At Issue this week... February 12, 2014 2014 Election Lambro (13) Afghanistan Chapman (30) Al Qaeda Jeffrey (21) America’s Champions Norris (27) Answer Man Seamans-Shook (14) Big Government Towery (12) Black History Month Massie (2) Class of 1974 Barone (8) Cybersecurity Report Bay (3) Dear Mark Levy (19) Drugs Murchison (26) Education Chavez (23) Malkin (24) Williams (25) Fatherlessness Charen (23) Foreign Policy Jacoby (29) Prager (30) Immigration Reform Buchanan (16) Coulter (7) Morris (18) Schlafly (17) Sowell (17) Thomas (15) Income Inequality Harsanyi (18) Jacoby (15) Keystone Pipeline Lowry (11) Liberal Hollywood Elder (22) Media Bias Bozell (10, 12) Obamacare Limbaugh (4) Malkin (11) Saunders (4) Will (25) Obama Presidency Farah (5) Politics Tyrrell (6) Religious Liberty Charen (5) McCaughey (8) State of the Union Barone (20) Lambro (9) Limbaugh (6) Lowry (1) Napolitano (14) Thomas (29) Uganda Olasky (28) Ukraine Buchanan (31) War on Women Krauthammer (26) World Markets Kudlow (21)
State of the Union by Rich Lowry
The picayune American president
W
hat a waste of pomp and circumstance. The State of the Union had all the customary dignitaries, ritualistic applause, primetime pre-emptions on broadcast TV — and even less interest than usual. The checklist of the Obama presidency is clear enough: We’ve got the august trappings of imperial power. We’ve got the smack talk of ruling through “pen and phone.” We’ve got the distaste for the niceties of inconvenient laws and impatience with institutional checks and balances.
He declared, “I’m reaching out to some of America’s leading foundations and corporations on a new initiative to help more young men of color facing especially tough odds stay on track and reach their full potential.” Good for him, but this smacks of community organizing writ large.
YES, THIS IMPERIAL president has it all, except new or big ideas. The fight against inequality, which was supposed to be a generation-defining struggle and consume the rest of President Barack Obama’s presidency as of a couple of weeks ago, barely rated in the State of the Union. The president used the word “inequality” all of three times. His pollsters must have let him in on the fact that Americans don’t naturally resent other people’s good fortune. So he shifted ground on Tuesday night to emphasize opportunity instead of inequality. This is a welcome change, but it robbed the speech of any ideological charge. Instead, it was a lumpy bag full of hoary chestnuts, leftover proposals from prior State of the Union addresses, and microinitiatives so small they are barely visible to the naked eye. It often felt like the interminable in the service of the insipid, but Obama was conversational and upbeat. It may be that pointlessness suits him. Arguably, the big-ticket items were extending unemployment benefits and raising the minimum wage. Those aren’t exactly towering policy proposals, although they loomed large compared with the president’s other items. He announced that he’s launching six more hubs for high-tech manufacturing. This was a bold doubling down on his announcement of the launch of three more manufacturing hubs in last year’s State of the Union. He unveiled to the world the awkwardly named MyRA savings bonds, another retirement vehicle that may, as Yuval Levin of National Affairs writes, be difficult to distinguish from the already existing ones. He made a pro forma nod to gun control, last year’s failed crusade.
HE SAID HE was entrusting Vice President Joe Biden with the reform of job-training programs. These programs have existed for decades, and billions of dollars have been spent on them. Yet the vice president of the United States has to be assigned to see that they “train Americans with the skills employers need, and match them to good jobs that need to be filled right now?” After all the windup about how the president was going to hurtle thunderbolts of executive orders down at Congress from on high, the president’s headline unilateral act was imposing a minimum
Rich
Lowry (c) 2013, King Features Syndicate
wage of $10.10 ... on federal contractors ... making new hires. Even his thunderbolts are trifling. It may be that the president isn’t tipping his hand and will be sorely tempted to effectively legislate on his own, especially on immigration and climate change, as time passes. Certainly his base wants him to break whatever procedural eggs are necessary. It is always strange to hear Nancy Pelosi, a former speaker of the House, implore the president to trample on her coequal branch of government, so long as it’s in a good cause. The content of the president’s speech recalled the vintage “small ball” of Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s. But Clinton’s microinitiatives were part of a broad feint to the center and a larger project to associate himself with middle-class values, both of which were meant to get him re-elected. It worked. OBAMA’S RESORT to the picayune feels less like a strategy and more like a tacit admission of exhaustion. It’s good to be king, although it’s even better if you aren’t out of gas. January 30, 2014
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Conservative Chronicle
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: February 2, 2014
What you won’t hear during Black History Month
F
ebruary 1st begins the 28 day com; 2/1/14) And it is paramount to note “ceremony to injustice” that is that these attacks are taking place across nothing more than an aversion America — and it’s happening to modernity that encourages people to outside the ghetto. I’d say that mire themselves shows America has in the past juxtaadvanced a long way posed to embracbecause, according the present and ing to the racialthe future. To me ists flooding the (c) 2013, Mychal Massie that is the essence classrooms and of Black History Month. Black History airwaves, blacks were barely suffered to Month is used by the nefarious and the walk on the same sidewalk with whites. corrupt to divide, to evoke blame and You’ll hear about lynchings and beatguilt, and often for personal gain. ings and bombings this month complete with that which masquerades for historiPUBLIC SCHOOL children will be cal erudition decrying how bad blacks immersed in a 28-day vat of a factually still have it today — but you won’t hear flawed and at times fictional history of about the New Black Panther Party memhow bad the blacks had it in America, and bers being arrested for soliciting interthey will hear that whites are privileged state funds to be used as reward money and their ancestors had slaves, blah-blah- to harm George Zimmerman. In fact, you blah. won’t hear how they called for George The one thing you won’t hear dur- Zimmerman to be killed. You won’t hear ing Black History Month is what blacks that there have been no arrests, threats of are able to get away with today which, arrests or outcries calling for arrest (exif taken in context, shows the tolerance cept by me and a very few others) pursuof America that they won’t be talking ant to the New Black Panthers calling for about in classrooms during Black History white babies to be killed. Month. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and LouThey won’t be talking about the fact is Farrakhan will be afforded celebrity that blacks aren’t shot on sight in areas status as they tour the country accusing where “Knockout” is taking place. For whites of heinous injustices: 99.9 percent those unfamiliar, “Knockout” is the game of which are transpicuous lies and the .1 black thugs play where they suddenly percent that is true is anecdotal. and unexpectedly punch unsuspecting And while I’m on that subject, Obama white persons in the face for sport. not only was elected and then re-elected, The physical injuries and emotional but he was elected and re-elected with trauma white victims suffer during these people fully aware that he is a pathoattacks are viewed as “minor,” and, in the logical liar whose goal is to “fundamenmajority of cases, the attacks don’t even tally transform America” into a socialist make it on the evening news or into the state. The blatant violations of the Constinewspapers. (See: Cops, Media: ‘Knock- tution and Congressional authority would outs’ Are ‘Minor’; Colin Flaherty; WND. have led to the impeachment of any other
Mychal
Massie
president heretofore. Bill Clinton was impeached for less, and President Nixon was forced to resign his presidency for demonstrably less than what Obama is guilty of thus far in office. THE NAACP has been allowed to violate their tax-exempt status for decades as they openly support political candidates and tell blacks whom to vote for and what to vote against. Yet the very Congressmen, such as Chuck Schumer, who turn a blind eye to the black group demand that Obama set the IRS on tea party groups for the mere suggestion of such violations. You can bet that Trayvon Martin will be lauded for sainthood during Black History Month. He will be held out as an example of white injustice. But, you won’t hear how James Cooper and James Kouzaris had begged for their lives moments before they were brutally murdered by Shawn Tyson, a black teenager. You won’t hear that the same black man in the White House, who was quick to stir the caldron of racial animus in the Martin situation, has refused numerous attempts by the families of these two British students, tourists who had wandered into the neighborhood where Tyson gunned them down in cold blood because they were white, to show them a modicum of compassion. You can bet that no white Attorney General could tell the Civil Rights Division of the their Justice Department that he wasn’t interested in prosecuting any civil rights violations unless the alleged victims were white. But Obama’s Attorney General is reported to have said he wasn’t interested in prosecuting civil rights cases unless the victims were black. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in the desert of a white president not being forced to mea culpa as calls for his immediate resignation resounded through the media if his attorney general had made such a statement. George Bush was assailed because his attorney general, John Ashcroft, was a Christian who held to his Christian beliefs. I’m tired of the lies, Kunta Kinte, and charlatans posing as eruditionists parroting myths and distortions about
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what slavery was or wasn’t. Jim Crow is over, and the only overt segregation taking place today is perpetrated by black groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus, the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panthers. Slavery has become a crutch for blacks. It is the excuse used for retreating from modernity. Slavery happened; the United States had the good sense and decency to move beyond it. Now it’s time blacks got over it and moved forward. IT’S TIME to send Black History Month to the ash heaps of history. It’s time to teach all children factual history, not just a manufactured history used to force guilt on white students and victim status on black students. It’s time we teach students that blacks do not own the market on past suffering and injustice. It’s time we teach that every population group who arrived here had extremely difficult times at first, but, unlike the majority of blacks, they rose above it. And, specific to that point, we should teach that those blacks who are not rising above same are those who embrace bitterness, victimology and immiseration as a means of life.
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February 12, 2014 CYBERSECURITY REPORT: February 5, 2014
Senate cybersecurity report is damning
O
n Feb. 4th, the Senate Home- sitive cybersecurity details for nuclear land Security and Govern- (power) plants on an unprotected” mental Affairs committee’s computer. Storing security data for actor computers on a minority staff released a 19-page as- r e non-secure computer sessment entitled is beyond bonehead. “The Federal Moreover, the comG o v e r n m e n t ’s puter drive was Track Record on “shared;” several Cybersecurity (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate offices could acand Critical Infrastructure.” Retiring Sen. Tom Coburn cess the defenseless data. Cyberthieves (R-Oklahoma) sponsored the assess- and spies had multiple routes; lousy ment. The footnoted assessment draws security in one office undermined tight on more than 40 agency audits and in- security elsewhere. Ultimately, the report condemns the NRC’s information spector general reviews. technology experts for “perceived inCOBURN’S SHORT and readable eptitude.” On to money. Regulating and insurdocument supports its high-tech horror story with vivid, near-slapstick exam- ing the integrity of U.S. stock markets ples of bonehead stupidity and reckless is a central function of the SEC Howlaziness magnified by supervisor irre- ever, the SEC “routinely exposed exsponsibility and senior leader neglect. tremely sensitive” New York Stock Slapstick and bonehead by “the Exchange computer network data, Three Stooges” is comedy. Persistent, including cybersecurity methods and uncorrected cybersecurity errors by procedures. The 2013 hack on Target agencies handling extremely sensitive stores compromised customer data information is a scandal with the po- and financially damaged the discount chain. The NYSE is a bigger target tential for tragedy. By reputation, the Nuclear Regula- than Target. Hacking the Big Board tory Commission is a tech-savvy orga- wreaks global financial damage. Bonenization. When President Gerald Ford head security sloppiness at the SEC, signed the NRC’s authorizing legisla- the NYSE’s chief government regulation, he said that licensing and regulat- tor and policeman, gave hackers and ing the civilian use of nuclear materi- terrorists the inside skinny on the marals is a complicated job with “special ket’s IT defenses. The report damns the U.S. Army potential hazards.” Nuclear reactors must be protected Corps of Engineers. Hey, Corps’ IT from earthquakes, terrorists and cyber security is much worse than my pun. attacks on the computers monitoring In January 2013, hackers penetrated their output. However, investigators Corps’ computers, filching a “nondiscovered that the NRC “stored sen- public database” with information on
Austin
Bay
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needs to grow its subscriber base, and you are our best sales person because you know us best. Please tell your friends about the Conservative Chronicle when you visit with them in person, on the phone, by email, or on Facebook. Please refer them to our number, email or web site. If you would be interested in a way to make money by selling the Conservative Chronicle, please email bradhicks.map@gmail.com to find out about a possible commission arrangement. www.conservativechronicle.com 1-800-888-3039 conserve@iowaconnect.com “the nation’s 85,000 dams.” The data included assessments of “each dam’s condition, potential for fatalities if breached, (its) location and nearest city.” If a dam’s condition report addresses detailed structural weaknesses, a terrorist can better estimate exactly how much explosive his bomb requires and where he should place the device. THESE SENSATIONAL examples of inexcusable IT malfeasance appear on the report’s introductory page. They reveal the compromise of sensitive regulatory data fundamental to each agency’s central regulatory mission. Though sensational, they are representative. Other agencies have similar horror stories, including the Department of Defense, Department of Energy,
the IRS, NASA, the FDA and Homeland Security. Homeland Security has experienced numerous problems in its cyber security office and its component agencies. The IRS bleeds sensitive taxpayer information. It “fails to encrypt sensitive data” and does not “properly fix known vulnerabilities.” Sophisticated hackers are a constant threat to everyone — individuals, private businesses and government agencies. However, IG investigators found that many government breaches involve exploiting “mundane weaknesses.” These include failure to install software patches and using weak passwords. Investigators often found passwords written on a worker’s desk right beside a classified computer. The government has issued numerous directives. “The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the government’s official body for setting cybersecurity standards, has produced thousands of pages of precise guidance on every significant aspect of IT security. And yet agencies — even agencies with responsibilities for critical infrastructure or vast repositories of sensitive data — continue to leave themselves vulnerable, often by failing to take the most basic steps towards securing their systems and information.” Lots of taxpayer money buys little cyber defense. Since 2006, the federal government has spent at least $65 billion on computer and network security. That figure is an estimate and may not include all military and intelligence agency expenditures. Despite the big bucks, security management, meaning security oversight and leadership to insure oversight, is inconsistent. Sloppiness and boneheadedness undermine discipline and thoughtful vigilance. THIS IS A major national security scandal. Loose disks do sink ships. It is time for the boneheads to roll.
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Conservative Chronicle
OBAMACARE: February 4, 2014
One brave doctor stands up to Obamacare
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don’t have a completely satisfactory answer when people ask me what we can do to combat the tyranny we are witnessing in this country, but one brave and principled Texas physician is showing how people can stand up. Dr. Kristin Held of San Antonio, whom I’ve befriended on Twitter and grown to deeply admire for her vocal advocacy against Obamacare, has taken the next step in her battle — our battle.
LAST WEEK, she wrote a letter to Aetna insurance company terminating her participation in its program because of unilateral changes she said the company had made to its contract with her. In her letter, Dr. Held informed Aetna that “Obamacare, the ‘law of the land,’ contains ever-changing-at-the-whim-ofHHS, politically expedient mandates, rewards, penalties, rules and regulations with which I cannot rationally or morally treat my patients and run a practice, much-less interpret, implement, or comply.” She continued with something that cannot be said often and strongly enough, if for no other reason than President Obama will simply not acknowledge it and callously glosses over it, whether in his self-serving State of the Union speech or in his painfully evasive interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. “Millions of Americans,” wrote Dr. Held,” have lost coverage because of the healthcare law and must now shop on a defective, insecure government website and sign up for more expensive policies through Federal and State exchanges.” Next, she described how she only accidentally found out that the insurance company with which she had enjoyed a contractual relationship for years had changed the contractual terms in the middle of the stream without her knowledge, much less with her consent. “Only by logging in as a prospective patient,” said Dr. Held, “did my office manager and I discover that Aetna was selling plans for which I am a provider — effectively selling my services without even asking, much less informing me that my services would be sold on such a site, under the auspices of new terms with which I will not comply.” Bravo! She said that “after the fact,” she received a “form letter” informing her of the company’s “new allowables.” She told the company in no uncertain terms that she would not be treated this way. “I will not sell my services under such terms,” she wrote. “While treated as such, patients and doctors are not commodities worthy of such impersonal, inconsiderate, and cavalier treatment. We choose dignity and personal service over disrespect and form letters.” She went on to scold the company for “getting new business offering health
insurance plans featuring (her) services current Federal government is the anwith (her) consent under terms which are tithesis of all that composes American unacceptable to (her).” medicine and the sacred patient-doctor In closing, she wrote, “It saddens me relationship.” to think of the decreased access to care Dr. Held is exactly right. This law from actual physicians and the shock- was deceitfully passed, and ingly increased patients are the last costs Aetna pathing Obamacare’s tients will now exdesigners and supperience because porters are conof your choice to cerned about. In (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate collude with big their obsession to government rather than collaborate with continue with this law’s implementation, patients and physicians.” they are obliterating the nation’s health care system, forcing millions off their DR. HELD WROTE in her blog on plans and apart from their chosen physiDec. 21, 2013: “Obamacare empowers a cians, and then disgracefully pretending few political elites, their operatives, and it hasn’t happened. They are ensuring cronies to do whatever they want to the that patients will have less access to and American people on the false promise of fewer choices of care, despite promising access to ‘free’, ‘quality’ ‘medical care,’ more of both, and that their health care AKA tyranny-through-medicine. They costs are increasing, despite explicitly write and rewrite the deceitfully-passed guaranteeing cost reductions. law for political expediency, power, and Please don’t assume that Dr. Held is money; patients are an afterthought, an exaggerating when she says that the goal annoying impediment to their ultimate of these statists is to impose socialized goal — socialized medicine, the key- medicine on America. It’s not deniable. stone in the arch of Socialism. ... Our They can no longer credibly say they are
David
Limbaugh
pushing this system for the reasons they initially claimed, because every one of those has proved to be false — and they knew it ahead of time. I watched a debate between Obama’s radical friend Bill Ayers and Obama critic Dinesh D’Souza over the greatness of America. Guess which one touted America’s greatness and uniqueness? D’Souza, of course, credited America’s founding, and Bill Ayers claimed, essentially, that any greatness America possesses comes from its radicals and activists against the government. Well, let’s take a page out of the AyersObama-Alinsky community organizing playbook and, like Dr. Held, exercise our own form of activism to fight the lawless tyranny of the current federal government. Except that when we engage in activism, as it was with Dr. Held, it will be within the law. GOD BLESS Dr. Held for standing up to tyranny and fighting for her patients, her profession and the unique protections of God-given liberty enshrined in our Constitution.
OBAMACARE: January 30, 2014
Health reform or musical chairs?
P
resident Barack Obama delivered a good State of the Union address Tuesday night, but he couldn’t get past an inconvenient truth: He means well, but his schemes don’t work. Democrats championed the Affordable Care Act to increase the number of Americans with health coverage, but their plan led to the cancellation of private plans for about five million Americans, according to the Associated Press. Unless they qualify for subsidies, many now face higher premiums, often for plans that limit access to doctors.
“MORE THAN nine million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage,” the president boasted Tuesday. Warning: Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler called the claim that 6.3 million have signed on to Medicaid “fuzzy,” given that many enrollees might have qualified outside Obamacare. Also, the claim that three million have enrolled in exchanges is “open to question” because the figure includes those who haven’t paid premiums. A recent McKinsey & Co. survey reported, “Only 11 percent of consumers who bought new coverage under the law were previously uninsured.” More than half of those who chose not to participate cited “affordability” as a big factor. “If this keeps up there won’t be a
‘death spiral,’” industry graybeard Robert Laszewski quipped in his blog. “Heck, so far the insurers are just re-enrolling their old customers at higher rates!” In the past few months, readers have sent me stories of how Obamacare has affected their families. Some are thrilled. Subsidies have re-
Debra J.
Saunders (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
duced their premiums. Pre-existing conditions no longer present an obstacle. Some progressives informed me they are happy to pay higher premiums if it means others have access to solid coverage; they only wish Obamacare were single-payer. Most correspondents whose private plans were canceled — among the 1.1 million in California — are furious. Reader Marco Vailetti feels “screwed big time.” He has not enrolled his family in a Covered California plan, because he “cannot justify paying double in monthly premium that has a greater deductible” than he had before. A SAN FRANCISCAN confided that he bought a new policy but already canceled it because he could not afford it. As of Feb. 1, for the “first time in my life I am without health care,” he said.
Bruce Richardson of Oakland still is struggling with enrollment. At age 64, with advanced cardiovascular disease, he wrote, “I believe we have seen the future of health care, and it doesn’t look good for me.” Others signed on to Covered California plans by tightening their belts. David Latham told me, “In order to pay for the 59 percent increase in my premium, I had to take money that I was putting into my 401(k) plan and apply it to my health insurance. So now my retirement plan will have less money in it.” Industry insiders have their own laments. Administration is a nightmare, agent Tony Uccelli wrote, but worse: “In the end, what really happens, is the people who were really paying for all the care before, now pay more, plus the level of service they got just got destroyed.” Obama could have expanded Medicaid without mandating an end to so many of last year’s private plans. Democrats could have set up a system that didn’t gut the private coverage of self-employed people who had done everything right. Instead, they chose to dismantle the individual market as they lied about how people would be able to keep the plans they liked. “MY QUESTION to Obama is simple,” Vailetti wrote. “Why penalize hardworking law-abiding citizens like me?”
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February 12, 2014 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: Janaury 31, 2014
The little victims of the state: They won’t bow
A
n administration as imageconscious as this one should have been more careful in its choice of antagonists. The Little Sisters of the Poor is a Catholic charity providing care to the poorest elderly in a hospice-like setting. They serve 13,000 people in 31 countries, and operate 30 homes in the United States. Their faith calls them to treat every person, no matter how old, disabled or poor as if he or she were “Jesus himself.” There is no religious test for admission, only that you be poor and in need of care at the end of life. Think thousands of Mother Teresas. Today, they are facing harassment from the Obama administration. IN 1970, David and Barbara Green founded Hobby Lobby in their garage (which seems to be where all great American businesses are born these days). The family now owns 500 of the arts and crafts stores, employing 13,000.
They also own Mardel, a chain of Chris- in court facing the federal government (along with 300 other litigants challengtian bookstores. The Greens run their businesses ac- ing the Department of Health and Hucording to their lights. They don’t be- man Services mandates). Hobby Lobby, the federal lieve in alcohol consumption, so their government argues, stores do not sell must bow to the shot glasses or regulations proother drinking-remulgated by HHS lated items. They under Obamacare play Christian (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate and provide all 20 music. They close methods of contraon the Sabbath (losing millions per year). Employees ception, including Plan B and Ella. If the are offered free access to chaplains, oth- company declines, it will be assessed a er counselors and religiously oriented fine of $100 per day per employee, or financial courses. Because the Greens $475 million per year. abjure alcohol, they lose money annuSCRAMBLING TO justify this asally by declining to permit their delivery trucks to “back haul” liquor. They sault on the Greens’ religious expression provide health insurance that covers 16 (guaranteed by the First Amendment different contraceptives. They draw a and the Religious Freedom Restoration line, though, on providing four methods Act of 1993), the government argues that they consider abortifacients, and that well, yes, individuals have religious that’s why they have found themselves rights, but when they engage in com-
Mona
Charen
OBAMA PRESIDENCY: February 5, 2014
Is Obama’s heart in the right place?
“I think your heart is in the right place.” — Bill O’Reilly to President Barack Obama in pre-Super Bowl interview. Do you agree with O’Reilly that Obama’s heart is in the right place? How does O’Reilly know? Is it the job of a newsman to judge the hearts of their interview subjects? What special insight does O’Reilly have into the hearts of his interviewees?
IT’S REALLY a shame that we simply don’t have a press in America that understands its proper role as a watchdog on government fraud, waste, abuse and corruption. Our Founding Fathers enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution protections for the free press because they intuitively understood it would be critical to self-governance and preservation of their new belief in constitutionally limited government. But the American press has become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Fox News, with its marketing promise of a “fair and balanced” approach, while refreshing in comparison with its more statist competitors, is hardly the antidote America needs to preserve liberty. And liberty is very much in danger today in America. Who cares where Obama’s heart is? Can we even know, short of observing his actions? Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Can O’Reilly know it? What special training and insight might he have? Ev-
merce in a for-profit corporation, they lose those rights. In an editorial supporting the government, the New York Times opined: “The First Amendment does not exempt religious entities from complying with neutral laws of general applicability, like the contraceptive mandate, much less private profit-making corporations.” Odd that the Times has forgotten its own history. In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Court upheld the principle that corporations do not forfeit their First Amendment rights to free speech just because they are engaged in a profitmaking business. In both the Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor cases, the federal government is attempting to define religion so narrowly as to exclude all but churches and church-affiliated institutions. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents both plaintiffs, argues that this is a pinched and constraining interpretation of the law and the Constitution. Our religious liberty is more than freedom of worship. It’s also a worrying precedent. As the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs urged in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, if the Hobby Lobby can be forced to provide abortifacients, then observant Jewish employers (if incorporated) could be forced to open on Saturdays, serve non-kosher food or engage in other practices that violate the consciences of the owners. Because the Little Sisters are not part of any church, they are not eligible for the religious exemption. No problem, the federal government assured them, just sign this little piece of paper — a “certification” explaining their religious objections to providing the drugs and directing a third-party insurer to provide the coverage. The Little Sisters declined, believing that to sign such a document is to be complicit in something that violates their religious convictions. There are wrinkles in the fact pattern, since the Sisters are insured by Christian Brothers, who also oppose the law, but the principle remains: Do Americans lose their rights to religious expression because they are not explicitly linked to churches, synagogues or other houses of worship? Is living out your faith now to be hamstrung by the HHS backed by the enforcement of the IRS? Two years ago, announcing that nonprofits like the Little Sisters would be required to go along with providing all contraceptives and abortifacients, even if it violated their religious convictions, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sniffed that the religious would “have to adapt.”
can people about his beneficence in wanting to extend them health care while actually denying it. — He encourages the ritual sacrifice of millions of unborn babies through the abortion practice he says allows women to “fulfill their dreams.”
is hardening the heart of Obama today to deliver His people from bondage once again? The Hebrew people were not excited about leaving bondage in Egypt. As bad as conditions were, the unknown frightened them. Even after the Red Sea was parted, saving them from annihilation by the Egyptian army, many sought to return to Egypt from the safety of the wilderness. In a similar way, I believe Obama’s role is to force Americans to make a decision about their futures. Will we continue down the road toward bondage or reverse course and seek liberty in the ways of God? Will we accept government handouts and control over our lives or depend on God and the work of our own minds and hands? Will we follow God or make government our god the way the children of Israel made one of a golden calf?
HOW CAN anyone conclude from these actions that his heart is in the right place? And who cares if his heart is in the right place if his actions are lawless and hurtful to the country? Can anyone but God actually know our hearts? I don’t think so. It’s not included in the training I received to become a newsman. But there are plenty of lessons in the Bible about reading the heart. In Egypt, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh to serve His purposes. God sought to deliver His people from bondage in Egypt. Is it entirely possible God
I WILL BELIEVE Obama’s heart is in the right place when he vows he is a follower of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and will take no actions and make no pronouncements that he cannot square with His Holy Word. I will believe Obama’s heart is in the right place when he repents of all the evil he has wrought since assuming office five years ago. I will believe Obama’s heart is in the right place when he turns from his wicked ways, scrupulously follows SUCH AN adaptation would reprethe law of the land, and listens not only sent a severe loss to the elderly who rely for the voice of God but for the voices of on the Little Sisters — and to the scope the people he is sworn to serve. of religious liberty in America.
erything about Obama’s actions suggests neither his heart nor his soul is in the right place. He is behaving lawlessly, undermining the institutions that safeguard American principles: — He misuses his office and abuses his power to punish his critics. — He exceeds his constitutional authority by attempting to legislate from the executive branch. — He lies to the Ameri-
Joseph
Farah
(c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
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Conservative Chronicle
STATE OF THE UNION: January 31, 2014
Obama: The man who would be king
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ther than his fundamental dishonesty about certain conditions in America, what he stands for, his record, his failure to accept responsibility for his actions, his demonization, his divisive rhetoric, his arrogant promise to double down on his unconstitutional unilateral executive actions, his calls for yet more government instead of less, his foreign policy distortions and his diminution of the presidential office, President Obama’s State of the Union address was pretty good.
PRESIDENT OBAMA remains on his high horse about minimum wage, but he conveniently ignores that only one percent of the people in the U.S. labor force earn minimum wage, that the largest group among them is teenagers, that most are younger than 25, that most work less than 30 hours a week and that there are more than six times more minimum wage workers now than there were in 2007, shortly before he took office. More importantly, he doesn’t admit that increases to minimum wage invariably lead to increased unemployment. He continued his phony GOP war on women meme with his distortion of the employment pay disparity between men and women. He has to know that it is outright misleading to imply that women who are in the same jobs as men are paid only 77 cents for every dollar the men are paid. Studies show that women who are doing the same work as men receive less, but it’s closer to 91 cents for every dollar. He boasted that “more than nine million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage.” He failed to mention that because of Obamacare, more than five million Americans have been forced out of their private plans and that many are losing access to their doctors. He didn’t say that his law robs $700 billion from Medicare to finance unnecessary new health care spending under Obamacare. He omitted Obamacare’s deliberate assault on religious freedom. Nor did he discuss his lawless edicts exempting entities from the law’s mandates. Obama says he has cut the deficit in half. That’s only close to true if you use as a base line Bush’s last (partial) fiscal year, which was an extraordinary year because of the financial crisis. He’s probably the biggest spender in the history of the universe. His current deficit is about twice Bush’s average deficit, and if it weren’t for Republicans forcing spending cuts, it would be much higher. Obama blocks reform of entitlements, which will bankrupt the nation unless restructured, and if he had his way, he’d further increase spending, with more “stimulus” and infrastructure schemes. Obama says we have “the lowest unemployment rate in over five years,”
conveniently ignoring that we have the income inequality, and he has no solulowest labor participation rate in de- tions to alleviate it — other than to use cades and that some 50 million people government to confiscate the assets of Americans and give are on food stamps! His spending, tax- s o m e them to others. He ing and regulacan’t talk about uptions are killing ward mobility on the job market. the one hand and Obama touted then do everythe American peo(c) 2013, Creators Syndicate thing in his powple’s “profound belief in opportunity for all.” “Opportu- er to discourage people from helping nity,” he said, “is who we are.” No one themselves on the other. In a staggering display of dishonesty, believes that “he” is part of that “we.” If he truly cared about opportunity, he he took credit for increased American would loosen his stranglehold on the production of oil and natural gas and private sector and promote jobs. He claimed he supports energy indepenwould quit opposing work requirements dence. In the meantime, he impedes in welfare reform and stop sabotaging both industries — and the coal industhe labor market with his minimum try — and implements oppressive fuel wage and unemployment extension omission standards. Any increases in energy production, other than his failed agenda. green projects, are in spite of him, not OBAMA DOVETAILED this coun- because of him. He’s pushed for cap terfeit fealty to opportunity with his and trade, imposed energy taxes and demagoguery about income inequality. demanded more onerous regulations But his own policies are exacerbating on oil, gas and coal. And though global
David
Limbaugh
warming, er, climate change is a “fact” and “settled,” we’re freezing our buns off in the Midwest. Obama impugns the “wealthy” at every opportunity, implying that most have acquired their money unfairly or through inheritance, which is demonstrably, statistically false. He vilifies Republicans while saying he wants us to all work together. He says Republicans are only against things and not “for” anything. In fact, they’ve proposed countless reform plans, on health care, energy, taxes, spending, entitlements, defense and job creation. He knows better, but he has but one mode of operation: division, polarization and demonization. IF ALL THIS weren’t bad enough, he promises even more unlawful unilateral action, as if he were king and not the head of one of three coequal branches of government. If he had his way, he would be.
POLITICS: January 30, 2014
Politics’ double standard
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vents of this past week have lent credence to one of my most dearly held beliefs. A double standard in political life is better than no standard at all. The Democrats have — as to their behavior in politics — almost no standards at all. The stuffy Republicans have — as to their behavior in politics — a pretty hard and fast set of standards and they stick by them. WHEN THE Hon. Trey Radel, a freshman congressman from southwest Florida, was arrested last October for trying to purchase cocaine from an undercover police officer at Washington’s DuPont Circle, I figured his goose was cooked. Surely the Democrats would be against him. After all, he is a Republican. A more serious problem was his fellow Republicans. They would not stand by him. They almost never do stand by a Republican caught in flagrante delicto. Remember if you will the late Richard Milhous Nixon. Contrast his dark fate with the Democrats’ national treasure, Bill Clinton, who committed perjury and obstructed justice. House Republicans found him guilty as charged, but in the Senate both Democrats and Republicans let him off easy, and he has been having a jolly time of it for years while Nixon’s reputation has only darkened. Congressman Radel pleaded guilty to what the philosopher, W.C. Fields, called his alcohol problem. Fields could never get enough of the stuff, and, apparently, neither can Congressman Radel. So he
tried cocaine. Problematically, cocaine possession in most precincts of America is still illegal. Possibly out West there is some enlightened spot where it is legal, say, for treating halitosis or a head cold, but not in the District of Columbia. Out in the health-conscious West you cannot smoke cigarettes, but in vari-
R. Emmett
Tyrrell (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
ous places you can smoke marijuana and even cook it in with brownies or, who knows, pasta. Yet tobacco is malum prohibitum, and now even in New York and Massachusetts the solons are thinking about legalizing marijuana. Congressman Radel should have run for office in Colorado or the state of Washington. INSTEAD HE comes from Florida and a particularly conservative district embracing straight-laced Naples and Ft. Meyers. Upon his arrest, he immediately went into rehab and for all I know read the philosophers such as Fields. But his goose was cooked. Acting according to their standards, his Republican constituents within months began looking for a new congressman. By Monday, he had gotten the word. Republican leaders, who had been urging him to resign, were lining up behind his would-be successors. Possibly he will go back to talk radio, possibly as a Democrat.
The doubled standard in politics has been around for decades. It was most spectacularly on display in 1983 in the congressional sex scandal of two congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican. The Democrat, the Hon. Gerry Studds, was caught with a minor, a congressional page who happened to be a male. The Republican, the Hon. Dan Crane, was caught with a minor, a congressional page who happened to be a young lady. The House of Representatives voted to censure them, though it is said that they were censured so as to head off a move by Republicans to expel the errant legislators. Congressman Crane was so discredited among his Republican constituents that he went down to defeat when he was up for re-election in 1984 and has never been heard from again. Congressman Studds, claiming to have acted as a hero in trying to protect the identity of the intern, went on to win re-election after re-election until his retirement in 1997. He passed on in 2006, possibly to sainthood. AS I SAY, a double standard is better than no standard at all. The Democrats who are untroubled by their own moral anarchy would have no sense of right or wrong if it was not for the Republicans. The Republicans may get booted from high office for their offenses, but these Republicans serve a purpose. They give us all a sense of right and wrong. Good show, GOP.
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February 12, 2014 IMMIGRATION REFORM: January 29, 2014
GOP crafts plan to wreck the country, lose voters
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s House Republicans prepare to sell out the country on immigration this week, Phyllis Schlafly has produced a stunning report on how immigration is changing the country. The report is still embargoed, but someone slipped me a copy, and it’s too important to wait. Leave aside the harm cheap labor being dumped on the country does to the millions of unemployed Americans. What does it mean for the Republican Party?
CITING SURVEYS from the Pew Research Center, the Pew Hispanic Center, Gallup, NBC News, Harris polling, the Annenberg Policy Center, Latino Decisions, the Center for Immigration Studies and the Hudson Institute, Schlafly’s report overwhelmingly demonstrates that merely continuing our current immigration policies spells doom for the Republican Party. Immigrants — all immigrants — have always been the bulwark of the Democratic Party. For one thing, recent arrivals tend to be poor and in need of government assistance. Also, they’re coming from societies that are far more left-wing than our own. History shows that, rather than fleeing those policies, they bring their cultures with them. (Look at what New Yorkers did to Vermont.) This is not a secret. For at least a century, there’s never been a period when a
majority of immigrants weren’t Demo- a favorable opinion of Obamacare, 18 crats. percent an unfavorable one. Even KoAt the current accelerated rate of reans support Obamacare by 57 percent immigration — 1.1 million new immi- to 17 percent. grants every year Overall, 69 per— Republicans cent of immigrants will be a fringe like Obamacare, acparty in about a cording to a 2010 decade. Cooperative Con(c) 2013, Ann Coulter Thanks to endgressional Elecless polling, we have a pretty good idea tion Study. of what most immigrants believe. That same survey showed that only According to a Harris poll, 81 percent 35 percent of native-born Americans of native-born citizens think the schools support affirmative action, compared should teach students to be proud of be- to 58 percent of immigrants, including ing American. Only 50 percent of natu- — amazingly — 64 percent of Asians ralized U.S. citizens do. (suggesting they may not be as smart as While 67 percent of native-born everyone thinks). Americans believe our Constitution is a Also surprising, a Pew Research higher legal authority than international Center poll of all Hispanics, immigrant law, only 37 percent of naturalized citi- and citizen alike, found that Hispanics zens agree. take a dimmer view of capitalism than No wonder they vote 2-1 for the even people who describe themselves as Democrats. “liberal Democrats.” While 47 percent The two largest immigrant groups, of self-described “liberal Democrats” Hispanics and Asians, have little in hold a negative view of capitalism, 55 common economically, culturally or percent of Hispanics do. historically. But they both overwhelmingly support big government, ObamPEW ALSO found that only 27 peracare, affirmative action and gun con- cent of Hispanics support gun rights, trol. compared to 57 percent of non-Hispanic According the 2012 National Asian whites. According to Latino Decisions, American Survey, as well as a Kaiser large majorities of Hispanics favor a naFoundation poll, only 40 percent of the tional database of gun owners, limiting general public holds a favorable opinion the capacity of magazines and a ban on of Obamacare, 42 percent unfavorable. semiautomatic weapons. Meanwhile, 51 percent of Asians have Seventy-five percent of Hispanic im-
Ann
Coulter
migrants and 55 percent of Asian immigrants support bigger government — also according to Pew. Even after three generations in America, Hispanics still support bigger government 55 percent to 36 percent, compared to the general public, which opposes bigger government 48 percent to 41 percent. How are Republicans going to square that circle? It’s not their position on amnesty that immigrants don’t like; it’s Republicans’ support for small government, gun rights, patriotism, the Constitution and capitalism. Reading these statistics, does anyone wonder why Democrats think vastly increasing immigration should be the nation’s No. 1 priority? It would be one thing if the people with these views already lived here. Republicans would have no right to say, “You can’t vote.” But why on Earth are they bringing in people sworn to their political destruction? Republicans have no obligation to assist the Democrats as they change the country in a way that favors them electorally, particularly when it does great harm to the people already here. Yes, it’s great for the most powerful Americans to have lots of cheap, unskilled labor. Immigration definitely solves the rich’s “servant problem.” (Approximately five million times a day, MSNBC expresses bewilderment that any Republicans oppose amnesty when it’s supported by the Chamber of Commerce. Wow! So even people who profit by flooding the country with cheap labor are in favor of flooding the country with cheap labor!) It’s terrific for ethnic lobbyists whose political clout will skyrocket the more foreign-born Americans we have. And it’s fantastic for the Democrats, who are well on their way to a permanent majority, so they can completely destroy the last remnants of what was once known as “the land of the free.” The only ones opposed to our current immigration policies are the people. But are they going to give John Boehner a job when he’s no longer House speaker, as some big business lobbyist will? Will they help Marco Rubio run for president on the claim that, as a Cuban, he can appeal to Hispanics? (Fat chance.) Will they bundle contributions for Eric Cantor’s re-election, as well-heeled donors will? Will they be enough to re-elect Kevin McCarthy to Congress so he can keep his gold-plated government health insurance? WILL THEY be the ones writing Darrell Issa’s flattering New York Times obituary? Sorry, Americans. You lose.
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Conservative Chronicle
CLASS OF 1974: February 4, 2014
The Democratic Class of 1974 passes from the scene
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enry Waxman and George Miller are retiring from the House and not running for re-election after 40 years as congressmen from southern and northern California. Also retiring and not running for reelection is Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana will resign if, as expected, he is confirmed as ambassador to China. Both were first elected to the House in 1974 and were later elected to the Senate.
THESE FOUR are just about the last members serving in Congress of the 75 Democrats first elected to the House in the Watergate year of 1974. The only other members of the Class of 1974 are Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, one of only 17 Republican freshmen elected that year, and Congressman Rick Nolan, who retired from the House in 1980 but was elected again in 2012 after 32 years in the private sector. Aside from these two outliers, the Class of 1974 is about to pass into history. What did it accomplish? First, it changed the way the House of Representatives operates, starting from before its members took the oath of office and continuing to the present day. Democrats had held majorities in the House for 20 years, but the liberal majority in the caucus was often stymied by the seniority system that allowed conservative Southerners to hold key chairmanships. Beginning in 1974, the leadership allowed the Democratic caucus to vote up or down on chairmen against whom a certain number of signatures were gathered. San Francisco’s Phil Burton, who had shrewdly backed many ‘74ers, gathered a sufficient number of signatures for every chairman. Three were defeated by the newly enlarged caucus, including one, first elected in 1940, who addressed the freshmen as “boys and girls.” Election of committee chairmen became routine, and it meant that anyone seeking a chair had better have a voting record in line with the Democrats’ liberal majority. For example, Jamie Whitten of Mississippi, first elected a month before Pearl Harbor, shifted suddenly from Right to Left. Republicans did something similar when they won their House majority in 1994. Their 73 freshmen, shrewdly backed and mentored by Newt Gingrich, supported his move to have chairmen chosen by a leadership-dominated steering committee. The result is that the Democratic Caucus became solidly liberal, and the Republican Conference (the two par-
ties use different names) solidly con- a health subcommittee in 1978, sponservative. The polarized House is in sored bipartisan laws on generic drugs large part the product of the Classes of and orphan drugs (for rare diseases), 1974 and 1994. forced expansion of MedicThe change can aid in the Reagan be justified on years, shaped the neutral principles. 1990 Clean Air Committees more Act and pushed closely resemble Obamacare and (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate the legislature as cap-and-trade a whole, which through the House makes legislating more feasible — and in 2009-10. party leaders and members accountMiller worked with John Boehner able to the voters. and Edward Kennedy on the Education Act of 2001. Harkin helped lead the THE DOWNSIDE, in some critics’ bipartisan move to double funding for view, is that the election of chairmen the National Institutes of Health over also gave would-be chairmen motives five years. Baucus led Senate Finance to raise money for other members, very Democrats for 13 years. often from K Street lobbyists. The Class of 1974 also shifted the Many Class of 1974 members proved House and the congressional Demoto be productive legislators. Waxman, cratic Party from hawkish to dovish. who ousted a more senior chairman of One of its first acts in March 1975 was
Michael
Barone
to block funding for South Vietnam when it was under attack by the North. Saigon fell in April. In the 1980s, the Democratic House kept pushing back on the Reagan foreign policy. In 2002, Nancy Pelosi, who holds the seat once held by Phil Burton, led most House Democrats to oppose the Iraq war resolution. Pelosi says she is staying on, even as her ally Waxman and her consigliere, Miller, leave the House. The 201-member caucus she leads has more black and Hispanic members and fewer young doves and reformers than the 291-member caucus Waxman and Miller entered nearly 40 years ago. STILL, THE Class of 1974 has left a mark on history — though not as much as one Democrat who narrowly lost a House race that year, a 28-yearold Arkansan named Bill Clinton.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: February 5, 2014
Obama’s hobbyhorse: Gender equality
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n Jan. 28, 19 U.S. senators and 91 members of the House of Representatives, all Democrats, filed briefs with the Supreme Court supporting the Obama administration’s legal war against Hobby Lobby, a family-owned chain of craft stores providing health insurance to employees but refusing to cover morning-after pills, such as Plan B and Ella, for religious reasons. Sen. Patty Murray claims, “What’s at stake in this case before the Supreme Court is whether a CEO’s personal beliefs can trump a woman’s right to access free or low-cost contraception under the Affordable Care Act.”
NONSENSE. NOT one word in the Affordable Care Act guarantees health plans will cover birth-control products. There is no such right. Section 2713 of the law says insurers must cover whatever services the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force rates an A or B. It also empowers the Health and Human Services secretary — a presidential appointee — to add others. The Preventive Services Task Force doesn’t call for covering birth control. It’s President Barack Obama and his HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius who insist on plans covering it. The next occupant of the White House could do the opposite. So this court battle isn’t about what Murray incorrectly calls a “right.” Women have a constitutionally protected right to use birth control but not to get it at work. And access is a trumped-up issue — a straw woman. The expensive part of getting birth control is visiting the gynecologist for a
prescription, and all health plans — including Hobby Lobby’s — cover that. The Hobby Lobby battle is over who pays the cost of the morning-after pill — a mere $35. That’s less than the cost of a haircut and blow dry, a carton of 128-count Pampers or dinner for two at Applebee’s. It’s definitely affordable for women at Hob-
Betsy
McCaughey (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
by Lobby, where starting pay is $17 an hour plus benefits. Poor women can get help with birth-control products through Medicaid, federal community health clinics and Planned Parenthood. SO THIS BATTLE is not about access. Obama is picking this fight for political reasons. His Justice Department argues that saving women a small fee ($35 for the Ella pill) outweighs honoring a business owner’s religious views. Fortunately, that’s not what the U.S. Constitution says. The First Amendment bars government from “prohibiting the free exercise of religion.” This means the freedom to not only worship but also live and run your business according to the teachings of your faith. This is why a federal appeals court ruled against Obama in favor of David Green and his wife, the owners of Hobby Lobby and Mardel, a chain of Christian bookstores. They try to run their businesses according to Biblical
principles. They close on Sundays, forgo hauling beer, even when their trucks have to run empty, and refuse to provide morning-after pills. After the lower court ruled in support of the Greens, the New York Times called the court’s decision “a warped view” because “some employers can get out of complying with the new law ... “ Not with the law. With the Obama administration’s regulation. The Obama administration’s takeno-prisoners stance against the Greens and other religious employers is part of a political strategy to convince the public that the Democratic Party is the champion of victimized women. Gender equality is Obama’s hobbyhorse for the 2014 elections. Obama gave us a preview during his State of the Union address last Tuesday, cynically boasting that Obamacare bars insurers from charging women higher premiums than they charge him. Cynical, because women consume more health care. How horrible is it to charge them more? Prohibiting this simply shifts costs to men. THE DEMOCRATS’ legal briefs argue that women generally have higher out-of-pocket health costs than men because of birth control. They say it’s unfair, and their remedy is to compel employers to provide “free” birth control, no matter the harm to an employer’s religious freedom. Respecting religious freedom versus $35 for a “free” morning after pill. Expect the supremes to rule religious freedom is worth more than that.
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February 12, 2014 STATE OF THE UNION: January 30, 2014
Obama’s exaggerated claims don’t stand up
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he term “cherry-picking” is And even this number is about 1.2 often applied to presidents million fewer “than when the receswho use inaccurate, narrowly sion began in December 2007,” Kessler drawn, fuzzy statistics and claims to adds. cover up their ecoAs he’s done in nomic failures. all of his speeches President about the economy, Obama did a lot Obama talked about of that in his facta “manufacturing (c) 2013, United Media Services challenged State sector that’s addof the Union ading jobs for the dress Tuesday night, in which he made first time since the 1990s.” exaggerated claims that do not stand up Yes, there’s been a gain of 570,000 to serious scrutiny. jobs since January 2010. But the BLS The Washington Post ran a story factory data show “that the number of the next morning by the capital’s chief manufacturing jobs is still 500,000 lowfact checker, Glenn Kessler, under this er than when Obama took office,” Kesheadline: “Sifting through some ques- sler says. And it’s still 1.7 million jobs tionable claims by the president.” lower than when the recession began. The Associated Press ran a lengthy He claimed the budget deficits have fact-checking story, too, with this edi- been “cut by more than half.” But Kestor’s note at the bottom: “An occasional sler correctly notes “that’s not much to look at political claims that take short- brag about.” cuts with the facts or don’t tell the full What Obama didn’t say was the defistory.” cits soared under his presidency in his first term by more than $1 trillion a year THE BIGGEST whopper: Obama’s as a result of lower revenues and masclaim that businesses have created sive spending increases that included “more than eight million jobs” over the his failed $800 billion stimulus bill. last four years. The more than $600 billion deficit in “The president is cherry-picking a 2013 is still “higher in nominal terms number that puts the improvement in and as a percentage of gross domestic the economy in the best possible light,” product than it was in 2008 and a debt Kessler says. much greater as a percentage of the Obama chooses to use only job fig- overall economy than it was” before the ures since February 2010, when the recession. economy reached its low point in jobs, Obama claims that more than nine and that produces a gain of about eight million Americans “have signed up unmillion. But his presidency began in der the new law for private health insur2009, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics ance or Medicaid coverage.” He didn’t (BLS) says that only 3.2 million jobs say they signed up for Obamacare, but have been created since then. he seemed to suggest that.
Donald
Lambro
BUT THE 6.3 million people who signed up as a result of the Medicaid expansion remains a questionable figure that may have included renewals or any who would have been eligible for the program anyway. Kessler called it a “very fuzzy” number that had previously earned three Pinocchios in his widely read dishonesty ratings. In addition to a half-dozen dubious claims that Kessler deflated in his story, the AP’s Calvin Woodward produced several more, particularly on Obamacare. Obama seems to think that he can make things up as he goes along, hoping he won’t be called on his claims, as he was when he repeatedly and falsely promised that “if you like your health insurance policy you can keep it. Period.” After more than five million Americans got notices from their private health insurance company that their policies were canceled because they didn’t meet Obamacare’s mandates, he confessed that he had badly misled the country. But, unlike Pinocchio, apparently Obama didn’t learn his lesson. On Tuesday night, he declared to all Americans that under his Obamacare law, he has
been able to offer a banquet of health care benefits, while “keeping Medicare premiums flat.” Not true, Woodward reported later that night. “They’ve gone up.” “Medicare’s monthly premium for outpatient care has gone up in recent years,” he writes. It rose by $5 a month in 2013, up from $99.90 in 2012. Obama’s health care law also raised Medicare premiums for upper-income beneficiaries, and both the president and Republicans have proposed to expand that.” Reciting a litany of health care services his new law offers, Obama boasts that “we did all this while adding years to Medicare’s finances.” But Woodward points out that this questionable claim “is hotly debated.” On paper, as a result of Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare service providers, inpatient care has supposedly gained a decade of solvency. But “in practice those savings cannot simultaneously be used to expand coverage for the uninsured and shore up Medicare,” he writes. Another whopper in Obama’s speech was his claim that he will raise hourly pay for certain low-income Americans simply by the stroke of his pen. “In the coming weeks, I will issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour, because if you cook our troops’ meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty.” But this is a cruel political shell game to avoid dealing with the fundamental causes of stagnant wages in a still sluggish economy. Most federal contract employees are already paid more than $10.10 an hour, in fact, often much more. It will not raise the pay of a single present federal worker, only new hires. It won’t kick in until 2015 or later. Obama and his desperate speechwriters threw every half-baked idea they could find into this speech, making up preposterous claims and playing fast and loose with the facts. ENTIRELY MISSING from Obama’s address is a well-thought out, investment-driven plan to accelerate the economy’s growth rate, the only timetested way to create jobs and boost incomes. He still doesn’t get it.
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Conservative Chronicle
MEDIA BIAS: February 5, 2014
Wendy Davis lies — the media snores
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NBC is the most ridiculous offender s our liberal media continue to obsess over whether Gov. on the Davis story because corresponChris Christie lied about dent Maria Shriver repeated all the fluff knowing his aides were plotting to cause about how “her personal story resonated nation” just three Bergen County traffic jams, it’s worth across the days before the remembering that Dallas Morning our national netNews story. She works don’t care threw softballs: when Democrats “Everybody says lie — even about (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate Wendy Davis is an their own life stoovernight sensaries. Two weeks ago, reporter Wayne Slat- tion. Does it irritate you that people call er of the Dallas Morning News — the you an overnight sensation?” Davis reauthor of two books bashing Karl Rove plied: “I’m not an overnight sensation. for being Bush’s Brain — wrote an ex- I’m a Texan. And I’m a Texas success pose on liberal, abortion-loving Demo- story. I am the epitome of hard work and crat Wendy Davis, who’s been hyped optimism.” She’s the epitome of biographical from coast to coast as “single mom to political phenom.” Lots of details aren’t fraud. Shriver and the rest of the whitewash true. Even the Dallas paper’s headline brigade utterly ignored that the story soft-pedaled it as “key facts blurred.” wasn’t “single mom raises kids alone GUESS WHO’S reported nothing on while attending Harvard Law School.” air? ABC, NBC and PBS. CBS did one Davis claimed, “By the time I was 19, I very defensive two-minute story on its was already on my way to a divorce, livmorning show 11 days late. NPR only ing in a tiny trailer with my daughter.” touched on it in an afternoon talk show. Slater noted that she was 21, not 19, There, on Tell Me More with host when she divorced and lived in a trailer Michel Martin, Slater appeared and was for “only a few months.” She married her second husband Jeff pressed to talk about Christie. “The real problem for Christie is that this episode Davis and had a second daughter. Her reinforces a destructive narrative” of husband paid for her final two years at bullying, Slater announced. “It is a dam- Texas Christian University. When she aging personal attribute that can undo was accepted to Harvard, Jeff Davis cashed in his 401(k) account and evenhim.” Apparently, Democrats never damage tually took out a loan to pay for her final themselves with personal attributes like year there. “I was making really good money then, well over six figures,” lying.
Brent
Bozell
he said. The daughters — Amber was eight, and Dru was two — remained with the husband in Fort Worth, Texas, while Wendy Davis went to Boston for three years. THE WORST part of the Slater story? The marriage came apart right around the time the final payment on her Harvard Law School loan was due. “It was ironic,” he said. “I made the last payment, and it was the next day she left.” The husband won custody of Dru, the daughter they had together. He even secured a restraining order against her. Feminists then assaulted anyone repeat-
ing this story as cavemen peddling a chauvinist narrative. The one scandal story on CBS This Morning was loaded with Davis and her defenders. It started with Davis defiantly insisting, “You can play holierthan-life with my life story. But I draw the line when it comes to lying about my family.” (Apparently, only she’s allowed to lie about her family.) Then came her daughter Amber proclaiming tremulously that her mom was the “best mother in the world.” It ended with Jay Root of the liberal Texas Tribune website attempting damage control: “The trailer, who paid for what in college? I don’t think that’s going to be the A-1 story throughout this entire campaign.” It was the A-1 story before it was exposed as fraudulent. None of these national broadcast networks noticed the Davis fiascoes that followed. She protested, “I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day in my shoes.” Oops! Her opponent, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, is a paraplegic. Davis also dishonestly claimed Abbott fed the damaging story to Slater, who quickly said he never talked to Republicans for it. The national print media weren’t much better than TV. The New York Times noticed it, but USA Today and the Washington Post published no news story in print. You have to laugh at Time magazine’s headline over a brief update: “A Storybook Tale Gets Some New Footnotes.” SO LAUGH at any journalist who says Christie can never lie, or it will end his career. Lying never stopped anyone from being a national-media darling. Ask President Barack Obama or the Clintons.
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February 12, 2014 OBAMACARE: February 5, 2014
The Obamacare security nightmare: It gets worse
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raudsters on the inside, hackers on the outside. Here we are, stuck in the middle with the security nightmare called Obamacare. Can it get any worse? Yes, it can. After the spectacular website crashes during last fall’s federal health insurance exchange rollout, enrollees will soon wish the entire system had stayed down and dead. “404 Error” messages and convicted felon Obamacare navigators may be the least of our health care tech problems now. The latest? U.S. intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human Services last week that the Healthcare.gov infrastructure could be infected with malicious code. WHO’S RESPONSIBLE? Washington Free Beacon national security reporter Bill Gertz writes that U.S. officials have “warned that programmers in Belarus, a former Soviet republic
closely allied with Russia, were sus- been paying attention, you know that pected” of possible sabotage. A gov- Belarus and other Eastern European ernment tech bureaucrat in the Belaru- hacking gangs have been at the center recent international sian regime bragged last summer on of several cybercrimes. These Russian radio that aren’t merely HHS is “one of schemes to steal our clients” and credit card numthat “we are helpbers or vandalize ing Obama com(c) 2013, Creators Syndicate websites with anplete his insurnoying graffiti. ance reform.” Gulp. When an authoritarian min- They’re acts of espionage and saboion from the country known as “Eu- tage — like using malware in a phishrope’s last dictatorship” boasts about ing scheme aimed at White House em“helping” the Obama White House, be ployees to gather military intelligence afraid. One of our intel people spelled and pilfer sensitive government docuit out for Gertz: “The U.S. Affordable ments. Care Act software was written in part IT’S NOT JUST the federal health in Belarus by software developers under state control, and that makes the care system’s problem. Former Obamsoftware a potential target for cyber at- acare website contractor CGI still holds dozens of contracts with other federal tacks.” No kidding. The friends of Vladi- agencies and state governments worth mir Putin are not our friends. If you’ve billions of dollars — and wide access to
Michelle
Malkin
KEYSTONE PIPELINE: February 3, 2014
On Keystone, action can wait
B
arack Obama has urged that we make this a “year of action,” and he is going to do his part by acting with vigor and dispatch to continue to study the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project. The State Department just acted with an 11-volume, 7,000-page environmental review that concludes, like the several reviews prior to this point, that the pipeline poses no environmental hazard. You’ve got to hand it to the State Department — when it is determined to act, it moves.
WHITE HOUSE chief of staff Denis McDonough went on Meet the Press to explain all the dizzying activity taking place as the U.S. government marshals its resources to see that Keystone is perpetually reviewed. “We have one department with a study,” McDonough explained. “Now we have other expert agencies, the EPA, and many others, who have an opportunity — the Energy Department, an opportunity to look at this and make their determinations.” For its part, the State Department still needs to evaluate whether the pipeline serves the national interest, necessitating another period of intense action that will include asking “for the views of eight federal agencies identified in [Executive Order] 13337.” Skeptics scoffed after the president’s State of the Union that he doesn’t have much of an agenda for his second term. They failed to appreciate how much of that second term will be devoted to
studying what is already one of the most studied proposed infrastructure projects of all time. At this rate, there will be years of action on Keystone — with no one ever building anything. Of course, that’s the point. When there’s no legitimate reason to stop a project that well-funded left-wing donors and a mini-grassroots
Rich
Lowry (c) 2013, King Features Syndicate
environmentalist army want stopped, the safest course is to make sure that it is always study-ready and never shovelready. THE KEYSTONE project would add roughly 800 miles of pipeline in the U.S. and carry more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day to our refineries in the Gulf from the tar sands of Alberta. It has been under consideration for more than five years, even though Hillary Clinton said in 2010 that the State Department was “inclined” to approve it. And why not? Already the State Department — involved because the pipeline crosses an international border — had issued a favorable draft environmental-impact statement. Paul Knappenberger of the Cato Institute notes that a similar pipeline project, the Alberta Clipper, won approval in two short years back in 2009 with glowing marks from State — it would “advance a num-
ber of strategic interests” and send “a positive economic signal.” Keystone XL was different; it became a hate symbol for the environmental left. In its fevered imagination, stopping the pipeline became a way to stop the development of the “dirty” tar sands of Canada and to slow climate change. As Brigham McCown, a former administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, puts it, opponents of the pipeline thought it was a Khyber Pass where a glorious stand could be made against Canadian oil. This was always a childish fantasy. First, because the tar sands will get developed regardless, as the latest State Department environmental review attests, and more fundamentally, because the numbers don’t add up. Conservative writer Oren Cass makes the point that the United States accounts for less than six of the 35 gigatons of carbon emissions worldwide, and our emissions growth has been flat, while India and China have been growing at a double-digit rate. We could end all our emissions tomorrow and the rest of the globe would quickly make up the difference. The oil that would be transported by Keystone isn’t a drop in the bucket; it’s a drop in a vast ocean. NONE OF this matters, though, because railing against Keystone is such a potent organizing and fundraising tool for its opponents. President Obama is loath to cross them, and so will take swift and certain action — to keep examining the issue closely.
health and financial data. In my state of Colorado, for example, CGI has a $78 million contract to “modernize, host and manage” the state’s financial system. Have they checked to see whether Belarus hackers are standing by? For their part, Obamacare officials are making their usual “don’t worry about it, the problem’s under control” noises. But we already know the problem is far out of control. Last month, GOP oversight hearings exposed persistent failures by Obamacare overseers to fix security lapses. Former most-wanted cybercriminal Kevin Mitnick concluded in a letter to Capitol Hill: “It’s shameful the team that built the Healthcare.gov site implemented minimal, if any, security best practices to mitigate the significant risk of a system compromise.” If the latest warnings from our intel agencies are any indication, it appears that Obamacare Keystone Kops didn’t just leave out security protections, but also may have allowed foreign programmers to write in cyber-traps. David Kennedy, head of computer security consulting firm TrustedSec LLC and a former cybersecurity official with the National Security Agency and the U.S. Marine Corps, warned that “Healthcare.gov is not secure today” and said nothing had changed since he gave Congress that assessment three months before. Among the vulnerabilities that the Obama administration still hasn’t fixed: — TrustedSec “identified the ability to enumerate user information (first, last, email, user id, profile, etc.) through one of the sub-sites that directly integrates into the healthcare.gov website.” — ”Tens of thousands of user-based data appears to be vulnerable on the specified website and has not been addressed. There are a number of other exposures that have been reported privately that continue to expose users of the healthcare.gov website.” — Another exposure identified is “the ability to perform an open redirect.” In fact, “there are multiple open redirects still vulnerable on the healthcare.gov website and supporting sub-sites.” What this means is that “an attacker can send a targeted email to an individual that has signed up for healthcare.gov or is looking to and have it appear valid and legitimate and originate from the healthcare.gov website.” These can open avenues so that victims click on links “redirecting to a malicious website that hacks the computer and takes complete control over it.” OUT: “GOT COVERED?” In: “Got Hacked?”
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Conservative Chronicle
BIG GOVERNMENT: January 30, 2014
Snow proves citizens can do what government can’t
I
t was a winter storm response described as an “epic failure” of government by one national news network. A midday winter storm struck Atlanta’s metro population of nearly six million on Tuesday. By early afternoon, hundreds of thousands of commuters had taken to the streets, all at once, in a desperate effort to get home. At the same time school systems dismissed an army of students, many on buses. Government got into the act too, telling workers to hit the road.
BUT BY THE time everyone started out, what began as flurries became several inches of snow on the highways and streets of a metropolitan area known for its myriad of highways and byways, as well as a general inability of its residents to drive in snow. The result was pure panic and chaos. Large trucks started to slide and block most major roads. Many cars were disabled, or worse, involved in accidents that clogged emergency lanes. Tens of thousands of motorists were stuck in traffic, many for more than 10 hours. Throughout the night, parents searched for children, many of whom who were forced to spend the evening at school. Desperate motorists found cell towers overloaded and cell phones dying. While state, county and municipal governments all seemed helpless, public citizens took matters into their own hands. As government stumbled, one person on Facebook formed a site known as “SnowedOutAtlanta” where stranded citizens could post their desperate needs and others near them could offer to provide shelter, food or even come to their rescue. Within hours, tens of thousands had joined in the effort. It was an amazing testament to what big government can’t do and what “we the people” can get done. Ironically, this was all taking place as President Obama was threatening Congress, in his State of the Union Address, to use executive powers to get around them to expand government even more. While many Atlantans remained stuck in cars as the sun rose on Wednesday, Obama was off on a tour of other states touting his newest big government gimmicks. Meanwhile, Georgia’s incumbent Republican Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta’s Democrat Mayor Kasim Reed were holding disastrous press conferences in which Reed was openly combative with reporters and Deal seemed mixed up on his meteorology and what the warnings actually were for the storm. Perhaps the worst of this political theater came when Georgia’s director in charge of emergency response, in
front of his boss, told the press that an To their credit, both Reed and Deal emergency had yet to emerge Tuesday ultimately apologized for various asafternoon as vehicles were stalling and p e c t s of the response to the colliding all over storm. And to be fair, the place. That because of the area’s sent Georgia’s unusual location and governor racing to weather patterns, the microphones Atlantans are of(c) 2013, Creators Syndicate to disagree with ten given dire prehis own director, dictions of winter who clearly let his leader down. weather, only to learn at the last moment that not a single flake of snow will fall. NO DOUBT the political finger The lesson learned from this episode, pointing will continue for weeks, if not which will likely cost a fortune in inmonths to come. And for Deal, who surance claims, out-of-pocket expenses faces a reelection challenge from the and costs for government efforts at regrandson of former President Jimmy sponding, is that we should never fully Carter, state Sen. Jason Carter, the tim- rely on government to solve all of our ing could not be worse. problems.
Matt
Towery
In the case of Atlanta, the official storm warning was issued long before daybreak on Tuesday. Corporations, schools and government entities could have simply said “stay home.” They did not. So once a crisis arose, private citizens did what government could not. They rolled up their sleeves quickly, used modern technology and with caring hearts took on Mother Nature’s mess. No speeches were made. No staff or palace guards stood between those in need and those who wanted to help. And no taxes were required. ONCE AGAIN, it was individual citizens who saved the day.
MEDIA BIAS: January 29, 2014
Obama, the media’s favorite autocrat
E
veryone proposes drinking games for the State of the Union speech. But it’s not just the president that can drive you to drink; it’s the opportunistic media elites deciding which branches of government have too much power, depending on which branches the Democrats presently control. AFTER A LOT of stalemate in 2013, the partisan media think it’s high time for the executive branch to go completely around the legislative branch. They think that now that Congress has proven itself unwilling to provide President Barack Obama with the historical greatness he deserves, they should and must be driven around like roadkill. They’ll have no talk of an imperial presidency, let alone autocracy. On the morning of the speech, ABC’s Jonathan Karl was touting how “the president will announce that he is increasing by nearly $3 an hour the minimum wage on all new federal contracts, acting where he can without Congress.” Without any criticism about shredding the balance of powers, Karl announced like a publicist that the president is “promising to work with Congress where he can, but showing there are things he can do on his own as well.” Eight years ago, when Newsweek still mattered, the magazine’s Jonathan Alter cried out: “We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.” Eleanor Clift followed up a few months later. Vladimir Putin “is perceived to be an effective dictator. What we have in this country is a dictator who’s ineffective.”
New York Times drama critic Wilborn Hampton honored a play on Prometheus by oozing that “the fifth-century B.C. lessons about the abuse of power by an autocratic ruler who runs roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him are not lost on a 21st-century audience. Just plug in names from today’s headlines for any of the characters.”
Brent
Bozell (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
Two terms ago, New York Times reporters were winning Pulitzer Prizes and turning out adversarial books with titles like Charlie Savage’s The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, which exposed “how a group of true believers, led by Cheney, set out to establish near-monarchical executive powers.” Eric Lichtblau wrote Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice, which railed against “secret programs and policies that tore at the constitutional fabric of the country.” JAMES RISEN penned State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, which revealed a “two-front war that President Bush is now fighting,” one abroad and one “at home against Congress and the Supreme Court, as his administration is increasingly reined in from its abuses.” Now imagine how many Pulitzer prizes and dire-warning books the Times staff is turning out about Obama’s “war at home against Congress” or his “nearmonarchical executive powers” on drones or Guantanamo. None. Instead, David Sanger wrote Confront and Con-
ceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, which proclaimed how Obama outshined Bush, “attempting to preserve America’s influence with a lighter, defter touch.” Ask how many media stars have launched crusading reports packed with outrage over Obama’s obvious failure to please the left by releasing gaggles of Guantanamo detainees, or his selfevident affinity for drone attacks in the Middle East. You might find that kind of report on Al Jazeera America, but nobody watches the propaganda channel. The major media might notice an occasional radical protester, but their heart is always clearly with the president’s “surprising use of power.” Instead of channeling Cindy Sheehan types, the New York Times worried on its front page this week that a quick departure from Afghanistan could cause a loss of bases for drone strikes. On the domestic front, its “Political Memo” was headlined, “For Obama, Investing In Brighter Futures Remains a Tough Sell.” That’s their ludicrous terminology for more socialist “investment” in infrastructure and education bureaucrats (and perhaps presidentially dictated minimum wage hikes) — “investing in brighter futures.” IT’S GOTTEN so desperate to generate happy news on Obama’s behalf that when Sen. Ted Cruz went on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday to say, “Let me tell you something that is deeply concerning, the abuse of power from this administration,” CBS sliced that criticism out of its program. Putting the words “abuse of power” anywhere near Team Obama in a sentence is an invitation to censorship by our allegedly antiautocracy “news” media.
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February 12, 2014 2014 ELECTION: February 4, 2014
Elections could spotlight Dems’ loss of dominance
O
n Nov. 4, Americans will vote in the midterm elections that for all intents and purposes will be a referendum on Barack Obama’s unpopular presidency. Obama’s name won’t be on the ballot, but he will be on the minds of many, if not most, voters when they go into the voting booths to decide who’ll be in charge of Congress for the next two years. A LOT CAN happen between now and then, but a growing number of top political analysts who’ve studied the polls in key Senate races think Obama’s deepening unpopularity may end the Democrats’ control of the Senate. “If the 2014 election is a referendum on President Obama, Democrats are in deep trouble,” warns election handicapper Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post. The Republicans need just six seats to take over the Senate, and surveys by the Gallup Poll last year showed that Obama’s disapproval numbers were more than 50 percent in 10 of the 21 seats held by Democrats that will be up for grabs in November. Obama is most unpopular in five battleground states that could move the GOP to within one seat of a Senate majority. They are West Virginia, with 67.3 percent disapproval; Arkansas, 57 percent; South Dakota, 59.3 percent; Alaska, 55.4 percent; and Montana, 60.9 percent.
Democrats in three of those states this will continue to be a year of vola— S.D. W.V. and Mont. — have cho- tility and turbulence in our economy. T h e sluggish Obama sen not to seek re-election, giving Reeconomy added only publicans a strong 74,000 jobs in Dechance of capturcember, far below ing these open the 200,000 foreseats. casters predicted. In two of them, (c) 2013, United Media Services Key employment Democrats are sectors saw big scrambling to distance themselves from Obama by criti- job losses: 16,000 in the construction cizing his timid, small-bore agenda industry, 6,000 in health care. Econoon the nation’s most critical economic mists were shocked. “What it does say is that we’re not in troubles. “Overall, I’m disappointed with the a takeoff mode in the labor market. ... president’s State of the Union address We’re treading water,” Julia Coronado, because he was heavy on rhetoric but chief U.S. economist at BNP Paribas, light on specifics about how we can told the New York Times. move our country forward,” said Sen. OBAMA PRAISED manufacturMark Pryor of Arkansas. Alaska Sen. Mark Begich expressed ing growth in his politically combative misgivings about Obama’s go-it-alone State of the Union address last week, plan to implement his agenda through in which he predicted 2014 would be a unilateral executive orders. As for any “breakout year.” But recent economic political help from the president in the data tell a much different story. Durable goods orders plunged prefall, Begich flatly said, “I’m not really cipitously in December, as did a meainterested in campaigning” with him. Obama’s disapproval scores were surement of future business spending running between 50 percent and 55 per- on capital goods. Top economists had cent in five other states that the GOP is expected the monthly manufacturing also targeting: La., N.C., Colo., Iowa gauge to rise. Then came another economic blow and N.H. So the Republicans have a number of chances to reach their take- this week when the Institute for Supply Management announced its index of over threshold. While it is a long stretch between national factory activity dropped to its now and Election Day, when the po- lowest level since last May. That, plus litical and economic climate could a slowdown in construction spending change, the early signs suggest that and other global factors, sent stock
Donald
Lambro
markets into a nose dive, with the Dow plunging 326 points on Monday. “U.S. manufacturing activity slowed sharply in January on the back of the biggest drop in new orders in years, suggesting the economy had lost steam at the start of 2014,” Reuters economic news service reported. So what does Obama do in the face of these dreadful economic signals, which suggest that the U.S. economy is not running on all cylinders and remains disturbingly weak in the sixth year of his presidency? He goes before Congress to claim that we are doing a lot better, and that a few thimble-sized policy adjustments are all that’s needed to revitalize the economy. One of them was raising the minimum wage. “It will give businesses customers with more money to spend,” he said. The Gallup Poll ran this idea by the American people last week in a survey to see what they thought of Obama’s latest economic proposals. It didn’t pass their smell test. “Relatively few Americans mention the minimum wage as the best way to fix the U.S. economy, instead focusing on job creation and tax cuts,” Gallup said. Well, Gallup’s poll takers asked, what did you think when Obama said, “If we are serious about economic growth, it is time to ... fix our broken immigration system.” Gallup found that immigration is a relatively low priority for Americans, and only “three percent name immigration as the most important problem facing the nation.” Obamacare also won a thumbsdown in the poll. Only 38 percent said they approved of the law, while 54 percent said “it will have a more negative effect on them and on the country in the future.” Obama mentioned his unpopular health care plan only briefly in his speech to Congress, a clear sign the White House fears its negative impact in this election year. A little-noticed but politically important Gallup survey said Republicans have made “slight gains” in party preference polls in the past year, with three more states now in the GOP’s column than in 2012. It “reflects a gradual shrinking of the Democrats’ dominance since 2008, the year Barack Obama first won the presidency,” Gallup said. A FEW MORE dismal reports like last week, showing the economy is slowing to a crawl and the jobless rate is rising again, and the voters are going to demote Nevada’s Harry Reid to Senate minority leader.
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Conservative Chronicle
STATE OF THE UNION: January 30, 2014
What if? A sorry State of the Union
W
hat if the state of the union thoughts that were never sent in emails is a mess? What if the gov- nevertheless reside in the government’s ernment spies on all of us databank? all of the time and recognizes no limits What if the president knows all to its spying? What if its appetite for ac- t h i s and supports what quiring personal his spies are doing? knowledge about What if he secretly all Americans is authorized all this, insatiable? What but only admitted if the government to some of it when (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate uses the microhe got caught? chips in our cellphones to follow us and What if he uses his spies to tell him listen to us as we move about? what he wants to know about those who oppose him? WHAT IF the Constitution expressWhat if the president sold Congress ly prohibits the government from doing and the country a Trojan horse called this? What if the government has writ- Obamacare? What if he promised that ten laws that are interpreted in secret by under Obamacare you could keep the judges who meet in secret and are ap- health insurance you had before Obamplied by federal agents who operate in acare, and he lied and he knew it? What secret and their secret behavior doesn’t if he promised that under Obamacare even resemble what the laws say they you could keep the same physicians can do? who treated you before Obamacare, and What if the feds have seized the he lied and he knew it? content of every text message, email, What if Obamacare made insurance mobile and landline telephone call, util- coverage so expensive that some people ity bill, credit card bill and bank state- lost their jobs because their employers ment of everyone in America for the could not afford to pay for it? What if past four years? What if no law has au- under Obamacare more than six million thorized them to capture this? What if Americans lost their insurance coverwhen asked by members of Congress, age overnight and most haven’t gotten in public and under oath, high-ranking it back yet? What if this was the presiofficials, at least one with ribbons on dent’s plan all along so that he could orhis chest and stars on his shoulders, lied chestrate a government takeover of the about what the government is doing? health insurance industry? What if the government’s spies have What if the secretary of defense and so insinuated themselves into our com- the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff puters that they can capture every key- told the president one night that our stroke we press on all of our computers consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was unbefore we hit “send?” What if the feds der attack by organized al Qaeda troops have hacked into the servers of every while the attack was taking place? What major computer service provider in the if the president did nothing about it? country and they know what we have What if the president knew the truth typed before we even make corrections? about the Benghazi attack, but for three What if the feds have a copy of what weeks claimed that the attack was just we have deleted? What if our typed an out-of-control political demonstrainnermost thoughts and even second tion by fanatics who were upset about a
Andrew
Napolitano
cheap 15-minute low-grade Hollywood movie that never made it into theaters? What if our ambassador to Libya died in that attack and the president covered up the facts surrounding his death? What if the president dispatched our U.N. ambassador to all major TV networks to hide the truth? What if he tried to promote the lying U.N. ambassador to secretary of state? WHAT IF, in five years, the president has borrowed more than $6 trillion and spent it all on his favorite industries and risky bailouts and fruitless wars, and now has nothing to show for it but the debts that will one day come due? What if the government claims the unemployment rate is 6.7 percent but so many people have stopped looking for jobs that it is really 10.2 percent? What if the president alone has increased the number of people on food stamps and increased the amount of money they each receive? What if half of the adults in the nation are now receiving material assistance from the government in the form of money the government has borrowed? What if generations of Americans as yet unborn will be obliged to pay back the money the president has borrowed and given away? What if nearly two-thirds of Americans simply don’t trust the president’s judgment? What if the president alone raised the minimum wage to be paid to
workers on federal projects? What if the president has threatened to use his pen and his phone to operate the government in ways the Constitution forbids? What if the Constitution makes clear and the courts have underscored the truism that the president cannot modify or amend or postpone the effective dates of federal laws? What if the president has modified and amended and postponed federal laws so as to help his friends and wound his foes? What if the president has tried to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraceptive services that they cannot use and that are prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church? What if the Sisters sued the president and asked the court to relieve them of the burden of paying for contraception? What if the president resisted the Sisters’ lawsuit and questioned the sincerity of their religious beliefs? What if the Supreme Court stopped the president from forcing the nuns to pay for contraception before it even heard their case? WHAT IF the president has discussed none of this in his State of the Union address? What if the president believes that during his second term in office he answers to no one? What if the president lives and works surrounded by those who reinforce his beliefs? What if he has rejected his oath of fidelity to the Constitution? What will he do next? What will we do about it?
ANSWER MAN: February 1, 2014
The An s wer Man
DOCUMENTS THAT FORMED OUR NATION’S GOVERNMENT 1. This document was the first framework for the new U.S. government and provided more power to the states, leaving the national government relatively weak. Name the document. 2. The first time the formal term the “United States of America” was used was in this document. Name it. 3. On March 24, 1788, a popular election was held in Rhode Island to determine the ratification status of the new Constitution. What were the results of that election? 4. This “Father of the Constitution”
Dawn
SeamansShook (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
was pictured on the old U.S. $5,000 bill. Name him. 5. He was the oldest person to sign the Constitution and, after the final meeting of the Constitutional Convention, was quoted as saying that the new government would be “a republic, madam, if you can keep it.” Name this founding father.
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February 12, 2014 IMMIGRATION REFORM: February 3, 2014
GOP retreating on illegal immigration
A
t a time when Republicans have Democrats playing defense on Obamacare, jobs and the economy, the GOP is inexplicably ceding political ground to the Democrats on an issue that can only provide more votes for that party and possibly lead to a permanent Democratic majority.
MEETING IN Cambridge, Md., last weekend for what they called — with no little irony — a “retreat,” Republican leaders signaled they are open to considering some sort of legal status for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants who have overstayed their visas or violated American law to get here. But exactly who are the illegals? According to a study conducted by the Urban Institute, “Mexicans make up over half of illegal immigrants — 57 percent
of the total, or about 5.3 million. An- ics, 53 percent, support same-sex marother 2.2 million (23 percent) are from riage. As a great many illegals are poor, other Latin American countries. About their strain on the welfare, health care 10 percent are from Asia, five percent and education systems is considerable. from Europe and Canada, and five perIn a recent column, Phyllis Schlafly, cent from the rest of the world.” a conservative political Republicans analyst, cited an have convinced American National themselves that Election Study that Hispanics are a asked Hispanics “natural” contheir views about (c) 2013, Tribune Media Services stituency for their the free market vs. party because they are hard workers, big government solutions to problems. religious and family-oriented. Statistics Schlafly noted, “Only 17.9 percent of from the Pew Research Center suggest Hispanics responded ‘the less governthe opposite may be true. ment the better,’ and 85.3 percent said According to Pew, 53 percent of ba- ‘a strong government involvement is rebies born to Hispanic immigrants are to quired to handle economic problems.’” single mothers, about twice the rate of whites. As for Republican “family valTHIS IS NOT the profile of a future ues,” Pew found a majority of Hispan- Republican voter.
Cal
Thomas
INCOME INEQUALITY: January 29, 2014
Income gap? Not many are obsessed
T
hough President Obama keeps insisting that income inequality is the “defining challenge of our time,” most Americans beg to differ. “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” asked Gallup in a nationwide survey this month. Dissatisfaction with the federal government — its incompetence, abuse, dysfunction, venality — topped the list, with 21 percent of respondents saying it was their key concern. The overall state of the economy was second, at 18 percent. Unemployment and health care were tied for third, with each cited by 16 percent as the nation’s most pressing problem. HOW MANY shared Obama’s view that the gap between rich and poor is the issue that should concern us most? Four percent. The president has been banging this populist drum for years. As a candidate in 2008, he famously told “Joe the Plumber” that it was good for everybody when the government acts to “spread the wealth around.” In 2011 he went to Osowatomie, Kan., site of a famous speech by Theodore Roosevelt a century earlier, to condemn the “gaping inequality” in modern America, where those at the top of the economic ladder are “wealthier than ever before,” while everyone else struggles with growing bills and stagnant paychecks. He told the Center for American Progress last December that “increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream,” and warned that America’s basic bargain — “if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead” — is disintegrating.
Class-war rhetoric excites the Democratic base. There have always been some voters for whom nothing is more repellent than a growing gap between the rich and the non-rich, or a stronger justification for more government regulation. But most Americans don’t react that way. “When is the last time you heard a shoeshine person or a taxicab driver complain about inequality?” asks economist John C. Goodman. “For most people, having a lot of rich people around is good for business.”
Jeff
Jacoby (c) 2013, Boston Globe
OBSESSING OVER other people’s riches isn’t healthy. In a relatively free society, wealth is typically earned. There are exceptions, of course. Some people cheat their way to a fortune; some are just lucky; some pull political strings. But on the whole, Americans with a lot of money have usually produced more, worked harder, aimed higher or seen further than the rest of us. Inequality is built into the human condition, and the world is generally better off when people of uncommon talent and industry are free to climb as high as their abilities will take them. If income inequality were off the charts and upward mobility were now a thing of the past, the president’s claim that this is the “defining challenge of our time” might be more convincing. That isn’t what the data show. According to a 2010 Congressional Budget Office report, income inequality
stands only slightly higher now than the average of the past 30 years. And as the Tax Foundation notes, there is less inequality today (as measured by income) than during Bill Clinton’s last two years in the White House, since peaks have usually occurred during times when the economy was booming. This is still a land of significant income mobility. “A child born in the top 20 percent has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top,” Obama laments. “A child born into the bottom 20 percent has a less than 1-in-20 shot at making it to the top.” But why should that be an indictment? It means that even Americans who start out in the wealthiest income bracket get no guarantees — at least a third of them are likely to slip down the ladder. And taxpayers starting at the bottom aren’t condemned to lifelong poverty. Many will move to higher income groups (nearly 60 percent did so in less than a decade, according to one study). Some will make it all the way to the top. To be sure, it has grown harder under this administration to climb up from the lowest quintile. But that has little to do with the “millionaires and billionaires” the left so often vilifies. It has much more to do with government policies that have undermined work incentives, increased dependency, and priced the low-skilled unemployed out of the labor market. NO, MR. PRESIDENT. The “defining challenge of our time” isn’t to end inequality or redistribute the income of the wealthy. Far more important is to get the government’s clammy hand out of the way, and enable more of the poor to climb their way to success.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) says illegals now make up 3.5 percent of the U.S. population, or about 10.5 million people. According to CIS, “Nationally, illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 9.9 percent of all persons in poverty, compared to their 4.9 percent share of (the) nation’s total population.” With lower incomes, illegals rely more on welfare programs. CIS says in Texas, “58 percent of illegal households collect some sort of welfare,” with “49 percent using food assistance and 41 percent using Medicaid.” In California and Illinois, reports CIS, “55 percent use welfare.” California, which has the largest number of illegal aliens, predictably has the greatest burden. In Los Angeles County alone, according to a CBS Los Angeles report, welfare and other benefits by the end of last year cost an estimated $650 million just for the native-born children of illegal immigrant parents. L.A. County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich told CBS Los Angeles: “When you add the $550 million for public safety and nearly $500 million for health care, the total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers exceeds $1.6 billion a year.” Hospital closings in California remain a major concern. As Examiner. com reported recently in a story about the economic burden to taxpayers posed by illegal immigrants, “In 2003, the American Southwest saw 77 hospitals enter bankruptcy due to unpaid medical bills incurred by illegal aliens.” This country needs comprehensive immigration reform, whether that means maintaining a secure border or outlining a standard of economic sustainability for immigrants. Taxpayers cannot continue to bear the economic burden of illegal immigration. The Obama administration has promised immigration reform; the Republican Party has promised it, but partisanship and politics keep both sides miles apart. Rep. Paul Ryan (RWis.) remains skeptical that any immigration measure will pass the GOP-led house this year, claiming that a distrust of the president runs deep with Republicans. And while both sides dither, the taxpayer continues to pay ... and our schools, hospitals and welfare system continue to sag under the weight of millions of illegal immigrants who chose not to take the legal route to citizenship. IF REPUBLICANS fail to come up with a workable immigration plan, they will simultaneously help Democrats who rely on the Hispanic vote and lose Republican votes. As Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz told Breitbart News, they could also fail to achieve their major goal for 2014: winning a Senate majority.
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February 12, 2014
How the Grand Old Party lost Middle America
O
ut of the Republican retreat and wages were a fraction of what they on Maryland’s Eastern shore were here in America. comes word that the House Corporate America was going global leadership is raising the white flag of sur- and wanted to be rid of its American render on immigration. work force, the best paid on The GOP will earth, and replace it agree to halt the with cheap foreign deportation of labor. 12 million illegal While manualiens, and sign on facturing sought to (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate to a blanket ammove production nesty. It only asks that the 12 million not abroad, hotels, motels, bars, restaurants, be put on a path to citizenship. farms and construction companies that could not move abroad also wanted to reSORRY, BUT losers do not dictate place their expensive American workers. terms. Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO Thanks to the Republican Party, Corsays amnesty is no longer enough. Illegal porate America got it all. aliens must be put on a path to citizenship U.S. factories in the scores of thouand given green cards to work — and join sands were shut down, shedding their unions. American workers. Foreign-made goods Rep. Paul Ryan and the Wall Street poured in, filling U.S. stores and killing Journal are for throwing in the towel. Le- the manufacturers who had stayed begalize them all and start them on the path hind, loyal to their U.S. workers. to citizenship. The Reagan prosperity was exported A full and final capitulation. Let’s get to Asia and China by the Bush Republiit over with. cans. And the Reagan Democrats reciproTo understand why and how the Re- cated by deserting the Bush Republican publican Party lost Middle America, and Party and going home. But this was not faces demographic death, we need to go the end of what this writer described in back to Bush I. his 1998 book, The Great Betrayal. At the Cold War’s end, the GOP As those hotels, motels, restaurants, reached a fork in the road. The determi- bars, fast-food shops, car washes, grocernation of Middle Americans to preserve ies and other service industries also relthe country they grew up in, suddenly ished the rewards of cheap foreign labor, collided with the profit motive of Corpo- they got government assistance in replacrate America. ing their American workers. The Fortune 500 wanted to close facSince 1990, some 30 to 40 million imtories in the USA and ship production migrants, legal and illegal, have entered abroad — where unions did not exist, the country. This huge increase in the laregulations were light, taxes were low, bor force, at the same time the U.S. was
Pat
Buchanan
shipping factories abroad, brought mas- to see what is going to happen. For it is sive downward pressure on wages. The happening now. Almost all of those breaking our laws, real wages of Middle Americans have crossing the border, and overstaying their stagnated for decades. visas are young, poor or working class. WHAT WAS wildly wonderful for Between 80 and 90 percent are from Corporate America was hell on Middle Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. But the Republican Party had America. They are Third World peoples. They made its choice. It had sold its soul to the multinationals. And as it went along with believe in government action and governNAFTA, GATT, fast track and mass im- ment programs that provide their families migration, to appease Corporate America, with free education, health care, housing, food, and income subsidies. They are not it lost Middle America. The party went with the folks who paid Bob Taft or Barry Goldwater conservafor their campaigns, only to lose the folks tives. Perhaps 85 percent of all immigrants, who had given them their landslides. When Republicans accede to the de- legal and illegal, more than a million a mand for amnesty, and immigration with- year now, are people of color. And while out end, it does not take a political genius over 70 percent of Hispanics and Asians voted Democratic for Obama, among voters of African descent, the Obama vote was well above 90 percent. Four of every five U.S. citizens of Asian, African and Hispanic descent vote Democratic in presidential elections. And it is their numbers that are growing. Already they are well over a third of the U.S. population. As has been observed often, America, demographically, is going to look like California. And while Nixon won California all five times he was on a national ticket, and Reagan won California in landslides all four times he ran, California has not gone Republican in six straight presidential elections. Democrats outnumber Republicans there by more than two-to-one in the Congressional delegation and in the state assembly, and not a single Republican holds statewide office. IF BUSH I had built that border fence back in 1992 and declared a moratorium on legal immigration that fall, as many implored him to do, the party of the Bushes would not be facing its demise well before midcentury. January 31, 2014
This Week’s Conservative Focus
IMMIGRATION REFORM
17
Senator Sessions gets right with the truth dented level of legal lesser-skilled immi- citizenship. Sessions’ reply: the plan is gration to the U.S. that is reducing wages to give a green card to ineligible aliens and increasing unemployment.” While and that, in- deed, is “a special path to the Republican goal should be “to tran- citizenship.” sition millions of Myth: The plan struggling Ameriis not amnesty becans from welfare cause illegals will and joblessness to have to pay fines, work and rising back taxes, learn (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate wages,” President English, and pass Obama’s plan is to force “legislation that background checks. In fact, all those redrastically surges the future flow of new quirements are a farce: it’s impossible to immigrant workers competing against calculate back taxes, the aliens of course unemployed Americans.” will never learn English before they get Senator Sessions conveniently sum- amnesty, and any background checks will marized the facts about where we are and be as worthless as the background check where we should be going in a 30-page of the Boston bombers. statement. He refutes ten widely circuMyth: The immigration reform delated myths that are currently used to de- bate in Congress will be full and open. CONTINUING, Senator Sessions ceive the public on this issue. Are you kidding? From the Senate Gang Myth: Those who broke our immigra- of Eight’s bill to proposals that emerged said that the Republican so-called principles “would surge the already unprece- tion laws will not get any special path to from the House Republican “retreat” in “Get right with the law” is the trendy new poll-tested slogan that’s supposed to make both amnesty-resistant Americans and illegal aliens accept whatever so-called immigration “reform” that Congress considers. Alas, playing with words will not sell amnesty to Americans or non-amnesty to illegals. House Republicans went into a “retreat” in a Maryland hideaway to consider a statement of “principles” put before them by the House leadership. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) immediately said that they are “the same recycled talking points, crafted with the help of the same consultants and special interests,” and that the proposed legislation “ensures only the amnesty and not the enforcement.”
Phyllis
Schlafly
Republicans to the rescue?
S
ome supporters of President Obama may be worried about how he and the Democrats are going to fare politically, as the problems of Obamacare continue to escalate, and it looks like the Republicans have a chance to win a majority in the Senate. But Democrats may not need to worry so much. Republicans may once again come to the rescue of the Democrats, by discrediting themselves and snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory.
THE LATEST bright idea among Republicans inside the Beltway is a new version of amnesty that is virtually certain to lose votes among the Republican base and is unlikely to gain many votes among the Hispanics that the Republican leadership is courting. One of the enduring political mysteries is how the Republicans can be so successful in winning governorships and control of state legislatures, while failing to make much headway in Washington. Maybe there are just too many clever GOP consultants inside the Beltway. When it comes to national elections, just what principles do the Republicans stand for? It is hard to think of any, other than their hoping to win elections by converting themselves into Democrats lite. But voters who want what the Democrats offer can vote for the real thing, rather than Johnny-come-lately imitations. Listening to discussions of immigration laws and proposals to reform them is like listening to something out of Alice in Wonderland. Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them. One of the
big problems that those who are pushing “comprehensive immigration reform” want solved is how to help people who came here illegally and are now “living in the shadows” as a result. What about embezzlers or burglars who are “living in the shadows” in fear that someone will discover their crimes? Why not “reform” the laws against embezzlement or burglary, so that such people can also come out of the shadows? Almost everyone seems to think that we need to solve the problem of the children of illegal immigrants, because these children are here “through no fault of their own.” Do people who say that have any idea how many millions of children are living in dire poverty in India, Africa or other places “through no fault of their own,” and would be better off living in the United States?
Thomas
Sowell (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
DO ALL children have some inherent right to live in America if they have done nothing wrong? If not, then why should the children of illegal immigrants have such a right? More fundamentally, why do the American people not have a right to the protection that immigration laws provide people in other countries around the world — including Mexico, where illegal immigrants from other countries get no such special treatment as Mexico and its American supporters are demanding for illegal immigrants in the United States? The very phrase “comprehensive” im-
migration reform is part of the bad faith that has surrounded immigration issues for decades. What “comprehensive” reform means is that border control and amnesty should be voted on together in Congress. Why? Because that would be politically convenient for members of Congress, who like to be on both sides of issues, so as to minimize the backlash from the voting public. But what “comprehensive” immigration reform has always meant in practice is amnesty up front and a promise to control the border later — promises that have never been kept. The new Republican proposal is to have some border control criteria whose fulfillment will automatically serve as a “trigger” to let the legalizing of illegal immigrants proceed. But why set up some automatic triggering device to signal that the borders are secure, when the Obama administration is virtually guaranteed to game the system, so that amnesty can proceed? What in the world is wrong with Congress taking up border security first, as a separate issue, and later taking responsibility in a Congressional vote on whether the border has become secure? Congress at least should come out of the shadows. The Republican plan for granting legalization up front, while withholding citizenship, is too clever by half. It is like saying that you can slide halfway down a slippery slope. REPUBLICANS MAY yet rescue the Democrats, while demoralizing their own supporters and utterly failing the country. February 4, 2014
Maryland, all immigration plans have been assembled in secrecy. Myth: The majority of Americans support immigration reform. All polls refute that statement; Pew Research Center and CBS report that 62 percent of Americans want the border secured (Period!) before any immigration “reform” is even considered. Myth: We need a guest-worker program to fill our labor shortages and take jobs Americans won’t do. Sessions reports that there are more than enough unemployed Americans to fill all labor shortages, and Americans in fact do work all the jobs that some claim Americans won’t do. ECONOMIST Thomas Sowell wrote that “Virtually every kind of ‘work that Americans will not do’ is in fact work that Americans have done for generations. In many cases, most of the people doing that work today are Americans.” Myth: Those granted legalization must be able to support themselves and will not get welfare. What a lie! That has been the law for generations but the Obama Administration pays no attention to it. For example, the Boston bomber family actually was given $100,000 in welfare benefits. Myth: Immigration reform will help the economy. In fact, amnesty will mean a larger number of people unemployed and on welfare. Myth: Border security will come first and no legalization can happen unless triggers have been implemented. Almost nobody believes that myth. Rasmussen reported that only five percent believe the government would ever close the border after immigration “reform” is passed. Myth: Passing “immigration reform” and fixing the border will end illegal immigration. Hardly anybody believes that will or can happen so long as Obama fails to close the border, fails to use E-Verify, refuses to use the biometric exit system to track visa entrants who don’t depart when their legal time expires, and prevents our immigration agents from arresting and removing those who enter illegally or overstay their visas. Myth: Congress will force Obama to fully enforce the immigration reform bill if passed by Congress. That’s a sick joke coming after Obama’s braggadocio that he will use his pen to scratch out any provisions he dislikes in any law. COMMISSIONER Peter Kirsanow of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said, “The immigration bill is a disaster for the unemployed.” As Senator Sessions points out, all plans will “hollow out our shrinking middle class,” and “rank-andfile House Republicans are the last line of defense for working Americans.” February 4, 2014
18
Conservative Chronicle
INCOME INEQUALITY: January 31, 2014
Democrats overestimating ‘inequality’
S
ome Democrats seem to think ize that one still matters more than the that the very fact “inequality” other. Without a zero-sum fallacy to even exists should be enough to rely on, explaining why inequality is so ous” isn’t easy. And lure the entire nation to the progressive “dangerAmericans don’t cause. New York believe, as Obama Times columnist seems to intimate, Paul Krugman, in that the poor are a recent piece imstuck in their cirploring President (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate cumstance withBarack Obama to out government. put emphasis on As it turns out, new data — data that child born in 1986 finding himself/hersocial justice in his State of the Union speech, argued as much, writing that Obama is unlikely to share with Ameri- self on the same trajectory was slightly “to focus on inequality is political real- cans — show that little has changed higher, at nine percent. The strongest ism. Like it or not, the simple fact is over the past decades when it comes to predictor of upward mobility, it turns that Americans ‘get’ inequality; macro- mobility. The Equality of Opportunity out, is one that conservatives have been Project’s new study by economists Raj touting for years: Getting married — not economics, not so much.” Chetty and Emmanuel Saez found that higher levels of “social justice” — is the THEY MAY “get” it, but the mes- despite perceptions, social mobility in key predictor for success. Granted, that mobility number could sage is probably a lot less powerful the U.S. is at the same level it was 30 years ago. Economists measured the be a lot better. And it seems that movethan Krugman imagines. There’s been a lot of talk about a ability of kids born in 1971 to 1993 to ment is more compartmentalized today new Pew Research Center poll that move into different income groups and than it used to be — as success breeds finds that 65 percent of Americans be- found that a child born in 1971 in the success and vice versa. The report lieve the divide between rich and poor bottom 20 percent of household earners states that America is probably better has been increasing over the years. Not had an 8.4 percent chance of ending up described “as a collection of societies, surprisingly, 90 percent of Democrats in the top 20 percent of earners by the some of which are ‘lands of opportunity’ believe that government should do “a time they hit their 30s. The chance of a with high rates of mobility across generlot” or “some” to tighten the gap. Republicans (45 percent) believe that the IMMIGRATION REFORM: February 5, 2014 government should do something about inequality, and 23 percent say it should do a lot. The latter revelation is so awesome that Krugman punctuated it with an exclamation point. But really, why So the answer is to seal the border he best way to move immigrawouldn’t most people want to “do tion reform through the House before legalization proceeds. But how something” to diminish this appalland to get it passed is to in- can we trust Obama to do this and to tell ing rise in “inequality” they’ve been volve the governors of the border states us the truth about his progress toward hearing about on the news every day — Calif., Ariz., N.M., and Tex. — in the that goal? for years? How wide the disparity re- enforcement of the process. Enter the governors. ally is — and how much it really matThe Republican governors in Tex., No Republicans, no Independents, ters in alleviating poverty — I’ll leave and darn few Democrats trust Barack N.M. and Ariz. can be the umpires of to economists and the good citizens of Obama. To condition immigration re- the system. California, the the income-parity wonderlands of Laos form on the successful sealing of the and Bulgaria. southern border — as Senator Cornyn’s As with all things, wanting to “do amendment and Rep. Paul Ryan’s talksomething” will mean an array of con- ing points suggest — will only work if tradictory policy measures. It is not, there is an effective method of certify(c) 2013, Creators Syndicate sorry to say, as easy as the false choice ing that it has been done. Pew ultimately offered in its poll: Do you want to raise taxes on the wealthy WHO CAN possibly trust this presi- fourth border state, is Democrat, of or do nothing? In fact, Pew might have dent after his repeated misrepresenta- course, and we cannot look there for an done well to add another, more ger- tions of what his own programs contain? honest broker. But, if the immigration mane, question. Something along the There is no way the Republican base or law considered by the House required lines of: GOP legislators will accept his say-so the unanimous certification of all four Which do you believe is a more ef- that the borders are sealed. border state governors that the targets fective way to reduce poverty, impleYet, the concept of predicating and for sealing the border have been met menting policies that further redistrib- conditioning immigration reform on the before legalization takes place, we will ute wealth and close the inequality gap effective end of the open door on our have a workable bill that can pass. With or fostering policies that create more Southern border makes eminent sense. Texas and Arizona likely to stay in Reclass mobility for Americans? Once legalization proceeds, it is obvious publican hands for some time, the GOP that illegal immigration — new illegal will have an effective check to be sure BECAUSE POVERTY is not “in- immigration — will ratchet up, just as that the border is, in fact, sealed. equality.” Not even if Obama conflates happened after the 1986 amnesty under the two, as he did recently when he Ronald Reagan. With the prospect of AND, IN FACT, the administration argued that “a dangerous and growing the suspension of the immigration laws will have to seal it. If they don’t, the 11 inequality and lack of upward mobil- dangled in front of the peoples of South million people currently in the U.S. illeity” is the “defining challenge of our and Central America and Mexico, we gally will exist in limbo awaiting legaltime.” Democrats tether inequality and can expect them to show up at the bor- ization. Their demands will encourage mobility because they, no doubt, real- der to wait their turn. enforcement on the border. They will be
David
Harsanyi
ations, and others in which few children escape poverty.” So treating “the poor” as one entity rather than making distinctions among working-class families that have fallen on hard times, those stuck in the cultural continuum of poverty and those who need society to bail them out of bad choices might be good populist politics, but it’s lousy for policy. YET IN THE political class’s arms race on empathetic political rhetoric, it’s starting to sound as if we don’t believe that anyone in any of those groups can help himself anymore. This is a perverted view of the American experience. It’s also false.
Governors key to immigration reform
T
Dick
Morris
the hostages to the effort to stop illegal immigration. Essentially, the Republicans have separated working from voting, staying in the country from citizenship, meeting immigrants’ economic needs from satisfying the Democratic Party’s political needs. Once the 11 million can stay here legally, without threat of deportation, few will care whether they can vote or not — except for Democratic politicians who will care and complain loudly. Republican immigration reform should bar government benefits for these illegal immigrants, something these hard-working people will not mind. By granting half a loaf — work and legal status, not citizenship and voting — Republicans will defuse the issue, remove the block on their ability to win Latino votes and shoot down the Democratic hopes of a permanent majority.
SOME CONSERVATIVES call this approach “amnesty.” But if you commit a misdemeanor — possession of a small amount of drugs, for example — and you are arrested, come before a judge, are found guilty, and then are sentenced to pay a fine, is that amnesty? No, amnesty is when you walk away scot-free. The illegal immigrants this legislation will legalize will all have to pay a fine and back taxes. This is no amnesty. It is appropriate justice.
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February 12, 2014 DEAR MARK: February 1, 2014
My line item veto of the State of the Union
A
nother State of the Union address has come and gone, and what have we learned? We’ve learned that President Obama is trying to act like a tough guy with his pen if congress doesn’t go along with his ideas. I’m not sure if Obama realizes that, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, “sometimes a pen is just a pen.”
NOTICE THAT I said if Congress doesn’t go along with his “ideas” and not “proposals” because the president’s speech was long on platitudes, accusations, misstatements and inaccuracies. Obama did not offer any specific legislation other than to urge Congress to come up with something he can demagogue ... uh, I mean, sign into law. While President Obama is attempting to act with a new bravado by threatening executive action and vetoes, I would like to use the columnist’s line item veto and go through Tuesday’s speech. Lo and behold, I found 47 items that I would veto, or as we say in Texas, call BS on. It makes you wonder if President Obama actually pays attention to the words his teleprompter tells him to say. The items raising my eyebrows ranged from President Obama’s claim that his “all of the above” energy strategy is the reason the United States is closer to energy independence to his statistical hocus pocus concerning equal pay between men and women. Many of you would simply write off my comments as the rantings of a par-
tisan hack who disagrees with the president on every issue, but let’s take a look at a few of the president’s actual statements. Concerning the Affordable Care Act, President Obama challenged Republicans “So again, if you have specific plans to cut costs, cover more peo-
Mark
Levy
(c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
ple, and increase choice — tell America what you’d do differently. Let’s see if the numbers add up.” First of all, Republicans have come up with numerous plans for health care reform, not just votes to repeal Obamacare. They’ve all been met with wholesale rejection from the administration without any discussion whatsoever. SECONDLY, SPEAKING of numbers adding up, has the president seen the disastrous numbers with the rollout of his signature legislation? Obamacare is almost three times over budget, while more people have been kicked off their insurance than have signed up. Not to mention that since the roll out of Obamacare, insurance premiums have skyrocketed and not been reduced by $2,500 as promised. Try this one on for size. The president made this claim: “Federally funded research helped lead to the ideas and
inventions behind Google and smartphones.” That’s a big stretch, but Al Gore did invent the Internet. Concerning education, Obama lamented, “It’s not enough to train today’s workforce. We also have to prepare tomorrow’s workforce by guaranteeing every child access to a world-class education.” I don’t mean to bring up facts, but it is Obama and his teachers unions that are adamantly against school choice and voucher programs. The president, again, said, “Let’s make this a year of action. That’s what most Americans want — for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations.” Now I understand why the NSA surveillance program is so popular among Americans.
AND FINALLY, the overall tone was unbecoming of the office. I wish President Obama would quit crying about Congress not succumbing to his ideological whims. Remember it was Obama who back in 2009 arrogantly proclaimed that “elections have consequences.” Well, guess what, Mr. President; those “consequences” not only apply to presidential elections, but to all elections, and Republicans took the House in 2010. So put on your big boy pants and reread the constitution because you’re not the first president to deal with a difficult congress. You can now follow me on Twitter @ MarkPLevy.
CONTACT INFORMATION Individual Contact Information Greenberg - pgreenberg@arkansasonline.com Jacoby - jacoby@globe.com Krauthammer - letters@charleskrauthammer.com Levy - marklevy92@aol.com Lowry - comments.lowry@nationalreview.com Malkin - malkinblog@gmail.com Napolitano - freedomwatch@foxbusiness.com Saunders - dsaunders@sfchronicle.com Schlafly - phyllis@eagleforum.org Thomas - tmseditors@tribune.com Will - georgewill@washpost.com Contact through Creators Syndicate Michael Barone, Austin Bay, Brent Bozell, Pat Buchanan, Stephen Chapman, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, Larry Elder, David Harsanyi, Terry Jeffrey, Larry Kudlow, David Limbaugh, Dick Morris, William Murchison, Chuck Norris, Oliver North, Dennis Prager, Dawn Seamans-Shook, Ben Shapiro, Thomas Sowell Contact - info@creators.com Contact through Universal Press Ann Coulter Contact by mail : c/o Universal Press Syndicate 1130 Walnut Street Kansas City, MO 64106
Answers from page 14
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20
Conservative Chronicle
STATE OF THE UNION: January 31, 2014
Chastened & weary Obama : The State of the Union
N
Contrary to press predictions, he did ot as bad as expected. That’s my verdict on President not harp on “income inequality” — the Obama’s fifth State of the phrase must poll poorly. The remedies he proposed — raising the Union address. minimum wage and With his apcontinuing 100proval running week unemploywell under 50 ment benefits — do percent, Obama pathetically little was not quite so (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate to address it. confrontational as Immigration he has been in the and gun control got brief, vague parapast. He conceded that in the last four graphs. His defensive paragraphs about years, wages “have barely budged,” that Obamacare evoked as much laughter as inequality “has deepened” and upward applause. His proclamation of economic progmobility “has stalled.” No more blamress was necessarily tepid. His hailing ing everything on George W. Bush. of America’s approaching energy indeHE NOTED obliquely that “last pendence necessarily omitted the fact year the Voting Rights Act was weak- that his administration has done more to ened” without explicitly attacking the discourage than encourage the fracking Supreme Court for its ruling that states revolution in oil and natural gas. He was careful to say that solar panel could not be singled out for heightened scrutiny based on low voter turnout in installation can’t be outsourced but of course failed to mention that solar panthe years from 1964 to 1972. He said he would work with states el manufacturing can be and is — and expanding pre-kindergarten schooling that his crony capitalism “investment” and limited his Republican bashing to in Solyndra and other solar firms was a the phrase “as Congress decides what bust. On issues dear to the heart of Demoit’s going to do.” He noted approvingly Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s pro- cratic core constituencies, he resorted to posal to reshape the Earned Income Tax outright falsehoods. Women earn only 77 cents for each Credit. To be sure, many of his proposals dollar men earn, he said. That’s a numwere pretty small-ball. He recycled calls ber that goes back to the 1970s. His own for corporate tax reform, port upgrades Labor Department’s survey says that and high-tech manufacturing hubs. He when you take account of hours worked called for patent reform and savings and type of work, the number is more like 95 cents. bond investment accounts.
Michael
Barone
“Research shows that one of the best investments we can make in a child’s life is high-quality early education,” he said. Actually, his own Health and Human Services study has found no lasting value in Head Start programs. “THE DEBATE is settled,” he said. “Climate change is a fact.” It is “already harming western communities suffering from drought and coastal cities dealing with floods.” Actually, temperatures have not increased over the last 15 years, as the global warming alarmists’ models predicted. Perhaps they will over the longer run.
But most people who accept or reject global warming have the good sense to resist the temptation to claim that any recent unpleasant weather — drought, floods, whatever — confirms their view. Obama was unable to resist. The president spent more time on foreign policy than expected, tacitly acknowledging mistakes. He admitted al Qaeda’s “core leadership” is only on “a path to defeat” and its threat “has evolved” in Yemen, Somalia, Mali and Iraq. That’s an implicit admission that the failure to get an agreement to maintain some U.S. troops in Iraq has increased the threat — and Obama could only say he hopes for such an agreement in Afghanistan. On Syria, Obama said he would “support the opposition that rejects the agenda of terrorist networks” and work with allies to give the Syrian people “a future free of dictatorship, terror and fear.” How? Iran, he said, was forced to the negotiating table by tough sanctions, but he would veto the bill to add sanctions if negotiations fail — but then would call for more himself. Huh? The best part was the end. Obama told of meeting Army Ranger Cory Remsburg at a D-Day anniversary and then again after he was seriously injured in Afghanistan — and how Remsburg is recovering and determined to serve again. “Men and women like Cory remind us that America has never come easy,” he said, in an eloquent paragraph recounting America’s achievements over 200-plus years that everyone in the audience could agree with. AN EXCELLENT end to an overlong speech by an apparently chastened and weary president.
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February 12, 2014 AL QAEDA: February 5, 2014
Al Qaeda’s Syrian rebels have aims to attack U.S.
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eputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes announced last June that President Barack Obama had decided to aid the Supreme Military Council of the Syrian rebellion. “The president has made a decision about providing more support to the opposition,” said Rhodes. “That will involve providing direct support to the SMC. That includes military support.”
LAST WEEK, at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s annual threat-assessment hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that one of the leading groups in the Syrian rebellion — the al Qaedaaffiliated al Nusra Front — would like to attack the U.S. homeland. “How would you characterize the probability of an al Qaeda-sponsored or inspired attack against U.S. homeland today, as compared to 2001?” Committee Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., asked Clapper. Clapper indicated that parts of Syria
might now be like the Federally Ad- said Clapper. “And what’s going on ministered Tribal Areas, which sit there, and the attraction of these foralong Pakistan’s border with Afghani- eign fighters is very, very worrisome. “Aspirationally,” said Clapper, “alstan, and have been a sanctuary for al Nusra Front, to name one, does have Qaeda. tions for attacks on “The ideological center of al Qaeda aspirathe homeland.” movement I think On Dec. 11, still remains in 2012, six months the FATA,” said before the White Clapper. But “the House announced operational locus (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate Obama would and the locus for operational planning has dispersed. provide military support to the SuThere are some five different franchis- preme Military Council of the Syrian es at least, and in 12 countries, that this rebels, the State Department listed al movement has morphed into. And we Nusra Front as an al Qaeda-affiliated see sort of chapters of it, of course, in terrorist group. At the beginning of last week’s Yemen, Somalia, in North Africa, in hearing, with Clapper sitting in front Syria.” It is not the Shiite-allied Alawite of her, Senate Intelligence Chairman regime of Bashar al Assad that is turn- Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from ing Syria into a base of operations for San Francisco, summed up the Syral Qaeda. It is Sunni extremist Syrian ian situation this way: “Because large swathes of the country ... of Syria, are rebels. “What we spoke about before in beyond the regime’s control, or that of Syria, what’s going on there, is in may- the moderate opposition, this leads to be some respects a new FATA for us,” the major concern of the establishment
Terry
Jeffrey
WORLD MARKETS: January 30, 2014
Left turn in the emerging markets
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here’s a new cynical perception among international investors that Brazil is becoming Argentina, and Argentina is becoming Venezuela. But these investors are starting to boycott all the so-called emerging markets, since nearly all of them are moving to the left, abandoning free-market principles, reverting to the bad old days of higher spending and taxing, inflating the money supply, accumulating large trade deficits and letting their currencies go to hell in a hand basket.
IN OTHER words, the emergingmarket investment paradigm, or the BRIC model, may be over. Toward the end of last week, the U.S. stock market sold off nearly 500 points. Much of the blame has been placed on the collapse of the emergingmarket currencies. Correct. The emerging-market tail was wagging the U.S. stock market dog. We all know the Fed is playing a role in this as it tapers its bond purchases and injects less new cash into the economy. In recent years, some of that Fed-created excess liquidity has gone into emerging-market investments. But now, as the Fed begins to wind down, it’s as if the tide is going out to sea and revealing all the countries that left their bathing suits behind. In other words, the left turn of many emerging-market nations is now naked
for all to see. High inflation, crashing currencies, trade protectionism and economic redistribution are not the policies that grew these economies over the years and attracted investment. (South Korea, by the way, is a notable exception.)
Larry
Kudlow (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
You can go down the list. Argentina is on the verge of collapse under the left-wing populism of the Kirchner regime. Travelling leftward from Lula to Rousseff, Brazil has built a huge current-account deficit while pulling back on free trade. In India, free-market policies have stalled, and if the Gandhis return to power, so will their socialist approach. And for various political and cultural reasons, the Erdogan government in Turkey has been moving hard to the left, all while the Turkish economy deteriorates. Turkey’s central bank may defend the lira with higher interest rates, but that tightening will worsen the economy and the political situation. CHINA, IT’S important to note, has a different problem than these other emerging markets. The Peoples Bank of China is cutting back on liquidity and credit in the so-called shadow
banking system. And while the Chinese economy is not plunging into recession, its growth has dropped from 12 to seven percent. China’s slowdown remains a threat to the U.S. as well as the other emerging markets. Fortunately, Europe’s economy is beginning to look better around the edges. So is Japan’s, following that nation’s massive monetary pump priming. And while some may disagree, the U.S. economy looks to be getting better, despite tax hikes, Obamacare and new regulations. But the biggest challenge of our time is not income inequality or taxing the rich. It’s economic growth for the long run. Looking globally, the challenge is maintaining the liberal economic order, with free markets and free trade at the center. But now we’re seeing developing countries such as India, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey move away from free markets and free trade, and from the very principles that attracted capital, ignited their growth and stabilized their currencies. IN THE LAST couple of decades, hundreds of millions of the ultra-poor were lifted into the middle class as developing nations around the world moved towards free-market capitalism. But right now I must warn investors: Stay out of the emerging markets. They’re going the wrong way.
of safe haven, and the real prospect that Syria could become a launching point or way station for terrorists seeking to attack the United States or other nations.” MATTHEW OLSEN, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who testified beside Clapper, agreed with both Clapper’s and Feinstein’s assessments. “I fully agree with Director Clapper’s assessment of the situation in Syria,” he told Feinstein. “And as you laid out in your opening statement, the combination of a permissive environment, extremist groups like Al Nusra, and the number of foreign fighters, combine to make Syria a place that we are very concerned about, in particular the potential for terrorist attacks emanating from Syria to the West.” This week, at the threat-assessment hearing in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA Director John Brennan said that al Qaeda is now using camps in both Syria and Iraq to “develop capabilities” that could threaten the United States. “We are concerned about the use of Syrian territory by the al Qaeda organization to recruit individuals and develop the capability to be able not just to carry out attacks inside of Syria but also to use Syria as a launching pad,” said Brennan. “Do you believe there are training camps that have been established on either side of the Iraqi or Syrian border for the purposes of training al Qaeda operatives?” House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., asked Brennan. “There are camps inside both Iraq and Syria that are used by al Qaeda to develop capabilities that are applicable both in the theater as well as beyond,” said Brennan. “Do you believe that ungoverned space presents a real threat to the United States of America via al Qaeda operations, or the West?” asked Rogers. “I do,” said Brennan. President Barack Obama and al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri both supported the Syrian revolution seeking to overthrow Bashar Assad. No doubt Obama believed that supporting revolution in Syria served his understanding of U.S. interests. The terrorist Zawahiri saw the Syrian revolution as a step toward recapitulating Salah ad-Din’s conquest of Jerusalem in 1187. OBAMA’S SUPPORT for the Syrian revolution is another example of his imprudent approach to foreign policy backfiring on the United States.
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Conservative Chronicle
LIBERAL HOLLYWOOD: January 30, 2014
Ben Affleck: ‘Big Republican’ actors hard to watch
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emocratic fundraiser/actor above ‘repugnant.’” Or Ed Asner, from Ben Affleck — and the next Disney’s film Up, who contributed his big-screen Batman — re- name and voice to a cartoon political ad cently gave an interview to Playboy. showing a dastardly rich man literally ing on the poor. His own bias against Republicans, he u r i n a t Sean Penn drips admits, prevents with contempt tohim from fully ward the awful guys enjoying a Reon the other side. publican actor’s Tea partiers, inperformance. “It’s (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate cluding Rep. Ted ... hard,” said AfCruz, R-Tex., says fleck, “to get peoPenn, have a “mental health problem” ple to suspend disbelief.” Affleck said: “When I watch a guy which “would be solved by committing I know is a big Republican, part of me them” to a psychiatric facility with an thinks, I probably wouldn’t like this “executive order” from the president. Why such a microscopic number of person if I met him, or we would have different opinions. That (bleep) fogs the outspoken conservatives? Fear. Cubanmind when you should be paying atten- born actress Maria Conchita Alonso, for example, is a recent cautionary tale. tion and be swept into the illusion.” Cast to star in the Latino version of the FAIR ENOUGH. But how do you Vagina Monologues, Alonso cut an ad for a California tea party “secure the think conservatives feel? Nearly every actor who cuts loose borders” candidate. Big mistake. The about politics, let alone campaigns for play’s theatre, located in the heavily or donates to causes or politicians, al- Hispanic Mission District of San Franmost always supports Democrats and cisco, received threats to disrupt the liberal causes. Nothing wrong with this. performance — if Alonso remained in But it’s not even close to a fair fight. Of the cast. When Alonso “quit,” the play’s America’s stars — old, young and inbetween — the many who speak out are producer shrugged: “We really can’t have her in the show, unfortunately. Of invariably Democrats. A Clint Eastwood is more than offset course she has the right to say whatever by the many performers like Cher, who she wants. But we’re in the middle of said: “If you’re black in this country, if the Mission. Doing what she is doing is you’re a woman in this country, if you against what we believe.” Against what are any minority in this country at all, we believe?! How far is this from “Are what could possibly possess you to vote you now, or have you ever been ... ?” How do you think conservatives feel? Republican? ... You won’t have one fAffleck and his buddy, fellow A-list--ing right left.” Or like Julia Roberts, who said, “Republican comes in the er Matt Damon, held fundraisers for the dictionary just after ‘reptile’ and just successful senate races of New Jersey
Larry
Elder
Sen. Cory Booker and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and for the election and re-election of President Barack Obama. Democrats all, or people who — to conservatives — are “against what we believe.” OF HOLLYWOOD’S political contributions in the last two presidential election cycles, 86 percent went to Democrats in 2008, and 79 percent in 2012. More than 90 percent of contributions by celebrities to the 2012 presidential race went to Obama over Republican opponent Mitt Romney. The Wall Street Journal said, “(DreamWorks cofounder Jeffrey) Katzenberg wrote a $2 million check to jump-start Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting the president. His fundraising work has yielded as much as $7 million over the past five years.”
Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein is another Democratic Hollywood power player and fundraiser. He, too, shows no reluctance to show his contempt toward the very people Weinstein counts on to pay to see his movies. His take on the congressional Republicans who opposed Obama during the government shutdown? “Some of them are, you know,” said Weinstein, “unfortunately (racist).” For his book Primetime Hollywood, conservative talk show host Ben Shapiro interviewed several major Hollywood primetime television producers — the people who make the fare we see. One after another, they saluted — even cheered — their hostility toward conservatives. Some bragged about injecting liberal messages in programming, while admitting they refuse to knowingly hire a conservative. One, Susan Harris, who created Golden Girls, called conservatives “idiots” with “medieval minds.” MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, formerly a West Wing writer, explained why the show lacked sympathetic Republican characters: “You’ll never, ever, get the Republican TV show. The Writers Guild of America, my union, is, at a minimum, 99 percent leftist liberal. ... And we don’t know how to write it. We don’t.” Got that? Affleck can’t stomach watching a Republican. West Wing’s O’Donnell can’t stomach writing about one. But Hollywood expects the audience to stomach them. Do bigmouth lefty actors think their skills override the audience’s politics, that conservatives can “suspend disbelief” — even as Affleck admits he can’t when the actor is a “Big Republican?” IF AUDIENCES gave leftwing actors, producers and studios the Maria Conchita Alonso treatment, half the country would never set foot in a theatre. Hollywood, after all, oozes with “Big Democrats” whose politics, for much of the country, go “against what we believe.”
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February 12, 2014 FATHERLESSNESS: February 4, 2014
President Obama and the grievance industry
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rom one point of view, President Barack Obama’s invocation of the hoary “77 cents” myth regarding the relative earnings of women and men was a shallow and cheap political pander. Democrats, eager to maintain their advantage with women voters, stoke grievance. It’s the same playbook they’ve used to solidify their standing with black voters — suggest whenever and wherever possible that Republicans are racists. It’s crude, offensive and libelous — but effective. YET OBAMA fancies himself an intellectual. Campaigning against Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia, the president chastised the Republican for challenging climate change, saying, “It has to do with what’s true. It has to do with facts. You don’t argue with facts.” Many in the press and in progressive circles regard this president as a bit of a thought leader. So it’s remarkable that he is willing to betray how out of touch he is with
social science by peddling the decades- Ground, Men Lose Ground.” Starting old and utterly outdated idea that our with the cohort born in 1951, a gengreat challenge as a society is ensuring der gap in high school completion has up and continues to women equal pay for equal work. He o p e n e d grow. More girls could not be more than boys are graddated if he were uating from high issuing calls to school. improve phonoThe college graph needles. (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate picture is even Conservatives like Christina Hoff Sommers, Charles starker. Whereas the high school gradMurray and Kay Hymowitz, have long uation rate for males has stagnated been drawing attention to the declining (while women’s has improved), college fortunes of boys and men in American attendance for males has declined while society. They have been joined recently women have advanced. “Females born by nonconservative scholars and re- in 1975 were roughly 17 percent more likely than their male counterparts to searchers as well. A paper by two Massachusetts Insti- attend college and nearly 23 percent tute of Technology economists, “Way- more likely to complete a four-year deward Sons,” published by the center/ gree.” Young women are also more amleft think tank Third Way, outlines the bitious and have higher hopes for their startling decline in the fortunes of mod- futures than young men. erately to poorly educated men over the MUCH ATTENTION has focused past several decades. The title of the opening chapter is direct: “Women Gain on the decline of blue-collar jobs over
the past several decades, and “Wayward Sons” duly acknowledges that the loss of low-skilled jobs to automation, globalization and de-unionization may have contributed to the notable decline in wages suffered by less educated men in the past several decades. But the puzzling fact is women with equivalent levels of education have not suffered the same income declines, nor have women’s labor force participation rates declined as men’s have. While men’s wages have declined for all but the most educated since 1979, women’s wages have increased for all but the least educated. Women’s income gains have far outstripped men’s at every level of education, particularly among college graduates ages 40 to 64. “Wayward Sons” considers the possibilities — are women better at the tasks a highly information-rich economy rewards? Is the loss of brawny jobs to blame for men’s falling labor force participation and declining earnings? Each theory gets a hearing. At length, the authors come to the elephant in the room: the dramatic change in family structure since 1970. In that year, 69 percent of black men without a high school diploma were married. By 2010, only 17 percent were. The marservices. Frankly, this skepticism grows riage rate among non-college attending out of ignorance of how a market econ- whites and Hispanics has declined preomy works. cipitously as well. Companies are in business to make The link between family composition profits. It’s what motivates them to in- and child welfare is well-established. vest resources and provide services. Un- What “Wayward Sons” adds is data on surprisingly, companies that issue cards the differentially harmful effects of faso students can access their financial aid therlessness on sons versus daughters. charge modest fees for using the cards, “Growing up in a single-parent home just as most banks do for their own appears to significantly decrease the customers. But now the Department of probability of college attendance for Education wants to issue new rules that boys, yet has no similar effect for girls.” would make it more difficult and less Boys from such homes “are 25 percentprofitable for companies to do business age points more likely to be suspended in this area. DoE will hold meetings for in the eighth grade than girls from these a newly established rule-making com- households, whereas the corresponding mittee starting in mid-February on the gender gap between boys and girls from use of debit cards. households with two biological parents No one wants to see students gouged was only 10 percentage points.” by excess fees to access money they are A vicious cycle is clearly underway. entitled to. But neither is it in students’ Poorly educated women do not find interests to see colleges have to disburse marriageable mates among low-earning money in less secure, inefficient meth- or jobless young men. Women then ods like paper checks in order to satisfy raise children alone and handicap their government bureaucrats who think prof- sons more than their daughters, and the it is a dirty word. The important thing is cycle repeats itself. to keep costs of higher education from rising and pricing deserving students THE COLLAPSE of the marriage out of the market. If a for-profit com- culture is arguably the “defining issue pany can figure out a better way to dis- of our time.” Neither men nor women burse financial assistance and schools thrive without marriage, but men and save money in the process, everyone is boys seem to suffer more. Fatherlessbetter off. ness is driving income inequality, child poverty and declining mobility. But THE DEPARTMENT of Education Obama is manning the barricades on should spend its time trying to figure out “equal pay for equal work” — a matter ways to make higher education more af- addressed by Congress in 1963. fordable, not putting up roadblocks to reducing costs.
Mona
Charen
EDUCATION: January 31, 2014
Reducing the cost of college
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he cost of higher education has been much on my mind lately, in part because my oldest granddaughter is one of the estimated 22 million students headed to college in the fall. When I was her age, I was able to pay my own freshman tuition from a part-time minimum-wage job in a department store in Denver while I lived at home. But Phoebe won’t be as lucky. Chances are she will end up saddled with debt, even though she may receive some merit-based aid and will likely work to pay her tuition. THE COST of tuition has risen dramatically in the past 50 years. I paid about $250 per semester for tuition when I started school in 1966 as an in-state student at the University of Colorado. If I were registering today, my tuition would be roughly $5,300 a semester for a full-time class load. Even after adjusting for inflation, this represents a three-fold increase in tuition costs, at a time when a college degree is a prerequisite to middle-class status. You would think, given this reality and the Obama administration’s fixation on eliminating income inequality, that administration officials would be looking at ways to reduce higher education costs. But no — at least not when it comes to allowing the for-profit sector to play a role. College bureaucracies — like education in general — are bloated. But efforts to streamline or outsource functions have met with resistance in the
administration. One of the latest stumbling blocks the administration is trying to put in place involves new rules for how schools dispense student aid. In the past, most students received the remainder of their financial aid package, after tuition and fees were deducted, in the form of paper checks. But the issuing of such checks requires a bursar’s office and extra administrative staff to oversee. What’s more, the whole process is ripe for fraud.
Linda
Chavez (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
Just as the Social Security Administration has moved away from mailing checks to recipients, so, too, have many colleges moved to dispensing aid into student bank accounts and issuing debit cards so they can access their funds. But the bureaucrats in charge of federal student aid now want to penalize schools and card issuers for making a profit on the service. SCHOOLS WHO use the services of for-profit debit card companies save millions of dollars by not having to issue checks. These savings help hold down rising costs in higher education. But the Obama administration and its liberal allies in Congress are skeptical of the free market and worry that companies will actually make money by charging fees to students who use their
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Conservative Chronicle
EDUCATION: January 31, 2014
School choice and Common Core: Mortal enemies
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he freedom-enhancing, lifeWe were blessed to find a commuimproving power of school nity of parents and public school educachoice is more than a theory tors in Colorado Springs who embrace for me. It’s more than a talking points high standards, academic excellence and memo or teleprompter speech. Un- s t r o n g character education like many of the for students of evpoliticians payery race, creed and ing lip service to class. Competition National School in the secondaryChoice Week this school market(c) 2013, Creators Syndicate week, the issue place provided a of expanding educational opportunity desperately needed alternative for eduand freedom for all is something I live, cational consumers who wanted more breathe, practice and witness every day. and better for their kids. For the past four years, our kids, now MY MOTHER was a public school 13 and 10, attended a high-achieving teacher who taught in a majority-mi- public charter school that caters to a trunority district in New Jersey for more ly diverse student body. than two decades. She and my father Our 13-year-old is now in 8th grade worked hard to put their own children at the charter school. This year, we in a mix of public and private Catho- opted to homeschool our youngest. We lic schools. My own two children have cobbled together a 5th-grade curriculum been enrolled in private schools, reli- with excellent materials from the Calgious schools and public schools. After vert homeschool series, Memoria Press a great deal of research, we moved from and classic Saxon Math. Another nearby the East Coast to Colorado to escape the public charter school offers a homecorrupted, dumbed-down curriculum of school collective once a week. an overpriced private girls’ school. Family participation is not an afLife lesson: It’s not just government terthought. It’s the engine that drives schools that are the problem. Many sup- everything. The dedicated parents, posedly “elite” schools indulge in the grandparents, foster parents and legal senseless pedagogical fads that infect guardians I’ve met in the charter school monopoly public schools. movement and homeschooling commuEvery family in America deserves nity see themselves as their children’s maximized, customized choices in edu- primary educational providers. Not the cation. It is the ultimate key to closing U.S. Department of Education. Not the that “income inequality” gap the politi- White House. Not GOP politicians cashcos are always gabbling about. Yet, the ing in on top-down “education reform.” White House and Democrats beholden After several years of educational satto public school unions and their money isfaction, however, we’ve encountered are the ones blocking the school choice another sobering life lesson: There is no door. escape, no foolproof sanctuary, from the
Michelle
Malkin
reach of meddling Fed Ed bureaucrats Derek Anderson, principal of Ridand cash-hungry special interests who geview Classical Schools in Fort Colthink they know what’s best for our kids. lins, Colo., wrote to me last fall about the existential threat his charter school BIG-GOVERNMENT Republicans faces. “Ridgeview Classical Schools such as Jeb Bush and flip-flopping Mike is a K-12 charter school that offers a Huckabee pay lip service to increasing classical liberal arts education to apschool choice and supporting charter proximately 800 students. We were esschools, private schools and home- tablished in 2001, and we have generschooling. Yet, they have been among ally been one of the top three schools in the loudest GOP peddlers of the Com- Colorado since opening,” he said. “Our mon Core “standards”/textbook/test- most significant issue with Common ing/data collection regime thrust upon Core and the PARCC exams is that we schools who want nothing to do with it. feel we will lose the autonomy and other “Alignment” with the new regime protections granted to us when Colomeans mediocrity, mandates, privacy rado adopted its Charter Schools Act in invasions and encroachments on local 1994.” control and educational sovereignty. I’ve As I’ve noted, PARCC is the beheseen it in my daughter’s polluted math moth, federally funded testing consorcurriculum. We are not alone. The threat tium (the Partnership for Assessment of is not just in one subject. It’s systemic. Readiness for College and Careers) that raked in $186 million through President Obama’s Race to the Top program to develop nationalized tests “aligned” to the top-down Common Core program. Anderson and informed administrators, educators and parents like him understand: “PARCC is truly the enforcement mechanism that will coerce schools into adopting the Common Core curriculum. We cannot do this. It is entirely against the mission and philosophy of our school.” It is, in short, sabotage. Anderson calls it an “almost existential dilemma. Our mission and philosophy are irreconcilable with Common Core’s.” Homeschool mom of six and blogger Karen Braun of Michigan sees the threat to her choice, too. Her trenchant message: “True school choice allows a parent to choose any school that meets their child’s needs, not just those that adopt Common Core State standards and assessments.” NO FULLY funded school voucher system in the world can improve the educational experience if Fed Ed controls the classroom and homeschool room. Coerced conformity kills choice.
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February 12, 2014 OBAMACARE: January 30, 2014
The ACA’s four-word Waterloo? Could be
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omeone you probably are not familiar with has filed a suit you probably have not heard about concerning a four-word phrase you should know about. The suit could blow to smithereens something everyone has heard altogether too much about, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hereafter, ACA).
SCOTT PRUITT and some kindred spirits might accelerate the ACA’s collapse by blocking another of the Obama administration’s lawless uses of the Internal Revenue Service. Pruitt was elected Oklahoma’s attorney general by promising to defend states’ prerogatives against federal encroachments and today he and some properly litigious people elsewhere are defending a state prerogative that the ACA explicitly created. If they succeed, the ACA’s disintegration will accelerate. Because under the ACA, insurance companies cannot refuse coverage be-
cause of an individual’s pre-existing of Obama’s critics, the IRS has said, condition. Because many people might with its breezy indifference to legality, therefore wait to purchase insurance af- that subsidies shall also be dispensed who purchase insurter they become sick, the ACA requires to those ance through feda mandate to comeral exchanges the pel people to buy government has insurance. And beestablished in those cause many peo34 states. Pruitt ple cannot afford (c) 2013, Washington Post Writers Group is challenging the the insurance that satisfies the ACA’s criteria, the ACA IRS in the U.S. District Court for the mandate makes it necessary to provide Eastern District of Oklahoma, and there are similar challenges in Ind., Va., and subsidies for those people. The four words that threaten disas- Washington, D.C. ter for the ACA say the subsidies shall THE IRS SAYS its “interpretation” be available to persons who purchase health insurance in an exchange “estab- — it actually is a revision — of the law lished by the state.” But 34 states have is “consistent with,” and justified by, the “structure of” the ACA. The IRS means chosen not to establish exchanges. So the IRS, which is charged with that without its rule, the ACA would be enforcing the ACA, has ridden to the unworkable and that Congress could not rescue of Barack Obama’s pride and have meant to allow this. The ACA’s joy. Taking time off from writing reg- legislative history, however, demonulations to restrict the political speech strates that Congress clearly — and, one
George
Will
EDUCATION: February 5, 2014
Schoolteacher cheating
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hiladelphia’s public school system has joined several other big-city school systems, such as those in Atlanta, Detroit and Washington, D.C., in widespread teacherled cheating on standardized academic achievement tests. So far, the city has fired three school principals, and the Wall Street Journal reports, “Nearly 140 teachers and administrators in Philadelphia public schools have been implicated in one of the nation’s largest cheating scandals.” (1/23/14) (http://tinyurl. com/q5makm3). Investigators found that teachers got together after tests to erase the students’ incorrect answers and replace them with correct answers. In some cases, they went as far as to give or show students answers during the test.
JERRY JORDAN, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, identifies the problem as district officials focusing too heavily on test scores to judge teacher performance, and they’ve converted low-performing schools to charters run by independent groups that typically hire nonunion teachers. But William Hite, superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, said cheating by adults harms students because schools use test scores to determine which students need remedial help, saying, “There is no circumstance, no matter how pressured the cooker, that adults should be cheating students.” While there’s widespread teacher test cheating to conceal education failure, most notably among black chil-
dren, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, published by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and sometimes referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, measures student performance in the fourth and eighth grades. In 2013, 46 percent of Philadelphia eighth-graders scored below basic, and 35
Walter
Williams (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
percent scored basic. Below basic is a score meaning that a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at his grade level. Basic indicates only partial mastery. It’s a similar story in reading, with 42 percent below basic and 41 percent basic. With this kind of performance, no one should be surprised that of the state of Pennsylvania’s 27 most poorly performing schools on the SAT, 25 are in Philadelphia. PHILADELPHIA’S four-year highschool graduation rate in 2012 was 64 percent, well below the national rate of 78 percent. Even if a student graduates from high school, what does it mean? What a high-school diploma means for white students is nothing to write home about, as suggested by the fact that every year, nearly 60 percent of first-year college students must take remedial cours-
es in English or mathematics. What a high-school diploma means for black students is nothing less than a disaster, as pointed out by Drs. Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom in their 2009 book, No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning.” They state that “blacks nearing the end of their high school education perform a little worse than white eighth-graders in both reading and U.S. history, and a lot worse in math and geography.” Little has changed since the book’s publication. Hite rightfully said that test cheating by adults harms students, but that harm pales in comparison with the harm done by teachers awarding fraudulent grades and conferring fraudulent high-school diplomas, particularly to black students. You say, “Williams, what do you mean by fraudulent diplomas?” When a student is given a high-school diploma, that attests that he can read, write and compute at a 12th-grade level, and when he can’t do so at the eighth-grade level, that diploma is fraudulent. What makes it so tragic is that neither the student nor his parents are aware that he has a fraudulent diploma. When a black person is not admitted to college, flunks out of college, can’t pass a civil service test or doesn’t get job promotions, he is likelier to blame racial discrimination than his poor education. POLITICIANS, CIVIL rights organizations and the education establishment will do nothing about the fraud. In fact, they give their full allegiance to the perpetrators.
might say, with malice aforethought — wanted subsidies available only through state exchanges. Some have suggested that the language limiting subsidies to state-run exchanges is a drafting error. Well. Some of the ACA’s myriad defects do reflect its slapdash enactment, which presaged its chaotic implementation. But the four potentially lethal words were carefully considered and express Congress’ intent. Congress made subsidies available only through state exchanges as a means of coercing states into setting up exchanges. In Senate Finance Committee deliberations on the ACA, Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of the bill’s primary authors, suggested the possibility of conditioning tax credits on state compliance because only by doing so could the federal government induce state cooperation with the ACA. Then the law’s insurance requirements could be imposed on states without running afoul of constitutional law precedents that prevent the federal government from commandeering state governments. The pertinent language originated in the committee and was clarified in the Senate. (See “Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule To Expand Tax Credits Under The PPACA,” by Jonathan H. Adler and Michael F. Cannon in Health Matrix: Journal of LawMedicine.) Also, passage of the ACA required the vote of every Democratic senator. One, Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, admirably opposed a federal exchange lest this become a steppingstone toward a singlepayer system. If courts, perhaps ultimately including the Supreme Court, disallow the IRS’ “interpretation” of the law, the ACA will not function as intended in 34 states with 65 percent of the nation’s population. If courts allow the IRS’ demarche, they will validate this: By dispensing subsidies through federal exchanges, the IRS will spend tax revenues without congressional authorization. And by enforcing the employer mandate in states that have only federal exchanges, it will collect taxes — remember, Chief Justice John Roberts saved the ACA by declaring that the penalty enforcing the mandate is really just a tax on the act of not purchasing insurance — without congressional authorization. If the IRS can do neither, it cannot impose penalties on employers who fail to offer ACA-approved insurance to employees. IF THE IRS can do both, Congress can disband because it has become peripheral to American governance.
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Conservative Chronicle
WAR ON WOMEN: January 31, 2014
How to debunk the ‘war on women’
W
hat is it about women that causes leading Republicans to grow clumsy, if not stupid? When even savvy, fluent, attractively populist Mike Huckabee stumbles, you know you’ve got trouble. Having already thrown away eminently winnable Senate seats in Missouri and Indiana because of moronic talk about rape, the GOP might have learned. You’d think.
HUCKABEE WASN’T quite as egregious, just puzzling and a bit weird. Trying to make a point about Obamacare mandating free contraceptives, he inexplicably began speculating that the reason behind the freebie was the Democrats’ belief that women need the federal government to protect them from their own libidos. Bizarre. I can think of no Democrat who has ever said that, nor any liberal who even thinks that. Such a theory, when offered by a conservative, is quite unfortunately self-revealing. In any case, why go wandering into the psychology of female sexuality in the first place? It’s ridiculous. This is politics. Stick to policy. And there’s a good policy question to be asked about the contraceptive mandate (even apart from its challenge to religious freedom). It’s about priorities. By what moral logic does the state provide one woman with co-pay-free contraceptives while denying the same subvention to another woman when she urgently needs antibiotics for her sick child? The same principle of sticking to policy and forswearing amateur psychology should apply to every so-called women’s issue. Take abortion, which is the subtext of about 90 percent of the alleged “war on women,” the charge being that those terrible conservative men are denying women control of their reproductive health. The charge has worked. Although the country is fairly evenly split on the abortion question, the Republicans’ inability to make their case in respectful tones has cost them dearly. In 2012, they lost unmarried women by 36 (!) points. Yet there is a very simple, straightforward strategy for seizing the high ground on abortion in a way that transcends the normal divisions and commands wide popular support: Focus on the horror of late-term abortion — and get it banned. Last year’s Kermit Gosnell trial was a seminal moment. The country was shown a baby butcher at work and national sentiment was nearly unanimous. Abortion-rights advocates ran away from Gosnell. But they can’t hide from the issue. And the issue, as most succinctly defined by the late liberal Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is infanticide. Describing one form of late-term abortion known as partial-birth, Moynihan said:
“I had once remarked that the procedure ment. The disagreement is understandwas too close to infanticide. And now able given that the question is a matter of we have testimony that it is not just too faith. close to infantiThis doesn’t mean cide, it is infantithat abortion oppocide.” How else to nents should give up. describe crushing But regarding earthe infant’s skull ly abortions, the (c) 2013, Washington Post Writers Group in mid-delivery objective should before the head be persuasion — leaves the birth canal? creating some future majority — rather Conservatives need to accept that no than legislative coercion in the absence such consensus exists regarding early of a current majority. These are the conabortions. Unlike late-term abortions straints of a democratic system. where there are clearly two human beNot so regarding a third- or lateings involved, there is no such agree- second-trimester abortion. Here we are ment regarding, say, a six-week-old em- dealing with a child that could potenbryo. tially live on its own — if not killed first. And killing it, for any reason other than THERE REMAINS profound dis- to save the mother’s life, is an abominaagreement as to whether at this early tion. Outlawing that — state by state and stage the fetus has acquired personhood nationally — should be the focus of any or, to put it more theologically, ensoul- Republican’s position on abortion.
Charles
Krauthammer
A test case for this kind of policy-oriented political strategy is the governor’s race in Texas: Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate, has a complicated personal history. Stop talking about it. (Her capacity for veracity is a legitimate issue, but for God’s sake why go into her parenting choices? That’s a snare and a distraction.) Talk policy — specifically the issue that brought Davis to national prominence. What was her 11-hour filibuster about? Blocking a state law whose major feature was outlawing abortions beyond 20 weeks. Make that the battlefield. Make Davis explain why she chose not just to support late-term abortion but to make it her great cause. STAY AWAY from the minefield of gender politics. Challenge the other side on substance. And watch them lose.
DRUGS: February 4, 2014
America goes to pot — legally
A
drug is by definition a remedy, a treatment, a hoped-for cure. Something’s the matter, or anyway not as good as it ought to be. Here, a bit of this will fix you up ... A lot of what goes on in 21st century America seems a lot less good than it ought to be. Witness in this context the legal-marijuana boom — the strong public affirmation in places such as Colorado for the right to use pot for purposes left to the user’s discretion. Said purposes include the alleviation of physical pain. They include likewise the alleviation of, well, one just can’t say — possibly the alleviation of unfulfilled desire.
DESIRE BEING a major component of the modern human makeup — therefore generally assumed as ripe for slaking — we probably shouldn’t wonder that attitudes toward pot are shifting, and that liberalization of old bans and prohibitions is under way. The president of the United States acknowledges having smoked pot when he was a younger man. It’s safe, I think, to suggest that Harry Truman would not have made such a claim. What’s the difference now? We might, if we want to examine such a question, recall the historical moment when the distinctive odor of pot — a substance thitherto identified with jazz musicians and certain denizens of Mexican border towns — floated into and over American society at large. We tend to call the historical moment the ‘60s. Many of us recall it vividly — not always with affection.
The ‘60s — specifically the period that commenced around 1964 and gave off nuclear effects well into the ‘70s — advertised dissatisfactions of nearly every variety. If the ‘50s had simmered with below-surface discontents, the ‘60s boiled over in all directions. Nothing was good enough; noth-
William
Murchison (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
ing was the way it ought to be, if you asked millions of “students” (so they were often termed) who hated the Vietnam War and bourgeois culture. No authority — parents, college deans, draft boards, politicians, ministers of the Gospel — was so high and mighty as to merit exemption from the growing outrage. Draft cards were burned; joints were lit. “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end,” warbled Marianne Faithfull, stroking the sensibilities of a bad time. TWO ELEMENTS of the revolt conspired to make pot popular: its illegality and — something significantly deeper — a fast-accumulating need for escape from social requirements; from — in too many cases — reality itself. Adults who viewed with alarm met rebuke. Why, you hypocrites — don’t you get drunk three days out of four?! The likeness of pot to alcohol, an entertainment and pastime of great antiquity, was frequently imputed. Rarely noticed
was the oddness of adding — if you saw alcohol as an escape, which probably only a minority did and do — one brand new enticement to zoning out. The need for withdrawal from reality grew exuberant in the ‘60s. Human kind, T. S. Eliot had noted wryly, can’t bear much reality: meaning much seriousness of purpose, the human task of sorting out good from evil, right from wrong. The ‘60s saw Eliot and raised him. We disliked reality of all kinds. Nor was pot the only doorway leading out of the predicament. If it wasn’t pot, it was LSD; if not LSD, cocaine; if not cocaine, heroin: anything for a quick kick, a drawing down of the blinds upon responsibility, duty and other such quaint conceits. The drug culture was a fantasy culture in the ‘60s. It remains such. The quest for escape is inherently immature: not so much wrong, perhaps, as evasive, fugitive, emotionally suspect. You’re supposed to get over most such temptations by age 16. That was the general assumption, anyway, prior to the emergence of Counterculture Chic and its inevitable accompaniment — the disappearance of real-world norms. WE WANT to encourage erratic behavioral patterns by making pot legal for purely personal use? Why? Cui bono? Who’s better off if we do it? Such questions lack resonance. The desire for escape at a moment’s notice, for withdrawal into a world of private norms and outlooks — if that’s your thing, and maybe it is, you’ve come to the right country, at just the right moment.
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February 12, 2014 AMERICA’S CHAMPIONS: February 4, 2014
The Super Bowl, the Olympics and the best of America
Football. Olympics. The mere terms Those I’d admire most fight like Roman reflect pride, passion and the American gladiators but never forget in the end that way. it’s just a game or competition. Football is one of the best pastimes in They almost unanimously our country, and its believe that what crescendo reached really counts is how its zenith this past they live their life Sunday with the and play the game. (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate Super Bowl. ConSpeaking of gratulations to the great warriors and NFL champions, the Seattle Seahawks. gentlemen, consider just a select few There are few events better than sitting players from both the Denver Broncos (and standing) with family and friends and the Seahawks — our most recent Sucheering on your favorite team in that ul- per Bowl competitors. I recently watched timate competition. And it’s a pretty good some online videos in which they deexcuse for munching the best of Ameri- scribed what matters most and drives can grub as you do! them inside to be the best they can be Also, the Winter Olympics are about on and off the turf. For many of them, to begin — Friday, Feb. 7, in Sochi, Rus- it is their spiritual faith. (Check out the sia — so I thought it’s high time to cel- video interview with several Seahawks ebrate human potential, human achieve- in CNSNews.com’s article titled “Sement and the spirit of contest. ahawks Players and Staff: ‘Jesus is Better Than The Super Bowl,’” The 700 Club’s I’M OBVIOUSLY a big lover of interview with the Broncos’ kicker, Jasports, and my favorites have got to son Elam, and the new book by Broncos be football, mixed martial arts and the quarterback Peyton Manning and his faOlympic Games, though you could easily ther, Archie Manning.) talk me into watching any athletic event. For example, in the Mannings’ book, What entices me most is not just watch- simply titled Manning, Peyton describes ing competitors clash — as exhilarating his top four priorities and the meaning as that can be — but marveling over how they bring to his life and his ability as one far humans’ peak performance can be of the top NFL quarterbacks ever: pushed. Don’t you love seeing the back“For me generally it had always been ground reels about how athletic champi- the big four: faith, family, friends, and ons fought to get to the top and acquired football. ... As important as football is to their optimum — even herculean — sta- me, it can never be higher than fourth. tus? My faith has been number one since I What I also appreciate in the best of was thirteen years old. ... sports figures is hearing how they con“Some players get more vocal about it duct their lives with grace and optimism, ... and some point to Heaven after scoring whether on or off the fields of rivalry. a touchdown and praise God after games.
Chuck
Norris
I have no problem with that. But I don’t do it, and don’t think it makes me any less a Christian. I just want my actions to speak louder, and I don’t want to be more of a target for criticism. ... “My faith doesn’t make me perfect, it makes me forgiven, and provides me the assurance I looked for half my life ago. ... “I’ve been blessed — having so little go wrong in my life, and being given so much. I pray every night, sometimes long prayers about a lot of things and a lot of people, but I don’t talk about it or brag about it because that’s between God and me, and I’m no better than anybody else in God’s sight. “But I consider myself fortunate to be able to go to Him for guidance, and I hope (and pray) I don’t do too many things that displease Him. ... I believe, too, that life is much better and freer when you’re committed to God in that way.” REGARDLESS OF your creed, you have to commend all these champions on both teams mentioned above for playing the game of life as it should be — with faith, fullness and joy. Every team has its stars, but each member deserves our admiration for what
he’s achieved and contributed, including those on the coaching and support staffs. They all paid the price to get where they are. Win or lose, play or support from the sidelines, every member sacrifices in mind, body and soul to compete in the games and bring them and us to the thrill of victory. Former player, coach and broadcaster John Madden once described football this way: “You got one guy going boom, one guy going whack and one guy not getting in the end zone.” Former player and broadcaster Frank Gifford once said: “Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.” As a six-time undefeated world karate champion, I get the thrill of victory. But I never got the agony of defeat, and here’s why. Although I did lose several times in my climb up the competitive ladder, let me share with you my philosophy on winning and losing along the way. Through years of competition, I found that the only time I ever really lost was when I did not learn from that experience. I would say to myself, “I may have lost this time, but I will never lose the same way twice.” It helped me not to get discouraged or upset. As the great Vince Lombardi explained, “it’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” And if you think your hurdles are too hard or high, then find hope and be inspired by the video story of 14-year-old Isaac Lufkin. (It’s on CNN’s website and titled “Teen aiming for NFL lacks key body parts.”) (To tap into more power for living, I recommend checking out three-time Super Bowl-winning coach Joe Gibbs’ website, Game Plan For Life.) So as you watch the Winter Olympics, remember to celebrate not only those who compete and the winning spirit but also your own innate human potential. God has endowed all of us with it so we can face our fears and hardships and push ourselves beyond the scope of what we believe to be humanly possible. LASTLY, IF by chance you missed the opening Super Bowl mock movie trailer — which Fox Sports produced with Conan O’Brien, Paul Scheer, Joe Namath and me — you can view it on YouTube. (It’s titled “’Escape to East Rutherford’ trailer with Chuck Norris, Conan O’Brien, Paul Scheer.”) It was a lot of fun recording that!
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Conservative Chronicle
UGANDA: February 3, 2014
Controversy of Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill
G
oing ballistic: When the 26 pages, young royal servants who Ugandan parliament shortly professed Christ and were martyred in before Christmas passed a 1886. That page scandal reminded of when U.S. reprebill legislating long prison sentences for me sentatives in 1983 homosexuals, the and 2006 came Huffington Post under fire for sex quoted one activscandals involvist calling Dec. 20 ing congressional “the worst day” (c) 2013, God’s World Publications pages, except in in history, and the U.S. State Department (which looks the the United States no one died (except other way as Muslims murder Chris- politically). Uganda’s scandal was diftians) was quick to “condemn” the bill. ferent: King Mwanga II had the 26 On Jan. 17 Ugandan President Yoweri pages burned to death, and a national Museveni chose not to sign the bill, holiday now honors them. Why the king killed them is imporciting a technicality, and columnists blamed American Christians for ma- tant in understanding the recent Ugannipulating the purportedly ignorant and dan legislation. Students learn that Mwanga II expected the royal pages to easily led Africans. submit to his homosexual advances. AfA DEEPER analysis came from ter all, the traditional saying Namunswa Chris Howles, a missionary in Ugan- alya kunswaze (the queen ant feeds on da who in his blog, Namugongo Life, her subjects) indicated that the monarch called the national opposition to homo- is licensed to kill those who reject him. sexuality historical rather than religious. The pages, though, fed on Christ and Howles wrote online (“Homophobia in chose to die rather than to sin so blaUganda: Is Christianity the problem or tantly. Given that fact, many Ugandans see the solution?”), “The vast majority of Christians in this country have never tolerance of homosexuality in Uganmet or spoken with a Western mis- da, let alone praise for it, as historical sionary. Nor have their leaders. Many treason. Does that mean I applauded of these attitudes about homosexuality the parliamentary legislation (which is come direct from traditional Ugandan likely to return to President Museveni’s desk in some form)? No: It was harsh culture.” Who ya gonna believe? I side with and unlikely to be effective. I write Howles, in part because in November that because ancient Israel’s experience I visited his central Ugandan township shows how sinners like all of us tend to of Namugongo and saw a memorial to act when faced with a long list of laws:
Marvin
Olasky
We break them. The ancient Israelites had the best laws, since God gave them. They had every reason to be confident in their lawgiver, since God had delivered their ancestors from slavery. They had every reason to fear breaking them, since the penalty often was death. But, under these best of possible conditions for obedience, they disobeyed. HOWLES HAS a better idea: Promote Christianity, not tradition. He argues that if Ugandans temper their desire to put homosexuals in prison, “it will most likely be because of Christi-
anity, as churches preach a message of godly love and kindness towards active homosexuals.” Homosexuality is wrong and laws can be useful educators, but our hope is in “the gospel that shows us that all people are created in God’s image ... the gospel that welcomes all people to confess that Jesus is Lord and unite together in a broken but re-built community of Christ,” as Ephesians 2:17-22 explains. Anti-Christians shudder at that notion and desperately need to pretend that Ugandans would be positive about homosexuality if not brainwashed by missionaries — because if that’s not true, two liberal axioms crumble. One is that Africans are natural allies of the left in a war against “religious reactionaries.” The other is that “multiculturalism” is an ideological ally in the war against Christ. When Africans line up with Christian conservatives, the religious left can choose to change its thinking or fall into conspiracy theorizing. The latter is popular, even though the idea that African Christians are puppets demeans them as much as past racists ever did. FEAR-BASED LAWS may work for a while, and laws to protect life are certainly important, but rules imposing morality usually sweep problems under the rug instead of solving them. If law doesn’t work for long, what does? Only the gospel. Christ loved us enough to die for us. Once we stop thinking of ourselves as the center of the world and recognize that God owns it and us, we realize that our greatest pleasure comes not from indulgence but from feeling God’s pleasure. Reprinted with permission of WORLD Magazine. To read more news and views from a Christian perspective, call 800-951-6397 or visit WORLDmag. com.
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February 12, 2014 FOREIGN POLICY: February 2, 2014
‘Leading from behind’ to a new world disorder “I must say I am perplexed,” John Kerry told grandees at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “by claims … that somehow America is disengaging from the world — this myth that we are pulling back or giving up or standing down.” The secretary of state, whose website keeps a running tally of the miles he has flown since taking the job (320,961 as of Friday), insisted that nothing could be further from the truth. “The only person more surprised than I am by the myth of this disengagement,” he said, “is the Air Force pilot who flies the secretary of state’s plane.” I MUST say I would be perplexed if I thought Kerry were truly perplexed. For at the start of the sixth year of Barack Obama’s presidency, the United States is indisputably less influential,
less esteemed and less assertive than it Slaughter — who would later be tapped was on Jan. 20, 2009. America remains by Obama as the State Department’s dithe world’s great military and cultural rector of policy planning — argued in a say. The world sees superpower, but anyone can see that its 2008 esit as retreat, and reprofile on the inacts accordingly. ternational stage To be fair, this is has been deliberwhat many Ameriately reduced. cans say they Kerry is cer(c) 2013, Boston Globe want. In a Pew tainly a hard worker. He keeps busy; he racks up the opinion survey released in December, miles. But busyness is not effective- 52 percent of respondents endorsed the ness. It is no myth that U.S. foreign pol- view that “the U.S. should mind its own icy in recent years has been premised business internationally and let other on the conviction that Washington must countries get along the best they can intervene less and be constrained more. on their own.” Pew has been measurThe Obama administration may call ing public backing for that view since this “leading from behind” or “pressing 1964. Never before has it commanded the reset button” or having “more flexi- majority support. bility.” It may praise itself for recognizBUT A MORE modest and deferening that there are “Good Reasons to be Humble,” as Princeton’s Anne-Marie tial America has become a less respect-
Jeff
Jacoby
STATE OF THE UNION: January 30, 2014
The State of the Union 2014
S
uppose a president of the United States delivered a State of the Union address and nobody cared? Isn’t that what happened Tuesday night when the increasingly irrelevant — and, yes, boring Barack Obama — droned on about predictable things in a predictable way? We have been forced to listen to him so many times (often several times in a single day) that it could qualify as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. ONE OF THE problems with political speech is that it exists in its own world and creates its own standards. Politicians measure their policies according to their own “facts,” ignoring outcomes that don’t fit their beliefs. A new ABC News/Washington Post Poll reveals the problem for the president. After taking office with sky-high approval and credibility numbers, the president now finds that 63 percent of American voters surveyed lack any confidence he will make right decisions for the country’s future. Furthermore, according to the poll, 51 percent now believe he is not a strong leader. Credibility and strength are the twin supports of any presidency. When they are gone, the administration crumbles in the minds of its citizenry and shrinks in stature around the world. In a world full of threats and challenges, this can only encourage America’s enemies, who might think they have nothing to fear from a toothless tiger. Given the sources of information available to the average citizen, deconstructing the president’s grand claims is not difficult.
“Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged,” the president said. “Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled. The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by — let alone get ahead. And too many still aren’t working at all.”
Cal
Thomas (c) 2013, Tribune Media Services
Yet the nonpartisan Tax Foundation points to a Congressional Budget Office finding on income inequality: “Inequality today is slightly higher than the average of the past 30 years, but less than it was during the last two years of the Clinton administration.” THE PRESIDENT has mentioned the need for fixing American roads and bridges — infrastructure — in all of his State of the Union addresses. He claims the economy is improving and there has been strong job growth. Yet, according to a report from Sentier Research on household income trends, since President Obama came into office median household income has dropped by $3,827. It went from $56,124 in January 2009 to $52,297 in December 2013. The poverty level, according to the U.S. Census, has increased during the same period, from 13.2 percent to 15
percent. A record 46.5 million Americans are now considered poor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average number of weeks the unemployed have been without jobs has nearly doubled during Obama’s presidency, from 19.8 weeks in January 2009 to 37.1 weeks in December 2013. It’s easy to give a point-by-point rebuttal to an Obama speech, but why bother? America is getting over Barack Obama. He is like a holiday houseguest who stays too long. Increasing numbers of Americans are coming to realize their faith in him to “change the way Washington works” was misplaced, as it always is when anyone puts more hope in a politician than in one’s self. All of the president’s laments and criticisms are about conditions that exist on his watch. It is his economy, his high unemployment rate, his dysfunctional health care plan and his ineffective foreign policy. This presents an opportunity and a danger for Republicans. The opportunity is to fill the vacuum with proposals that will turn the country in a positive, more prosperous direction and reduce the size, cost and reach of the federal government. The danger is that Republicans will blow it, nominating candidates who cannot win with policies that are more negative than positive. NOTHING OF legislative significance is likely to happen before the fall election. If Republicans reclaim the Senate, the president will be more than a lame duck. Politically he will be roadkill.
ed America. Power, too, abhors a vacuum. As the United States has backed away from the world’s danger zones, its enemies have grown more brazen and aggressive. When Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama’s explicit “red line” on chemical weapons last year, the president and his secretary of state issued fierce threats — and then didn’t carry them out. Damascus gloated at the time over a “historic American retreat.” Five months later, the Assad regime is more entrenched than it was, and has found fresh ways to slaughter and terrorize its victims. Obama came to office promising to pull all U.S. forces from Iraq — a promise he fulfilled with the assurance that it would “strengthen American leadership around the world.” But having failed to renegotiate a status-of-forces agreement that would allow at least some U.S. troops to remain, Washington’s leverage in Iraq evaporated. Result? With America’s pacifying influence gone, al-Qaeda and its allies are on the march, not only detonating car bombs and recapturing cities like Fallujah that the U.S. “surge” helped liberate, but expanding their mayhem over Iraq’s borders into Syria and Lebanon as well. Al Qaeda and its allies, no longer restrained by a pacifying U.S. presence in Iraq, are again on the march, detonating car bombs and taking control of key cities in Anbar Province, including Fallujah. What government worries more today about crossing the United States than it did in 2008? Russia under Vladimir Putin doesn’t, as it has demonstrated in numerous ways, from granting asylum to Edward Snowden to intimidating Ukraine to harassing U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul. China doesn’t, to judge from its belligerent declaration of an air-defense identification zone over the East China Sea, or its crackdown on American journalists. Iran certainly doesn’t: In the wake of the interim nuclear deal that Obama and Kerry hail as such a breakthrough, Iran’s president cranked up anti-American demonstrations to their shrillest level in years, and calmly boasted on CNN that “not under any circumstances” will a single Iranian centrifuge be dismantled. FRIENDS AND foes alike look at the United States today and see a powerful nation comfortable with its impotence and — so far, at least — willing to accept the new world disorder that such impotence leads to. We have been here before, and we have always had to learn the hard way that American retreat is not cost-free. Letting other countries “get along the best they can” may sound appealing in the abstract. In the real world, we invariably regret it.
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Conservative Chronicle
FOREIGN POLICY: February 4, 2014
Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not ‘ended’
I
n his State of the Union address, on four occasions, President Barack Obama mentioned the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq coming to an end: 1. “And in tight-knit communities across America, fathers and mothers will tuck in their kids, put an arm around their spouse, remember fallen comrades, and give thanks for being home from a war that, after twelve long years, is finally coming to an end.” 2. “When I took office, nearly 180,000 Americans were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, all our troops are out of Iraq. More than 60,000 of our troops have already come home from Afghanistan. With Afghan forces now in the lead for their own security, our troops have moved to a support role. Together with our allies, we will complete our mission there by the end of this year, and America’s longest war will finally be over.” 3. “And with the Afghan war ending, this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay ...” 4. “As this time of war draws to a close, a new generation of heroes returns to civilian life.” At the end of his speech, when the president introduced gravely wounded Army Ranger Cory Remsburg, he said that “like the Army he loves, like the America he serves, Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg never gives up, and he does not quit.” What Obama said is not true. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not ended. Only America’s involvement has ended (in Iraq) or is about to end (in Afghanistan). And, unlike Sergeant Remsburg, America has quit. As Peter Beinart, a man of the left who believes that America should never have fought either war, wrote in The Atlantic: “When it comes to the war in which he [Remsburg] fought, quitting is exactly what the United States plans to do. Obama said as much earlier in his speech. In lauding America’s exits from Afghanistan and Iraq, he didn’t cite a single thing the United States has accomplished in either country. How could he have? Parts of central Iraq are today in the hands of jihadists, and the carnage there has never been worse. When the U.S. and its allies leave Afghanistan, one expert recently predicted, ‘the likely outcome is a civil war, much more fierce and widespread than the one fought during recent years.’” THE EXPERT Beinart cites is a prominent Pakistani journalist and author, Zahid Hussain, who also predicted that this civil war in Afghanistan “will
not be confined to Afghanistan but will ca’s involvement has “ended.” In Iraq, also spill over into Pakistan.” the war between violent Islamists and That Beinart thinks that we should other Iraqis is intensifying; and in Afnever have fought the Taliban is what ghanistan the war between one expects of a violent Islamists man of the left. and other Afghanis When it comes will begin as soon to fighting evil, as, or even before, the left is almost American troops (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate pacifist. Moreleave. over, he and the Second, when left generally are busier fighting Israeli a country leaves a war before achievPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ing victory it is not called leaving. It is American conservatives and carbon called defeat. The only goal of a war is emissions. victory. Even if you have been victoriSo let’s make two things clear about ous on the battlefield — as we have been the president’s repeated claims that the in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and as we wars have ended. were in Vietnam — if you leave before First, as noted, the Iraqi and Afghan securing your ends, you will have lost wars have not “ended.” Only Ameri- the war. Had America left South Korea
Dennis
Prager
after having won the Korean War on the battlefield, there would still have been a war on the Korean peninsula — a war that South Korea would have ultimately lost, and thereby disappeared from the map. All of Korea would have then become the concentration camp that North Korea is today. If America is not prepared to stay indefinitely — and to stay does not necessarily mean to continue fighting — in a country in which it fights, it should never engage in that war. Because when the decent leave, the indecent win. THANKS TO President Obama and the Democratic Party, the decent will have left Iraq and Afghanistan.
AFGHANISTAN: February 2, 2014
Our wasted effort in Afghanistan
T
he United States government and the Taliban don’t agree on much, but they have found one point of convergence: Both think someone needs to get a hose and put out the flames engulfing Hamid Karzai’s pants. The Afghan president has often criticized the Americans for carrying out drone strikes that kill innocent bystanders. But over the past year or so he has started blaming us for things we didn’t even do. He has gone from understandably prickly to irrationally hysterical.
LAST MONTH, he welcomed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to Kabul by publicly accusing the U.S. of collaborating with the Taliban in bombings that killed 17 people. “Those bombs that went off in Kabul and Khost were not a show of force to America,” he announced. “They were in service of America.” His latest claim goes further, accusing the U.S. of actually mounting insurgent-like attacks against his forces. “Karzai has formalized his suspicions with a list of dozens of attacks that he believes the U.S. government may have been involved in,” reported the Washington Post. “The list even includes the recent bomb and gun assault on a Lebanese restaurant in Kabul, one of the bloodiest acts targeting the international community in Afghanistan.” American commander Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. called the charge “ludicrous.” We have to assume that Dunford coordinated his response with Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, who said the group has taken credit for many of the incidents because “those are attacks that have genuinely been carried out by our forces.”
In Karzai’s mind, Barack Obama has obvious motives for this brazen treachery. One, relayed to the Post by an anonymous Karzai aide, is distracting everyone from the civilians killed in American air strikes. Another is undermining Karzai because he is too protective of his people.
Stephen
Chapman (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate
THEN THERE is the most powerful of all: our desire “to keep foreigners longer in Afghanistan,” as Karzai puts it. He evidently is laboring under the misimpression that we have sacrificed more than 2,000 lives and vast sums of money because we enjoy occupying a poor, inhospitable, violence-prone country with which we have almost nothing in common. In his State of the Union speech Tuesday, Obama saluted Army Sgt. Cory Remsburg, who “was nearly killed by a massive roadside bomb in Afghanistan.” But, the president noted, “he’s learned to speak again and stand again and walk again — and he’s working toward the day when he can serve his country again.” If so, we can hope his country will find better purposes than propping up a regime headed by someone who sounds as hostile and extreme as our declared enemies in Afghanistan. Remsburg’s sacrifices were made in support of an ally that tied for the most corrupt on Earth in Transparency International’s latest rankings. A new report by the U.S. Special Inspector General
for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the New York Times said, warns against continuing to provide hundreds of millions of dollars a year in development support when “none of the 16 Afghan ministries could be counted on to keep the funds from being stolen or wasted.” It’s hard to see the value of our mission there when our partners are so impervious to our best efforts. The Special Inspector General reported that we have gotten a pitiful return on a $200 million literacy program for the Afghan army. The exceedingly modest goal — getting all of the Afghan soldiers to read at a first-grade level and half of them to read at a third-grade level — turns out to be “unrealistic” and “unattainable.” Just inducing the soldiers to stick around is often impossible. Their current attrition rate is between 30 and 50 percent. The Afghan army “is actually far from ready for transition at the end of 2014,” warned Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington last year. The national police, he concluded, are worse. With the best of Afghan leaders, it would be hard to overcome all these deficits. Instead, Afghans as well as Americans are stuck with Karzai, who negotiated a deal to keep some U.S. forces in the country after this year but has refused to sign it. The longer he waits the harder it will be to make the arrangements so we can stay, laboring to turn failure into success. HERE’S ANOTHER option: We could acknowledge that there are some things even the world’s sole superpower can’t do, and fixing Afghanistan is one of them.
31
February 12, 2014 UKRAINE: February 4, 2014
Will mobocracy triumph in Ukraine?
D
In the competition between Vladiespite our endless blather about democracy, we Ameri- mir Putin and the European Union over cans seem to be able to put whose economic association to join, kovych was betrothed our devotion to democratic principles Y a n u to the EU. But after on the shelf, when an offer of $15 bilthey get in the lion from Putin, and way of our New a cut in fuel prices World Order. to his country, YaIn 2012, in the (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate nukovych jilted presidential electhe EU and ran off tion in Egypt, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Broth- with Russia. Yanukovych felt he could not turn erhood won in a landslide. President down Putin’s offer. Obama hailed the outcome. Western Ukraine, which favors the One year later, the Egyptian army ousted and arrested Morsi and gunned EU, was enraged. So out came the prodown a thousand members of his broth- testers to bring down the president. And erhood. The coup was countenanced into Kiev flew John McCain to declare by John Kerry who explained that the our solidarity with the demonstrators. Kerry has now joined McCain in Egyptian army was “restoring democmeddling in this matter that is none of racy.” America’s business, declaring in MuCOMES NOW the turn of Ukraine. nich that, “Nowhere is the fight for a In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, in what democratic European future more imneutral observers called a free and fair portant than today in Ukraine.” We “stand with the people of election, was chosen president. His term Ukraine,” said Kerry. ends in 2015. But which people? The UkrainiYet since November, protesters have occupied Maidan Square in Kiev, bat- ans who elected Yanukovych and still tling police, and howling for Yanu- support him or the crowds in Maidan kovych’s resignation. The United States Square that want him out and will not appears now to be collaborating with vacate their fortified encampments until Europe in bringing about the neuter- he goes? Kerry is putting us on the side of ing or overthrow of that democratically mobs that want to bring down the presielected government. Military coups, a la Cairo, and mob dent, force elections, and take power. uprisings, at la Kiev — are these now Yet, Americans would never sit still legitimate weapons in the arsenal of de- should similar elements, with similar objectives, occupy our capital. mocracy. Reportedly, we are now colluding What did Yanukovych do to deserve ouster by the street? He chose Russia with the Europeans to cobble together an aid package, should Yanukovych surrenover Europe.
Pat
Buchanan
der, cut the knot with Russia, and sign on with the EU. But if Putin’s offer of $15 billion was a bribe, what else is this? While he rules a divided nation, Yanukovych has hardly been a tyrant. As the crowds grew violent, he dismissed his government, offered the prime ministry to a leader of the opposition, repealed the laws lately passed to crack down on demonstrations, and took sick for four days. BUT THE street crowds, sensing he is breaking and smelling victory, are pressing ahead. There have now been several deaths among the protesters and police. Putin is incensed, but inhibited by the need to keep a friendly face for the Sochi Olympics. Yet he makes a valid point. How would Europeans have reacted if, in the bailout crisis, he, Putin, had
flown to Athens and goaded rioters demanding that Greece default and pull out of the eurozone? How would the EU react if Putin were to hail the United Kingdom Independence Party, which wants out of the EU, or the Scottish National Party, which wants to secede from Great Britain? Ukraine was briefly independent at the end of World War I, and has been again since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Still the religious, ethnic, cultural and historic ties between Russia and Ukraine are centuries deep. Eight million Ukrainians are ethnic Russians. In east Ukraine and the Crimea, the majority speak Russian and cherish these ties. Western Ukraine looks to Europe. Indeed, parts belonged to the Habsburg Empire. Pushed too far and pressed too hard, Ukraine could disintegrate. Security police who have questioned jailed rioters seem to believe we Americans are behind what is going on. And given the National Endowment for Democracy’s clandestine role in the colorcoded revolutions of a decade ago in Central and Eastern Europe, that suspicion is not unwarranted. Nor is Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov entirely wrong when he says, “a choice is being imposed” on Ukraine, and European politicians are fomenting protests and riots “by people who seize and hold government buildings, attack the police and use racist and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans.” If, as a result of street mobs paralyzing a capital, a democratically elected Ukrainian government falls, we could not only have an enraged and revanchist Russia on our hands, but a second Cold War. AND WE will have set a precedent that could come to haunt Europe, as the rising and proliferating parties of the populist right, that wish to bring down the European Union, learn by our example.
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•NEWSPAPER• •DATED MATERIAL•
RUSH!
Postmaster: Timely Material Please deliver on or before 2/12/13 Periodicals Postage Paid Mailed 2/6/13
Read Pat Buchanan, Phyllis Schlafly & Thomas Sowell on Pages 16-17
Immigration Reform
This week our CONSERVATIVE FOCUS is on:
Read Rich Lowry’s Column on Page 1
A Waste of Pomp and Circumstance
State of the Union
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 • Volume 29, Number 7 • Hampton, Iowa