is success. If what they were trying to do was create a situation where there would be a lot of leaking of classified information, there's been a lot of success over the last five months," said McCarthy. While finding the actual leakers of the classified information is important, McCarthy says there ought to be higher priorities. "It's much less important that you figure out where people committed crimes here than to get to the bottom of whether there was a grotesque abuse of power," he said. He says answering that question definitively could determine the future security of the nation. "The important thing here is that at the end of this year, all of these surveillance powers are up for reauthorization by Congress. If the American people are led to believe, because it's true, that there's been massive abuse of these powers, those powers are going to be curtailed. There's going to be a scandal and there'll be a lot of pressure on Congress to remove some of these surveillance authorities," said McCarthy. "If that happens, that will make our country much less safe, because all power can be used roguishly. But these powers are there because we actually need them to protect the country. I'm worried that this scandal puts the government in such disrepute, once we get to the bottom of it, that the public will not trust the government to use these powers responsibly," said McCarthy. McCarthy is not worried about the bickering in the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, suggesting it's just like lawyers arguing vigorously on different sides of a case. However, he does say it is up to Congress to find out what happened. "Congress is the only game in town because this is all classified information. The intelligence committees are cleared to do this kind of investigation. So if we don't have Congress do it, it's probably not going to get done anytime soon," said McCarthy. |
| U.S. Air Power Batters ISIS |
| Tue, 4 Apr 2017 16:41:53 EST Increased American air power is inflicting heavy damage on ISIS in Mosul and will do the same in the stronghold of Raqqa, but retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen Tom McInerney says the intensity needs to increase and we cannot be distracted over controversies about civilian casualties. McInerney was a frequent critic of what he considered a much too soft air campaign against ISIS from the Obama administration. He is pleased to see Defense Secretary James Mattis and other military leaders embrace their overwhelming advantage from above. "We're seeing a significant increase in the number of sorties and we are seeing increased success. Mosul will fall, I think, in the next two weeks or so," said McInerney, while noting that full control of Mosul will take time because of the large population and the house-to-house fighting that will be needed to prevail in full. As the air campaign begins to reap results, the international community is raising questions about the rate of civilian casualties in Mosul. Some estimates concluded a recent bombing campaign resulted in 200 civilian deaths and many outlets told stories of children searching in vain for their parents. McInerney says there are two things to keep in mind. First, he says people should not assume the U.S. is to blame, because ISIS may well have targeted civilians to build criticism of the U.S. campaign. "The weapons they used - they probably used 100-pound bombs - were not the kind that could have taken a building down like that. So there is a great deal of concern that ISIS deliberately triggered it to kill civilians so we would terminate out bombing there," said McInerney. If verified, McInerney says such tactics would prove just how effective the ramped-up air bombardment really is. "My intuition is that's what they did because the air power has been so effective and they can't do anything to counter it. So they're trying to increase the casualties. Our humanity to man increases the inhumanity to mankind that ISIS is doing. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't," said McInerney. Secretary Mattis defended U.S. actions vs. ISIS. "There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties," said Mattis, according to Reuters. "We go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people. The same cannot be said for our adversaries." McInerney says Mattis is exactly right. "We work very hard at not having casualties, but you're not going to go to zero. You've got to expect some. The quicker we do it and defeat ISIS militarily, the sooner this is going to be over. The caliphate will have been defeated," said McInerney. However, McInerney insists the U.S. needs to limit direct U.S. involvement to the air campaign and perhaps some helicopter support. He says local ground troops must be the ones to defeat ISIS in Mosul and beyond. He also says the Muslim leaders in the region are deafening in their reluctance to challenge the ideology espoused by ISIS. "Where are the fatwas out of Mecca and Medina that decry this evil ideology?" said McInerney. Beyond Mosul, the focal point of defeating ISIS will soon manifest itself in a siege against the self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa. McInerney says air power will be key to success there as well. "It must go. I would have taken down a lot more buildings and important places (before launching a siege), but I'm not running it. I think we need to be very aggressive," said McInerney. And that means ratcheting up the intensity of the bombings ever further. "Oh, it's going to be intensified. It's got to be intensified in Raqqa," said McInerney. |
| Getting in the Way of Good Medicine |
| Tue, 4 Apr 2017 13:44:52 EST Insurance companies are more frequently refusing to cover the cost of prescription drugs, even when their plans promise that they will. This leaves patients less healthy and pharmaceutical companies stripped of incentive to innovate. American Society for Preventive Cardiology President Dr. Seth Baum explains why this problem is getting a lot worse, why it could stifle the advancement of new medicines and how individual patients can be a vital part of the solution. |
| 'Phyllis Schlalfly Was Right' |
| Mon, 3 Apr 2017 16:43:30 EST A prominent conservative, female attorney in Washington is ruffling feathers in the modern women's movement by suggesting victory has been achieved on the issues that drove activism in the first place, but she says abortion activists have since hijacked the movement and any dissent is considered treasonous. In a recent column for the the New York Times, Cleta Mitchell says the original women's movement was not about abortion but about giving men and women a level playing field. "[Abortion] wasn't the genesis of the women's movement. It was really to identify laws that treated women and men differently," said Mitchell, who is a partner in the Washington firm of Foley & Lardner. She has been prominent in many politically-charged cases. Her clients include individuals and groups targeted by the IRS while seeking tax-exempt status. Mitchell points out that U.S. law evolved from English common law, which inflicted inequities such as not allowing women to inherit property. For many years, the law excluded women from certain professions or precluded them from serving on juries. In the 19th century, women were often not allowed to speak in public. More recent issues focused on equal opportunity and pay. Mitchell says women should be eager to point out they won all those debates. "Fortunately, we were successful. Those laws were eradicated. There is no disparate treatment of women under the law in the United States today. Period," said Mitchell. Mitchell was active in the women's movement in the 1970's, but within a few years, she could see the emphasis changing to embrace abortion. "I began to see that happening towards the end of the time I was active in the women's movement, where I began to see that it was morphing at that time into the abortion issue. We were also being confronted with things like gay rights. I didn't have any interest in those things because I thought that wasn't what represented most American women and the challenges women faced," said Mitchell. Mitchell says that morphing continued until abortion rights became the foundation for the movement. "The women's movement refuses to declare victory mainly because it has morphed into a giant lobby for abortion. It's not within the construct of Roe v. Wade. It is abortion on demand with no restrictions," said Mitchell. In addition to the rhetoric, Mitchell says the proof is in who are considered leaders of the women's movement today. "Today, that is really Cecille Richards, the head of Planned Parenthood. That's who they look to as a key leader as well as (avowed communist) Angela Davis. And they bring Gloria Steinem out of mothballs," said Mitchell, who also denounced the women's march in January as well as the aggressive speeches from Davis, Madonna and Ashley Judd. She says the past 45 years have proven a conservative icon 100 percent correct. "The truth of the matter is Phyllis Schlafly was right. In the final analysis, Phyllis was absolutely right. I'm glad I was able to tell her that many, many times before she died last year. She said that it wasn't possible to have an Equal Rights Amendment and the women's movement without it morphing into something we didn't want to have happen," said Mitchell. "Phyllis was right that it was the natural progression that it would be taken over by the left wing, which it was," said Mitchell. So instead of empowering all women, Mitchell says abortion quickly became a wedge issue by which liberal women would shun their conservative counterparts. "I think that conservative, professional women are virtually invisible within the ranks of what would be the women's movement. If you are a pro-life, conservative professional woman, you're really a pariah," said Mitchell, who recounted how women at a conference sponsored in part by her firm turned on her after learning of her legal work on behalf of conservative clients. "When they found out who my clients were, one of them looked at me and said, 'Does that mean that you know Tom DeLay?'" "I said, 'Yes, I know Tom Delay.' He was House Majority Leader at the time." "They said, 'Well, you can't be friends with him.'" "I said, 'As a matter of fact I am friends with him and I think he's a fine legislator and I help him every chance I can.'" These women just looked at me and instantly turned away. One of them said, 'What are your views on abortion?'" "I said, 'I'm pro-life,' and they said, 'How can you be pro-life and pro-woman?' These women just pounced on me," said Mitchell. In some cruel irony, Mitchell says it's often liberal, pro-choice women who stunt the career growth of women who don't agree with them politically. "There is no daylight if you are a pro-life, conservative professional woman. You are not welcome in the ranks of the women who put together networks and events to promote themselves," said Mitchell. |
| Sheriff Clarke: 'We Are A Nation of Laws' |
| Thu, 30 Mar 2017 16:01:10 EST One of the nation's most outspoken law enforcement officers is praising the Trump administration for cracking down on sanctuary cities, slamming liberal politicians for protecting criminal aliens, and explaining what those criminals have done to his community far from the border. Earlier this week, Attorney General Jeff Session announced the Justice Department would lower or eliminate federal grants to locales that fail to cooperate in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Sheriff David Clarke is thrilled. "Finally, we have a president in Donald Trump, who appointed an outstanding attorney general in Jeff Sessions, unapologetic about immigration enforcement. I am as well," said Clarke, who is also author of the new book, "Cop Under Fire: Moving Beyond Hashtags of Race, Crime and Politics for a Better America.' After years of lip service from both parties, Clarke says he is happy to see decisive action. "Finally, we have somebody who's going to get his arms around this thing, along with the Congress. Congress has the constitutional authority to set immigration standards. They're going to have to take the test as well. And you know what? Congress is afraid to deal with this issue because it's explosive," said Clarke. Despite the warning from Sessions about lost federal funds, mayors and police chiefs around the country say they won't budge. Clarke sees that as a dereliction of duty. "These mayors out there are abdicating their responsibility to keep their citizens safe. This is nothing more than aiding and abetting criminal activity when you start to harbor criminal illegal aliens," said Clarke. Opponents of the Trump policy, such as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, often stake their positions on America's history of welcoming immigrants seeking a better life, without distinguishing between legal and illegal immigration. Clarke says that distinction matters. "You got a guy in Donald Trump, the president of the United States, who's actually going to enforce the law. That is a shock to some people. But we're a nation of laws. People want to say we're a nation of immigrants. No, we're not. We are a nation of laws. We are a nation of lawful immigration," said Clarke. The sheriff also emphasizes that all the mayors and law enforcement officials are being asked to do is deal with criminals who are in the U.S. illegally. "I'm not talking about immigration in general and not even illegal immigration. I'm not giving it a pass, but I'm focusing on criminal illegal aliens. I think it's a good place to start because these individuals have no business in the country. Many of them have been deported over and over and over again only to return, which shows the border is porous," said Clarke. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is nowhere near the southern border, but Clarke says the effects of illegal immigration are having a very real impact on his community. "We had a case several weeks ago of a criminal illegal alien (with a) criminal history. He was not deported because of the catch and release policies that have gone on," said Clarke. "In a domestic violence situation, he pointed a forearm at his girlfriend, threatened his girlfriend, pointed a firearm at his two young kids and threatened them as well," said Clarke. He says that's just one of many crimes and tragedies linked to illegal immigration in Milwaukee County. "We're talking about murders. We've had criminal illegal aliens involved in drunk driving incidents in Milwaukee County who would have killed other motorists. We've had robberies. We've had sexual assaults. We've had incidents of child abuse," said Clarke. Unlike officials in sanctuary cities, Clarke says he fully cooperates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in rooting out criminals in the country illegally. "I work with ICE and ICE officials have access to all of my booking data. They look at it every day and they decide who they're going to give a further look at. I don't tell them, 'Look at this guy and this guy.' They'll decide and then they'll call and tell us, 'Hold onto this guy or this guy. We want to do some further investigation to see if this person is in the country lawfully," said Clarke. One of Clarke's greatest frustrations is the lack of hard data on criminal illegals. He says it's something liberals deliberately want to keep fuzzy. "We don't know the extent of the problem because data isn't being collected on crimes involving a criminal illegal alien. It's funny how, in this country, the left demands that we collect data on all traffic stops involving black motorists. We actually collect that data. There's a box you have to check and a form you have to fill out," said Clarke. "All of a sudden now when we want to collect data, so we have some accuracy as to what's going on with this problem, they don't want anything to do about it," said Clarke, who praises Trump for ordering the collection of data on crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Clarke is taking steps to prepare his department to offer even more cooperation. "I'm going to help ICE. I've applied for the 287 (g) program, which, after training, will deputize my law enforcement officers with immigration enforcement," said Clarke. "We're not going to be doing home raids and we're not going to be doing workplace raids and school raids like the left likes to portray as the sky is falling and the bogeyman propaganda. I'm going to focus on going after criminal illegal aliens, who have been arrested for some very serious crimes, deported previously but got back in," said Clarke. "Once they get that border sealed, the next time we get them out , we'll be able to keep them out," said Clarke. |
| 'Ideology Has Trumped the Law in This Case' |
| Wed, 29 Mar 2017 16:46:59 EST California is lodging 15 felony counts against two pro-life activists behind the landmark 2015 series alleging Planned Parenthood sold the body parts of aborted babies for profit, but the attorney for one of the defendants says a vigorous defense will be offered on multiple fronts. On Tuesday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced 15 felony accounts were filed against Center for Medical Progress President David Daleiden and his colleague, Sandra Merritt. They each face 14 counts for allegedly recording conversations in California without the consent of the other parties. They also face conspiracy charges. "The [attorney general] is in the back pocket of Planned Parenthood. He got a campaign contribution from Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood President Cecille Richard speaks very highly of him and has mentioned him in glowing terms in a press release," said Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver, whose organization is representing Merritt. "He is an ideologue and ideology has trumped the law in this case," added Staver. While these charges are far more numerous and severe than what Merritt fought in Texas last year, Staver says his client is not backing down in the face of the California state government. "Sandra is certainly resolved to move forward. She didn't do anything wrong. This is outrageous but whenever you become a target of a criminal lawsuit or a criminal indictment as in this case, not just of one felony but of fifteen felonies, it's quite daunting," said Staver. "We'll push through this. She'll stand strong and we'll get this case dismissed," said Staver. He says the first order of legal business is a respectable arraignment. "It can be done one of two ways. She either gets publicly arrested or she turns herself in. We're going to work out an arrangement where she doesn't have to worry that at 1:00 in the morning there's going to be a knock on the door and there's going to be somebody there to arrest her and take her down to get booked," said Staver. So what will the defense look like? Staver says it will involve multiple angles, starting with precedent allowing secret recording of conversations if there is suspicion of criminal activity. "One of the defenses is whether or not someone reasonably believes or has a belief that the person being recorded has committed or is about to commit a crime," said Staver. He says there's plenty of evidence to suggest Planned Parenthood was harvesting body parts from aborted babies to sell for profit to research labs like Stem Express. "It's a very reasonable understanding to believe, and I think objectively it's true that Planned Parenthood was engaged in illegal activity," said Staver. He says a pending lawsuit against Stem Express is further evidence of Planned Parenthood's crimes. "[Stem Express was] buying baby body parts from Planned Parenthood. They were then turning around and selling those body parts. They even created a catalog, like you would have a parts catalog. The catalog that Stem Express created was a baby body parts catalog. They had prices for the different body parts. They even ran monthly specials," said Staver. Another important distinction in this case is what defines a private conversation in California. Courts have ruled in other cases that conversations in public places no not qualify as private, although the state of California clearly disagrees. "These conversations were in the public. Those are not confidential. In fact, Cecille Richard has already testified before various committees that many of these conversations weren't even confidential," said Staver. Other undercover videos received a much different response in California, namely videos showing animal cruelty. The people exposing that activity were praised and those exposed in the videos were investigated. Staver says there is a clear double standard. "They are patted on the back for bringing this horrible situation to life. But in this case, instead of being patted on the back for bringing this illegal activity to life of Planned Parenthood and Stem Express and these others, they are the ones targeted for criminal prosecution," said Staver. The pro-life community is rallying around Daleiden and Merritt. Live Action President Lila Rose, who has exposed Planned Parenthood many times in her own undercover videos, says the wrong people are being charged. 1cThe real criminal is Planned Parenthood, not David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. The Center for Medical Progress did a tremendous service by exposing the barbaric baby parts trafficking that Planned Parenthood had kept hidden behind closed doors. They should be lauded for their brave work, not punished," Rose said in a statement. |
| 'One Way or Another, He Will Be Confirmed' |
| Thu, 23 Mar 2017 16:06:49 EST One of the Senate's most conservative members says Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch showed lawmakers and the nation this week why he is a tremendous choice for the high court, while also rejecting the attempts of Democrats to discredit Gorsuch and promising President Trump's choice will be confirmed. Thursday was the third marathon day of questions for Gorsuch before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was already impressed with Gorsuch but says this week is further evidence Gorsuch belongs on the high court. Lee says his biggest takeaway from the hearings is the consistency of Gorsuch. "This judge is the same in every setting in which I've interacted with him, whether it's in a courtroom when I was a lawyer, or whether it's been in my office as he's come by in anticipation of his confirmation process, or whether he's on the hot seat in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he's been this week," said Lee, who is a former federal prosecutor and argued cases before Gorsuch at the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "He provides the same answers, the same thoughtful approach. He doesn't change from one moment to the next. He's considerate of the law. He has great respect for the Constitution. That's exactly the kind of person we need on the Supreme Court," said Lee. Democrats spent three days prodding Gorsuch on everything from his own record to how Republicans treated Merrick Garland last year to his political opinions on issues that could come before the court. Lee says Gorsuch handled the fire well. "I think he handled every question that was thrown at him with grace and with a great deal of composure, even when things got heated," said Lee. Democrats are pursuing a number of strategies to slow down or stall Gorsuch. That includes a call for a delay on final confirmation until the investigation into alleged ties between Russia and the Trump campaign concludes. Lee is having none of that. "I don't see any reason, as much as some would like to delay this particular vote on him, this is something that doesn't need to be affected by circumstances," said Lee. On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he would vote to filibuster Gorsuch and would urge other Democrats to do the same. Despite that effort, Lee thinks Gorsuch will sail past any filibuster. "I think he's going to get through. I think he's going to get through with, perhaps, a whole lot of Democratic support. By the end of the hearing process, it felt like a love-fest, certainly on the Republican side of the aisle. And I sensed a tone of resignation on the part of some of my Democratic colleagues on the committee," said Lee. Democrats changed Senate rules in recent years to kill the filibuster for all nominees except for those tapped for the Supreme Court. Will Republicans change that rule if Democrats can muster a filibuster? "Without engaging in hypothetical speculation about exactly what mechanism will be deployed here, I will say this very confidently, we're going to get Judge Gorsuch confirmed. One way or another, he will be confirmed," vowed Lee. During the hearings, Democrats deployed a number of strategies, starting with the complaint that the Supreme Court seat should already be filled by Judge Merrick Garland. Garland was nominated by President Obama but Senate Republicans did not hold hearings or votes, contending the next president should get to make the choice. Lee says it's time for Democrats to move past the Garland controversy. "Some of them can choose to be upset if they want to, but I think it would be best for everyone if we focused on what's before us, what's happening now rather than what happened a year ago. If they look at this judge on the basis of his record, I think what they're going to find is a sincere judge who just wants to find the right answer under the law," said Lee. Democrats also tried to get Gorsuch to speak out about his personal opinions on political issues that could wind up before the Supreme Court, including campaign financing and same-sex marriage. While Gorsuch's deflections frustrated Democrats, Lee says every nominee has taken the same approach in confirmation in recent years in order to maintain their impartiality. "The fact that something like that comes up in a judicial confirmation hearing can itself be a cause for recusal if the judge engages in a significant discussion of the issue at hand. If we're not careful, this can end up undermining the ability of our Supreme Court justices to do their jobs," said Lee, "The fact that Democrats pushed Judge Gorsuch as often as they did, as many times as they did, to wade into as many hot-button controversies as they chose to do doesn't change the fact this is the standard. This is the rule and this has been the historical practice," In addition to seeking ammunition against Gorsuch, Lee says the political questions expose how Democrats seem to view the courts. "They're trying to make something where nothing really exists. They're trying to convert the Supreme Court, perhaps, into an organ of public policy making," said Lee. |
| GOP Health Care Battle Heads to the Wire |
| Wed, 22 Mar 2017 16:22:27 EST President Trump and GOP leaders are furiously trying to find the votes necessary to pass the American Health Care Act, and while some news 'yes' votes are trickling in, the conservative pushback is also intensifying. By most vote counts, Republicans are still a handful of votes away from being able to send the AHCA on to the Senate. With all Democrats expected to oppose the bill, GOP leaders can only afford to lose 21 members on the final tally. Unofficial whip counts in recent hours show 25-26 Republicans as firm or likely 'no' votes. Sen. Rand Paul expects at least 35 Republicans to oppose it and predicts leaders will scratch the vote. But Trump and GOP leaders have been able to sway a few more Republican votes to the 'yes' column, including Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif. "We have to ask ourselves, if that's all we get, does that give us a better system than the one we have right now?" said McClintock. "It's far, far from perfect, but it does move us in the right direction. I am satisfied that, overall, it does give us a better system than the one we've got right now." McClintock believes Republican leaders made a mistake in insisting on moving a bill that does not address all needed solutions through the reconciliation process. "The biggest problem is they're using this convoluted process called reconciliation that doesn't allow them to repeal the entire act, doesn't allow them to replace the entire act and requires a lot of additional administrative regulations, which are going to be restricted by what the most liberal court in the country allows them to do, and by follow-up legislation whose future in the Senate is highly dubious," said McClintock. McClintock says Republicans and Democrats are responsible for the "convoluted" approach. "Leadership chose that path precisely because of Democratic obstruction in the Senate. The reconciliation process allows us to bypass that 60-vote cloture threshold and pass the bill with a simple 51 votes," said McClintock. However, he believes that a full repeal with all the market based reforms could pass the House and Senate if GOP leaders were willing to play hardball. "I think the pressure on those eight Democratic holdouts would have been irresistible, particularly if (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell said, 'If you want to filibuster this one, you're going to have to actually go down there and filibuster it. You're going to have to stand by your desks and talk until you drop. The record is 58 days. Good luck breaking that. When you're done, we're all going to vote,'" said McClintock. However, McClintock says that option is off the table and he's comfortable voting for the current bill. "Those were arguments I made months ago and lost months ago. We now have this bill in front of us and I think it more than merits an 'aye' vote," he said. McClintock wishes there were provisions in the bill allowing purchase of health insurance across state lines and that yanked out the Obamacare insurance regulations that are considered key drivers of premium and deductible increases. But he says there is a lot to like in the bill as well. "It ends the individual mandate that forces people to buy products they don't want. It ens the employer mandate that's trapped a lot of low-income workers in part-time jobs. It begins to restore consumers' freedom of choice, which I think is the best guarantee of quality and value in any market," said McClintock. "It allows people to meet more of their health care needs with pre-tax dollars. It relieves the premium base of the enormous cost of pre-existing conditions by moving those expenses to a block-granted assigned risk pool," he added. But while there are some notable improvements in the AHCA, for conservatives who have pushed "repeal and replace" since Obamacare became law seven years ago, the House bill simply fails to deliver on that promise. "It's good entitlement reforms in terms of some of the Medicaid reforms that are in the bill," said Chris Jacobs, a former aide to Mike Pence and former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is now senior health policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and CEO of the Juniper Research Group. "But I think it's far short of a full repeal. It leaves Obamacare's architecture in place when it comes to all the mandates and the insurance regulations that are driving up premiums. We need to repeal those mandates and go back to respecting state sovereignty and the states' role in regulating health care and health insurance," said Jacobs. GOP leaders have characterized the AHCA as a binary choice for their colleagues: either support the bill or support the existing health care system by default. Jacobs is not buying that argument. "That's a false choice, the idea that we must do something, that this is something therefore we must do this has a flaw in that logic," said Jacobs. Sponsors of the AHCA say getting rid of the insurance regulations or "Obamacare architecture" is outside the bounds of what can be moved through reconciliation. Jacobs says the handling of this very bill proves that is not true. "I understand the limitations of the reconciliation process, but you have to at least try to repeal the major insurance regulations that are in there. The bill amends some of them, repeals some of them and leaves others in place. It's an ideologically inconsistent position," said Jacobs. "If your position is we can't do any of this because of Senate procedures, then why are we repealing some of them and modifying some of them. If you can modify them, you can repeal them," he said. McClintock finally got on board with the AHCA after successfully sponsoring an amendment in the House Budget Committee that would provide an additional $75 billion to help people afford health insurance as they transition from Obamacare subsidies to tax credits if the new bill becomes law. He is also confident that within a few years, Americans will start to see noticeable price decreases in health coverage. But that same manager's amendment that satisfied McClintock also contains language that could threaten benefits for up to seven million veterans. Jacobs says the technical glitch in the language shows the need to slow down the rush to pass the legislation and avoid ugly surprises after it becomes law, similar to what occurred with Obamacare. As the furious battle for votes plays out, Jacobs hopes leaders pull back and rework the bill to honor the original campaign promises. "There are folks negotiating now as we speak in the Freedom Caucus to repeal some of the insurance regulations and the mandates. Hopefully that succeeds and we get to a better bill that conservatives can support," said Jacobs. McClintock says Republicans should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. "When you pull together a group of people to benefit from their combined wisdom, unfortunately you're also going to get their combined follies, prejudices and misjudgments. You can never get a perfect product out of this process. What you can get is the product that is the most acceptable and moves us forward," said McClintock. |
| 'Every American Should Be Absolutely Disgusted' |
| Tue, 21 Mar 2017 16:43:57 EST A new report shows the Department of Veterans Affairs is failing to answer calls on the Veteran Crisis Line, leaving many veterans waiting 30 minutes, a federal performance that one prominent veterans advocate says should leave the American people "disgusted." The VA's own inspector general issued the report Monday. First created in 2007, the Veterans Crisis Line is designed to have 10 percent or fewer of the calls roll over into overflow call centers. However, from April through November of 2016, 28.4 percent of calls went to those call centers, with many waiting 30 minutes for someone to speak to them. In October, the rate was 34.9 percent. "It's disgusting. Every American should be absolutely disgusted with this rate for a suicide hotline. I'm just kind of numb to a point where the VA is just the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to giving me an opportunity to come out ans scream and yell," said retired U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Jessie Jane Duff, who is now a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. "I am frustrated beyond belief. I understand this is a new administration. I'm willing to give the new secretary of the Veterans Administration an opportunity to correct these issues. But I do hope that bringing this forward in the first 50 some odd days of this administration, they'd take it very seriously," said Duff. She says veteran suicides are a major problem and forcing vets in crisis to wait long periods is not helpful. "They have 20 veterans a day killing themselves. Twenty veterans a day; this is by the VA's own stats themselves. So then to put them on hold for 30 minutes. Do you not think that's not potentially contributing to the suicide rate?" asked Duff. The report also shows the VA is distorting the wait time for veterans by declaring that calls forwarded to overflow centers are never really on hold. "To have them wait 30 minutes is ridiculous. And then the excuses they give. They said they're not being put on hold because they were re-routed to an overflow center. They said, 'Well, we didn't put them on hold.' Quit patting yourself on the back. To a caller, that was waiting 30 minutes. In that time they could have pulled the trigger or driven off the bridge," said Duff. Deflecting blame infuriates Duff as much as the incompetence. "Who is going to be held accountable for this. The staff obviously doesn't get fired. There's obviously minimal recourse for the veterans who are left on hold. What are they left to do. Reporting it doesn't seem to be getting them anywhere," said Duff. Duff says this seems like an easy fix. "You would have to centralize where this system is located and you would have to enable it with an efficient and effective staff. They should be like a 911 call center. 911 does not place you on hold. It's as simple as that. It should be considered an emergency," said Duff. Duff says something like this should be effectively addressed in three months or less. She also wants the VA to focus on care for veterans instead of trying to take away their second amendment rights because they've been deemed mentally incapable of handling their own financial affairs. The Justice Department imposed such an order and legislation is now underway to reverse that ruling. "Mentally defective does not equate suicide, and if the VA cares so much about suicide, why aren't they answering their phones," said Duff. When it comes to confronting union and freeing up the VA secretary to remove ineffective or incompetent personnel, Duff wants to see major results within a year. She says Secretary David Shulkin deserves a chance to do the job, but she says results should determine how long he stays there. "For the bigger things. I expect (results) in a year. I'm not even talking midterms. If this doesn't get corrected, somebody needs to be removed from this position and we need someone who's willing to do the deep dive and go in there and dig," said Duff. |
| 'Let's Do What We Said, Let's Repeal Obamacare' |
| Mon, 20 Mar 2017 16:27:15 EST Republican leaders are hoping to pass their health care replacement plan on Thursday, but the conservative sponsor of legislation to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act says the current GOP preserves far too much of the current system and must be rejected. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is also a co-founder and former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and has introduced legislation to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as the ACA or Obamacare. Jordan is vigorously opposed to the current version of American Health Care Act, arguing this is not what Republicans promised voters since 2010. "We're not repealing Obamacare. Even people who are for it, like Charles Krauthammer, has said it's Obamacare-lite. It keeps the Obamacare structure and that's not what we told the voters. If you don't repeal Obamacare, you're never going to bring down the cost of insurance for middle class and working class families," said Jordan. "So it is really that basic. Let's do what we said. That's what they sent us here to do. Let's actually repeal Obamacare. A clean and complete repeal is what we're after. This doesn't do it," said Jordan. The American Health Care Act, or AHCA, is vigorously endorsed by President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. Ryan argues the plan does fulfill the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Jordan laid out several areas he insists are key differences between a complete repeal and what the GOP plan does. "We didn't tell voters we were going to repeal Obamacare but we were going to keep some of the taxes in place, which the speaker's plan does. We didn't say we were going to repeal Obamacare but take the Medicaid expansion and extend it for several years, which the speaker's plan does," said Jordan. "We certainly didn't say we're going to repeal Obamacare and start this new program of refundable tax credits and repeal Obamacare and get rid of the mandate but keep this 30 percent surcharge that we tell insurance companies you have to levy on people who don't maintain continuous coverage," said Jordan. The most disturbing issue for Jordan is Republicans getting ready to own a massive health care reform that he believes will not lower the cost of health insurance. "This is just Obamacare in a different format, and because of that it will not bring down the cost of insurance. It will not bring down premiums. Therefore, middle class families are still going to see the ridiculous high levels they've seen over the last several years," said Jordan. Jordan and several other members of the House Freedom Caucus are demanding a full repeal of Obamacare, just as the GOP-controlled Congress did in 2015 before the legislation was vetoed by President Obama. "The one thing we know about our plan is it's passed before," said Jordan. So why won't leaders bring up that same bill? "They're saying some people may not vote for that, which is amazing to me. During election time you can do one thing, but once you get in office and it actually counts you can't? That's what drives voters crazy," said Jordan. Jordan also doesn't buy the GOP leadership's three-step approach to reform, which includes this bill, letting Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price roll back many of the regulations in the current law and then passing market-based reforms in a separate bill that will likely require 60 votes to clear the Senate. "That's a joke," said Jordan. "We know phase two is going to get tied up in court. You saw what the courts have done on President Trump's executive order on the travel ban. You've seen how he reworked it and came back with something we know is consistent with the law. And where is that right now? It's tied up in court. So to think the left is not going to take Obamacare and tie it up in court is just ridiculous," said Jordan. As frustrating as it has been for full repeal proponents to plead their case with leadership, Jordan says the difference between conservatives and Democrats on the issue is like night and day. "They view success as signing people up for government, Medicaid or Obamacare. We define success as let's put in place the policies that make insurance affordable so that people can pick the plan that meets their needs. That's what we're trying to get accomplished," said Jordan. While Trump is vociferously supporting the GOP plan, Jordan is hopeful the president will be able to broker changes to the legislation that will rid the law of crippling insurance regulations dictating what has to be in all policies, allow for market based reforms that will drive competition and lower costs and repeal other burdensome regulations by statute. Jordan, who met with Trump along with other Freedom Caucus members, says the White House has been far more accommodating than Republican leaders in Congress. "We appreciate the outreach the White House did being willing to work with us. Our leadership initially talked about this binary choice, take-it-or-leave-it approach, which I don't think is helpful. Since then I think they've been more open to talk with us, probably driven by the fact they don't have the votes," said Jordan. With a vote planned for Thursday, Jordan suspects a scramble is underway to find more support for the AHCA. "One thing I learned a long time ago is when leadership is out there saying they have the votes, that means they probably don't have the votes. Based on what I know from our members of the Freedom Caucus and some other people, I believe they do not have the votes, so we'll see how negotiations go this week," said Jordan. |
| Trump and the EPA |
| Fri, 17 Mar 2017 16:28:20 EST A leading critic of the Environmental Protection Agency who served on President Trump's transition team is very encouraged by the administration approach to the agency in policy and budget, but he says Trump must make good on his promise to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate change agreement. Trump's proposed budget made headlines this week, as it called for big cuts in many departments of the federal government. The blueprint calls for a 31 percent reduction in spending at the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. Trump plans to spend no more money on climate change projects. "We're not spending any more money on that," said Budget Director Mick Mulvaney. "We consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that." Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher C. Horner served on Trump's "landing team" at EPA. He is very encouraged by Trump's fiscal approach to the EPA. "It's a complete departure from anything you might expect from any administration, which is usually, 'We will just slow the rate of growth,' no matter what they think if something. That's sort of the worst thing they would ever consider doing," said Horner. He says Trump has no patience for EPA climate change policies that even Obama-era administrator Gina McCarthy admitted were more symbolic than substantive. "He's throwing this out the window, saying, 'We're trillions in debt. Symbolism is the first thing to go. This is a waste of your money.' So I think that's fantastic," said Horner. Horner says the trimming will allow the EPA do the job it's supposed to do rather than burdening Americans with bureaucratic rules. "They have statutory mandates. They have statutory deadlines. They've never met one they liked, but they go off on these very expensive, very harmful hobbies and ideological ax-grinding," said Horner. "What they're saying is, 'You seem to have an awful lot of time and other people's money to do that. Why don't you stick to your knitting and focus on actual environmental problems and actual environmental mandates from Congress,'" said Horner. Horner says it's not hard to find places to cut at EPA. "This is an agency that has grown essentially from an executive order to, over time, consuming major parts of the economy, and tax revenues, and our debt. The expansion from the statutory mission is breathtaking," said Horner. Horner also says his experiences at EPA while serving on the landing team left him underwhelmed. "The insistence by people, including those you might imagine, can't even tell you how many people work there. But they need more money to do their job because the agency is so big. Yet, if you ask them, for example, 'What is your role in the federal-state partnership, they will tell you it is 'partnering.' OK, well that's a big flag that maybe this is a good place to save some money," said Horner. But while Horner is very pleased with the actions Trump is taking thus far at the EPA, he is pleading with the president to formally withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement signed by the Obama administration in its final months. He says the consequences of not backing out soon will be very real. "You're going to see the pain of the sort that was pointed out in the presidential campaign of these policies but worse and worse every year with more and more promises to make it worse every five years," said Horner. While the tenets are effectively voluntary, Horner says every five years there will be immense international pressure and public shaming for the U.S. to keep lowering emissions levels and meeting other targets to keep up with the terms of the treaty, which Obama refused to call a treaty so as to dodge rejection of the deal in the U.S. Senate. But because Obama took that strategic approach, Horner says Trump can exit the deal just as easily. "For months before the terms were agreed, [the Obama administration] said, 'I can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you it's not a treaty.' In other words, whatever happens, we're going to say it's not a treaty. That is a 'what are you going to do about it approach.' If you live by the 'what are you going to do about it' approach, then it can also die by it. President Trump promised to cancel the Paris climate treaty," said Horner. Horner says the only argument being made against withdrawing is the international blowback that would come for the U.S. But he says the whole point of the treaty is to shame the U.S. for any reluctance to restrict emissions, so staying in the agreement would only make the criticism more intense. However, despite Trump's campaign promises, Horner suspects Trump won't pull out of the agreement. "I'm encouraged that the issue seems to be open again because I think the wrong answer was reached. So we have time, but I have to tell you I'm not very confident because people very close to the president are pushing for him to break this campaign promise," said Horner. He says time is of the essence. "If President Trump doesn't get out of this within the next two months, probably six weeks and certainly by the July G-20 meeting in Hamburg, July 7-8, then we're probably in this forever," said Horner. |
| Lower Health Costs or Pay the Price |
| Thu, 16 Mar 2017 16:20:23 EST The House Republican health care bill cleared another hurdle on Thursday, but one of the most fiscally conservative GOP lawmakers says the bill will never pass unless it acts to immediately reduce the cost of coverage and includes repeal of Obamacare's burdensome regulations. The House Budget Committee approved the American Health Care Act, 19-17. Three Republicans voted against it, including Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va. "The budget committee went forward with it, but some of the guys are getting promises that we're going to have some fixes and some fairly significant fixes going forward," said Brat, who believes the Republicans are heading toward disaster on their present course, largely because they don't address health care costs effectively. "Both conservative and liberal think tanks and health experts agreed that the current House bill maintains the current structure of Obamacare," said Brat. "You keep the individual exchanges. You keep the individual market and you keep the insurance regulations, so I don't know how anyone expects the price of health care to go down." And without lower costs, Brat says Republicans are walking into a political buzz saw with no upside. "That's the big thing we have to fix and we all want Trump to be successful. For him to be successful, we have to make those changes or in a few years we'll be in another death spiral," said Brat. "It's fairly simple. Either you lower the price of this thing so people can afford it or else you're going to pay the price politically." He says the key to driving costs down is to address insurance regulations, a priority President Trump has been pushing for months. "Our leadership bill has prices going down 10 percent after three years. So we've got price increases coming. We've got to make sure that does not happen. The biggest way you can prevent that is to get at the insurance regulations," said Brat. There's also the issue of choosing what's in a plan. For example, Brat notes that because of the many requirements Obamacare mandates in every approved health plan, it's impossible for young, healthy people to buy low-cost, high-deductible catastrophic plans. GOP leaders currently argue that market-based reforms would be included in separate legislation from the first bill which deals mainly with taxation and mandates. That's the third phase of replacing Obamacare. They also say regulatory repeal is not in the bill because Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price can roll those back unilaterally. That is phase two. Brat is not impressed. "The problem there is it's not permanent. We'll have this kind of bumper pool every four years, when you switch administrations you'll change health care for the whole country. We want that that bucket number two, that Price is going to take care of, to be put into the bill itself," said Brat. He says allowing greater competition for coverage and including regulatory reform in the bill could salvage the legislation for many conservatives. "I think if leadership goes forward with that and pushes it over to the Senate, that'll get a lot of people to 'yes.' That could be the sweet spot," said Brat. How will this play out in the coming weeks? Brat says Trump is the key. "I don't think we're even close to having the votes, so Trump will come in and negotiate and put his foot down on a system that he wants. He wants to increase competition across state lines and to reduce the costs for everybody so it's affordable. If we can get it done in a month or two, it can be signed, sealed and delivered if we can zap these insurance regulations," said Brat. He says those components would also allow Republicans, who ran on repealing and replacing Obamacare, to make good on their promises to the American people. "We can put [a bill] together brick by brick but the key is you've got to start out with the glue. Repeal, that was the promise. Then move forward from that and build a scaffolding up from there," said Brat. "You want to start with free markets and then add a safety net. You don't want to start with socialism and then promise free markets later. That never happens," said Brat. So why haven't these ideas been in the bill from the start? Brat suspects quite a few GOP senators are looking to dodge controversial votes. "The Senate has become kind of a high noon tea society over there. They're not taking tough votes. They don't want this bill to come over in the first place. I think they're using that as a way to duck. Even our side uses that as a way to duck from pushing through what we have to get through," said Brat. Brat also rejects the leadership's argument that market reforms and regulatory repeal can't be included in a reconciliation process. He says that's just not true. He says the Senate can simply vote to determine if a provision is tax or budget-related. He says getting this major overhaul done and done right is a matter of political will, and adds that not is the time to demonstrate that will. "Let's roll the TV cameras in there. Let's put that live in front of the American people so they can see the process of their own government at work for them, and I think we'll have a big win," said Brat. |
| 'The Military Is Now A Libertine Institution' |
| Wed, 15 Mar 2017 16:59:34 EST The U.S. Marine Corps needs to punish whoever posted and disseminated photos of women in compromising moments but the military must also realize its relaxing of rules regarding sexual conduct was a huge mistake, according to a top researcher on military personnel. For weeks, the Marines have been responding to revelations that photos of military women in showers and other racy images were posted on social media pages frequented by active duty members and veterans. On Tuesday, Marine Corps leaders were grilled about the problem and the response during an appearance on Capitol Hill. Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly says tough penalties for those responsible for humiliating the women are certainly in order. "The commandant can and should say to the Senate, 'We will prosecute cases to the extent of the law.' If the controlling legal authority sees there is evidence, that evidence will be taken forward, and there will be punishment according to the law. The problem is an absence of a law that would ban this sort of behavior,'" said Donnelly. She says some the the images were apparently "sexting" type messages, in which women willingly sent boyfriends explicit photos of themselves, only to see the pictures get posted to social media sites once the relationship went sour, but that doesn't make the actions of the men any less heinous. "A woman who does that puts herself at greater risk. This doesn't mean that she should be exploited or that he should betray her. All I'm saying is, when you take that risk, then you elevate the chances that you will be the victim of betrayal," said Donnelly. While she expects the Marines to prosecute, Donnelly does not believe the strong USMC opposition to social engineering policies like allowing women to perform ground combat roles or reversing LGBT policies deserves blame for what happened to the women. "That is the worst, most preposterous spin of all. You know why? The Marines asked that this not happen. The Marines asked for exceptions. The Marines also asked that the 1993 law (banning gays and lesbians from military service) be repealed. They were overruled in both cases by the politicians," said Donnelly. That repeal happened in 2010, when the so called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was scrapped by Congress, along with the actual law that laid down rules of conduct. "'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' never was a law. That was a regulation. Congress repealed that but they also repealed the underlying law. That law used to say that disciplinary requirements applied on base and off base. That was taken away by Congress," said Donnelly. In addition to the public scandal, Donnelly says the latest numbers on sexual assaults within the military continue a disturbing rise. "The numbers are still going up, the numbers of actual cases. And, get this, the number of male-on-male sexual assaults also are continuing to increase. In 2010, that percentage was under 10 percent. Last time I checked, it was 17 percent. Now, it's north of 20 percent. What is going on here?" asked Donnelly. Donnelly believes that open a Pandora's Box of sexual activity in the U.S. military. "The military is now a libertine institution. There are very few limitations on sexual conduct other than being consensual," said Donnelly. "If any kind of sexual expression in the military is now OK, how do you draw the lines? There are no lines anymore." In the Senate hearings Tuesday, lawmakers demanded answers from Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller. Donnelly was not impressed. "The members of the Senate who looked at the commandant of the Marine Corps, almost yelled at him, Sen. (Kirsten) Gillibrand, 'How did this happen? Who is accountable?'" said Donnelly. "Excuse me, Sen. Gillibrand, you are accountable or should be held accountable because you voted to repeal the 1993 law that spelled out the fact that disciplinary regulations apply on base and off base," said Donnelly. Donnelly says the photo scandal and the rise in assaults are all due to politicians foisting a social agenda upon the military. "The results of eight years of Barack Obama are now coming forward. This nude picture scandal is only a small part of it," said Donnelly. |
| 'We're Not Starting with a Clean Slate' |
| Mon, 13 Mar 2017 17:09:23 EST While Republicans still appear divided over the American Health Care Act, one of the fiercest critics of Obamacare says the GOP plan "is the best they could come up with" and that conservatives need to realize the starting point is a cratering health care system and not a "clean slate." Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner is also lead author of "Why Obamacare Is Bad for America." She says the GOP plan is the best way to use the budget reconciliation process and protect coverage for Americans as major changes hit the health care system. "The repeal and replace really need to come together because it takes time for the states and the health insurance industry to respond to the new policies that would be offered in the American Health Care Act and to get that up and running," said Turner. "You want to create the lifeboat for people to be protected, both those with Medicaid as well as those with [Affordable Care Act] exchange coverage while this new bridge is being built to a new system. So they've got to do both at the same time," said Turner. Several members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus say the best approach is to do what lawmakers promised they would do: fully repeal Obamacare and then replace it with a market-based system. They point to all Republicans supporting full repeal in 2015, when the plan passed Congress but was vetoed by President Obama. While she wishes Congress could just rip out the old system and start over again, Turner says the current realities must be addressed. "Conservatives may not like it, but we're not starting with a clean slate. We're starting with Obamacare and we've got to figure out how we protect people and then move toward a system that really does give people the kind of choice and more affordable coverage that they've been saying for years that they want," said Turner. Turner says full repeal also leads to sticky procedural issues in Congress. "All those you are saying, 'All we want to do is repeal the law first and worry about replace later' are not respecting what their constituents are asking. But also those who say, 'We want to repeal the whole law,' are not paying attention to the process," said Turner. "The only way they could do this is through the budget reconciliation process that allows 51 votes (to pass legislation), but it doesn't allow most of the regulations to be repealed in this law. That's going to have to come later through other measures," said Turner. Republican leaders do plan to use reconciliation for the American Health Care Act, or AHCA. "The [American Health Care Act], I believe, pushes as far as they could, the limit of what they could get through with reconciliation. They already are moving the legislation to allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines. That will pass in a separate measure and I think that you very well may get some Democratic support for that," said Turner. She also think Democratic votes might be there to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, which has often been referred to by critics as "death panels." Turner also believes time is of the essence since so many other Trump administration priorities are on hold until the work on health care is done. "They can't do tax reform, which corporate America in particular is desperate for if we're going to create jobs and enhance our international competitiveness. They can't get to that until they pass this. They have the debt ceiling coming up and they have the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice coming up. There are a lot things backed up behind this," said Turner. Some Obamacare critics have suggested that letting Obamacare implode for another year will gin up more support for more aggressive action. Even President Trump has said if the AHCA fails, he plans to blame the floundering health care system on Democrats. Turner says that is irresponsible because the ongoing exodus of insurance options could leave many people with no choice at all. "The leadership of Congress are being statesmen here. Coinservatives may not like it, but they are saying, 'We have an obligation to people to protect them. If you waited a year, you would find people in the middle of cancer treatment were losing their coverage because there's no insurer in their area to provide that coverage. They can't wait," said Turner. Turner says Republicans have been working on this legislation ever since Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., became speaker in October 2015. The effort included exchanges of policy ideas among both lawmakers and policy experts, including Turner, who contributed suggestions both to the AHCA and Speaker Ryan's "A Better Way" campaign during the 2016 elections. "I believe this is the best they could come up with. It's not perfect. nobody loves all of it. I don't love all of it, but I think it's the best they could come up with under the circumstances to get this through the House and be able to move on with the rest of the agenda the American people care about, including jobs," said Turner. |
| Battling the Bureaucratic Leviathan |
| Mon, 13 Mar 2017 15:35:56 EST Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner explains how government and private sector bureaucracy teamed up to drive the price of health care out of reach for tens of millions of Americans and why the Affordable Care Act only made things far worse. Turner also discusses why she believes the new Republican plan will succeed in bringing costs down and removing Washington from the doctor-patient relationship. Finally, she explains the factors that must be addressed to lower the cost of prescription drugs. |
| 'From Queer to Christ' |
| Fri, 10 Mar 2017 16:29:25 EST After 25 years of fruitlessly searching for fulfillment in a homosexual lifestyle, George Carneal turned to faith in Jesus Christ , found the peace that eluded him and left his former life behind him. Carneal tells his story in "From Queer to Christ: My Journey Into the Light." "Today, I've been on the road to celibacy for nine years and it actually has been great. It's one of the best decisions I've made for myself," said Carneal. "I just want to be committed to God now. I'm not looking for relationships of any kind. I just want God to use me how he sees fit." Carneal's struggle with same-sex attraction began at a young age but he didn't act on it until after he graduated from high school. "It was something I struggled with all through junior high and high school . After graduating and meeting a guy in a nearby town and just meeting up and having dinner and what have you. It just felt right for me and thought that's what I was, that I was gay," said Carneal. For most of his life Carneal thought he was born gay. In the light of scripture, he now knows that isn't true. "Looking back now in terms of what God had done in my life, I really feel like once he gives you the healing and the wholeness from the brokenness that I had, I can see that no, I was not born with it," said Carneal. Carneal's dad was a Southern Baptist preacher. As he struggled with same-sex attractions in his youth, he believed no one tried to talk with him but preferred to judge him instead. As a result, when he entered into the homosexual community he thought he found the acceptance he craved. While that turned out to be a false hope, Carneal does offer advice to bible-believing Christians who have family members or friends dealing with homosexuality or any compulsive sin. "You can still tell them the truth in love, whether it's drugs, alcohol, homosexuality or porn. But be a friend and pray for them. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can transform someone's life," said Carneal. "For me, it didn't really matter what Christians said. It was really going to take the hand of God to really work in my life, to help me see the areas of brokenness that needed to be dealt with. He had to give me the right kind of healing that I needed in order to have the strength for me to walk away from that life," said Carneal. Throughout his years as an active homosexual, Carneal says he longed for a steady, monogamous relationship. But he says that was almost non-existent in his experience. "That to me is an exception rather than the norm. I just found in my experiences that it's a very promiscuous life," said Carneal. As he got older, Carneal noticed he was getting less attention as many in the homosexual community strongly prefer younger partners. It was then that he realized he wanted something different in his life. But given the animosity he still held for the Christian church, he turned instead to New Age groups and eastern mysticism. Those also left him empty. It was a small group bible study that set him on a course that would change his life. "For two years, I went to a bible study on a Friday night, where I just went, and I listened and I learned about the book of Genesis. It really gave me a much more indepth understanding of God's word. It was there that my hunger really built and I desired to know more about God's word. "But it allowed me to slowly get my feet wet back in the church, sitting around Christians, and God was graciously was putting Christians in my life who weren't mean-spirited. They were very loving," said Carneal. But there was still a question that tortured Carneal: could he really be a Christian and a practicing homosexual? "What really kept me in turmoil is I would listen to the conservative Christian side and the liberal Christian side and both spoke with such authority. So many times I would sit in my car and beat on the steering wheel and cry, and sob, and beg God for answers," said Carneal. "It was really taking a toll on my mental and emotional state. I finally just walked away from that life. I walked out of the bars. I stopped hanging around a lot of my gay friends. I stopped hanging around liberal Christians. I just started immersing myself in God's word. That's really where I started to get answers and peace about where God really stands on this issue," said Carneal. Carneal then embraced celibacy and says he has been at peace ever since. "I didn't know that celibacy was an option. When I found out there were a lot of LGBT individuals who were walking away from that life and were giving their lives to Christ and choosing the path of celibacy because they wanted to please God, that really gave me hope," said Carneal. |
| 'This Is A Really Terrible Piece of Legislation' |
| Wed, 8 Mar 2017 16:34:37 EST The first man to sue the federal government over the Affordable Care Act says Republicans are breaking their campaign promises to repeal the health care law and are instead abandoning free market principles with legislation that will make health care even worse and let the Democrats off the hook for the blame. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli III launched the first constitutional challenge to the law, widely known as Obamacare, in 2010. His efforts, along with others, ultimately ended in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision that saved President Obama's most significant domestic policy. Late Monday, House Republicans unveiled the text of the American Health Care Act and promoted as a means of getting Washington out of health care, reducing costs and regulations and setting the stage for market-based reforms. But Cuccinelli says the bill is nothing more than a GOP version of Obamacare. "This is a sloppy Democrat bill. The people who call this Obamacare-lite are wrong. It's not lite. It's just a Republican form. This is a really terrible piece of legislation on its own merits. It's even worse when you realize this is what's supposed to pass for keeping their promise to actually repeal Obamacare," said Cuccinelli. He says any members trying to keep their promise to repeal the law have to vote against it. "The problem for conservatives is if it doesn't really mean actually getting rid of Obamacare and all of the worst features of it, then it should be voted against," he said. "Otherwise, it's an adoption by the Republicans of all the worst elements of Obamacare. They're going to own the consequences. They're going to own those price increases and health insurance increases, which will keep happening," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli says it will be up to congressional Republicans to get this right because President Trump has yet to wade into many specifics. "Whatever bill gets to the president's desk, he's going to sign it. He was very unspecific in the campaign. They've been very unspecific in the last week or two. Clearly, they just want to check this box and 'get it done,' whatever that means," said Cuccinelli. Republicans ran on repealing Obamacare in the past four election cycles. The issue was largely responsible for the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. Cuccinelli says the promise resonated with voters, so it makes no sense to abandon that mission now. "They're all running around, at least leadership is, afraid that they'll upset somebody. Well, I've got news for you. People are already upset, and it isn't a question of whether people are upset after you do whatever you're going to do. If that's all you care about, what will they be more upset about: doing what you said you would or going in another direction?" said Cuccinelli. "If you go in another direction to appease a constituency you didn't rely on to get elected, what you've succeeded in doing is ticking everyone off. That's the direction Republicans are headed right now," Cuccinelli. But Cuccinelli goes a step farther. He says Republicans are really abandoning a full repeal because they do not actually want a market-based health care system. "They don't want the regulations to go away. That's their dirty little secret. They don't want market-based health care. They want big government control, even though someday it's all going to come crashing down just because of how bankrupt it will all be," said Cuccinelli. He says GOP leaders have gotten comfortable turning to government to address problems. "Let's take (House Speaker) Paul Ryan for instance. Paul Ryan has never done anything in his adult life except be in government. It's his solution to every perceived problem. He doesn't rely on the market. He doesn't trust the one force in the history of the world that has raised more people up out of poverty than any other, and that's free market capitalism," said Cuccinelli. So what does Cuccinelli specifically see s the biggest problems with the GOP bill? "There were 24 major regulations with Obamacare. Under Ryancare, 22 and a half of those stay in place. And of course we get blessed with a brand new entitlement. I don't know if anybody in the Republican leadership noticed, but we are bankrupt. They do nothing really to resolve that problem," said Cuccinelli. "They make no move toward a market-based approach to health care. There's no expansion of freedom and there's no reason for people to want to become a doctor any more than under Obamacare," he added Supporters of the GOP point out that this legislation needs to start the reform process because it can pass through reconciliation, meaning a simple majority in both chambers can get the job done. They also suggest Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price can tackle most of the regulations unilaterally. Then, they say market-based ideas can come in later legislation. Cuccinelli isn't buying it. "I could swallow [all of that] a whole lot more easily if the first bill was a repeal bill. So if you want us to trust you, then you do what you said you were going to do. Is that really too much to ask? Just do what you've been promising for seven years," said Cuccinelli. "Don't put it on Tom Price to get rid of the regulations. You do it in the legislation. You do it as part of the vote. It's what repealing means," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli says Republicans had no problem passing a full repeal in 2015 so there's no good reason not to pass it again. "All of them have voted on that bill. Were they lying then when they voted on it? It sure seems like it now. Why not just pass a true repeal again?" he said. "They were loudly speechifying back then. Now they're using scare tactics to say, 'Those of you people who want to hold us up for this repeal bill are for Obamacare," said Cuccinelli. "That is the worst kind of ducking of a debate on the substance of an important, important issue to every family in America. And it's a dodge on their campaign promises. They're all breaking their promises and making liars out of themselves," said Cuccinelli. |
| 'It's A First Step' |
| Tue, 7 Mar 2017 17:19:54 EST Conservatives and liberals are savaging the House Republican health care plan, but one of the leading advocates for a market-driven approach says the bill is a good start to imploding Obamacare and setting the stage for additional conservative reforms. The plan is getting hammered by conservatives for not fully repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, failing to allow the purchase of coverage across state lines, and for allegedly replacing one entitlement program with another. Liberal critics say the plan would knock millions of Americans off health insurance and leave them one illness from bankruptcy again. So what about those claims? Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner is a veteran of Washington health care debates and was a fierce opponent of the Clinton health care reform effort in the 1990's and Obamacare since 2009. She is encouraged by what she sees in the American Health Care Act and says the realities on Capitol Hill force this kind of legislation. "It's a first step. They're pushing as far as they can with the process they have to go through. They do not expect any Democrats, in the House or the Senate, to vote for this. That means they have to do this through a particularly difficult process called reconciliation that limits the kinds of things you can repeal," said Turner. "They can't repeal everything in the law through this process because it has to have direct spending and budget implications. They're doing as much as they can and they have plans to go forward with other pieces of legislation, for example, that will allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines. That's not possible through this particular pathway," said Turner. She says this legislation is needed to gut the worst parts of Obamacare. "There will also be follow-on legislation going forward, but not if this [doesn't pass]. You can't build change on the crumbling infrastructure of Obamacare. You've got to begin with changes that lead us in a new direction," said Turner. "It's like a battleship or an aircraft carrier. It takes a long time to turn this around ," she added. Turner also says a lot can be done to ease the burden on all Americans without involving Congress. She says Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price can accomplish a lot through the powers granted him in the original Affordable Care Act. "Sec. Price has control of the regulatory mechanism. There were 20 million words of regulation written to enforce Obamacare. He has the power to undo a lot of those and to rewrite them but also to provide new guidance to the marketplace to engender much more competition and consumer choice," said Turner. Sec. Price outlined the very same strategy Tuesday at the White House. Turner says the GOP bill offers important provisions like eliminating a trillion dollars worth of taxes on the economy and protecting coverage while the system transitions from Obamacare. She also says the bill takes a smarter look at Medicaid dollars that should mean less burden on the taxpayers. "It begins the pathway to reform the Medicaid program, arguably one of the worst health care programs in the country that is bankrupting the states. At the same time, millions of people (on Medicaid) can't find a doctor to see them," said Turner. And how would it do that? "This legislation would begin the process of giving states a per capita allocation. A per capita allocation is very different from a block grant. It basically says we are going to make a distinction between moms and babies who are healthy and people who have multiple disabilities," said Turner. She also likes that states will have much more say over health care while Washington backs off. "It gives states more power and more authority, not only to figure out how to take care of their citizens that are on Medicaid, but also to provide their citizens with more choices from the kind of health insurance that they want to buy, rather than have the federal government tell them the health insurance they have to buy," said Turner. But will the plan ultimately lower premiums and deductibles? Turner says that hinges on getting people to stay on insurance for the year once they've purchased it and getting more, young healthy people into the system. "You need young, healthy people in the system. What do you do? You try to give them more choices, more options of more affordable coverage. So attracting people, giving them incentive to want to stay covered, by giving states more options to provide them with choices for health insurance - not just Washington's three or four cookie-cutter policies," said Turner, who also advocated for multi-year policies so patients could lock in rates for years at a time. While acknowledging the fierce opposition to the plan from the right and left, Turner says the bill not only makes key changes but looks at health care in a whole new way. "It's a really different philosophy of giving people the market incentive to respond to consumers who are newly empowered and want to make responsible, good choices," said Turner. "People want insurance but they don't want insurance that costs more than their mortgage." This is one of multiple perspectives we will be sharing on this legislation as the debate continues. |
| Ex-DOJ Official: Obama Would Have Known if Feds Got Trump FISA Warrant |
| Mon, 6 Mar 2017 16:26:36 EST A former Justice Department official with experience before Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, courts says there are simple ways to determine whether President Trump is right about the government spying on him during the 2016 campaign, and she says President Obama would certainly have known about such actions by the Justice Department. And she says it's entirely plausible that Democratic political appointees who were later shifted to career positions in the intelligence community are working to undermine the Trump presidency. Victoria Toensing served as deputy assistant attorney general and was also a federal prosecutor. In addition, she served as chief counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence while Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., was leading the committee. The debate over whether the government conducted surveillance on the Trump campaign instantly caught fire Saturday after a series of early-morning tweets from Trump. The president ultimately compared Obama's alleged actions to Watergate. Later on Saturday, a spokesman for former President Obama issued a statement denying any involvement by Obama in any surveillance on Trump and his team. "A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false," the statement read. Like other experts, Toensing noted the very careful language in the Obama statement that doesn't appear to rule out other in the government from authorizing such activity, namely the Justice Department. "Sounds like a non sequitur, doesn't it?" said Toensing. "OK, you've never interfered, so if the attorney general said she was going to do this and gave you notice, you just said, 'Go ahead.' That's not interfering. It's a really carefully parsed statement. He's gotten as good as Bill Clinton," said Toensing. Is it certain then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch would have informed Obama when taking such action? "Oh yeah. I can't imagine ordering surveillance of a political opponent in a political campaign (without informing the president). Loretta Lynch has shown that she's been incompetent in many ways, but I don't think communicating with the president is where's she's incompetent," said Toensing. Throughout the weekend, very different narratives were presented as fact, from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper insisting that the no FISA warrant was ever issued in connection to Trump to conservatives highlighting a litany of liberal media outlets reporting on intercepts of key Trump officials for the past several weeks. The New York Times has reported that the FISA court denied a request for a warrant back in June 2016 but approved one with a much narrower scope in October. "What is this thing, 'If it happened?' There's been reporting in the New York Times that the second time there was some computer in Trump Tower. Then, indeed, Trump was being electronically surveilled or wiretapped, depending on the technique that was used," she said. And Toensing says it is vital for lawmakers and reporters to consistently and repeatedly ask if wiretapping or electronic surveillance was used, since referring to one specific method could give witnesses unintended wiggle room. Toensing fully supports the matter now going to the House and Senate intelligence committees. She says those panels, particularly on the Senate side, still enjoy a great deal of bipartisan cooperation and adds the key questions range from the existence of the FISA warrants to their scope and the length of time they were valid. She says FISA warrants are normally active for 90 days but can be extended to six months in some cases. While FISA courts approve warrant requests in nearly all cases, Toensing says the rate is a bit misleading because the court does deny some efforts but then approves them after the government narrows the focus of the warrants. Nonetheless, she says another good question for lawmakers to pursue is why the June request before the FISA court was rejected. And if reports of the second warrant request being granted is true, why Obama would allow such a thing to take place during the heat of a campaign. "If it did involve Trump Tower or Trump people, I say what is a Democratic president of the United States doing even having anything to do with tapping Republican opposition during a political year? That just amazes me right there," said Toensing. The allegation from Trump and his allies is that partisan intelligence operatives sought to undermine his campaign and are now looking to bring down his presidency. Toensing says that argument is plausible, and point to recent events as evidence of a deep rift in intelligence circles. "Do you remember when the Yemen raid took place and the [Navy SEAL] was killed? All of a sudden, a few days later, you saw headlines (reporting that) nothing came out of the Yemen raid. It was a loss. Then, about a week ago, I see hundreds of names were acquired during that Yemen raid," said Toensing. She says there are a lot of entrenched Democrats now serving in non-political positions. "Democrats like to stay in government more than Republicans do. So Democrats tend to stay around after the political process goes. They're given a job in what called a career position," said Toensing. She says one of the most controversial figures from the Obama administration is a good example of that transition. "Lois Lerner, no better example than that," said Toensing, referring to the former IRS official at the center of government harassment of conservative groups applying for non-profit status. "She's a political appointee and then they put her in career positions, where she could sit there and do all kinds of evil to opponents of President Obama," said Toensing. So while Toensing is unaware of any specific rogue elements of the intelligence community, she says the idea that some are working against their own president is not far-fetched. "It would seem to me that the mechanism is there for the people to undermine President Trump. It would appear that that's what's happening," said Toensing. |
| 'We're Repealing One Entitlement and Creating Another' |
| Fri, 3 Mar 2017 16:22:19 EST Conservatives in Congress are increasingly frustrated by what has been leaked about the Obamacare repeal legislation and by what they see as a lack of transparency, even as House Speaker Paul Ryan insists Republicans are all on the same page and predicts unity on a final vote. For most congressional Republicans, what they know of the repeal is what they read in a leaked report on the purported bill last week. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., made headlines by unsuccessfully trying to get a hard copy of the legislation. Most Republicans don't know what's currently being put together. "I think it's mostly members of committees with jurisdiction. You're talking about members on Energy & Commerce and members on Ways & Means. That's probably as far as it goes," said Jason Pye, director of public policy and legislative affairs at FreedomWorks, which has endorsed the replacement bill authored by Sen. Paul. "Maybe the broader conference knows the general discussion of what's going on," said Pye. "The actual legislative text is what matters. That's where the nuances come into play." FreedomWorks shares the frustrations of Sen. Paul and other lawmakers clamoring for details. "I think Sen. Paul has a point that this entire process is being done largely in secret. Americans deserve to know what's going on. Are we going to see Obamacare-lite or are we actually going to see a real patient-centered alternative," said Pye. What would real transparency look like? "We should be having hearings as the bill is going through. Why not have debates on C-SPAN while it's being discussed and being drafted?" asked Pye. On Friday, Politico reported that GOP leaders hoped to vote on repeal later this month and they were prepared to "steamroll" conservatives into backing the plan. "They say they have no problem steamrolling conservatives by daring them to vote against an Obamacare repeal that their constituents have demanded for years," reported Politico. "'Conservatives are going to be in a box, 1d said one senior Republican lawmaker. Trump, the source predicted, eventually will 1cgo out front and 26 tell the conservatives 26 they 19re either for this or for keeping Obamacare,'" the report continued. That's a far cry from the assurance of unity Ryan offered at his weekly press conference on Thursday. "We're all working off the same piece of paper, the same plan. So we're in sync - the House, the Senate, and the Trump administration - because this law is collapsing. You can't just repeal it. You have to repeal it and replace it with a system that actually works. That's exactly what we're doing," said Ryan. "I am perfectly confident that when it's all said and done we're going to unify because we all, every Republican, ran on repealing and replacing and we're going to keep our promises," added Ryan. Pye says FreedomWorks is just as eager to scrap Obamacare, but he says how it's done is vital. "The speaker said that the repeal and replacement of Obamacare is entitlement reform. That certainly should be the case but the problem is we're repealing one entitlement and creating a new one. You don't do that as conservatives, especially one who claims to be a fiscal conservative," said Pye. He says if the leaked version of the bill is accurate, there is a lot to oppose in there. "We were surprised to see the Republican version of the individual mandate included in this bill. We were surprised to see $100 billion in new mandatory spending over the next ten years in this bill. We didn't anticipate that. We didn't anticipate the new Republican version of the Cadillac Tax in this bill. We weren't old those thing," said Pye. In the end, will leaders twist enough conservative arms to pass the plan? Pye doesn't think so. "Leadership is really who's in a box right now. If the 70 conservatives in Congress stick together, if you keep 41 of those guys and maybe a couple more, [leaders] don't 218 votes to repeal and replace," said Pye. "They're going to have to listen to conservatives in the conference. I'm sorry. That's just the way it is. And right now, this Lee, Cruz, and Paul trifecta sticks together, [Republicans] only have 52 seats in the Senate. You're going to get Democratic votes on either side. You have to listen to conservatives," said Pye. Conservatives are already explaining what they want, namely in bills offered by Sen. Paul and Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. "It puts individuals on the same playing field as employers. It gives states the option for flexibility through Medicaid, allowing them to seek waivers from the Department of Health and Human Services. It expands [Health Savings Accounts] to the point at which you can pay your health insurance premiums out of that," said Pye "Those are patient-center alternatives and consumer-friendly alternatives that improve the health system and truly empower Americans to make their health care choices," said Pye. If conservative ideas are now adopted into the replacement bill, Pye suspects Republicans may abandon the effort to pass a repeal and replacement together. He says passing a repeal similar to the one President Obama vetoed last year might be where the GOP factions find common ground. "I know everybody wants to get this over with now and I do as well, but there is no difference, fundamentally, between what we did in 2015 and what we should be doing now, other than the disagreements over replace. If we can't figure out replace, let's come back another day, but let's go ahead and start the process on repeal," said Pye. |
| 'There's Really Nothing to This Story' |
| Thu, 2 Mar 2017 15:11:34 EST A former Justice Department official says the liberal outrage over Attorney General Jeff Sessions having contact with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign is much ado about nothing and that Democrats are doing whatever they can to thwart the Trump agenda. He also says reports of a slush fund at the Justice Department created during the Obama years and funneled money to liberal activist groups are a big deal and further evidence that Democrats turned a blind eye to the Justice Department when far more serious things were happening. It's the Sessions story that has the media in a frenzy Thursday after Wednesday reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions misled senators during his confirmation hearings in January. At that hearing, Sen. Al Franken cited CNN reports that officials in the Trump campaign discussed the election on multiple occasions with agents of the Russian government. When asked by Franken what he would do if the reports were proven true, Sessions indicated he was unaware of such activity. "I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians. And I'm unable to comment on it," said Sessions during the confirmation hearing. New revelations show that Sessions was at an event that included Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in July 2016. They also crossed paths later in the year. Democrats are now accusing Sessions of perjury for that answer and for not clarifying the statement in writing after the hearing. On Thursday, Sessions did try to clarify. "I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign," he told NBC News. So is Sessions in real political or legal trouble for his testimony under oath or are his critics deliberately blurring the line between communication about the campaign and communication for other purposes? Former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky says this controversy is way overblown. "Those calls for his resignation are all overblown and there's no reason for him to resign," said von Spakovsky, who now runs the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. "There's really nothing to this story." He says the Democrats are still in shock over losing the elections and are lashing out in every possible direction. "They did not want Jeff Sessions to become attorney general because he's a conservative, rule of law type of guy. They're seizing on this, even though there's nothing really to it when you dig down into it, because they want to oppose anything the attorney general might do, such as actually start enforcing our immigration laws. That's the real goal here," said von Spakovsky. But why is there nothing to the story? Von Spakovsky says you have to understand Sen. Franken's question in its proper context. "It's clear Sen. Franken is asking about communications between the Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries or agents about the election. Sen. Sessions had no such meetings with the Russians over the elections as a surrogate of the campaign," said von Spakovsky. He also says the meetings in question hardly qualify as election collusion. "One of them was a conference at which there was a hundred people, ambassadors and their staff. They had been invited to observe the RNC convention by the State Department. The Heritage Foundation, a number of other organizations and the U.S. State Department had this conference at which Jeff Sessions was the keynote speaker," said von Spakovsky. "The idea that he engaged in some hush-hush conspiracy talk with the Russian ambassador in a conference with a hundred folks where he's giving the keynote speech is just ridiculous," said von Spakovsky. "The only other meeting was a meeting when he was a member of the (Senate) Armed Services Committee and he had a meeting with the Russian ambassador last year in which they talked about relations between the countries, no discussion of the election," said von Spakovsky, noting Sessions met with roughly two dozen ambassadors in 2016. Several Republicans are joining Democrats in demanding Sessions recuse himself from the federal investigation into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 elections and any collusion it had with the Trump campaign. Von Spakovsky says there's nothing for Sessions to recuse himself from. "That's premature because at the moment there's nothing in front of the attorney general. The FBI has not sent over any kind of investigative file for him to look at," said von Spakovsky. While Sessions stands in the media and political cross hairs, the Obama Justice Department is under fire for operating a slush fund to give a boost to liberal activist groups. Instead of sending money won through legal cases to the U.S. Treasury, the Justice Department instead sent billions to activist groups, including the National Council of La Raza, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the National Urban League. Von Spakovsky and co-author John Fund exposed this slush fund in their book, "Obama's Enforcer," which details the legacy of former Attorney General Eric Holder. Von Spakovsky says this activity is unique to the Obama Justice Department. "This has been an open secret in Washington for years, but nothing has been done about it. I would hope the new attorney general would this down and, frankly, go in and try to get these funds back if that can possibly happen," said von Spakovsky. He admits the action is most likely no illegal but he says it should never be done. "I do think it was unethical. I think any funds recovered by the federal government in a lawsuit should go to the U.S. Treasury because they belong to the American taxpayer. Those funds should not be given to third party advocacy organizations, certainly not political organizations like La Raza," said von Spakovsky. Von Spakovsky says Holder politicized the Justice Department far more than any of his predecessors and adds that Loretta Lynch was no better. He notes the federal judges scolded DOJ attorneys for their unethical conduct and Holder was the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress for withholding documents related to the ill-fated and deadly "Fast and Furious" gun-running operation. He says the people now venting over Sessions had no problems with the Justice Department from 2009-2017. "We never heard any complaints whatsoever from Chuck Schumer or any other Democrats about that behavior," said von Spakovsky. |
| Trump Hits 'Home Run,' GOP Tangles Over Obamacare |
| Wed, 1 Mar 2017 17:22:12 EST The Virginia congressman who defeated his own party's House Majority leader three years ago is hailing President Trump's speech as a "total conservative tour de force" but says Republicans must resist the temptation to embrace Obamacare-lite and truly embrace repeal and reform. Trump's speech Tuesday night to a Joint Session of Congress highlighted a number of conservative priorities. It received acclaim for both style and substance. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., was thoroughly impressed. "He hit it out of the park. It was just a total conservative tour de force across all the issues and it was all upbeat. It just gave everybody hope," said Brat. "When MSNBC can't say anything negative, you know you had a good speech." Brat hailed Trump for pushing tax cuts as part of overall tax reform and for lifting the regulatory burden from families and businesses. While politicians and pundits alike suspect tax reform cannot happen this year, Brat says Trump has a way of motivating people that the so-called experts may not understand. "This city has a way of delaying and letting the special interests take over. Trump is the one guy who can light a fire and make sure that does not happen," said Brat. One of Trump's most forceful demands was for Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. But how that can be done is becoming increasingly contentious inside the GOP. Last week, a leaked memo of a Republican replacement plan set off fierce debate as the more conservative members of the House and Senate balked at replacing health care subsidies with refundable tax credits. Brat also revealed that the debate over tax credits is playing out only in the wake of the leaked memo because GOP lawmakers haven't assembled to work through a replacement bill. "We've never even had a show of hands for , 'Hey, which way do you want to go on this? That's part of the problem with this town. Our conference needs to be more transparent and represent the will of the people," said Brat. "We all ran to represent the will of the people. We all ran for six years on repeal of Obamacare. So when you say repeal of Obamacare, I think the average person means repeal of Obamacare, right? If we end up putting Obamacare-lite in its place, our base is going to be furious. The average small businessperson is going to be furious," said Brat. Brat reminds citizens and lawmakers how we got into the current predicament with respect to Obamacare. "The insurance guys walked into the White House eight years ago looking at their shoes. They were going to get 18 million new customers, but they knew they were setting up a non-free market death spiral system," said Brat. He says Republicans can't leave the American people effectively headed down the very same road. "Having taught economics for 20 years, you've got to get the system right. That's what some of us are very worried about, that's we're going to do an Obamacare-lite. Then our team is going to own that product. That will be a disaster," said Brat. "We'll just do the same thing and call it (something) different, but you keep the insurance regulations. You keep the implicit mandates. The tax credits will turn into a new entitlement. And then we're also getting rid of the health care deductions in the piece that was leaked on Politico," said Brat. Pointing out that entitlement spending is set to engulf the entire federal budget within a decade, Brat says responsible lawmakers cannot create another entitlement through the tax credits. "We do not want to provide another federally-run entitlement program. The others are all insolvent, right, Medicare, Social Security. Everything the feds touch is insolvent," said Brat, who points out Trump will need to fend off the growth of mandatory spending, either through entitlement reform or pushing tax reform that spawns major economic growth and tax revenues. Brat says the most obvious priority in replacing Obamacare needs to be lowering the costs. "Everybody's paying attention to who's covered and whether everybody's covered, but we're ignoring the cost of 300 million Americans," said Brat. "If you can half the cost, then the money we're spending goes twice as far just on simple math." In the meantime, Brat urges the public to see through the slanted media coverage on repeal and replace. The congressman points out bronze plan deductibles are now averaging $12,000 per year while premiums increase roughly 20-25 percent per year. "Then the press calls and they say, 'Hey, can you assure us that every single person is going to be just as well off or have gold-plated health care?' I'm like, 'You're missing the thesis. Obamacare is in a death spiral, according to the heads of Humana and Aetna,'" said Brat. "The entire system is collapsing under it's own weight. About five million people lost their plans due to Obamacare. Where's the reporting on there? The reporting is just in the realm of fake news at times and they're acting like the Republicans are in charge of the disaster that just happened over the past eight years," said Brat. Despite his frustrations with the media and a lack of communication within GOP ranks, Brat is still optimistic repeal and replace will happen and that it will be done right. "The car's in the ditch. Now we've got to pull it out, get some free market principles going and I think we have plenty of time to get it right," said Brat. |
| 'Dirty Dozen' Firms Facilitating Sexual Exploitation Exposed |
| Tue, 28 Feb 2017 16:23:15 EST Social media, premium and cable television and educational resources are all among the worst corporations to profit from and facilitate sexual exploitation, according to a new story. The "Dirty Dozen List" is a project of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. Communications Director Haley Halverson says the list is designed to highlight the worst offenders in several different venues. "We're targeting 12 mainstream corporations or organizations that we invite into our home, and that we think of as a reputable brand, that are facilitating pornography, prostitution or sex trafficking," said Halverson. The "Dirty Dozen List" has a page of information for each entity, so concerned citizens can reach out and urge the companies to change course. "We don't typically advocate for boycotts since that's often not that effective. But we have created several different ways you can reach out and email the executives at these companies and it's been tremendously expensive," said Halverson, noting public pressure works quite well. "We've changed policies at Google, the Department of Defense, at Walmart and Hilton Worldwide. The Hilton Worldwide hotel company used to sell on-demand pornography. For an example, when they contacted us to say that they would stop selling this contact, they told us they were receiving a thousand emails a week from our supporters," said Halverson. The list includes social media giants Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat. Halverson says Snapchat's entire history is clogged with trafficking in obscenity. "Snapchat is frequently used for sexting. With its new addition of Snapcash, Snapchat is actually monetizing a lot of sexting, some child pornography and also prostitution," said Halverson. "That's something that Snapchat could easily fix or at least clean up by allowing users to age-gate some sexually graphic content that in their 'Discover Stories' section. Snapchat has actually been sued by a 14-year-old who was exposed to some graphic material in their stories section, which users can't opt out of. They have to see what these images are," said Halverson. YouTube has volumes of explicit material available and Halverson says that site and Twitter do a terrible job of enforcing their policies against such content. "They'll have a policy against something like pornography or prostitution but then they won't do anything to enforce it. It's time that we just stand up and say. 'It's your platform and if you're going to have this policy, you need to do your best to actually create a safe and friendly user environment," said Halverson. Comcast makes the "Dirty Dozen List" while Verizon does not. Halverson says Verizon is taking steps to force users to access explicit programs rather than listing it where every family member can see it. She says Comcast is doing just the opposite. "Not only do they sell this on-demand pornography, but they've actually written us a letter defending the pornography on there that has very violent, incest and racist themes, saying it's all part of their consumer choice," said Halverson. HBO is also cited. Halverson says the premium cable outlet is guilty of "mainstreaming" pornography in popular television programs such as "Game of Thrones" and "Westworld." Other violators in this category include Roku, Amazon, Backpage, and Cosmopolitan magazine. The list also takes aim at educational institutions that insist on making explicit material available to users of any age, specifically the American Library Association, or ALA, and Ebsco. The American Library Association consistently says it refuses to allow internet filters because of its commitment to the first amendment. Ebsco specifically caters to kids. "They're an online resource to public and private school and some libraries. They're basically a big database that kids can go in and find some academic resources for their papers," said Halverson. However, she says they end up finding a lot more. "You can go in there and search something as innocent as seventh grade biology and there will be links to hardcore pornography websites. There will be articles advising kids to try public, violent, and anal sex and on how to convince your girlfriend to do that," said Halverson, who notes that elementary school kids use the resource as well. Halverson also pushes back against the argument that the first amendment is an adequate defense for allowing kids to see such content. "The first amendment does not protect obscenity, which is most hardcore pornography. That has been upheld by the Supreme Court several times. Secondly, the Supreme Court rules against the ALA in a case, saying that it is OK within the first amendment to filter out sexually graphic material in order to create a safe environment for children to learn," said Halverson. One asset in the fight against the proliferation of obscene materials is a Justice Department willing to enforce existing laws. Halverson says the DOJ almost made the list due its inaction. "The last administration did not enforce this law. They're on the watch list now because it's still early. We're waiting to see what the DOJ will do moving forward," said Halverson. |
| 'He Hasn't Been Keeping Up With the News' |
| Mon, 27 Feb 2017 16:33:50 EST Former President George W. Bush indicated he considers President Trump's recent executive order a "Muslim ban" and opposes efforts to infringe upon anyone's freedom to worship, an analysis that one immigration experts suggests is evidence Bush doesn't know what is in the policy and is continuing with his narrative that anyone killing in the name of Islam cannot be a Muslim. Bush appeared on NBC's 'Today' show to promote his new book, "Portraits of Courage," but soon found himself immersed in a conversation about the president, the press and Trump's temporary pause on immigration from seven nations suffering from the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism. 'Today' host Matt Lauer began the discussion of the executive order by quoting Bush's positive portrayal of Islam following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. "That's very different talk than what we're hearing today about a Muslim ban," said Lauer. "Do you think the president's position on this has been well thought out?" "It's important for all of us to recognize one of our great strengths is for people to worship the way they want to or not worship at all. A bedrock of our freedom is the right to worship freely," Bush responded. Bush later said he supported an "immigration policy that is welcoming and upholds the law." Center for Immigration Reform Executive Director Mark Krikorian says Bush's focus on the freedom to worship suggests he's not all that familiar with Trump's executive order. "He still misunderstands what the struggle is and specifically about the travel ban he didn't push back against Lauer's comment that this was a Muslim ban. How can it be a Muslim ban if it only covers 10 or 12 percent of the world's Muslims. He hasn't been keeping up with the news and he really shouldn't be commenting on it if he hasn't," said Krikorian. But Bush wasn't done. "I understood right off the bat, Matt, that this was an ideological conflict and people who murder the innocent are not religious people. They want to advance an ideology," said Bush. Krikorian says Bush sees the threat in much the same way former President Barack Obama does. "Even President Obama made these points about how if you're a terrorist killing innocent people, you're not religious. Well, that's completely misunderstanding what it means. Who are we to say that a terrorist acting in the name of Islam doesn't understand what Islam is?" asked Krikorian. "Former President Bush would have been correct in saying that sort of violent perspective on Islam is not the only way to see it, that there are many Muslims who reject it. But he steps over the line, and Obama did this too, when he said that other perspectives of Islam that see it legitimately as killing infidels are not really Islam," said Krikorian. Krikorian is also keeping a close eye out for Trump's revised executive order banning travel from the seven nations with significant terrorism problems. He expects the new order to carve out exceptions for anyone holding green cards. He says the massive fight over the order is largely a distraction from the real fight over which branch of government gets to establish immigration policy. "It's only 90 days for seven countries. What this is really about is whether the elected representatives of the people or the judges get to decide who moves to the United States," said Krikorian, who says the statutory power clearly gives authority to Congress, which allows the president to ban any alien or class of alien he wants. He says the left wants that power to be in the hands of judges. "This is something that the anti-borders people, whether on the right or on the left, have been pushing for for years, where every single visa decision - everything - would be decided by judges ultimately. That's not what the law says," said Krikorian. "The courts suspending that old executive order were acting lawlessly. It was literally an illegal act by those judges," said Krikorian. |
| Transgender Battle Shifts to States, Local Schools |
| Fri, 24 Feb 2017 16:28:09 EST Social conservatives and proponents of federalism are cheering the Trump administration's decision to rescind the Obama policy requiring public schools to accommodate transgender students and personnel according to their gender identity, but the fight is far from over. The battle now shifts to the a Supreme Court case, state supreme courts and countless school districts around the country, but Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says this week's Justice Department ruling is critical. "Removing this lawless directive from the Obama administration will do a lot to get the federal government off the backs of these local schools," said Staver, who says the Obama order put girls at great risk by placing them in vulnerable situations with biological males. He says the backlash by liberals and the media is "There's such a big backlash about this in the liberal media, like there's something horrible that he did. Frankly, he's just following the law. The law does not include gender identity, or sexual orientation, or gender expression - or whatever you want to say - to the non-discrimination categories," said Staver. Staver notes that Congress has rejected such efforts to amend Title IX to expand the application of non-discrimination policies. He further states that the authors of Title IX and the 1964 Civil Rights Act had no intention of extending such protections. Despite the Trump administration's move, the Supreme Court may soon weigh in the issue. On March 28, the eight justices will hear arguments in in a high profile case out of Virginia. Gavin Grimm, a biological male who identifies as male, is in a legal battle with the Gloucester County Schools. However, Staver now believes the high court may defer on the issue as a result of Trump's actions. "It's possible that the court may simply punt on this and dismiss the case because of this new development. One of the questions before the Supreme Court is should they give deference to the administrative agencies for interpreting the statute. That administrative agency has gone back to the original intent of the statute," said Staver. The Trump administration's decision also impacts Staver directly. "This comes at a good time for a case that I'm arguing next week before the Virginia Supreme Court. In the next few days, I'll argue before the Virginia Supreme Court on the Fairfax County case," said Staver. "That's a school board in northern Virginia that, on its own, included gender identity, sexual orientation and gender expression to its policies. Virginia doesn't allow that. It has to be set at the state level," said Staver. "Our case deals with something that many states have and that is that these non-discrimination categories have to be set at the state level, not at the local level. You don't want to have different policies at the state, county, and local level all conflicting with one another," said Staver. He says this battle is playing out around the United States. "Just a few days ago, the Arkansas Supreme Court came down with the same thing. Fayettevile added gender identity to its non-discrimination policy. The Arkansas Supreme Court said no, you can't do that. It has to be set at the state level. That's exactly what I'm arguing at the Virginia Supreme Court," said Staver. Even more battles on this and other key issues will play out at school board meetings around the country. Staver urges people to get active at the local level. "It's very important to get involved with the local school board because you can stop these policies before they occur. That's the first line of defense. You need good people at the school board, not just for these policies but for other things as well. We need good Christians and people of moral values to be on these school boards all across the country," said Staver. |
| Not Just Milo: Childhood Sexual Abuse More Common Among Gays |
| Thu, 23 Feb 2017 17:07:38 EST Two viral videos of famous men casually discussing being molested as teenagers this week is no aberration but rather a common experience for many engaged in a homosexual lifestyle. And a leading expert on the issue says the far left is not horrified by pedophilia but has actually worked to mainstream the sexualization of children for a long time. The issue exploded earlier in the week when former Breitbart Tech Editor Milo Yiannopoulos lost a book deal and was disinvited from delivering the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference after video surfaced of him refusing to name pedophiles in Hollywood while also discussing how he engaged in sexual relations with adult men - including a priest - while he was a young teenager. Just days later, interviews done by"Star Trek" actor George Takei flooded the internet. An outspoken gay activist, Takei revealed that he had his first homosexual experience with an adult when he was just 13 years old and attending a summer camp. Yiannopoulos and Takei are not alone. "It is fairly common among men who identify as gay in their adulthood. I think this is one argument for homosexuality being a product of circumstances. It's not something you're born with," said Americans for Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera. Decades of research and confronting the LGBT agenda convince him this is one of the driving factors in men turning to homosexual lifestyles. "I've been doing this for 25 years and I now see that I really underestimated this factor. I think it's extremely high. I think it could be upwards of half the men or even much higher than that," said LaBarbera. He says the research backs that up. LaBarbera cites a 2016 study in The New Atlantis which concludes that "compared to heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals are about two to three times as likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse." LaBarbera says molestation was also a factor in the orientation of gay activism icon Harvey Milk, a homosexual political figure from San Francisco who was murdered in 1978. President Obama later honored Milk with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom and named a U.S. Navy ship after him. Milk was sexually assaulted as a boy in a New York City theater after his mother sent him there alone. "He went on to become a homosexual activist who also liked to date so-called younger men, even a teenager once. There was a 16 or 17-year old boy whom Milk had a sexual relationship when he was 33," said LaBarbera. LaBarbera says the key issue is the premature sexualization of children can happen in many forms, including exposure to pornography at an early age. "Something happens when you expose a child prematurely to sexuality or abuse and dysfunction. There's other factors, but this is clearly a major factor in male homosexuality and also among some lesbians," said LaBarbera. And that is why LaBarbera is horrified at the Boy Scouts of America for opening its doors wide open for homosexual scouts and leaders. "The Takei thing is fascinating because it was a camp counselor. Here we have the Boy Scouts of America are now allowing openly homosexual - not just boys - but openly homosexual men. That means you're going to have homosexual men taking boys on camping trips. We know from history that is not a good thing and a lot of abuse comes out of that, including in the Boy Scouts," said LaBarbera. But why would the trauma or confusion of being assaulted by a man convince boys they are homosexuals? "Some of these boys, and it's very, very tragic, they believe when they are recruited or seduced by an older man that somehow confirms they were homosexual. They blame themselves and it's very, very tragic," said LaBarbera. He says the impact is similar to other abusive relationships. "It's sort of like the girl who is a abused by a boyfriend or a relative. Then she seeks out other abusive men," said LaBarbera. LaBarbera urges deeper research to be done into the issue but he's not expecting it to happen anytime soon. "A fascinating study would just be famous homosexuals. Just take people like George Takei, who are well known as homosexual and look at their backgrounds. I think you would find an amazing amount of abuse, neglect, dysfunction in childhood, parent alienation," said LaBarbera. "These things should be studied, but of course, in academia, they're not because the rigid political correctness says you have to be pro-gay," he said. It's not just academia. LaBarbera says the media also turns a blind eye even though some - like CNN anchor Don Lemon - suffered abuse as kids. "There's a lot of examples of this but the for the media it's not a politically correct topic, because when you start raising questions like this, people say, 'Well, maybe this is a contributing factor to homosexuality," said LaBarbera. "That's the problem with this debate. We focus on the gay rights-civil rights aspect, which I believe is fraudulent. We don't talk about these negative causes and factors," he added. LaBarbera says Yiannoupoulos inadvertently pulled the mask off one of the dark secrets of homosexuality and the exposure may do some good. "I don't think he intended to, but he has educated a lot of people about homosexual ideation," said LaBarbera. However, he doesn't expect much help from the far political left in the U.S. LaBarbera says there has been a persistent effort over the years to remove the stigma from pedophilia. Figures ranging from Bill Maher to liberal academics are on the record defending it or trying to explain it. "It is gaining traction. There is actually a movement which is redefining pedophilia as MAPS - Minor-Attracted Persons. I was reading the [American Psychological Association] manual on mental disorders. They called pedophilia an orientation," said LaBarbera. "The idea that being attracted to children is an orientation. That is already officially out there, and that's pretty scary," said LaBarbera. And he says the far left end game is clear. "The radical left wants to achieve the normalization of pedophilia, defining the age of consent down and treating children as sexual objects," said LaBarbera. But LaBarbera says there is hope for anyone engaged in a homosexual lifestyle or is badly damaged from childhood sexual abuse. "The good news is people have come out of homosexuality. My good friend Stephen Black was abused as a boy. But he is now ex-gay. He came out of the homosexual lifestyle. He's married with children. The good news is you can come out of these awful circumstances," said LaBarbera. |
| 'No Campus for White Men' |
| Wed, 22 Feb 2017 16:20:46 EST The vast majority of college campuses have been liberal bastions for decades, but those politics have now morphed into a "victimhood olympics" that threatens people not affiliated with an allegedly oppressed group and even puts the future of our nation in doubt. Colleges are making headlines on a regular basis for reasons unrelated to the curriculum. Efforts by minority students to rename buildings, demand safe spaces, and intimidate free speech seem to be an every day occurrence. "There is a case of this happening at nearly every college campus," said Daily Caller Deputy Editor Scott Greer, author of the new book "No Campus for White Men: The Transformation of Higher Education into Hateful Indoctrination." "You can look at pretty much any campus and there is a major microaggression that started protests," said Greer, who says campus activism is essentially a competition among aggrieved minorities to prove they are the most oppressed. "The reason why all these students are rushing to compete in this victimhood olympics is that on college campuses there is a new moral culture arising called victimhood culture," said Greer. "In this culture, people are not assigned status and value based on being very honorable and having a lot of accomplishments or simply the dignity that comes from being an American citizen or a human being. It comes from who can demonstrate they've been the most oppressed, who's been the biggest victim," said Greer. Greer says this is a sharp contrast to the typical liberalism found on campus for many years. "Colleges have always been historically home to pretty crazy leftism, but now the angle on all these protests is very racial in nature. It's getting more anti-white in its character as well," said Greer. Greer traces the issue back more than 50 years to the dawn of Affirmative Action instituted under President John F. Kennedy. He says the policy made a lot sense at the time as many colleges and universities were blatantly slamming their doors in the faces of black applicants. But over time, says Greer, efforts to help students based on race colored their perceptions of their own identities. "This encourages students to think in a way that doesn't see themselves as an American or that they're being judged on the content of their character, but that they're being judged on their skin color and their ethnic background," said Greer. "That encourages them to gravitate towards that identity for the rest of their four years. If they got this benefit of getting into college based on racial identity, why not carry it on for the four years and see what happens," said Greer. However, he says the movement is that often pushing for special rights rather than equal rights. "We saw last week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where students are now advocating for free tuition for African-Americans and other minorities. It seems against the American character and American values, where they're judged by the content of their character," said Greer. As the protesters make their demands, a common cycle plays out where college administrators initially resist the protests but ultimately cave in to the students. Greer says there are multiple reasons for the weak resolve of those leaders, starting with ideological sympathy for the demonstrators. "A lot of the administrators and professors cave in because all of them believe, 'Oh, as a white person, I inherit all these bad things from the past. Even though my ancestors weren't even in the United States, I'm still responsible for slavery and colonialism and all these other terrible things that have happened in the past," said Greer. Greer says the next problem is administrators don't know what to do when the demands come pouring in. "Secondly, they're spineless because they have a very easy job. It's the part of the job they don't want to deal with because it's the most difficult. It's a very easy job being a college administrator. You have a two-hour lunch break. You really just sit in meetings all day. It's not a difficult job," said Greer. Finally, he says administrators give in because the campus liberals are the only ones in their faces. "They're the only pressure group they have to deal with in their job. They don't have to deal with conservative students [complaining about not having more conservative speakers]. They don't have to deal with because conservative students typically ask politely and go through the proper methods. Campus leftists will barge in their office and start screaming and shouting for an hour," said Greer. "They have to deal with that so they just cave in," he added. With liberals have a stranglehold on the vast majority of college campuses, Greer says it's up to conservative politicians to make sure the liberal students aren't the only voice in the ear of administrators. "They control the purse strings. They can demand - when administrators do something stupid like mandating white privilege courses for all students - to come before a committee hearing and explain themselves as to why they're pushing this ridiculous and harmful ideas on students," said Greer. Greer says reversing the trend is essential because the race-based victimhood culture on campus is no longer a fringe but the dominant culture on most campuses. "These are very well going to be your next senators, your next judges and maybe even your next president," said Greer. "It would be a terrible path for our country where we have congressmen, sitting on the House floor, competing over who is the bigger victim and determining public policy based on these silly notions. But that well could happen unless we change. This is definitely the path we're going to go down unless something happens to change course in higher education," said Greer. |
| House Conservatives Push Quick Action on Obamacare |
| Tue, 21 Feb 2017 15:39:45 EST The conservative House Freedom Caucus is pushing for quick congressional action to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and says the plans it supports will mean better coverage, lower costs and more control for patients. And House Freedom Caucus Chairman says if Republicans don't follow through on their promises to repeal and place the law, voters ought to send them packing next year. "I am confident we can do that, and I am confident that if we don't do that, everybody should send us home and they would have every right to send us home if we don't deliver on a real promise to make it affordable," said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who leads the House Freedom Caucus in the current Congress. "We promised to do that. We've got to deliver." Reports vary widely as to how soon Congress may tackle the repeal, with some lawmakers wanting to get it done in President Trump's first 100 days and others thinking repeal and replacement may not be completed until later this year or even early 2018. Meadows says the GOP consensus is to get this done quickly, but a debate is brewing about whether to repeal now and replace later or pass the two bills at the same time. "It's that replacement plan that really is providing a great anxiety among some of the Republican members, what it should include and what it shouldn't include. There's still some disagreement there but I'm optimistic that we will go ahead in the next 30-45 days and vote on something in the House and the Senate and move this along," said Meadows. "If it waits until next year, it won't get done, so [Americans] need to weigh in with their member of Congress to say, 'We want them to act now,'" said Meadows. Meadows also rejects the idea of allowing the current system to fester for another year as a means of building public demand for repealing and replacing current law. "I can tell you from a principle standpoint, to suggest that we allow it to continue to spiral down so that more people are hurt is not something that would be prudent," said Meadows. But Meadows also dismisses the alarm from Democrats that repealing Obamacare will means tens of millions of Americans will lose their coverage. "The Affordable Care Act, the way it is now, is not sustainable. A lot of those people who may have gotten coverage won't be able to keep their coverage on the current trend," said Meadows. Many of those Americans who now have coverage got it through the expansion of Medicaid. Meadows admits that will be one of the thornier issues to navigate. "It is a critical component that we have to address in some shape, form, or fashion. But whether they get this done with block grants on a per capita basis or some other mechanism, I believe that we can come up with a workable solution that doesn't leave anybody behind and provides an adequate safety net," said Meadows. Last week, the House Freedom Caucus threw its support behind legislation from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that is designed to repeal the current law and simultaneously replace it with legislation that will patients much more freedom in choosing their coverage. Paul is fiercely urging GOP leaders not to blow a hole in the deficit by repealing the law and only then getting to work on a replacement. Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., is offering a companion bill in the House that Meadows says goes a step farther than Paul's approach in the effort to break up monopolies in the insurance market. Meadows says there are some must-haves for conservatives in any replacement legislation. "It's one of the few plans that is out there that won't blow a hole in the deficit, actually will bring down costs, and hopefully will not only address the concerns about pre-existing conditions that many of my constituents and people across America have been concerned about, but do it in a way that actually drives the cost of health care down," said Meadows. Meadows says the final legislation needs to require insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions and forbid carriers from cancelling policies when people get sick. He also wants more flexibility and freedom for people in their Health Savings Accounts, but is shying away from mandating that children be allowed to stay on their parent's policies until they are 26 years old. "We think the private sector can actually address that probably better than making it a mandate," said Meadows, who also strongly endorses a plan from Sen. Paul to provide tax deductions for doctors who work a lot with low income patients. "They don't get to write that off now, so this will actually be an incentive to provide health care on a more philanthropic basis," said Meadows. Meadows says the cooperation between the White House and Congress has been excellent and that GOP leaders are showing respect for conservative ideas and strategies. At the same time, Meadows expects an intra-party clash over tax credits. "Probably the biggest stumbling block right now is the leadership's desire to use an advanceable, refundable tax credit, where a number of us probably don't feel that's the best approach to address it," said Meadows. Meadows urges his fellow Republicans to move intelligently but swiftly towards their top legislative priority. He says lawmakers need to stand on principle and let the political chips fall where they may. "I think it's more important that we act now to put forth not only a repeal but a replacement of all of it and make the tough decisions. As members of Congress, if we make the right decision and it sends us home, so be it," he said. |
| Why Are Feminists and Islamists Uniting? |
| Fri, 17 Feb 2017 16:38:49 EST Liberal feminists and Islamists don't have a lot in common but they are now strong partners in the fight against President Trump, but a leading terrorism analyst says the feminists are nothing but "useful idiots" in a movement that would truly oppress them if the Islamists achieve their goals. "What's happening in the West is we think if we just show them how much we love them and how much we respect their way of life, they're going to respect our way of life. This way, I do what I want. You do what we want and we live happily ever after," said Brigitte Gabriel, president of Act for America and author of "They Must Be Stopped." The unlikely alliance was on full display at the women's march in Washington on Jan. 21. Most of the headlines focused on women proclaiming their right to abortions, but Linda Sarsour, the woman leading the protest, has a very different history of activism. "She's an Islamist through and through. She wears the hijab. She comes from a Palestinian background. Half her family members are in Israeli jails involved in terrorism," said Sarsour. Gabriel says it's mind-boggling to watch liberal American women march under the banner of a woman who has no problem with how Muslim society treats women. "She praises Saudi Arabia and their Sharia law. This is a nation state where women cannot drive. They are beaten. They are stoned. They are flogged for having relations with another man or even seen with another man who is even a distant relative," said Gabriel. And it's not just in Saudi Arabia. Gabriel says even the most moderate Islamic nations do not come anywhere close to the freedoms women enjoy in the West. She says her home nation of Lebanon, which has shifted dramatically from Christian to Muslim in recent decades, is suffering from the demographic shift. "I know a 29-year-old Christian businesswoman from my hometown. The social police showed up at her door, took her for investigation and arrested her simply because she had a meeting with another man who is not related to her outside of her home without the supervision of her parents. They are enforcing these rules on Christian families, not only Muslim families," said Gabriel. "I'm not talking about Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh. You assume things like this happen in these types of countries. But to think that even in a country like Lebanon, that something like this can happen to a Christian woman, that goes to show you the oppression of women in Islamic-controlled countries," said Gabriel. So how did Islamic activists win over the feminists as allies? Gabriel says Sarsour was very clever. "Somehow, she found a way to appeal to the feminist movement inside the United States saying, 'We're all women together here. We all are oppressed.' She is basically using the emotions to try to lure them into coming with her and standing together with President Trump. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that's where they are right now," said Gabriel. And despite the glaring differences in the goals of the two movements, Gabriel says this alliance will likely continue for some time. "I think it's going to be a very long-term working relationship between the both of them because they have a common enemy that they hate much more and that is President Trump. They hate that much more than they hate their differences," said Gabriel. Sarsour is already cashing in on the alliance by getting groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Human Right Campaign to write big checks in support of the march. "We are already seeing how leftist organizations are not only standing with her and the Islamist movement in the United States to oppose Trump, but they are actually funding her movement. So now we are seeing the left and the Islamists coming together , not only working together but exchanging money," said Gabriel. According to Gabriel, the feminist groups know very little about the long-term goals of Sarsour and her Islamist allies. "We shouldn't be surprised. What people like Linda Sarsour are doing are basically following to the letter the instructions of the Muslim Brotherhood and their plan, which later became known as 'The Project,' on how to work within western nations in order to recruit like-minded people who share similar goals," said Gabriel. And it's not just liberal women's groups aligning with Islamists. Gabriel says it's happening more and more with the liberals seemingly oblivious to what their lives would be like if people like Sarsour get their way. One example is the ACLU working hand-in-hand with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. "You scratch your head and you think to yourself, 'How can these two people have anything in common?' But the ACLU, just like the feminists in this country are being used as useful idiots at the hands of Islamists like Linda Sarsour who have an end goal. They are using them simply to get to that goal," said Gabriel. In recent weeks, female politicians in Sweden made headlines in two very different ways. First, they mocked President Trump's signing of a pro-life executive order while surrounded by mostly men with a picture of an all-female signing ceremony. Yet, just days later, female Swedish politicians wore hijabs without protest while visiting Iran. Gabriel says Swedish leaders, of all people, ought to know the price of Islamic appeasement. "Because of the immigration of majorities from Islamic nations, how they are treating feminists. In Germany, for example, look at the rapes on New Year's Eve. Look at the rapes in Sweden. Sweden has become the rape capital of the world," said Gabriel. Gabriel says western nations are also eroding their own interests by allowing Muslim Sharia law to hold sway in formal court proceedings. Her organization is doing something about it. "We at Act for America have introduced bills across the country called 'American Laws for American Courts,' which says no foreign law, which includes Sharia law, will be allowed to be used in any American courtroom. Only the Constitution should be the highest authority in the land," said Gabriel. She says it's happening in the United States a lot more often than many people realize. "People wonder sometimes why we have to pass such a law. We have documented over 140 cases in America where Sharia law was used instead of the Constitution of the United States in 22 states in American courtrooms," said Gabriel. More information on the 'American Laws for American Courts' effort can be found at actforamerica.org. |
| 'They're Wrong!' |
| Thu, 16 Feb 2017 16:19:10 EST Lawyers for a Christian florist vow a vigorous appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after a state supreme court ruled unanimously Thursday that their client violated anti-discrimination laws by refusing to provide floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding. All nine justices ruled for the State of Washington and plaintiffs Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed and against Baronelle Stutzman and her store, Arlene's Flowers and Gifts. 1cDiscrimination based on same-sex marriage constitutes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, 1d wrote Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud in the court's opinion. The court further stated that the state's anti-discrimination law does not infringe upon Stutzman's freedom of religious expression. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending Stutzman, begs to differ. "They're wrong," said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner, who argued Stutzman's case before the Washington State Supreme Court. "We're deeply disappointed with today's court decision. The first amendment protects Baronelle's rights as a small business owner and a creative professional. She has loved and respected everyone who has walked into her store. She served this gentleman (Ingersoll) for nearly ten years and simply declined an event, one ceremony that was a religious ceremony because of her religious convictions," said Waggnoner. While not stunned by a liberal court ruling against her client, Waggoner says it's a mind-boggling ruling when the state conceded the crux of Stutzman's case. "Even in oral arguments, the Attorney General of the State of Washington conceded that Baronelle's design of custom arrangements was expression. The court's opinion says she intended to convey a message. The first amendment clearly protects this activity and these designs as pure speech," said Waggoner, who says Stutzman will appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Washington State Attorney General Robert Ferguson is making name for himself. In addition to vigorously prosecuting Stutzman, Ferguson also took the lead in challenging President Trump's executive order on travel from seven nations plagued by Islamic terrorism. Waggoner says Ferguson is clearly trying to make an example of Stutzman. "One wonders why it was so personal and vindictive. If it was about the principle of law, the attorney general could have just sued Baronelle's business. Instead, he chose to pursue her in her personal capacity. The ACLU has also been behind this. They also sued on behalf of clients in this case. They also are suing her personally. Everything she own's is at risk," said Waggoner. "The civil fines are relatively low. The court hasn't decided in terms of what she must pay the couple that's represented by the ACLU. But where the stick is and the real threat to business owners and creative professionals is in the attorneys' fees. She's required to pay attorney's fees, which could exceed seven figures," said Waggoner. Alliance Defending Freedom has set up a web page for anyone interested in helping Stutzman face the financial challenge. Waggoner says Stutzman has 90 days to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and then wait to learn if the court will hear the case. She is hopeful there will nine justices on the court by the time any oral arguments take place. Waggoner is fully confident the Constitution is on Stutzman's side. "In the first amendment, our rights and protections for free speech and free exercise of religion protect her right to do that. Nor did she violate the statute. She didn't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. As I said, she served him for ten years. This was about her religious convictions and a sacred religious ceremony," said Waggoner. And Waggoner says there's plenty of legal precedent on Stutzman's side as well. "The law in this area is clear and the court misrepresents that law in its decision. The U.S. Supreme Court and other courts have said these types of discrimination laws can't be used to trump first amendment rights. The government cannot use it's power to force someone to promote a message or celebrate a ceremony in violation of their conscience," said Waggoner. Waggoner says how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in this case will have a profound impact on our nation. "If the Supreme Court sides with Baronelle Stutzman, it reaffirms that tolerance is a two-way street and that the government cannot use its power to crush people and crush dissent, crush those that don't agree with the government's ideology at that point," said Waggoner. "All civilizations have had the freedom to believe what they want. What has made America unique is the freedom to live out those beliefs in the marketplace in a peaceful way. That's what's at stake in this case |
| Putin's Playbook |
| Wed, 15 Feb 2017 17:03:55 EST While the political and media intrigue continue to swirl around former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and the contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, one of Russia's most famous dissidents is warning the West about how Vladimir Putin operates and what making nice with Moscow will mean. "Putin's agenda is very simple. He has to stay in power for the rest of his life. But staying in power for a dictator is not as elementary as it may look for people in the free world. You always have to come up with a new narrative, with a narrative you can sell to the brainwashed population," said Garry Kasparov, a former longtime World Chess Champion who is now a fierce pro-democratic critic of Putin. Kasparov is also the author of "Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped." The book is a stark warning about the threat Putin presents to the free world and what he sees as America's failure to confront it. Putin is seemingly in the American headlines on a daily basis, in stories ranging from Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 elections to its prominent role in Middle East affairs, including the defense of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria. Kasparov says Putin's swagger on the international stage is merely a means of distracting his people from their problems at home. "The Russian economy is in a state of free fall. Oil prices are no longer as high as they used to be. So Putin needs something new. He made the simple choice, typical of every dictator who, after losing his domestic agenda, is replacing it with a very aggressive foreign policy," said Kasparov. "His aggression against Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, fomenting a war in eastern Ukraine, his support of his Syrian client Bashar al-Assad, his meddling in the internal affairs of many European countries, it created a new staple for Putin's domestic propaganda," said Kasparov. And he says all of it is pursued with one goal. "Vladimir Putin is fighting the free world, which is being presented in Russian media as an evil threatening Mother Russia, and Putin is the indispensable leader who is the only chance for Russia to survive in such unfriendly surroundings," said Kasparov. As for the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign, Kasparov says that is par for the course for Putin. "Now he's attacking electoral institutions in Holland, in France, in Germany, in Italy. He was behind the Brexit campaign in the UK, the Italian referendum, the referendum in Holland earlier last year. Putin's main goal was and still is to undermine the very concept of democracy, of free and fair elections," said Kasparov. And all these efforts are paying off. Kasparov says Putin is immensely popular despite the problems inside Russia. "All these things are boosting Putin's image among the Russian elite. We know from history that no one attacks dictators when a dictator looks strong," said Kasparov. While investigators say they have found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in their various communications, Kasparov is extremely critical of Trump for seeming to admire strongmen like Putin and being very reluctant to criticize him publicly. "Throughout the campaign, Trump criticized everyone and everything. He criticized his fellow Republicans, his Democratic opponent. He criticized NATO. He criticized U.S. elections. He criticized Meryl Streep. He made this endless list but he has never criticized Vladimir Putin," said Kasparov. On the policy front, Kasparov is concerned by Trump's criticism of fellow NATO members and says any actual distancing by the new administration would be seen by Putin as an open door of opportunity. "If the United States, for some reason, decides to renege on its traditional alliances, it will leave Eastern Europeans facing a Russian threat without U.S. backing. That means Putin will have free hand to influence many of these countries that are currently NATO members or in the EU, even without using direct military force," said Kasparov. Trump believes that better relations with Russia will be more productive than frosty ones, but Kasparov cautions that good relations with Putin come at a steep price. "There's no way you can win as an American leader by cutting deals with Russia at the expense of America's traditional allies or at the expense of the values that helped America to win the Cold War and to spread its influence worldwide," said Kasparov. "If Russia wants to have good relations with America, that's fine, but so far Putin has demonstrated that his interest is to step up confrontation and he's only willing to accept concessions, not real negotiations," said Kasparov. Kasparov blasted President Obama for his passive approach to Russian aggression and he is urging Trump not to be too conciliatory when meeting with Putin. "Countries like Russia, which violate international order and had the first annexation of territory from a neighboring country since 1945 in Europe, I think this country should be treated accordingly. Any attempt to show weakness by being an appeaser like Obama did is always treated by Putin as an invitation to continued aggression," said Kasparov. Kasparov implores Trump to study Putin's history in order to get a clear picture of who he is really dealing with. "He should study Putin's record and understand that Vladimir Putin always had ideas about rebuilding Soviet influence. This is the man who said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. This is the man who said, 'Once KGB, always KGB.' I could go on and on," said Kasparov. |
| 'Women Are the Ones Who Lose' |
| Tue, 14 Feb 2017 16:20:54 EST The effort to blur and even erase gender distinctions is a decades-long effort by liberal activists to achieve equality but the effort is only serving to endanger the very women the movement supposedly champions. That's the premise of "Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female" by journalist and Catholic Association Senior Fellow Ashley McGuire. She says the movement has far larger goals than winning restroom and locker room accommodation for people who believe they are a different sex than their anatomy would indicate. "The endgame is being pushed by an elite segment of society that thinks that equality only will come when we all seem truly identical or when we 'liberate' ourselves from this idea of sex and gender," said McGuire. "Women are the ones who lose in a world where it's scandalous to even use the word 'woman' as a category." While many social conservatives see the transgender movement bursting onto the scene in just the past few years, McGuire says the larger effort has been unfolding for decades. "Radical left-wing feminists pushed this idea that we're very gendered, that we've been socialized to be a certain way, that these are superficial things and that sex is something very random and we just need to get ourselves out of these male and female boxes for women to be equal like men. We're just starting to see some of the most extreme manifestations of it now, a few decades later," said McGuire. In her book, McGuire highlights stories such as a schoolteacher removing Legos from her classroom because boys were far more likely to play with them than girls and high schools removing Homecoming king and queen from the lexicon in favor of 'royalty.' Target stores have stopped labeling toys for boys and girls and there is even a push to stop dividing boys and girls clothes into different sections of the stores. "What we're seeing now is society actually actively encouraging confusion. That's the kind of things parents have to resist, whether they're getting it in their consumer choices or whether it's actually being taught in their schools," said McGuire. "This idea that toys and clothes have to be gender neutral or else you're doing some sort of harm to your children is completely false," said McGuire. But it's not just kids who deal with the consequences of the effort to eradicate gender and sex. McGuire says adult women are paying the price, including those serving in the military. She says women in the service can now be forced to the front lines of combat if they meet the physical requirements. In 2016, the issue took on a greater dimension, when Congress very nearly required all women to register with Selective Service, which could one day make them eligible for non-voluntary service, possibly even in combat. "It's ironic to me that we're suddenly talking about taking away choice for women, a choice as to whether they're going to be put into some of the most dangerous situations possible," said McGuire. "The Marines just had their boot camp go co-ed and now they're going to be putting men and women into the same sleeping quarters. That raises all sorts of risk for sexual assault, lawsuits, rape and things like that," said McGuire. College campuses also continue to pursue policies that are marketed as progressive but that McGuire believes puts women at great risk, especially in residential housing. "Something like 80 percent of rapes (on campus) happen in college dorms. A lot smaller percentage than you think happen in fraternities and sororities or off-campus housing. That shouldn't surprise us because most of these dorms are co-ed," said McGuire. "The idea being that men and women are no different. We can put them in the same building where they're going to sleep and shower. Often they're showering and bathing in the same bathroom. Some (colleges) are already implementing co-ed dorm rooms but at the same time wondering why women are being raped left and right," aid McGuire. So what do feminists have to say in response to this effort endangering women? McGuire says the left is very good at silencing opposing views. "They're trying to stifle any sort of dissent on the issue. I think there are very few people speaking out against it," said McGuire. She also says it took awhile for many people to see how the movement could impact them and their children. "This all seemed like something that didn't affect people in a very personal way. Increasingly, I think people are starting to see, whether it's someone like me - a mother to a couple of young children - faced with the prospect that my kids might be taught in their school curriculum as young as kindergarten about gender being a malleable construct," said McGuire. McGuire says there are some groups on the left that believe ending gender and sex distinction is harmful to women so the fight against the cultural tide will lead to "strange bedfellows." She also says studies show that equality for women is being achieved without blowing up our cultural foundation. Citing research showing that CEO's with daughters are likely to offer better salaries and opportunities to women, McGuire says things are moving in the right direction and a radical redefinition of humanity is not needed. "That's the direction we should be going. We should be exploring what our differences are, how our differences contribute in mutually beneficial ways, and trying to establish an equality based on that, not on this fake and unrealistic idea that if we make everything identical that's when we'll have achieved equality," said McGuire. |
| 'We Need to Anger the Chinese' to Stop North Korea & Iran |
| Mon, 13 Feb 2017 16:18:42 EST North Korea will pose a nuclear risk to the United States within a few years and stopping the threat means realizing North Korea and Iran are two components of the same threat and getting tough on China is the key to stopping both of them. Gordon Chang is widely seen as one the world's leading experts on China and North Korea. He is the author of "The Coming Collapse of China" and "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World." He says this past weekend's North Korean test of an intermediate range missile needs to be a call to awareness and to action. "The North Koreans and the Iranians have been thick as thieves. This is one program conducted in two separate locations. When we add in China's participation in this, we've got to look at this as a whole, not just the separate pieces," said Chang. Chang says no further evidence is needed than to note the Iranian missile test which made worldwide headlines last month was actually conducted with a North Korean missile. Officially, China is condemning the latest North Korean provocation, but Chang says Beijing is is doing that largely to sooth the rest of the world. He says China is notoriously duplicitous when it comes to North Korea. "The Chinese have consistently been helping the North Koreans develop both nukes and long-range missiles. We see Chinese banks involved in money laundering for North Korea and involved in North Korea's illicit commerce. Chinese entities have been selling things like uranium hexafluoride and components for the North's uranium weapons program," said Chang. "If Beijing wanted this to stop, it would. It hasn't been," added Chang, who says the Chinese are equally deceptive on the diplomatic stage. "We see China rhetorically supporting sanctions and then turning around and busting them when the world isn't watching. So I don't think the Chinese are genuine in what they say in New York (at the United Nations)," said Chang. North Korean provocations in the past 20 years are often followed by a familiar pattern of condemnation and sanctions. Yet, since the failure to stop North Korea's nuclear ambitions in the 1990s, little has been effective at getting the regime to change course. Chang says it's time to get serious with China. "One thing we could do is unplug Chinese financial institutions from the global system because of their participation in North Korea's illicit commerce. That would shock markets but we've got to show Beijing that we are serious," said Chang. While carrying economic and diplomatic challenges, Chang says the move would gut the nuclear threats emanating from both North Korea and Iran. "It certainly would but we have not had the political will to do that. But if some American city ends up to be a radioactive slab, it will not do for the president to say, 'Well, I could have stopped this but I didn't want to anger the Chinese. We need to anger the Chinese because we need, first of all, to protect our homeland," said Chang. Chang says are obvious things China could do to show it was serious about stopping the North Korean nuclear program, but like other efforts, Beijing must be closely monitored. "If we saw commerce between North Korea and China drop to zero, that would be an indication that Beijing is serious about this. After the next to last sanctions on North Korea, which were in March of last year, there was a brief fall-off in commerce in April and May. After that, everything went back to pre-sanction levels. So that is a pattern," said Chang. Chang also advocates the financial strategy against China because it's clear that softer diplomacy is a massive failure. "Yes, we've had diplomacy intended to disarm the North Koreans but we have not seriously pursued it with the vigor that it requires. That's why the North Koreans now have nuclear weapons and are on the verge of being able to mate them to their longest-range launchers. Clearly, our diplomacy over the course of decades has failed," said Chang. That's right. Chang says the North Korean missile program is making great strides in recent years, regardless of the failed tests that tend to make headlines. "When they have a test which fails, they learn a lot, so it's not necessarily a setback. We know that within 3-5 years, they will be able to have an intercontinental ballistic missile which will be able to reach most of the lower 48 states, and they'll be able to mate a nuclear weapon to that," said Chang. "Right now, they have the launchers. They have the distance. They just don't have the ability to mate a weapon to a long-range launcher," said Chang. |
| 'I Don't See A Floor Under This Elevator' |
| Fri, 10 Feb 2017 16:22:22 EST A new survey detailing the extent of casual sex among singles shows many are having intimate relations before the first date, a development that can be blamed in part on technology but leads to tremendous regret and permanently damaged relationships. This week, the dating service Match released a new survey on sex and singles conducted by Research Now. Included in the data are the revelations that 34 percent of singles have had sex before a first date and that millennials are 48 percent more likely to have sex before a first date than all other generations of singles in order "to see if there is a connection." In a USA Today story on the survey, sex therapist Kimberly Resnick Anderson suggests millennials have inverted the relationship process, using sex to determine if they want to pursue anything further with that person. 1cWe used to think of sex as you crossed the line now you are in an intimate zone, but now sex is almost a given and it 19s not the intimate part. The intimate part is getting to know someone and going on a date," Anderson is quoted as saying. Ruth Institute Founder and President Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse says the discrepancy between millennials and other singles is that the older ones know better. "The reason older generations are not [having sex before a first date] is because they have figured out already from experience that this is not a good idea. What we're doing is just one generation of young people after another are having to figure out for themselves that hopping into bed with somebody is a lot more complicated and potentially hurtful than we're led to believe by the media and stories like this one," said Morse. Morse also says smartphone apps for the explicit purpose of casual sex are contributing to the trend. "It's a new thing when you having dating apps or casual sex apps on your cell phone and you can find out if there's somebody close by who wants to have sex with you. That's a new thing," she said. "The desire to be sexually active has been with us forever obviously, but this way of going about it and the way the culture is pushing people towards sex without any kind of intimacy or friendship, that is something new and, I think, uniquely destructive," said Morse. Morse calls surveys like this and their positive portrayal in the media "cheerleading for the sexual revolution." But despite the glamorous and enticing portrayal of casual sex, she says it comes with many consequences, including the attachment people are specifically not looking for. "What you learn from experience is that your body has a tendency to attach to the person you have sex with. If it doesn't attach, often times what we have done is we are separating ourselves from our bodies, we're anesthetizing ourselves," said Morse. She also says the surveys and the pop culture leave out other aspects of the hook-up culture. "One thing they don't talk about here is the roles of alcohol and drugs in casual sex. What one can see in other kinds of surveys is that when people decide they're going to do completely anonymous sex like this, it isn't unusual for people to get themselves completely plastered before they do it," said Morse. "That should tell you it's not as much fun as it's cracked up to be. That's something that I've been hearing from college students for quite a while," said Morse. It's not just college students who have regrets. The Ruth Institute has begun what may be a one-of-a-kind program called "Tell Ruth the Truth," which invites people to share the impact that casual sex has had on their lives. "What we're trying to do is get away from this message of airbrushing away all the problems and allowing people space and time to say here's what really happened. 'Here's how I really felt after casual sex. Here's the next step after the first time you have that kind of encounter and then you get kind of swept away in it and are having one encounter after another and they're not really satisfying you. Here's where that leads,'" stated Morse. She says her work shows that personal stories resonate best with young people. "I think millennials particularly want to hear stories. They don't care for data. All these numbers aren't going to touch them one bit. But if someone who is 35 years old stands in front of them and says, 'This is how my heart was broken by doing what you're standing there thinking about doing. They just might listen to that," said Morse. Perhaps worst of all, says Morse, is the long-term damage casual sex inflicts on future efforts at meaningful relationships. "The results of sex are bonding and babies. That's the natural biological result of sex, bonding and babies. If people don't know how to bond with one another, they're going to have trouble creating lasting, stable relationships for when they do finally want to have babies. Then they're not going to be ready to really care for their children and give the children the kind of security and attachment that they need," said Morse. She says impact of poor bonding is also is also felt by the children. "The kind of damage that's going to happen to children of people who can't form relationships is really hard to predict just how bad that can be. Honestly, I don't see a floor under this elevator. We're still going down," said Morse. |
| 'Making Decisions Based on What the Law Says' |
| Thu, 9 Feb 2017 16:32:45 EST Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says the confirmation of Jeff Sessions means we will once again have a Justice Department that follows the law and he says the way Democrats treated Sessions could mean fewer of them in the Senate after the 2018 elections. After eight years of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch running the Justice Department, Cuccinelli says Sessions will be a breath of fresh air. "Simply making decisions based on what the law says would be a radical change at the Department of Justice, as would the appearance of justice," said Cuccinelli, who served four years as the top law enforcement official in Virginia. While hoping to see many changes compared to the Obama years, Cuccinelli says one of Sessions' top goals should be to stop federal agencies from granting themselves power that the law does not grant them. "They have to stop backing up executive agencies, including the department itself, in expanding the law. They need to focus on containing government within the law. That includes everything from silly stuff like transgender bathrooms being covered by gender discrimination all the way up to agencies attempting to create new regulatory arenas for themselves and this vastly increase their power," said Cuccinelli. President Trump has already talked about his desire to roll back the ability of the government to grab more power. But Cuccinelli says that effort really needs to be rooted at the Justice Department. "The legal oompf for all of that comes from the Department of Justice and having Sessions there - someone who's committed to the rule of law and to reining in the federal government and not using it to exercise power - is going to be a very welcome change," said Cuccinelli. One specific area Cuccinelli expects to see great improvement in is the Justice Department's relationship with law enforcement. "These are people going to bat to protect you and me who have not had the back of the government. Frankly, it's been the opposite. They've had to worry about getting prosecuted just for doing their job. That day is over thanks to the ascension of Jeff Sessions as the attorney general," said Cuccinelli. However, Cuccinelli reminds Sessions and all Americans that attorney general is different than every other cabinet position. "When it comes to matters of policy, the attorney general does what the president wants. When it comes to matters of law, the attorney general does what the law dictates regardless of what the president wants," said Cuccinelli. "As opposed to what we've seen for the past eight years, I am confident that Sessions is going to be an attorney general who is actually going to uphold both sides of that deal for the American people," said Cuccinelli. On Wednesday, Sessions was confirmed by the Senate on a 52-47 vote. Only Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, crossed the aisle to back Sessions. The confirmation process featured heated debate, including Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that Sessions should be rejected for his record on race and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was booted from the debate for allegedly disparaging Sessions in her floor speech. Cuccinelli says the vitriol coming from Democrats is telling. "They're playing to a rabid left-wing base that is wildly out of touch with just ordinary Americans," said Cuccinelli, who says the Democrats never found substantive reasons to oppose Sessions. "There's just nothing that they can point to other than generating their own allegations for complaints. He is a nice guy. He is an intelligent individual. He believes what he believes and that is somewhat different than the lefties there. Nonetheless, the way he conducts himself even in those situations has never given any of them cause for complaint before," said Cuccinelli. He believes Booker and Warren lodged their fierce protests for the sake of their own self-promotion. He notes Booker recently lavished praise on Sessions in public after they worked together, but then turned and accused Sessions of being racially biased. "I don't care what the project is. If I think you're a racist, I will never stand next to you and tell the world what a great guy you are," said Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli is also president of the Senate Conervatives Fund, which recruits and contributes to conservative U.S. Senate candidates. The group has frequently clashed with establishment Republicans and the national party, but right now Cuccinelli sees great opportunities as Democrats have to defend the vast majority of Senate seats in 2018. "I fully expect Republicans to gain seats. The only question is how many. The biggest targets of them all are going to be Democrats in states that President Trump won," said Cuccinelli. Three years after narrowly losing the governor's race in Virginia, Cuccinelli will not be a Senate candidate against Tim Kaine in 2018. However, he believes the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee is vulnerable too. "This is an eminently winnable state and Sen. Kaine has really accomplished nothing and has become more radicalized, certainly much more so than the average voter in Virginia, than his time in the Senate," said Cuccinelli. |
| 'We Just Had A Cuban Missile Crisis' |
| Wed, 8 Feb 2017 16:45:35 EST The Trump administration just won a modern-day Cuban missile crisis with Iran and, in the process, helped to expose the true intentions of Iran and Barack Obama's abandonment of Israel in the 2015 nuclear deal. The drama intensified Jan. 30 when Iran test-fired a ballistic missile in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. In response, the Trump administration slapped economic sanctions on Tehran. That led to Iran threatening a retaliation of its own, most likely additional missile tests. "Nobody noticed this but we had a Cuban missile crisis in the last couple of days," said Frank Buckley, foundations professor at the Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He also wrote on the tensions for the New York Post. Iran specifically vowed to take action on Feb. 10, which is Revolution Day there. Based on the evidence Buckley has gathered, it appears the plan was to hold a long-range missile test, which would violate the nuclear agreement. It's an agreement Buckley says sold out Israel entirely. "One of the side agreements of the Iran deal was Obama gave the Iranians permission to build missiles which would destroy Israel. That's how much he cared about Israel. He didn't want them to build missiles that could attack Europe. That's the difference between medium-range and long-range," said Buckley. According to Buckley, the deal allowed Iran to build missiles with a range of 2,000 miles, more than enough range to strike "every square inch of Israel." However, the test Iran conducted on Jan. 30 violated that agreement by testing a missile that could reach targets much farther than 2,000 miles away. "They were breaching the agreement big time. They were putting our allies at risk. There's talk they're trying to build an inter-continental missile, which would reach us," said Buckley. Buckley says there are two primary targets in mind for Iran as it develops longer-range missiles. "The Germans and the French are probably not terribly concerned about the possibility of an attack from Iran. It's basically the UK that is threatened. For those guys, the big enemies are the UK and the United States," he said. Based on translations of written and spoken statements from Iranian officials, Buckley says Iran's long-range missile ambitions are very clear. "They formally put all their money on a medium-range missile that is postmarked Israel. They are now boasting that they are developing newer missiles, which are long-range and which would have a range of 2,500-5,000 kilometers, which would take care of Europe," said Buckley. On top of that, Buckley says Iran has designs on a space-based weapons program as well. "I think you have to believe their efforts to explore space are basically an effort to develop a weapons system capable of attacking the United States. We should think of those exploits in those terms," said Buckley. But there's now a hiccup in Iran's plans. The dramatic missile launch apparently set for Feb. 10 is now canceled and satellite images show the missile and launching pad have been taken down. Buckley says Trump deserves the credit. "What happened is they realized there was a new sheriff in town. Interestingly, the latest news from Iran seems to be that they're backing down big time. The supreme leader, (Ayatollah) Khamenei usually fulminates about death to Satan and all of that. He's toned down his language and so has the social media chatter from Iran," said Buckley. He sees the Iranian change of heart as a direct parallel to the USSR backing down in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, only most people missed it. "This is, in short, a replay of the moment in 1962 when Robert Kennedy turned to John F. Kennedy and said, 'They blinked.' It was a Cuban Missile Crisis moment and everybody ignored it," said Buckley. In his column, Buckley urges the Trump administration to divulge the contents of the Iran deal and the side deals to the American people. "We should demand to know whether we placed our ally, Israel, in danger by permitting its great enemy, Iran, to destroy it," said Buckley. "That's something that people should know about. If we have betrayed our ally in that respect, that's something Americans should know." And he says the impact on our other allies could be very demoralizing. "Our reputation in terms of defending our allies is on the line as well. And even if you're progressive and hate Israel, then you might be concerned about what this has done to America's reputation to stand by its allies," said Buckley. Buckley says the deal also kneecapped Israel in another way. "The information I have is we revealed to the Iranians the secret behind the Stuxnet virus, which the Israelis would have employed to disable the nuclear facility in Iran. And we basically threatened Israel that we would shoot down their planes if they tried to attack Iran," said Buckley. "In all of this, we positioned ourselves as the close ally of Iran against our enemy Israel. That was Obama," said Buckley. In his opinion piece, Buckley suggested even stronger responses from the Trump administration when Iran acts in a provocative way. He says Trump cannot stop all commerce between Iran and American firms, but he says sanctions ought to be applied immediately in some important areas," said Buckley. "Anything connected with anything vaguely nuclear or anything vaguely related to missiles should be on the table at this point if, as we suspect, they're going ahead with long-range missiles," said Buckley. |
| Brat: Tax Reform Must Come First |
| Tue, 7 Feb 2017 16:38:20 EST Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are pushing party leaders to speed up work on major legislative priorities and stay committed to their campaign promises, but one key member says the effort should begin with tax reform and not Obamacare. As the first 100 days of the Trump administration tick by, conservative lawmakers are urging leaders in the House and Senate to get going on their vows to repeal and replace the Obama health care law and jump start the economy with significant tax reform. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., shot to conservative stardom when he topped then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 congressional primary. A former college economics professor, Brat says getting tax reform done first and done right are at the top of his priority list. He says news that top Republicans plan to address health care and infrastructure before the tax code is a mistake. "That is hugely concerning. I taught economics for 20 years. That is piece number one, without which I can't vote for anything else," said Brat. Specifically, Brat wants to see a major reduction in the corporate income tax rate and immediate expensing for business. He says that is the key to getting the economic engine humming. He says experts who helped to craft the 1981 Reagan tax cuts, such as Arthur Laffer, see those provisions as they keys to explosive growth, wage growth and job creation. "He said that is consistent with eight percent wage growth, four percent GDP growth for the country and eight percent wage growth for a country that has not seen the average guy have their wages increase for 30 years," said Brat. He says getting that right will set the stage for everything else. "If we don't get that piece, we will not be able to afford any of the rest of it. That has to come first. It's got to be in writing. It's got to be in stone or I can't go along with the rest of it," said Brat. As for Obamacare, conservatives have two growing concerns: moving more quickly to advance legislation and pushing hard against some GOP leaders who now seem willing to work within the framework of Obamacare than to repeal it in full. Brat says part of the current delay on legislation is due to the Senate slow-playing the confirmation of Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to be the nest Secretary of Health and Human Services. The congressman says President Trump has made it clear that is the key to revving up the reform effort. "A few weeks ago, he said, 'Look, once Price is in that slot, then we're going to move at lightning speed.' So I think that's what you can realistically hope for. Once Price [is confirmed], boom, the plan comes out and we run with it. I think it's going to be surprisingly good," said Brat. "I don't think it will be perfect. I'm not a big fan of tax credits because you can bid those up forever," said Brat. "But it will not be Obama-lite from what I'm hearing." An aggressive approach in the House, however, may run into hesitation from Senate Republicans, who seem more willing to work within the existing framework of Obamacare. "The Senate has made it clear they're OK with tweaking Obamacare and repairing the existing broken system. I obviously think that's the wrong way," said Brat. Brat says Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., is coming to rally the GOP members to stand strong on campaign promises to repeal and replace Obamacare. "[Walker] says, 'Once you start reform, you can't backtrack. Once you take out one leg of the stool, which we already have done - Trump has already done some of the repeal by regulatory fiat. Once we start down that road, we've got to conclude it. I think (House Speaker) Paul Ryan is going to to come out and make that clear in the next few days," said Brat. Brat says the tinkering approach cannot work. He points out that the typical family on just a bronze plan is saddled with a $12,000 deductible just to get access to the health care system. As a result, he says it's putting even greater financial pressure on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veteran's programs, which are now headed towards insolvency faster and faster. The congressman says the current system bends the cost curve up by 20 percent for Americans. He says the only responsible approach is to bend the cost curve to zero in order to spare those programs and give younger Americans a fighting chance of actually seeing some of those benefits. "We're growing (the cost curve) at 20 percent now. Bending the cost curve down doesn't mean you grow at 10 percent or five percent. It means you shrink the cost of health care to zero. That's what you've got to do just to maintain balance. That doesn't reduce costs. That just keeps them from growing more in the out years. So we've got some heavy lifting to do," said Brat. |
| 'The Law Is Very Clear' |
| Mon, 6 Feb 2017 16:42:24 EST A former top immigration official says federal law is very clear in giving the President of the United States broad power over who is allowed into the country and points out that possession of a visa does not give permission to enter the United States. The issue is still at a boiling point after Federal Judge James Robart placed a temporary restraining order on President Trump's executive order pausing immigration to the United States from seven nations roiled by radical Islamic terrorism. In his ruling, Robart said he was granting the injunction because the plaintiffs were likely to win in the merits and individuals and the states could suffer irreparable harm before the case is fully resolved. Jan C. Ting served as Assistant Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the Justice Department during in the George H.W. Bush administration. He now teaches at the Temple University School of Law. He says the law is clearly on Trump's side. "The law is very clear that Congress has authorized the president to decide. If the president finds the entry of any aliens or any class of aliens would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he is authorized to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens or to impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate," said Ting. "It's codified as Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 212 (f). It's also codified as 8 USC Section 1182 (f). It gives broad power to the president to exclude, basically, any aliens or non-citizens he chooses on the grounds that it would be detrimental to the interests of the United States," said Ting. He says this should be an open and shut case for the courts in the Trump administration's favor. "I think the courts, if they follow the precedents, have to come up with that result, and I hope they will," said Ting. Robart did not cite any constitutional provision or U.S. statute. The only court cases he cited dealt with his power to issue an injunction. Ting says the ruling was unconvincing. "I didn't find the temporary restraining order terribly persuasive. I thought the judge relied on generalities about the law and the Constitution and our customs and practices," said Ting. Prof. Ting is also taking aim at some of the legal arguments against the executive order, starting with the contention that anyone in possession of a U.S. visa has a right to enter the country. "People need to understand what a visa is. All a visa is is permission to get on an airplane coming to the United States," said Ting. "If you don't have a visa, you can't get on the airplane, but the visa does not itself authorize anyone to come into the United States. They have to present themselves for inspection and the inspectors are authorized to turn people around, even if they have visas," said Ting. And that is why Ting says citing a 1965 law barring discrimination against aliens from a particular country doesn't matter in this case. He says that law also focuses only on visas and not actual entry into the United States. He says Section 202 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act makes that clear. "I think it's clear that the 1965 language in 202 (a) does not apply to the inadmissability language in 212 (f)," said Ting. Nonetheless, if the courts continue to rule against the Trump administration, Ting says it's up to Congress to clarify statutory language even more to make sure the lew is being followed as the original lawmakers intended. |
| Trump Continues 'Absurd' Obama LGBT Policy |
| Fri, 3 Feb 2017 17:20:53 EST Social conservatives are thrilled with President Trump for his pro-life actions and his choice for the Supreme Court, but he is taking heat from the right for extending an Obama-era executive order which places LGBT agenda mandates on federal contractors. Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says it all started under the Obama administration three years ago. 1cIn 2014, President Obama, contrary to any federal law, issued an executive order saying any contractor who does business with the federal government has to have this so-called LGBT and even Q (for) questioning, which is part of that alphabet soup, and they had to put this into their employment systems, 1d said Staver. 1cThey were imposing on employers the LGBTQ agenda when they didn 19t have any federal law as authority, 1d said Staver. Staver says Trump made a big mistake in continuing the policy. 1cWe were hoping that would be one of those executive orders that would go by the wayside, but when President Trump came into office, sadly he continued that executive order in 2017, 1d said Staver. 1cThat is going way beyond the federal law. Federal law does not have sexual orientation or gender identity in the employment context or in any other context with regard to employment or public accommodation, 1d said Staver. He says Congress has repeatedly stiff-armed the LGBT agenda on this front, which is why Obama resorted to an executive order. 1cCongress has been asked several times to include sexual orientation and gender identity into the federal employment law and they have rejected that urging. Consequently, not only does the law not have it but we see from Congress they don 19t want it in there. So why would the president go over and above them and impose this on employers anyway? 1d said Staver. 1cIt 19s understandable for Obama, but it 19s just not acceptable for President Trump, 1d he said. The order requires any firm bidding for a federal contract to adopt policies protecting employees who wish to identify as a different gender than their biological sex would indicate. It also requires businesses to accommodate such personnel by allowing them to using restrooms and other intimate facilities according to their gender identity. And those companies refusing to comply will be left out in the cold on federal contracts. 1cAny company that doesn 19t want to have this absurd policy in place or a policy that violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs, they 19re going to have to sit on the sideline. They won 19t be able to do business with the federal government, 1d said Staver. Staver also asserts that the protections offered through this executive order are not the equivalent of other anti-discrimination protections enshrined in law. 1cGender identity is completely in a different category than discrimination on the basis of race or religion, which is protected by the first amendment, 1d said Staver. He also argues the policy flies in the face of Trump 19s top goal of jump-starting the economy. 1cIf we want to have America first and we want to create jobs? Don 19t put this absurd policy on them when the federal law does not impose it, 1d said Staver. While Staver lauds Trump for his pro-life actions and for selecting Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, he says this is an area where Trump has always disappointed traditional marriage advocates. 1cHe never was on our side it looked like on the so-called LGBT agenda. Certainly, he 19s not on the level of President Obama, who was radical in that respect, 1d said Staver. 1cUnfortunately, in the first two weeks of office, he does this executive order and that 19s disturbing. 1d Staver says conservatives need to make a compelling case to Trump to change course. 1cI think he needs to be educated on this issue and he needs to reverse this policy that Obama ultimately instituted, 1d said Staver. |
| 'He's A Tremendous Judge' |
| Thu, 2 Feb 2017 15:18:41 EST The only U.S. senator who was also on President Trump's list to be the next U.S. Supreme Court justice is hailing Trump's selection of Neil Gorsuch to fill seat, noting both his own experiences arguing before Gorsuch and why Senate Republicans are a long way from exploring the nuclear option to get the nominee confirmed. On Tuesday, Trump named Gorsuch to fill the seat open since the sudden February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was also on Trump's list of 21 people he would choose from to replace Scalia. Sen. Lee says he was not at all surprised to see Gorsuch rise to the top of a very distinguished group. "When I first saw the list, which also included my brother, I saw Judge Gorsuch's name and quickly concluded he could easily be the person who made it to the top of the list and ended up getting nominated. He's that quality of a judge. He's that caliber of a judge," said Lee. "Even though he wasn't as well known as some of the others on the list, I knew in time the president and the White House would reach the conclusion that this is someone they needed to take an especially close look at," said Lee. Lee is familiar with legal excellence. His brother, Thomas, sits on the Utah Supreme Court and his father, Rex, served four years as Solicitor General of the United States during the Reagan administration. Lee himself is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and argued cases before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while Gorsuch was on the bench. He says the excellence of Gorsuch was easy for attorneys to see. "He's a tremendous judge. He's the kind of judge every lawyer wants to appear in front of. He's the kind of judge who, going into argument, has already read all of the briefs and all of the statutes, and all of the cases cited in the briefs, and has already formulated his own theory about what the central, most important theme of the case is," said Lee. "He helps lawyers get to the nub of the argument in the argument session and, in the process, prepares himself to render the best decision possible. This is exactly the kind of judge we want and need on the Supreme Court," said Lee. While Scalia was known for loving the verbal give and take in oral arguments and Justice Clarence Thomas rarely asks questions during oral arguments, Lee says Gorsuch speaks as much as he needs to. "He's engaged and his questions are pointed. They're neither excessive not doled out penuriously. He's very much active in the oral argument. He speaks appropriately but no more than necessary," said Lee. In his comments Tuesday at the White House, Gorsuch noted that faithfully interpreting the Constitution and the law means judges will inevitably render decisions they don't like. Lee says that's exactly how Gorsuch approaches the job. "It's a telltale sign of someone who is committed to textualism and originalism, these legal doctrines that came to typify and be associated with Justice Scalia and also Justice (Samuel) Alito, my former boss, as well as Justice Thomas," said Lee. "This is indicative of the type of careful approach that a judicial conservative takes when approaching a case. The approach is one that involves deciding what the law actually says, rather than achieving the outcome the judge deems best," said Lee. Lee says there will be no legislating from the bench with Judge Gorsuch. "That's really important. That's exactly what we want in the Supreme Court because we want to get away from this modern tradition, this modern deviation that results in policy-making from the bench," said Lee. Nonetheless, Lee says there is a judicial balancing act between the extremes of judicial activism and judicial passivity that Gorsuch also understands. "In other words, it's just as bad for a judge to act where no action is warranted under the law as it is for the judge to refuse to act where action is warranted. Judge Gorsuch gets that. He gets that his job is to interpret the law and act where the law requires and decline to do so where the law doesn't," said Lee. Several Democrats have already announced their opposition and even vow to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination. Many in the media are wondering if Republicans will invoke the "nuclear option" and end filibusters for Supreme Court picks. Lee says such talk is very premature. "I need to point out that just because you have Democrats who are opposing him or some Democrats saying they're going to filibuster, it's not at all clear you couldn't get 60 votes to end debate, to break the filibuster, in which case he's be easily confirmed," said Lee. But even if Republicans don't get to 60 votes, Lee says the GOP doesn't have to go nuclear. "We have tools at our disposal to make sure we get this nominee confirmed and we intend to do so. For example, we have Rule 19, the so-called 'Two Speech Rule.' Once invoked, it can give us a means of bringing debate to a close, even without 60 votes. If we took that or other approaches available to us, we can still get this nominee confirmed," said Lee. Just one day after Trump named Gorsuch, he publicly urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to use the "nuclear option" and change the rule allowing filibusters of Supreme Court nominees. While respecting Trump, Lee prefers to hold his cards much closer to the vest. "I'm not going to tell the president how to do his job and I'm going to continue to focus on doing my job. For my purposes here in the Senate, it's best not to signal in advance what strategy we might deploy, especially in advance of the need to do so. For all I know, we may well get 60 votes to end debate on this nominee, at which case there's no need to even discuss the nuclear option," said Lee. The Gorsuch fight promises to be intense. Senate Democrats are already voting against Trump cabinet picks in large numbers and are even boycotting committee votes on some of them. Lee says that strategy is doomed to failure. "Look, I think a lot people wanted to make a point. A lot of them have made their point. I don't think it's productive for them to just skip out on hearings. If they continue to do that it's going to be their loss because they're just going to be cheating themselves and their constituents out of their right to participate in this important process," said Lee. "Elections have consequences and this particular election resulted in a president in the White House who is not Hillary Clinton and resulted in a party in charge of the Senate which is not the Democratic Party. In light of that, I'd hope and expect they want to work with us to review this nominee, and to review his impressive judicial record, and hopefully get him confirmed," said Lee. |
| GOP Prepares to Defund Dems' 'Holy Grail' |
| Wed, 1 Feb 2017 16:22:13 EST The woman behind recent videos that decimate Planned Parenthood's claim that it needs to receive taxpayer dollars to meet vital pre-natal needs says congressional Republicans are poised to remove funding from the nation's largest abortion provider and Democrats will be powerless to stop it. On Tuesday, Live Action released a video showing activists calling Planned Parenthood clinics all around the U.S. seeking an ultrasound to ensure the health of their unborn children. Time after time, the Planned Parenthood workers explain that the clinics only use ultrasounds in preparation for abortions and not to confirm a pregnancy or evaluate the health of a baby. The video follows on the heels of others that undermine Planned Parenthood's contention that it needs over half a billion dollars a year in taxpayer money because of the vital services it provides outside of abortions. Officially, Planned Parenthood is forbidden by law from using any public money to perform abortions, so the group insists the money goes towards pre-natal care, mammograms and other women's health needs. But Live Action President Lila Rose says the videos are pulling the mask off the Planned Parenthood facade. "We've known that Planned Parenthood is an abortion-first corporation, that they commit about 34 percent of all abortions in this country every year. Yet, they provide less than two percent of the breast cancer screenings, less than one percent of pap smear tests and the numbers go on," said Rose, who founded Live Action when she was just 15 years old. She says Planned Parenthood entire argument for receiving federal dollars is now gutted by its own employees. "They use [ultrasounds and pre-natal care] as a justification for their over half a billion dollars a year in tax payer funds, which led us to do this investigation, to really use Planned parenthood's own language, their own staff explaining and admitting on tape that they don't actually provide pre-natal care and they don't actually provide ultrasounds even though they advertise those things," said Rose. Rose, who was in Washington Thursday building support for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, says the GOP is getting ready to yank taxpayer dollars from Planned Parenthood. "There's a lot of willpower right now on the Hill. There's a lot of clarity of focus that we need to get this done. The American people want it. Many of the folks who got into office in the Senate and the House - the most pro-life House ever - campaigned on defunding the abortion industry. So a lot of folks are behind it, a lot of energy and momentum," said Rose. It won't come without a loud fight. "This is the holy grail for the abortion lobby and for the folks in Congress they have bought with lobbying dollars," said Rose. But Rose says the Republicans are ready to defund Planned Parenthood as part of the Obamacare repeal effort. And she says it will happen in a way that Democrats cannot stop. "It looks like the Planned Parenthood defunding and then the redirecting of that money to federally qualified health centers will be included in the reconciliation bill. That's what happened last year so this means that it will pass the Senate filibuster because the pro-abortion groups in the Senate right now would filibuster a law that they would try to get through the traditional way," said Rose. Reconciliation is a budgetary tactic that removes the 60-vote threshhold to get to a final vote. A simple majority would pass the repeal and the attached defunding language. As Rose mentioned, the Republicans did that a year ago. But now there is an ally at the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. "So it's looking really hopeful. We just have to get that same bill now to President Trump because it's looking like he would actually sign it into law," said Rose. Democrats defend the Planned Parenthood funding by saying millions of low-income women rely on those clinics for non-abortion related care. Rose says that money would still be available for women's health care. "If taxpayers are going to be funding anything, the money should be redirected to more worthy health care providers that provide more comprehensive care than Planned Parenthood. There are 13,000 federally qualified health centers who provide better care and don't focus on abortion. They should get that money, not Planned Parenthood," said Rose. Live Action is also launching a petition to urge Congress to follow through on the defunding promise. Over half a million signatures have been gathered so far. Rose is also optimistic about Trump's nomination of Federal Appeals Court Judge Neil Gorsuch. She says Gorsuch's commitment to the original intent of the American founders gives her confidence Gorsuch would protect the right to life. While Gorsuch has not issued any abortion-related rulings, Rose says his record is pretty clear. "He's someone who has advocated against euthanasia, saying any intentional taking of human life by a private party is wrong. So I think it's really hopeful and I think he deserves all the support we can give him," said Rose. "I really hope there's not a fight in the Senate and that he's able to be properly confirmed and we have someone who's really going to defend the right to life and the Constitution on the Supreme Court, in place of (the late Justice Antonin) Scalia, who was dearly loved," said Rose. |
| 'This is Not A Permanent Ban' |
| Tue, 31 Jan 2017 16:37:14 EST President Trump's executive order is not a permanent ban but is necessary for national security thanks to the lax vetting practices applied by the Obama administration, according to a leading immigration policy experts. Trump has issued a flurry of orders, but his executive order last week ordering an immediate and indefinite pause on travel to the United States from seven terrorism-prone nations is drawing by far the fiercest response. Protesters have clogged airports and political critics are demanding Trump rescind the order. Jessica Vaughan is director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. She says there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about what Trump's order does. "I think the most misunderstood part is that people are being permanently prevented from coming to the United States who had been approved before," said Vaughan. "This is not a permanent ban. It's a temporary suspension. You can call it a ban if you want, but it's a temporary ban. No one has been told that the benefit they were approved for has been taken away." And she says refugees in dire situations are still being processed from those countries even with the pause in place. "I have to emphasize there is language in this executive order that anybody with a particularly emergency situation, compelling circumstances, in imminent danger, or in other categories can ask for a waiver. From what I've heard in statements today, they've already granted more than a thousand waivers for people," said Vaughan. But she says the pause on entry from the seven unstable nations is needed to recalibrate how the U.S. screens people entering our country. "The point was to give our government the opportunity to take another look at these people who have been granted green cards, visas, refugee status. We know that the vetting process under the Obama administration was not adequate," said Vaughan. Vaughan, a former visa officer, says the Obama administration failed to do even basic screening much of the time, including waiving required interviews with those seeking to go to the U.S. But she said the problems didn't end there. "In other cases, officers were not allowed to look very deeply into the applications that they got. The claims they made on their applications were not always verified. Officers were told to assume that they were qualified and not ask too many questions. [There was] not a lot of fraud prevention work taking place," said Vaughan. Then there is the problem of trying to vet people coming from hostile countries or ones that don't have decent records on their people. "In some of these countries, we don't have enough of a relationship with the government to be able to be sure that people's identities are who they say they are or that their story checks out," said Vaughan. "There was a lot of enforcement that was undone by the Obama administration. We've seen illegal immigration rise to levels we have not seen in many years," said Vautghan. Vaughan says she has sympathy for those caught in transit as the order took effect, but she says national security has to take precedence. "It is important to recognize that our security has been put at risk every single day that we have not had adequate vetting in place. So it was important to put a stop to that as soon as possible," said Vaughan. Vaughan likens the pace of Trump's immigration actions thus far - ranging from this order to ordering border wall construction to cracking down on sanctuary cities - to "drinking from a fire hose," but she believes Trump is on the right course. "There's a lot that needed to happen," she said. "It's been presented as an integrated plan. Throwaway lines like, 'Let's have more border security.' They're talking about a wall but changing the policies also and enforcing the laws in the interior. That's a comprehensive approach that's likely to work." |
| Border Tax or Border Adjustability? |
| Mon, 30 Jan 2017 16:00:27 EST President Trump has floated the idea of a border tax or border "adjustability" with Mexico to raise the revenues needed to fund construction of a border wall along America's southern border, but the leader of the nation's largest grassroots taxpayers group says the president must be careful not to punish American consumers. "This is a very confusing and intricate issue, probably the most complex aspect of the tax reform discussion right now," said National Taxpayers Union President Peter Sepp. Among his first actions as president, Trump authorized construction of the border wall and once again vowed that Mexico would pay for it. After the Mexican president dismissed the idea, Trump and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer have both discussed the idea of a border tax on Mexican imports as high as 20 percent. But Sepp says it is unclear whether they are referring to an actual border tax or a concept known as border adjustability. "What we're really doing here is reading tea leaves. This is a tea cup that goes very deep. We're having a difficult time telling exactly what the administration wants to do here," said Sepp. The answer it critical because Sepp says the difference between a straight tax and border adjustability is significant. He says an actual border tax would not be good news for working Americans, since Mexico can simply pass along their higher costs to the people who buy its products. "Taken in isolation, a border tax, where you have a trade deficit with a given country, you slap a tax on its goods coming into the country that's aimed specifically at them, that could result in consumers having to pay more out of their own pockets here in the United States," said Sepp. Border adjustability is different. "What (adjustability) tries to achieve is if you send something out of the United States for export and sell it abroad, it is not subject to U.S. tax. If you are bringing in goods, either finely finished goods or raw materials, to make something in the United States, you're not allowed to deduct it anymore under border adjustability. It's supposed to be a border-neutral way of handling economic activities," said Sepp. Sepp says that concept along with fundamental tax reform involving lower tax rates, full expensing of investments and allowing companies to be taxes only by the countries where they earn their money, could have some benefit. "If you take an entire reformed system like that with border adjustability in it, you might be able to minimize some of the impacts on consumers," said Sepp. Trump critics allege that any such move to draw more money out of Mexico could trigger a trade war with one of our top trading partners. Sepp says that is unlikely unless Trump goes ever further and slaps new tariffs on Mexican goods. "Those kinds of things always tend to invite some kind of retaliatory action. We need to be careful about how these kinds of policies are pursued. Sometimes a tariff might be justified if another country initiates a tariff against us. But for us to do that unilaterally from the start can complicate matters to a great degree," said Sepp. Trump's first executive action on trade was the formal withdrawal of the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. Sepp says that decision is understandable. "That treaty did have its flaws, a multi-lateral agreement involving something like a dozen nations, is going to be pretty complex by its very nature," said Sepp. But Sepp says existing and prospective trade partners would have a better idea of where Trump wants to lead on TPP if he listed reasons for the U.S. withdrawal. "The problem is, by simply walking away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and saying, 'Well, we'll try bilateral approaches,' that creates a great deal of uncertainty about U.S. trade policy going forward," said Sepp. "To be more specific about the flaws in TPP would have been helpful in sending signals around the world that the U.S. is still committed to free trade, but these are the particular problems that we have with an agreement like TPP," said Sepp. While Sepp says border adjustability is the thorniest issue, he wants to see Congress get moving on substantive tax reform while the opportunity is available. "I think the momentum is still there. What needs to happen going forward is the tax writing committees - House Ways & Means and Senate Finance - need to have hearings on these specific aspects of tax reform. Answer some of the questions are causing a lot of fear and speculation, and then start to build a legislative consensus around a particular bill," said Sepp. "Right now, we have a blueprint for tax reform. That is not legislation. We need to get to the legislative part as quickly as possible," said Sepp. |
| 'It's A Very Encouraging Time' for Pro-Life Activists |
| Thu, 26 Jan 2017 15:51:17 EST As pro-life activists take part in the annual March for Life in Washington, they are more optimistic than any time in recent memory as a Republican Congress and a pro-life president get to work and more and more younger Americans join the cause thanks to modern science. Leaders in the movement, like Susan B. Anthony List Vice President for Government Affairs Marilyn Musgrave, expect President Trump to make good on all his pro-life campaign promises. "He made a pledge to work to defund Planned Parenthood, to support the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, to make the Hyde Amendment permanent, to nominate pro-life justices to the Supreme Court. I might add that that's the big one. That is the big one," stressed Musgrave. There's already been action on two of those promises. On Monday, President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which forbids U.S. tax dollars from going to any organization performing or advocating for abortion in foreign countries. In addition, the House of Representatives passed legislation to make the Hyde Amendment permanent. The Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in the U.S. Musgrave applauds Trump and the House. She notes that every Republican who voted was in favor of the bill, along with three Democrats. "It is very good times for us because we have hope that we can actually make gains for life," said Musgrave. She also says there is no reason Republicans can't defund Planned Parenthood. "I believe defunding Planned Parenthood, redirecting those dollars to other health care providers that don't do abortion, I think that's the one that's most quickly attainable by the House and Senate through the reconciliation process," said Musgrave. Reconciliation is a budgeting process that skirts the possibility of a filibuster, meaning a simple majority in the Senate could defund Planned Parenthood. Musgrave says accomplishing the Trump promises would save countless lives. "The Hyde Amendment has saved over two million lives since 1976. It's my prayer that at this time in history, we will look back on our efforts, our marching, our support for women and their babies, the acts of this Congress and this president, we will look back and know that many, many lives have been saved," said Musgrave. In addition to favorable political winds at the moment, Musgrave says the future of the pro-life movement is bright because of the thousands of young people who are actively part of the effoet to protect the unborn. "The March for Life, with now the faces of many young people, is an incredible encouragement to me," said Musgrave. "We are seeing the new face of the pro-life movement and that is incredibly encouraging as we see millennials speaking up for life." She says one reason for the youth infusion is that science keeps showing the humanity of the unborn. "I can remember the day when they said it was just a blob of tissue. That's what they would tell a pregnant woman. Now we know that those precious little babies are operated on in utero. We know that they can feel pain after the fifth month of pregnancy," said Musgrave. "We know these things. It's not disputable anymore. So the preciousness of that unborn child, the humanness is ever more an more evident, especially to the millennials that are marching," said Musgrave. Musgrave says the real scientific game-changer is the sonogram or ultrasound. And while some recently claimed ultrasounds give women false evidence of their baby's humanity, Musgrave says those images are very powerful to mothers dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. "When women see the image, they know that that is a child. That is their baby. So there is a reason that the pro-choice crowd doesn't want women to see the ultrasound. The humanness of that child is very evident right there for the mother to see," said Musgrave. She says many ministries are centered around giving women the chance to see their babies. "It's just precious to me when you see local communities, pro-life people supporting mobile ultrasound units. And I love it when a pastor gets up in a church and saying, 'Because of your donations for this mobile ultrasound, you have saved many lives," said Musgrave. Musgrave says the ultrasound had a profound impact in her family. "I remember the day I saw the picture of my grandson, Isaac. It was an ultrasound picture. I knew even then that he was going to look just like his daddy. And by the way, he does. That ultrasound speaks volumes. That's the image that we see, that people are sharing with their family and friends. Science is on our side," said Musgrave. The March for Life will be the second for Musgrave in less than a week. She scoped out the Women's March on January 21. In addition to missing any consistent message among the demonstrators, Musgrave was especially bothered by the number of men carrying signs in support of Planned Parenthood. "Does that in any way relieve you of your responsibility for your sexual actions? If children are produced by that, do you just want them aborted? Do you not want them supported and taken care of? It was an interesting emotional time for me to be among those marches," said Musgrave. However, Musgrave firmly believes the pro-life side is advancing and that the combination of science, young activists and allies in Congress and the White House means the future is very bright. "Now we have the opportunity to do things in the pro-life movement that I've not seen in my lifetime. It's a very encouraging time," said Musgrave. |
| Election Expert Calls Trump's Fraud Probe 'Long Overdue' |
| Wed, 25 Jan 2017 17:05:12 EST One of the leading election fraud experts says there is virtually no way to determine how many fraudulent votes were cast in 2016 but is applauding President Trump's call for an investigation, saying the U.S. is long overdue in taking important steps to ensure more accurate elections. Trump has said repeatedly that he believes the votes of illegal aliens across the United States are responsible for Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote. The issue flared again, both at a White House press briefing and in a pair of Trump tweets that announce his call for a formal probe. Former Federal Elections Commission member Hans von Spakovsky now manages the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. While not weighing on Trump's specific assertions, Von Spakovsky says a thorough federal investigation into voting laws is clearly warranted. "I think it's long overdue. There's never been any systematic, organized effort by the federal government to try to improve and check on the election integrity of the United States. I think this is a great idea," said von Spakovsky. He says Trump's call is a radical departure from the Obama administration's position. "It's a complete turnaround from the Obama administration, which for the past eight years has done everything it can to try to stop improvements in election integrity: things like Voter ID, things like verifying the citizenship of people who are registered to vote. The Obama administration has tried to stop that and has minimized or basically said, 'There's no fraud to worry about anywhere,'" said von Spakovsky. While the media point out that Trump has provided no evidence of his assertions that millions of illegal aliens cast ballots last year, von Spakovsky says the same press corps had no problem with President Obama's collision with the facts on this same issue earlier in the month. "President Obama told a whopper of a lie in his last press release, when he said that when he got out of office he would continue to oppose Voter ID and other efforts to try to keep people out of the polls and then claimed that we were the only western democracy that does that, when in fact we are one of the only western democracies that does not require photo ID when you go vote," said von Spakovsky. Von Spakovsky says no one knows how much voter fraud occurs, but he says the system is ripe for exploitation for several reasons. Some of the biggest vulnerabilities lie in outdated voter rolls. "There's almost three million people who are registered in more than one state. How many of those are actually voting in more than one state at the same time, which is of course illegal? We don't know because nobody's actually checked that out to look at it," said von Spakovsky. Also on the rolls are many people who couldn't possibly show up to vote. "There are almost two million people that are dead who are still on voter rolls across the country. How many of those are just an error and how many are actually still voting because someone's using their name. Again, we don't know because there's never been any systematic check of that," said von Spakovsky. He says there is concrete evidence of dead people voting in some locales. "Right before the election, a CBS TV station in Los Angeles actually started checking that. They found several hundred people just in Los Angeles who had been dead for years but had continued to vote in multiple elections," said von Spakovsky. The problem, says von Spakovsky, is that proving voter fraud in past elections is very difficult. "It's very difficult to investigate voter fraud cases. It's like the cases I just mentioned in California, several hundred people casting ballots after they died. Obviously. somebody forged their signature, somebody forged their ballot. Trying to find out who that was is going to be pretty difficult," said von Spakovsky. So what can be done to strengthen election integrity in the future? Von Spakovsky says the first step is to get the most accurate voter rolls possible. "The Justice Department has the ability to file suit because there is a federal law that requires state and local election officials to maintain the accuracy of their voter rolls, to clean them up, to take off people who have died and moved away. Many folks haven't been complying with that law and the Obama administration knowingly and intentionally refused to enforce that provision," said von Spakovsky. The next step, he says, is to confirm who is actually eligible to vote. "The Department of Homeland Security needs to start sharing it's database on non-citizens in the country with election officials all over the country, so they can check it and find people who shouldn't be on the rolls because they're not U.S. citizens," said von Spakovsky. He says rooting out ineligible voters should also take place at the time they register. "The other step that has to be taken because of the fact that illegal aliens are being given driver's licenses is that states have to put in requirements that you provide proof of citizenship when you register to vote," said von Spakovsky. And he has one more idea. "Juries are drawn from voter registration lists. One thing that is not done consistently around the country is when people are excused from jury duty because they're not a U.S. citizen, that information needs to be given by the local courts to local election officials so they can take those people off the rolls. That's not being done in many, many states," he said. Von Spakovsky would like to see all states adopt provisions requiring voters to present a photo ID at the polls and he would extend that requirement to absentee voters as well, something he says most states with Voter ID laws have not done. And von Spakovsky says Trump could get the ball rolling on almost all of this without running it by Congress. "A lot of it can be done administratively through the executive branch, which the Trump administration now controls, particularly the Department of Justice and the Department of homeland Security," said von Spakovsky. In addition to contending there isn't much of a voter fraud problem in the U.S., Democrats also assert that Voter ID and other provisions could disenfranchise the most vulnerable citizens, namely minorities and the poor. Von Spakovsky says it's exactly the opposite. "The victims (who have their votes stolen) in these cases often are the poor and minorities. An individual who was convicted of voter fraud up in Try, New York, just a couple of years ago was asked specifically why they were targeting poor minority neighborhoods. He said, 'They're the people least likely to notice or complain that their vote's been stolen," said von Spakovsky. "This effort will actually help the poor. It will help racial minorities and ensure their vote doesn't get stolen," said von Spakovsky. |
| The Road to Repeal and Replace |
| Tue, 24 Jan 2017 16:23:51 EST Republicans are committed to repealing and replacing President Obama's health care law, but one of the law's fiercest critics warned that overhauling such a huge part of the economy will take time and might be a bit messy but will hopefully show clear results within two years by taking the federal government largely out of the health care business. Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says President Trump and congressional leaders are smart to make repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act the top priority out of the gate in 2017. "The individual mandate, the employer mandate, the taxes, the Medicaid expansion all are on the table for repeal. They're going to provide a safety net. If you're on Obamacare now, you'll be able to continue to keep your coverage for at least two years. After that, they're building the bridge so that people will have better options for going forward," said Turner. This week, Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced a bill that would give the states the option of keeping the current system in place if those states' leaders felt it was best for their citizens. Turner says any truly effective plan would only allow the states to keep Obamacare as a transition for a couple of years. "This whole law is not working. It's like a house of cards. Once some parts of it start to fall, others do as well. But the money can continue to flow. That's really the main thing states want. 'Can you give us some money our citizens are getting through the exchanges for their subsidies and for Medicaid," said Turner. However, she says states may have the long term option of keeping their own exchanges in operation. "Some of the states that have existing exchanges that they have set up may continue to use that exchange. Others may decide to do private exchanges. Others may set up a new kind of, much more flexible exchange state exchange to give people the opportunity to buy plans that are a lot more flexible," said Turner. She says removing power from Washington and sending it back to the states has to be a bedrock of any reform. "It has not worked for the federal government to tell citizens of Manhattan they have to buy exactly the same coverage as somebody in rural Montana. That doesn't work. You've got to have more flexibility where the states decide what kind of policies to approve that meet the needs of the citizens and the resources of the state," said Turner. "So the states will have a lot of leeway to use these new resources, meet goals, but not have to jump through all of these tens of thousands of pages of Obamacare regulatory hoops and instead thinking what's the best way to solve this problem," said Turner. The Affordable Care Act was passed in March of 2010 but did not begin implementation until the disastrous healthcare.gov roll-out in October 2013. Turner says patience will be a virtue as Congress and the Trump administration try to turn this ship around. "There's a long lead time. The plans have to figure out what the states are saying are the parameters. You know, what's considered insurance. Then they have to design their policies. Then they have to go back for approval. Then they have to start marketing them out. That can actually be an 18-month or even a two-year process," said Turner. Turner says hopes for much lower premiums heading into the next coverage period are not well-placed. "They're just not going to see any relief this year. I think that will be very hard. But they're trying to see what they could do to speed this process up so the people have better options in 2018 at least, certainly 2019," said Turner. Given that Washington would have a much smaller role, Turner is confident the new policies and increased options will be available to consumers much more quickly than Obamacare was launched. And she says the politicians can read the calendar too. "The replace part is going to rely on markets and rely on states and make sure that people are covered in the meantime. So I don't have that crystal ball. I wish I did, but I know that they are very motivated to show results before the 2018 elections," said Turner. Turner is optimistic that the states and the marketplace can turn things around. She says the creation of Health Savings Accounts in 2003 were available to consumers within weeks. "That legislation passed in early November in 2003. On January 1, 2004, less than two months later, the first Health Savings Account was sold. That's how quickly the market can turn around if you're giving them new flexibility, new freedom and the ability to turn around and sell something that people actually want to buy," said Turner. |
| Trump Order Weakens Obamacare |
| Mon, 23 Jan 2017 17:18:23 EST While the White House press corps pores focuses on how many people showed up on Inauguration Day, President Trump's first executive order is already weakening Obamacare in preparation for the repeal and replace effort in Congress in the coming weeks. The order instructs all relevant agencies, primarily the Department of Health and Human Services, to "ease the burden" of Obamacare. If that sounds vague, that's exactly how it was intended. Health care policy expert Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says the lack of specifics means a lot of actions can be taken to protect patients. "Departments and agencies with control over Obamacare under the Affordable Care Act 'shall exercise all discretion and authority available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions or delay the implementation of any provision in the act,'" said Matthews. "They can also relieve the states of cost, fee, tax, penalty or regulatory burdens on individuals, families, health care providers, health insurers, patients, recipients and so forth and so on," said Matthews. So what does all that mean? "It's a very broad statement, which says those people who are in charge, basically the secretaries - primarily of Health and Human Services but perhaps also the IRS and maybe a few other agencies, have the freedom under this executive order to try to step in and say, 'We're going to try to reduce the burden of Obamacare with respect to mandates, penalties and taxes," said Matthews. And despite Obamacare being passed by Congress, Matthews says the way it was written allows the Trump administration to take the teeth out of the law even before Congress acts. "There was nearly 3,000 references to the word secretary in the Affordable Care Act. Nearly all of those apply to the secretary of Health and Human Services. The language was, 'The secretary shall determine,' 'the secretary shall decide,' 'the secretary shall set penalties' and so forth. The law itself gave the secretary of Health and Human Services a lot of discretion to carry this out," said Matthews. "I would argue that the ability to provide all that power to the secretary to implement the law also provides a lot of power to the secretary to un-implement the law," said Matthews. Matthews says Trump is exercising "transitional authority," a power that Obama claimed when changing or delaying certain components of the law. It's something Matthews says Obama became quite brazen about. "President Obama had moved the situation to the point where he said in a speech, 'I'm going to do what I feel like needs to be done out there. If Republicans don't like it, sue me,'" said Matthews. Republicans cried foul at the time, but Matthews says this usage is only undoing what Obama shouldn't have been able to do in the first place. "Once they set the precedent, it's hard to be too critical of it. Conservatives felt like that was overreaching. But if [Obama] overreached, I'm not sure it's bad overreaching to pull it back and say, 'You never had the authority to do that.' We're in essence bringing it back to the status quo ante," said Matthews. Matthews also points out that this will take place in a very brief window before Congress acts to repeal and replace the law. "This is very temporary and it's meant to begin relaxing these burdens while Congress takes action to actually repeal and replace the legislation," said Matthews. In addition to easing the burden of the law before Congress gets to work, the executive order stands as a message to Congress. Matthews says Trump is asking lawmakers to follow his lead. "The executive order that Donald Trump released in essence says, 'Here's the flag. I'm showing you where I'm going on this. You have my permission to begin to scroll this thing back as far as you can within the limits of the law," said Matthews. |
| 'It Is A New Day in America' |
| Fri, 20 Jan 2017 17:29:22 EST President Donald Trump's inaugural address sends a clear signal that business in Washington is about to change and his vow of action has an eager Congress ready to work, according to Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla. Yoho, who gained headlines two years ago by challenging sitting Republican House Speaker John Boehner, says the shift from President Obama to President Trump is huge and needed. "It is a new day in America and I think Donald Trump did a good job just talking about making America great again at the end of his speech. It's goodbye to the old and hello to the new," said Yoho. Trump began his inaugural address by proclaiming his presidency served as the moment the power in the United States returned to its rightful owners. "Today's ceremony, however, has a very special meaning because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people," said Trump. What does that look like? Yoho says it means a government who remembers who it works for. "The way I took that is you're going to see a government that's much more responsive to the people," he said. In his speech, Trump also slammed the business as usual approach of Washington. "In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving. We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action, constantly complaining but never doing anything about it," said Trump. "The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action." Yoho says that's the message the American people have been sending for years. "If you look at the progression of the tea party from 2009 forward, the people being elected now - me being one of them - are from people who were fed up with the status quo and they wanted people outside of the Beltway. Donald Trump is the epitome of that," said Yoho. But one message emerged strongest of all from the Trump speech. "From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families," said Trump. Trump's "America First" approach to the presidency is drawing a wide variety of reactions. Yoho is encouraged by it. "Whatever we do from government, we need to do what's best for America. If we do that, that's bringing power back to the people. Let's treat this country first and foremost," said Yoho. One of Yoho's greatest frustrations is how important legislation, such as appropriations bills, are often derailed or delayed by unrelated issues. He expects that to stop now that the GOP has the power in Washington. "Two years ago we got that whole process stopped on the confederate flag issue. This last year, in 2016, it got stopped over the LGBT issue. I'm not saying they're not important issues, but they should not be a distraction to getting our legislative work done," said Yoho. Trump has made it clear to Congress he expects them to be very productive in the early days of this administration. Yoho says Vice President Mike Pence put lawmakers on notice. "Mike Pence came into our conference twice now and he goes, 'I hope you guys are holding on because Mr. Trump is ready to get going. He has boundless energy and he doesn't accept failure. He'll be pushing the cart rather than waiting for somebody else to lead. He's going to lead," said Yoho. And Yoho says Republicans on Capitol Hill are eager to get to work on much of the Trump agenda. "The optimism that we see, not just in America but up here in the legislative body, there's just a whole new atmosphere up here and it's all positive," said Yoho. The top of the legislative agenda is clear. "In the first 100 days, I think you're going to see a push for the replacement of Obamacare. Following that you'll see a push for tax reform. We've already got a good product teed up for tax reform," said Yoho. While Trump assumed the presidency Friday, scores of protesters were arrested for violence ranging from vandalism to arson. Yoho says the demonstrators fail to appreciate the source of their right to protest. "The American dream comes from opportunity. The opportunity comes from our founding principles, our core values that's held together and protected by the Constitution. Those ideas are neither Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, white or black. Those are American ideologies," said Yoho. "Even these lackluster protesters should have the common sense to say, 'We have something bigger than a party or a political belief. We better all work together to preserve what made this country great," said Yoho. While Yoho hopes the protesters eventually realize the unique opportunities they have in America, he says America itself has some excellent opportunities in the coming days. "Seems like we were always running away from President Obama or trying to undo what he's done. We've got a president now in the White House who will be leading the charge and I think it'll be a lot easier to get things done in a positive direction for this country," said Yoho. |
| 'He's Going to Be A Unique American President' |
| Thu, 19 Jan 2017 16:29:43 EST One of Donald Trump's earliest supporters says man about to become the nation's forty-fifth president is tailor made for this moment in American history, but says Trump will approach the job differently than his predecessors. Theodore Roosevelt Malloch is a former Yale University professor and senior fellow at Oxford University. He is author of the brand new book, "Hired: An Insider's Look at the Trump Victory." Malloch, who is a descendant of President Theodore Roosevelt, was on board with the Trump campaign from it's earliest days. He says Trump is entering this job with the right motivations. "What makes him tick, frankly, is his love of country. Donald Trump is a patriot," said Malloch, suggesting Trump could easily have skipped the campaign and focused on business and golf. "When he says he wants to make America great again, and take it into this 21st century, I said very early on it's much like Theodore Roosevelt at the beginning of the 20th century and American nationalism. I think Trump actually sees the potential of America, does not believe she is in decline, does not believe she's on her last legs, but believes American greatness can prevail," said Malloch. He expects Trump to get a lot done in the early days of this administration, but one area is of top concern. "I think in the economy in particular, you'll see a very active president in these first 100 days," said Malloch. And Malloch says that record will be judged by voters in less than two years. "I think he defines success as bringing back American economic growth," said Malloch. "He will be judged by the American public and he is willing to be judged by how he restores the American dream, but particularly American economic growth." Malloch also offers a very different view of Trump's personal side than the public has come to see. He says Trump is not a bully and a narcissist, although he does see why many have reached that impression over the past couple of years. "Certainly those are characteristics that have been lodged against him and in some ways he has brought some of those upon himself with his demeanor during the campaign, which was over the top," said Malloch. But he says the Trump he's dealt with is very different. "He's actually a very thoughtful and very reflective , excellent listening person who takes advice and is able to analyze a situation. Donald Trump is the kind of chess player who is playing two or three moves ahead of you on the chess board. He's that strategic," said Malloch. As a result, Malloch says we can expect Trump to approach the presidency differently than anyone else who has held the office. "Don't forget that Donald Trump is an outsider. He is a maverick and he's going to do things his way, whether that means using Twitter or going directly to the American public or that means carving out a new tag line to describe his policies. He's going to be a unique American president," said Malloch. While Trump may not have the finely honed conservative vision of Ronald Reagan, Malloch sees important similarities. "I do think that he has a good bit in common with Ronald Reagan in terms of his common sense mentality, his pragmatism and also the notion of transactional leadership," said Malloch. "If you read 'The Art of the Deal,' you can really come to understand how Donald Trump lives, thinks and will negotiate America's place, both economically and in terms of its relations with foreign powers," said Malloch. When it comes to the foreign stage, Malloch expects some clear priorities from Trump. "We all know about his attitudes toward Russia, which frankly is more in the direction of detente than it is towards a new Cold War. I think that his relationship with (British Prime Minister) Theresa May after Brexit and any other country that moves in the same direction will be interesting to watch. I would particularly invest in, and I believe he will, the U.S.-U.K special relationship as a signal," said Malloch. Malloch spent years rubbing shoulders with the world leaders who gather each year at events like World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland. He says Trump has little use for their ideology. "Donald Trump will likely never find himself in that Davos global elite, moving towards one-world government, moving towards all the environmental nonsense and moving toward a statist regulatory apparatus that is the antithesis of much of what he campaigned on," said Malloch. |
| 'We Have A Once in A Century Opportunity' |
| Tue, 17 Jan 2017 16:32:53 EST Congressional Republicans began the process to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act last week and Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., says the party needs to keep moving with urgency towards fulfilling the GOP's top campaign promise. "We have a once in a century opportunity for real to get this right. Medicare and Social Security are insolvent in 15 years if we don't get this right. The kids will be left with nothing," said Brat, a former college economics professor. "I taught those kids for 20 years at the college level. That's why I got into this business, to make sure we get this right." "We promised the American people this repeal and replace. It's our number one promise since 2010," said Brat. Brat says some people are mistaken in believing that the votes Congress took last week already repealed the law. "All we did last week was have the budget resolution vote. You have to have a budget to move forward on what's called reconciliation," said Brat. "Reconciliation is what allowed Obamacare to be passed in the first place with just 51 votes in the Senate." "Now Republicans are going to use the same reconciliation process to repeal and replace," said Brat. Much of the talk on the GOP side centers on whether to have the repeal take effect in two or three years. Brat hopes it's much sooner than that. "Some folks are getting a little wobbly. The problem with the two-year is that will occur as our re-election occurs. So politics is going to get mixed in with policy and that's never a good model to do what's in the best interest of the country," said Brat. He says waiting three years to trigger he repeal is an even worse idea since the 2020 presidential race will already be underway. Brat says some congressional Republicans are getting skittish about moving so quickly and passing a repeal without a formal replacement attached. "The details of that have not been worked out to put it mildly, so there's a little angst from all sides on that. What's the repeal going to look like? What's the time frame? Is it going to be done in two years or three years and what's the replacement?" said Brat. Brat dismisses claims by Democrats that repealing Obamacare will take coverage away from up to 30 million Americans, calling it "nonsense." "People are nervous about being left in the lurch. They shouldn't be. There's all sorts of plans out there that show we're actually going to end up with a better product," said Brat. What is unsustainable, says Brat, is the soaring cost of health care for Americans right now. He says the typical family pays $17,000 in premiums a year for coverage while still confronting much higher deductibles. He is working with Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., on expanding Health Savings Accounts. Brat says allowing people to choose simple catastrophic plans while building up their Health Savings Accounts would provide peace of mind while also showing people the exorbitant cost of health care. Brat also says ideas like allowing people to pool together can bring down costs. As Republicans throw out different ideas, Democrats often allege that seven years after Obamacare was passed, Republicans still don't have an alternative. "The Democrats say we don't have a plan. That's true. We have nine of them," said Brat, who doesn't expect the GOP to take long in compiling a replacement. He says it's the Democrats who have their heads in the sand. "The entitlements, Medicare and Social Security, are going insolvent and not a word from the Democrats' side on these major issues, when the kids will end up with no systems whatsoever in 50 years. Not a word, just crickets," said Brat. But the start of the repeal and replace effort also has Republican critics. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. and other Republican fiscal hawks are pointing out the budget used to trigger the reconciliation process blows a $9.7 trillion hole in the budget and adds greatly to an already out of control national debt. Brat, who voted for the resolution, says Paul and his allies are technically correct. "They're right. We chose the current CBO baseline and it blows huge holes in the budget. I think that was done to offer the Senate a little bit of latitude to get the vote right here," said Brat. But Brat, a member of the House Budget Committee, says GOP budgets will fix that in the coming months. "We're going to do another budget in four months and that one will get back to normal balancing in ten years, maybe sooner than that," said Brat. "That's the hope of some of us." |
| Obama's Cuba Impact: Repression of People & Enriching Castros |
| Mon, 16 Jan 2017 16:48:42 EST President Obama's thawing of relations with Cuba has already drawn plenty of criticism, but a prominent Castro critic says Obama's actions in his final week will only serve to increase repression in Cuba while enriching the coffers of the Castro regime. On Friday, the Obama administration announced it would no longer accept Cubans into the country if they arrive in the U.S. without a visa. For years, the American policy had been to accept refugees who reached our shores but turn back those encountered off the Florida coast. For critics of Obama's earlier overtures, this latest move is another major slap in the face. "It is very significant. It is another cave-in by Obama to Castro," said Humberto Fontova, a prominent author and journalist who fled Cuba as a boy while his father was imprisoned. However, he says it's not the so-called 1cwet foot, dry foot 1d policy shift that enrages him the most. "Folks, this is a smokescreen. This is cover. This is camouflage for the real issue here," said Fontova. "What Obama did along with this is he abrogated the doctor asylum program. Read the fine print, folks." At issue is the Cuban policy of "Doctor Diplomacy," which Fontova describes as Cuba sending doctors to many friendly or third-world nations in exchange for large sums of money pumped into the Cuban treasury. He says the doctors get less than 10 percent of the money and their families are "held hostage" while they're abroad. In 2006, President George W. Bush instituted the aforementioned asylum program, allowing those Cuban doctors to defect to the U.S. by strolling into any one of our embassies around the world. "That was costing the Castro regime dearly because what the host country would have paid for these quack doctors was being lost. It's estimated this was bringing in about eight billion to the Castro regime," said Fontova. He says that money will flow more freely again now that Obama has reversed the Bush policy. Fontova also points out that Obama is not clamping down on all Cuban entering the U.S. Those with visas are welcome, and he says how those visas are distributed is a scandal in itself. "Here's the kicker. The issuance of those visas is outsourced by Obama to the Castro regime. The U.S. embassy in Havana leaves it up to Castro to decide who is going to get these visas," said Fontova. He says the visa recipients are chosen specifically to fleece the American welfare system for the benefit of Cuba, a strategy that Obama helped make easier by easing the U.S. remittance policy toward Cuba early in his administration. "They sprint off the plane, run straight to the welfare offices, apply for the U.S. welfare benefits, which can total $1,200 a month, and almost immediately start wiring that money back to Cuba," said Fontova. "It's estimated that last year four billion dollars flowed from the U.S. to Cuba, thanks to Obama opening that lifeline and thanks to those so-called refugees that the Castro regime chooses," said Fontova. In his farewell address, President Obama took credit for opening "a new chapter with the Cuban people." Fontova says that new chapter means even more suffering for the Cuban people. "The real horror of this is that repression in Cuba is at a 20-year high. The last two years, in other words coinciding exactly with Obama's opening, have coincided with a wave of terror against Cuban dissidents," said Fontova, who says the Cuban government feels emboldened to persecute dissenters since it know there will be no negative reactions from the U.S. And thanks to Obama refusing to accept refugees who make it to U.S. shores, those dissidents have no way of escape. "The Cubans who Castro didn't want to come to the U.S., genuine refugees, folks who jump on two pieces of styrofoam tied together. Those people will be prevented from coming, but the Cubans who Castro wants to come over here because they're a cash cow for him will continue coming," said Fontova. He says the Cuban dissidents point the finger of blame at Obama. "Do you know that Cuban dissidents have been protesting in Cuba wearing Obama masks? They're saying it's his fault. Naturally, that hasn't been reported in the mainstream media, but it is all Obama's fault, Cuban dissidents keep telling us," said Fontova. |
| 'Israel Is Here to Stay' |
| Fri, 13 Jan 2017 16:29:08 EST A former Clinton administration official is blasting President Obama for his treatment of Israel over the past eight years and strongly encourages President-Elect Trump to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Lawrence J. Haas served as communications director for Vice President Al Gore and is now a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council . His book "Harry and Arthur" was named one of the top ten non-fiction books of 2016 by the Wall Street Journal. In a recent column for U.S. News & World Report, Haas makes the case for moving the embassy. In a subsequent interview, Haas told us the move comes down to one simple and clear message. "Israel is here to stay," said Haas, who says that message would drive a stake through the Arab and Palestinian fantasy that Israel can be wiped off the map. "You hear [the] expression all the time, 'Palestine: From the River to the Sea.' Well, Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea means no Israel. I think it's time for the United States to send a very clear message to the world that Israel is here to stay, that Jerusalem is the historic homeland and capital of the Jewish people. That's a reality," said Haas. "We are not doing anyone any good by ignoring the reality that Jerusalem is always going to be the capital of Israel. We might as well come to that recognition," said Haas. Haas believes the move would also be an important signal to Israel and the world that the Trump administration will approach the Middle East much differently than Obama has, particularly after the December United Nations vote in which the U.S. refused to veto a resolution condemning Israel for its settlements and other disputed lands. Haas says the non-veto was bad enough, but the Obama administration's actions behind the scenes was especially galling. "They not only allowed it to go through but frankly they worked behind the scenes to ensure that there was enough support for it, so that while they were abstaining from it, everybody else was voting yes. It was beyond the benign action of a simple abstention," said Haas. Those actions left Haas livid. "I reacted very furiously to it. It seemed to be the final nail in a sense that the administration had nailed into Israel's coffin over the last eight years. The theory being that if they were tough on Israel, Israel would make very painful concessions and we would get peace," said Haas. He says the Obama strategy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a flop. "In the process, they were very tough on our closest ally in the region. They didn't really demand anything from the Palestinian side. As a result, the Palestinians dug in even harder. We didn't see negotiations. The Israelis felt that they couldn't compromise because they were being pressured so much and the Palestinians didn't think they needed to compromise," said Haas. "It was a formula for disaster and that's what we've had over the past eight years," Haas added. Haas rejects the notion that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would serve as a spark for even greater tension and instability in the region. He says that argument is based on two faulty assumptions. "The Palestinians have never needed a reason to be violent against Israel, whether it is stabbing Jews in Jerusalem or it is shooting them in the West Bank or is ramming soldiers at checkpoints, the Palestinians always find an excuse to try to kill Jews," said Haas. He says Israel's Arab neighbors will only be bothered by an embassy move from a public relations standpoint. "The so-called Arab Street frankly I don't think cares very much about the Palestinians. The Arab governments clearly don't care about the Palestinians because they don't do a thing to help them. They don't provide any money to the Palestinians . They use this issue to divert attention from problems within their own countries," said Haas. "The reality is that to the extent countries will recognize Israel and work with Israel behind the scenes has to do with their own self-interests. Do they feel that they get more out of working with Israel or not working with Israel? This fear of being provocative I just don't buy. I think there are larger forces at work that will determine Israeli relations with different Arab countries," said Haas. |
| Conservatives Already Battling Over Possible Trump SCOTUS Pick |
| Thu, 12 Jan 2017 16:39:25 EST With Donald Trump expected to name his Supreme Court nominee in the coming weeks, conservative voices are already starting to fight over one of the figures believed to be at or near the top of Trump's list. According to multiple reports, Federal Appeals Court Judge William Pryor is in the final group of names from Trump's campaign list of potential Supreme Court that the president-elect is considering. The news excites many on the right. John Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation says Pryor "calls it like he sees it" and "has a titanium spine." But others on the right see Pryor as a political opportunist who preaches values while stiff-arming them from the bench. Public Advocate President Eugene Delgaudio is leading the fight against Pryor. He says Pryor's actions connected to the unseating of Alabama Chief Judge Roy Moore in 2003 make him unfit for the highest court in the land. "I believe William Pryor is not a man we can trust on the Supreme Court. My belief is he is an opportunist, an anti-God type of guy who doesn't mind showing his disdain for godly values," said Delgaudio. At issue is Pryor's role in removing Moore from office in 2003 after Moore defied federal courts and refused to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse. Pryor stated that he believed the monument should have been allowed to stay but said the federal court ruling against Moore needed to be enforced. Pryor later personally led the effort to prosecute Moore for violating the canons of judicial ethics in Alabama. That effort led to Moore being removed from the bench. "Instead of protecting the Constitution, whether it be the state constitution or the U.S. Constitution, he simply took his political opportunity and stabbed Mr. Moore (in the back). And the basis for that backstabbing is now the wrongful basis for the current litigation that removes him again," said Delgaudio. He's referring to the latest legal battle over Moore, who was elected back to his old position by the people of Alabama. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision on same-sex marriage, Moore instructed probate judges around the state that they did not have to enforce the ruling and feel compelled to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. "All he did was issue a legal brief advising his colleagues in the Alabama court that they should wait for an actual ruling from a lower court or a legislative branch before they acted as if they were instructed to do something," said Delgaudio. "This is called a simple legal advisory, which is a cornerstone of all judicial temperament," said Delgaudio. "So for following his constitutional oath in advising people how to follow the constitution and the Alabama constitution, he was removed. Again, this goes back to the temperament of Judge Pryor." Public Advocate is actively involved in defending Moore in the latest case, filing a friend of the court brief in defense of the judge. "Our amicus brief pointed out that the justification by Mr. Pryor was based on faulty reasoning and the ethics tribunal this time referred to [the 2003] judicial proceeding," said Delgaudio. Delgaudio says he's not alone. He notes that libertarians at Reason magazine are also wary of Pryor for his proclivity towards judicial deference, meaning states especially are given the benefit of the doubt when their laws are challenged in court. He says conservatives will relive the John Roberts experience if Pryor is named to the court. "I did oppose Judge Roberts and predicted that he was a weasel. Alone in the conservative movement I could say I told you so. In that context, if you want a weasel, Judge Pryor is a weasel and he'll betray us," said Delgaudio. Delgaudio says he would be fine with any other judge on Trump's list. |
| World's Worst Persecutors of Christians Revealed |
| Wed, 11 Jan 2017 16:17:28 EST Islamic and authoritarian nations once again dominate the 2017 World Watch List of nations most hostile to Christians, and the group behind the list says persecution of believers around the world is getting worse all the time. Compiled by the Christian organization Open Doors USA, the list of 50 nations is divided into three categories. The ten worst nations are described as inflicting extreme persecution, the next 20 nations are accused of severe persecution, while the remaining 20 are named for moderate persecution. Open Doors USA President and CEO Dr. David Curry says a lot of factors go into the evaluation of each nation. "What's it like for a person in their private life? What happens if they become a Christian in the family setting or the community setting? Do they lose their job? Are the police forces after them? And of course violence is a factor," said Curry. "At the top of the list, you're talking about places where all of the factors are in the high level of persecution, where you have national persecution, family persecution, or at the personal level. That's part of the factors. But there should be no mistake. If you're on the World Watch List, even in the top 50, there are significant issues there," said Curry. North Korea remains the worst of the worst. "Things aren't getting better in North Korea. Things are very difficult for Christians there. It's the sixteenth year in a row North Korea has been at the top. In the 25 years we've done it, there are only a couple of countries that have been number one," said Curry. "In North Korea, the cultish government enforces worship of their leaders, uses the power of the government. (Christians would) be arrested and put in labor camps," said Curry. Shooting up the list from seventh to a very close second place is Somalia. "In Somalia, if you're even rumored to have become a Christian, you can be executed on the spot by mob violence, by extremists," said Curry. He says Islamic nations makes up 70 percent of the of the world's worst persecutors of Christians. "Thirty-five of the top 50 countries have Islamic extremism as a factor. It's something we've continued to see. What's different this year is the spread into sub-Saharan Africa, the growth of the extremist movement's infrastructure, the spreading of technical expertise into some of these countries. It does not portend well into the future," said Curry. Curry says even Islamic nations that have dropped on the list like Eritrea and Saudi Arabia are only looking better because other countries are getting worse. "You have countries like Eritrea, which is the government using Sharia law. They're number ten on the list. Very difficult for Christians. Saudi Arabia is on the list at 14. They have total control, through the kingdom, of religious faith. People aren't allowed to decide for themselves what they want to do. They can't go to church. They can't have a Bible. There's not a lot of violence in Saudi Arabia against Christians, largely because there aren't many," said Curry. Turkey jumps eight spots in the World Watch List to number 37 after a year of political and terrorist turmoil. "Extremism seems to be growing there. The government is going to use it's force against Christian churches. That would add another layer of complexity," said Curry. A smaller number of nations are trying to tie the practice of religion with fidelity to the state. India, the world's largest democracy, is now up to fifteenth on the list. "People are saying, 'You're not Indian if you're not an extremist Hindu.' Lots of people in India are Christian, millions and millions, and there is a rising tide of violence against them. There are groups that publicize they want to rid India of Christians by 2021. The Modi government has thus far done nothing to stop it," said Curry. China, which was much higher on the list in past years, is now ranked at number 39. Curry says there had been some marginal improvements there but things are looking more ominous as a result of nationalist impulses. "Just last week, the president of China spoke out against the pope and basically said, 'We would give you freedom if you'd just be more Chinese.' They want the church to be an arm and organ of the state and to rubber stamp the cultural impact of communism. And of course the church isn't going to do that," said Curry. Only two nations in the Western Hemisphere make the list, Mexico (#41) and Colombia (#50). Curry says believers there face a different problem than autocratic governments and radical Islamic groups. "When people are living their faith, they'll speak out against organized crime. That's happened in Mexico. It's happening in Colombia. As such, the cartels strike out," said Curry. "In one part of Mexico, a dozen pastors - maybe more - were executed for their faith when they spoke out against drug cartels," said Curry. "Yes, you're free to choose your faith in Mexico. But when you stand up for what Jesus is talking about, the cartels and organized crime will sometimes strike out against you." While the trends are bleak, there are some encouraging signs. Azerbaijan dropped off the list after ranking thirty-fourth in 2016. And even though war-ravaged Syria (#6) is still a desperate place in many ways, Curry reasons for encouragement there. "There are some hopeful signs. One of them is the vibrancy of the church in Syria that remains and the growth of the church in the Middle East, the new branches of Christianity from people who are coming to know faith personally through the tragedy of what's happened through the Islamic State," said Curry. As part of the roll-out for the World Watch List, Curry says Open Doors USA met with the incoming Trump administration to implore them to make religious liberty a priority around the world. "What we've encouraged them to do is take action in the first 90 days to appoint the right people at the State Department and other parts of government, to make sure that the U.S. government is using it's policies to support the basic human right of religious freedom," said Curry. But he says churches and individual believers also have a role to play. "Every church in America should be praying through this list on Sunday morning and being heard. If millions of Christians wrote letters and let people know they cared about this, the policymakers would certainly move," said Curry, who notes that Open Doors USA has resources available to help guide your correspondence with our elected leaders. |
| Woolsey Sizes Up Trump, Intel Community, Russia |
| Mon, 9 Jan 2017 16:27:38 EST Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey says Donald Trump is quickly getting up to speed on understanding American intelligence efforts, but he wants to see the incoming president get more aggressive on cyber security and respond to Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign in a way that will make sure the Russians never try to do it again. Woolsey calls the report on Russian hacking efforts "quite professional" and says there are two obvious takeaways. "One is that the Russians do this all the time, not so much against us but in a lot of other countries. It's not in the report, but they call it disinformation, known to you and me as lying. They have thousands of people working on photoshopping pictures, rewriting prefaces to books, etc.," said Woolsey. He says that also have a habit of going after political parties and institutions that espouse an ideology contrary to the Kremlin's - including the Catholic Church. "That side of things is not new. What's new is using cyber, which is hard often to figure out the source of as a tool in this disinformation campaign," said Woolsey. He says this episode has also once again exposed the flawed cyber warfare mindset of the United States. "We are like a very good and highly talented hockey team that has decided to use all of its players as goalies. So everybody is clustered around the goal, trying to keep any shot from getting through. We've kind of given up on offense," said Woolsey. He says there needs to be a greater emphasis on offense. And he says an appropriate response to the Russians is a good place to start. "You do have to do that in cyber. You have to keep people from scoring against you at all. But you can't just hunker down. We need to make the sort of things that the Russians did this last time around...very, very unpleasant for them," said Woolsey. Woolsey's most preferred response to the Russians is less cyber-related and more of an economic blow, urging Trump to unleash the free market against Russia and their allies in OPEC. Specifically, he wants the auto industry to embrace methanol, a fuel derived from wood waste and other sources. "You will make our Chinese and Israeli friends, who are working hard on this technology, very happy and you will make our Russian Iranian acquaintances very sad. Russians do not like competition and they don't produce anything except oil and gas and weapons," said Woolsey. As for the future of the intelligence community, Trump has hinted that he may try to restructure it. Woolsey, who was a part of Trump's transition until stepping down in recent days, says that may be a good idea, because the current format is too bloated. "I'm skeptical we've got the right solution," said Woolsey, noting the explosion of bureaucracy since he led the CIA from 1993-1994. Woolsey says then he was not only the head of the CIA but was "chairman of the board" of all government intelligence agencies. "I did that with an added 19 people. Today, there are about 2,000 people that are used in that oversight and coordination," said Woolsey. Another thing he would like to see intelligence officials do is keep their mouths shut. "I think the agency leadership in the last few years inclined more and more to public statements and I don't think that's a good idea. The key thing in intelligence is preserving your sources and methods. You can't do that if you're talking all the time about different aspects. Even though they might not be directly disclosing a source can contribute to that," said Woolsey. Woolsey is very encouraged by Trump's picks to lead the intelligence community, namely Mike Pompeo for CIA and Dan Coats to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He also says Americans shouldn't read too much into the public spat between Trump and the intelligence professionals. He's confident it will all get ironed out soon. "I don't think any of this is a really serious fight between him and the intelligence community. It's an opening round of sparring a little bit , but I think they'll get it sorted out. The stakes are just too high," said Woolsey. "What the American president sees as a result of intelligence collection and what judgments he makes after consulting with his senior officials in the government are the heart of our foreign policy," said Woolsey. Woolsey stepped down from the Trump transition after feeling uncomfortable going on television as a member of the transition but without being included in many discussions involving the incoming administration. Nonetheless, he's happy to help Trump whenever called upon. "I would still respond to Donald Trump if he got in touch and wanted me to write something up or wanted me to confer on something. I'd be delighted to do so," said Woolsey. |
| 'A Conservative, Solution-Oriented Agenda' |
| Fri, 6 Jan 2017 16:31:01 EST The new chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus is promising one of the most consequential starts to a presidential administration in modern history, as Republican stand poised to run Congress and the White House. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., made headlines in the last Congress for filing the resolution that led to the resignation of former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in 2015. Now he says House conservatives are ready to make significant contributions on a wide range of issues. "It's really pushing that conservative, solution-oriented agenda so that the Senate take notice and understands that watered-down, business as usual kid of decisions aren't going to happen," said Meadows. "Whether it's on securing our border, whether it's looking at the Syrian refugee issue, whether it's pushing back against an anti-Israel UN, they're going to get the opportunity to take votes and make the important decisions that are important to your listeners that are our constituents as well," said Meadows. And despite previous clashes with GOP leaders over spending and who sits in the speaker's chair, Meadows is confident that leaders are listening to conservatives on key issues. "I have seen a real willingness on behalf of this leadership to really consider those things in earnest. We know we're not going to win every battle but also know that the debate will be a fair debate. Hopefully the results will represent the will of the vast majority of the American people," said Meadows. The issue getting the most attention leading up to Donald Trump's inauguration is the dismantling of the Obama health care law. Meadows says the House Freedom Caucus will soon advocate voting for replacement legislation at the same time they push for repeal. "I believe we'll start to coalesce around Sen. Rand Paul's idea of having a replacement bill voted on the same day we vote on repeal. I think it's important for the American people to understand that there are and have been replacement plans out there. It's important to vote on that," said Meadows, who says the votes could come as early as late February or early March. "I think it will pass the House, may fail in the Senate and probably would fail in the Senate," said Meadows. That said, Meadows says a lot of Obamacare can be repealed through reconciliation instructions, but not all of it can be scrapped that way. But he says any tax provisions and the mandates can get the boot from a simple majority in the Senate. Meadows also made headlines last month for offering the Trump transition team a book of 200 federal regulations that Trump could repeal upon taking office. He says the list is quickly approaching 300 regulations and the response from Trump's team has been very encouraging. "I've been led to believe many of those could be repealed on the very day of the inauguration after the parade. President Trump will then go in and sign those executive orders and treat that as day one of his new presidency," said Meadows, who believes the American people will be grateful for a government looking for ways to make their lives easier. Meadows suspects there may be some battles among Republicans over spending down the line, but probably not until the appropriations process plays out in autumn. He is also pushing back against reports that House conservatives will be less demanding of a Republican president. Reports in December quoted House Freedom Caucus members as saying they might be willing to allow new spending that is only 50 percent paid for in other spending reductions. Meadows insists nothing has changed. "We believe that any additional dollar of spending must be offset. We don't have a taxing problem. We don't even have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem, so if we want to find money for other areas, we need to reallocate that from existing revenue streams," said Meadows. "We cannot put the burden on our grandchildren or our children's future. We've got to take the hard position now, the difficult choices now to make sure that we're fiscally responsible. The Freedom Caucus is committed to making sure that we do that," said Meadows. |
| Trump Tax Plan Key to Reviving Economy |
| Fri, 23 Dec 2016 22:32:20 EST Donald Trump has promised significant economic growth during his administration and a tax attorney says passing Trump's corporate tax cut in his first 100 days is critical in making that happen. Gayle Trotter is also a media analyst and a senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum. She says while Trump wants to see many different facets of tax reform, dropping the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent is the linchpin to jump-starting an economy that has endured very small growth in recent years. "This is an important point that Donald Trump spoke about extensively during his campaign and it's something that people on both sides of the aisle can respect. There will be bipartisan support for Donald Trump's policy of lowering the federal corporate tax rate," said Trotter. Right now, of the 35 most nations that take part in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, the United States has the highest corporate tax rates. "When you look at that, you understand that American companies are put at a competitive disadvantage right out of the gate, because if these other companies have the ability to be at a 15 percent tax rate or even lower, then they right there have a competitive advantage economically to American businesses," said Trotter. As a result, multiple major corporations such as Pfizer and Burger King have elected to pursue corporate inversions, which is the process of setting up headquarters in more tax-friendly nations. Trotter says Trump's commitment to get government off the backs of businesses is paying dividends even before he sworn in to office. "Because he's going to do many, many other business-friendly policy changes from the White House, corporations are going to have the benefit. This policy, as a tool of his overall policy to make America competitive again, is going to have the advantage that we see as bearing fruit even before Donald Trump takes the oath of office," said Trotter. "We saw it this week with Ford, that they are not going to do a new factory outside of the United States and that it's better to invest that money in the United States," said Trotter. "They said that the reason they were doing it is because they see this as a vote of confidence in the business-friendly environment that Donald Trump has promised to put into place." She says that's a big change from how the Obama administration treats the business community. "The current administration was trying to come up with all these complex rules to punish companies so they wouldn't do tax inversions. Yet, President Obama and his administration could have done the easy suggestion that Donald Trump is going to implement, to just lower the corporate tax rate," said Trotter. Trotter expects some fierce opposition from Democrats, including renewed calls to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. She says the Democrats don't have the numbers to push that idea, which is a proven loser. "If you confiscated all of the wealth of all the wealthiest people in America, it cannot make a dent in the economic situation that our country is in right now, because of the tax and spend Congress that Republicans, unfortunately, frequently go along with," said Trotter. She says if Trump's tax agenda is successful, the economic results will speak for themselves. "We're going to get to a three to five percent growth rate, which we haven't seen to that extent in a long time. That's going to give evidence that this type of change is good for the American people," said Trotter. Trotter also expects Trump to go hard after crony capitalism and work to remove loopholes and exemptions from the tax code. She says how to address the system comes down to a simple question. "Is the whole point of taxation so that the federal government can fund its core purposes or is the core function of taxation in order to fund the pet projects of unaccountable politicians in Washington, D.C.?" asked Trotter. She says any Republicans reluctant to scrap the status quo will likely be met with fierce public resistance. "I think you are going to see remarkable change in the first 100 days, because if the Republican Congress does not back Donald Trump on his campaign promises, there is going to be a huge outcry and the congressional phone lines are going to melt down," said Trotter. |
| Film, Television and Music Stars Lost in 2016 |
| Fri, 23 Dec 2016 22:24:54 EST 2016 witnessed the passings of legends in all walks of life. And entertainment was certainly no exception. From television to music, famous performers took their final bows this year. For the next few minutes, we 19ll take a look back, beginning on the big screen. Gene Wilder worked often with Mel Brooks and the combination led to some of cinema 19s greatest comedies. Known for 18Blazing Saddles 19 and 18Young Frankenstein. 1d Also famous separately for 1cWilly Wonka and the Chocolate Factory 1d among many other roles, Gene Wilder died in August. He was 83. George Kennedy usually found himself in dramatic roles, whether for 18Cool Hand Luke, 19 18The Dirty Dozen, 19 18Airport, 19 or 18The Eiger Sanction. But he could also make a comedic turn as he did in three 1cNaked Gun 1d films. Kennedy died in February. He was 91. Alan Rickman could play virtually any character, but he was best as a deliciously evil villain, such as in the action classic 18Die Hard. 19 Also known for his work in the 18Harry Potter 19 movies and as the sheriff of Nottingham in 18Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 19 Rickman died of cancer in January. He was 69. Anton Yelchin was a young actor with a world of promise ahead of him. Best known for playing Chekov in the recent 18Star Trek 19 reboots, Yelchin was tragically killed when his vehicle crushed him as he was getting his mail. Yelchin was just 27. Charmian Carr will forever be sixteen going on seventeen. Immortalized as the eldest Von Trapp daughter, Liesl, in 18The Sound of Music, 19 Carr died in September at age 73. One of the most inspiring aspects of the 18Rocky 19 series is the passion shown by actor Tony Burton whether he 19s in the corner for Rocky or archrival Apollo Creed. Burton died in February. He was 78. And Zsa Zsa Gabor died in December. One of three famous Gabor sisters, the Hungarian-born actress best known for 18Moulin Rouge 19 later became known for her nine marriages and playing herself dozens of times. Gabor died at age 99 after many years of poor health. In television, one of America 19s most beloved TV moms died this year. Florence Henderson will always be known as Carol Brady - the lovely lady bringing up three very lovely girls - on 18The Brady Bunch. 19 Henderson died in November. She was 82. A more recent TV mom who left us this year was Doris Roberts, immortalized for her depiction of Marie Barone 13 the hovering and opinionated mother and mother-in-law on 1cEverybody Loves Raymond. 19 Roberts was 90. Patty Duke began as a star on Broadway and the big screen with her portrayal of Helen Keller in 18The Miracle Worker. 19 She then played identical cousins on 18The Patty Duke 19 show. Active in show business for decades to follow, Duke was 60 when she died in March. Alan Young was famous for talking to a horse 13 and even more impressively the horse talked back. Young was the star of 18Mr. Ed. 19 He was 96 when he died in May. Hugh O 19Brian served our nation in World War II and cleaned up the streets of Dodge City in 18The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. 19 Inspired by Albert Schweitzer, O 19Brian later devoted himself to helping young people develop into leadership roles through the Hugh O 19Brian Youth Leadership program. O 19Brian was 91. Robert Vaughn became a household name as Napoleon Solo, also known as 18The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 19 Vaughn was also acclaimed for his work on the silver screen in classics like 18The Magnificent Seven 19 and 18Bridge at Remagen. 19 Vaughn died just shy of his 84th birthday in November. By the time the 1970s rolled around, Americans were already nostalgic for the 1850s. 18Happy Days 19 captured the era perfectly, and the smash hit series was the work of director Garry Marshall. Also the brains behind successful spinoffs like 18Laverne and Shirley 19 and 18Mork and Mindy, 19 Garry Marshall was 81. 18One Day at a Time 19 was a CBS sitcom about a single mom raising two daughters. The only regular male character was also the comic relief found in apartment superintendent Schneider. Schneider was the work of actor Pat Harrington, who died of Alzheimer 19s disease in January. He was 86. 18Alice 19 was seen on the same night as 18One Day at a Time 19 and also focused on the working class. Actress Beth Howland was always good for a laugh as the spacy but endearing Vera. Howland was 74. Another 70s hit was the police comedy 18Barney Miller. 19 The ensemble cast of detectives included Ron Glass as Harris. Harris died in November. He was 71. Joining 18Barney Miller 19 as a hit ABC comedy was 18Benson, 19 as viewers followed the exploits inside the governor 19s mansion of a fictional administration. Gov. Gene Gatling was well-intentioned but not very sharp. Gatling was portrayed by actor James Noble. Noble died in March at age 94. The 1980s were full of memorable TV dads. Alan Thicke was one of the most recognizable. Thicke 19s portrayal of Dr. Jason Seaver on 18Growing Pains 19 helped make the show a smash hit. Known in later years as the father of singer Robin Thicke, Alan Thicke was 69 when he suffered a heart attack while playing hockey and later dying at the hospital. Thicke was 69. George Gaynes is known to fans of the 80s for two roles, first as Commandant Eric Lassard in the 18Police Academy 19 movies and later as adoptive dad Henry Warnimont on 18Punky Brewster. 19 George Gaynes was 98 when he died in February Garry Shandling was a stellar stand-up comedian who eventually became a frequent guest host for Johnny Carson. In the late 1980s, Shandling starred in the aptly titled 18It 19s Garry Shandling 19s Show. 19 In the 1890s, Shandling starred as Larry Sanders on the acclaimed HBO series, 18The Larry Sanders Show. 19 Shandling died suddenly in March. He was 66. 18Law and Order 19 was a staple of prime time television for nearly 20 years. For more than half that time, the role of curmudgeonly, deal-making district attorney Adam Schiff was the work of actor Steven Hill. Hill was 94. In music, country music lost one of its greatest legends. Merle Haggard was one of the original outlaws and had lived a rough life before he pursued and achieved stardom. One of the great writers in Opry history, Haggard was 79. Holly Dunn scored multiple hits during her country music career. Known for 18Daddy 19s Hands 19 and 18you Really Had Me Going, 19 Dunn was 59. Music had never seen anything quite like David Bowie in terms of his sound or his look. Known best for classic songs like 18Under Pressure, 19 Bowie broke every conventional mold and always found a huge audience. Bowie died in January. He was 69. In April, the music world was stunned by the unexpected death of Prince. A guitar whiz and the man behind 18Purple Rain, 19 18Little Red Corvette, 19 18When Doves Cry, 19 181999 19 and so many other hits, Prince died of a drug overdose at his Minnesota home. He was 57. There was no bigger act in the late 70s than the Eagles, and Glen Frey was one of the biggest reasons for the massive success. Frey died in January. Frey was 67. Paul Kantner was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, which later transformed into Jefferson Starship. Also playing lead guitar for the band, Kantner was 74 when he died in January. George Martin was known as the fifth Beatle. The powerhouse producer helped launch the Fab Four from Liverpool to the most famous music act in the world. Martin was 90. Emerson, Lake and Palmer was a unique group in the 70s, finding a way to translate classical music into rock and roll. Both Keith Emerson and Greg Lake died this year. Emerson was 71. Lake was 69. Just about everyone has heard Leonard Cohen 19s 18Hallelujah 19 in some form. Cohen died in November at age 82. George Beverly Shea sang the solos at the Billy Graham Crusades but some of the largest choirs ever assembled at those gatherings were directed by Cliff Barrows. Barrows served as music director for the crusades for many decades. He was 93. |
| Political, Media and Sports Figures Lost in 2016 |
| Fri, 23 Dec 2016 22:19:35 EST 2016 was an unforgettable year for many reasons. In addition to an historic presidential race and a year full of significant national and international events, we also pause to remember those who left us this year 13 from the arenas of politics and sports to television, film and music. And we begin with politics 26 Nancy Reagan spent 16 years as a first lady, eight in California and eight in the White House while her husband served as governor and president. She was known as Nancy Davis in Hollywood. When her name mistakenly appeared on a list of communist sympathizers in Hollywood, she went to Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan for help. He asked her to dinner and the rest is history. Known best for her 1cJust Say No 1d campaign against the scourge of drugs in the 1980s, Mrs. Reagan also earned worldwide admiration for her tireless care of her husband during his decade-long battle with Alzheimer 19s disease. Nancy Reagan was 94 when she died in March. One of President Reagan 19s longest lasting legacies was his nomination of Justice Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court. For nearly 29 years, Scalia was the most visible conservative on the court, although he referred to himself as a textualist. Scalia was adored on the right and reviled by the left, but was well-respected in the legal community for his incisive questioning and strongly written decisions. Scalia died while on vacation in February. He was 79. In the early years of the space race, there was no greater American hero than John Glenn. The heroic Marine Corps fighter pilot served in World War II and Korea. Soon after he became one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. In 1962, Glenn achieved legend status when he became the first American to orbit the earth. In 1974, Glenn won the first of four terms to the U.S. Senate from Ohio. In 1984, he sought a promotion to president, but never gathered much steam towards the Democratic nomination. John Glenn died in December at the age of 95. Glenn 19s trip to space came the same year the U.S. and the Soviet Union nearly fought a nuclear war as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fidel Castro won his Cuban revolution in 1959 and quickly embraced communism and the USSR. Instead of freeing his people as promised, Castro repressed them 13 jailing tens of thousands, executing others and stifling freedoms while thumbing his nose at the U.S. Castro, who handed over presidential duties to his brother a decade ago, died in November. He was 90. Phyllis Schalfly never held elective office, but few individuals have had a greater impact on American politics in the past 50 years. Schalfly burst onto the scene during the 1964 campaign with her book, 18A Choice Not An Echo, 19 which demanded a strong conservative alternative to business as usual in the Republican Party. For her next act, Schlafly singlehandedly led the effort defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, which would she said would have enshrined the worst of feminism in the Constitution. Ratification seemed like a foregone conclusion but Schlafly 19s grassroots movement successfully lobbied enough states to stop the amendment in its tracks. Active until her final days, Schlafly died of cancer in September. She was 92. One of the most famous liberal activists in the 1960s and 1970s was Tom Hayden. Known for his fierce opposition for the Vietnam War and for being a leading figure in the countercultural movement, Hayden was later married to Jane Fonda. Hayden died in October. He was 76. No one spent more time as Attorney General of the United States than Janet Reno. Reno served all eight years of the Clinton administration and received the most attention for authorizing the raid against the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993 and for her role in returning six-year-old Elian Gonzalez to Cuba in the year 2000 after he washed ashore in Florida the year before. Reno was 78. Two long-serving former senators died in 2016. Dale Bumpers served four terms as a Democrat from Arkansas. Just days after retirement in 1999, he returned to the Senate floor to plead with his colleagues not to remove President Clinton from office. Dale Bumpers was 90. Bob Bennett was a three-term Republican from Utah. He died in May at age 82. One of the most famous pieces of legislation signed in the early days of the Obama was the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, purported to put some restraints on Wall Street in the wake of the economic crisis. Ohio Republican Congressman Mike Oxley was one of the principal authors. Also a committee chairman earlier in his congressional tenure, Oxley was 71 when he died in January. On the world stage, Israeli President Shimon Peres was the last active political figure in his nation whose service spanned the entire history of the modern state of Israel. Also serving twice as prime minister, Peres shared a Nobel Peace prize in 1994 for his efforts toward Middle East peace via the Oslo Accords. Shimon Peres died from a stroke in September. He was 93. The man leading the United Nations when Peres was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize was Egyptian Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Later ousted at the behest of the United States after just one term as secretary-general, Boutros-Ghali died in February. He was 93. The world 19s longest-reigning monarch died this year. King Bhumibol ascended to the throne of Thailand in 1946 and stayed there for more than 70 years. He died in October at age 88. Two colorful former mayors who had issues with the law also died this year. Buddy Cianci spent two different stretches as mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, totaling 21 years. However, criminal charges ended both terms. A racketeering conviction led to a four year prison term following his final stint in office. North of the border, former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford became known for his battles with drugs and alcohol more than his work for the city. Ford died from cancer in March. He was 46. Some of the most impactful writers also passed away this year. Elie Wiesel was a holocaust survivor who gripped the world with his account of the experience in the best-selling 1cNight. 1d Also a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Wisesel was 87 when he died in July. Harper Lee captivated the nation with 1cTo Kill A Mockingbird, 1d which then turned into a blockbuster film starring Gregory Peck. Lee then vanished from the public eye until another book was published in her name shortly before her death. Harper Lee was 89. W.P Kinsella 19s work led millions of Americans to the 1cField of Dreams. 1d Kinsella was 81. Three prominent Christian writers died this year as well. Dr. Charles Ryrie was a decades-long biblical scholar and teacher. He died in February at age 90. Jerry Bridges was known for his challenging writings on holiness and godliness. He was 86. And Tim LaHaye became famous for his 1cLeft Behind 1d series on the end times although he authored other scholarly works as well. LaHaye was 90. We also lost some of the most well-known media figures in 2016. Morley Safer was one of the 1960 Minutes 19 correspondents who was on the job for decades. Doing both hard news and soft features, Safer was 84 when he died in May 13 just one day after retiring. John McLaughlin changed political television forever by holding spirited discussions with reporters of all political persuasions 13 and making stars out of the journalists in the process. The founder of 18The McLaughlin Group 19 held court for nearly 35 years and hosted the program right up to his death in August. McLaughlin was 89. Gwen Ifill was an accomplished print reporter before heading to television at NBC News and later PBS. Ifill hosted two vice-presidential debates and served as co-host of 18The Newshour 19 on PBS. She died from cancer in November. She was 61. She spent more time talking about Catholic doctrine than politics, but Mother Angelica was a very recognizable face to viewers of EWTN. A critical figure in the founding of the network, Angelica was 92. Two famous faces in sports journalism died this year as well. John Saunders was a versatile studio host and game announcer for ESPN and ABC. Saunders died suddenly in August. He was 61. Craig Sager was known for his outlandish wardrobe and for his three decades covering the NBA on the sidelines. His valiant battle against leukemia inspired millions. Sager died in December at the age of 65. In sports, we lost the king of golf. Arnold Palmer led his armies down the fairways as he won seven major championships, including four green jackets at the Masters. But Palmer 19s greatest achievement is making golf appealing to the masses through his infectious smile, personality and blue collar roots. Palmer died of heart failure in September. He was 87. Mr. Hockey also left us in 2016. Gordie Howe was a gentle ambassador off the ice but threw lots of elbows on it. He also scored a lot of goals and set NHL records by the bushel in a career that spanned from the 1940s to the 1980s. Best known for his years with, Howe led Hockeytown to four Stanley Cups. Gordie Howe was 88. Muhammad Ali said he was the greatest. And a lot of people agree. Born Cassius Clay, he won gold at the 1960 Summer Olympics and won his first heavyweight title in 1964. After surrendering his belt for refusing service in the Vietnam War, Ali was later part of epic fights with Joe Frazier and George Foreman. Known as much for his non-stop self-promotion as for his fighting, Ali was eventually a three-time champ. Muhammad Ali was 74 when he died in June. In baseball, one of the great personalities over the years was Joe Garagiola. A childhood friend of Yogi Berra, Garagiola was a tremendous catcher in his own right. He won a World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1946 and played for three other teams in his career. Later Garagiola announced baseball 19s game of the week and was a regular part of NBC 19s 18Today 1d show. Joe Garagiola was 90. Monte Irvin was a World War II veteran of the Battle of the Bulge and would soon be one of the first black players in Major League Baseball. Best known for his years with the New York Giants, Irvin was on the World Series-winning 1954 team, was a five-time all-star and was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. Monte Irvin was 96. Ralph Branca probably wished he was never famous. His moment in history came in 1951, when as a reliever for the Brooklyn Dodgers, he served up the pennant-winning home run to Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants. Branca was 90. One of the brightest young pitchers of this generation was Jose Fernandez of the Miami Marlins. All of Major League Baseball was stunned by his sudden death in a late-night boating accident in September. Jose Fernandez was just 24 years old. The rise in the prestige and popularity of women 19s college basketball can largely be traced to the work of legendary Tennessee Lady Vols Coach Pat Summitt. Summitt took the job in Knoxville when women 19s hoops was a mere afterthought. When she retired almost 40 years later, she had amassed eight national championships, seven national coach of the year awards and nearly 1,100 wins. Dementia cut her career short and took her life in June. Summitt was 64. One of the brightest college stars on the men 19s side in the 1980s was Dwayne 1cPearl 1d Washington. He dazzled fans with his fast-break skills and scoring prowess as he put Syracuse basketball firmly on the map of perennial powers. His NBA career never matched the glory of his college years. Washington was 52 when he died in April. Nate Thurmond wasn 19t all that flashy. He was simply a beast in the low post and is known as one of the best defensive players and rebounders in NBA history. Playing most of his career with the San Francisco and then Golden State Warriors, Thurmond was 74 when he died of leukemia in July. In football, the name Buddy Ryan is synonymous with dominant defense. Ryan was the architect of the vaunted 46 defense that propelled the Chicago Bears to one of the greatest seasons in NFL history and a blow-out win in Superbowl XX. Still the only assistant coach carried off the field after winning a title, Buddy Ryan was 85 when he died in June. Dennis Green was a feisty and successful NFL coach. After a brief stint as head coach at Stanford, Green was hired by the Minnesota Vikings. There he promptly led the team to eight playoff appearances in nine seasons, including four division titles and two trips to the NFC championship game. Later find less success with the Arizona Cardinals, Green died in July. He was 67. Dennis Byrd saw his playing career end in a moment of sudden tragedy and his life ended in a similar fashion. Byrd was a defensive end for the New York Jets when a collision with a teammate left him paralyzed. Later able to walk after much rehabilitation, Byrd died in a car accident in October. He was 50. Lawrence Phillips was a great football talent who could not stay away from crime. Phillips was a key running back on national championship teams at Nebraska but never could find success in the NFL. Instead, he found his way to prison on assault and theft charges. Later accused of murdering his cellmate, Phillips allegedly hanged himself in his cell in January. He was 40. Rashaan Salaam was a dominant back for Colorado at the same Phillips was tearing it up for Nebraska. Salaam rushed for more than 2,000 yards for the Buffaloes in 1994 and won the Heisman Trophy. After a promising rookie season in the NFL, injuries took their toll. Salaam took his life in December. He was 42. |
| Cultural Conservatives Have Great Trump Expectations |
| Fri, 23 Dec 2016 17:02:05 EST Cultural conservatives are breathing a thankful sigh of relief over the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 but their expectations are sky high for Donald Trump on issues ranging from abortion to religious freedom. "I think that God gave us a second chance, gave us a reprieve and I think there's a lot of people who believe we have got to take advantage of the first 100 days, the first year, the first two years of this new administration," said Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver. But he says conservative activists are taking nothing for granted. "There is going to be high expectation. I don't think there is going to be anybody sitting back and just assuming that everything will take place on its own. On the other hand, I don't believe that Christian conservatives are going to be silent if there's not action. In fact, the future of [Trump's] presidency and many people in the conservative movement is hanging in the balance," said Staver. On Election Day, 81 percent of evangelicals voted for Trump. Staver says there are multiple reasons for that but he believes the future of the Supreme Court is at the top of the list. "You had diametrically different positions. You had Hillary Clinton who was going to be an extenuation of Barack Obama and radicalize the Supreme Court. We would never have the same country, frankly, if we had a Hillary Clinton because we would lose the Supreme Court for a couple of decades," said Staver. Despite Trump's lack of a socially conservative track record, Staver says the GOP candidate went above and beyond to show those voters he shared their interests. "Never before has a Republican candidate given a list (of prospective justices) or said specifically and emphatically that they have to be pro-life. So there was a very distinct choice between these two," said Staver. He says the makeup of the Supreme Court will be impacted significantly by Trump's win since he will get to nominate a successor for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But Staver says future vacancies will also be critical. "(Filling) a vacancy with Scalia just gives you the status quo of what we had before Scalia died, assuming you have the same kind of justice who respects the Constitution. But after Scalia, any justices that resign or for whatever reason are no longer on the bench, there you have the future of the Supreme Court hanging in the balance," said Staver. Staver says the composition of the Supreme Court will be critical as many hot-button cases make their way through the lower courts. "In the courtroom, you're going to have a lot more battles coming down the pike on this clash between homosexuality and religious freedom. You're going to see more battles on the pro-life issue because what we're seeing in the last five years is an explosion of pro-life legislation that ends up in the courtrooms," said Staver. But while the courts remain a fierce battleground, Staver is very optimistic about what a change in the White House will mean. "In the political realm, the sky's the limit at this point, both politically and in the administrative state. We now have opportunities we never even hardly dreamed about before - to literally reverse so much of what Obama did not only by executive order but Obamacare and many other regulations that promoted an amoral, immoral agenda," said Staver. "I'm sure you'll have him dropping some of these lawsuits that Obama has pushed, like the Obamacare lawsuit that goes against the religious freedom of the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious ministries. I think you'll also see a dropping of some of these other radical LGBT, sexual orientation, gender identity lawsuits that the Obama administration pushed forward," said Staver. Of all the opportunities for cultural conservatives, defunding and prosecuting Planned Parenthood are very high on the list. Staver says Republicans had the chance to defund the nation's largest abortion provider from 2005-2007 but ended up "playing politics." He expects it happen in 2017. "They've already moved forward in the past to defund Planned Parenthood. They've made efforts in that direction to overturn Obamacare. The problem is they had a president that stopped that. Now we'll have a president who will push that and sign those laws into effect," said Staver. Earlier in December, the House Select Investigative Panel for Infant Lives recommended some Planned Parenthood officials for prosecution in the wake of undercover videos depicting the dissecting of aborted babies and negotiations with researchers on a price for baby body parts. Staver believes that will likely gather steam too. "I think you could likely see some prosecution and more litigation against Planned Parenthood in 2017. I think their days of federal funding are going to come to an end and I think they are going to be on the receiving end of prosecutorial aggression by a number of entities, both state and federal as well. They deserve it," said Staver. |
| No One Has Seen A Year Like This |
| Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:47:46 EST One of America's top political analysts says he and just about every other expert were wrong about the 2016 elections, noting Donald Trump is unlike any of his predecessors and his win promises to gut much of the Obama legacy. Dr. Larry Sabato runs the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, where he teaches political science. He also heads up Sabato's Crystal Ball, which predicts presidential, Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. In more than 40 years of tracking presidential races, has he ever seen a campaign like this one? "Never, and no one in my field has," said Sabato. "I've talked to a number of historians and people who focus on politics and political history. Everyone agrees that this election stands out in all of American history. Whether you liked the result or didn't like the result, it's just different," said Sabato. He says the Trump's background is one of many things that distinguish him from previous presidents. "Donald Trump is the only president-to-be who has not served in any political office or military office. He is an outsider complete and total. He's the richest president by far. There's just so many categories that make him unusual," said Sabato. When 2016 dawned, Trump was the front-runner for the Republican nomination, and other than an opening loss in Iowa, was the clear favorite throughout the chase for 1,237 delegates. Sabato says Trump benefited from a crowded GOP field. "During the competitive part of the primary...Trump only received about 38 percent of the vote. Sixty-two percent of Republicans voted for other candidates. The problem (for the other candidates) was there was so many of them. So 38 percent was more than enough to win the nomination," said Sabato. All the supposed experts declared that Trump's style, persona, and policy positions couldn't possible win him the general election, but again Trump proved them all wrong. Sabato says it's always hard for a party to win three consecutive terms in the White House. He says the only exception in modern history is the transition from Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush.. Another big factor that Sabato says was overlooked was a massive enthusiasm gap between supporters of Trump and Hillary Clinton. "The turnouts in small town America, in rural America among the blue collar workers and white working class were enormous. It was just enormous, whereas Clinton was unable to excite even solid Democratic groups like millennials and African-American voters," said Sabato. He points out that Clinton won those groups handily but their turnout numbers were way down compared with 2012. Sabato also notes that the media became fixated on Trump's negatives and failed to pay attention to Clinton's unpopularity. "Hillary Clinton was more unacceptable than we realized. Yes, we knew she had high negatives. That was obscured by the fact that Trump had even higher negatives so we didn't focus on her negatives. But it turned out her negatives unenthused the Democratic base, to a much greater degree in the end, than Trump's negatives unenthused the Republican base," said Sabato. While Democrats offer excuses for Clinton's defeat such as the influence of the Russians and the FBI to the existence of the Electoral College, Sabato says the real answers cut much closer to home. "Hillary Clinton doesn't want to talk about her inability to generate a large turnout among Democratic groups. She doesn't want to talk about her inability to attract the white working class that got Bill Clinton elected in good part in 1992 and 1996. She never had a message that reached them," said Sabato. "Her slogan, although technically it was 'Stronger Together' whatever that means, was really 'It's My Turn. It's My Turn.' Well, people rarely elect a candidate because it's their turn. They want to know what's in it for them," said Sabato. But Clinton was not the only loser on election night. Sabato says President Obama took one on the chin as well. "It hurts him a great deal. Why did he campaign so hard for a woman who gave him such trouble in 2008 and very nearly won the nomination instead of him?" asked Sabato. "He understood, just as Ronald Reagan understood, that if you don't get a successor of your party elected to succeed you, much of what you've done is going to be reversed rather quickly and probably easily." For Sabato, 2016 leaves him with two major takeaways about the state of American politics. First, he says we need to pay more attention to who the most motivated voters are. "A constituency that is ignored and feels angry or abused is going to turn out in larger numbers. It may be African-Americans for Barack Obama in 2008 or it may be white working class, rural or small town voters for Donald Trump in 2016. Always ask yourself, where's the energy in the electorate," said Sabato. However, for all the big wins Republicans enjoyed in 2016, they still have some demographic problems. "Republicans still have some of the basic problems they had before Trump was elected. They still don't appeal to many minorities. They still don't appeal to millennials. They have to get a larger share of more groups in the electorate if they are to win not just the electoral vote but the popular vote in future elections," said Sabato. |
| Obama 's Disastrous Recovery |
| Thu, 22 Dec 2016 16:49:18 EST While President Obama proudly claims to have pulled the U.S. economy off the brink of depression and into robust growth, a leading economic expert says Obama's claims are nothing more than "calculated deception" and that our emergence from the financial crisis is the worst economic performance in 80 years. In recent weeks, Obama has told crowds of supporters his administration has achieved an historic economic turnaround. "Thanks to the hard work of you and some actually pretty smart policies by us, we have come farther and recovered faster than almost any other advanced nation on earth," said Obama at a recent event. "So despite what you may hear, there is no doubt we are making progress. By almost every measure, we are better off than when I took office," added Obama. Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Peter Ferrara is the author of the institute's report entitled "Why the United States Has Suffered the Worst Economic Recovery Since the Great Depression." He says says Obama's message is largely smoke and mirrors. "I describe President Obama's rhetorical style as calculated deception. Those clips are the most perfect example I've heard of that to date," said Ferrara. Far from agreeing with Obama's assessment, Ferrara wonders when we ever had a recovery. "There's been no economic recovery from the 2008-2009 recession to this day. You're going to see that happen now under Trump. You'll see what a huge difference it is when you have a real economic recovery instead of the paltry weak excuse of a recovery we had," said Ferrara. Obama and his defenders often point out the recovery was especially given the depths of the financial crisis. Ferrara says that's exactly backwards. "The American historical record is the worse the recession, the stronger the recovery. So there should have been an economic boom coming out of the recession in the summer of 2009. Here we are eight years later and that still hasn't happened," said Ferrara. He says it has not happened because Obama pursued a Keynesian economic strategy that is a proven failure. "Keynesian economics is a doctrine that the road to economic recovery is increase government spending, deficits, and debt. If that sounds crazy, it is crazy. It was introduced in the 1930s. It failed to end the Great Depression, but extended it and made it even worse," said Ferrara. "That's been the experience under Keynesian economics. It should be expected. If you increase government spending, government deficits, and debt, that's anti-growth not pro-growth. That just delays the recovery, which is what it's done every time it's been tried," said Ferrara, who says Obama's aggressive pursuit of a bigger regulatory state and destabilizing monetary policy are also major factors in the sputtering economy. "You had twice as much economic growth under Jimmy Carter as you had under President Obama in his first term," said Ferrara. He says Obama did the exact opposite of what President Reagan did to kickstart massive economic expansion. "Reagan had a four-point economic program. It was cut tax rates, deregulation, reduce government spending, and have a strong dollar monetary policy. President Obama's policies have been exactly the opposite of each one of those four," said Ferrara. As a result, Ferrara says poverty rates skyrocketed and the middle class suffered a fiscal punch to the stomach. "Incomes for the middle class have fallen just about continuously throughout his entire two terms in office. During the first term alone, the middle class lost the equivalent of about one month's pay a year," said Ferrara. So despite the rosy Obama rhetoric, Ferrara says the middle and working classes know what the economy has done to their bottom line and their frustration boiled over in November. "That was the fundamental element in this past election. The blue-collar workers smartly saw that they had been abandoned by the Democrats. They were the original backbone for the Democrat Party. But the Democrat Party has forgotten that for so long that they've given up on the Democrat Party as have so many other groups," said Ferrara. Ferrara says if the U.S. economy stays on the pace set by Obama and we keep seeing two percent growth instead of three to four percent, we're on our way to a third-world economy within half a century. "It's $521 trillion over 50 years in loss of economic growth and prosperity. That's the net cost. The entire American economy is only $18 trillion a year. $521 trillion. How many American economies is that? That's the biggest economic loss in world history," said Ferrara. "So if we keeping growing at the two percent or less that Obama has, and we keep that going year after year, we'll eventually descend to the status of a third world country," said Ferrara. However, Ferrara does not expect that to happen since Trump appears ready to pursue a Reagan-like economic agenda. "The reason Trump is going to create a boom is because every one of the key policies is doing the opposite of what Obama did. He's proposed to cut taxes like Reagan did. He's proposed to reduce regulatory burdens like Reagan did. He's proposed to reduce regulatory burdens like Reagan did. he will appoint good members to the Fed that will restore sound monetary policy that will stabilize the dollar over the long run," said Ferrara. |
| Obama Trying to Handcuff Trump on Energy |
| Wed, 21 Dec 2016 16:30:51 EST President Obama is taking multiple actions that could hamstring President-Elect Donald Trump's plans to unleash domestic energy production, which is a major component of the Trump economic agenda. On Tuesday, Obama banned offshore energy exploration in massive portions of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. "The law allows a president to withdraw any currently unleased lands in the Outer Continental Shelf from future lease sales. There is no provision in the law that allows the executive's successor to repeal the decision, so President-elect Donald Trump would not be able to easily brush aside the action," reported CNBC. The law in question is legislation from 1953 that deal with offshore leases. Advocates of American energy exploration contend this is simply Obama's gift to the environmental lobby. "There have been a lot of environmental groups, especially over the past few months, who have been urging the administration to take some sort of action," said Chris Warren, vice president for communications at the Institute for Energy Research. "This is pretty much the Obama administration giving an early Christmas gift to the 'keep it in the ground' activists, these folks who want to keep all our oil, gas, and coal resources in the ground," he added. Warren suspects the waters in question could yield trillions of barrels of oil, but he says greater energy independence isn't even the most important result if those areas were to be opened up "We produced a study a few years back at what would happen if we were to produce our oil and gas resources offshore in the Atlantic, the Arctic and the Gulf (of Mexico). These numbers are staggering. You're talking about hundreds of thousands of jobs a year, hundreds of billions of dollars in GDP output per year, higher wages for folks, more revenue for government," said Warren. Warren says the method by which Obama is locking the offshore areas seems suspect. "This is a pretty obscure provision in an old law. It's never been used in this manner so we're not quite sure how the next administration can take care of it but they certainly will be working hard to do so," said Warren. He sees two possible remedies. "One way they can do this is by undesignating this area. Of course, they'll be sued after that but they'll take it to the court system and we'll see how it shakes out from there. Congress could also pass legislation to reverse this," said Warren. Obama's efforts are not limited to offshore exploration. Earlier this month, the administration blocked the controversial path of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This week, it also finalized the Stream Protection Rule, which mandates distances that coal mining operations must keep away from waterways. Warren says the latter policy continues Obama's strangling of the coal industry. "This is really just another way that the Obama administration is trying to take coal off the table. They want to prevent it from being mined. They want to prevent it from being used in our electricity system with the clean power plant regulation, which was the hallmark of this administration's climate agenda. This is just one more regulation that the Obama administration is trying to push out the door," said Warren. So is Obama succeeding at putting roadblocks in the way of the Trump energy agenda? Warren says there are new hurdles to clear but that Trump still has other good options. "Our federal lands have tons of oil, gas, and coal resources that have been held under lock and key by this current administration. It hasn't been through regulation. It's been by slow-walking permits, offering very few leases to companies to produce these resources. That's something the Trump administration can come in and do fairly quickly," said Warren. Warren says the Obama and Trump approaches to energy could not be more different. "We're not talking about favoring one source over another, whether it's coal or natural gas or wind or solar or whatever. It's about allowing Americans to make those choices for themselves," said Warren. "Under this current administration, that hasn't been the case. It's been throwing money and mandating the sources that President Obama prefers. Under the Trump administration, I think we'll see an end to that," said Warren. |
| 'Stealth Invasion' |
| Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:20:32 EST The Berlin terrorist attack may well be the result of poor immigration and refugee policies that threaten the population now and even more so in years to come, and the author of a new book on the subject says it's already happening in many parts of the United States. Leo Hohmann is a longtime investigative reporter. He is news editor at WND.com and author of "Stealth Invasion: The Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad." On Tuesday, authorities in Berlin released a man originally suspected of carrying out the attack due to a lack of evidence. Hohmann says it could be very difficult for the Germans to track down the perpetrator due to their own loose immigration policies. "The German government has imported so many of these refugees and asylum seekers over the past two years, up to 1.3 million have come in, that they don't know exactly who they have that they're dealing with here," said Hohmann. And he says the longer the manhunt goes on, the harder it will be to find the terrorist. "The real killer, they said, remains on the loose. The problem is with that many refugees in Germany, they have set up many enclaves. There are many, many safe houses that the killers could have escaped to and in which they're being harbored," said Hohmann. He has no doubt this attack is an an example of radical Islamic terrorism. "There's no question about that. The only question in my mind is was it done by a refugee or could it have been a son of a Muslim migrant," said Hohmann. He reaches that conclusion by using the past as prologue in evaluating terrorism in the U.S. and abroad. "They all have Islam in common and the other thing they have in common is that they're all perpetrated by either Islamic immigrants or sons of Islamic immigrants. So you have a whole class of people who have isolated themselves in these western countries, come in through liberal immigration policies, live in enclaves, don't assimilate and at some point or another get 'radicalized,'" said Hohmann. He rattled off a list of 10 recent terrorist attacks that fit the bill, from the Boston Marathon bombing to the Chattanooga military recruitment murders to last December's attack in San Bernardino. He says the liberal immigration policies in Germany have already reshaped that country. "They've basically established a nation within a nation," said Hohmann. Hohmann says our media constantly treat terrorism as isolated attacks that share no common threads, thereby minimizing the threat. He says that has lulled Americans into not seeing the scope of the threat. "The American people live in ignorant bliss and think that we're really at a state of peace in the world when, as my book points out, we're in the middle of World War III," said Hohmann. President-Elect Donald Trump drew political fire from many corners by calling for a temporary ban on all Muslim immigration. Hohmann believes that is the right policy. He says Trump's updated call for "extreme vetting" won't stop the threat. "I'm not sure it would have caught a single one of the terrorists in this list of ten that I have on my page sitting in front of me over the past two years," said Hohmann. He says current vetting is worthless since U.S. officials only ask applicants if they are members of ISIS. But he says even much tougher scrutiny wouldn't solve the problem. "Say they answered all the questions correctly and we let them in. They does not preclude them from becoming radicalized after they get here. That's what happens most often. Not to mention the second generation of migrants is more dangerous than the first generation," said Hohmann. But Hohmann says Muslim groups are playing a much longer game, namely changing societies as immigration continues. "The violent jihad that we've been speaking about is only part of the problem and some could argue that it's only the smallest part. There's another problem and it's a more long-term problem. That is civilization jihad," said Hohmann. "It's a long-term plan by the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate American society from within, using liberal immigration policies and lack of assimilation, to build what is called a nation within a nation," said Hohmann. He says tightening immigration laws might solve part of the problem but there is also a clear path forward for addressing those already here. "You have to start requiring assimilation. You have to stop giving special favors to Islam. As we'll read in my book, we've not only invited folks here from these areas of the world that hate American values, but we've been kowtowed to their values and not expected any sort of assimilation," said Hohmann. |
| 'Turkey Is Basically on the Cliff' |
| Mon, 19 Dec 2016 16:58:06 EST Terrorism reared its deadly head again in Turkey on Monday and an attack in Germany is also strongly suspected of links to radical Islamic terrorism, events that Act for America President Brigitte Gabriel says appear to be the latest indications of a bloody ideology fighting for power. On Monday, Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was gunned down while speaking at an art gallery in the Turkish capital of Ankara. According to reports, the killer then shouted a familiar Islamic refrain. 1cGod is great! Those who pledged allegiance to Muhammad for jihad. God is great! 1d he said, while also condemning the crushing of the Syrian rebels in Aleppo. 1cDon 19t forget Aleppo, don 19t forget Syria! Step back! Step back! Only death can take me from here," he reportedly said. Turkey has been inundated with terrorist attacks this year in addition to the failed attempt to topple increasingly radical President Tayyip Erdogan. "Turkey is basically on the cliff of a complete collapse, between the forces of moderation within Turkey who feel they are losing the fight and the forces of the radicals who feel empowered and that they are winning," said Gabriel. She says the best chance for Turkey to reverse course has come and gone. "I think it's already too late for the moderates to turn the ship around. Unfortunately, the coup was the last straw, the last attempt at being able to take over the government . Moderates realize that Erdogan has literally driven the country, over the decades since he has been leading the country, into the abyss of radicalism," said Gabriel. "That basically killed any chance or any hope for the moderates to really take back their government," said Gabriel. She says it is a tragic departure from Kemal Ataturk, who less than a century ago turned Turkey into a secular Muslim nation. "It is sad to see how far Turkey has come from being a beacon of moderation in the Islamic world in the last century under President Ataturk. He basically ended the Islamic caliphate back in 1924, less than a hundred years ago," said Gabriel, noting Ataturk banned women from wearing hijabs or men from sporting long beards. "Turkey went from being the example of what secularism under Islam looks like to being more radicalized now with the world heading back into the Dark Ages," she added. Hours after Karlov was assassinated, reports emerged of a shooting at an Islamic Center in Switzerland and a deadly truck attack at a Christmas market in Berlin, leaving at least nine dead and 50 injured. Gabriel says while the tactics vary, the motivations are often the same. "What is driving everything is the ideology that is bringing all the radicals together: the warning not only of the caliphate which was established, but the growth and power of the caliphate . And the radical Islamists now feel that the caliphate is under attack," said Gabriel. "They are using the attacks against ISIS as a rallying cry to basically recruit and mobilize anybody who believes the way they do," said Gabriel. She says inspiring jihadists is far easier now than it was on 9/11 thanks to the internet and the power of videos and social media. "Any jihadi, regardless of what tongue he or she speaks, they can listen to these jihadi messages and they can feel inspired to carry on their own jihadi attacks and their own martyrdom operation," said Gabriel, who says the inspiration is working because we can see many of the deadly suggestions being carried out. "They are instructing people to go out and plow into people using a truck or a fast-driving machine, go out and slash people with a knife and cutting them, go out and carry out your own personal jihad. You can make bombs under your mom's kitchen or in your own kitchen," she said, noting many of the ingredients for explosives can be found in a grocery store or pharmacy. Gabriel urges intelligence officials to be more aggressive in pursuing terrorism leads in order to avoid cases where advanced warning went unheeded, such as the 2009 Christmas Day underwear bomber or the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers. She also says individual citizens can make a difference. "On our website, ActforAmerica.org, we have a program called 'Open Eyes Save Lives.' We are carrying this campaign on social media, on Twitter. If you go to our website, we give tips as to what people can look out for, what you can do in the case of a terrorist attack, how to protect yourself, how to protect your community," said Gabriel. |
| The Problem with Puzder |
| Fri, 16 Dec 2016 17:00:16 EST Many of Donald Trump's cabinet selections are getting strong reviews from grassroots activists and traditional Republicans, but a leading immigration expert says Trump's choice to head the Department of Labor could be a threat to American jobs. Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian sees fast food titan Andrew Puzder as a problem across the board on immigration, but he says his biggest concern with a Puzder-led Labor Department is the influx of legal immigrants who could put American citizens out of work. "The primary problem is you have to get the okay from the Labor Department before you can bring in one of these people on worker visas. There's something like three quarters of a million people we bring in. These are people who are often directly replacing American workers," said Krikorian. "We saw this at Disney about a year-and-a-half ago. We just saw it with Carnival Cruise Lines, I think just this week. They fired their American workers, usually their IT workforce. They bring in foreign workers on visas that have been okayed by the Labor Department. And then (the American workers) are forced to train their replacements," said Krikorian. While that does happen with some frequency, Krikorian says the big picture is murkier and there are no hard numbers on how many Americans lose their jobs to legal immigrants. "It's never a one-to-one thing. You can't say that one immigrant worker comes in and that means one fewer job for an American. The economy doesn't really work that way," said Krikorian. "There's no way to say this guy lost his job because of that guy. It doesn't work that way." However, Krikorian says it is clear which Americans are most at risk of losing their jobs through the importing of foreign workers. "At the bottom of the labor market, and that means less-skilled workers and that means teenagers looking for work and others - people who get out of prison and want to clean up their act," said Krikorian. "Anybody who's getting on to the first rung of the job ladder. Those people are hurt by ongoing immigration," he said. So where does Puzder fit into all this? Krikorian says Puzder has long been an outspoken proponent of bring in foreign workers. "Andy Puzder has for years shown himself to be a big fan of importing more and more and more and more foreign guest workers to compete with Americans," said Krikorian. He also sees Puzder as being on the wrong side of the most recent congressional fight over immigration reform. "[Puzder supported] that Gang of Eight bill from a few years ago that would have amnestied illegal aliens - the one Rubio and Schumer and Obama were pushing. It would have amnestied illegal aliens, would have hugely increased legal immigration, almost doubled it, and supposedly would have enforced the law better at some point down the road," said Krikorian. He says Puzder also weighed in on immigration policy during the 2016 campaign. "Just last year he made a press statement with several other people, calling on the Republican primary candidates to support so-called comprehensive immigration reform, in other words Obama's immigration agenda," said Krikorian. In response to criticism of Puzder's previous immigration pronouncements, the Trump transition is trying to assure skeptics they have nothing to worry about. "A statement was issued under his name, which I think was pretty clearly written by the campaign, that said he would be tough in protecting American workers and that sort of thing. Maybe. I'm skeptical because his whole life has actually been the opposite so why would we believe in this sudden change," said Krikorian. Krikorian says Trump's vision on legal immigration has always been a bit fuzzy but that the president-elect has made several strong promises. "He's always been kind of shifty on this and vague, but he has been very clear that these visa programs must never be used to replace American workers. And the law allows that now," said Krikorian. Other members of Trump's cabinet who will deal directly with immigration issues are getting rave reviews, especially Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the nominee for attorney general. "Jeff Sessions is a top pick. He has the potential to be the best attorney general in American history. I have great respect for Jeff Sessions. I think he's going to be great across the board at the Justice Department, both immigration stuff and everything else," said Krikorian. Retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly is Trump's choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Krikorian says Kelly is a well-known "border hawk" but isn't sure how he will approach concerns over legal immigrants overstaying their visas or making sure businesses do not hire people in the U.S. illegally. "I don't have any reason to think he'll be bad on that but he doesn't have any experience on it so we're going to have to wait and see how he does," said Krikorian. Krikorian admits Puzder will likely be confirmed by the Senate. It's only then that America will find out if his new assurances or his old positions carry the day. "Supposedly he's seen the light," said Krikorian. "We'll have to see whether that's true or not." |
| Walsh: Liberalism Has Descended Into Insanity |
| Thu, 15 Dec 2016 14:28:55 EST A popular conservative blogger and columnist is shaking his head after creating a Facebook video designed to satirize political correctness in America, only to discover millions of people thought he was serious. Matt Walsh rose to prominence for his unflinching and vigorous blog entries in defense of conservative principle, particularly on the issues of life and family. He recently chose to mock politically correct sensibilities by pretending to suffer micro-aggressions by witnessing a mall Santa. "A mall Santa in a public place in the year 2016. Apparently, this mall has never heard of the Declaration of Independence and the first amendment of it, which says that you can't have religious holiday displays in places where there's other people that are not of that religion. It says it right in there," says Walsh in four-minute video that has nearly four million views. Walsh says he made the video to document America's deteriorating culture. "Liberalism in this country has descended to a point of, I think, utter insanity. My goal was to try to make a parody of that or a satire of the overly offendedness and political correctness in our culture," said Walsh. He was stunned by the response. "Of the four million hits, I'd say about 3.5 million of them are people who took it completely and totally seriously. They thought I was being 100 percent sincere," said Walsh. "That's because our culture is so absurd at this point that it's hard to tell if anyone's making fun of it," said Walsh. Walsh questions whether the leaders of politically correct movements actually believe what they're pushing given how fast things are changing. "You look at how rapidly these things have caught on. For instance, all this gender stuff. There are 56 different genders now and you can't have men and women bathrooms. Five years ago, nobody was talking about that. Nobody cared. Nobody talked about it. Nobody believed that five years ago and here we are and it's an accepted, mainstream thing," said Walsh. "It's hard for me to believe that the people pushing it, whether they're in academia or the media, it's hard for me to believe they buy it. They didn't buy it five years ago. They're using it as a weapon. It's a wedge that they can drive in there, identity politics, to control people," said Walsh. But whether the academics and media actually believe it, Walsh says an entire generation of young people believe it wholeheartedly. "People in the older generation, a lot of them still reject it because they didn't grow up with it. But in my generation, a lot of us have been indoctrinated into this way of thinking from a very young age. You have a generation now, from the age of four on or even younger, this is what they're taught to believe," said Walsh. And he doesn't see things improving anytime soon. "I unfortunately think it's going to get worse before it gets better. As the older generation's going to die off and the millennial generation becomes the generation in charge, I don't think we're going to drop these things because this is how we were raised," said Walsh. Walsh was very critical of Donald Trump throughout the 2016 campaign, but he says there's no doubt part of Trump's win was due to a backlash against the aggressive liberal cultural warriors. "I never thought that defeating political correctness is the number one job of the president. We shouldn't necessarily elect a president based on that. But this is what happened. In a large part, I think liberals brought it upon themselves. They pushed a little bit too far, too hard, too fast. People lashed out and you ended up with Donald Trump," said Walsh. Walsh says there's no magic bullet to reversing the liberal drift in the culture. He says it begins with each parent teaching their kids what's right and wrong. "The best thing we can do is to raise our families, to raise our kids to know better than this. Then maybe in the future, decades from now, we can have a sane country again. Who knows?" said Walsh. |
| 'We Cannot Trust the Russians' |
| Wed, 14 Dec 2016 16:20:32 EST Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., is calling for immediate aid to the displaced Syrian people at risk of being butchered by the Syrian government forces and he warns the incoming Trump administration that Russia has designs on calling the shots throughout much of the Middle East. Reacting to Tuesday's news that Syrian rebels have effectively lost their stronghold on Aleppo, Pascrell says that leaves a massive humanitarian crisis. "There's a huge humanitarian problem there for the people who remain in Aleppo and the surrounding areas. Aid has not been able to get to them. Food has not been able to get to them because of the cabal between the Russians and the Syrian government," said Pascrell. "Right now, the immediate problem is to bring aid to those people who need it. There's no water. There's no food. And obviously, if you watch the pictures, there's very little shelter," said Pascrell. He says the blame for the humanitarian nightmare belongs at the feet of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "Assad has butchered his own people. He chooses to continue to do this. He wants to bring the people and anybody that joins them, such as the rebels, to their knees. While that's happening, innocent people are dying," said Pascrell. Pascrell admits the crisis in Syria has no simple solutions, since trying to find and train moderate rebels has proved elusive and the U.S. is simultaneously fighting radical forces like ISIS and the Al Nusra Front. "That's a very difficult enterprise. Four years ago, we did know there were a certain amount of rebels who had the exact same agenda as we had, and that is is to overthrow the Assad government. We put that aside and allowed Assad to get stronger," said Pascrell. Russia is one of the key reasons for Assad;s ability to beat back the rebels, particularly in providing the air power that eroded the rebel grip in Aleppo. Pascrell says it's long past time to impose economic sanctions on Moscow. "We don't want to risk outright war with the Russians. That's not what we seek and I'm sure that's not what they seek with us. But I think if we put economic sanctions on the Russians, it's worked before. It could work again," said Pascrell. He says Americans should have no illusions about Russia. "We cannot trust the Russians. We can't trust the Russians now and we're not going to be able to trust them after January 20. Anybody that's foolish enough to think that we can do this is simply going to bring more misery upon the Syrian people," said Pascrell. But the wariness toward Russia extends far beyond Syria. To begin, Pascrell says you just have to look at how Vladimir Putin handles criticism from his own people. "We're dealing with a Russian government here that has suffocated any dissent in its own country. How many journalists have been thrown in prison? How many journalists have been thrown the heck out that are now in the United States?" said Pascrell. He says the Russian involvement in Syria combined with the crackdown on rights in Turkey are combining towards the creation of a troubling and growing alliance throughout the region. "Pretty soon you're going to have an alliance between the Russians, the Turks, the Iranians and the Syrians. I see that developing there right now. The Turks have their own problems internally and [Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan] is going to take it out on American foreign policy. There's no two ways about it," said Pascrell. "[The Russians] don't want these countries to turn to the West. They want these countries to turn to Russia. So we're between that rock and the rock of not getting involved where American lives are going to be lost. Not an easy question to resolve whether it's Obama or Trump," said Pascrell. In fact, the congressman would not be surprised if Russia makes our fight to eradicate ISIS more difficult than it needs to be. "While we're fighting ISIS and giving all we can in order to fight the extreme jihadists, we need to recognize at the same time that Russia will simply go with the flow in whatever suits their purpose," said Pascrell. While he encourages President-Elect Trump to study up on all the ways Russian aggression is evident today, Pascrell says he has no idea what to expect from the incoming administration. "I don't know what to expect. Does anybody know what to expect? Whether it was the campaign or whether it was after the campaign, you never know what he's going to say or what direction he's going to go in. I don't think it's healthy for the region. I'll tell you that," said Pascrell. |
| 'Getting Back to Reason Within the EPA' |
| Tue, 13 Dec 2016 16:29:08 EST The congressman who led the effort to impeach outgoing EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says he is very encouraged by Donald Trump's choice to lead the agency and says he looks forward to an EPA that abides by the Constitution and a Congress that provides clear parameters for it to follow. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., says the job of the EPA, and the government as a whole, is to steward our resources in a way that protects the earth while allowing free energy markets and supplies to flourish. "We need an all of the above energy policy. Clean coal, gas, all of those should be on the same par as solar, geothermals, and wind. This administration has cosen to pick winners and losers. That's been problematic in the cost of energy that goes back to the consumer," said Gosar. Last week, Trump nominated Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA. It was a a decision that made liberals and environmentalists livid. 1cHaving Scott Pruitt in charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires. He is a climate science denier who, as Attorney General for the state of Oklahoma, regularly conspired with the fossil fuel industry to attack EPA protections," said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune in a statement. 1cNothing less than our children 19s health is at stake." Former Obama Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer sounded an even greater alarm. "At the risk of being dramatic, Scott Pruitt at EPA is an existential threat to the planet," tweeted Pfeiffer. Gosar says the left needs to understand how it has bent and broken the law to advance it's agenda. "I think it's interesting the far left starts throwing names around, when they should be looking in the mirror at the damage they've caused. The rules that have come out of this EPA have been egregious and onerous and not embedded in statute," said Gosar. He says likes Pruitt's track record of challenging the EPA when he believes it has overstepped its authority. "He has gone forward with numerous suits against the EPA that have prevailed at the federal level and even at the Supreme Court. So I think that this is a great pick in regards to getting back to reason within the EPA and I'm looking forward to a common sense application of how we do things constitutionally by legislation," said Gosar. In many of the statements from environmental groups, Pruitt is hammered on the issues of clean water and clean air. Those criticisms refer primarily to Pruitt pushing back on specific rules such as Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, and cranking up the standards on power plants that critics believe could put the coal industry out of business. WOTUS is especially critical in Arizona, and ultimately became the issue through which Gosar pursued impeachment charges against McCarthy. "The EPA decided to change their definition and jurisdiction of waters of the U.S., when in fact there were parts of five Supreme Court rulings that told them they couldn't," said Gosar. "It also usurps states' rights and local authories who have authority over surface ground water and water that's bestowed to the states," said Gosar. He says similar overreach can be seen on the much higher restrictions on carbon emissions. "We set one standard and we were trying to meet that standard and the EPA turned around and changed the goalposts on the field, saying, that we're going to go even further in picking winners and losers. Some of these standards have no basis in science and no basis in regard to application as well. It also trumps state sovereignty in regards to that application," said Gosar. With Republicans controlling the executive branch and both chambers in Congress, Gosar is hopeful a much more restrained, constitutional approach to environmental policy will be possible. Rolling back rules and regulations can be burdensome, but Gosar points out that the courts have already done some of that work. He says Pruitt, if confirmed, will also have considerable discretion. "Some of these can go away by the intent of the EPA administrator, by saying, Listen, we're not going to go with these until Congress gives us further direction," said Gosar. He also says Congress can have a great impact through the power of the purse. In addition, the congressman expects a much less confrontational atmosphere. "If we can work together effectively, we could actually see a much more adaptive and empowering type of EPA that works with states and local municipalties, instead of beating them over the head with a bat," said Gosar. To make it work, however, Gosar says GOP leaders must make good on their promises on regulations, spending and more. "The onus is on leadership. There have been solutions on the table and they have stalled them. From that standpoint, it's also up to me to put them in that position where they either sink or swim - that they do what's right or suffer consequences if they don't follow through," said Gosar. |
| 'If A Heartbeat's Detected, the Baby's Protected' |
| Fri, 9 Dec 2016 16:36:44 EST The woman who effectively authored the 'Heartbeat Bill' in Ohio is pressuring Gov. John Kasich to sign the bill and not worry about whether the courts will find the law constitutional. On Dec. 6, both chambers of the Ohio legislature added the "Heartbeat Bill" language to existing legislation. Faith 2 Action President Janet Porter says the provisions are pretty simple. "If a heartbeat's detected, the baby's protected. That's the bill. It's got a life of the mother exception, but it basically says once you've got a detectable heartbeat, we're going to recognize that heartbeat in the same we would recognize the heartbeat of any other human being," said Porter. The detection of a heartbeat varies from pregnancy to pregnancy, but most can be detected between 4-6 weeks after conception. Porter says that's a definition of life that everyone just accepts once someone is out of the womb. "We're going to acknowledge it and we're going to kick in legal protections at that point. It's a universally recognized indicator of life. Why should we ignore it when it comes to the very young?" said Porter. Porter is quick to clarify that she believes life begins before a heartbeat is detectable but she believes this legislation moves the law much closer to the moment of conception. "We're not trying to say heartbeat is when the life begins. We're simply saying that's an indicator we should recognize," said Porter, noting many more unborn lives can be saved this way. "If we can't rescue them all out of the burning building just yet, let's carry out as many children as we can," said Porter. Most abortion debates in recent years have centered around the point of viability. Some place that at the end of the second trimester. Pro-life activists often push for a ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Porter says heartbeat is a better marker. "Even the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has said it's 'more consistent and certain than viability and that marker is heartbeat," said Porter. She also says heartbeat detection is a very critical indicator of whether the unborn child will survive. "Science has shown us that if you've got a detectable heartbeat in an unborn child, there is a 97-98 percent likelihood that that child will survive to live birth," said Porter. Gov. Kasich has given no indication whether he will sign the bill. It will be come law on Dec. 16 if he does nothing. Only vetoing it would stop the legislation. Some reports suggest Kasich is worried about signing a bill that he believes would have trouble winning in court. Porter says that shouldn't be his concern. "Why in the world would Gov. Kasich say, 'I need to kill the bill because the court might kill the bill.' That's absurd. We just want the governor to do what he is elected to do: protect human life, fulfill the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives," said Porter. She also points out Ohio wouldn't need to spend a dime defending the law since Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver has promised to provide representation for free. The Eighth Circuit did strike down a nearly identical bill out of North Dakota in recent years. However, Porter says a closer look suggests this law would have a fighting chance in court. "The Eighth Circuit is bound by precedent. They've got to follow what the Supreme Court has already said in the past. But what the Eighth Circuit said is, 'Hey, Supreme Court, take a look at this one.' They asked the court to review it. The court said no," said Porter. She also says this law could serve a vital purpose even if it is struck down in court. Porter says Ohio led the way by passing the first ban on partial-birth abortions and lost at the Supreme Court but inspired a movement that saw 30 other states pursue the issue and eventually win at the high court. "We are doing what the Bible says is exercising the persistent widow principle. You keep pounding on the door and God says that even an unjust judge will give us the justice we seek," said Porter. She urges all pro-life Americans to pray for Gov. Kasich to sign the bill. She also strongly encourages like-minded Americans, regardless of where they live, to call Kasich at 614-466-3555 and tell him to sign it. |
| Union Accused of Refusing to Relinquish Dues |
| Thu, 8 Dec 2016 16:32:12 EST Two Washington, D.C., security guards are taking a labor union to court, alleging workers voted to stop allowing dues to be taken out of their paychecks but the union keeps taking the money more than a year later. Troy Golson and Yasir Maatoug are security guards at the Ronald Reagan building in the nation's capital. They are employed by Coastal International Security and took the jobs with understanding that compulsory dues would be taken from their paychecks by the International Union of Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America, or SPFPA. In November 2015, being dissatisfied with the representation being provided by the SPFPA, the two employees and their colleagues held a deauthorization vote to free themselves and their income from the mandates of the union. "A deauthorization election is where the employees get together and they petition to have a vote on whether or not the contract will include a clause that requires them to pay union dues or fees to get or keep a job," said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, which is representing Golson and Maatoug in this case. "In 24 states across the country, and including the District of Columbia, you can be required to pay union dues or fees to get or keep a job. This contract that covered these employees had that provision. They thought they weren't getting the representation they deserved or were paying for," said Mix. "So they decided to use what is their right under the National Labor Relations Act to deauthorize the forced collection of dues from this union," added Mix. The workers overwhelmingly voted to deauthorize the SPFPA from extracting dues from paychecks in November 2015. "The union and the employer should stop collecting the dues. There's no authorization for this money to be taken out of their paychecks and forwarded to the union by their employer. Yet, since 2015 after this vote, this particular union continues to demand these workers pay these dues to keep their jobs," said Mix. That is why Golson and Maatoug are pursuing legal action more than a year later. "As far as we know, [the dues] are still being taken out and that's why we filed the lawsuit, to stop that and to bring it to the attention of the National Labor Relations Board and make sure that they understand that these workers have successfully gone through the process that is laid down by the National Labor Relations Act to take this action. Yet, they're not getting the union to adhere to what the rules are," said Mix. Mix says the SPFPA acknowledges the vote took place. However, the union does not accept the results because it did not take place during the proper "window period" to make such an adjustment to the existing contract. Mix says that's nonsense. "That's not true under deauthorization. Deauthorization says once we say you can no longer take our money, you can't. It's a little higher standard to get to and the unions don't like it, but in this case a majority of the workers said that. Yet, the union won't accept their desire to get out of this forced payment of fees," said Mix. According to Mix, deauthorization votes don't happen often, largely because many workers don't know their rights. "Generally the workers don't know of their rights and certainly the unions aren't informing them of their rights to deauthorize the union," said Mix. He notes that right to work laws in the 26 other states forbid union membership and compulsory dues payments as a requirement to get and keep a job. |
| Hillary's Fingerprints 'All Over This Recount' |
| Wed, 7 Dec 2016 16:04:56 EST Legal challenges and hand counting of ballots are daily occurrences in Michigan, and the head of an anti-Hillary Clinton political action committee says the former Democratic nominee is deeply involved in an effort to give the perception Donald Trump's victory is illegitimate while Green Party candidate Jill Stein is just in this for herself. The courts have been back and forth on the issue. After Stein pressed the issue in court, federal judge Mark Goldsmith ordered the recount to begin on Monday, despite Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette trying to stop the process. The state is arguing that since Stein has no chance of winning she has no standing to make the request. On Tuesday, the Michigan Court of Appeals agreed with Schuette and ordered to recount to be stopped. However, a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the recount ought to continue. The various parties were arguing the case again before Goldsmith on Wednesday morning. After all 83 Michigan counties certified their vote totals last month, the Michigan Board of Canvassers declared the winner of the state's 16 electoral votes by a 10,704 vote margin. Stein successfully triggered a recount in neighboring Wisconsin, where Trump leads by roughly 22,000 votes, and Pennsylvania, where the margin is more than twice the spread in Wisconsin. The Committee to Defend the President is also wading into the legal waters. Formerly known as the Stop Hillary PAC, the group says this recount drama is nothing more than an expensive circus. "I think it is a waste of taxpayers' money first and foremost. The taxpayers in these three states are going to have to pick up the tab for these recounts," said Committee to Defend the President Chairman Ted Harvey. "The recounts will achieve nothing. Jill Stein received one percent of the vote in these states. There is no way that she can get the votes necessary to overcome Trump's victory and I don't believe she has any standing in these states to file lawsuits to do a recount because of that," said Harvey. He says Stein's true motives are fairly obvious. "She is simply doing this to raise money for her organization, to raise her profile as an individual and to raise the profile of the Green Party," said Harvey. The Clinton campaign is officially joining Stein in it's stated cause of ensuring the vote was not subject to hacking, error, or fraud. However, the Clinton team has publicly stated it doesn't expect any changes in the results. Harvey doesn't believe Clinton is just a silent bystander in all of this. He sees the former secretary of state as a raging hypocrite. "After the (final) debate, she stood up in speech after speech after speech and said Donald Trump is attacking democracy by questioning the election. That was easy for her to say when she thought she was going to win. Now that she is losing, her fingerprints are all over this recount," said Harvey, who also has scathing reviews for how the media is covering this. "I think it's typical of the agenda of the left-wing media, which is all of the CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC in this country. They are run by leftists and they have an agenda," said Harvey. He says the media roundly mocked Trump for suggesting voting irregularities could be a factor in the election but they are only too eager to treat Stein and Clinton's challenge as serious news. On the contrary, he says there are plenty of examples of truly concerning issues across the country, including in his home state of Colorado. "Here in Colorado, they passed legislation to allow for same-day voter registration without proof of voter ID. When it was brought up that this was only going to lead to massive voter fraud, they laughed at it and they pushed it through. Now here we are with an election that they lose and they're coming before the American people and the press and they're claiming voter fraud. It's just hypocrisy left and right," said Harvey. Harvey says the media has been toeing the liberal narrative since the moment Trump won the election. "You saw what happened the day after the election when you had 'spontaneous' rallies around the country protesting Donald Trump's election. That didn't just happen overnight. That was organized by (George) Soros and the Clinton campaign to rally young people around the country to protest. The media gobbled that up and ran with that hour after hour after hour," said Harvey. He says the media then jumped to new stories when the protesting became stale, namely an obsession with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote and then treating the recounts as legitimate. Harvey believes all these different tactics have the same long-term goal. "Their whole agenda is to discredit Donald Trump and discredit his duly legal election. I think they will continue to do this for the next four years to say that everything that he is going to do as president is not legitimate," said Harvey. |
| Can Trump Tackle Government Waste? |
| Tue, 6 Dec 2016 15:50:50 EST A recently uncovered evaluation of Pentagon spending shows $125 billion could be slashed within five years, showcasing the challenge for the incoming Trump administration to make government more efficient, an effort that will also be tested by Trump's call for a trillion dollars in infrastructure spending. The Pentagon study was commissioned to find areas of administrative bloat that could be then channeled towards actual military projects. The review was finished by the Defense Business Board in January 2015, and suggested $125 billion could be cut over a five-year span. However, the Washington Post reports the amount of waste was so massive that officials buried the study. "Uncovering the bloat is not a surprise and covering it up is also not a surprise," said Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz, who believes $125,000,000,000 in unnecessary spending at the Pentagon is just the tip of the iceberg. "The Pentagon has never passed a financial audit, so we know that there's a lot more waste even than the Defense Business Board found," said Schatz. One of the most glaring findings from the Defense Business Board is that a quarter of the Pentagon's $580 billion budget was spent on overhead, such as human resources, accounting and other line items not directly related to training and fighting. "Right now the Pentagon has almost an equal number of civilian personnel and contractors as it does troops, which seems to be a little bit too much in terms of support. You should have more troops than support," said Schatz. While the Defense Business Board recommended reallocating the wasted money towards combat-related programs in future years, Schatz says it's not that easy to make those changes. "A lot of people who have run the Pentagon have tried to get things done to make the whole operation run more effectively. Congress gets in the way as well. It's difficult to get rid of a wasteful program or even reduce staff," said Schatz. Schatz says this kind of waste has been going on at the Pentagon for decades. His own organization was founded to follow up on the government waste-cutting recommendations of the Grace Commission - a panel commissioned by President Reagan. In 1984, the Grace Commission uncovered billions and future trillions that could be cut throughout government. Congress ignored the recommendations. He said the findings on the Pentagon look pretty familiar. "The Grace Commission found a lot of similar expenditures at the Pentagon. Five of the forty-seven Grace Commission task force reports were on the Pentagon, a lot of it dealing with procurement and personnel," said Schatz. Schatz also says defense official missed a golden opportunity to come clean to Congress. "The report itself said take this money and use it for more important defense purposes. The Pentagon brass apparently didn't trust Congress to do that. I think they would have received this quite well. Congress has closed unnecessary military bases when they needed to. They would certainly cut back on this kind of overhead," said Schatz. Many Trump supporters are expecting him to tackle government waste head-on and were encouraged by his call for Boeing to scrap construction of a new Air Force One after going above budget on the project. Schatz says Trump needs people who will actually address these issues. "We hope that's the case. I think taxpayers and voters brought Donald Trump here to do these kinds of things. He's not attached to any of these matters or any of the companies that are involved," said Schatz. "It's time to make changes. A number of the people coming in have longstanding business experience." "While the government is not a business, it's very difficult to fire people, which is part of the problem. They can certainly initiate more ways to spend the tax dollars effectively," said Schatz. Also looming on the horizon is Trump's trillion dollar plan to revitalize U.S. infrastructure. Conservative critics see it as a big government rerun of the Obama stimulus, but Schatz believes that is highly unlikely. Done right, he thinks a targeted approach could actually be a boon to the U.S. "I don't see any way a Republican Congress approves another stimulus, so it won't look anything like that. If it's done properly and it's done by pushing a lot of that money down to the states so that they can spend it effectively - and the way that transportation funds are spent overall is part of this deal - then yes, some of this could be very helpful," said Schatz. But he says they need to avoid horrific ideas like the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" that overwhelmingly passed through a GOP-controlled Congress and was signed by George W. Bush. He says there also really bad ideas from the Obama stimulus that should not be duplicated. "We don't need the federal government to go back to paying for streetscapes and street lights in the middle of a small town, which is part of what happened under the stimulus and the transportation bill in 2006," said Schatz. So can it realistically be done in an efficient way that doesn't result in myriads of wasteful projects. "Saying that we need a trillion dollars is not the same as putting the legislation into place and determining how it can be done. There's a lot of talk about public-private partnerships. There might be more roads with tolls that help pay for the roads. So there are ways to pay for some of this in the way the construction is done and how the funding is done into the future," said Schatz. |
| 'This Is the New Sheriff in Town' |
| Mon, 5 Dec 2016 15:47:30 EST Donald Trump made cleaning up the Department of Veterans Affairs one of his top campaign promises, and as the president-elect considers his options to lead that effort, a retired U.S. Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and veterans activist says personnel will be critical since the job of fixing the VA will be long and difficult. Jessie Jane Duff served 20 years in the Marines. She is now a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and says Trump must pick someone who can run a massive operation like the VA but is also tough enough to force change upon those addicted to the status quo. "This is not for somebody who just is well-versed on the VA. It's great to be versed on the VA but if you don't have management experience dealing with unions, dealing with backlogs, dealing with bureaucracy and trying to be a positive change agent, you're not going to be the person for the job," said Duff. Duff says prior military service might be nice but is really not all that vital to doing what needs to be done. "I'm not even that concerned if someone is a veteran or not. It's not a military organization. It services veterans. I need somebody who is service-oriented and understands what it is to deliver on a product or service to a customer, particularly one that is so important such as our American veterans," said Duff. Because of the sprawling nature of the VA.she says that tough, competent person must have tough, competent people beneath them. "The changes are going to be difficult. It's going to be very difficult. Whoever does get in there is going to have to align themselves with really strong undersecretaries. The Veterans Administration is broken up into many, many small departments and they're scattered throughout the nation. So you can easily find little pocket groups that are going to do their own thing," said Duff. According to Duff, the new secretary must make it crystal clear from day one that business as usual is over. "Employees have to understand, this is the new sheriff in town. We're going to get this right and whatever it takes is what we're going to do. You're going to meet massive resistance and the unions are probably going to fight them left and right. They have to get the right center of attention and that is back on the veteran and not on the VA employee," said Duff. While Duff and many other veterans activists are highly critical of the Obama administration's approach to the issue, she admits that current VA Secretary Robert McDonald faced roadblocks over the personnel changes he did try to make, precisely because of organized labor. "He had tried to fire multiple employees VA and was just never successful with it. Often it was because they would go through this appeal process, and the union that protects these employees would find that little loophole that says, 'No, that doesn't fall under the guidances of our agreements," said Duff. The union in question is the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE. "They were able to get many, many of these employees back pay or reassigned to placed back into the jobs that they had been severed from," said Duff. She says those kinds of bureaucratic hurdles prevent real change from happening. "The process, the system, everything about it is so severed, so broken. You have to have somebody willing to go in there and recognize that and not try to pretend that you're going to put a bandage on a sucking chest wound," said Duff. So how does that entrenched bureaucracy ever budge? Duff says it's more about determination and less about any additional legislation. "You have to find out how how can we fire people without going through all this bureaucracy. It's going to require shaking up and breaking up that union. They're going to have to figure out a way to do it because trying to legislate your way out of this has proven time and time and time again to be ineffective," said Duff. As an example she says the 2015 legislation that allowed "veterans choice" for vets that don't live near a VA facility turned out to be a nightmare. Instead of making life easier for veterans to get private sector care that's far more convenient, VA bureaucracy turned the opportunity into a nightmare. "Well guess what happens? The bureaucracy to fill out the paperwork becomes so deep that many veterans got discouraged doing it. Some veterans have reported finding out the bills were never paid by the VA and they turned around and got them on their credit report. And the VA itself had tried to allocate the billions of dollars they were given for it into other areas of the VA," said Duff. The care itself is still turning up horror stories as well, most recently the allegations that a VA dentist failed to sterilize his equipment and now some 600 patients need to be screened for HIV and various strains of hepatitis. The dentist is still on the VA payroll, but has been moved to an administrative position. Duff says the approach of the new VA boss needs to be very simple. "We have to get somebody who's a clear-headed thinker that realizes you're obviously not going to be able to service all veterans. You have to allow veterans who are not near a VA medical system, or not getting adequate care, to go to (private sector) facilities near them. That's rule number one," said Duff. But as critical as Duff is of the current system, she doesn't want to scrap it. She wants to replicate what works in successful VA hospitals in the facilities that are failing. "Rule number two: You don't have to destroy the entire system," she said. "There are many model hospitals that are out there. Use them as the diagram to re-establish those hospitals that are failing," said Duff. Duff says VA facilities should face consequences for failing to meet the standard of care our veterans deserve. "Treat it like a school system. Set up a standard of excellence that must be managed and maintained. Those who do not manage or maintain it are threatened to be closed or reformed or [have their entire staffs fired]," said Duff. She is not officially recommending any particular candidate in mind to lead the VA through such a change, although one name quickly came to mind for her. "I'm probably not the right person to ask who would be best for it, but (former Texas Gov.) Rick Perry does happen to be a veteran. He has, obviously, managed an enormous budget. He has great success in Texas with the economy. He's also very very concerned with veterans. He's been very outspoken and has gone to the medical centers in Texas," said Duff. If Trump picks someone capable of doing all this, how soon could we see significant results? "With the right people and the right direction and the right demands of them and they're given checks and balances and they're given a benchmark to reach every quarter and every year, I think we're going to see significant improvement in the first year. We should see mass improvement in two," said Duff. She firmly believes Trump's fate in 2020 could very well depend upon how well he keeps this promise. "Should he be re-elected, it means he did a great job because veterans are behind this man. The reason he's in office is because a huge number of veterans got out there and voted for him," said Duff. "He cannot drop the ball on this one. It will make or break his re-election," said Duff. |
| Gen. Boykin Cheers Mattis for Defense Secretary |
| Fri, 2 Dec 2016 16:33:10 EST Retired U.S. Army Lt. General William "Jerry" Boykin is applauding President-Elect Donald Trump's selection of retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis to be the next Secretary of Defense and believes Mattis will do an excellent job of restoring the military to its original purpose and moving it away from the giant social experiment its become during the Obama years. Boykin, who served 36 years, many of them in special operations, sees Trump and Mattis as kindred spirits in that they both despise political correctness. Mattis, known as "Mad Dog" and "Chaos" during his years in uniform comes to the confirmation process with a sterling reputation as a military scholar and leader and for speaking his mind bluntly. "I think what Donald Trump was looking for was somebody who would send a very strong message to our military, to the people in the ranks of our military that we are going to get back to a focus on what the military's mission is. And this is plain and simple to win the nation's wars. I think Mattis sends that signal. It's a very good choice. I'm excited about it," said Boykin. When asked how Mattis would tackle priorities like ISIS or strengthening the military, Boykin says the most urgent priority is something else. "I think his top priority will be restoring the warrior ethos here. We've been plagued by various social experiments for the entire eight years Obama has been out commander-in-chief. It has created a huge morale problem. It has reduced our readiness. It has made our ability to win the nation's wars questionable," said Boykin. Boykin says there are limits to what Mattis can do to reverse the social engineering implemented in the military during the Obama years. "There are some things that he cannot roll back. What he can do is put an end to all the wasted training time that is associated with every social experiment," said Boykin. "For example, when you allow transgenders to serve in the military, there is a training program that goes with that. Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and Coastguardsman has to go through hours and hours of that training. What does that do? It causes them to have to give up something in their training program," said Boykin. He points to January's incident in the Persian Gulf, in which Iran took American sailors prisoner, took video of them on their knees and forced the commanding officer to apologize. The U.S. later apologized and even thanked Iran for it's hospitality of our personnel. "That's not acceptable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The problem was they didn't get that kind of training. What they did get was diversity and inclusion and tolerance and white privilege and all those things that go with social experiments and they contribute nothing to the ability to fight and win the nation's wars," said Boykin. Boykin is confident Mattis can handle the job of running a massive organization like the Department of Defense. And while Boykin, strongly prefers civilian leadership at the Pentagon, he says we need Mattis right now. "I fully endorse civilian control of the military. It's a fundamental principle to our constitutional republic. We all believe in that. But these are extreme circumstances. These are extreme situations we find ourselves in now," said Boykin. "So in this situation, I am comfortable with it. I would not want it to be the norm. But again, we're not in a normal situation or circumstance," said Boykin. |
| Congressional GOP Pumped to Work with Trump |
| Thu, 1 Dec 2016 16:30:57 EST Republicans in Congress are fired up by the chance to accomplish big things in the early days of the upcoming Trump administration and move away from the crisis budgeting that faces them once again in the lame duck session. Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla, who gained notoriety nearly two years ago by posing an intraparty challenge to then-House Speaker John Boehner, says GOP members are itching to get things done. "I can tell you the enthusiasm and the excitement up here of getting things done is higher than I've ever seen," said Yoho, who is wrapping up his second two-year term. "The optimism is tremendous. Even the members that served under (George W.) Bush said they've never seen it like this." He says part of the excitement was the promise from Vice President-Elect Mike Pence that lawmakers would be very busy in the early days of the Trump administration. "He said, 'I hope you guys are holding on and you're ready to work because this guy that is going to be president is unlike anybody you've ever worked with before. He's got unlimited energy. We want to roll back the majority, if not all, of the executive orders. We want to repeal and replace Obamacare and we want to adapt the tax reforms that the Republicans have teed up and ready to go,'" said Yoho. "He said we're going to do all that in the first 100 days," said Yoho. Even thornier issues such as entitlements lie ahead, but Yoho says a united GOP can make progress on those elusive goals as well. "The biggest thing is having a common vision and goal that you're trying to accomplish. We're at a point in this country where in 5-10 years our mandatory spending is going to consume over 80 percent of what we spend as a nation," said Yoho. "We'll be at a situation like Greece, Spain, or Portugal, where the situation dictates what you have to do as far as austerity measures and the reforms you have to make in programs. We have time to be proactive and change that," said Yoho, who says this GOP Congress will not end up spending more and growing government like it did from 2005-2007, the last time Republicans controlled Congress and the White House. While admitting some tough decisions will have to made on some aspects of entitlement and spending reform, he says some parts of the solution should be easy, starting with mandatory spending that isn't essential. "One of the things that's mandatory spending is $88 million to save the wild horses out West. I'm a veterinarian, worked on horses all my life. I'm very cognizant and want to take care of the horses, but it shouldn't be mandatory spending," said Yoho. He also sees places to trim entitlement spending. "We've got people receiving Social Security benefits that have never paid into it. We've got people from other countries getting Social Security Disability Insurance. These things have to be looked at. Then you take the fraud and abuse out of these things. There are billions of dollars that can be saved by doing some very simple things and fixing the low-hanging fruit," said Yoho. Even before Trump takes office, Congress must work with President Obama to pass a short-term government funding bill. Current funding runs out Dec. 9. Yoho expects a continuing resolution to pass that would extend government funding until March. The Trump administration would then be in office to negotiate future spending. However, Yoho points out that subsequent spending debate would coincide with a high stakes debate over raising the debt ceiling. Yoho hopes that a Trump administration will bring an end to omnibus budgeting that often end up with Republicans holding their noses and voting for prominent Obama priorities such as funding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities. The current lame duck session is already a success for Yoho. Earlier in the week, the House passed his WINGMAN legislation, also known as H.R. 5166. The bill gives Congress access to claims filed by veterans with the Department of Veterans Affairs and gives lawmakers and their staffs the ability to explain what else veterans need to fill out or put members in position to pressure the VA for resolution of the claims. |
| Refugee Policies and Recognizing Threats in Ohio State Aftermath |
| Wed, 30 Nov 2016 16:35:46 EST The apparent terrorist attack on pedestrians at Ohio State University Monday is triggering a wide range of political and cultural reaction, but a leading terrorism expert says the most important responses need to be much tougher screening for refugees and helping people spot radical threats before they strike. On Monday morning, Somali refugee Abdul Azak Ali Artan allegedly drove a car into a crowd of people before getting out and trying to stab as many people as possible. Artan was quickly shot and killed by campus police officer Alan Horuljko. In the aftermath, the Obama administration has been careful not to describe the attack as radical Islamic terrorism, despite ISIS claiming credit for the attack and officials suggesting Artan's social media postings indicate he was inspired by ISIS. At least one of the victims says he is withholding judgment on Artan's motives. President-Elect Donald Trump was much less diplomatic, saying Artan never should have been in the country in the first place. Terrorism expert Dr. Harvey Kushner says Artan should have raised red flags as he tried to enter the U.S. "This individual should have raised some red flags, given when he came here. At the time when he came here and the time when ISIS was beginning to be in full bloom and was recruiting heavily on the internet. And the area of the world which he came from should have raised some questions of more extreme vetting," said Kushner. Kushner, who is also head of the Terrorism and Homeland Security Institute at Long Island University. He says Artan's actions were a textbook ISIS attack, given the terrorists' public push for stabbing attacks. He says we have to do a better job of screening who comes into this country. "Our authorities need to be able to get data on individuals who want to come in here. There has to be a very deep interviewing process and there has to be some kind of follow-up while they're here. I'm not saying to pause completely from all areas of the world but some areas are certainly more problematic," said Kushner. "People from certain regions of the world that we know are problematic, which we know bring political baggage with them could cause a problem in the future. This attack represents such an incident," said Kushner. He says trying to limit refugees from terror-prone nations is made far more difficult now that so many are dispersed throughout Europe and could attempt to come to the U.S. from nations that don't raise red flags. "What's happened throughout Europe and the European Union and movement between countries there," said Kushner. "We really need to step back and take a look at the process that we have currently in terms of gathering data about individuals and making sure these individuals don't pose a serious threat." While students who claim to know Artan say they never suspected he was radicalized, Kushner says it is far more likely that this rage was building for some time rather then Artan suddenly snapping. "I don't think this necessarily happens overnight, that there's some sort of epiphany that the person should go out and do this. I think this was building up. Most likely it was disguised in his behavior prior to this. I don't think there was a straw that broke the camel's back. There was a build-up here and I think we need to be more astute about recognizing these signs," said Kushner. Kushner admits spotting a threat is not easy. "It's not recognizable to the general public or the people close by, because they're not trained as psychologists or psychiatrists or people involved in looking at looking at individuals from certain regions of the world," said Kushner. He says one of the possible triggers for radicalization is the intense clash of cultures for some people who come to the U.S. "I'll get in trouble for saying this, but I will say it. When you're bringing people from certain regions of the world who have cultures and backgrounds that are somewhat different that what you have here in the states. This, unfortunately, lays the groundwork for something like this to spring up," said Kushner. |
| The Transition Frenzy |
| Tue, 29 Nov 2016 16:31:11 EST While the mainstream media camp out in the lobby of Trump Tower, the work being done upstairs by the Trump transition team is a seemingly endless stream of personnel decisions, policy briefings and figuring out the personal and political chemistry of the president-elect's inner circle. Trump won the 2016 election on Nov. 8. He now has just over 50 days to prepare to assume the most powerful office in the world. And that means his team needs to get him ready. "The idea is that when a president takes office Jan. 20, that he can literally step into his desk that first morning and begin to function as commander-in-chief and handle all the duties of the presidency," said Reagan White House Political Director Frank Donatelli. He says the first order of business is growing the president's staff. "When someone runs for president, chances are they have a small coterie of advisers around them. Of course, once you become president, you need a lot more people than that. So they have to expand the circle pretty rapidly," said Donatelli. While much of the media attention centers on the high-profile cabinet selections, there are a total of about 4,000 political appointments for a president to make. "Any position that is cabinet-level, deputy secretary or assistant secretary, generally those require Senate confirmation. The president will have some involvement at that level," said Donatelli. He adds that while 4,000 may seem like a lot, there are about one million career government employees. Donatelli says some of the lower political appointments often go to people with some sort of connection to the president or the party. "The president will give some direction to the kinds of people he wants. Generally, the Office of Presidential Personnel in the White House is responsible for filling out the bureaucracy. They'll take into consideration campaign workers and key members of the Republican Party and fundraisers for the president, and oh by the way, people who actually have some expertise in the job," said Donatelli. In addition to personnel matters, there is the issue of bringing the president-elect up to speed on a wide range of policy issues. "You want to be able to hit the ground running and so the president needs to be broadly familiar with the issues that are going to be hitting his desk immediately: budget issues, economic issues, obviously foreign policy issues and briefings," said Donatelli. It's an intense process of poring over critical information that is a challenge for every incoming president. It's a big curve. It's no comparison. Some people say it's a lot more fun to run to be president than it actually is being president. You've got a lot of decisions to make. I think it's true. Only a past president can understand the burdens that a new president is going to take on," said Donatelli. While Trump studies his briefing books and makes key nominations, Donatelli says it would be wise for his inner circle to be studying Trump, beginning with the issues he's most passionate about. "I think another important thing is if you have people around you that understand the president-elect, so that you know what the president-elect is most interested in and what he's not interested in - the stuff he's not interested in that he really doesn't have to know that much about and can be delegated elsewhere," said Donatelli. He says President Reagan had a very smooth transition because some of his closest aides from his days as California governor were by his side and knew how he operated. Donatelli says the learning curve could be steeper for Reince Preiebus and Steve Bannon, who have been close to Trump for a much shorter time. "Reince Priebus has not worked for Donald Trump before. Steve Bannon was on his campaign but it was only for a short period of time. So I think there is going to be a feeling out process here so that the White House staff knows how this president operates; what he wants to know, what he's doesn't need to know, how he functions, etc. etc.," said Donatelli. |
| Energy Industry Wants Help from Trump |
| Tue, 22 Nov 2016 15:15:47 EST President-Elect Donald Trump is vowing to unleash American energy and begin scrapping burdensome regulations on his very first day in office, announcements welcomed by the energy industry, although they still have other goals they want to see the new administration pursue. In a short video, Trump outlined several directives he will issue on his first day in office on issues ranging from trade and immigration to national security and ethics reform. However, promoting domestic energy and rolling back regulations were right near the top of the list. "I will cancel job killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high paying jobs,&ququot; said Trump in the video. "On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated," said Trump. The energy industry is hopeful that the next four years will offer it a more hospitable environment than what it received during the Obama administration. "We're certainly encouraged by the fact that the president-elect understands that one of the key drivers to a strong economy is energy security," said American Petroleum Downstream Group Director Frank Macchiarola. Macchiarola believes Trump understands the need to champion domestic energy production and is fully confident the American people are on board. "Survey after survey tells us that the American public is concerned about economic growth and believes that we need to be energy secure," he said, but notes that Obama has left a pretty complicated knot for the new president to untangle on energy regulation. "I think what happened over the course of the Obama administration is that there was a lot of consolidated power in the administration. I think with the division in Congress and the stalemate between both parties in the House and Senate, I think the administration took that opportunity to consolidate it's power through a stronger regulatory agenda," said Macchiarola. He says those regulations had a clear impact on the energy industry. "We have 145 current regulations that directly impact the oil and natural gas sector, whether it's issues related to public land and access or issues related to the downstream or issues related to air or water or an issue like the Renewable Fuel standard. It's a broad spectrum," said Macchiarola. Macchiarola and his allies want the Trump administration to go over every single one of those regulations and provide as much relief as possible. "What we really would like to do is to have the new administration, with a fresh set of eyes, take a look at this regulatory onslaught that we've seen. And, again, consistent with their message and principles that they stated during the campaign about the need for less burdensome regulations here in Washington, free up capital to be invested in the private sector and the nee for secure U.S. domestic energy production," said Macchiarola. One of the policies Macchiarola is most concerned about is the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, and the increasing amount of ethanol being required in our fuel. He says the RFS was created last decade to help boost energy independence at a time when the U.S. was importing vast amounts of energy. He says the policy no longer fits the reality. "What they didn't know is that we would have an American energy renaissance. Because of the shale revolution here in the United States and the energy renaissance, we're now producing greater and greater amounts of oil and natural gas. We're the world's leading producer of oil and natural gas," said Macchiarola. "At the same time, demand for energy has essentially flat-lined. So what you've seen is America become more energy secure over that time," he added. Macchiarola says addressing the RFS is critical now because the amount of ethanol about to be required in gasoline is incompatible with the vast majority of American vehicles. "(It) creates an issue because it potentially adds cost to the consumer both through food and fuel. And these higher ethanol blends above E10 are incompatible with the cars we have on the road today. So the bottom line is the RFS is a mess, and it really needs to be fixed," said Macchiarola. Bipartisan legislation to address the Renewable Fuel Standard exists in the House of Representative but has not yet been considered. |
| 'We Are Distorting the Conversation' |
| Mon, 21 Nov 2016 17:34:44 EST While some of Donald Trump's early personnel choices are leading some Democrats and media figures to conclude a racially insensitive administration is preparing to take charge in Washington, the leader of a prominent black conservative group says the concerns are double standards whipped up by the left and that Trump's controversial choices are actually more tame on racial issues than their counterparts in the Obama administration. And he is also offering Trump some advice on how to make good on promises to revitalize predominantly black neighborhoods. As of Monday afternoon, Trump has named people to five prominent positions, only two of which require Senate confirmation. The choices eliciting the most concern from the left and the mainstream media are Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, for attorney general and former Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon for chief strategist and counselor. Media reports were quick to label both Sessions and Bannon as controversial due to their histories on race. Project 21 National Advisory Board Co-Chair Horace Cooper begs to differ on multiple fronts. First, he is weary of race being injected into every political debate. "We are distorting the conversation, generally, about public policy by randomly throwing around epithets that this person or that person, either a supporter or and individual affiliated with Mr. Trump, must in some way be bigoted, racist, or sexist," said Cooper, who served as general counsel for former House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas. He says that constant prism is also a hindrance to advancing good policy. "The idea that a person is for a tax cut or against a tax cut, is for a construction project or against a construction project, can only be viewed from the prism of does that make you a racist, a sexist, or some other 'ist,' is completely unhelpful," he said. Cooper is also frustrated by what he sees as a massive media double standard on personnel, noting that current Obama counselor Valerie Jarrett and former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder got a free pass even though they contributed mightily, in his eyes, to far worse race relations over the past eight years. "These two individuals helped to encourage and promote what could only and honestly considered to be racially divisive policies by President Obama, and yet none of these questions were being considered," said Cooper. "I bring those two names up because I want to highlight the contrast where the media has played no role and where voices that claim they are interested in encouraging America to come together have been completely silent, even to this day, about the role that those two individuals provided in the Obama administration," said Cooper. Stacked up against Holder and Jarrett, Cooper believes Sessions and Bannon look pretty good. "I don't see any similar record with regard to the designate for attorney general, Mr. Sessions, or to Mr. Bannon as a key strategist and counselor in the office of the White House," said Cooper. Critics of both Sessions and Bannon point with alarm to statements and posts from avowed racists praising the choices. "Bannon, Flynn, Sessions -- Great! Senate must demand that Sessions as AG stop the massive institutional race discrimination against whites!" tweeted former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, who recently collected three percent of the vote in Louisiana's jungle U.S. Senate primary. He finished in seventh place. Cooper says an avowed klansman in publicly endorsed and donated to Hillary Clinton and she faced little media pressure to denounce him, although her campaign did. He says the bottom line on a candidate or nominee is their record and not who likes them. "I actually don't care whether (Louis) Farrakhan or whether the Klan issues an endorsement in the election. What I care about is what are policies and characteristics of the individual in question who is asking for our vote," said Cooper. Once again, Cooper says the media is showing a double standard. "This has not been an even-handed assessment on the part of the media. If they would like us to have this more expansive view, that supporters of given a given entity or individual are as important or more important than the candidate him or herself, then they needed to have been saying or doing that over the last eight years. And they didn't," said Cooper. He also hammers the press for drawing parallels between what might come in a Trump administration and the segregation era of American history. "The mainstream media is working hand in glove with progressives to create this false impression. This is not good for the country. It is not helpful to pretend that a record in America that existed during the era of Jim Crow is the functional equivalent of a 21st century Trump transition team," said Cooper. "If we are serious about looking at the rhetoric, we need to match the rhetoric with the reality. Nothing in Donald Trump's commentaries is the equivalent of that old evil of segregation and racism," said Cooper. Cooper hopes Trump can put the concerns of many at ease by making good on his promise for a New Deal for the black community. Cooper says any meaningful effort will start with improving schools in those neighborhoods. And that means improving school choice. "We've absolutely got to stop the union stranglehold over our schools and allow our young people, particularly in the inner city, to have the option of leaving poorly-functioning public schools or threaten to be able to leave them," said Cooper. He says that choice ought to extend to faith-based schools as well. "That's a key ingredient in the black community that will instill the kinds of achievement values that are biblically based. That would go a long way to assuring that young black men and women who graduate from failed public schools, and not able to read their diploma, would be able to not only read their diploma but be able to compete," said Cooper. On the economic side, Cooper says enforcing and even tightening immigration policy would greatly help improve employment in black neighborhoods since illegal immigrants can easily underbid American citizens for work. But Cooper also says government policies that encourage entrepreneurship can also revitalize those local economies. "If you want to incentivize employers, then you create a right regulatory regime and the right tax regime so that it is possible that jobs in the community close to where inner city residents live can develop," said Cooper. |
| The Future is Now on Tax Reform |
| Fri, 18 Nov 2016 17:18:35 EST Donald Trump promised significant tax reform and has a Republican Congress to work with, but the leader of the nation's largest grassroots taxpayer organization says the window of opportunity is small and the GOP better be ready to tackle spending if want to keep deficits from exploding. National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp says Republicans are largely united in what they want in a reform package but he says they all need to be on the same page before Trump takes office. "There is a window of opportunity," said Sepp. "I think the president and Congress need to get on the same page as quickly as possible. That means holding staff-level meetings right now, even before the next Congress, to determine what differences they have and how they're going to move forward." "All of these elements have to figure out how they're going to move forward on a common plane. Otherwise, they're going to get bogged down in details and they're not going to be able to secure the votes and move the process along the way they need to," said Sepp. There multiple plans with similar, but not identical, provisions. In addition to Trump's plan, House and Senate Republicans have also outlined their respective wish lists. Sepp says some differences are small, such as Trump wanting to lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent while House Republicans prefer 20 percent. But there are other differences as well. "Trump would sort of equalize investment tax rates with the new personal tax rates. The House would do something different there. There are also differences in repealing itemized deductions, or limiting those deductions, and how business expenses might be treated over the long term," said Sepp. Simplification is another major goal of many reformers pushing for an end to an endless list of exemptions and loopholes. And while there are lobbyists committed to protecting virtually every one of those tax breaks, Sepp thinks simplification can happen this time. "I think a lot of progress can be made, especially on the corporate side. Even business tax lobbyists are coming to realize that the current system as become so complex, that all of the loopholes that they have to figure out and comply with every year just aren't worth the effort," said Sepp. But he says getting Republicans on the same page as soon as possible is critical since getting the reforms through a closely divided Senate will not be easy. "Republicans will have, at best, 52 seats in the Senate. First, their caucus needs to be united. That assumes that there is no filibuster on the part of Democrats, or that Republicans use the so-called reconciliation process to get around the filibuster and get a tax reform plan through their chamber. All of those things need to be thought of right now," said Sepp. All of the GOP tax plans are likely to trigger higher deficits, at least in the short term, unless the other side of the balance sheet is addressed as well. In addition to tackling the tax code, Sepp wants to see an equally aggressive push to rein in spending. "Republicans are going to have to mindful of the long-term impact and figure out ways to reform the spending side of the ledger so those shortfalls are kept under control," said Sepp. He says the most obvious target are entitlements, an area Trump has refused to consider cutting or changing in any meaningful way. "What they need to do is figure out some common ground on entitlement reform especially. That was something that Donald Trump essentially took off the table. That is an incredibly unwise move if we want to be honest with the American people and have fiscal reform on both sides of the ledger," said Sepp. He says the only other areas to cut are defense or discretionary spending and Trump has given no indication of wanting to do that either. "Donald Trump has said he wants to increase defense spending and boost infrastructure spending by upwards of a trillion dollars. Those plans are going to have to be modified and there's going to have to be consideration of entitlements. This is not going to be some era of prosperity for growing the federal government. It's going to have to be kept under control," said Sepp. Sepp predicts there is a seven in ten chance of tax reform with Trump in office as opposed to about a three in ten chance with Democrats in charge. |
| Indoctrination Triggers Campus Chaos |
| Thu, 17 Nov 2016 16:18:25 EST Donald Trump's election triggered an avalanche of grief and defiance on many college campuses, and administrators are accommodating the grieving students through a variety of efforts, but a top official at one of America's best known traditional schools says the actions of both students and administrators are way off course. Since Trump became president-elect on the morning of Nov. 9, schools around the country are taking great pains to comfort students traumatized by the GOP victory. Some are setting aside "election processing spaces." Others options include counseling for students, vigils, and even sharing the suicide hotline numbers. The University of Michigan Law School even planned a therapy event featuring Play-Doh before eventually canceling it. Not all campuses are seeing so much volatility. One is Hillsdale College in Michigan. The school is well known for is 172-year refusal to accept any federal money. Even federal student loan money is no good there. Hillsdale Provost Dr. David Whalen says the emotional fragility seen on so many campuses comes as no surprise. . "These are really the predictable consequences of an entirely politicized environment in higher education," said Whalen. "For a long, long time now, higher education has been entirely political. It's forsaken it's original purpose to foster a keen-sighted intellectual awareness on the part of students and instead indoctrinate them politically. This is what you get. You get what can only be described as an infantilized student body," said Whalen. In addition to creating an environment where such emotional demonstrations are becoming common place, whether about election results or perceived discrimination, Whalen says the way administrators are responding to the outcries is also very harmful. "If the student is in your face, shouting and bellowing demands, you have failed that student in some fundamental way. The most important thing at this moment is not publicity but what you can do to restore the student to a receptive educational context," said Whalen. "You're a teacher. That's a student. The student needs you. The student needs to be informed by you in some significant respect. Don't forget that's your primary role," said Whalen. So why do administrators regularly cater to the student demands. Whalen sees multiple reasons. "Administrators are often quite sympathetic with the students making the demands. They wish they could move as quickly as the students are urging them to move," said Whalen. "The second reason is they, in too many cases I should say, lack the moral and intellectual resources to respond to the students or at least respond coherently." "The administrators, as a rule, are very concerned with appearances; too concerned about appearances and not sufficiently concerned...about the moral and intellectual formation of the students, of the intemperate person making the demands," said Whalen. The result, he says, are college graduates not ready to face the real world. "It's the same thing that happens when you give in to a two-year-old's demands repeatedly and then they hit adolescence. You get somebody who is completely incapable of governing himself," he said. Why does this not happen at Hillsdale? Whalen says students at Hillsdale know exactly what is expected of them. "The students here understand they are partners. They are colleagues in an enterprise. They are not consumers unhappy with a product they are buying. They are undergoing a formation that they have to contribute to willingly. They're plugged in. They've bought in. They're engaged," said Whalen. Due to it's independent nature, Hillsdale attracts a more conservative student body than most colleges and universities but debate and disagreement are everywhere on campus. Whalen says the difference is how students are taught to approach their disagreements. "We educate them in the western intellectual tradition, which is a tradition of massive argument, disagreement and debate. We're not indoctrinating people with conservative stuff. We're just presenting this tradition that has arguments about everything from economics and the relation of the state to the individual to the existence of God and the nature of evil, everything imaginable," said Whalen. "When you wrap your mind at difficulty, under pressure and in strain around the most serious arguments about the most serious things, you turn into a pretty intellectually adept, responsible, mature person," said Whalen. The 2016 election brought fierce debate to campus, particularly during the primary season. Whalen was proud of how the students approached those debates without resorting to what's being seen on other campuses. "The debates were vigorous but civil," he said. "There weren't breaking up of friendships and shouting down dormitory hallways. There was a lot of very vigorous, very serious disagreement, but it was done with civility and respect. People didn't assume that someone with a different point of view was morally deficient," said Whalen. |
| Getting Specific on Repeal and Replace |
| Wed, 16 Nov 2016 14:55:22 EST An effective overhaul of the nation's health care laws will require scrapping the most damaging parts of Obamacare, keeping some of the provisions, and giving much more freedom to states and insurance companies to create vibrant competition that will increase consumer choice and bring down soaring costs. That's the assessment of Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner, a prominent voice against both Obamacare and the Clinton administration's attempted overhaul of health care in the 1990s. The Affordable Care Act, President Obama's signature domestic legislation, survived a Supreme Court challenge in 2012. While the court states that mandating Americans buy health insurance is unconstitutional, the provisions were allowed to stand since people were given the choice to buy insurance or pay a fine. Turner says the individual and employer mandates need to be the first things on the cutting room floor. "They do have to go. The individual mandate, in particular, is the single-most unpopular part of this law," said Turner, who says there are ways for the Trump administration to kill the mandates without a vote in Congress. "There are ways through the regulatory process, not even through legislation, that Mr. Trump could basically eviscerate the individual mandate. But I also expect that to be very much on the chopping block when they do their repeal bill," said Turner. She says the employer mandate deserves the same fate. "The employer mandate is the same. Even many of the president's advisers have said that the employer mandate is really relatively useless, except for forcing people to buy - this is me saying this - that is extraordinarily expensive and is driving up everybody's premiums and deductibles," said Turner. But while there has been much talk of full repeal, Trump recently said he would be open to keeping a limited number of provisions that have proven to be popular. Turner says keeping policies to forbid insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions or allowing adult children to stay on their parents' policies should be retained. "The president-elect should have have come out early on, saying, 'Of course there are some goals in Obamacare that we share. We want to make sure that as many people as possible have coverage. We want to make sure that people are protected so that their insurance is real insurance. The fact that they're in Obamacare does not mean that they're bad,'" said Turner. "They just have to go about a way of achieving those goals in a much different, more consumer-friendly, more market-friendly way," said Turner. She also expects Congress to provide a transition period from the current law to those new, market-oriented solutions. Turner also says federal subsidies should still be available to those buying coverage on the individual exchanges, suggesting many people will still need a hand up even if efforts are successful to drive costs down through competition and choice. She says subsidies are actually very fair. "People with employer-based health insurance get huge subsidies worth $250-300 billion a year and forgiving that part of their income from taxes that goes to pay their health insurance premiums. So people who don't have that option are being shut out. They're paying their premiums with after-tax dollars. So yes, subsidies are going to have to be part of the equation," said Turner. Where Turner really hopes to see big change is the stripping away of the federal tentacles that currently dictate most details of the health care system. She says that will bring down costs and bring more people into the system. "It would, as long as they don't have so many rules that are forcing young people to pay so much more than their likely use of health insurance, which is one of the problems with Obamacare, and so long as you don't have rules that allow people to simply purchase health insurance when they're sick and drop it after they get treatment," said Turner. Turner says another vital step is to rip away the mandates of what has to be included in a given health care plan and allow the marketplace to decide what's best. "I can't even think of the options that are out there that insurance companies might come up with - and smart actuaries - to give people the opportunity to make the decision for themselves what kind of coverage they need. Maybe it's a health savings account. Maybe it's a high-deductible plan, maybe it's an HMO that has more restrictions on it," said Turner. "If people can make those decisions for themselves, then the market will be able to respond to them, rather than all these Washington bureaucrats and regulators," she added. Decenralizing power from Washington would also put more control in the hands of the states. "The problem now is we're all forced into this same strait-jacket of Obamacare. We all have to buy these hugely expensive products, which fewer and fewer people can afford. Give the market really an opportunity to provide products that people want to purchase within parameters and some guidelines that make sure it's real insurance and that people are protected," said Turner. Turner says Obamacare is driving people away from a product they want because of the crushing mandates and high costs. "People want health insurance. It's not that you're forcing them to buy something they don't want. They want health insurance, but they don't want to pay more for their health insurance than they're paying for their mortgage, which is happening to many people right now," said Turner. Turner says new companies would spring to life when they see an explosion in demand from patients interested cheaper plans that better meet the needs of their families. She says House Speaker Paul Ryan already has the relevant committee chairmen working on plans to overhaul Obamacare. However, she says it's very unlikely that Republicans will try to achieve reform through one massive bill. Instead, Turner believes lawmakers will pursue a piecemeal approach targeting specific aspects of the current law that need to be changed. |
| Christian Florist Case in Hands of State Supremes |
| Tue, 15 Nov 2016 16:54:58 EST The Washington State Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in the case of the Christian florist being sued by the state for refusing to provide arrangements for a same-sex marriage ceremony more than three years ago. Barronnelle Stutzman faces the possibility of losing her business, her home and her life savings unless the state supreme court overturns lower court rulings that Stutzman violated state discrimination laws. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a friend of the court brief leading up to Tuesday's hearing. Legal Counsel Adele Keim says Stutzman is being targeted by the government for holding beliefs in conflict with a customer. "We know that we live in a pluralistic society. If there's anything that's true about people in the United States, of America, it's that we disagree about important issues, things like sex, things like religion. You name it and you can find two Americans with different views on it," said Keim. "The issue in Barronnelle's case is that the power of the state is being used to punish her because she expressed her disagreement," added Keim. Keim says Stutzman's career shows she does not discriminate against gays and lesbians or anyone else. "Barronnelle Stutzman has employed LGBT people and served LGBT people, including the couple that has turned around and sued her, for two decades," said Keim. "She served this couple for nine years. She made their Valentine's Day arrangements for years." In 2013, Rob Ingersoll asked Stutzman to provide floral arrangement for his same-sex ceremony with Curt Freed. Keim says Stutzman was as loving as possible in denying the request. "She took his hand and with tears in her eyes she said, 'My faith doesn't allow me to do that.' She's a Southern Baptist and participating in a same-sex wedding was just something she felt she couldn't do," said Keim. She says Ingersoll is the one who turned this into an ordeal that eventually involved the state government targeting Stutzman. "Instead of saying, "I understand. We're going to go our separate ways,' he started talking about it to the media. The state attorney general (Bob Ferguson) heard about it and made an issue out of it, even suing Barronnelle. The ACLU soon joined the lawsuit and Barronnelle now stands to lose not just her business but also her home and her life savings," said Keim. Prior court rulings have ordered Stutzman to pay Ingersoll's legal fees. Keim estimates that total could run into the tens or even hundreds after several rounds of the case in court, even though a previous court found that Ingersoll and Freed suffered eight dollars in damages. Keim says Stutzman had the opportunity to settle the case for a smaller fine but refused. "For Barronnelle, the issue has never been about money. The state offered to settle the case for a couple thousand dollars a couple of years ago. She said, 'I can't, because if I settle for that money, you're going to require me to participate in same-sex weddings in the future and my faith just doesn't allow that,'" said Keim. Stutzman and her supporters are encouraged by the number of legal experts weighing in on her side. "The National Latino Christian Leadership Caucus has joined her. African-American pastors have joined her and stood with her and said, 'There are many, many thousands of Barronnelle's out there,' and have asked the court to protect her from the misuse of this law," said Keim. "So we're hopeful that with this chorus of support for Barronnelle Stutzman, the Washington State Supreme Court will take another look and reconsider," said Keim. |
| Trump Calls Same-Sex Marriage 'Settled Law' |
| Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:57:05 EST Donald Trump made headlines Sunday, telling "60 Minutes" that he considered same-sex marriage settled law and had no plans to revisit it during his time in office, a statement that doesn't seem dampen the spirits of the overwhelming majority of evangelicals who backed the GOP nominee last week. "These cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They've been settled, and I'm fine with that," Trump told correspondent Lesley Stahl. Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says he would not expect Trump to aggressively address the issue since he has spent so little time on it. Ultimately, Staver says the definition of marriage and other hot-button issues like abortion, will mainly be influenced by the types of judges Trump nominates. "If you have a person who is a pro-life justice, that's a person who's not going to be an activist justice or judge. If they're not going to be activist on the pro-life, they're not going to be activist on the issue same-sex marriage because that's an even further deviation from the Constitution beyond belief," said Staver. He also points out that Trump will need to fill additional vacancies for there to be any hope of overruling the Supreme Court's 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. "Just give the opportunity to fill those seats to someone who respects the Constitution and this razor-thin 5-4 decision on same-sex marriage, I think, will be in the same trash bin of history that Dred Scott found itself to be in when people began to wake up and have common sense," said Staver. And he likes what Trump has said about judges thus far. "I've been pleased with his position on appointing pro-life judges and justices and vetting them through the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. That's a big deal. That's a huge deal, not just on the issue of life, but across the board. You get the justice or judge that has a judicial philosophy to interpret the Constitution, rather than to create a brand new Constitution," said Staver. Trump actively courted the LGBT vote in the 2016 campaign. He initially supported allowing people to use restrooms and other intimate facilities based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. He later stated that he believes the decision should be left to the states. In the final days of the campaign, Trump held up the LGBT rainbow flag at a rally in Colorado. Still, Staver expects far less federal mandates designed to implement the LGBT agenda from a Trump administration. "I don't expect President-Elect Donald Trump and his administration to be sending out letters like the transgender directive to the public schools or the federal agencies or the EEOC. I think that's going to come to an end. I think there's going to be an end to a lot of these things that President Obama has been pushing that's going to come to a screeching halt," said Staver. He says that will be evident on the international stage as well. "This administration, and Secretary (Hillary) Clinton was a part of it, has been pushing foreign nations to liberalize their abortion and same-sex marriage and marriage laws and LGBT laws. If they don't, they're threatening to withdraw the [foreign aid] for them. That I think is all going to stop. That's not something [Trump] is going to push as an agenda," said Staver. Staver is also very confident that Trump's policies and personnel will be markedly better than what we would have seen in a Hillary Clinton presidency. "You would have had Obama on steroids. I think Hillary is of the same worldview and radical mindset as President Obama, but she's more devious than president Obama," said Staver. Staver was very encouraged by Trump's "60 Minutes" comments in which he again vowed to appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices, stating he believed abortion should be decided state by state and not imposed on the nation by the Supreme Court. And he says the appointments to lower courts are also vital for conservatives. "I'm looking forward to who the next Supreme Court justice will be, and not just that. We've got, potentially, other justices, and lots of appellate courts and district courts that will come available that this president-elect will appoint. I think that is good news for the American people. It's certainly good news for life and the courts," said Staver. Other appointments will matter greatly to social conservatives, including attorney general and secretary of Health and Human Services. Staver says he is encouraged by the selection of Reince Priebus as chief of staff and believes the influence of former Trump Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway is also a good influence on Trump. He also believes cabinet nominations will be better than anything we would have seen if Hillary Clinton had won the election. "The worst possible choice of a Donald Trump presidency would be better than the choices of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. There's nothing to do but to improve the situation," said Staver. In fact, he expects a more conservative cabinet than many previous Republican presidents. "I'm sure there are some things that he's going to do, people that he will appoint that we won't all agree with. On the other hand, at this stage, I can tell you that in past presidential elections, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, many of these individuals that got to be in a position like him, they began to put people around them that are just the old guard. That's not what's happening with this administration," said Staver. Liberty Counsel is bathing the transition period in prayer. Staver says there is 'round the clock and 'round the world intercession happening for Trump and his administration. "It's called Liberty Prayer Network. We are participating in and helping to spearhead a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, 70 days of continual prayer," said Staver. "It's in process now. Someone is committed every hour and people are participating across the country in this international and national prayer for America," said Staver. |
| O'Keefe Declares Victory over Mainstream Media |
| Fri, 11 Nov 2016 16:48:02 EST Project Veritas rocked the 2016 presidential race with a series of undercover videos of Democrats admitting to stoking violence at Donald Trump rallies, acknowledging voter fraud and much more. But its leader says Donald Trump's victory strikes a huge blow to the power of the mainstream media and scores a big win for citizen journalism. In a statement released Thursday, Project Veritas Founder and President James O'Keefe declared the media among the biggest losers of this election cycle. "Perhaps the most stunning admission of last night was the power shift in this country. It was deeply moving to see what citizens can do despite the overwhelming forces working them against them. It isn 19t the politicians, not the established press, not the lobbyists or the pundits, but the PEOPLE, that have the power now," said O'Keefe. In a subsequent interview Friday, O'Keefe says dethroning the mainstream media may be the most significant outcome of his efforts this year. "I think just what it means for our media landscape, to have broken these stories and have done so in the way it was done, being covered eventually by these organizations and having high-level people resign . These people were close to the president and close to Hillary," said O'Keefe. He says the mainstream media initially tried to ignore the Project Veritas stories, but the grassroots activists would not be denied. "Brian Stelter of CNN, the media 'Reliable Sources' guy was saying, 'Well, we have an audience of 1.25 million people.' Me and my fellow citizens were tweeting back at Brian, 'Fifteen million people have viewed those YouTube videos. We got 57 million Twitter impressions in seven days. We were the number one trending thing during the presidential debate," said O'Keefe. While the media did eventually cover some of the videos, O'Keefe is especially gratified by the end run around the mainstream press after years of them casting him as a villain. "I've been in the trenches in the media. I've been fighting these people for years. They've been lying about me and people like me. They've been celebrating when the government tries to prosecute me for things I didn't even do. So I've been through this battle for years and years and years," said O'Keefe. At one point Twitter, suspended his account over one of the Project Veritas videos, but a legion of allies quickly got his access restored. "The people sent 30,000 emails to Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, and then they re-instated me," said O'Keefe. O'Keefe believes social media is the key to making sure important stories reach the public when the mainstream media will not touch them. While vocal liberals like Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Dorsey run those sites, O'Keefe says any efforts to censor him always end up backfiring. "They can't retaliate without that retaliation being itself a big story. They've done it to Milo Yiannapoulos. He's sort of a right-wing rabble-rouser, an Alt-Right guy. They kicked him off but they just made him more famous. It doesn't work because it just enhances the platform," said O'Keefe. He says his own experience of being targeted by Twitter proves the point. "I had 60,000 followers. Now I'm at 220 (thousand) in the course of 30 days. They try to shut you down but they only give you a platform because the citizens go, 'What is he saying that they want to ban?'" said O'Keefe. O'Keefe believes the American voters were responding less to the person of Donald Trump in this election than they were rebelling against a dishonest media and political system. "Trump was a symptom of something much greater than Trump. Trump is a representation of a power shift and it is all about the media, because the media lost all credibility in my opinion. Everything they've said has been wrong," said O'Keefe. "Will they admit they've been wrong? I don't think so. But I think many people in this country are going to think to themselves, 'I don't trust them anymore,'" he added. The last Project Veritas videos many saw were of O'Keefe on the lookout for voter fraud in Philadelphia on Election Day. He says what he and his colleagues saw was blatantly illegal. "We were in North Philadelphia going from poll to poll. We would walk in there and we would see election judges quite literally say - this is on video it's on YouTube. They were saying, 'Vote for Hillary.' These were election judges. That is a felony. You can't do that," said O'Keefe. "You can't electioneer. You can't give people sample ballots literally at the place where you vote. You can't do that. But these people were doing it and they were doing it in spades," said O'Keefe. Project Veritas also reported on election official in parts of Chicago forbidding Republican poll watchers from being present, another violation of the law. Yet when the videos were posted, O'Keefe says the mainstream media directed its outrage at him. "Everyone in the mainstream media was attacking me on Tuesday of this week, saying that I'm trying to intimidate voters for doing my job as a journalist. It's not just about the fraud we expose...it's that the media machine is attacking me and the local district attorney in Philadelphia is being told by all these people, 'Prosecute O'Keefe,'" he said. It's that kind of blatant bias, he says, that the American people have rejected in this election. "This is reason why Trump is the President of the United States, because many large numbers of people in this country look at that whole paradigm and say, 'I don't want to live in that country. I don't want to live in that world. I don't want to live in a world where they play identity politics and attack the little guy and put citizen journalists in jail and censor people,'" said O'Keefe. "This is what it means. It is a power shift and it is historic," said O'Keefe. And what's next for O'Keefe and Project Veritas? "I'm going to take a week and I'm going to sleep because my adrenaline has been running so hard for the last 30 days that my body is about to shut down," said O'Keefe. "In the next few days, you're going to see some more aftermath and then my team and I will get about a week or two of rest. And then we'll start the next step of our journey," he said. |
| Trump Win Forges New Coalition |
| Thu, 10 Nov 2016 17:08:40 EST After intense Republican friction over Donald Trump's candidacy, the vast majority of conservatives eventually voted for their party's nominee for the sake of defeating Hillary Clinton and preserving the Supreme Court. In the process, the conservatives also find themselves in a new coalition that a longtime conservative activist says is a major upgrade to the way the GOP has operated for the past century. While much has been made of the million of new voters Trump attracted to the GOP, he also had to work harder than most nominees to rally his own party. For much of the campaign, Trump lagged behind Clinton in getting conservative and Republican voters to line up behind him in the general election. But by election night, exit polls showed 90 percent of Republicans did just that. Longtime conservative activist and ConservativeHQ.com Chairman Richard Viguerie says there's two big reasons Republicans came home. "The top two things that united conservatives and brought them home to support Trump and the Republican ticket was Hillary Clinton and the Supreme Court vacancy," said Viguerie. "They really understood the Supreme Court and not just one appointment. She would set the Supreme Court on a direction to be controlled by the left wing for 30 or more years. It just terrified conservatives," said Viguerie. He says conservatives wanted nothing to do with the rest of Clinton's vision for the U.S. either. "They knew she was a leftist and the Democratic Party is growing more left wing every day. We could expect a country that we wouldn't recognize in four years. It really terrified conservatives at the grass roots level," he said. According to Viguerie, Trump has successfully created a new base for the Republican Party, a major departure from what has existed since the early part of the 20th century. "The old coalition on the Republican side was the establishment Republicans and the constitutional, grassroots conservatives. Conservatives were the junior partner in that relationship," said Viguerie. "We have a new coalition now, and that's the Trump populist and the constitutional grassroots conservatives. That's going to be a governing coalition for many years to come. I think it's going to be exciting to watch this new coalition without being interfered with by the Bushes of the world and the Mitt Romney wing of the party," said Viguerie. He says the Trump campaign itself was actually more conservative than those run on behalf of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. "The conservatives were involved in the (1964) campaign but it was basically run by the Republican establishment. 1980 was Reagan's first election victory. He won that. It was a conservative victory, but the Republican establishment basically ran the campaign," said Viguerie. To the contrary, he points out that the final three months of the Trump campaign were run by longtime conservative fixtures KellyAnne Conway, Steve Bannon and David Bossie. "No presidential campaign in my lifetime has looked like this. Personnel is policy. The people around him, the people who brought him over the finish line is us. It's the conservative movement," said Viguerie. Viguerie would not publicly mention conservative cabinet possibilities he would like to see Trump nominate, but he expects strong conservatives to "dominate" the key positions. He says conservatives would be smart to spend their time trying to stop Trump from making bad choices. "The focus for conservatives publicly should be who we don't want. We recognize that people like Chris Christie are going to have some role in the administration but you do not want someone like him in the attorney general's office," said Viguerie. "We need to make sure Donald Trump understands there's certain people just beyond the pale." As for the top early legislative priorities, Viguerie says the first job is to make sure the lame duck session of Congress has little impact. "We don't want any serious legislation done in the lame duck, just a clean continuing resolution and to defer spending decisions to the new administration," he said. When Trump does get a chance to put his stamp on federal spending, Viguerie wants to see an end to federal funding of liberal activism. He says conservative groups don't get taxpayer money and they don't want it. He says liberals should not get it either. On the policy front, Viguerie says the repeal and replacement of Obamacare must be at the top of the list. "That's a promise that the Republicans have been making for six years. Now they need to deliver and repeal Obamacare and replace it with something much better. I'd be surprised, shocked, and disappointed if Republicans don't do that early on in the new administration," said Viguerie. |
| 'He Tapped Into A Groundswell of The People' |
| Wed, 9 Nov 2016 16:38:04 EST Donald J. Trump stunned the political world to win the 2016 presidential election Tuesday night, not only defeating Hillary Clinton but winning states that hadn't voted for a Republican since the 1980s. In addition to piling up wins in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Iowa, Trump scored unexpected wins in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He currently holds a small lead in Michigan. Independent Women's Forum Senior Fellow Gayle Trotter, who is also a regular panelist on the Fox News Channel's "Media Buzz" program, says many Americans who feel ignored and disrespected found a champion in Trump. "He tapped into a groundswell of the people and he was able to take the issues that so many Americans feel have been shoved down in importance," said Trotter. Why did they trust Trump? "He promised them that he would listen to them and that he wouldn't say one thing and do another thing. I think that's the problem that Americans have seen with politicians on the right and the left," said Trotter. Trotter says Trump successfully maintained a balance of convincing voters that he was not part of the problem in Washington but was competent to fix them. "He listened to the American people. He could do a really strong argument that he was not part of the Washington cartel. On top of that, he was able to tell the American people that he wasn't some kind of rube who didn't understand how government worked but he was outside of it. He convinced the American people that he was not only able to fix it, but he meant what he said," stated Trotter. It's those people, whom Trump refers to as "forgotten," that are now handing him the keys to the Oval Office. "Donald Trump has promised a vision of America that has been swelling from the bottom up, and now he has a mandate to achieve it," said Trotter, noting that Trump will take office with Republicans controlling both the House and Senate. Trotter says many people had their lives changed by Trump's win, from FBI agents dealing with political pressure while pursuing the truth to coal miners trying to save their livelihoods to the men and women of our military who need more help. In addition to Trump resonating in forgotten corners of the United States, Trotter says he benefited from running against a deeply flawed opponent in Hillary Clinton. "I think Americans were as tired of her and the corruption that has surrounded her time in office, and which surrounded her time as first lady, not only of the United States but as First Lady of Arkansas. She was probably one of the absolute weakest candidates that the Democratic Party could have put up against Donald Trump," said Trotter. Clinton and the media spent a lot of time discussing Trump's character issues, from controversial statement to his interaction with women. Trotter says voters knew Clinton did not hold the moral high ground in this campaign. "It was a perfect storm of Hillary Clinton not being able to stand up and challenge Donald Trump on character issues. But also she was not seen as being a person who's not honest about what she believed in and what she was going to do while she was in office," said Trotter. In the midst of Trump's victory, other analysts saw a more sinister reason for Trump's win. "This was a whitelash against a changing country. It was a whitelash against a black president in part. And that's the part where the pain comes," said former Obama adviser and CNN contributor Van Jones. Trotter vigorously rejects that analysis. "He is so wrong. He couldn't be more wrong. He is doubling down on the Democratic Party and the left's identity politics trying to divide the nation, trying to understand how someone in their party who was the inevitable candidate could not pull it off," said Trotter. Speaking of the media, Trotter says there needs to be a serious investigation into the alliance between Democrats and major media outlets after revelations exposed through WikiLeaks. "There really should be a blue ribbon panel that investigates the collusion of the mainstream media with the Hillary Clinton campaign," said Trotter. As for the Democrats, Trotter says ditching identity politics and and working in more of a good faith effort toward solving problems would serve the party well in the years to come. |
| 'It's Time for A Special Counsel' |
| Tue, 8 Nov 2016 17:36:19 EST While the nation focuses on the 2016 elections, the frustration over FBI Director Jim Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton server investigation still rages, now with calls for a different person to spearhead the probe. "Do you know what it's time for? A special counsel," said former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Victoria Toensing, who is also a former federal prosecutor. Toensing notes that such a move must come from the attorney general. And while Loretta Lynch has reportedly hindered the FBI's investigation into Clinton, Toensing says public pressure can accomplish big things. "There should be such an outcry that she has no choice," said Toensing, who believes the push for a special prosecutor could be bipartisan. "Republicans and Democrats alike should welcome a special counsel," she said. "It's, in concept, an independent prosecutor or an independent investigator. It should be somebody like a retired federal judge, who doesn't have any political affiliations, hasn't come on TV and said, 'I'm for Trump or I'm for Hillary. Somebody who could be entirely neutral. That person would then conduct the investigation. I think that's the only way we can have faith in what's going on in this matter," said Toensing. She says impartiality was standard operation procedure during her time at the Justice Department. "The whole time I was in the Justice Department, there was never anybody protected or gone after because of their political affiliation," said Toensing. Toensing points to a high-profile case involving her husband, former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, during the Reagan years. "When my husband, Joseph diGenova, was the U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, he indicted Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Thayer. He indicted a number two person in a Republican government. This is unheard of," said Toensing. On Sunday, Comey sent word to lawmakers that review of emails found on a newly discovered device, believed to be from a probe into the actions of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, did not change his recommendation that Clinton should face no charges for her handling of classified information. Reports suggest there were 650,000 emails to review. "He's just a miracle worker, isn't he? Six hundred fifty thousand emails in just a few days when the State Department says it can't go through a thousand a month. You have to wonder or scratch your head. The FBI must really be good," mused Toensing. While also referring to Comey as a "clown," she believes Comey is simply in over his head. "I don't think he knows what he's doing. It doesn't make any kind of sense. He must have gotten political pressure. And, of course, it gives us no confidence in anything else he's going to decide," said Toensing. Toensing points out Comey's reputation has "ping-ponged" multiple times this year depending on people's views on Clinton innocence or guilt. She says Attorney General Loretta Lynch's secret meeting with Bill Clinton on the airport tarmac in Arizona back in the summer, shows she cannot be trusted either. "So we have an FBI director that we don't have any confidence in. We have an attorney general, who met with the husband of the person that she was investigating," said Toensing. Toensing also points out that another FBI investigation into the Clintons seems to be proceeding at full speed concerning pay-to-play allegations at the Clinton Foundation. |
| Trump's Secret Election Day Weapon? |
| Mon, 7 Nov 2016 16:29:52 EST For months, the Trump campaign has been criticized for not investing in staff and a robust data campaign to boost turnout across the country and in key swing states, but Trump may have an ace up his sleeve in the turnout battle. That ace is the U-Campaign app used to beat expectations earlier this year by both the Ted Cruz presidential campaign and the "Leave" movement on the landmark "Brexit" vote in the United Kingdom, where the voters narrowly ordered the UK to leave the European Union back in June. Direct engagement with voters has become an increasingly critical aspect of campaigning in the digital age. After George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, his campaign put a much higher priority on boosting personal contact to drive up turnout in 2004. Both of Barack Obama's winning presidential campaigns are noted for their tech-savvy approach to voters, while Mitt Romney's highly-touted ORCA technology crashed and burned. It was in the wake of ORCA's failure, that U-Campaign was envisioned. Creator Thomas Peters says the concept is really quite simple. "You can download our apps off of iTunes or the Google Play Store onto your smartphone. Pretty quickly, it'll show you a variety of actions you can take to impact the bottom line. It could be donating or sharing a social media message or sending a message only you could send to a friend or family member that we think you should reach out to," said Peters. But how does it work on a national campaign? "What this allows us to do is send tens if not hundreds of thousands of pinpointed messages to people in swing states who are making up their minds about who to support for president," said Peters. Peters says he knew from the start that he had to engage young people with the technology and make it fun. "We set out to use smartphone technology to its fullest extent, so we use push notifications. We use address book matching. And we use fun stuff like gamification and social capital to give people points and credit for what they're doing. I think that's much more the future of political activism is to make it engaging and fun, just like all the other games that you might download on your phone, from Candy Crush Saga to Pokemon Go," said Peters. Political debates on social media happen frequently, seemingly without many minds being changed. What makes U-Campaign different? "We cut through the noise by letting folks send text messages," said Peters. "If I get an email from a campaign that I'm not particularly interested in, I might ignore it or if might go to my spam, but text messages are read at a 99 percent rate. The text messages that we send are sent from friends and family, so if I get a text message from my brother saying, 'I'm supporting Donald Trump for president. Here's why,'that's a message that I'm much more likely to read," said Peters. But it's not just a person-to-person approach. There is a big picture strategy to the app as well. "We do it both ways. We let people choose for themselves who they want to reach out to, but we also allow them to opt into sharing their address book contacts. From there, if they say yes, we can match that to a voter file. That's the kind of 21st century stuff we're doing here," said Peters. "This allows the campaigns to get a look at who your friends and family are, and then in turn make it easier for folks to reach out to folks," said Peters. He says the campaigns can also recommend specific messages on different issues to appeal to family and friends. Peters says the Trump campaign is making great strides by using the app. "(With) the Donald Trump app actually we're bringing in one new person for every twelve that they do. And that's actually an incredibly impressive statistic. To get new people to actually download and get very involved in a campaign is a hard thing to do," said Peters. Other U-Campaign clients include Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, the Colorado Republican Party and the National Rifle Association. Peters says using the app will help Trump but he's not making any definitive predictions. "I think the impact will be that more people will be more involved in the political process than they would have been without our app. And that is our proudest achievement," said Peters. |
| DOJ Blocking FBI on Clinton Probes |
| Thu, 3 Nov 2016 16:34:15 EST The FBI is reportedly working two separate investigations linked to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, but the Obama Justice Department is regularly throwing up roadblocks to impede the work. On Wednesday, Bret Baier of the Fox News Channel reported several explosive revelations gleaned from two unnamed FBI sources. The report noted the twin investigations, that the FBI is vigorously pursuing a pay-to-play case involving the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, that experts believe Clinton's private server was almost certainly hacked by as many as five foreign governments, and that indictments could be coming in the Clinton Foundation case as well as the renewed investigation into Clinton's handling of classified information. But in closely following the reports at Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy sees two major takeaways. "(It's) the fact that the investigation into the Clinton Foundation is so far along and regarded as so serious within the walls of the FBI. Coupled with that, the fact that the Justice Department seems to have made it very difficult for the FBI to conduct that investigation," said McCarthy, who led the federal prosecution of the World Trade Center bombers following the 1993 attack. Some of the most frustrating information for McCarthy centers on the thwarted efforts of FBI special agents to procure emails and devices from top Clinton personnel such as Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson. "The agents were thwarted in the attempt to get access to these emails by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, which is in Brooklyn," said McCarthy. Why is that significant? "The reason I think that's so interesting is that the Eastern District of New York is the former U.S. Attorney's office that was headed by Loretta Lynch before she was elevated to attorney general by President Obama," said McCarthy. "As someone who really doesn't believe in coincidences, it's very interesting that that investigation and that call ended up with prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, even though it's not clear to me why the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office there would have venue over either the Clinton emails aspect of the investigation or the Clinton Foundation aspect of it," said McCarthy. McCarthy says top FBI officials actually stopped agents from bringing their evidence to a different federal prosecutor. And he says the man who made the call is already under a cloud of suspicion. "Reporting indicates they were told no by FBI brass. In particular, the FBI official who refused to allow them to go, as he put it, 'prosecutor shopping,' was the top official whose wife received $675,000 in campaign cash and in-kind contributions from political action committees controlled by (Virginia Gov.) Terry McAuliffe, who of course is a longtime Clinton aide and actually was at one time a board member of the Clinton Foundation," said McCarthy. The contributions were for the failed Virginia State Senate campaign of Jill McCabe, wife of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. While the FBI continues to gather evidence in both cases, it can only take the matter so far. For any charges to be brought against anyone, McCarthy says the Justice Department will have to give its blessing. "I think all of the U.S. Attorneys in the country have been appointed by President Obama. I don't think anyone is going to haul off and indict the Clinton Foundation and anyone connected with the Clinton Foundation without getting a green light from the Justice Department," said McCarthy. McCarthy is also frustrated that latest bombshell in the classified information investigation didn't come a long time ago. Specifically, he wants to know why the FBI didn't already have Anthony Weiner's laptop, by which agents have discovered some 650,000 emails that "may be pertinent" to the probe. He says that blame belongs with the Justice Department as well. "The Justice Department made it very difficult for the FBI to do the investigation, particularly by not using the grand jury. It's by the grand jury's power to compel evidence by subpoena that the FBI is usually able to get people to be cooperative," said McCarthy. He also says the FBI could easily get trigger-shy in pursuing evidence from a large numbers of lawyers with various levels of connection to the Clintons, especially with the Justice Department providing no assistance. "The FBI's always concerned, when you're dealing with lawyers' computers, that there could be attorney-client privilege and it's a big hassle for them, so if it's clear that the Justice Department is not supportive of the fact they're trying to gather this evidence in the first place, there's going to be a natural innervating kind of ethos that takes hold and dissuades people from doing things that are difficult, like trying to fight over whether they can examine the computers of lawyers," said McCarthy. |
| Personal Property Rights and Your Vote |
| Wed, 2 Nov 2016 16:47:01 EST The past eight years have witnessed an "avalanche" of government encroachment on the personal property rights of Americans and a Hillary Clinton presidency would be even worse, according to financial expert and radio host Gary Rathbun. He says the first thing voters need to understand is how property rights pertain to a lot more than just our physical property. "Personal property rights are somewhat misunderstood because we naturally think of real property like real estate and land and your home, but private property rights encompass everything about you; your right to work, your thoughts, your right to speech, everything you own, everything you can produce," said Rathbun, an Ohio-based personal wealth adviser and host of "An Economy of One" on the Radio America network. Rathbun says the term "personal property rights" is not often addressed in political campaigns but many of the underlying issues are. "It's easier talking about the peripheral aspects: the right to bear arms, wetlands, zoning, eminent domain, minimum wage, free speech. All of those funnel right down to private property rights," said Rathbun. He says two significant new items call under that umbrella, including the concerns over health care access and costs. "In the last years, look at what's happened with government intruding into our lives. They've taken over one of our most personal property rights and that's our right to health, to choose our health care and choose our doctor," said Rathbun, noting the government encroachment through environmental regulations is also maddening to him. "Our real property rights have been highly eroded with the EPA and restrictions on zoning and land use and wetlands. Every day our liberty is thinned down a little bit due to government regulations and what's been coming out of Washington," said Rathbun. Rathbun says the past eight years have inflicted a heavy toll on personal property rights. "Absolutely an avalanche of encroachment. Look at the EPA. That's one of the of the easy ones. With an executive order, President Obama changed the language of wetland on your property from navigable to any water on your property. He took out the word 'navigable' with just the stroke of a pen. That means the EPA can come on your property and prohibit you from doing just about anything," said Rathbun. Other critical personal property rights issues getting a lot of attention are the debates over minimum wage and guns. Rathbun says both Clinton and Donald Trump have it wrong on the minimum wage. "Hillary Clinton wants a higher minimum wage. By the way, so does Donald Trump. That infringes on your private property rights. You can't negotiate unless it's over $15 under their rules," he said. Rathbun says gun rights protect all the others. "The reason we have the Second Amendment is to protect our private property. If you can't protect your private property, the rest of the rights don't mean much of anything," said Rathbun. He believes a Clinton presidency would only accelerate the government targeting the freedoms of Americans. "I think under a Clinton presidency, that liberty and those private property rights would be continued to be infringed upon, and I think at an accelerated rate over what President Obama has done," said Rathbun. Rathbun is not a huge Trump fan. In addition to disagreeing with the GOP nominee on the minimum wage, he vigorously disagrees with Trump on eminent domain. Rathbun says he understands why Trump likes the practice from a real estate development perspective, but he says eminent domain has gotten way out of hand. Noting that eminent domain makes sense for projects that serve the "common good" so long as property owners are fairly compensated, Rathbun says it is too often abused. "Communities are exercising eminent domain so that private companies and developers can develop the land. They're justifying that from an increase in property taxes, maybe even an increase in income taxes from jobs, but I disagree with eminent domain outside of absolute necessities like road and bridges," said Rathbun. While saying he hates one-issue campaigns, this one boils down to who is chosen to safeguard our liberties on the U.S. Supreme Court. "This is the ultimate federal court that is there to interpret the Constitution and protect our rights. The Supreme Court should not be political but we all know it is. Everybody says it's 4-4 right now. Well, it shouldn't be. It should be 8-0 on protecting our Constitution and the rights therein," said Rathbun. "Who is likely to give us the Supreme Court nominees who will protect our liberty for the next 30-40 years," said Rathbun. |
| 'That's Obviously a Major Felony' |
| Tue, 1 Nov 2016 16:27:30 EST While the FBI and the Justice Department dig into some 650,000 emails on the computer of Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner, the man who reported back in August that Abedin was sending classified emails to her non-secure account is explaining how the trail leads us to where we are now. Dr. Jerome Corsi, a senior staff writer at WND.com and author of "Partners in Crime,"first reported in late August that Abedin forwarded work-related emails to her private account after scouring a report on emails from the watchdog group Judicial Watch. "I was looking it over and it hit me, 'She just forwarded that email to herself. Why would she do that?' I started looking and I realized there had been about 300 emails released by Judicial Watch. I realized she forwarded 200 of them to herself," said Corsi. The account to which the emails were being forwarded was partially redacted, except in one email. The address was humamabedin@yahoo.com. "As soon as I had that, I realized that she was sending many classified State Department emails offline to Yahoo, which is completely insecure. She was sending both emails she received at state.gov and emails she received at [clintonemail.com], the private server," said Corsi. But Abedin was not the only one sending emails to her private account. "Hillary was sending emails from clintonemail.com to Huma Abedin at yahoo.com. They were both involved and they completely compromised the State Department security, because anybody that had the password or user name could read, in unredacted form, all these emails in real time," said Corsi. "Why would you go to the problem of downloading it, offloading it from the State Department computer that many emails when, if you were trying to follow the rules, you could just read them at the State Department," said Corsi. Corsi says there is no question there was sensitive, classified information included in these emails. "Some of them that I found and published had been marked classified by the State Department. One in particular I remember was a Sid Blumenthal email. It came to Hillary. She sent it to Huma and Huma sent it to herself and the State Department marked it classified," said Corsi. He points out the classification came later but that should not matter. "They did that retroactively afterwards, but it still should have been known to be classified by Hillary because there's rules where documents don't have to be marked classified to be classified when you're at her level," said Corsi. Then the mystery for Corsi became how Abedin was sending emails from one account to the other. "If Huma went to all this trouble to offload all these emails that I know about...then she probably didn't use a State Department device. She probably used somebody else's device," said Corsi. Enter Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former New York congressman, who is Abedin's estranged husband, although they were still together during Clinton's years at the State Department. "It was really the FBI and the New York Police Department that decided to go knock on Weiner's door with a search warrant. Once they found the computer and the emails, they knew they had a case. This way they didn't have to go get permission, which they never would have been given by (FBI Director James) Comey or (Attorney General) Loretta Lynch, to continue investigating the Clinton emails," said Corsi. Corsi says there should be no doubt as to the criminality of Abedin and Clinton offloading emails onto Abedin's Yahoo account. "That's obviously a major felony in violation of federal security laws for handling classified information. You can't do that," he said. And why couldn't they do that? "The rules for handling classified materials is you've got to handle them on secured channels. You can't let them go on an insecure channel. Clearly, sending these emails to Yahoo.com - and we know some of them had classified material because they've been marked classified - is a violation of the law and it doesn't require intent," said Corsi. He says Clinton and Abedin could have avoided this entire scandal by establishing secure, government accounts and not sending any of it to private accounts. "This was such an obvious violation of law and perhaps leading to an espionage case or a treason case, that when presented to Comey he really had no alternative than to go forward," said Corsi. He says the key to this story getting legs is the NYPD involvement in investigating Anthony Weiner's alleged sexting of underage girls. "With the NYPD in on it, in addition to the Department of Justice in New York, there's no way to contain the case by saying you're not allowed to pursue it from the FBI's point of view. The New York Police Department said, 'Well, we'll pursue it,'" said Corsi. Corsi believes this story is about to explode, as he believes Clinton and Abedin moved all the emails in preparation for a pay-to-play scheme for access to her emails. In addition, a Tuesday release from WikiLeaks shows a March 3, 2015, email from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to former Clinton State Department Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, urging a quick dispatching of unidentified emails. "On another matter....and not to sound like Lanny, but we are going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later," wrote Podesta. "This is a crime scheme that stinks. I think this WikiLeaks and this cache of 600,000 emails from the State Department, plus the other documentation we've gotten over time. I think this is going to be the biggest scandal in U.S. history and it's just about to break," said Corsi. |
| Comey Risked Perjury if Letter Not Sent |
| Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:22:54 EST While many Democrats publicly fume at FBI Director James Comey and many Republicans sense political opportunity, a member of the House Judiciary Committee says the letter was really Comey's way of avoiding a perjury investigation against him in Congress. On Friday, Comey sent a letter to several committee and subcommittee chairman and ranking members, informing them that new emails "pertinent to the investigation" had been discovered. Twice in the three-paragraph letter, Comey noted his duty to keep Congress up to speed on the case. "Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony," said Comey. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, says this really boils down to Comey keeping his sworn promise to lawmakers given during testimony in the wake of the FBI refusing to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton. "It is actually the director of the FBI avoiding lying to Congress. He said he would update us," said Gohmert. "I think at the time he said it, he probably did not anticipate that there was going to be any other developments sufficient to get him to pursue the case further," said Gohmert. Shortly after the Comey letter was reported, sources within the FBI revealed that the newly discovered emails were found on a device belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y. Gohmert says that is significant. "If it's true what we're told that Weiner had emails that were for Huma Abedin, if any of those are classified then Huma broke the law by allowing her husband - even though they're married - to have access to those emails," said Gohmert. He says that arrangement also made both Weiner and Abedin ripe for blackmail. "One of the reasons it's so important for our high officials to be above reproach is the fact that because Weiner was doing all this sexting, that kind of thing could have made him vulnerable to blackmail," said Gohmert. He says the impending Weiner-Abedin divorce could have put Abedin at the same risk. "If he has emails that Huma should not have let him see, then she could be a target for blackmail. If Hillary were elected, then Huma would be the closest confidante to the President of the United States but very vulnerable to blackmail," said Gohmert. Gohmert is also struck by the Clinton team demanding the FBI reveal everything it has since this revelation comes so close to Election Day. "It takes an awful lot of gall to say, in effect, 'I thought I destroyed all of those emails. I demand to know what emails you have found because I thought I destroyed them all.' Basically, it's a bit of an admission of obstruction of justice," said Gohmert. The congressman is disappointed the Clinton investigation did not broaden out into a probe of Clinton Foundation activities and how they influenced Clinton's decisions at the State Department. "For heaven's sake, when you're allowing the sale of our uranium and it ends up going to Russia and our enemies. That's pretty amazing. None of that seemed to pique the interest. Some of us sure think it sounded like there may have been crimes involved, certainly merited having a grand jury impaneled and at least them them look into these things," said Gohmert. According to reports, the FBI did aggressively push for permission to investigate the Clinton Foundation, but was forbidden from proceeding by the Justice Department. Gohmert says that proves nothing will happen to Hillary Clinton while Loretta Lynch runs the Justice Department. "As long as she's there, Hillary Clinton will never be prosecuted. The only chance there is that Hillary Clinton may eventually have to answer for some of the things she's done is if Donald Trump is elected," said Gohmert. "We have got to clean out the cesspool. It stinks to high heaven," said Gohmert. While the Clinton campaign demands to see what emails the FBI has and simultaneously insists they are nothing of consequence, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, is taking the Comey criticism to a new level. In a letter, Reid is accusing Comey of violating the Hatch Act by sending his letter so close to the election. What's more, Reid accused Comey of sitting on "explosive" evidence of Trump's ties to the Russian government. "In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government 13 a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information," wrote Reid. Gohmert minced few words about Reid. First, the congressman contends Comey may have violated the Hatch Act if he didn't send the letter updating member of Congress on the probe. "I think it would be a potential violation of the Hatch Act to use his position to prevent Americans from knowing the substantial change, the new evidence that has been found," he said. As for Reid himself, Gohmert says the Nevada Democrat's reputation was already worthless. "For lying Harry Reid, the guy that said (2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt) Romney didn't pay taxes for ten years, it turned out Reid had no basis. He just totally lied. He still says he is so proud he went and lied about Romney because it helped [President Obama] win the election," said Reid. "That tells us that Harry Reid is a guy who is so unscrupulous, so immoral that I don't really much care what allegations he makes," said Gohmert. While he does encourage a quick report on these new findings, Gohmert is pleading with the FBI to do a thorough job examining the new emails and not feel that it has to make a conclusion to meet a political deadline. "The FBI needs to get their reputation back and the only way to do that is to handle this more professionally," said Gohmert. |
| 'It Couldn't Be A Trifling Thing' |
| Fri, 28 Oct 2016 16:35:16 EST The federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server and her transmitting of classified information was revived Friday, as FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to congressional leaders and relevant committee chairmen that new evidence has emerged in the case. "In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation," wrote Comey. "I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation," he added. Comey also made it clear the FBI has not throughly examined all the new evidence, since it just came to his attention on Thursday. "In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation," stated Comey. Subsequent media reports contend the newly discovered emails were not withheld by Clinton and are not even from her server. Instead, it appears the emails are part of the federal probe into the sexting of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., the estranged husband of Clinton confidante and former State Department official Huma Abdein. The letter comes just 11 days before the 2016 presidential election, so experts believe there has to be something significant here. "Well, it couldn't be a trifling thing, because this is a big deal. You can see the brouhaha this is causing, so it couldn't just be a little incident over email. It has to be pretty significant," said Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney general of the U.S. and a former assistant U.S. attorney. She suspects agents came directly to Comey with evidence he could not ignore. "It must be pretty significant if FBI agents took it to him and said, 'Hey, you've got to look at this.' Given all the criticism that has come his way over how he's handled the investigation, I can't see that he would have said, 'Oh well, just go away guys. We've already done this.' He would have had to address it," said Toensing. Toensing and her husband, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova, have publicly discussed the number of career FBI and Justice Department employees who are disgusted that Clinton was not prosecuted for her "careless" handling of classified information and that Comey refused even to recommend charges. She believes Comey may have acted Friday with that internal criticism in mind. "I think he's felt the heat. If nobody had criticized him at all he might have made this go under the rug. He knows he's in a glass house," said Toensing. While the Weiner connection is raising eyebrows, Toensing is disgusted that agents only stumbled across this material in a separate case. "You would think that a competent FBI would have looked at that from the get-go, since it's not a secret that he was married to her top aide," said Toensing. "This should have been a part of his investigation. Duh. Anthony Weiner is a known risk. He's a weirdo. They didn't look at those kinds of things while they were doing the Hillary (probe). He said it was a thorough investigation. I don't think so," said Toensing. When asked if Weiner's possible lack of clearance to see any classified materials may get Clinton in trouble somehow, Toensing says that issue has already come up multiple times and the FBI didn't seem bothered by it. "But nobody had clearances. The lawyers handling this case didn't have clearances. The IT people who worked on her emails, which were all highly classified, did not have clearances. This is not necessarily new. It's disgusting for those of us who have clearances," said Toensing. "I've never seen such incompetence in handling classified information." She also says WikiLeaks and other revelations paint an even uglier picture than we already knew about the actions of the Clinton Foundation while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. Toensing points out that Bill Clinton made $6.2 million in speaking fees from foreign entities with business before the State Department over those four years. The news comes at a bad time politically for Clinton, since this latest chapter of the investigation likely won't be resolved before Election Day. At the same time, there will be no government conclusion she broke the law prior to Nov. 8 either. Toensing says none of this is good for Clinton's campaign. "I don't really think it does cut both ways. The fact that there's no resolution is even worse for Hillary Clinton," said Toensing, noting how much a late admission of an old drunk driving arrest nearly derailed the 2000 White House bid of George W. Bush. |
| Obamacare Architect: 'The Law Is Working As Designed' |
| Thu, 27 Oct 2016 16:19:59 EST Despite headlines of soaring premium increases across the country, one of Obamacare's chief architects says the law is working as designed and the main adjustment he would make is to increase financial penalties for those who do not purchase insurance. MIT Economics Professor Jonathan Gruber told CNN that despite millions of people being strapped with much higher premiums and deductibles, the biggest adjustment needed right now is to put more pressure on people to buy insurance when they currently prefer to pay the penalty. "The law is working as designed; however, it could work better, and I think probably the most important thing experts would agree on is that we need a larger mandate penalty. We have individuals who are essentially free riding on the system," said Gruber. "The penalty right now is probably too low and that's something ideally we would fix." The mandate penalty is the fine, although referred to as a tax by the Supreme Court, that the government demands from anyone who doesn't buy health insurance. Many young, healthy people pay the fine instead of purchasing insurance due to the cost savings and bet they won't have any serious medical issues in the coming year. Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner, a fierce opponent of Obamacare, is appalled by Gruber's idea, although she's not surprised by it. "The individual mandate is the most despised part of a very unpopular law. To expect the Republicans are going to vote to increase those penalties, I don't know what alternative universe Jonathan Gruber is living in, but it's not the one I see on Capitol Hill," said Turner. She also says many Americans who don't buy insurance have discovered it's pretty easy to avoid paying the fine. "The only way that the law says the penalty can be collected is from people who have a refund due on their taxes. Well, guess what? Well, guess what people are going to do? They're going to change their deductions so that they don't have a refund due. Then the IRS won't be able to collect that money," said Turner. Turner is also pushing back on the notion that Obamacare is working fine otherwise. She says it may be true that more people have coverage and people can't be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. However, she says the damage done to achieve that is immense. "In a very narrow technical sense, Jonathan Gruber is right. But when the American people look at this, they're saying, 'Wait a minute. Isn't this called the Affordable Care Act? This is not affordable for me,'" said Turner. She also points out it's not just the 10-plus million Americans who are paying every penny of massive premium and deductible increases in the individual marketplace. She says the money to pay the subsidies for millions of others doesn't just magically appear. "They are not only paying the higher premiums, but they have to pay the subsidies for those that are in the exchanges, so that their premiums don't go up," said Turner. Turner notes that former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who is now with the American Action Forum, calculates that taxpayers are on the hook for $32 billion in subsidies in 2016. Next year, it will total $50 billion. "It not only continues to be unaffordable for those who don't qualify for the subsidies, but it also is unaffordable for taxpayers," said Turner. But Turner saved her most visceral reaction for Gruber's claim that Obamacare is not a nightmare for insurance companies and forcing them out of the marketplace in many places. "Once again, I think the press here has been misleading. Some insurers are leaving. Other insurers are thriving," said Gruber on CNN. "I think what you have is a system where we've shaken up the status quo, exactly what we expect of new innovation, disruptive innovation if you will, to do. Insurers who were thriving in the old system are finding this new system sort of hard for them. Other insurers are doing really well and what's going to happen is the natural process as the market evolves," he added. Turner says that's pure fiction. "If I were sitting in my living room, I'd be screaming at the television set," said Turner. "The only health insurers that are thriving under Obamacare are those that have experience with Medicaid-managed care. The narrowest of doctor networks, the lowest payments to doctors, so it's hard to get doctors to participate, and the narrowest network of hospitals. What you're going to see is Obamacare insurance looking more and more like Medicaid, which is one of the worst health care programs in the country," said Turner. She says the fundamental problem is that Gruber approaches this issue very differently than most Americans. "If you want a system that looks like Medicaid? That's what you're going to get with Obamacare. That seems to be what Jonathan Gruber is celebrating. He doesn't care about the quality of care or the access to care. All he cares about is a political agenda, that people have an insurance card in their pocket that Democrats gave them. The American people are smarter than that," said Turner. Turner also blasts Obama's fixes for the system - namely Medicaid expansion, higher premiums and a government-sponsored public option health plan to compete with private insurers. "What's the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over again even when you get the same result. What they want is more government regulations and more government spending to solve a problem created by too much regulation and too much government spending," said Turner. She believes there is a stark choice on the ballot this year for American concerned about where the health care system is headed. "Hillary Clinton wants more of the same. She wants the public option. She wants more government spending. She wants to increase the subsidies through the Obamacare exchanges. Donald Trump is saying we need to start over again and we need to give the American people more choices and put the states back in charge of regulating health insurance," said Turner. |
| 'It's Not Possible': Dems Push Back on Claims of Stuffed Absentee Envelope |
| Wed, 26 Oct 2016 16:37:52 EST Democratic Party officials in Fairfax County, Virginia, are categorically denying that pro-Democrat campaign materials were included in the same envelope as a voter's absentee ballot, arguing that pamphlets were sent in a separate mailing to absentee voters from the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, or FCDC. Earlier this week, Jena and David Jones shared their story of find more than they expected in the envelope that contained her ballot. 1cI found a letter from the governor of Virginia asking me to please vote Democrat and 18help keep Virginia blue 19 this year. Then I got a letter from the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, giving me a step-by-step, yes-and-no what I should vote for as far as the meal tax and all those other things on the ballot, 1d said Jena. In recent days, at least two more people contend they received the same materials in the envelope with their absentee ballots. After the report was first published, and shared on Facebook by David Jones, Fairfax County Democratic Committee Executive Director Frank Anderson replied to David's post to dispute their account of what the ballot envelope contained. "These materials were NOT sent in the same envelope as the ballot. The ballot is mailed separately by the Office of Elections. Political parties are free to mail items to voters who request absentee ballots. The two envelopes arrived at the same time," commented Anderson, showing a photo of the pro-Democratic materials and the separate envelope they are designated to be sent in. That triggered a quick back-and-forth between David Jones and Anderson. "I hate to tell you but you're wrong. All items came in one envelope," said Jones. "Impossible. That letter came out of my office. We never have access to other people's ballots," replied Anderson. "Then it seems those that sent the ballots have access to YOUR letters," said Jones. "Who should I believe? You or my lying eyes?" Anderson then stated that political parties are informed when anyone requests an absentee ballot and mailings are sent to those voters to promote Democratic candidates and positions on ballot initiatives. " I am literally sitting down the hall from the place where those envelopes are stuffed. We are a political office and have no business handling anyone's ballots. You can believe what you want to believe," concluded Anderson. The Virginia Department of Elections did not respond to repeated attempts for a response. But after seeing our reports, Anderson protested the premise of the story. "Please stop spreading these absurd allegations that are just hearsay from a misinformed voter who cannot verify his claim," stated Anderson in an email, in which he also explained why he believed the Jones account could not be accurate. He also shared a photo sent by State Sen. Scott Surovell, showing his absentee ballot envelope next to a separate envelope containing Democratic Party advocacy. In a formal interview, FCDC Communications Adviser Bruce Neilson says the Jones version of opening the envelope cannot be true. "It's not possible," said Neilson, who then explained how absentee voters are approached by the local Democrats. "Voting is a sacred privilege and a right of every citizen. The activity of voting is also a public record. The Fairfax County Democratic Committee receives a notice of everyone who has requested an absentee ballot. We get that information as public information on the day the ballot is mailed," said Neilson. "The same day the ballot is mailed, our volunteers prepare materials to advise voters what the Fairfax (County) Democratic Committee knows to be Democratic positions on the ballot," said Neilson, noting the materials include fliers on candidates and ballot proposals like the meals tax. However, he insists those materials are never sent with the ballot itself. "That material is mailed in a separate envelope, labeled with our initials - FCDC - and our return address in Fairfax, Virginia, and would be received either the same day, perhaps the day before or the day after she received her official absentee ballot from the government," said Neilson. "It's a separate mailing. It's a separate stamp. It's a separate envelope. It's very easy to confuse where they came from if you have all those materials on the table at the same time while you're filling in your votes," said Neilson. Jones is standing by her story 100 percent, as is her husband. David says it's a very clear memory. "Jena opened the envelope that contained her ballot, the green sample ballot, the two-sided letter from the governor and card with kids on it saying "go vote" or something of that nature. There was also the return envelope which I signed," said David. The coverage of Jena's story has also elicited similar stories from two other Fairfax County voters. Both of them commented on Reddit. "I can confirm this. I live in Herndon, VA (Fairfax County) and also received these materials in my absentee ballot. I thought it was fishy at the time but didn't look into it," stated a comment by a reader using the handle thisisaterriblename. Another, under the Reddit handle Nightingale-Nights, said the same thing happened to them and posted similar photos to the ones David and Jena shared last week. Neilson says there is no way the county government, which sends out the ballots, could be including partisan materials in the envelope containing the ballot. "They don't have our materials. Our materials are printed for us, by our printer, and we have complete control over our materials in our office and they come from our office in our mailing. They don't go anywhere else," said Neilson. "It's not possible that the county government is distributing partisan Democratic materials. It's never happened before. I'm not aware of it happening now. And I don't think that it would happen anywhere in the future," said Neilson. There are only a few known complaints of stuffed ballot envelopes in Fairfax County, leading David Jones to believe an individual in the government is responsible. He accepts the explanation that the Fairfax County Democratic Committee is not responsible for what he and Jena discovered with her ballot. "I understand Frank's comments about his office has nothing to do with the ballots. I believe that. I think what we are seeing here is a person that actually stuffs and mails the ballots is taking it upon themselves to add in extra material. I don't see how Franks office could be held accountable for what's in the ballot envelope. But it does seem odd that others are now reporting similar issues," said Jones. Neilson says there is zero chance of that scenario being true. "I just can't imagine that happening because of the internal controls that we have on the literature that we mail," said Neilson. He also says the internal controls at the county government are air-tight. "I am an election official. On Election Day, I serve in a non-partisan capacity for our county election office. I can assure you, you have Democrats and Republicans working in the office. You have plenty of oversight of the voting process and there's no way that a partisan political piece was mailed with her ballot. There is no way that happened," said Neilson. |
| Ready to Replace Reid |
| Tue, 25 Oct 2016 16:10:47 EST Senate Republicans are playing a lot of defense in the 2016 election cycle, but their brightest hope for winning a seat held by Democrats not only buoys GOP hopes for keeping a majority but has the party on the brink of capturing the seat held by retiring Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. Reid, D-Nevada, is stepping down after 30 years in the Senate. The battle for his seat is a very close contest between GOP Rep. Joe Heck and Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the former attorney general of Nevada. Heck, who is also a physician and Army reservist, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. He says in this chaotic election season, keeping the U.S. Senate in Republican hands ought to be a major priority. "The most critical issue is to ensure we have a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, regardless of who's in the White House. We want to make sure there's a system of checks and balances. We want to make sure that we facilitate good ideas, block bad ideas and, of course, make sure that we are running the confirmation hearings for the next Supreme Court justices," said Heck. Heck was the the party's top choice to seek the open Senate seat. For much of the general election season, he enjoyed a small but steady lead over Cortex Masto. In the past couple of weeks, however, Masto has edged ahead although the race is easily within the margin of error. Heck says Nevada is a tough state for Republicans but he is vigorously pursuing every vote. "It's the demographics of our state. The population has changed significantly. Nevada, which had historically been a red state, is now really a blue state. There's an 88,000 Democrat voter edge in our state, a growing Latino population. So it makes it that much harder to get out and talk to folks and earn their votes, but that's exactly what we're doing," said Heck. "We've done that over the last 18 months. I'm the only candidate in this race that has held public events in all 17 counties, making sure that people all across the state have the opportunity to learn about who I am, where I am on the issues, and why I want to be their next U.S. senator," said Heck. The congressman says four issues come up most with voters: jobs and the economy, national security, health care, and education. Heck says he has direct experience in all those areas that can improve the lives of Nevadans and all Americans, starting with the economy. "I owned my own company. I had a business. I know what it's like to make a payroll, to actually hire folks and put people to work. I know what the impact is of every regulation that's passed by a state, local, or federal government and what it does to a small business owner," said Heck. On national security, he says his time in the U.S. Army prepares him very well to face the challenges confronting our nation. "I've served in uniform for 26 years. I continue to serve in the Army Reserve. I've had the honor to command some of the finest men and women this country has to offer, three tours of duty overseas. I know what it takes to keep our country safe," said Heck. According to his website, Heck directed emergency services and the aeromedical evacuation section of a combat support hospital in Al-Anbar province during his time in Iraq. He says he is acutely aware of America's health care needs as well. "I'm a practicing physician. I've worked in inner city hospital emergency departments for over 20 years. If you ever want to see what works and what doesn't work, come spend some time in an inner city hospital emergency department," said Heck. He is also the parent of three children who have gone through the public school and public universities in Nevada. He says that gives him the same insights as other Nevada parents. "My opponent has no real world experience in any of those issues," he said. On the other hand, Heck says people know they'll just get more of the same with Cortez Masto. "She is Harry Reid's hand-picked candidate, so we would expect her to continue down the same path of failed policies that Harry Reid has championed over the last decade, certainly over the last eight years in aiding and abetting the president, and one of the reasons we still have a stagnant economic recovery with sluggish economic growth, stagnant wages, a failed foreign policy that has caused our allies to no longer trust us and our adversaries to no longer fear us," said Heck. "She came out in support of the Iran nuclear deal, which certainly does nothing to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. She did so in a quid pro quo, after Harry Reid and the president conducted a fundraiser for her here in Nevada," said Heck. Heck is also committed to protecting land rights for ranchers and other family businesses in Nevada. He vows to fight against protected federal status for the sage grouse and against the Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, Rule. "A dry irrigation ditch on a farm, once it has some water in it, would be considered a navigable waterway, subject to all the regulatory requirements of the Clean Waters Act. That's going to have a significant impact," said Heck, The federal government owns about 87 percent of all the land in Nevada. Heck wants to see the federal government relinquish some of that back to the state and locales. He says doing that, while protecting treasured parks and forests, would allow the state to bring in more property tax revenue and use that to improve Nevada's lagging schools. Heck says his six years in Washington have proven he can get things done. He says he has built relationships on both sides of Capitol Hill that will pave the way for positive change. He says his track record in the House proves that he can things done, even with President Obama in the White House. "I've had bills that address veterans' homelessness, bills that have addressed the victims of human trafficking, legislation that actually creates good-paying jobs in southern Nevada by transfering an old abandoned mine site that's owned by the federal government to a local redevelopment authority so that it can be remediated, reclaimed and developed at no cost to the taxpayer, and supporting our men and women in uniform which is critical to our national security," said Heck. Republicans currently hold a 54-46 majority in Senate. Democrats need to flip four Republican seats to retake the majority if Hillary Clinton wins the presidential race. They would need to win five GOP seats five if Donald Trump wins. |
| Dem Materials Sent with Absentee Ballot |
| Mon, 24 Oct 2016 16:37:08 EST When Jena Jones opened up her absentee ballot last week, there was a lot more in the envelope than she expected. In addition to actual ballot, she and her husband, David, noticed multiple pieces of advocacy from the Democrats. Jones, who resides in Fairfax County, will be out of town on Election Day and requested an absentee ballot from the Virginia Department of Elections. She was surprised to what else came with her ballot. "I found a letter from the governor of Virginia asking me to please vote Democrat and 'help keep Virginia blue' this year. Then I got a letter from the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, giving me a step-by-step, yes-and-no what I should vote for as far as the meal tax and all those other things on the ballot," said Jena. The latter document is known as a sample ballot and is often handed out on the sidewalks outside of polling places on Election Day. But there are strict rules which forbid those sample ballots from being handed out in the polling stations. There was no material provided in the absentee package highlighting Republican candidates or positions on various proposals. Jones did not request the ballot through the Democratic Party, she has not voted in any recent Democratic primaries and she is not a registered Democrat. Although not a political junkie of any sort, the inclusion of fliers from Democrats but nothing from Republicans struck her as odd. "I was a little confused as to why we didn't get anything Republican at all, and I wasn't sure why that was included in my ballot at all," said Jena. On the back of the letter from McAuliffe were lengthy, glowing biographies of Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine and her local congressman, Rep, Gerry Connolly. Her husband, David, was serving as a witness to Jena's vote. He was even more frustrated by all the pro-Democrat literature while no GOP materials were included. "I also was a little befuddled because I figured that this would be a time that you wouldn't want to encourage voters to go one way or the other, It's just like when you walk into the precinct or the polls, they can't be within a certain amount of feet from the voting booths and I figure they shouldn't be able to put a piece of paper in the envelope with your ballot," said David Jones. David was particularly surprised by the letter from Gov. McAuliffe, which was not some simple statement thanking absentee voters for taking part in the process. Instead, it was a full-page letter, imploring Virginia voters to choose Democrats for president and Congress. It also slams Republicans and Donald Trump on issues ranging from immigration to taxes. "If it was just a letter saying, 'Hey we appreciate you voting. Every vote counts,' that would make sense and I would totally back that. But when there's a specific flier that says 'Hillary Clinton for President' and 'Tim Kaine for Vice President' laying out their platform, to me it was just biased. It was one side," said David. He is also worried about how others might look at the letters and sample ballot. "I just think of the people that don't have social media or television access, that are confined to a house, that just can't get out, or are overseas and they're relying on this information to cast their vote," said David. As a result, David took to Facebook on Oct. 20 with the photos you see in this article. "So... in what world is this ok? Jena will be out of town for the election so we are completing her absentee ballot tonight. We open the envelope and there are two flyers from the Democrats telling her how to vote. They can't go inside the voting places but they can put check list in this envelope??? Ridiculous!" read his Facebook post. "It upset me I guess, because there was nothing in there that represented the Republican Party. And I knew if we were getting it then someone else also was getting it," said David. His post has been shared dozens of times. He says even Democratic friends and longtime poll workers have expressed shock and disgust at the Democratic Party tactics. He has reached out to several different state official looking for an explanation. Thus far, he has received no response. Our calls and emails to the Virginia Department of Elections have also gone unanswered. |
| 'He's Just Delusional' |
| Mon, 24 Oct 2016 15:36:08 EST A top House Republican expert on health care policy calls President Obama's blame of insurers, employers and Republicans for the problems in a health care system that Obama insists is working very well evidence that Obama is "delusional" and "living in a parallel universe" and says Republicans are ready to implement patient-centered reforms. On Thursday, President Obama visited Miami, Florida, to stump for Hillary Clinton but also to defend his signature health care law and call for some changes to improve the system. The speech came on the heels of insurance companies announcing significant premium hikes for 2017. House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Georgia, says the soaring costs of health care are crippling and were completely foreseeable. "It looks like the average premium increase for 2017 is going to be around 30 percent nationwide. This was all predictable and was predicted by us. The fact of the matter is you can't set up a health care system the way that the president the way that the president and his administration and his partners have done and expect that these costs aren't going to rise significantly," said Price. On Thursday in Florida, Obama insisted the system was great for 90 percent of Americans. He says those who get their coverage through their employers or through Medicaid are fine. He believes action only needs to be taken for the ten percent who buy their insurance through the health care exchanges. Obama launched a three-pronged offensive of blame, first saying anyone who is frustrated with their coverage and gets it privately through the workplace should point the finger at their bosses. "Some people may say, 'Well, I've seen my co-pays go up or my networks have changed.' But these are decisions that are made by your employers. It's not because of Obamacare," said Obama Thursday. Price immediately fired back on Obama pinning the blame on employers. "What the president says just isn't true. Employers have changed what they're providing in terms of health coverage because they're being required to change, with the employer mandate, what they have to offer their employees for health coverage. This is a direct result of Obamacare, or the ACA, contrary to what the president says. He's living in a parallel universe," said Price. Next, Obama blamed soaring premiums in the individual marketplace on insurance companies. "Although the marketplaces are working well in most of the states, there are some states where there's still not enough competition between insurers. So if you only have one insurer, they may decide, 'We're going to jack up rates because we can because nobody else is offering a better price,'" said Obama on Thursday. Again, Price is left shaking his head. "Obamacare, the ACA, has virtually destroyed the individual and small group market. We've now got a third of the counties in this country, where there's only one choice on the exchange. That's not a choice if you only have one health coverage plan that you can select. These consequences are a direct result of the rules and the regulations and the requirements put forward in Obamacare," said Price. Price says it's not just Republicans who Obama isn't dealing it straight to the American people. "He's living in a fantasy world if he doesn't believe that there are fundamental, foundational problems with this law. Many, many individuals in Washington understand and appreciate this, including some on his side of the aisle, who I've spoken with and they've been reluctant to change any of this while he's in office," said Price. Perhaps the part of Obama's speech that's most galling for Obamacare opponents is the president ascribing sinister motives to those who continue to oppose his law. "So what's the problem? Why is there still such a fuss? Well, part of the problem is the fact that a Democratic president named Barack Obama passed the law. And that's just the truth. I mean I worked really, really hard to engage Republicans," said Obama. Price says nothing could be farther from the truth. "He's just delusional and it's so very, very sad," said Price. "When he was putting forth his bill, I was chairman of the Republican Study Committee at that time. We came forward with our alternative even before Obamacare was introduced." "We reached out to the administration and the White House every single week for over a year. Every single week, simply asking for a meeting to talk about the kinds of solutions that we believe would be helpful for the plan that he was working on. We never got any response from the administration," added Price. "It's just so deceitful for him to lay that line out before the American people," said Price. "It's not because it's a Democrat plan. It's not because he was put forward by Barack Obama. We oppose the plan because it doesn't work for people. It doesn't work for patients." Price points to directly to the House Republican plan to reform the health care system. He notes there are one-page, three-page and 40-page versions of the plan, depending on the amount of detail Americans want to dig into. Among the core principles in the Republican approach, Price first points to the need for flexibility. "We must absolutely provide flexibility for patients all across this land so that they're the ones who are choosing who treats them, where they're treated, when and how and the like. That flexibility does not exist now," said Price. "We need flexibility for the folks providing the care, for the doctors. They need to be the ones that are working with their patients and deciding what kind of treatment is needed for a specific diagnosis." He also says Washington needs to help Americans afford health coverage. "We believe everybody ought to gain health coverage but we believe they ought to gain the kind of coverage that they want to purchase for themselves and their family, not that the government forces you to buy," said Price. "We have a very specific proposal for tax credits or refundable credits or advanceable refundable credits based on age for every single American that would it so that there's financial feasibility for every single American," said Price. He also calls for expanded options with Health Savings Accounts, or HSA's, allowing more high-deductible catastrophic plans so young people will have incentive to get coverage, and "lawsuit abuse reform" that will protect the medical community and drive down costs. |
| 'Believe Me, This Is Going to Get Worse' |
| Fri, 21 Oct 2016 15:39:19 EST Democrats are engaged in damage control in the wake of undercover videos from Project Veritas showing party operatives admitting to stoking violence at Trump rallies and being open to engaging in mass voter fraud, and the group says these videos are just the tip of the iceberg. On Monday, Project Veritas released a video depicting the recently-fired Scott Foval of the Democrat-linked Americans United for Change admitting to inciting violence at Trump events, including a riot in Chicago that injured police officers and another that shut down a road near a Trump rally in Arizona. Foval was quickly fired. Tuesday, a follow-up video depicted Foval bragging about Democrats busing in voters from other precincts to influence elections and at least entertaining other forms of voter fraud this year. Longtime Democratic operative Robert Creamer resigned as head of Democracy Partners that same day. Creamer, who is married to Chicago-area Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., also served time years ago on a felony fraud conviction. "In the first video, we see that they're actually doing the things that are despicable. In the second video, we have them talking prospectively about what they're going to do on Election Day. We have to be vigilant, go out and see if we can catch them on Election Day doing those things," said Project Veritas Executive Director Russ Verney. "But since they've already delivered on their violence at rallies, we have no reason to believe that they don't intend to bus people around and commit other voter fraud," added Verney. In addition to dismissing Foval and Creamer, Democrats have pointed the finger of blame at Project Veritas and founder James O'Keefe. Media, such as the New York Times, usually refer to Project Veritas as "a conservative group led by the activist James O 19Keefe that has been heavily criticized as using deceptive editing." Verney rejects the left's effort to dismiss the videos by attacking Project Veritas and O'Keefe. "Nobody has pointed to anything in either of the videos that's untrue or that they challenge the veracity of. We've got them in their own words admitting to their own underhanded acts to subvert the Trump campaign and to commit voter fraud," said Verney. As for the suggestion that "deceptive editing" created this controversy, Verney says that is patently false. "They attack the messenger instead of the message. You say that it's heavily edited and imply that we've done something nefarious with the editing, but they can't point to anything within the videos that are nefarious. They are the actual words of the targets in their own context. We allow the people to fully hang themselves in these videos," said Verney. Verney especially gets a kick out of broadcast media promoting the "deceptive editing" defense. "Every video you watch on ABC, Fox, whatever, is edited. We would have to post hundreds of hours of video if you want it unedited," he said. But while Democrats try to wash their hands of the controversy by kicking Creamer and Foval to the curb this cycle, Verney doesn't necessarily buy that they're really off the stage. "As they say in the video, 'We don't talk about things that we talk about.' All this is a wink and a nod. So whether or not they're actually fired or just moved to another company is yet to be seen," said Verney. Even if the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign and private groups really did cut ties with Creamer and Foval, Verney is confident the tactics aren't changing. "Regardless of whether or not those individuals are still in their positions, the organizations that they're with are still in position and still carrying on, still committing the same kind of tactics as when Bob Creamer was the head of the operation or Scott Foval. They've still got plenty of other replacements out there doing the same things," said Verney. However, Verney warns Democrats that there damage control efforts are not over yet. "They've fired two of the top people so far. The only thing that the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary campaign can do is try to attack the messenger. They can't deal with the message. And believe me, this is going to get worse," said Verney, referring to more Project Veritas videos that are on the way. He didn't say exactly what the forthcoming videos would show, but he did mention that as many as eight undercover reporters infiltrated various parts of the Democratic Party apparatus and discovered more evidence of illegal communicating and collaborating between organizations that are forbidden by law from working together. "They gained the confidence of the highest level of Democratic operatives in multiple organizations: Americans United for Change, the Foval Group, Democracy Partners. They sat in and listened to conference calls where the campaign, the White House, the Democratic National Committee and the Super PAC were all on the conference call with these operatives making their plans," said Verney. He says that's proof of the Democrats flagrantly violating the law. "The Hillary Super PAC is involved in this coordination, which makes the whole thing totally illegal. This is a dark money conspiracy, where these organizations are prohibited from prior coordination with each other if they're spending money to promote the Hillary election or the Trump defeat. They cannot coordinate. We've exposed exactly how they coordinate with each other in violation of the law," said Verney. |
| SCOTUS Gun Decision About Toddlers? |
| Thu, 20 Oct 2016 16:26:52 EST Gun rights advocates and other experts are firing back at Hillary Clinton's assertion in Wednesday's presidential debate that she opposed the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision on gun rights because the court failed to protect toddlers from getting access to firearms. The issue was raised early in the debate as part of a wider discussion on how Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump view the Supreme Court. Moderator Chris Wallace asked pointed questions of both candidates on the second amendment, and he specifically asked Clinton about why she was critical of the 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. "Secretary Clinton, you said last year, let me quote, "The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment." And now, in fact, in the 2008 Heller case, the court ruled that there is a constitutional right to bear arms, but a right that is reasonably limited. Those were the words of the Judge Antonin Scalia who wrote the decision. What's wrong with that?" asked Wallace. After stating he respected the right of individuals to own firearms, Clinton addressed the Heller decision. "You mentioned the Heller decision. And what I was saying that you referenced, Chris, was that I disagreed with the way the court applied the Second Amendment in that case, because what the District of Columbia was trying to do was to protect toddlers from guns and so they wanted people with guns to safely store them," said Clinton. Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt was stunned by that answer. "That was pretty surprising to me but then Hillary Clinton is kind of known for saying lots of things that are surprising to those who who have an idea of what the truth actually is," said Pratt. He says nothing in the Heller case dealt with toddlers. "Heller made no reference to toddlers. Toddlers were not really the problem. Heller was addressing the fact that your safety, your gun was locked up and unavailable for self-defense and that the District of Columbia couldn't require that anymore, nor could they ban whole classes of guns, which in effect they had done," said Pratt. He says Heller was one of two critical cases that affirmed the intent of the second amendment. "Heller laid a real marker down for the subsequent McDonald case out of Chicago, which together made it clear to judges who apparently hadn't been able to understand heretofore, that the second amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms and you can't just go and ban whole classes of guns. That's what Heller was about," said Pratt. Pratt says he also isn't buying Clinton's passion for protecting toddlers in general, since just minutes later she vigorously defended partial birth abortions. "Hillary Clinton is worried about toddlers when she is okay, as Donald Trump in the same debate pointed out, she's okay pulling a baby out of the womb and hour before it's born and tearing it apart. So her concern about toddlers strikes me as somewhat academic," said Pratt. While asserting her respect for the second amendment, Clinton also listed some "common sense" restrictions she would like to see enacted. "I think we need comprehensive background checks, need to close the online loophole, close the gun show loophole. There's other matters that I think are sensible that are the kind of reforms that would make a difference that are not in any way conflicting with the Second Amendment," said Clinton. Pratt offers a few different warnings on those proposals, starting with his skepticism that the government needs to have its nose in every single gun sale. "She's saying that if a father gives a gun to a son that he's known for, say, 30 years, that somehow a background check is going to tell us more?" asked Pratt. He also says recent shootings prove background checks do not necessarily stop horrific shootings. "Many, many of the mass murders that have been accomplished in our time have been carried out by folks that either could have passed a background check or actually did pass a background check," said Pratt, who also fears Clinton's "other matters" will include an expansion of gun-free zones, which Pratt points out are the scenes of the vast majority of mass shootings. As for Trump, Pratt was thrilled that the GOP nominee not only spoke in defense of the second amendment but wanted justices on the Supreme Court who see the Constitution the way the founders did. "He actually used the word original or originalist, justices who would view the second amendment as it was intended to be understood. That's a big deal. That's quite the opposite from the 'living, breathing' Constitution, which means any bloody thing a judge puts into his cockamamie head," said Pratt. Pratt, who endorsed Ted Cruz, during the GOP primary, admits Trump still seems a bit lacking in the details of the Heller case and other aspects of the gun policy debate. But Pratt says he is encouraged by the addition of Gov. Mike Pence to the GOP ticket, noting Gun Owners of America only disagreed once with Pence on gun issues during the 12 years Pence was in the House of Representatives. In the end, Pratt backs Trump mostly because of what Clinton has promised elsewhere on gun policy. "Hillary Clinton is capable of energizing a lot of gun owners because her statement about her model that she would have in mind, where to go in pursuing gun legislation, was that of Australia. Well, Australia banned every single semi-automatic handgun, shotgun, and rifle," said Pratt. He firmly believes that would be Clinton's goal if elected president. |
| 'Wishful Thinking' Leads to Obamacare Tailspin |
| Wed, 19 Oct 2016 16:57:36 EST States and insurance companies are revealing major health insurance premium increases as they roll out rates for 2017, and a leading health care expert says the carriers who are staying in the market have to jack up costs in order to compensate for the huge money lost by drastically under-pricing the product in the first place. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal laid out the extent of premium hikes for individual plans both in terms of states and insurance companies. "Market leaders that are continuing to sell coverage through HealthCare.gov or a state equivalent have been granted average premium increases of 30% or more in Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Mississippi and Texas, according to information published by state regulators and on a federal site designed to highlight rate increases of 10% or more," reported the Journal. "In states including Arizona, Illinois, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, the approved rate increases for the market leader top 50%. In New Mexico, the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan agreed to resume selling plans through the online exchanges after sitting out last year, but has been allowed to increase rates 93% on their 2015 level," it continued. "Dominant insurers in Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland and Oregon have been allowed to raise premiums by 20% or more, and rate increases from similarly situated carriers in Colorado, Florida and Idaho are brushing up against that threshold." the report stated. American Enterprise Institute Resident Fellow James Capretta is an Obamacare critic. He says the insurance companies were left with little choice. "It's pretty obvious that the participants in this marketplace in 2014 and '15 and '16 severely under-priced their products and so they've been trying to catch up. Frankly, 2016 saw fairly large premium increases, but they still haven't priced their products to the risk profile of the people that are buying them," said Capretta. And what exactly is this risk profile? "Many of the people who have ended up buying these new products have ended up being fairly high users of service. You don't have enough of the people that are below average costs to balance out the people that are above average costs, so the premiums are going up," said Capretta. Americans were not only promised they could keep their plans and their doctors, but President Obama also guaranteed families would see their premiums decrease by an average of $2,500. Capretta says that was nowhere near realistic. "A big part of this was a lot of wishful thinking, hoping the product would have broad appeal to consumers and therefore the risk profile of the people that would be buying it would be more favorable than it turned out to be," said Capretta. However, despite the infusion of sick people into the system not balanced by healthy people, insurance companies bailing from the exchanges, and premiums and deductibles soaring, Capretta does not believe the system has hit the so-called "death spiral." "I think there is adverse selection going on, meaning that it is a slightly - or even more than slightly higher risk profile than they had anticipated. But that's not the same thing as a death spiral," said Capretta. He notes that any family making less than four times the poverty level gets a federal subsidy and those making less than 250 percent of the poverty level get significant subsidies. However, such subsidies are paid by the U.S. taxpayers, driving the nation's debt higher and higher. Capretta also notes that employer-based plans, on average, are seeing smaller increases in premiums than the individual market, ranging from five to ten percent hikes on average. Other experts strongly disagree with Capretta on the "death spiral." Back in August, Aetna announced it was withdrawing from the vast majority of state exchanges it had participated in. That followed on the heels of United Healthcare doing much the same. At the time, Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner said the erosion of competition and rapidly rising premiums and deductibles all add up to one inescapable conclusion. 1cThat really is an indication we are in the death spiral. That means you wind up with fewer and fewer healthy people in the pools and more and more sick people. When that happens the premiums have to go up and up and up. We 19re seeing that already in the requests for premium increases next year 13 in some cases 40, 50 or 60 percent increases, 1d said Turner. And the hits just keep on coming, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that while more Americans have coverage as a result of the new health care law, fewer Americans have private coverage than before the law went into effect. Capretta agrees that sets the health policy debate on a dicey course. "The question for the United States is do we want to move toward a fully-government run health system or do we want to retain some element of private initiative, private marketplace, and consumer preference? The more that you move towards publicly subsidized and publicly run insurance plans, the less room you're going to have for non-regulated decision making," said Capretta. And what will happen if the glaring problems with the health care law are not addressed? "If nothing is done, they'll end up limping along and the exchanges will evolve over time into just subsidizing just the very lowest income people, plus the very highest-risk people. Anybody who can find insurance in other ways, especially through the employer system, will try to opt out," said Capretta. While a supporter of market-based health care, Capretta says Donald Trump has yet to offer a "coherent" plan to explain what repealing and replacing the law would look like. He suspects Hillary Clinton would seek to direct a lot more taxpayer money to insurance companies in order to compensate them for the highest risk patients. And what is his solution? "I do think there would have to be a process of trying to change how it's operating at the moment to bring the insurers back in, impel some more competition and make the product more attractive to more customers," said Capretta. |
| Court Forces Pro-Life Clinics to Provide Abortion Info |
| Tue, 18 Oct 2016 16:38:29 EST A federal appeals court has upheld a California law requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to post and verbally share information with patients on how to obtain an abortion, a ruling that abortion foes call an infringement on free speech and freedom of religion. On Friday, The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld AB 775, also known as the Reproductive FACT Act, which requires all pregnancy centers to "advise each patient at the time of her visit of the various publicly funded family planning and pregnancy-related resources available in California, and the manner in which to directly and efficiently access those resources." In other words, even pro-life pregnancy centers must give patients information on how and where to obtain an abortion, complete with a phone number for those services. The information must also be posted in such facilities. The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, rejected efforts to overturn the law on free speech grounds or even impose a preliminary injunction, saying the case by pro-life groups did not have strong odds of succeeding even though such laws have been ruled unconstitutional multiple times in the past. The pro-life community is outraged. "It's forcing these centers, whose whole existence is to help protect women from the dangers of abortion, it's forcing them to promote abortion in their own facilities," said Arina Grossu, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council. "This is a complete disruption and break of first amendment rights, first of all free speech, second of all to freedom of religion and the right to moral objection since this involves the killing of human beings," she added. Grossu says the law is officially designed to inform all California women of their "right to an abortion" but she says the real goal is to put these pregnancy centers out of business. "It's trying to drive out pregnancy care centers from California, because if a pregnancy care center is going to have to promote abortion, a lot of them may close their doors. This is a tragedy for women in California, who are looking for help, who are looking for answers, who are looking for the truth." said Grossu. "Here's where it's getting to: either you do what the state of California tells you or we're going to force you to close your doors," said Grossu. She says this policy will add confusion to the women facing an unplanned pregnancy and visit a pregnancy center because they want to keep their baby, only to hear the opposite message. "If she's going to a pregnancy care center, she's going there because she wants to find solutions for keeping a baby. And then seeing these signs is very confusing. But I think what it does for the workers in these centers is that it forces them to participate in the very thing that they're fighting," said Grossu. Grossu likens the state law to forcing a vegan store owner to inform customers where they can go buy meats or other animal products. She is also quick to point out that the law does not force abortion providers to deliver messages contrary to their mission. "I would ask this court, would you require the same of Planned Parenthood facilities to say, 'If you would like to keep your child, please send them to this pregnancy care center?'" said Grossu. Not only are Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers not forced to deliver that message, Grossu says former Planned Partenthood employee Abby Johnson says Planned Parenthood is known to refuse to let women change their minds about abortion. "She talked about how women, once they're in the Planned Parenthood room about to get the abortion, if a woman changes her mind, Planned Parenthood trains their staff on how to keep her in the room. How is that choice?" asked Grossu. While those previous court cases give Grossu and her allies hope this decision will be struck down, Grossu notes that other recent laws infringing on religious liberty are being upheld, most notably the example of the Washington state pharmacy that refused to sell abortion-inducing drugs. Even though 30 other pharmacies existed within a five-mile radius, the courts rejected the challenge and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Grossu says Americans must wake up to our freedoms being under attack. "We're going to be asked to stand up for our religious freedom in a time of persecution and civil and criminal prosecution, although we're not there yet," said Grossu. "We need to respect the rights of religious freedom and moral objection. If not, we're going to see a completely different country." |
| Putin's Plan to 'Shatter NATO' |
| Mon, 17 Oct 2016 16:17:23 EST Largely lost in the media focus on the presidential race, Russia is taking a series of provocative steps that a leading military expert believes are designed to expose NATO as unwilling to defend its own members and ultimately shatter the western alliance. In just the past few weeks, Russia has reportedly conducted a massive emergency drill involving 40 million civilians, moved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to an area that puts many European capitals in range, ordered officials serving in foreign countries to send their family members home, and state-run television is repeatedly asking civilians if they are ready for nuclear war. Is this all just very elaborate propaganda or is Russia about to make a major move? Retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash says it's all about Russia putting pressure on the West. "This is the continuing pressure that Russia is putting against NATO and the West. Moving the missiles into Kaliningrad, into the oblast there, is a direct pressure/threat/intimidation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the Baltic States," said Nash. He says Russia has both the capability and the intent of gathering more of the territory it once held as the USSR. But Nash believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is being strategic in order to build an argument for achieving his next objective. However, Nash says the real goal, regardless of the territory involved, is to neuter the defense commitments of NATO towards its members. "Shattering NATO would be Putin's best opportunity in the relatively few days he has remaining with a weak administration in the U.S.," said Nash. Nash says Putin is playing the long game and making life slowly more miserable for his adversaries. "It's sort of like a vise. He's slowly tightening the vise, not to do something so quickly that it would cause an immediate reaction or a harsh reaction," said Nash, noting that Adolf Hitler tested Europe's resolve in the 1930s by moving German forces into the demilitarized zone crafted at the end of World War I. Europe's decision to do nothing gave Hitler all the motivation he needed to push forward with his plan to conquer the continent. Nash says the slow play also seems to be Putin's strategy. "He understands that as long as he doesn't do anything really dramatic - the only really dramatic thing was re-annexing the Crimea, nothing happened. Now he's putting the pressure on. He's continuing to tighten the vise. The U.S. has withdrawn. Our political system appears to be in chaos from a foreign perspective," said Nash. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, NATO expanded by admitting some former Eastern Bloc nations, including former Soviet republics like the Baltics. While a fundamental bedrock of NATO is it's Article 5 vow that an attack on one member is seen as an attack on all, Nash says Putin is betting that NATO's old guard won't put up much of a fight its the junior members. "Do they see these newbie NATO countries as true peers, where they are willing to go to war against Russia on the behest of these guys, or does the whole NATO treaty fall apart?" asked Nash. In the long run, Nash expects Putin to make a regional pitch to NATO members that a partnership among neighbors makes more sense than an alliance with the U.S. "I doubt there will be overt military action. I think he is continuing to embarrass and show U.S. weakness to cause those fracture lines within NATO to open and deepen," said Nash. "He's trying to shake the resolve of NATO and say to the Europeans, 'Look, we control your gas. We're the Europeans. The Americans are taking care of themselves. This thing is a mess. Let's just get along over here, shall we? That way we won't have to go to war with each other. I think a lot of the NATO allies would be very amenable to that siren song," said Nash. He says Obama administration failures to shore up relations with countries from North Africa to the Middle East are putting Russia in a stronger position and the U.S. getting left behind. "We've withdrawn from the region and [those nations] are looking for who's going to be the dominant power, who's got the credibility. Unfortunately, we have unraveled decades worth of good work to have those countries align with the United States. It's all unraveled in the last eight years," said Nash. |
| Liberty Students Defend Public Rebuke of Falwell |
| Fri, 14 Oct 2016 16:31:52 EST Liberty University students are standing by their public criticism of school president Jerry Falwell, Jr., for what they say is "inexorably associating" the school with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. On Thursday, a group called Liberty United Against Trump released a nine-paragraph letter rebuking Falwell for his enthusiastic backing of Trump and carrying the name of Liberty University with him. "In the months since Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed him, Donald Trump has been inexorably associated with Liberty University. We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell 19s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him, the statement begins. "Associating any politician with Christianity is damaging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Donald Trump is not just any politician. He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose," the statement says. Liberty United Against Trump spokesman Dustin Wahl says students, who firmly rejected Trump in the primary, are fed up with Falwell associating them with Trump. "It's about the fact we don't want to associate Donald Trump with Christianity, most importantly, and then also with Liberty University," said Wahl, noting that Falwell has traveled to campaign for Trump and also spoke at the Republican National Convention. "He carries the banner of Liberty University when he goes. That's why people know who President Falwell is," said Wahl. Wahl acknowledges and seems to largely agree with the argument that Hillary Clinton will be aggressively hostile to the values Liberty holds dear. However, he says the amount of passion Falwell has for Trump's campaign is troubling to him. "There's quite a difference between casting a ballot for the lesser of two evils and being kind of frustrated about it than what Falwell has been doing, which is loudly and proudly supporting Donald Trump," said Wahl. Wahl says students have been frustrated with Falwell since the primary season, but Trump's comments about women in the recently released Access Hollywood tape from 2005 demanded the group dissociate from Falwell. who continues to back Trump. "Our motto is 'Training Champions for Christ,' and that is supposed to be our message. Our message isn't supposed to be endorsing any political candidate, but especially not one who directly opposes everything that we're taught and everything we're supposed to stand for and believe," said Wahl. And while stating the gospel of Christ cannot be stopped by any man, Wahl says Falwell's actions make the work more difficult. "It's difficult to advance the message of Jesus Christ of salvation from our sins when we're tying ourselves directly to a man who is not only sinful, because we're all sinful, but who proudly preaches his sin," said Wahl. He says Falwell and others who defend Trump risk being branded as hypocrites. "It's pretty disappointing when the same people who used to say that character matters when Bill Clinton has his problems are now saying that character doesn't matter when it comes to voting for the highest office in the land," said Wahl. Falwell quickly responded to the student statement. "I am proud of these few students for speaking their minds. It is a testament to the fact that Liberty University promotes the free expression of ideas unlike many major universities where political correctness prevents conservative students from speaking out. However, I am afraid the statement is false in several respects," stated Falwell. Falwell stated that Trump has much more support on campus than his critics are willing to admit. He also says many of the people in Liberty United Against Trump aren't even students and that he is always clear that he is not speaking for the university when he advocates for Trump. He also claims his actions are biblical. "I am only fulfilling my obligation as a citizen to 18render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar 19s 19 by expressing my personal opinion about who I believe is best suited to lead our nation in a time of crisis," stated Falwell, referring to Mark 12:17. Wahl is not impressed. "I'm not a biblical scholar but I think there's a strong argument to be made that's he's maybe taking that verse out of context. I believe that had a little more to do with taxes than , not so much with endorsing a specific presidential candidate," said Wahl. He says even Trump supporters on campus are applauding Trump opponents for speaking out. "We've received word from all kinds of Trump supporters here on campus and other places that are proud of what we're doing. Even though they're voting for Donald Trump, they say, 'Look, we don't want Liberty to be associated with a man like Trump. I personally think Hillary Clinton is worse. But I don't want my degree tied to someone like Donald Trump even though I'm choosing to vote for him for president,'" said Wahl. |
| The Rise of the Trumpocrats |
| Thu, 13 Oct 2016 16:30:43 EST Much attention is given to the Republican figures publicly turning their back on Donald Trump but there is also an active movement of Democrats enthusiastically backing the GOP nominee because they are convinced nothing will change if Hillary Clinton becomes president. It's called the Trumpcrats PAC. Executive Director Christian Rickers was a strong Bernie Sanders supporter during the Democratic primaries and determined that he would abandon the Democrats this year if his candidate did not prevail. "Early on I decided if he was not going to win the primary, that I was not going to support Hillary Clinton. She is a career politician," said Rickers. Rickers says just seeing the economic decline in his own community convinced him that Hillary Clinton was the wrong choice to lead our country for the next four years. "I came from a town with 25 manufacturing facilities 20 years ago and now it has one. Nobody is more responsible for that than the Clintons and the trade policies they've advocated over the years. We've just learned that Ford is leaving town and going to Mexico and taking all the jobs there, Carrier air conditioning and Maytag. When is this going to stop?" said Rickers. He says the Clintons are responsible for pushing American companies to set up shop in other countries. "We have policies in our country that incentivize our American corporations to take jobs overseas. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Why in the world would we incentivize American businesses to go overseas? Hillary Clinton's going to do more of the same," said Rickers. "Donald Trump is going to reverse those policies, renegotiate the trade policies that are killing jobs in the country. I think that's the most important thing we could do," said Rickers. Rickers applauds Trump for not only taking those positions but for making them a focal point of the campaign. "Donald Trump has said he's going to do something to bring the jobs back. That's what most people care about. They want to be able to provide for their families," said Rickers. The Trumpocrats PAC is busy convincing voters in blue collar swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio to ditch their instinct to vote for Democrats. "We're going through the Rust Belt, Pennsylvania all through Ohio. We've had millions of voters who have signed up and said they are Democrats who are supporting Donald Trump. It's going to make the difference in the election," said Rickers. And who are the people making this switch? "These are blue collar people who don't have the benefits they used to have. They don't have the health care they used to have, no pensions anymore, no security for their families. They're fed up with it and Washington's not going to fix it with Hillary Clinton. Everybody knows that if she's elected, we're going to get more of the same. That's why we're having so many Democrats who are now Trumpocrats," said Rickers. Rickers is encouraged that more than 100,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have switched their registration to Republican, compared to about 20,000 who flipped the other way. He says the numbers are even bigger in Ohio and the movement is huge around the nation but the mainstream media doesn't want to acknowledge it. "I've been on Fox News and Fox Business a couple dozen times. We've gotten a lot of good feedback from that but no invitation from MSNBC or CNN or major network shows because they don't want to report about it," said Rickers. It's not just the media who don't like the Trumpocrats movement. Loyal Democrats are not at all pleased with efforts to siphon votes away from Clinton. "If you think the Trump supporters are nasty and they call them deplorable, you ought to see the Clinton supporters. We had a tomato thrown at us the other day at the rally near Pittsburgh," said Rickers. "They're really nasty people, man. The Clintons have been doing this for years. They take a hatchet job on anybody who's their opponent. It's gutter politics. They're experts at it and we need to fight back," said Rickers. While some of the national and battleground state polls show Trump losing ground in recent days, Rickers fully expects the race to ebb and flow all the way to November 8. "I don't think anybody really knows how this thing is going to shake out. That's why people need to stay tuned, hang in there, support what we're doing at the Trumpocrats PAC, support all the candidates that are up and down the ballot," said Rickers. Rickers says the Trumpocrats PAC is focused almost entirely on the presidential race but also encourages voters to support other candidates on the ballot who will advance their ideals. |
| 'We Should Be Grateful We're Getting a Preview' |
| Wed, 12 Oct 2016 16:52:32 EST Top Clinton campaign officials are under fire after the latest batch of emails from Wikileaks referred to the Catholic Church as a "Middle Ages dictatorship," suggested some conservatives convert to Catholicism out of political expedience and that Clinton's campaign chairman considered the creation of nominally Catholic organizations to erode support for the church itself. Two exchanges among the latest batch of 1,200 emails released by Wikileaks are drawing the most scrutiny on this issue. The first came in in 2011 in an email from John Halpin of the Center for American Progress to John Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri. Podesta is now Clinton's campaign chairman and Palmieri is a top spokeswoman. After mocking News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch for having his Catholic children baptized in the Jordan River, Halpin broadens the discussion. "Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC and think tanks to the media and social groups," wrote Halpin. "It's an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy," he continued. "I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelicals," replied Palmieri. In a 2012 email, Podesta corresponds with Voices for Progress President Sandy Newman. Newman was looking for ways to build a movement to weaken the power of the Catholic church in the political debates over contraception, particularly with respect to the contraception mandate imposed as part of President Obama's new health care law. "We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up," wrote Podesta, noting that former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend would be a good choice to lead such a movement. Republican Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence immediately slammed the emails on Wednesday. "Hillary Clinton should denounce those bigoted, anti-Catholic, anti-evangelical remarks and her campaign staff should apologize to people of faith and do it now," said Pence. For many observant Catholicsm the contents of these email exchanges are deeply troubling. "It's hard to know where to start, to be honest," said Maureen Ferguson, senior policy adviser at The Catholic Association. However, she says her first reaction was oddly one of gratitude. "We should all be grateful that we're getting a preview of this before Election Day, so that we can go into the voting booth with very clear eyes knowing what a Hillary Clinton administration would look like," said Ferguson. "People at the highest level in her campaign are just displaying blatant bias and discriminatory attitudes towards people of faith. The way that they're mocking Catholics and evangelicals, there is obviously no respect here for those who cherish their first amendment freedom of religion," she added. While appalled at the comments, Ferguson says no one should be expect the Clinton team to think otherwise. "On the one hand, it's very surprising and stark to read these attitudes in black and white, but on the other hand we should not be surprised. This anti-Catholic, anti-people of faith bias comes on the heels of eight years of an administration which has been systematically undermining our religious liberty," said Ferguson. She points specifically to the Obama administration's imposing of the contraception mandate. "Remember the HHS mandate on contraceptives, telling Catholic nuns that had to be paying for contraceptives. This is using the heavy hand of the federal government, threatening massive government fines on a group of nuns (Little Sisters of the Poor) who are serving the elderly poor, unless they get in line with this liberal agenda," said Ferguson. She also says Hillary Clinton has also laid down the gauntlet on religious freedom. In April 2015, Clinton told the Women in the World Summit that biblical and moral opposition to abortion would be in the cross hairs of her administration. "Laws have to backed up with resources and political will and deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed," said Clinton. Ferguson is especially galled at Podesta for wanting to create nominally-Catholic groups to challenge Catholic authorities on cultural issues. "He admits to having been a part of creating these groups called Catholic Alliance for the Common Good and another one called Catholics United. Their specific purpose is to undermine the Catholic Church," said Ferguson. She says this is nothing new for Democrats. "We all became familiar over the years with Catholics for a Free Choice, which was a pro-abortion group that put the name 'Catholic' on it it to undermine the Catholic position in defense of the sanctity of human life. In these emails, John Podesta even admits to creating these two liberal Catholic front groups as a way to subversively attack the church," said Ferguson. Ferguson admits this has been a tough election season for many observant Catholics, being repulsed by Clinton's positions on a host of issues vitally important to them and by Donald Trump's behavior past and present. "I think so many of us Catholics feel quite homeless in this election," she said. But that does not mean both options are equally terrible in her eyes. "I think most people wish we had different choices in this election, but we should at least be clear-eyed about what a Hillary Clinton administration would look like. It would be full of people who are aggressively attacking our freedom of religion," said Ferguson. "Trump has made a lot of pledges on religious liberty and a lot of the people around him and a lot of the people around him, like Mike Pence for example, have come out very strongly. He has a history of very good positions on life and religious liberty and issues related to the family," said Ferguson. |
| 'It's the Smoking Gun' |
| Tue, 11 Oct 2016 16:26:54 EST Major mainstream media outlets now have some explaining to do after the latest Wikileaks email release reveals reporters, editors, and contributors not just advocating for Hillary Clinton but apparently colluding with the campaign. Emails show Univision Chairman Haim Saban urging the Clinton campaign to hit Donald Trump harder over immigration, the New York Times giving the campaign veto power over which interview quotes could be used in a profile of the candidate, the Boston Globe trying to time a Clinton opinion piece to do the most good in New Hampshire and CNBC's John Harwood uring Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to watch out for then-GOP candidate Dr. Ben Carson. The documents also show Democratic National Committee official and CNN contributor Donna Brazile tipping off the Clinton campaign to a potentially difficult CNN town hall question on capital punishment during the Democratic primary season. Brazile adamantly denies doing that. Mainstream media outlets are often accused of siding with Democratic candidates and policies, but evidence of active collaboration takes the concern to a new level. "It's the smoking gun," said Independent Women's Forum Senior Fellow Gayle Trotter, who is also a regular panelist on the Fox News Channel's "Media Buzz" program. "These revelations from the Wikileaks information show at the highest echelons of the New York Times , the Boston Globe, there is an effort to collude or give an assist to Hillary Clinton, which shows that these institutions are not unbiased. They are using their positions of power to influence the voters," said Trotter. She says the biggest surprise may be how much Democratic officials and the media worked behind the scenes to favor Clinton over primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders. "This goes beyond the partisan nature of Democrats vs. Republicans. These stories show there's even collusion among the candidate choices on the Democratic side," said Trotter. Trotter says there has always been good reason for the public to be wary of the mainstream media and this just validates that suspicion. "Definitely take everything with a grain of salt. Any of this breathless reporting of any of the candidates and what they say and what they do, they should understand there is a real effort behind the scenes to influence people's votes," said Trotter. "Regardless of what you think about the different candidates or which policies you favor, I think all voters should be aware they are not getting straight news. They are getting news with an agenda," said Trotter. Trotter says Sunday's debate is a clear example of media bias, where moderators Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC interjected to challenge Trump far more than when Clinton was speaking. But she says actions like those, by themselves, don't prove collusion. "It wouldn't necessarily show there was an active effort to assist a certain candidate. You could just think, 'Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz have their biases. It comes out in the way they do their jobs but it's maybe subconscious for them. They're not actively doing it,'" said Trotter. However, she says the lid is blown off that supposition when you see the New York Times agreeing to spike a Clinton quote in which she frets that the gay rights movement got results a lot faster than civil rights and the feminism movement. "You can see through these emails that it's not just subconscious bias but it's an active effort on the behalf of these favored candidates by the media elite," said Trotter. Trotter believes media figures would be wise to admit their mistakes and vow to do better instead of issuing denials like Brazile's. Trotter urges people to email or tweet the reporters or editors involved and let them know their conduct was unacceptable. She says Americans must demand better. "This should be unacceptable from a profession whose job it is to inform the democratic public, so that we can exercise our most cherished freedom to vote," said Trotter. |
| Dissecting the Energy Agendas |
| Mon, 10 Oct 2016 16:51:21 EST Policy took a backseat during much of Sunday's presidential debate, but one leading expert says the dust-up between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton over energy policy may one of the most consequential divides between the candidates as voters get ready to make their decisions. Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher C. Horner says America is facing a choice of whether to unleash the potential of our natural resources or kill a perfecty healthy industry to prop up a failed liberal dream. Late in the debate, undecided voter Kenneth Bone asked an energy policy question. "What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?" asked Bone. Trump answered first and began by slamming the heavy hand of government on the energy sector. "Energy is under siege by the Obama administration, under absolute siege," said Trump. "The Environmental Protection Agency is killing these energy companies." Horner says that basically right. "President Obama promised to use EPA through cap and trade, which failed, so he's gone through EPA without the legislation in an even more damaging way," said Horner. He says it's odd watching the left simultaneously claim among themselves that increased regulation is killing the coal industry as planned while telling the public it has nothing to do with it. "Now we're hearing, 'No, no, no, it's market forces. It's other things,' even while green pressure groups boast of having killed the industry," said Horner. While condemning Obama's EPA, Trump failed to specify how it was crippling energy companies or which regulations were doing the most damage. Horner is not surprised. "Specifics aren't Donald Trump's long suit, so while I could wish he got a lot more specific on a lot of things, I spend my time more productively," said Horner, who also says the regulatory scheme is fairly complicated and not easily explained in a debate format. "The truth is it's a whole suite of regulations. It is this wall of regulatory sound coming at parties," said Horner. Trump articulated an all-of-the-above strategy, embracing renewable energies along with oil, natural gas, and 'clean coal.' He says an economic boom is just waiting for the United States under our feet. Clinton also believes energy is the key to America's next economic surge. However, she believes the future is in embracing and prioritizing renewables and getting away from the traditional souces of energy. Horner says Clinton is planning to throw huge amounts of good money after ideas that are proven failures. "How many divisions does Solyndra have to play on her windmill, solar panel, superpower line, which is really tiresome?" asked Horner, referring to the failed California solar power firm that was kept afloat with by the federal government and ultimately lost $849 million in taxpayer money. He says Clinton has no interest in promoting what works, only the green agenda. "What Sec. Clinton is talking about is actually industrial policy. The problem is you're killing legitimate industries in order to create a viable version of something that's failed in the marketplace for 125 years," said Horner, noting that the push for wind and solar power has been afoot since the 1880s. "Therefore, it will be depended upon policy and the taxpayers and inefficiencies and redundancies and mandates and so on," he added. Horner says Clinton's political goals are clear. "I don't want A and I want B. B doesn't work on it's own and, darn it, A does so I have to kill A and have you pay for B. It has failed miserably," said Horner. During the Democratic primary season, Clinton proudly vowed to kill the coal industry and coal jobs. Now, she says only she has a plan to help those who lost their jobs due to woes in the energy sector. "She's said essentially, 'Don't worry. We've destroyed your livelihoods and when we're finished, you're all going to be wind mill repairmen,'" said Horner. "'I'm going to wreck your industry, ruin your communities for several years. Don't worry. I have something in mind that's essentially welfare, because I'm going to put you in make work.'" "There's a difference between work and make-work. What she's talking about is make-work, things that need the federal government to mandate them, give them preferences, underwrite them and so on - to even exist at any scale," said Horner. Horner says that approach is simply cruel. "It's absolutely heartless if she has any recognition of what's been going on in these communities targeted by this agenda," said Horner. Lastly, Clinton referred to natural gas as an important "transition" from our existing energy system to pure renewable energies like wind, solar and biofuels. Horner says the liberal flip-flop on clean-burning natural gas is another policy shift that will damage America's economy, as environmental groups swung from loving the abundance of natural gas to loathing it. Horner says it all feeds into the liberal agenda of energy scarcity, the notion that reducing the supply of energy will lower consumption. However, Horner contends the facts in Europe and elsewhere prove scarcity just leads to high energy prices, which leads to people being unable to heat or cool their homes - and dying by the thousands as a result. He says the inconsistency on natural gas is dizzying. "It used to be you're not allowed to use that because it's so scarce. Then it was, 'I'll let you use that if only you'll swear off this or let me ban it.' And now it's, 'We can use this for a while because it turns out we have unbelievable amounts of it,'" said Horner, "Please take a big view of what these claims are. 'I'm going to let you use something but not much of it, until I get you to things that are new, except they're 125 years old and have failed all along,'" said Horner. |
| Did Humans Cause Hurricane Matthew? |
| Fri, 7 Oct 2016 16:15:20 EST President Obama hailed his unilateral ratification of the climate change accords this week and his allies went so far as to say the agreement goes a long way to stopping major storms like Hurricane Matthew, but a leading climate change expert says that's nonsense. On Wednesday, President Obama hailed the accords as the "best possible shot to save the one planet we've got." NBC News White House reporter Ron Allen took the significance even further. "It's very interesting that this is happening on a day when there is a hurricane bearing down on the United States and in the Caribbean. Because these severe storms, beach erosion, intense weather episodes that we've had are perhaps the most practical example of what the president is talking about as the threat that the planet faces," said Allen. "This is what this whole climate agreement, signed by 190 nations and ratified by about 60 or so, is designed to stop," continued Allen. So is human activity in any way to blame for Hurricane Matthew? "Absolutely not," said Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg. He is also the author of "The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science" and "Human Caused Global Warming: The Biggest Deception in History." "By the way, Hurricane Matthew arrived off the coat of Florida on the four thousandth day of no recorded landfall hurricanes in the United States. This is why they had to hype it so much," said Ball. Ball says it's not hard to refute the supposed scientific consensus on the impact of human activity on our climate. He says they've been wrong all along. "If you look at the forecasts of the [United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] since 1990, every single one of them has been wrong," said Ball. "The basics of science is that if your prediction or forecast is wrong, you're science is wrong, But they're not admitting that. They're pushing ahead anyway." He says those trying to get the public on board with the climate agenda don't even have the basics of climate science correct. "From a science point of view, it's an absolute disaster and completely unnecessary. CO2 is less than four percent of the total greenhouse gases and the human contribution of that is .04 percent. Yet they completely ignore water vapor, which is 95 percent of the greenhouse effect," said Ball. Ball also has a problem with some of the data presented about Matthew and other storms. He asserts that the experts consistently over-estimate the power of hurricanes. "They determine the wind speed of the hurricane over water because they have no surface wind speed measurements. They determine it by flying an aircraft through at 30,000 feet. It gets a wind speed up there and then, using a computer model, it calculates the wind speed at the surface," explained Ball. "In every single case, that has been wrong. It happened with Katrina. They said it was a Category Five and it was actually barely a Category Three by the time it got ashore. The same thing is happening with Matthew," said Ball. Ball is also pouring cold water on the celebration of the climate accords. He says it's not nearly the global consensus that Obama would have us believe. "It is, of course, a non-binding treaty and that was demanded by countries like China and Russia, who said, 'We're not going to tie our hands with this.' And of course China has gone ahead with building two coal-burning plants every five days. It's just laughable," said Ball. He says the whole point of the Paris accords was not to line up commitments to reduce carbon emissions but to establish the Green Climate Fund, an idea that has been pursued by climate activists since the Kyoto Accords in the 1990s. And what is the Green Climate Fund? "The developed nations had to pay for their sins according to the amount of CO2 they were producing. Then the money was going to be given over to the developing nations because they were suffering from the sins of the developed nations," said Ball. "It was just a great wealth transfer." Ball says it's important to note that less than a third of the nations that signed the accords have actually ratified it. He also says the nations of the world are expected to contribute $100 billion to the fund every year, but so far it has less than five billion dollars. In his Wednesday statement, Obama admitted the accords would not solve climate issues but would be a good start. "The Paris agreement alone will not solve the climate crisis. Even if we meet every target embodied in the agreement, we'll only get to part of where we need to go," said Obama, while saying the deal would help to delay or avoid looming problems. Ball fears the next steps will only involve more government or even United Nations demands on the American taxpayer. He also says many climate activists admit all this action won't accomplish anything with respect to the climate, which was also the case with the highly trumpeted Kyoto Accords years ago. "Even if [Kyoto] was implemented in its full form, even the scientists were saying it will not be a measurable difference. The Paris climate agreement is even worse," he said. "It's a travesty from the start. It was the use of science for a political agenda and it's properly collapsing around its ears," said Ball. |
| Viguerie: Trump Must Follow Pence's Lead |
| Wed, 5 Oct 2016 16:26:54 EST Longtime conservative activist Richard Viguerie is lauding Indiana Gov. and Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence for giving what he believes is the most Reaganesque performance in a general election political debate since Reagan himself and says Donald Trump would be wise to emulate Pence's approach in his final two debates against Hillary Clinton. Pence squared off against Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, in the lone vice presidential debate Tuesday night at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. After a week of the Trump campaign being swarmed with questions about tax returns and a former Miss Universe, Viguerie says Pence expertly made the case for conservative principles and against Hillary Clinton. "It was just outstanding," said Viguerie. "I kept thinking, 'Gosh, I wish we could have nominated Mike Pence. In fact, in 2011 I spent some time with Pence trying to talk him into running for president. I know other friends of mine did the same." "Pence was just brilliant at laying out the position of the Democrats: taxes, spending, open borders. It was just so nicely done," he added. Viguerie says conservatives saw one of their own on a national stage in a way they haven't seen in more than a quarter century. "He comes closer than anybody since Ronald Reagan to being Ronald Reagan," said Viguerie. He believes Pence was so effective because he was able to articulate conservative principles in an approachable way - much like the Gipper. "He's got a demeanor about him that reminds me of Ronald Reagan. He can say something that's very sound and conservative in principle without scaring people. He's just got a wonderful mannerism about him. What you see is what you get. Away from the camera he's the same as he is on camera," said Viguerie. Viguerie hopes Trump was paying attention. "[Pence] was just having a conversation with somebody in their home. Mike Pence last night showed Trump the way to win this election, if Trump will just follow the lead of Mike Pence," said Viguerie. One of the major criticisms of Trump's first debate performance from the right was the number of opportunities he missed to highlight conservative principles and point out weaknesses in Clinton's record. Viguerie says Pence was crisp and sharp all night. "I can't think of an opportunity he misses. he was obviously very well-prepared, but it didn't look canned. Tim Kaine was also prepared but he looked scripted. It looked like he was reading off of talking points," said Viguerie. Viguerie believes Trump's greatest challenge will be emulating Pence when it comes to personal attacks against him and side-stepping his vulnerabilities in favor of articulating his agenda and exposing the weaknesses in Clinton's plans. "His identity is his business success. That's who he is. It's like a doctor walking around the hospital with a stethoscope stuck around his neck. That's who he is. Trump is a businessperson. He's very proud of his success. If you attack that, it's very difficult for him to avoid the trap that's been set for him. But he's got to do it if he wants to win," said Viguerie. Viguerie is also considering the impact of the debate on the long-term political careers of Pence and Kaine. He says other would-be conservative leaders will be taking a back seat to Pence, regardless of how the election turns out. "Among other losers last night were people named Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Paul Ryan. If the ticket were to lose in 2016, and I don't think they will, I think Mike Pence is going to be the favorite going forward," said Viguerie. "Win or lose, we'll see Mike Pence accept the mantle as being the leader of the conservative movement." As for Kaine, Viguerie suspects this bad night will linger for a long time. "We're all a brand. Tim Kaine walked on that stage as a blank slate. You only get one opportunity to make a first impression. His first impression was very weak," said Viguerie. He notes that early impressions can dog a new face on the national political stage for the rest of their careers, citing former Vice President Dan Quayle as an example. "Dan Quayle unfairly got branded as somebody that was kind of a lightweight. Very, very unfair but it was his introduction to American politics - in the debate and in his announcement when (George H.W.) Bush selected him," said Viguerie. "You carry that the rest of your life. I'm afraid for Tim Kaine that he may be branded as what we saw last night. He'll have a hard time creating a new brand," Viguerie added. |
| 'They Know It's in Trouble' |
| Tue, 4 Oct 2016 16:32:21 EST Health care expert Grace-Marie Turner says Bill Clinton's public criticism of Obamacare and obvious infighting within Obama's own administration proves the U.S. health care system is in big trouble on its current course. The former president made headlines Monday, when he discussed the big problems created by President Obama's signature domestic legislation. "The people that are getting killed on this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies. Why? Because they're not organized. They don't have any bargaining power with insurance companies. They're getting whacked," said Clinton. "So you've got this crazy system where suddenly 25 million more people have health care and the people busting it sometimes 60 hours a week wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world," said Clinton. Turner, who actively fought Clinton's health care reform in the 1990s and the push for Obamacare says, Clinton is on the right track - but only to a point. "He's got the diagnosis right. People are very unhappy with this law. The longer it's in place, the more unhappy they are. He's clearly hearing from small businesses. He's hearing from families who cannot afford their premiums," said Turner. However, Turner suspects Clinton's solution to the problem will only create more problems. "What he's doing I fear is teeing up, if Hillary is elected president, even more government control over the health sector. The American people know the problem is too much government control over health care," said Turner. She also says his characterization of what those millions of new people with health care coverage are receiving is badly misleading. "He's saying people have health care. No, they have health insurance. Ask people how hard it is to find a doctor to see them. People on Medicaid still have to go to hospital emergency rooms, particularly if they need specialty care," said Turner. Turner says the reasons for Obamacare's failures are obvious. "The health insurance companies are absolutely in straitjackets. The American people are being told the kind of health insurance they must buy, soup to nuts and absolutely everything anybody could think of, instead of actually having a policy that may work for them and their families that they may be able to afford. That's not a choice they have right now," said said Turner. She fears a Hillary Clinton presidency would look to add a public option or some other way to increase government control of the health care system. Bill Clinton hinted similarly by suggesting those not qualifying for subsidies should be able to buy in to Medicare or Medicaid at a cost that's comfortable for them, even if they don't qualify for them. Turner says that's a recipe for disaster. She says the average senior citizen couple pays about $160,000 into the Medicare system but ends up needing more than $400,000 in care. She says the math of stuffing more people into that system should be clear to everyone. "The system is not sustainable. It will go broke. It will go broke even faster if you put more people on it," said Turner. The Obama administration is also reportedly split on what do about insurance companies dropping out of the exchanges and demanding reimbursement in the billions of dollars. Some in the administration are apparently trying to work around existing law that forbids insurance company bailouts to keep the system alive. At the same, the Justice Department is also fighting back against court challenges from insurance companies to pay them overdue subsidies. Turner says this contradiction shows a fierce debate playing out within the administration. "You have a big disagreement between the political people who want to do everything they can to rescue Obamacare and the civil servants who understand that these payments are illegal. Congress has passed very specific legislation forbidding any more corporate welfare," said Turner. Turner says this public infighting, plus the Clinton comments prove this administration understands the perilous state of our health care system. "They know it's in trouble. We have been talking since the beginning, since before this law passed, about the problems with this law. It was totally predictable that this was going to happen. Finally the supporters are saying it has problems. I think it is a whole other level when former President Bill Clinton basically says the law is a mess and a crazy scheme," said Turner. She says it will be difficult to fix the law because the Democrats are only interested in spending more money in a bad direction and Republicans want nothing to do with that. Turner says real negotiation will have to take place since Republicans will have to be part of the discussions, unlike 2010 when the law passed with support only from Democrats. But Turner isn't interested in tinkering with what she sees as a failure. She wants to return to healthy competition in the health care sector. "Give consumers choices. They're happy with the product. They're engaged in helping to make sure that they spend their health care dollars wisely. And they see the savings when they make smart decisions," said Turner. "That's what we need more of, not more government spending and government control, thinking that somehow we're going to be able to spend enoughto that everybody can have all the health care they want all the time without any strings attached. That's not possible," said Turner. |
| Obama's PC Assault on Military Continues |
| Mon, 3 Oct 2016 16:27:30 EST Fresh off naming new Navy ships for liberal activists and removing "man" from personnel titles, U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is now moving forward with a massive overhaul of enlisted ratings titles throughout the service branch. "The Navy deep-sixed all of its 91 enlisted ratings titles [September 29], marking the beginning of an overhaul of the rigid career structure that has existed since the Continental Navy in a radical shift sure to reverberate through the fleet and the veterans community beyond," reported the Navy Times last week. "Sailors will no longer be identified by their job title, say, Fire Controlman 1st Class Joe Sailor, effective immediately. Instead, that would be Petty Officer 1st Class Joe Sailor," the story explains. Many active duty Navy personnel and veterans are incensed at what they see as another example of needless political correctness invading the armed forces. "It's just more of an assault of Secretary Mabus on the culture of the Navy, trying to make as many changes as he can, hoping that you throw enough stuff on the wall that some of it will stick. And for that he will pin it as a legacy. I think it's a mess," said retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash, who is also a Fox News Channel military analyst "It starts at the top with this whole thing bringing in transgenders, putting women in infantry combat units or at least putting them up where they can compete to get in there and then they're failing as they go through this process," said Nash, predicting that standards for infantry and special forces will likely be lowered so that more women can qualify for those roles. He says he and many other Navy vets are appalled by what they see as the social engineering of the armed forces. "It's disgraceful. It's not just my opinion. All of my retired fellow military types all feel the same way. We're just absolutely disgusted and can't wait for January," said Nash. This is far from the first move Mabus has made that raises eyebrows. The Navy Times article reports on a similar move implemented back in June. "In June, the Marine Corps 14 also under the Mabus edict 14 announced they 19d take 1cman 1d out of 19 occupational titles, as well," reported the Navy Times. Perhaps most controversial is Mabus deciding to name several forthcoming Navy vessels after political activists rather than presidents or military heroes. In addition to honoring civil rights figures John Lewis and Medger Evers, Mabus greenlighted ships carrying the name of 1970's California homosexual politician Harvey Milk and farm workers labor leader Cesar Chavez. "Harvey Milk was a homosexual pedophile who had issues out in California. Cesar Chavez, his quote about his two years in the Navy was , 'It was the worst two years of my life,'" said Nash. "We've got medal of honor winners who have not had ships named after them. Yet, we're running around on the fringe naming ships after people." "It really is all politics and this whole town has turned so political," he added. Nash wants to know where our military leaders disappear to when it comes time to defend the military culture. "What really upsets me in all of this is where are the joint chiefs? Where is that service before self that speaks truth to power?" asked Nash. Nash noted a recent Senate hearing featuring top military brass, where all the uniformed officers lamented a particular policy but, when asked, all admitted they had not mentioned their concerns to the president. "Grow a pair. That's your doggone job. You're a friggin' four-star. There's no such thing as a five-star. That's it. Maybe these guys not only have just rolled over, maybe they've just quit. Maybe it's just too hard to deal with the current administration. So you're not going to fight that fight. You're going to wait until somebody else comes along. Depending on who that somebody else is, they may be rolling over for a long time," said Nash. While Nash has tough reviews for Mabus and other service chiefs, Nash says the reality is that every meaningful decision about the military is really being made by the White House. "If the media really wanted to get into something, examine the size of the national security staff today compared to previous administrations. Why is it eight to ten times as large? Because they are doing everything," said Nash. "This is an imperial, dictatorial presidency. Everything is happening from the White House. The secretary of defense, as well as all the other cabinet secretaries, are just hanging out waiting to get their guidance from the White House. That's why the service secretaries travel so much. They're just out traveling because there's nothing to do in the building," said Nash. Nash says the effort of Obama and Mabus to scrub the culture and traditions of the Navy and other service branches is part of the same ideological effort to take down monuments and statues to the confederacy in remembrance of the Civil War. There is a major debate in Nash's city of Alexandria, Virginia, about removing a statue honoring the confederate war dead. Nash, a proud yankee, says erasing history is very dangerous precedent. "It has been said that he who controls the present controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future. If we can start decimating our history and our monuments to our history and rewriting the past, it becomes very easy to write the future and define the future on a past that never existed," said Nash. |
| 'Not Good for the Country, Not Good for the Taxpayer' |
| Fri, 30 Sep 2016 16:25:24 EST House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan is furious that yet another bloated bill to keep the government running was approved on Capitol Hill this week and he fears it will only set the stage for an even greater spending binge come December. Rep. Jordan, R-Ohio, says this move was designed by party leaders to avoid a government shutdown that would surely be blamed on Republicans, even though he says it's really the Democrats that gummed up the appropriations process. "It's not good for the country and not good for the taxpayer," said Jordan. The legislation, known as a continuing resolution, easily passed the U.S. Senate 72-26 on Wednesday, followed by a similarly lopsided 342-85 margin in the House. It keeps federal funding at existing levels but also includes special funding for Zika response, aid for flood victims in Louisiana and other projects. Jordan says he voted against the bill for multiple reasons, including Congress failing to follow regular order and approve 13 individual spending bills rather than one giant bill that only the leadership of both parties in the House and Senate got to craft. He also says it ignores our nation's balance sheet once again. "I think when you've got a $20 trillion debt, you've got to try to get a handle on the spending. Here we are increasing it at a time when the deficit went up this year. Really? We're just going to go ahead and spend at that level. [The House Freedom Caucus] felt that didn't make sense and that's why we were against the earlier budget proposal in the Spring of this year as well," said Jordan. While Jordan is frustrated that spending levels negotiated by President Obama and former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, are still in place, he says Democrats are very effective at forcing the GOP's hand. "Primarily, it's not happening because in the Senate, Harry Reid won't let the individual bills come up for a vote. That's the way it's supposed to work," said Jordan. "He's been able to win every fight by saying, 'Look, I'm going to hold up defense spending until you give me the spending I want on domestic issues." "What that means is taxpayers get the short end. I think, frankly, our military gets the short end of that deal too and it's just not good for the country," said Jordan. Jordan says Republicans would be in a position to cut spending without Reid's parliamentary games. "If we could get our troops funded and our military funded at the right level and get that bill taken care of early, then I think we could go after some of the ridiculous spending and some of the ridiculous regulations within the federal government," said Jordan. He says Republicans always end up giving in as government shutdowns loom because the party refuses to frame the debate in a way that would be a winner for them in the court of public opinion. Jordan says the party needs to fight. Last year, he says the battle should have been waged over Planned Parenthood funding in the wake of videos explaining how the nation's largest abortion provider alters their methods of killing unborn babies in order to preserve organs for which researchers pay the most money. This year, Jordan thinks the battle should have been pitched over tightening up the vetting of Middle East refugees. Incidentally, Planned Parenthood funding may soon be increasing due to the provisions associated with the Zika funding. So why did 70 percent of House Republicans vote for the continuing resolution? Jordan says there are multiple reasons, but the political calendar is the most likely explanation. "Some are okay with the spending levels and everything else, but for some I think it was also a concern about a shutdown scenario here five weeks before a presidential election," said Jordan. The government is now funded until December 9. Jordan says that debate will look even uglier as a lame duck session cobbles together funding through September 2017. "We're kicking a big spending measure into a lame duck session; a lame duck session when a number of members will no longer be accountable to the voters. The voters will just have spoken, just picked a Congress for the upcoming year. Yet, they're going to be going back and dealing with billions of dollars of spending," said Jordan. Jordan says that never turns out well for taxpayers. "In the last five years, we have seen what happens in lame duck sessions. We've seen what happens right before the holidays. You get tax increases. You get omnibus, cromnibus, big spending measures. It never works out good for the taxpayers and families of this country in my judgment," said Jordan. The congressman says this is yet another aspect of the system that drives voters crazy, as Washington operates under a different set of rules than most hardworking Americans. "There are two standards. One for 'We the People' and a different one for the politically connected. One for us regular folks and another if your name is Lois Lerner, John Koskinen or Hillary Clinton," said Jordan referring to IRS officials neck-deep in the scandal of the government harassing conservative groups and individuals. And just this week, lawmakers, including Jordan, grilled FBI Director Jim Comey over multiple immunity offers and no prosecutions in the investigation of Clinton's handling of classified information and her use of a private server. Jordan says the public is incensed, even if the Justice Department is not. "That's why you see such strong appeal for Donald Trump, particularly in our state of Ohio. It's because they know he's going to come in and shake up the system, which needs to happen," said Jordan. |
| 'Hillary Clinton is Going to Be Barack Obama's Third Term' |
| Thu, 29 Sep 2016 16:08:01 EST Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is warning Hillary Clinton would be nothing more than President Obama's third term in the fight against radical Islamic terrorism, applauding Donald Trump's aggressive stand on ISIS and fearing there could be many negative repercussions to Congress allowing 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia. Bolton, who publicly supports Trump, served as UN ambassador from 2005-2007. Before tha,t he served in the State Department under President George W. Bush. Monday night's first presidential debate was touted as having a substantial focus on national security. It didn't live up to that billing, but Clinton and Trump did cover their approaches to ISIS and cyber security. Clinton offered more specifics than Trump on how to defeat ISIS, but Bolton says her prescription sounds familiar. "Hillary Clinton is going to be Barack Obama's third term. I think that's true not just on national security matters but on domestic policy as well," said Bolton. "While she likes to say, and did several times on Monday say I've got a plan for this or I've got a plan for that, her plan for ISIS sounds suspiciously like Barack Obama's, except she's going to do it better." Bolton says he likes Trump's emphasis on defeating ISIS swiftly. "Trump has been very clear. As long as ISIS has a privileged sanctuary from which it can recruit new members and train and direct them to terrorist activity in Europe of the United States, that's a real threat to us. So the slow rolling Obama offensive against ISIS in Iraq and Syria has really cost us and could cost us and could cost us further in very human terms," said Bolton. "Trump has been about as emphatic as one can imagine that he believes that rapidly defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria ought to be the top priority," said Bolton. Clinton attacked Trump for not being more public about his approach to defeating ISIS and suggesting he doesn't have one. Trump responded by saying that Clinton is showing our enemy exactly what she would do. Bolton says he's not worried by Trump's lack of specifics. "Even if he laid out a plan today, in six months, when - assuming he wins - he takes office, the lay of the land could be different," said Bolton. Adding to the complexities surrounding ISIS is the dire warning from FBI Director James Comey in congressional testimony this week that removing a physical sanctuary for ISIS does not entirely solve the problem and actually a new concern. "The so-called caliphate will be crushed. The challenge will be: through the fingers of that crush are going to come hundreds of very, very dangerous people," Comey said at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the global terror threat. "There will be a terrorist diaspora sometime in the next two to five years like we've never seen before." "We must prepare ourselves and our allies particularly in western Europe to confront that threat because when ISIL is reduced to an insurgency and those killers flow out they will try to come to western Europe and try to come here to kill innocent people," added Comey. Bolton agrees with Comey, first about how long it will take to defeat ISIS on our current course. "I think what he's implicitly saying is that if Hillary's elected, carrying out Obama's policies will take several years to defeat ISIS," said Bolton. He says ISIS is rather effective at slowing the advance of the U.S. and our allies. "They have not been in the kind of chaotic retreat that would signal a breakdown of their command and control or their discipline. If they are able to hold with that level of professionalism, I think they'll fight a slow retreat, hold off as long as they can, wait for the United States to get tired or get diverted by something else," said Bolton. But Bolton says Comey is also right about what happens to those ISIS fighters once their territory is taken away form them. "If it looks like they're going down to defeat, I think they will do precisely what FBI Director Comey said. They'll simply leave the region and go and carry on their war against the West in Europe or in the United States itself," said Bolton. Overall, Bolton says the first debate did not spend nearly enough time focused on national security. "I don't think there was enough time and the topics in the debate were very broad," said Bolton. "I just think, given the threat of international terrorism around the world, the threat of nuclear proliferation, the threats of Russia and China, that people need to size up the candidates on how they're going to do dealing with these foreign challenges," said Bolton. The former ambassador is also speaking out of the first congressional veto override of the Obama administration. Lawmakers overwhelmingly enacted legislation allowing the families of 9/11 victims to seek damages in court from the government of Saudi Arabia. Bolton believes the bill is a bad idea. "By lifting Saudi or any other nation's sovereign immunity, if they are alleged to have engaged in terrorist acts, we're exposing military personnel, intelligence agents, diplomats and even private citizens to being arrested overseas, to being pursued by lawsuits, to having frivolous lawsuits filed against the U.S. government that endanger our operations all around the world," said Bolton. He says if Saudi Arabia were proven to be behind the 9/11 attacks it would be grounds for war, not civil lawsuits. He also believes it gives false hope to families still hurting from their losses on 9/11. "The bill is a cruel hoax on the families of the victims. They're not going to find out anything more than what the general public already knows. The Saudis are not going to allow them to wander through their files or interview their top officials. At the end of the day, the victims' families are going to be right where they are today," said Bolton. Bolton blames the Obama administration for doing very little to explain to lawmakers why this bill might be well-intentioned but harmful to U.S. interests. |
| 'Business and Government Are Being Breached at an Insane Pace' |
| Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:55:31 EST The revelation that at least 500 million user accounts were hacked at Yahoo is spawning more concern over cyber security failures by the U.S. government and corporate America, and a leading cyber expert says we're still not serious about a problem that is much worse than most people realize. The stunning admission that more than half a billion user account credentials were stolen by the breach at Yahoo, including users' email addresses, birth dates, passwords and some security questions. Even more troubling to some experts is how long the hack played out. "Whoever it was was lurking around in their system since 2014, which is an inordinately long period of time. Usually someone is in about 201 days and there start to be indications that they're in there. In this case, Yahoo didn't even find out until they were notified by somebody else," said IDT911 Founder and Chairman Adam Levin. "That is distressing, but it also shows that regardless of how big companies are and how technologically sophisticated they are, we're living where breaches are the third certainty in life, that cyber war has replaced the Cold War and that you've got very sophisticated, creative and persistent people that are getting into systems all over the world and are becoming more and more difficult to ferret out," said Levin. Levin says the scope of hacking right now is far beyond what most people realize. "Business and government are being breached at an insane pace. Up to about a year ago, over a billion files had been improperly accessed by people that had no right to be there. They projected that in 2016, before they were thinking about Yahoo, we could have as many as one billion files that were improperly accessed through breaches," said Levin. He also says Americans must scrap the mentality that hackers want nothing to do with normal, everyday people. "A lot of people say, 'Why does anybody want to breach me. I'm nobody. What they have to understand is - both our companies and government and each and every one of us - we are all Kim Kardashian. We are all celebrities," said Levin. "They want to get what we've got because there's money at the end of the rainbow based on the information they can get from us, that they can exploit, that they can use to create a mosaic of our lives. They can commit identity theft or steal intellectual property and trade secrets," said Levin. The nature of identity theft is also evolving and getting more elaborate. "When you talk about identity theft, we're way beyond people opening accounts in people's names. We're talking about medical identity theft, where you could die on a stretcher because of a wrong blood type. You could end up on a no fly list. You could be arrested because you're pulled over for a busted tail light and there are warrants for your arrest. There could be tax fraud, child identity theft. We're living in serious times," said Levin. However, he says the government is still not taking the threat as seriously as it should be. "When you have a Congress that can't agree on the day of the week, when you have administrations that have to fight for every penny in order to harden cyber defenses, where you have a two million person projected gap in cyber security professionals. We've got a lot of work to do. This should be a front burner issue," said Levin. The issue was raised in Monday's presidential debate. Levin says we're going to need a lot more from our next president on this issue than what we saw on that stage. "It's more than just making strong statements or talking about expertise by one's child. We've got to get deadly serious about this," said Levin. After noting that breaches are inevitable, Levin advises individuals to minimize their risk, monitor their situation and manage the damage. When it comes to reducing your digital exposure, Levin says consumers need to be much better about protecting their information. "If someone contacts you online, or in person or telephonically, and asks you to authenticate yourself, you hang up, you delete, you walk away. It's one thing if you're in control of the interaction and they need information to confirm you're you. It's another if they're in control of the conversation, because they should know your credit card number or your security code or your Social Security number," said Levin. He also recommends never carrying your Social Security card on you, choosing strong passwords and never sharing your passwords with anyone over email or social media. Levin also encourages people to monitor their credit scores, since major drops indicate a breach. And he suggests taking advantage of free services that banks, insurance companies and corporations often have to clean up the damage. |
| 'The Kind of Thing that Happened Under King George III' |
| Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:31:31 EST A bipartisan group of lawmakers is drafting legislation to block a new Obama administration rule that would allow the government to hack into the devices of any American on the permission of a single judge without the need for any evidence of wrongdoing. At issue is Rule 41 (b)(6)(B) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which spells out the protocol the federal government must follow to obtain information from American citizens. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, says the proposed language is a major departure from the current policy. "Right now, as it stands without this change, the government has a requirement that it must apply for a single warrant and that it has to be in the same judicial district where this search will take place," said Lee. "But under the amended version of Rule 41 (b)(6)(B), if that takes effect, this deliberate and focused process would be scrapped and it would be scrapped in favor of a nationwide warrant to search millions of devices anywhere across the country," said Lee. The senator says under the proposed rule change the Obama administration just needs one judge in the U.S. to hack your phone or computer. "The impact of Rule 41 (b)(6)(B) would be to allow a single judge to issue a nationwide warrant empowering the federal government to hack into any computer that people in the government believe may be part of a botnet," said Lee. A botnet is a group of private computers infected with malicious software. Once infected, that network of devices is used without the knowledge of those computers' owners to send spam and engage in other nefarious activities. Lee says the desire to crack down on botnets is understandable, but not at the expense of constitutional rights. In April, the Supreme Court quietly approved the proposed rule change, but Lee says there's a reason why we have three branches of government. "Regardless of whether the Supreme Court is likely to strike down this or that law, what do we think about it? Is this consistent with our own standards of what we think the federal government ought to be authorized to do. We ought to undertake an examination of each of these policy decisions with our own view of the fourth amendment in mind," said Lee. The fourth amendment to the Constitution says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Lee believes the Constitution is very clear on this proposed rule change. "Yes, this offends my own view of privacy as protected by the fourth amendment," said Lee. In fact, he thinks this effort to skirt the fourth amendment ought to remind us of why we have it in the first place. "When there's blanket permission, it starts to look like the kind of thing that happened under the reign of King George III (prior to the American Revolution) on both sides of the Atlantic. The government would use what they call general warrants, a warrant basically saying, 'Go get the bad guys. You can search anything you want,'" said Lee. Lee expects a strong bipartisan effort in Congress to push back against the Obama administration. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, is taking a major role in this effort, as is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. Even the ACLU is opposed to the rule change. But the clock is ticking for Lee and his allies. "The House and Senate must pass resolutions of disapproval prior to Dec. 1 to prevent this from going into effect. We've got Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and Democrats and Republicans in the House who support that. Now, not every Democrat and not every Republican shares that view but many of us do. That's why we're getting the word out now," said Lee. They must not only get the resolutions passed but also be ready for an Obama veto. Overriding that veto would require two-thirds majorities in both chambers. Lee has not begun any sort of formal head count, calling it "unnecessary" and "counter-productive" when the effort to educate the public is just beginning.He says public pressure on members of Congress could be the difference between winning and losing. "We need everyone who hears about this proposed rule change to Rule 41 (b)(6)(B) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to reach out to their senators and their congressmen and tell them how they feel about this," said Lee. A more urgent deadline looms on Friday, September 30. That's when the U.S. is scheduled to cede control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. "Normally, as a constitutional conservative, I'd be elated to have the government relinquishing control of something. The only problem here is in this case we're not relinquishing it to the American people. We'd be relinquishing it, potentially, to despotic governments throughout the world, government's run by people who might have very different ideas about the internet and censorship," said Lee. He says the lack of specifics on what comes next with ICANN is the most unnerving part. "We need to wait and make sure that ICANN remains under government control until we know who's going to be running it and how it's going to be organized, what kinds of things foreign governments would and would not be able to do to censor and impose artificial restrictions on the internet," said Lee. He says internet domain control falling into the wrong hands would not only chill the free flow of information but also endanger other key liberties. "You could also end up seeing a lot of intellectual property rights diminished or even eliminated by the wholesale assignment of a domain name belonging to one person or one company over to another," said Lee. With just three days left top fight this issue, Lee and his allies are hoping to jam a provision into must-pass legislation. "We need something attached to the spending bill that needs to be passed between now and Friday to contain some type of limitation, some type of language limiting the Obama administration's ability to relinquish control of ICANN," said Lee. |
| 'Jim Comey Has to Go' |
| Mon, 26 Sep 2016 16:19:33 EST Former Justice Department official Victoria Toensing says more and more evidence shows FBI Director James Comey made basic errors in the investigation of Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information and many FBI personnel believe his conduct has embarrassed the bureau. In July, Comey offered a long list of poor decisions and "extremely careless" behavior by Clinton because she ran all of her email through a private email server before saying there was no intent by Clinton to break the law and no precedent existed for prosecuting the case. Therefore, Clinton would not be charged. Since then, the FBI has released more and more evidence from the case, leaving Toensing and others with deep reservations about Comey's competence. The latest revelations include the extension of immunity to Clinton's State Department Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, that President Obama communicated with Clinton via her server under a pseudonym and that Comey allowed one prominent Democratic attorney to represent four different witnesses in the case. "I think Jim Comey has to go," said Toensing. "I can't tell you the number of present federal prosecutors and FBI people who have been talking to my husband (former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova) and me about how upset they are with Jim Comey and his performance and how it's embarrassed the FBI," said Toensing. While admitting any punishment for Comey is unlikely, Toensing is calling on Congress to rebuke him. "Congress should at least pass some kind of a resolution condemning him for his inability, it seems, to conduct an investigation in a way that a first-year federal prosecutor would know how to do," said Toensing. Mills is one of multiple people who received limited or full immunity during the investigation. Toensing says that should have been unnecessary but Comey failed to take one of the most basic steps in law to further the investigation. "You have to open a grand jury," she said. "Why didn't the director open a grand jury? In his report, he complains that he didn't get certain documents. He tried to get these documents but couldn't get them. Well, do you know what you do in an investigation? You open a grand jury. Then you issue a subpoena and you get those documents." She says would have been particularly important with Mills. "If he had a grand jury open, he would have been able to subpoena the computer of Cheryl Mills. So he wouldn't have had to give her immunity. He could have just subpoenaed it and he would have gotten that computer," said Toensing. Even more bizarre, despite Mills being given immunity - which is protection from criminal prosecution - Mills was allowed to sit in on the FBI's interview of Clinton in July. is this common practice? "I've never heard of it," said Toensing. She's also never heard of an investigation where a single attorney has been allowed to represent so many critical witnesses. "He allows Beth Wilkinson, a known Democrat, to represent two attorneys (including Mills) and two other people. He allowed one lawyer to represent four people. That's unheard of," said Toensing. "Just think how she got to coordinate their testimony." Toensing says the new revelation that Obama emailed Clinton on the private server raises another red flag. "It seems that he also thinks the president was involved, because now we know from the weekend dump, that the president was using an alias. Therefore, the president had to know about this use of the private server. Now, he's got the White House involved. He's got the Democrat nominee involved. He just didn't want to deal with it," said Toensing. She believes Comey, who has long had a reputation for seeing the law in black and white, wanted to avoid injecting the FBI into the middle of a contentious campaign season. In addition, Toensing is flabbergasted that no one is facing charges for destroying evidence through the tens of thousands of emails that Clinton admits her legal team deleted. Clinton claims they were all personal matters but previous FBI document released dispel that argument. Toensing says that shows clear intent, regardless of Comey's insistence he could find none. "Destroying evidence is just the most wicked evidence one could have against a person. I have never heard of lawyers purposely destroying evidence and not being the target of an investigation themselves," said Toensing. "I would be shaking in my boots if I had a subpoena from the Justice Department for a client and I went in and said, 'Oh, we went through the files and we thought three file cabinets weren't important so we just threw those away,'" said Toensing. |
| 'We're in This Era Now Where Facts Don't Matter' |
| Fri, 23 Sep 2016 16:30:54 EST A retired police officer who witnessed community chaos first-hand after a police-involved shooting in Missouri is imploring Americans to know the facts on recent cases in North Carolina and Oklahoma before drawing conclusions or engaging in violence. Jeffrey Roorda is a retired police officer and a former four-term state lawmaker in Missouri. He witnessed the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, first-hand and wrote a book about it. His forthcoming work is "The War on Police: How the Ferguson Effect Is Making America Unsafe." He says Americans need to focus on the facts rather than the raw emotion in these cases. "We're in this era now where facts don't matter. We've seen that not just in Charlotte, but in cities where people have gone berserk and acted the way we saw in those first night protests in Charlotte," said Roorda. Looking at Keith Lamont Scott case in Charlotte, Roorda says the Charlotte police account of Scott's actions means the deadly police fire was warranted. Chief Kerr Putney told reporters that officers witnessed Scott brandished a gun and refused to drop it after being repeatedly ordered by police to do so. "You tell the guy to drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun and now you're in this tenuous standoff. The moment he makes any movement that appears to be raising the gun. It's absolutely a deadly force situation," said Roorda. For those wondering why officers couldn't just wound Scott, Roorda offers a window into how police train for these situations. "This isn't like re-runs of 'Barnaby Jones' where he shoots the gun out of the guy's hand every time. That's not real life," said Roorda. "It's hard to hit to hit appendages when you're shooting at a piece of paper that is stationary. When a guy is moving around when you're in a high-stress situation of a standoff with an armed subject, the training - and this officer followed his training - is to fire center mass. That's the hardest part of miss. It is the area of a person's body where it is most likely to stop their action and end the threat," said Roorda. Roorda says the Crutcher case in Tulsa is far more complicated. That's where Officer Betty Shelby has been charged with first-degree manslaughter following video showing her shooting Crutcher while his hands were raised. Through her attorney, Shelby says Crutcher refused to obey verbal commands. Roorda says that in itself is not enough justification to shoot. "You don't shoot somebody just because they're not listening to you. You shoot them because they are presenting what you perceive to be a deadly threat," he said. "That case is a little harder. I'm not going to deny that the video is hard to watch and it's harder to square up. My job is to defend cops but she may have overreacted. She may have panicked," said Roorda. But Roorda says other details of that case complicate the picture in the other direction. He says police got a call about a person whose car was stopped in the middle of the road and who was acting as if they were under the influence of something. He says that part of Tulsa is known for the prevalence of PCP and the drug was found in Crutcher's car, which was running and not stalled. He says dealing with subjects while on mind-altering substances is a major challenge for police. "Those folks are very dangerous. I don't know how many of your listeners have ever had to fight a guy who is on PCP or meth but it ain't fun," said Roorda. And he says Crutcher's alleged noncompliance with Shelby's commands may have led to the officer perceiving an imminent threat. "He's walking away from her at one point. That's when the video picks up with his hands up. He's still not listening. He's still not dropping to his knees as she's ordering him to do. He gets back to the car. He reaches in the car and she perceives that as a threat that he's going to produce a weapon," said Roorda. Even if Shelby did overreact, Roorda does not believe she belongs in prison. "Is that really a crime? Is that a chargeable felony that's going to end this officer's career and put her behind bars. I don't know that squares up with our values as a country," said Roorda. Roorda implores the media to report all the facts of these high-profile cases and not pick and choose which details help their side. "The media has to report all the information they have. They can't pick and choose things that fit or don't in their narrative. That's for the far left and the far right," said Roorda. |
| Hillary, Trump and the Right to Work |
| Thu, 22 Sep 2016 16:32:34 EST Hillary Clinton urged organized labor officials and members to rally to her cause, promising to be a fierce opponent of the Right to Work movement and warning that Donald Trump is "100 percent" supportive of it. The Democratic presidential nominee made the comments in a video message to the Laborers International Union of North America meeting in Las Vegas. "I will fight back against so-called Right to Work. Right to Work is wrong for workers and wrong for America," said Clinton. But what is Right to Work? "Right to Work simply means you have the choice whether or not to join or financially support a labor union as a condition of getting or keeping a job in America. It really is that simple," said National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix. He says the message is really aimed at labor bosses. "I think what she's trying to convey to union officials, not rank-and-file workers, is that if she is elected president, she will stand in the way of a growing movement to free workers from compulsory unionism," said Mix. "I think this is the fifth or sixth time she has made this an issue in various venues about how she believes workers should be fired from their jobs if they don't tender union fees or dues to a labor boss," he added. Mix also says the labor bosses are more than ready to carry the water for Clinton in the final weeks of this campaign. "There's no question that the union bosses across the country will spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars trying to put her in the White House so that she can stand in defense of this compulsory unionism privilege that union officials have," said Mix. In the video, Clinton says the agendas of her and Donald Trump couldn't be more different and wondered why this election wasn't a rout in the polls. "Why aren't I 50 points ahead, you might ask. Well, the choice for working families has never been clearer. I need your help to get Donald Trump's record out to everybody. Nobody should be fooled. He proudly declared himself 100 percent Right to Work," stated Clinton. Mix says that statement helps to explain why Clinton doesn't have a big lead in this race. He says the public is against her on this issue. "The reason she's not up 50 points is because eight out of ten Americans believe it's wrong to force workers to pay dues to get or keep a job," said Mix. He says Trump is standing on the side of the majority of Americans who believe workers should get to choose whether they join a union and pay dues. To date, 26 states have enacted Right to Work laws, allowing labor groups to attempt unionizing, but ultimately leaving the decision up to the employees. Mix says the economic performance in those states is stunning compared to the 24 states that do not embrace Right to Work. "Those states that had it from 2005-2015 had nearly double the private sector job growth than the states that didn't have Right to Work. As far as business location, site selection and business expansion, Right to Work states are leading the country in creating new opportunities and new jobs for people," said Mix. "Union officials ought to be happy about that. They can go into those states where the new jobs are and they can try to organize those workers. The problem that union officials have and that Hillary Clinton has is that they think they ought to be granted this government privilege to force everyone to pay them a fee," said Mix. It's the federal government that granted labor unions the power to force workers to join unions and pay dues back in the Franklin Roosevelt administration. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act kept the policy in place but allowed states to take action to remove those requirements for workers. Mix says if Hillary Clinton wins and gets enough allies in Congress, the right of states to decide their own paths on Right to Work could be in jeopardy. "What Hillary Clinton could do is join with her supporters in Congress and union officials here in Washington and try to repeal Section 14B of the Taft-Hartley Act and wipe out all 26 Right to Work laws in fell swoop," said Mix. |
| Court Rules Christian Artist Expression Not Speech |
| Wed, 21 Sep 2016 16:40:47 EST Christian artists in Arizona are taking their challenge of a Phoenix ordinance to an appeals court after a lower court upheld the city policy forbidding businesses to refuse service at a same-sex wedding and banning business owners from posting any expressions that protected groups might find offensive. Brush & Nib owners Breanna Koski and Joanna Duka filed a pre-enforcement suit against Phoenix earlier this year, meaning they were not accused of violating the ordinance but challenged it on first amendment grounds. At the center of the debate is § 18.4(B) of the city code, which "bars public accommodations from discriminating on the basis of a person 19s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability and from making any communication implying people will be discriminated against or are objectionable because of these protected traits." Koski and Duka were generally fine with the language until they understood it to mean they could not opt out of providing work for an event that conflicts with sincerely-held religious beliefs and being unable to display work expressing their beliefs in their shop. The City of Phoenix vigorously defended the ordinance and on Monday the Superior Court of Arizona for Maricopa County agreed. "The logic of the court was that when our clients create paintings and write words on their artwork that they're not expressing any message at all, that it's not speech at all," said Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Jonathan Scruggs. Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Brush & Nib in the case. While rejecting the petition for an injunction against the ordinance, Judge Karen A. Mullins also refused to dismiss the case as requested by Phoenix officials. Still, Scruggs says Mullins seemed to side with the two primary arguments made by the city. "One argument (from the city) is that our clients are not speaking at all. Even though they are writing words and creating artwork, none of that conveys messages. It's just conduct the city can regulate, just like if our clients were making a sandwich and selling it. That's just not true. Words do express messages," said Scruggs. He says the other contention from the city is equally galling. "Another disturbing argument is that it's essentially no big deal when our clients have to celebrate same-sex wedding ceremonies because all our clients have to do is write words down. You just have to write one word and not the other. Therefore, you're not being burdened at all," said Scruggs. "That pretty much nonsense." He says anyone with a basic grasp of the first amendment should know that argument doesn't hold water. "When you have to affirm a belief, a ritual, an idea that you don't believe in. That really goes to the core of what freedom is," said Scruggs. The second dispute with the ordinance centers on forbidding businesses from expressions that might offend others. "It's a part of the law that basically says our clients cannot issue any type of communication that implies someone is unwelcome or not solicited or undesirable. The language is very broad and very vague and could apply to anything. Almost anything could make someone feel unwelcome," said Scruggs. "If businesses and individuals can't put things up on their website to express their beliefs, then where can they put it? So it's really a strong attack on religious and expressive freedoms in our country," said Scruggs. Scruggs says the ordinance violates his clients' rights of free speech and expression from both directions. "You can't win here and you can't win there. You are forced to convey messages you don't want to convey and you can't convey the messages that you do want to convey. You're simultaneously being silenced and being compelled to speak against your beliefs," said Scruggs. He says the logical conclusions of this policy are "scary." "If these two artists can't do that, in theory that should mean other artists can't either - and other writers and other speakers can't. That's a scary notion that the government gets to decide what's legitimate and what's not, what's permissible and what's not," said Scruggs. Scruggs says his clients are in strong position on appeal. "It's clearly wrong and we've already appealed that decision to the appellate court of Arizona. That's the next step in this process," said Scruggs. In addition to arguing the case on constitutional grounds, Scruggs says the Arizona Supreme Court's recent actions also give him reason for optimism. "In 2012, just four years ago, the Arizona Supreme Court specifically said that a tattoo parlor engages in expression when it tattoos words and images on somebody. This is just common sense. If being tattooed with images and words is speech then certainly what our clients do when they write on a piece of paper with words or they put it on a website, that has to be speech too," said Scruggs. Arguments before the appellate court are likely to come in the next few months. If Brush & Nib lose there, the case will be appealed to the the Arizona Supreme Court. |
| 'Making Sense of God' |
| Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:27:27 EST The numbers of Americans expressing no religious affiliation is rising dramatically in recent years and the Christian perspective on various issues is met with much louder disdain than in previous generations, but one of the nation's most respected pastors says the numbers also show some good things and he says believers need to be ready to engage skeptics with humility on matters of reason and faith. Dr. Tim Keller is founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He is also author of "Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical." In the book, Keller addresses the rise of secularism, identifies the key issues that confront every life and details how Christ is the answer to those questions. Keller says explaining the explosive growth of people who want nothing to do with the church is "complicated" but there are some clear reasons for it. "Some of it's got to be the failure of the Christian church. It has to be. We cannot possibly imagine that Christianity would be declining without failures on our part, failures to live a godly, Christian life," said Keller. "There are also a lot of other factors. There are people who really resent the church. They want the church out of public life. They are doing everything they possibly can to marginalize the church," he added. But Keller is not wringing his hands. First of all, he says there are some hopeful signs in those same surveys showing millions abandoning organized religion. "While parts of western Europe and America will be more secular in the future, overall studies have shown that religion is growing faster than the population. So a higher and higher percentage of people in the world will be religious. Therefore, the future is not secular," said Keller. He also says the data show it's liberal and mainline denominations that are seeing smaller congregations while conservative denominations and congregations still see growth. In addition, secular people tend to have fewer children than believers, leading to another demographic advantage for the faithful. Keller also challenges the notion that people refusing to identify with a religion don't adhere to one. "We all use faith and reason to get to our position. If you don't believe in God, you can't prove there's no God. You use reason, but you also use a certain amount of faith to get there because nobody can prove there's no God finally to all rational people," said Keller. He encourages Christians to engage respectfully with skeptics, armed with one quality in particular. "Patience. Make sure you don't answer questions they're not asking. Make sure you find out where their objections are coming from, because there's a lot of different experiences they've had. Their experiences have more to do with their doubts than probably the logic. So really try to be patient and really try to get behind and find out what they've been through and where their questions are coming from," said Keller. In his book, Keller says people of all faiths wrestle with some of life's biggest questions, one of which is whether their lives have meaning. He says nonbelievers will often say their job, their children or their grandchildren give their lives meaning. He agrees, but adds that those meaning can be shattered in an instant. "Is it as durable as the meaning you find in God and will it help you face suffering?" asked Keller. "I have grandchildren too. If my meaning in life is my grandchildren and something happens to them, then I've lost all meaning in life and suffering destroys me. If my meaning in life is God and I lose my grandchildren, it would be devastating but it wouldn't be the end of my life because it wouldn't be taking my meaning away," said Keller. He also highlights the difference between created meaning and discovered meaning. "Christianity gives you a meaning that can handle suffering. Without that, you have a created meaning, which you make yourself, rather than a discovered meaning where you discover Christ. Created meaning is not as durable and it will not handle suffering," said Keller. "Making Sense of God" delves into other philosophical concepts as well, but Keller says there's only one way to find that true meaning in life. "You've got to get to know Jesus. Christianity is not a set of bullet point propositions. Ultimately, it's not just a set of doctrines. I'm not saying Christianity doesn't entail doctrines. Of course it does. Ultimately it's taking you to a Person and the story of His life that really happened. He came to earth. He died on the cross," said Keller. Keller says getting to know Jesus requires spending time in the Bible. "You need to actually read about Him in the gospels and start to feel the attraction of Him. He is so unique. He is so different. His words are amazing. His attitude is amazing," said Keller. "Christianity doesn't offer you a watertight argument. It offers you a watertight person, Jesus Christ, against whom, in the end, there can be no argument," said Keller. |
| Kushner Talks Bombings, PC Political Reaction |
| Mon, 19 Sep 2016 16:16:00 EST Terrorism expert Dr. Harvey Kushner is dismissing the reactions of President Obama and Hillary Clinton to the terrorist attacks in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota as politically correct spin and says the U.S. must get much more aggressive against those who seek to harm the United States. On Saturday, an explosion rocked the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, injuring 29 people. A second device was later discovered before it detonated. Those acts of terrorism took place after a pipe bomb blew up in New Jersey, along the course of a race designed to help the families of military service members. A second, intact device was also found in New Jersey and all of the news came on the same day a terrorist stabbed eight people at the Mall of America in Minnesota. On Monday morning, just hours after authorities put out word that Ahmad Khan Rahami was a suspect in the bombings, he was shot and taken into custody by police in New Jersey. In his first comments since Saturday's attacks, President Obama Monday assured Americans that the terrorist threat is waning because ISIS is losing territory in Iraq and Syria. Kushner is not at all convinced by that logic. "I doubt that very much," said Kushner. "Recruiting is not just because of a geographical area. It's on the web and there are so many people here that have allegiance to ISIS inside the United States." And Kushner says the Obama administration is failing to take proper diligence in screening who enters the country, particularly when it comes to refugees. "We have a refugee problem which, in my book, needs to be looked at in a different light. How do you vet so many people coming in from an area of the world that carries such political baggage," said Kushner. He also believes Obama's assurances are falling on deaf ears. "He's going to put his spin on things because we have an election upcoming. But the public is smarter. I think they understand that this is an issue," said Kushner. Kushner was also disappointed in Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton blaming Donald Trump's rhetoric for helping ISIS recruit and giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy. Kushner says that might make for an interesting intellectual debate, but the stark realities of our enemies don't back up Clinton's claims. "The overwhelming idea that that is a contributing factor is insulting. Those in law enforcement and intelligence gathering and the general public know better than this," said Kushner. "I might not agree with Donald Trump's approach and I certainly don't agree with Hillary's approach, but that's using a bad situation to feather one's own bed during a political campaign," said Kushner. Instead of pointing the finger at political adversaries, Kushner says the United State must get much more serious about defeating radical Islamic terrorism. "We have to be very aggressive in a world in which there are many jihadis out there, ranging from Al Qaeda to ISIS to individuals who want to do us harm. We need to identify who the enemy is . The American public is not fooled by this. I think they're understanding now the political correctness has run amok to the detriment of the safety of our public," said Kushner, noting that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Saturday night there was no reason to suspect terrorism, while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it terrorism at the same press conference. Kushner says one avenue to get a better lock on terrorists is through data. "We need to be much more aggressive in terms of looking at what's available out there by public data. I'm not saying to get inside somebody's own personal life but there's so much public data that advertising agencies use to market their products. We have to be much more sophisticated in doing this in trying to get a handle on who out there wants to do us harm," said Kushner. Kushner says the available evidence on the weekend bombings leads him to suspect Rahami was part of a cell and not a lone wolf. He's also glad Rahani was taken alive and hopes helpful information can be extracted. "It's my experience from looking at this for many years that individuals of this type, when they're captured this way, generally talk. That might be of interest. It could lead to other cells. Is there a connection outside the country? Where has he traveled? There are a lot of questions that need to be answered here," said Kushner. In the wake of such chaos on Saturday, Kushner says the speed at which law enforcement zeroed in on suspects is impressive. "The speed with which law enforcement in the New York metropolitan area were able to apprehend this person is quite remarkable," said Kushner. Kushner's advice going forward for all Americans is to live your lives while keeping your eyes open, nothing the woman who stumbled across the second bomb in New York City and contacted police. "If you see something, say something, but you know what? The streets are yours. This is our country, which prides itself on total freedom. You can't let the terrorists win and I would go about your daily activities," said Kushner. |
| 'They Were Told Not to Prosecute Obscenity Anymore' |
| Fri, 16 Sep 2016 16:31:59 EST A leading advocate for protecting children from obscene internet content says President Obama has been absent in the fight and she is urging Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to play a leading role in fight against child exploitation, child pornography and other obscene material. Donna Rice Hughes is president and CEO of Enough Is Enough, an organization committed to "making the internet safer for women and children." The group is sent out letters to both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, asking them to be aggressive in enforcing existing laws against obscenity, exploitation and trafficking. Rice Hughes says the commitment is needed because there has been no leadership on this issue for the past eight years. "The issue, by and large, has been bipartisan in Congress, but I would say we've seen more aggressiveness by the Departments of Justice under (George W.) Bush as opposed to Clinton. And Obama, I don't know what he's doing," said Rice Hughes. She says Obama's record on this issue is appalling, far worse than simply not making it a priority. "In fact they had a few obscenity prosecutors in DOJ. They only had three in the entire department, when you've got a multi-billion dollar industry. They told me when (Obama) came in, they were told not to prosecute obscenity anymore," said Rice Hughes. That's why Enough Is Enough is demanding promises from Trump and Clinton to be out front in protecting kids from online predators and obscenity. "What we're asking the candidates to do is to agree, before they're elected, to enforce all the laws on the books that are in place currently designed to prevent the sexual exploitation of children online. Those laws are, specifically, the federal obscenity laws, the child pornography laws, the sexual predation laws and the sex trafficking laws," said Rice Hughes. In addition, the group is demanding the next president nominate an attorney general who will make this issue a priority and aggressively prosecute those committing crimes against children online. The pledge also asks the candidates to consider creating a special presidential commission to help tackle the problem. It also wants more resources devoted to hunting down these criminals. "Law enforcement simply doesn't have the resources and the tools to really get on top of that. The bad guys are many, many steps in front of law enforcement. And like I said with respect to obscenity laws, they haven't even been touched by the Obama administration,"said Rice Hughes. The pledges went out earlier this year. Rice Hughes says the GOP nominee responded right away. "Donald Trump's campaign sent back the signed pledge immediately," she said. Rice Hughes says the Clinton campaign has voiced strong support for the pledge but did not sign it. "We did receive a note back from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager that they had a policy against signing pledges but that she supported the pledge," said Rice Hughes. She says the campaign director later called her to say Clinton really wanted to sign the pledge but had already rejected many other groups because of their policy. Rice Hughes says parents are overwhelmed by the flood of horrific images that are just a click away for their kids, noting alarming statistics such as a 774 percent rise in the amount of child pornography online between 2005-2011. Searches for teen sex tripled from 2005-2013. The data show 83 percent of boys and 57 percent of girls have seen group sex online. Thirty-two percent of boys and 18 percent of girls have even viewed scenes of bestiality. She says strong evidence exists that hardcore pornography is a major reason for the rise in juvenile sex offenders, why children as young as five years old are acting in increasingly sexualized ways. And she points out that the demand for more graphic like group sex and bestiality content leads to increased trafficking of women and girls to perform in the films. Rice Hughes stresses the effort to crack down on obscenity is not in conflict with the first amendment. "People need to realize that just because this content it out there doesn't mean that it's protected under the first amendment. It is not. It is there because it hasn't been enforced. Those laws against it have not been enforced," she said. "This is about the children but let's recognize that this is about much more. This is about the public health and safety of our children, our women and even our men," said Rice Hughes. |
| 'The Confusion This Will Cause Is Incalculable' |
| Thu, 15 Sep 2016 16:16:47 EST While the Supreme Court of Virginia has agreed to hear a challenge to the non-discrimination policy in the commonwealth's largest school district, the lead counsel in the case warns that the impact of the court's decisions will go far beyond bathrooms and eventually impact every student. Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says oral arguments before the court could take place late this year or early 2017 with a final decision likely to come early next year as well. As issue is the Fairfax County Public Schools policy allowing students and adults to access restrooms, showers, and locker rooms based on their "gender identity" or "gender expression" rather than their biological sex. Staver is arguing that the board of education in Fairfax County did not have the power to change that policy because of a state rule forbidding local jurisdictions from implementing policies in excess of what the commonwealth permits. "I think it sets back on the heels, not only Fairfax County but any other entity or school board that wants to do this unlawful act by adding sexual orientation or gender identity or gender expression to the non-discrimination categories. That's has to be done on a uniform, statewide basis," said Staver. He says the decision in this case is critical since other districts in Virginia, including Prince William County - the second largest in the state - are on the brink of following the lead of Fairfax County. "Prince William County is the next one in line. The county system there wants to consider adding this to their policy like Fairfax. That's coming up in the next couple of days. They've got to make a decision and we're cautioning them, 'Do not go down this road because if you do, we will sue you,'" said Staver. In 2015, voters gave control of the Prince William County Board of Education to candidates endorsed by the Democrats after a pledge of doing more to empower teachers and reduce class sizes. The non-discrimination policy was mentioned on none of those candidates' websites. Citizens are being asked to contact members of the board in advance of the upcoming vote to submit their opinions on the issue. Staver also asserts that the debate goes far beyond bathrooms and showers. He says the policy would also allow biological males identifying as females to room with girls on out of town trips. "It's not just using bathrooms and showers and locker rooms, it's actually bedding down with them in the same room, bunking with them just like multiple girls would bunk in a hotel room if the band or the cheerleaders would take an overnight trip," said Staver. This policy is already in effect in some parts of the country. Anne Arundel County, Maryland, drew controversy for not only permitting transgenders to have roommates based on their gender identity but that that parents of other students had no right to know about it. However, even if scenarios of girls encountering biological males in intimate spaces does not materialize in a given school, Staver says the LGBT agenda will be pounded into students in those public schools from day one. "You also have this injected into the curriculum so that it looks it looks normal, so that as young as kindergarten kids are taught there is no binary construct of male and female, that it's a continuum, a long spectrum, there's all kinds of things. You can be male, female, you can be neither.. You can be in a male body but be a female in your mind," said Staver. "All of these things will be part of the curriculum in the teaching from kindergarten up. The confusion this will cause is incalculable," said Staver. Earlier this year, the Obama administration instructed every public school in the nation to adopt such a policy, however a federal judge has blocked that until the issue is sorted out in the courts. |
| Huelskamp: GOP Leaders Afraid to Take on Obama |
| Wed, 14 Sep 2016 16:13:38 EST House conservatives are making the case for the impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen ahead of Thursday's debate, and one of them is also blasting Republican leaders for failing to hold Obama administration official accountable for anything and even being "afraid" of the administration. On Tuesday, Reps. John Fleming, R-Louisiana, and Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas, introduced a privileged resolution on the impeachment of Koskinen. A privileged resolution requires a floor vote and is not subject to the scheduling priorities of House leaders. Huelskamp says the case for Koskinen's ouster is open and shut. "Back in 2012, the IRS was misused, particularly by Lois Lerner and perhaps others above her. They targeted political opponents and targeted them through misuse of the IRS. In response to that, the president appointed a new commissioner who promised to clean up the mess but he made it worse," said Huelskamp. "Mr. Koskinen came in and then covered up the mess, hindered the investigation. He oversaw the the deletion of perhaps thousands of emails, perjured himself, lied to Congress and the American public. At the end of the day, I believe these are reasons he should lose his job. If we're going to get the federal government under control, no one should be above the law, particularly the IRS commissioner," said Huelskamp. Furthermore, Huelskamp says the average U.S. citizen could not get away with breaking the law, destroying evidence and refusing to appear before government officials without penalty and neither should Koskinen. "Someone in the administration came and lied to Congress and covered up the investigation that was going on internally in the IRS and oversaw the deletion of 422 tapes, up to 24,000 emails. As George Will pointed out, if Congress doesn't take this head-on, they are becoming obsolete," said Huelskamp. Huelskamp suspects Republicans leaders are cool to this idea because they don't want to create any red meat issues just prior to election day, but the congressman says not supporting the impeachment leaves members with tough questions to answer back home. "I think it will be very difficult, particularly for Republican members of Congress, to go home and tell their constituents that, 'Yeah, you can lie to Congress. It's okay. You can delete 24,000 emails. That's okay.' I think that's a pretty hollow argument to go home to,'' said Huelskamp. "If they vote against it, they'll probably go home and say, 'Well, we voted to censure the guy but it's okay. He's going to get off scot-free," said Huelskamp. Huelskamp does expect GOP leaders to make some parliamentary maneuvers in order to prevent passage of the impeachment articles but approve something that gives members cover back home. "Our leadership might try some funny stuff on the floor trying to get away from a straight up-or-down vote," said Huelskamp. In speaking with different members, Huelskamp admits it will tough to find a majority to back impeachment. He says the vast majority of Democrats will defend the administration and many Republicans outside of leadership would rather not deal with this. "Many of them are secretly asking leadership to table the motion or somehow create an alternative vote that somehow gives them a screen. At the end of the day, we should have a straight up-or-down vote and you're either for the IRS or you're for the American people," said Huelskamp. Huelskamp says GOP leaders have not stated why they don't want this resolution to go forward, but he says six years of observing his own party's leadership leads him to some conclusions. "Typical Republicans in Washington, and leadership in particular, are just afraid to take on the administration, afraid to take on the issues of the day. They'd much rather get home to campaign than actually tackle the tough issues," said Huelskamp. He says the disinterest in holding Koskinen accountable is similar to leaders doing nothing about alleged perjury before Congress by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald and others. "Time and time and time again, for seven-and-a-half years, Republicans have pointed out what they thought was corruption in the Obama administration and have done little or nothing about it," said Huelskamp. Huelskamp has clashed with Republican leaders for most of his six years in Washington, to the point of being stripped from a seat on the House Agriculture Committee and seeing GOP-aligned special interests spend two million to defeat him last month in his congressional primary. As he prepares to leave Washington, Huelskamp says the Republican Party was in position to accomplish major priorities over the past six years and failed to do much. "Looking back, I believe the Republican establishment , particularly John Boehner and perhaps the current speaker (Paul Ryan), squandered an opportunity to turn this nation around," said Huelskamp, referring to an ever-growing federal debt and America's looking weaker on the world stage. He says voter frustration with GOP leaders in Washington is a critical reason for the rise of Donald Trump as the party's 2016 nominee. While the GOP may have succeeded in beating him at the ballot box, Huelskamp says it's up to the American people to regain control of their government. "It's time we turn Washington back over to the control of the American people. Right now, it's insiders of both parties. The Democrat and Republican establishment have a stranglehold on our nation. It's time to shake them off and get back to our founding fathers and our Constitution," said Huelskamp. |
| 'A Whole Parade of Terribles' |
| Tue, 13 Sep 2016 16:29:32 EST Colorado voters will be asked whether they want to legalize doctor-assisted suicide in November, and while opponents admit they have an uphill fight, they're passionately fighting against ushering in what one leading activist calls "a whole parade of terribles." On November 8, ballots across Colorado will include Proposition 106, which would legally permit doctors to prescribe drugs that terminally ill patients could take to end their lives. The full text is here. Jeff Hunt is director of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University. He says, on the surface, the case for approving doctor-assisted suicide seems strong by allowing people to decide for themselves when and how to end their lives or at least leave that option open to their neighbors. But Hunt says the reality of doctor-assisted suicide is much darker than its proponents would have you believe. "Doctor-assisted suicide is a very, very, very bad deal for Colorado. In almost every case, where doctor-assisted suicide is legal, it moves from what is generally called a right to die to a duty to die," said Hunt. He says former Gov. Richard Lamm, who served from 1975-1987, made that very argument in stark terms three decades ago. "Our former governor, Dick Lamm, said back in the '80's people need to understand they're no longer worthy to be in this world, that they're worthless and they need to go and that they have a duty to die. That is terrifying," said Hunt. While assisted-suicide advocates paint the practice as the ultimate act of personal liberty, the reality gets far more complicated. "They think it's a personal decision but in every case where this is legalized, you are inviting government and you're inviting insurance companies to get involved in this decision and that is a very, very bad deal," said Hunt. Hunt says that is not theory but proven fact. Oregon is one of a few states that allow doctor-assisted suicide. He says the realities there are very troubling. "What we've seen happen in Oregon is the state-based medicaid system get involved with end-of-life decisions. They would send letters to terminally ill cancer patients and saying, 'We're not going to pay the $4,000 per month required for you to stay alive, but we'll pay the $100 for you to kill yourself," said Hunt. Another argument in favor of doctor-assisted suicide is that it mainly happens at the very end of life when the pain becomes unbearable. Hunt says the facts simply don't bear that out. "What the research actually shows is that most people that choose doctor-assisted suicide do it out of depression or they're afraid because of their lack of mobility, their quality of life," said Hunt. Hunt says in places like the Netherlands, physically healthy young people access doctor-assisted suicide over relationships gone bad or the loss of a job. Proposition 106 specifically requires a patients to be given six months or less to live, but Hunt says that's a problem too. "That's problematic in itself because Harvard has found that about 20 percent of those diagnoses are wrong. One in five people will outlive that six months," said Hunt. He says the push for doctor-assisted suicide is especially horrifying for the disabled and those with special needs. "If you look at the organizations that are trying to stop this, it is primarily led by the disabled community. They understand what this is creating in the law. This is creating an entire classification of people that can be killed or choose to be killed," said Hunt. Hunt admits Colorado's libertarian streak that legalized recreational marijuana in recent years makes this a tough ballot initiative to fight but he says it is essential voters learn the truth at votenoprop106.org and elsewhere. "We should be investing in great palliative care and good hospice care because doctor-assisted suicide brings with it a whole parade of terribles that we do not want in our society," said Hunt. |
| Obama Internet Move 'Will Weaken America Again' |
| Mon, 12 Sep 2016 16:58:03 EST The Obama is moving forward with plans to relinquish U.S. control over internet domains, but a number of conservatives are demanding the president not change what is working fine by ceding control to other countries, which could then limit the content their own citizens can see. The old contract by which the United States controlled internet domain aspects since 1987 actually expired at the end of September 2015. Since then, the Obama administration has been trying to build a framework to transition the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, to a "multi-stakeholder" system. As more of those details get ironed out, the end of American control draws nearer. Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., is among those who believe this is a big mistake. "Is this move going to strengthen America or is this move going to weaken it? I think it's very clear that if we do what President Obama wants to do, it'll weaken America's stance again," said Yoho, who is a strong supporter of the DOTCOM Act. That bill passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly last year but the Senate has yet to take it up. It would give Congress oversight of any transfer of internet domain control and give lawmakers the power to kill or modify the plan. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is spearheading the effort in the Senate to keep the internet in U.S. hands. Yoho says his approach is simple. The current system isn't broken, so why radically change it? "The U.S. has been in control of the domain names of the internet since its inception. If we relinquish this control, it goes possibly to the UN. Then you have countries like Russia, China, and Iran and any other country that wants to play, and determine how to regulate those domain names within their countries," said Yoho. He says giving authoritarian leaders control over what their people can access only means bad results. "I think you're going to see a decrease in access to the internet, a decrease of freedom over the internet to an extent we have never experienced before," said Yoho. Yoho says those nations would not be in position to block what Americans can see online, but they could restrict anything they wanted for their own populations. "They can block any country's intellectual property or content from being accessed by somebody in Russia or China or Iran. You're starting to limit people," said Yoho. "If you look at one of the basic underlying tenets of liberty, it's freedom of speech, freedom of expression freedom to access of information. If we start sequestering that and blocking it off, you're going to have pockets around the world that are going to become more and more isolated," said Yoho. He says the past 29 years prove the U.S. is best at guaranteeing people around the world have access to all available information in order to learn and better their lives. "One of the things that made the internet so explosive and such an economic and intellectual force is because of the free market enterprise in a country like the U.S. controlling access to it," said Yoho. Yoho sees two other dangers of relinquishing total control of internet domains. First is the additional risks to our already vulnerable cyber defenses. "If they take over the domain names and things like that, who knows what they'll plan as far as malware or some type of cyber bug that'll get into everybody's computer. So this is a misstep by this administration," said Yoho. He says the Obama administration is also breaking the law by pushing this plan forward without congressional authorization. "It's a violation of federal law for an officer or an employee of the United States government to make or authorize an expenditure or obligation exceeding the amount we've appropriated. By doing what they want to do, it's against the law," said Yoho. "That doesn't seem to be a concern for this administration and we aim to stop it." |
| 'They Don't Have That Authority' |
| Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:11:29 EST A Texas congressman is fighting back against the Obama's administration's unilateral amending of the U.S. Civil Rights Act in the area of sex discrimination, calling the administration's actions unconstitutional and a gross misrepresentation of what the law intended. In December 2014, then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Justice Department would apply the protections against sex discrimination in Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to cases of alleged sex discrimination over "gender identity" as well. Earlier this year, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the government was mandating that all public schools and federal buildings accommodate people ion restrooms and locker rooms based on their expressed gender identity. Federally funded health programs are also in play, and health care professionals and insurers are now subject to liability for refusing to perform or cover gender reassignment procedures. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, is fighting back against the administration's actions, both in opposition to the changes Obama is making to the law and especially the manner by which the changes are happening. "They don't have that authority," said Olson, who says the Constitution is clear about laws are to be created or amended in the U.S.. "Article I is very clear. It has ten clear words it starts with. 'All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.' It's clear. The administration's actions take away the power of Congress and put that in the White House. That's wrong. That's against the Constitution. That's why I introduced H.R. 5812," said Olson. The bill, also known as the Civil Rights Uniformity Act of 2016, focuses on two key areas: restoring lawmaking and law-amending power to the legislative branch and opposing the Obama administration's policy content as well. While providing background information and supporting evidence for the bill, H.R. 5812 lays our these objectives: The purposes of this Act are-- (1) to prevent the executive branch from unilaterally rewriting Federal civil rights laws by enacting or implementing any policy or undertaking any enforcement action that is based on construing the term ``sex'' or ``gender'' to mean ``gender identity''; and (2) to ensure that gender identity is not treated as a protected class in Federal law or policy without the affirmative approval of the people's representatives in Congress. Olson says he's gotten quite a bit of heat from LGBT activists and others who support their agenda. He flatly rejects their allegations that this bill stems from his hatred of gays or transgenders. "Liberals are saying, 'Pete's attacking these people.' That's a bunch of hooey. This is all about our Constitution, protecting our Constitution, taking that oath I spoke and making that action," said Olson. "The administration does not have the power to redefine sex in federal civil law. They did that and this tries to stop it," said Olson. Olson says it's perfectly obvious that lawmakers decades ago did not intend for transgenders using restrooms and showers counter to their biological sex. "It just means man or woman. What they're doing is trying to expand that sex is actually sexual stereotype, gender identification, the termination of a pregnancy. That is not what was in the law that was passed," said Olson. While Olson is appalled by the administration's actions, he says it's not surprising given Obama's track record. "It's very consistent with President Obama's actions the whole time he's been president. Transgender bathrooms is another continuation of laws coming from the White House. His executive amnesty is another example of laws coming from the White House. Congress has to assert it's authority for the Constitution and take that back to Congress. That's exactly what H.R. 5812 does," said Olson. He says if Obama wants to change the law, he and his allies should ask Congress to act. "If you want this to happen, work with us. We will pass law," he said. Does that mean Olson would support amending the Title IX to expand the definition of sex through the legislative process? "No. My vote will be heck no. But I want to have that vote. That is our job. Our job is to actually pass laws," said Olson. "Have an up or down vote. I'll vote that thing down because I think it's against the Constitution. But I want that vote, not something coming from the White House," said Olson. Olson says time is of the essence to move on this bill since Congress will not be in session long this fall and the Obama directives have been in place for months. He says he hasn't heard a word from GOP leaders about his bill, but he's fine with that. "They have not said anything, but that's a good thing. If it's bad, they'll kind of push you back. They seem to be saying, 'Pete, it's your ball. Run with it. If you get enough votes - 218 - then we can talk about bringing it up on the floor," said Olson. "My job right now is to go, go, go get people on board, get 218 so leadership can bring it up. Let's vote on it and put a brake on the White House," said Olson. |
| Boom vs. Bust: Trump Adviser Compares Economic Plans |
| Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:19:43 EST One of the chief architects of Donald Trump's tax plan says the GOP nominee would place America on a course for explosive economic growth while Hillary Clinton's vows of huge spending increases would lead to a recession and either higher taxes on the middle class or huge amounts of new debt. "We're cutting rates. She's raising them," said Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore. We're helping small businesses. She's hitting them with more taxes. We have an orientation toward more investment. She is taxing investment. So, this is a night and day comparison." During her convention speech, Clinton was very clear that she believes bigger government is the way to jump start the economy. "In my first hundred days, we will work with both parties to pass the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs wince World War II," said Clinton at the Democratic National Convention. Those investments would be used, in part, to provide free college tuition, forgive existing student loan debt and raise the minimum wage. She was equally clear how she plans to pay for that. "We're going to pay for every single one of them," said Clinton. "Wall Street, corporations and the super-rich are going to start paying their fair share of taxes." Moore, who is also a senior economic contributor at FreedomWorks and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, says those grand promises carry a pretty harsh reality, starting with the mount of spending needed to enact those policies. "By my count, she's got about a trillion dollars in new spending. That's a lot, given we already have a $19 trillion national debt, soon to eclipse $20 trillion," said Moore. He says Clinton's tax plan can soak the rich all she wants, but she still won't have enough revenues. "The idea that you're going to get all the money for free college, free day care, free health care, free everything that you're going to be able to get the money for that from the top one or two percent is just silly," said Moore. That reality, says Moore, would leave Clinton with two horrible options. "The problem is you're going to have to go after the middle class. If you want these massive new entitlement giveaways to the middle class, the fiscal reality is that you're going to have to tax the middle class to pay for it or you're going to have to rack up massive new amounts of debt," said Moore. Besides suggesting Clinton's math is fatally flawed, Moore says the sitting president is proof positive that the government spending huge sums of money does not result in job creation. "Government spending doesn't create jobs. That should be one enduring lesson of the Obama years," said Moore. "This has been the flimsiest, weakest recovery since the 1940's, so over 60 years." While noting that some government spending is needed, the Obama stimulus wasted nearly a trillion dollars with almost nothing to show for it. "The money just went down a rat hole. We don't even know what happened to a lot of the money. Some of it went to failed companies like Solyndra. A lot of it went into programs like food stamps and so on. They were just giveaways to people. They had no positive economic impact at all," said Moore. Recent Commerce Department reports show the U.S. economy growing at just one percent. Moore says that small growth also raises red flags about the Clinton plan. "That's pathetic. That's pitiful. It;s the reason Americans are so angry. When you're at one percent growth, you're not getting wage growth. You're not getting the job growth you need. People are actually losing income relative to inflation," said Moore. "Fragile is the word I would use to describe this economy. Can you think of anything dumber to do with a fragile economy than to have a massive tax increase?" said Moore. Moore is one of the key figures in crafting the Trump tax plan, alongside fellow supply-siders Larry Kudlow and Art Laffer. He says Trump is committed to using the tax code as a means to revive our sputtering economy. The signature item would be to slash the corporate tax rate from the highest in the industrialized world, currently at 35 percent, down to 15 percent. Moore says that would convince U.S. companies to stay here and encourage major expansion and hiring at businesses of all sizes. "We are going to apply this 15 percent tax rate not only to the big corporations but every one of the 25 million small businesses in America today will get a 15 percent tax cut. And they will get to immediately expense and write off all their capital purchases. I believe, if we do this, we're going to see one of the biggest economic booms we ever saw," said Moore. Personal income tax rates would also drop under the Trump plan. Moore says that was among the clear "marching orders" from Trump to his team of economic experts. "Number one, he wanted to make sure it didn't blow a big hole in the deficit, so we've got the cost way down," said Moore. "Second, he said, 'I don't want this to be for millionaires and billionaires like me.' He said, 'I really want it to be oriented towards middle class workers who are really struggling to pay their bills and are financially stressed out." Moore says all families would see lower taxes. "Rich people would pay about a third of their income in federal taxes. That's down from a rate of over 40 percent today. Most of the tax breaks on the individual side are for the middle class workers. Depending on the circumstances of a middle class family, they will save anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 a year. In the final analysis, Moore, who is admittedly partial to Trump, says the GOP nominee has a plan to bring the economy roaring back. "Over the next five years, with a Donald Trump presidency, we will get four percent growth annually for five years. That's a 24 percent increase in the U.S. economy when you take the compounding effect. That's like adding another Texas to the U.S. economy," said Moore. However, he says Clinton's plan would bring even harder times on the Americans who can least afford it. "I really do worry she would plunge us into another recession. Given the financial status of so many families, I think half of our families are not financially or economically prepared for a recession. It could be gut-wrenching. It's too big a risk to take to be talking about massive new amounts of spending, taxes, regulation and borrowing," said Moore. |
| Women Sour on Hillary, Major Reason for Approval Plunge |
| Thu, 1 Sep 2016 16:32:48 EST Just one month after Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, her convention bounce is over, her disapproval numbers are at record highs and women voters are one of the biggest reasons why. In a new survey commissioned by ABC News and the Washington Post, just 41 percent of Americans see Clinton favorably while 56 view her as unfavorably. Her numbers are still better than Republican nominee Donald Trump, who is saddled with a 63 percent disapproval rating. Just 35 percent have a favorable opinion of him. While not good, Trump's numbers are staying largely consistent over the past month, ticking up one percentage point in approval since early August. Clinton however has dropped several points. In early August, 48 percent of Americans looked at her favorably while 50 percent saw her unfavorably. In just four weeks, Clinton has fallen from a two point gap to a 15-point chasm. And the biggest reason may be a considerable drop among women. Just after the Democratic convention, the ABC News/Washington Post poll showed 54 percent of women had a positive impression of Clinton, with 43 percent not thinking highly of her. Now, 52 percent of women voters see Clinton unfavorably and 45 percent approve of her. "It is the lowest rating that she has had in terms of women liking and supporting her for an entire year," said Independent Women's Forum Senior Fellow Gayle Trotter. "This is something that has been building awhile. Her general unpopularity rating has taken a real hit in the last three weeks." Trotter says Clinton's drop is largely to her own dishonesty and new revelations about her email server and conduct while secretary of state. "If you look at the onslaught of revelations about her emails, about the representations that she made to media outlets like Chris Wallace on her emails and what James Comey, the director of the FBI, said about their investigation of her emails and her email server, this is something that is repeatedly in the public eye, and it is cannot help but effect Americans' view of her," said Trotter. Being underwater ought to be especially concerning to women, according to Trotter, given that Clinton has repeatedly touted herself as a history-making female candidate. "Hillary has gone on and on about playing the woman card to the extent that her campaign, as a donation tactic, was even offering to send out to her donors an actual 'woman card' in appreciation for donations to her campaign that she's taking such a hit among the group, that her campaign believes should be fully in in her corner," said Trotter. And Trotter believes there is more room for Clinton to slip in the minds of women and other voters. "Hillary has not only been dishonest about her time in office and not only was incompetent in the carrying out of her duties, but that she has continued to try to mislead the American public about those two matters. Certainly she has room to fall even further," said Trotter. Trump's numbers with women are even worse. Only 33 percent of female voters see Trump favorably, while 65 percent don't like him. However, Trump did gain seven points in favorability among women throughout August. In addition, dropping favorability numbers for Clinton do not equal lost votes. So is there a way for Trump to appeal to women and win their votes come November? Trotter sees a golden opportunity for him on national security, pointing out the Obama administration's policy of emptying out the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and the multiple terrorist attacks carried out on American soil during Obama's term. "I think that Donald Trump is strong on this issue and that is a natural way that (new campaign manager) KellyAnne Conway can help him target his message, particularly to women, that he understands this issue, that his policies would be a break from the dangerous and ineffective policies of the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton would only reflect a third term of President Obama's losing strategy on national security and keeping the American homeland safe," said Trotter. "If he's particularly reaching out to women's groups, that is something that would be authentic for him to talk about and it would be something that would resonate with American women," said Trotter. Trotter also believes Trump is benefiting from the advice and expertise of Conway, who is a longtime pollster and excels in political messaging. "I think we are seeing the slight uptick in his popularity reflecting her being brought into the campaign. With her at the helm of reaching out to these groups (women and minorities), there is a huge possibility that he could really increase his popularity among women enough that it would make a difference in this election," said Trotter. However, she says even the most effective campaign strategy faces a tough road because all of that messaging gets filtered through one of Clinton's strongest allies - the media. "They have really become a SuperPAC for Hillary Clinton. They have been able to go after Trump on every single, possible front that you can possibly imagine," said Clinton. |
| 'The Euthanasia Deception' |
| Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:21:38 EST A new documentary sheds light on the horrors families in Belgium are enduring after 15 years of legalized euthanasia and those behind the film say it is meant as a warning to other nations not to follow this path and explain how euthanasia is not the ultimate act of autonomy as it's proponents claim. Titled "The Euthanasia Deception: We Are All Vulnerable," the documentary looks the big picture impact on health care in Belgium and also chronicles several heartbreaking stories of people who believed the callousness of the culture with euthanasia robbed them of time with their loved ones. "The culture has become very accepting of euthanasia," said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and executive producer of "The Euthanasia Deception." "People are just giving up on life. Because euthanasia is an option, they are just saying, 'I have cancer. I have early-stage Alzheimer's or early-stage dementia.' They ask for euthanasia and they qualify," said Schadenberg. Schadenberg says the documentary is a splash of cold water in contrast to what the mainstream media says about euthanasia. "This video is warning the world that what you're hearing from the general media is not true. What happens in the culture when you allow for euthanasia or assisted suicide is, it changes the attitude in general towards dying in one way, but in the second way towards causing the death of somebody," said Schadenberg He says the Belgian society's value of life is also plummeting as a result, for the elderly, the sick and the disabled. "If you have any sort of sickness or disease that is considered somewhat serious, even if it's in its earliest stages, you're seen as better off dead. The cultural shift as occurred," said Schadenberg. As euthanasia gains in cultural acceptance, Schadenberg says there are more and more cases every year. "The latest data showed about 4.6 percent of all deaths, which is about 4,000 euthanasia deaths in Belgium alone, which is a very tiny country," said Schadenberg, who says assisted suicide states in the U.S., such as Oregon and Washington also see an increase in euthanasia deaths year after year. He says the numbers may be even higher in the U.S. since the doctor administering the lethal drugs is also responsible for reporting the death as an assisted suicide and some don't do that in all cases. Euthanasia is specifically giving doctors the right to terminate a life. Assisted suicide, which is legal in a handful of U.S. states, gives doctors permission to prescribe lethal doses of drugs that the patient then administers to themselves. The argument to the contrary, of course, is that euthanasia and assisted suicide give the patients full control over the time and means of their own death, that it is the ultimate act of autonomy and a valid option in avoiding excruciating pain. Schadenberg says this is one of the biggest myths involved with euthanasia. First, he says a huge chunk of euthanasia deaths in Belgium are not decided by the patients or their families. "The studies show that in Belgium about one-third of all assisted deaths are done without requests," said Schadenberg. Even when the patients or loved ones are involved in the deliberations, Schadenberg says it is not really autonomy. "It's not exactly an autonomous act. When we're talking about euthanasia, we're talking about somebody else lethally injecting you," he said. "Even in assisted suicide, you're talking about the decision of the doctor to be directly involved with the provision of a lethal dose." "The whole autonomy thing has a lot to do with selling it to our culture. Our culture is all about autonomy. This act is about somebody else having the right in law to cause your death," said Schadenberg. And he says he wants all other societies to see the effects of euthanasia because you cannot put the genie back in the bottle. "The problem is by the time you're asking whether this was or wasn't a good idea, by then it's become so culturally ingrained that's it's almost impossible to convince people that what they did to their mother or what they did to their friend was not an acceptable thing to do," said Schadenberg. In "The Euthanasia Deception," the filmmakers feature numerous interview with families in agony over the deaths of their loved ones to euthanasia. One man told the story of his mother being euthanized while in fine physical health but asked and received a lethal dose because she was depressed. Another tells the story of his grandmother unwittingly consenting to the termination of her husband's life. "The doctor said to his grandmother, 'Do you want to keep your husband comfortable?' She said, 'Of course, I want to keep my husband comfortable.' In no way did she realize what he was actually meaning by that was euthanasia," said Schadenberg. The corrosive culture even hurts families who haven't lost a loved one. One man interviewed is the father of an adult special needs daughter. "He remembers being asked on several occasions just going for a walk with the family and he's got his daughter in the wheelchair. People come up and say, 'Why didn't you have your daughter euthanized?' That's a shocking cultural thing to happen to you," said Schadenberg. He says the documentary has a powerful takeaway for all viewers. "Is it ever right for someone else to be directly involved with causing your death? And the answer is no," he said. More information on "The Euthanasia Deception" can be found at www.caringnotkilling.com. |
| Gut Check Time for GOP & Social Conservatives |
| Mon, 29 Aug 2016 16:22:03 EST One of the nation's leading cultural conservatives says Republican Party leaders are looking for an excuse to avoid fights over religious liberty and freedom of conscience out of fear of being labeled anti-gay, and she says a win by Democrats in the North Carolina governor's race could be just what they've been looking for. Why North Carolina? The Tar Heel State has witnessed an intense debate over the past several months on transgender accommodation. The Charlotte City Council passed an ordinance requiring every government building, school and business to allow people to use the restrooms, showers and other public facilities according to their own gender identity. North Carolina lawmakers responded with legislation allowing business owners to set their own policies while maintaining that all government buildings and public schools and universities require people to use the facilities corresponding with the sex listed on their birth certificates. The law is now clogged up in the courts, as is an Obama administration order for every public school in the nation to allow students and adults to act according to their gender identity. Former National Organization for Marriage President Maggie Gallagher says national Republicans are closely watching this race because they would love to move these issues off their plates. "They're going to look at this McCrory race and they're going to decide whether or not they're going to shut down on these issues, whether these are just not politically viable issues in America," said Gallagher, who is now a senior fellow at the American Principles Project Foundation. "I can tell you that the national Republican Party would like to shut down. This is going to include not only the national Republican Party, but you're going to see the wave of state efforts to provide conscience protections to gay marriage dissenters grind to a halt," said Gallagher. With McCrory trailing Democrat Roy Cooper and so much attention being paid to social issues, Gallagher says a McCrory loss will lead national GOP figures to the wrong conclusion. "If it turns out this is a losing issue for McCrory in North Carolina, which is not Vermont or Massachusetts, this is going to be read by the political class as, 'Stay away from any issue the left says is anti-gay,'" said Gallagher. She says the party is squeamish about standing up for conscience right and religious liberties for two major reasons. First, the Chamber of Commerce wants nothing to do with it/ "The Chamber of Commerce has emerged as one of the leading voices against conscience protections for gay marriage dissenters or pushing back against this radical idea that biological males get to shower with your daughter," said Gallagher. "The business wing of the party has already folded and caved on this." Gallagher says the GOP is mainly focused on fiscal issues and is only interested in embracing a socially conservative position when the public has taken an overwhelming stand in that direction. "In order for a social issue to break into the agenda under the political strategies that Christian conservatives have been using, it has to be an incredible, overwhelming political winner. If you can show us that 65 percent of the country is on your side, then maybe the Republican Party will be on your side too," said Gallagher. Absent those lopsided numbers, Gallagher says GOP elites have as much use for social conservatives as Democrats do. "[The McCrory-Cooper race] is really a national election. It is going to decide whether both parties agree with the Obama administration transgender initiative and both parties agree you're like a bigot or a hater if you dissent from gay marriage and should be treated the same way," said Gallagher. Gallagher says Republicans could make great strides by pointing out that this fight is entirely because Obama and the Democrats are forcing an agenda on the American people. She says North Carolina is really the only entity to fight back, although some states have also taken the administration to court. She says the Obama forces would not even allow parents to know their children are identifying as another gender. "In Charlotte, the training notes for teachers, for children even in grade school, they are told they should be very careful about letting parents know if children are transitioning to the other gender," said Gallagher. She says social conservatives have to get directly involved in the political process and not just fume on the sidelines. "We don't devote political institutions with the resources that can actually go in contested elections and help our guys out, un-elect our opponents and make sure that our friends who stick their neck out are protected," said Gallagher, who adds she sees none of that support going towards McCrory right now. According to Gallagher, a concerted, organized campaign is needed against the well-oiled political machine of the left. "What we're watching unfold is the kind of '80s and '90s idea that if the left just takes extreme positions, the American people will spontaneously rebel," said Gallagher. "The left has gotten much better at controlling the message, controlling the framework." Gallagher asserts this is not really even a stand against the LGBT agenda, since the entire Democratic movement is now "all-in on using the power of the federal government to fundamentally take away the privacy rights of girls and the rights of every public school across America." She says the time for social conservatives to take a stand is right now because losing now means a very bleak future. "We're just going to continue to see our rights rapidly overturned and our place in society redefined as the equivalent of racists, haters and bigots," said Gallagher. |
| GOP Tries to Take Out Another House Conservative |
| Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:03:18 EST Fresh off a win in Kansas earlier this month, Republicans and special interests looking to oust rebellious conservative members have their sites set on Arizona. Just four weeks after House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas, lost his seat in a Republican primary, fellow caucus member Rep. Paul Gosar is fighting back against an onslaught of outside Super PAC money aimed at defeating hi. Gosar was elected in the tea party wave election of 2010 and is seeking a fourth term in the state's large, rural fourth district on August 30. But Gosar is busy fending off a spirited challenge from pastor and city council member Ray Strauss. Gosar says his case for re-election is simple and strong. "We gave them a promise that we would deliver and we've actually done that. We're one of the most accomplished members of Congress because we actually get things done. We listen to the people. We inventory what they need to get done. We try to limit governments and empower freedoms," said Gosar. Over nearly six years in Congress, Gosar has compiled ratings of 92 from both the American Conservative Union and Heritage Action. Conservative Review scores him at 83. Still this conservative district is playing host to a competitive primary thanks to more than $280,000 in outside money attacking Gosar and boosting Strauss. Gosar says it takes a lot of time and effort to counter an ad campaign that intense. "They're throwing the kitchen sink. They have been lying about my record, like I voted for Obamacare when everybody that knows me knows that's quite the opposite," said Gosar. In reality, Gosar wasn't even in Congress when Obamacare passed without a single Republican vote in 2010. He has voted for numerous proposed repeals of the law. He says the truth doesn't matter as establishment Republicans look to push him. "They're trying to do the same thing they did to Tim Huelskamp in Kansas, throw out all these negative ads and build up a fever frenzy in people that haven't voted once in the last four elections. What they're trying to do is get the angry mob to label someone like myself, who is definitely not an insider and would have to be one of the true outsiders, being labeled as that and then try to oust them," said Gosar. The special interest money is coming through the Right Way SuperPAC. The largest donor to the group is the Western Grower's Association, which Gosar says doesn't like his strong stance on border security. "It's no different than leadership wanting people to go along with their strategy that's got us into $19-plus trillion in debt and the same old crap we see over and over again," said Gosar. While Right Way is spending more than $23,000 in support of Strauss, the vast majority of the SuperPAC money is aimed at defeating Gosar. The congressman says that proves that Strauss may talk tough about border security but is really in alliance with the national GOP leaders and their deep-pocketed donors. "He's backed by open borders illegal amnesty folks that want cheap labor. He's backed by western growers, who have procured and tried to promote Gang of Eight and cheap labor. He's also got ties to this group that has ties to past leaders like John Boehner and current leadership," said Gosar. He says the misrepresentations about his record on immigration and other key issues in Arizona leave him very disappointed in an opponent who is a member of the clergy. "They want a go-along, get-along type person instead of holding accountability, living through the constitutional framework and the rule of law. It's quite contradictory when you see a guy who claims to be a pastor that continues to lie over and over and over again about the things we have accomplished," said Gosar. Gosar says his record of accomplishment is clear, starting with border security. "I've been a workhorse, putting amendments forth to defund sanctuary cities to making sure our border patrol has adequate funding, to making sure of reimbursement to local communities when Uncle Sam isn't doing their job," said Gosar, while also mentioning his efforts to defund President Obama's executive actions on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA). Gosar also touts an A+ grade from the immigration group Numbers USA He says he says also led House fights to stop the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule and other environmental overreach, while fighting to give patients more power in their health care choices and pushing back against the Obama housing initiative that seeks a racial and religious balance in all neighborhoods. Gosar is also proud to run on the same ticket as Donald Trump, who Gosar says is very popular in the fourth district. He says residents are craving the return of the rule of law and that includes a sizable percentage of Hispanic voters in the district. He says the choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton is a no-brainer. "When anybody gives me any guff in regards to that, I'm like, ' Can you really vote for a criminal? Come on now. Have we stooped that low?' Donald Trump is talking the right language. he may not always use the right words, but boy he's articulate because he knows there's a problem and a pulse that needs to be taken care of," said Gosar. |
| 'You Need to Know Something About Your Signature Issue' |
| Thu, 25 Aug 2016 16:59:26 EST A leading amnesty foe is blasting Donald Trump for moving far away from his earlier proposal on how to handle the millions of people in the country illegally and says the Republican presidential nominee now holds a position largely identical to those offered by Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and the Senate's Gang of Eight. On Tuesday, Trump told the Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity that many people have approached him about softening his plan to create a national deportation force to expel everyone in the U.S. illegally. "I've had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me. They've said, 'Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who's been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and the family out. It's so tough, Mr. Trump.' I have it all the time," said Trump on "Hannity" Tuesday night. He then explained why allowing those who followed the law since entering the country illegally would not amount to amnesty. "They'll pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes. There's no amnesty as such. There's no amnesty," said Trump. Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian says this is a stunning reversal for the candidate who won the GOP nomination based largely upon his commitment to secure the border and remove those living here illegally. He says this new Trump approach doesn't seem to differ much at all from the 2013 Gang of Eight bill that passed the U.S. Senate but died in the House of Representatives. "Not that much honestly. The Gang of Eight was obviously a lot more detailed with a lot more explicit, whereas Trump is talking off the top of his head. But really, he is now the unofficial ninth member of the Gang of Eight," said Krikorian. "You've got to wonder when Jeb (Bush) was watching this on TV, he probably spit out his drink and started yelling, 'That's my immigration plan,'" said Krikorian. He says Trump used the same verbal tactics that amnesty supporters also employ. "He was using phrases like' it's not really an amnesty' or 'it's not an amnesty as such' and 'they'll pay back taxes.' Those are buzzwords of the pro-amnesty people. Every politician pushing an amnesty says it's not really an amnesty," said Krikorian. Krikorian asserts that, just like 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, Trump doesn't speak the language of conservatives and really has no idea what they believe. "The guy has been running on immigration for a year. And he still doesn't have the three bullet point summary that you need to be able to articulate if you're running for office on your signature issue. You need to know something about your signature issue. He doesn't. Nothing," said Krikorian. Krikorian believes it's that disconnect with conservatives that led Trump to mistakenly conclude that the party base favored mass deportation through deportation squads. He says Trump may well have offered that idea out of genuine concern over our poor border security, but he was going to have to ease his position eventually, "He was going to have to walk back his ridiculous comments about deporting all the illegals. There was no question. No immigration restrictionist has ever called for that. That's just something that was sort of gut reaction of his . That was Archie Bunker yelling at the television," said Krikorian. In the wake of Trump's major policy shift, there is some speculation that internal polling convinced Trump to change course. Krikorian says if that's the case, it should not be taken as a sign that American oppose blocking citizenship or legalization for those in the U.S. illegally. "What the polling would likely show is that saying you're going to deport all 12 million illegal aliens in two years with deportation squads, or whatever term he used, that doesn't poll well. You bet it doesn't. That's why no one in the restrictionist movement has ever suggested anything like that," said Krikorian. But Krikorian says Trump walked it back in entirely the wrong way, by listening to his Latino advisers, who all backed the Gang of Eight and the immigration proposals of President George W. Bush. "They're all Bush people. They were all for the amnesty in the Gang of Eight and they were all for the earlier Bush amnesty. Presumably, with this meeting, people were saying, 'Well Donald, it's not really an amnesty if you don't give them citizenship and make them pay back taxes,'" said Krikorian. "They made the same assumption that Republican and even Democratic politicians always make - that there's only two options. Either deport them all with deportation squads or amnesty. It is not a binary choice," he said. Krikorian says the right way to back away from mass deportation was obvious. In fact, it's been on Trump's website for months. The strategy includes consistent enforcement of the law, monitoring businesses as they hire and keeping track of visa holders in order to reduce the number of people in the U.S. illegally. "Then when you re-establish control, you can have a discussion about what we do about the people who are left here," said Krikorian. While Krikorian slams Trump for flip-flopping on his signature issue, he is far more critical of Hillary Clinton. Krikorian says Clinton has the most radical immigration plan ever put forward by a major party nominee in the U.S., to the point of refusing to deport anyone here illegally unless they are convicted of a violent felony. She would also grant amnesty to all current illegal immigrants. "That is radical. Trump does look pretty good compared to that. My point is not that they're the same or that Trump is worse. Hillary is unbelievably worse on immigration, to the level of irresponsibility and dereliction of duty," said Krikorian. |
| Faith-Based Colleges Win...For Now |
| Wed, 24 Aug 2016 16:20:47 EST Faith-based colleges and universities in California dodged a major threat to their existence from Democratic state lawmakers, but the leader of an effort to block financial aid from the state to schools that do not adhere to the left's position on sexuality vows to bring the matter back next year. As reported in June, Democrats led by State Sen. Ricardo Lara were pushing an amendment to the California Equity in Higher Education Act. The act forbids discrimination based on religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. But it also contains a significant exemption for religious colleges and universities, allowing them to hold students and staff to codes of conduct and use faith and other criteria in admissions and hiring. The Lara bill originally called for removing that exemption, meaning student tuition assistance through the state's Cal Grant program could be cut off to those schools. But following the legislature's summer recess, Lara unexpectedly changed his bill. "The bill was significantly modified and the most devastating provisions were removed by the bill's sponsor," said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Gregory Baylor, who also directs the ADF's Religious Schools Team. "Namely, the provision that says if a school wants to participate in the Cal Grant program, they can't consider religion, they can't have traditional Christian codes of conduct having to do with sexuality, they can't consider religious beliefs in employment and admissions. Those things have been taken out of the bill," said Baylor. The bill does require the schools to inform the California Student Aid Commission that they have an exemption and to inform student and staff applicants of their exemption. Baylor says those policies already existed. Sen. Lara has not fully explained his decision to withdraw the more contentious provisions from his bill. Lara simply says he did not want the bill to create unintended consequences. Baylor believes fierce resistance from the schools and church leaders played a major role in Lara backing down. "There was a vigorous effort on behalf of the schools themselves lobbying against passage of this legislation. The schools activated their students, the parents of those students, their employees, their alumni. And many of California's churches, including prominent leaders of African-American and Hispanic churches made their voice known to the legislature," said Baylor. Lara's decision to back down is even more stunning considering that some liberal groups were pushing him to go even further in than targeting exemptions in his legislation. "The ACLU, in one of those committees that the bill passed, testified against the bill, not because they understand that it violates religious liberty, which it does, but rather because they didn't believe the bill was punitive enough," said Baylor. The ACLU was not alone. "We heard similar stories about Planned Parenthood, hoping to use this bill to punish schools that have pro-life values and policies," said Baylor. But there is no time for the faith-based schools to breathe easy. Sen. Lara says he plans to pursue this issue again next year because of the "appalling and unacceptable discrimination against LGBT students at these private religious institutions throughout California." Baylor says Lara and other liberals are relentless on this issue for many reasons, beginning with having little appreciation for the value these schools add to our society and the hope they provide for those coming from difficult backgrounds. "They don't comprehend how these schools, uniquely in many instances, reach out to economically disadvantaged and minority students. I don't think they value the character education these institutions offer, the quality character of the graduates, the contributions they make to our economy and our society. I think they undervalue that," said Baylor. A more basic assessment, says Baylor, is that Democrats and liberal groups have zero tolerance for views contrary to their own. "The purpose of a law like this is to make a statement that their views of sexuality are correct and Christian and other traditional religious views of sexuality are wrong," said Baylor. Baylor says the schools in question certainly have codes of conduct for students and employees, such as no sexual activity outside the marriage of one man and one woman. He says Lara and other critics have this image of Christian schools expelling gay or lesbian students as a knee-jerk reaction to violating the code. He says that narrative is false. "If they encounter a student who has violated these rules, the first response is not to suspend or expel these students. I think that's a myth that opponents of these schools have propagated. The real response is one of compassion, of ministry and of redemption," said Baylor. If lawmakers forbid Cal Grant dollars from helping to pay for tuition at faith-based schools, Baylor says poor and minority students will be hurt most. "They are more interested in making an ideological and political statement than in protecting the interests of economically disadvantaged students," said Baylor. As for the schools, Baylor says they would be left scrambling. "I'm not convinced that significant sum of money is available to them right now. Most of these institutions, although they're economically stable, don't have the endowments of a Princeton or a Stanford," said Baylor. Baylor says if the schools could not raise the money to stay open, many thousands of students would be forced to make other decisions. He says many thousands would be forced into the University of California or California State University systems, throwing both of them into chaos. However, he says another possibility is even more disturbing. "The worst possible outcome is these students who would have gone to a school like Westmont or Thomas Aquinas College, if they can't afford it, they may not have anyplace else to go. They end up not having a college education at all just because there are folks who want to make an ideological statement to show their cultural power about issues of marriage and sexuality and that's unfortunate," said Baylor. |
| Debunking the Myth of Nordic Utopia |
| Tue, 23 Aug 2016 16:34:48 EST Liberal American politicians often cite Nordic countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as proof that big government or socialist policies can lead to a vibrant, prosperous nation, but a leading economic scholar says those countries are successful despite more government and are actually proof that such policies are a failure. Dr Nima Sanandaji is author of "Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism". He says liberals and socialists in America and beyond frequently extol the Nordic countries for one simple reason. The Nordic countries are Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. "If you remove the Nordic countries, the left doesn't have any role models left. The Left doesn't say, 'Look at California. They have big government. It works.' They don't say that. They don't say, 'Look at Italy. they have social democratic policies. That works.' They only point to the Nordic countries," said Sanandaji. But even that example is badly misleading. Sanandaji says while there are some socialist policies in place, those are not socialist countries and they don't see themselves that way. "The policies of Nordic countries are not socialism. It is capitalism. Denmark is used by the U.S. left as the main role model for socialism. The Danish prime minister came to Harvard University at the end of last year. He said, 'Stop saying Denmark is socialist. Denmark is a market economy,'" said Sanandaji. While citizens of Nordic countries pay up to 60 percent of their income in taxes, Sanandaji says other policies help to keep the economy humming. "To a large degree, these companies compensate for high taxes by having economic freedom in every other area. Denmark has the same economic freedom score that the U.S. does. Why? Besides having higher taxes, in virtually every other part of their economy, they're much more capitalist than the U.S. is," said Sanandaji. But even more significant than economic freedom, says Sanandaji, is the renowned work ethic and strong responsibility culture of the Nordic people, qualities he says were in place long before the big government policies came along. "The Nordic countries have a culture of success that gives them prosperity, that gives them social success. This culture of success predates the welfare state. I systematically show in my book, 'Debunking Utopia,' that the admirable features of the Nordic countries predate the welfare state," said Sanandaji. However, his research shows that the 'culture of success' is even stronger in Nordic immigrants to the U.S., proving the big government policies are actually a hindrance. "All of [the admirable features] are found equally or even more among Nordic Americans who live in the American capitalist system than their Nordic cousins who live in the social democratic system. It is not about social democracy. It is not about big government. It is about a unique Nordic culture," said Sanandaji. Liberals in the U.S. and beyond point to Nordic life expectancy exceeding that of the U.S., including Denmark, which has a life expectancy 1.5 years higher than Americans. Sanandaji says that's true, but government-run health care is not the reason. "True. They do live longer, but I look at history. In 1960, Denmark had lower taxes than the U.S. had. At that time, before the welfare state, Danes lived 2.4 years longer than Americans. The difference has actually shrunk when Denmark is moving toward the highest tax on the planet," said Sanandaji. He also says Denmark has the lowest life expectancy among the Nordic countries despite having the biggest government. Iceland has the smallest government but also boasts the longest Nordic life expectancy. But while the Nordic nations are doing much better than socialist nations like Venezuela, Italy and Greece thanks to a strong culture and market economic policies, Sanandaji says other big government policies are harming those countries. "All this social capital, work ethic, responsibility ethics has been grinded down by the welfare state. Many, many people are trapped in welfare dependency. That creates social poverty. So while the welfare state is supposed to combat poverty, it is actually to some degree creating poverty and social problems," said Sanandaji. |
| Unmasking Pro-Hillary Republicans |
| Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:57:41 EST The man who served four U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations says Donald Trump is an easy choice over Hillary Clinton and says former GOP officials planning to vote for Hillary are exposing themselves as desperate to protect the system that has enriched them and advanced their careers. And Richard Grenell says he is particularly disgusted by the decision of his former boss, John Negroponte, to stiff-arm the Republican nominee and line up behind Clinton. Negroponte served in the George W. Bush administration, first as U.N. Ambassador, then as Ambassador to Iraq before eventually becoming the first Director of National Intelligence. Earlier this month, Negroponte was one of 50 diplomatic and national security Republicans to issue an open letter opposing Trump's White House bid. Later, Negroponte announced he supported Clinton. Grenell, who served as spokesman at the U.N. for Negroponte and Ambassadors John Danforth, John Bolton, and Zalmay Khalilzad, says Negroponte's decisions don't surprise him at all. "I'm not surprised that John Negroponte is supporting Hillary Clinton because he is a creature of Washington that has benefited from the system. He likes the rules. He has greatly succeeded by playing by those rules. He's a Washington insider," said Grenell. He also says no one should be fooled by Negroponte posturing himself as a loyal Republican. "I heard him personally, on many occasions, mock the President of the United States and the vice-president, who appointed him to his position - that's George Bush and Dick Cheney," said Grenell. "He mocked them and their policies, yet he continued to work for them and he took higher jobs from them. So loyalty is not actually his strength." Grenell's opinion of the others who signed the letter opposing Trump isn't any higher. "There are hundreds of experts who didn't sign that letter. So the 50 that did sign it, I'm not surprised. Many of them on that list I've never heard of to be honest. There are some on that list that I'm surprised are still calling themselves Republicans," said Grenell. He says many others are like Negroponte and are comfortable with the way Washington works right now. "There are some on that list that I never believed would never vote for anybody but a mainstream politician that plays by the rules. And then there are some that are going to lose a whole bunch of power if the rules are changed," said Grenell. Grenell says Donald Trump poses a serious threat to business as usual in Washington, making insiders like Negroponte very nervous and people like Grenell hopeful. "I'm excited when I look at the possibilities that Donald Trump brings to Washington because he's somebody new and different. He's not a politician and he's not going to make decisions in the same way, which I have to say is the reason a lot of the D.C. types, whether they're Republicans or Democrats are supporting Hillary Clinton," he said. "They like the rules. The rules benefit them and so they don't want the benefits to change. Donald Trump is willing to look at Washington, D.C., and the way we run it in a completely different way. And that's refreshing to me," said Grenell. Just looking at the day-to-day headlines convinces Grenell that a major shake-up is needed in our approach to foreign policy. Over the weekend, over 50 people were killed in a terrorist attack at a wedding in Turkey. Grenell says policy in Turkey is getting more complicated thanks to the autocratic actions of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, but he also says it's yet another example of the Obama administration - and Hillary Clinton - dropping the ball. "It also has to do with a lack of U.S. leadership. When we see different situations like this bombing going on in Turkey, it is a sign that the United States needs to step up its leadership," said Grenell. He says the U.S. and Turkey both want to see Bashar al-Assad removed from power yet can't seem to make any progress in that direction while Russia has no problems sending in tanks to protect Assad. "We haven't seen this in recent memory, where the Russians have moved from just talking tough against U.S. policy to actually implementing a military strategy to stand up against the United States, to stand up against Turkey, to really stand up against NATO and nothing be done about it," said Grenell. Grenell is very concerned about the rapid erosion of freedom in Turkey over the past eight years and especially since this summer's failed coup against Erdogan. He says Hillary Clinton also failed to challenge that accumulation of power. "When Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, he was openly challenging U.S. policy on Israel and Gaza and that was allowed to happen. I think the lesson that Erdogan has learned is that the world really isn't watching. The U.S. isn't paying attention and he can do what he wants," said Grenell. He also asserts that Clinton can't spot terrorism when it's staring her in the face, most glaringly in the case of Boko Haram in Nigeria. "She considered it. She looked at the evidence. There were people within the State Department and within the U.S. government; Obama political appointees were lobbying her to put this group on the terror list. She looked at the evidence and her judgment brought her to the point of saying, 'I don't think they should be placed on the terror list. That was a disaster," said Grenell. According to Grenell, Clinton also deserves blame for the mess in Libya and the general rise in terrorism in the world. He also says the recent revelations that the Obama administration paid $400 million to Iran at the exact same time our hostages were released also shows some clear differences between Clinton and Trump. "Whether you call it ransom or not, that immediate payment is a policy that Obama defends and that Hillary defends. She says it wasn't ransom, that it was appropriate. Donald Trump says, 'No, we're going to stop that sort of sneaky, secretive payment process.' Whatever you call it, that sort of policy will not be implemented in the Trump administration. Hillary Clinton, however, wants to continue that," said Grenell. In addition to Trump shaking up how the Washington foreign policy establishment does business, Grenell says the GOP nominee would bring huge changes to the foreign aid process and insist on zero-based budgeting and justified foreign aid. "What Donald Trump believes is that in January of the new year, countries should have to come to the United States and to the State Department to say, 'This is what we're going to spend your tax dollars on if you give us foreign aid,'" said Grenell. "Those types of changes will never happen with a Hillary Clinton. They will happen with a Donald Trump." In the final analysis, Grenell says his choice in 2016 is an easy one. "The choice in November for people is very clear. It's either you vote for Hillary Clinton and you get 5,000 liberal political appointees running the government, or you vote for Donald Trump and you get 5,000 conservative political appointees, with him, running the government," said Grenell. |