Conservative Chronicle for September 7 2016 by Mid-America Publishing Corporation

At Issue this week... September 7, 2016 2016 Election Lambro (11) Academia Olasky (25) Sowell (25) Thomas (24) Blacks Massie (23) Borders Barone (31) Capital Punishment Saunders (20) Clinton, Hillary Jeffrey (15) Massie (26) McCaughey (18) Prager (27) Clintons, The Bozell (22) Buchanan (16) Krauthammer (4) Limbaugh (17) Thomas (17) Comedy Central Bozell (29) Dear Mark Levy (19) Economy Moore (10) Environmentalists Harsanyi (5) Malkin (12) Executive Overreach Charen (14) Female Vote Fields (21) Freedom de Rugy (30) Shapiro (29) Government Dependency Cushman (13) Immigrants Sowell (30) Leslie’s Trivia Bits Elman (14) Media Bias Elder (8) Tyrrell (26) Minorities Coulter (7) Obamacare Lowry (4) Personals Greenberg (22) Politics Greenberg (12) Progressives Farah (9) Hollis (1) Malkin (21) Murchison (2) Regulations Jeffrey (10) Williams (13) Syria Buchanan (28) Transgenders Schlafly (3) Trump, Donald Chavez (6) Lowry (9) Voting Trends Barone (6) Weiner, Anthony Saunders (24)

Progressives by Laura Hollis

Hypocrisy, thy name is progressive

But it isn’t just Obama’s hypocrisy that is infuriating — it is his arrogance and disdain for the American people. And the recent Louisiana flooding put those front and center as well. Although he couldn’t be bothered to interrupt his vacation, he made sure that his Justice Department sent a 16-page letter to Louisiana officials, warning of what would happen if anyone engaged in discrimination during rescue efforts. Plenty of Louisianans IN FACT, come to think of it, it wasn’t just were offended by that, including lawmakers, the press that criticized President Bush’s re- first responders and volunteers. sponse to Katrina. During his 2008 campaign for the presidency, Obama himself said, “We can talk about what happened for two days in 2005, and we should. We can talk about ... a president who only saw the people from the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate window of an airplane instead of down here THIS IS Obama’s worldview in a nuton the ground.” Do we get to talk about a president who shell, and indeed it’s a pretty good snapshot into the general progressive worldview: only sees things from the seat of a golf cart? Remember when President Obama went While the “Cajun navy” — people of all golfing right after kidnapped American jour- backgrounds, ethnicities, religions and sonalist James Foley was beheaded by ISIS? cioeconomic status — got their boats out That was on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, and rescued their neighbors, our recreating too. (Obama admitted that it was “bad optics,” president exercised some of that infamous but complained that “the theater” of the presi- audacity to lecture Louisiana citizens about dency just didn’t “come naturally” to him. Um, discrimination — from the safety of a golf OK.) Or what about the “Night at Versailles” course. (Rhetorical question: Would Obama fundraiser in Las Vegas, hosted by Hollywood have shown up sooner if someone had told royalty Beyonce and Jay-Z, complete with a him that Baton Rouge was a water hole?) What spectacular pomposity! $100,000 tower of gold champagne bottles? Meanwhile, Donald Trump adjusts his That was Obama’s somber destination the day after Ambassador Chris Stevens and three schedule, gets a plane and a truckload of other Americans were killed in the terrorist attack in Benghazi. Crickets from most of the fawning media. Then there’s the national debt. Also in 2008, then-Senator Obama criticized President Bush for adding $4 trillion to it, saying, “(T)he way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents — No. 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” This from the same fellow who will leave the country with a $20 trillion national debt — more than all the previous presidents — including the profligate President Bush — combined. And the press just smiles and nods. I know, if I pointed out all the incidents of the left’s hypocrisy, we’ll be here all day. resident Obama finally made it down to Baton Rouge to see the flooding — after finishing his vacation on tony Martha’s Vineyard, of course. The entire charade is a lesson in leftist hypocrisy. The same press that excoriated President Bush for flying over New Orleans to view the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 didn’t make a peep about Obama prioritizing his golf games.

Laura

Hollis

emergency supplies to east Baton Rouge Parish. And the media scrambles to find out whether or not he actually wrote the check for the truck or the supplies in it. But he’s the heartless one. The lesson about progressives here is that what really matter isn’t what they do, it’s only what they say. Hillary Clinton can profess to be “for the little people,” but rake in tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments, and attend parties instead of showing up in a crisis; Obama can golf at one of America’s most exclusive vacation spots while tens of thousands of people lose their homes — and the lefty press will maintain a dutifully stoic silence. There is an even more important lesson about Americans that gets lost every time progressives start clamoring on about needing this or that government program: We can take care of ourselves. And we can take care of each other. Obama and his cronies are so busy sniffing around for discrimination that they overlook the things Americans do for each other every day, as well as those extraordinary efforts we make when facing a crisis or tragedy. IN HIS 2008 presidential campaign, one of Obama’s slogans was “Yes, we can!” Yes, Mr. President, we can. We can help each other. We do it every day. August 25 2016

Conservative Chronicle

PROGRESSIVES: August 30, 2016

The politicians can’t stand us — and it shows “Health-Plan Choices Shrink,” said industry pullback that adds to the chala headline in the Wall Street Journal, lenges facing the law.” We all remember the law, passed Aug. 29, 2016. What’s this — another campaign by Democrats without a single Repromise brought to the table under- publican vote. That is to say, without a single bow or concession to skeptics cooked and half-sauced? Americans, as they look around the who demanded to know how adding so new customers to the political dining room, are receiving, m a n y insurance marketum — I know: place — the figure Let’s call it a libjust now is over 16 eral education. million — was goAn education in ing to prove afthe complete, for (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate fordable to the all we can tell, inability of liberal social doctrines and industry and its tidal wave of new buyprograms to achieve the transformative ers. The question, as it happens, was a effects promised before an election. Never mind the fervent promises and good one. Many more unhealthy cuspledges that ring out each election year. tomers than the industry had counted on joined the system. Major providers THE TRANSFORMATION of lost money — a major obstacle to the life by government action and edict goal of doing business — and so com— the preferred procedure of the po- panies such as Aetna have been withlitical left — is a relentless pre-election drawing from the exchanges in which trope. Boy, the progressives, as liberals they sell policies: declining, in escall themselves these days, are going sence, to subsidize the Obama adminto do great things for us: At least until istration’s political pledges. Accordthe money runs low and the backfill- ing to the Journal, 31 percent of U.S. ings and blame-shiftings commence. counties may be served next year by We can count on plenty of both, now just one company. Whatever its name, that, as the Journal explains, “nearly the company will charge its customers a third of the nation’s counties look — the ones Washington claimed to be likely to have just a single insurer of- helping — sharply higher rates. And fering health plans on the Affordable the customers will pay up, yell at their Care Act’s exchanges next year ... an congressmen, or both: one more spec-

William

Murchison

tacular liberal dream having shown according to the highest, kindest, most itself to be browning fast around the generous of motives (such as winning edges. the next election). The idea of Americans as governTHE LATEST (hardly the first) ment dependents is as odd in its way as bad news about Obamacare and its ex- the idea that the national government — cesses comes strikingly just as Donald composed as it is of humans no smarter Trump struggles to explain what he than non-government workers — knows meant when he pledged to expel 11 mil- just what we’d like best; and, further, lion illegal aliens in the United States knows how to shape and pay for it. and build a wall to make sure no new The lessons of the campaign schoolones get in. Trump’s pledge is in some room to which we are currently consense his answer to Obamacare — a fined against our will are many. Not the grand, mostly mythical account of what least of them is the shamelessness of politicians are capable of bringing off, the political class as its members seek provided you turn your back while they to outbid each other for popular favor, work and don’t ask too many questions. meaning votes in November. The idea Grand schemes originating on the isn’t to help us help ourselves. No, no, political right are fewer and farther be- that’s so pre-New Deal! The idea is, shh, tween than those that flower on the left. sit back, fold your hands, you poor little Somehow liberalism’s chief property things. We’ve got you covered in a way has become its gift for inventing pro- you wouldn’t believe. (But now that you grams that reinvent America as a nation know, don’t forget it came from us.) supervised by its national government A GHASTLY election season, for numerous reasons — not the least of which is the opinion of us seemingly adopted by the governing class, to wit, “You’re all a bunch of second-rate weaklings and lamebrains.”

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September 7, 2016 TRANSGENDERS: August 30, 2016

A setback for the transgender agenda

ith the start of a new tion adopted many other resolutions school year this month, that seem designed to undermine trapublic schools across the ditional values and parental authority nation were all set to enforce new rights over students in public schools. But in a last-minute reprieve worfor “transgender” students. That’s the trendy new term for confused kids who thy of an old Western movie, a federal claim their “gender identity” is differ- judge in Texas has just called a halt to the new transgender ent from their biological sex. rules. Judge Reed At the end of O’Connor of the the last school federal district year, the U.S. Decourt in Wichita partment of EduFalls, Texas, ruled cation on May (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate in the late evening 13 issued new transgender policies in the form of an of Sunday, August 21, that the “Dear eight-page “Dear Colleague” letter to Colleague” letter was not a valid reguAmerica’s public schools. The letter lation and that schools across the counclaimed that the 44-year-old federal try are free to ignore it. “Words should be given their orlaw known as Title IX requires schools to recognize students’ “internal sense dinary meaning,” Judge O’Connor of gender” instead of “the sex they wrote. “It cannot be disputed that the plain meaning of the term sex, when it were assigned at birth.” was enacted following passage of Title IT’S BEEN called the bathroom IX, meant the biological and anatomirule, but the federal regulation went cal differences between male and febeyond bathrooms to include even male students as determined at birth.” The Obama administration had tried overnight accommodations for school trips. Schools were told they “may not to avoid a court ruling by claiming that require transgender students to stay in the “Dear Colleague” letter was meresingle-occupancy accommodations” ly an advisory opinion, and not really but must allow them to bunk with stu- binding on the nation’s schools. Judge dents of the gender they “identify” O’Connor had little patience for that dodge. with, even if it’s the opposite sex. The legal effect of the letter, the Over the Fourth of July weekend in Washington, D.C., the nation’s largest court said, is to force schools “to teachers union, the National Educa- risk the consequences of noncomplition Association (NEA), declared that ance.” Schools were faced with “a transgender students have a right to be Hobson’s choice between violating “addressed by the name and pronoun federal rules, on the one hand, and that corresponds with their gender transgressing longstanding policies identity.” The annual NEA conven- and practices, on the other.”

Phyllis

Schlafly

The following statement is by Ryan Harvey, President, Mid-America Publishing Corporation. In recent weeks we’ve received several concerns by loyal subscribers over the approach we’ve taken with the Conservative Chronicle and its handling of Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump. We’ve listened intently to your concerns and I wanted take a few sentences to address them. For 19 years I’ve been associated with the parent company of the Conservative Chronicle, and for the past four years, I’ve served as its publisher. Never in my years associated, directly or indirectly, with the publication have we ever had such a divisive candidate as Donald Trump, nor have we had such a hotly contested election cycle. Whether we agree with his stances or not, we will continue to strive to provide a balanced approach. You see, our publication isn’t a lapdog publication of the Republican Party or Donald Trump. We believe in the Conservative movement. With that said, we won’t always concur with Trump‘s

Alas, Judge O’Connor’s ruling came too late for schools in states where the new federal edict is already being implemented. In the Albuquerque, New Mexico school district, which has 95,000 students, officials had already distributed a “procedural directive” requiring its 139 public schools to allow students to live in their preferred “gender identity.”

FOR EXAMPLE, a male child who “identifies” as female could choose a new name and clothing style, and would be addressed or referred to as “she.” The child would be allowed to play on girls’ sports teams and use the girls’ toilet, shower and locker facilities. When the district policy filtered down to individual schools, principal Judith Touloumis of Carlos Rey Elementary School delivered a PowerPoint presentation to explain what the district’s “procedural directive” really means. Her presentation was filled with the most extreme interpretation of what is called academic gender theory, including the statement that “biological sex must be seen as a spectrum or range of possibilities rather than a binary set of only two options.” Anyone with a child knows that agenda, just like we won’t always agree with the RINOs in government. Howev- children learn about the world through er, that doesn’t mean we will completely binary options: Up or down, hot or cold, big or little, inside or outside, wet dismiss it either. We will strive to provide a balance between columnists who favor Trump and those who don’t. While I firmly believe all of our readers believe in the Conservative movement, not all of them support Trump, though many do. So, as you’d expect, it’s important to provide a balanced approach to our roster of columnists. In the coming weeks, we will be adjusting our lineup. We have elected to remove Erick Erickson from our roster of writers. He will be replaced by Suzanne Fields. This lineup change may seem slight; however, recent comments made by Erickson on his radio show have prompted us to make a change. We truly appreciate your continued support of the Conservative Chronicle and look forward to many more years of leading the movement. We strive to provide a one-stop shop for a balanced voice which supports the conservative point of view.

or dry, good or bad, boy or girl, man or woman. But the radical feminists, who staff women’s studies departments at most colleges, have propagated the idea that we have to get rid of the “gender binary” along with the expectation of distinct roles for men and women. “In other words,” the principal’s presentation continued, “from August 8, 2016, our students at Carlos Rey will be collectively addressed as ‘students, Coyotes, engineers, scientists, mathematicians, etc.’ No longer will it be acceptable to call our students, ‘Boys and Girls.’ (A new paradigm shift).” When the “new paradigm shift” was reported in the local news media in Albuquerque, it caused an uproar that forced school officials to engage in damage control. A district administrator claimed that a “simple misunderstanding was blown out of proportion,” but there are no plans to rescind the “procedural directive.” WHAT HAPPENED in Albuquerque shows that many public school officials are only too eager to enforce the transgender fad, even though the federal court decision allows schools to keep using the gender binary of boys and girls.Check your local school to see if it is confused about whether boys should be allowed in girls’ restrooms and showers.

Conservative Chronicle

THE CLINTONS: August 26, 2016

The bribery standard: It’s a sorry standard

ernie Sanders never understood the epic quality of the Clinton scandals. In his first debate, he famously dismissed the email issue, it being beneath the dignity of a great revolutionary to deal in things so tawdry and straightforward. Sanders failed to understand that Clinton scandals are sprawling, multilayered, complex things. They defy time and space. They grow and burrow.

THE CENTRAL problem with Hillary Clinton’s emails was not the classified material. It wasn’t the headline-making charge by the FBI director of her extreme carelessness in handling it. That’s a serious offense, to be sure, and could very well have been grounds for indictment. And it did damage her politically, exposing her sense of above-the-law entitlement and — in her dodges and prevarications, her parsing and evasions — demonstrating her arm’s-length relationship with the truth. But it was always something of a sideshow. The real question wasn’t classification but: Why did she have a private server in the first place? She obviously lied about the purpose. It wasn’t convenience. It was concealment. What exactly was she hiding? Was this merely the prudent paranoia of someone who habitually walks the line of legality? After all, if she controls the server, she controls the evidence, and can destroy it — as she did 30,000 emails — at will. But destroy what? Remember: She set up the system before even taking office. It’s clear what she wanted to protect from scrutiny: Clinton Foundation business. The foundation is a massive family enterprise disguised as a charity, an opaque and elaborate mechanism for sucking money from the rich and the tyrannous to be channeled to Clinton Inc. Its purpose is to maintain the Clintons’ lifestyle (offices, travel, accommodations, etc.), secure profitable connections, produce favorable publicity and reliably employ a vast entourage of retainers, ready to serve today and at the coming Clinton Restoration. Now we learn how the whole machine operated. Two weeks ago, emails began dribbling out showing foundation officials contacting State Department counterparts to ask favors for foundation “friends.” Say, a meeting with the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon for one particularly generous Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire. Big deal, said the Clinton defenders. Low-level stuff. No involvement of the secretary herself. Until — drip, drip — the next batch revealed foun-

What a long way we’ve come. This is the very last line of defense. Yes, it’s obvious that access and influence were sold. But no one has demonTO BE SURE, Bahrain, home of strated definitively that the donors resomething tangible of the Fifth Fleet, is an important Per- ceived value — a pipeline, sian Gulf ally. a permit, a waiver, a Its crown prince favorable regulatory shouldn’t have ruling — in exto go through a change. foundation — to (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group It’s hard to bewhich his govlieve the Clinton ernment donated at least $50,000 — to get to the secretary. folks would be stupid enough to commit something so blatant to writing. The fact that he did is telling. Now, a further drip: The Associated Nonetheless, there might be an email Press found that over half the private allusion to some such conversation. interests who were granted phone or With thousands more emails to come, personal contact with Secretary Clin- who knows what lies beneath. On the face of it, it’s rather odd that ton — 85 of 154 — were donors to the foundation. Total contributions? As a visible quid pro quo is the bright line for malfeasance. Anything short of that much as $156 million. — the country is awash with political Current Clinton response? There money that buys access — is deemed acceptable. As Donald Trump says of was no quid pro quo. dation requests for face time with the secretary herself. Such as one from the crown prince of Bahrain.

Charles

Krauthammer

his own donation-giving days, “when I need something from them ... I call them, they are there for me.” This is considered routine and unremarkable. It’s not until a Rolex shows up on your wrist that you get indicted. Or you are found to have dangled a Senate appointment for cash. Then, like Rod Blagojevich, you go to jail. (He got 14 years.) Yet we are hardly bothered by the routine practice of presidents rewarding big donors with cushy ambassadorships, appointments to portentous boards or invitations to state dinners. The bright line seems to be outright bribery. Anything short of that is considered — not just for the Clintons, for everyone — acceptable corruption. IT’S A SORRY standard. And right now it is Hillary Clinton’s saving grace.

OBAMACARE: August 29, 2016

Obamacare stumbles on

or years, Obamacare supporters have been telling critics of the law to shut up and fall in line. Now, they are urging them to come to its rescue. A key part of President Barack Obama’s domestic legacy is sputtering so badly that even the law’s boosters are admitting that the federal government needs to do more to prop it up. The Obamacare exchanges were supposed to enhance choices and hold down costs — and are doing neither. Abandoned by more and more insurers, the exchanges — once billed as robust “marketplaces” — are becoming pitiful shadows of themselves.

surers from conducting their business on a rational basis. This means the exchanges are less attractive to younger and healthier people and therefore less economical for insurers. The mandate was supposed to force healthier people to buy insurance anyway, but it has proven too weak, and subsidies were supposed to cover the higher costs for poorer people, but they are only a BandAid on spiraling costs.

IN MOST OR all of states like Alaska, Ala., Ariz., Fla., Mo., Okla., N.C. and Tenn., probably only one insurer will offer insurance through the exchanges next year, reports the Wall Street Journal. One large county in Arizona may have no exchange insurer at all. An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that 31 percent of counties in the U.S. will have one insurer, and another 31 percent will have just two. It isn’t Republicans who are hobbling the law. It isn’t the greedy insurance companies, which were overoptimistic about the exchanges at the outset and are now paying the price. It is fundamental economic forces that the law’s architects blithely ignored. But economic incentives will not be mocked. Obamacare regulations make health insurance more expensive and keep in-

THE EXCHANGES have created perverse insurance products that feature the worst of all worlds: They have high premiums, and high deductibles and copays, and limited networks of doctors. No wonder the exchanges have attracted half as many people as they were expected to. Leave it to the federal government to create a market so unappealing that it is borderline unsustainable. When Aetna announced it was exiting all but four state exchanges about two weeks ago, liberals charged that the company was exacting revenge on the Obama administration for blocking its hoped-for merger with Humana. But what accounts for UnitedHealthcare pulling back, and all the other exoduses? All these insurers made a go of it on the exchanges before reality slapped them in the face.

Rich

Insurance companies may be as malevolent as their fiercest critics depict them, but one can’t really begrudge them needing to make some money. If the Department of Health and Human Services can spin and obfuscate, these companies can’t ignore the bottom line. Analysts expect the insurers remaining in the exchanges to ask for big premium hikes next year. The answer to this turbulence, the law’s supporters say, is yet more subsidies. They are paying an inadvertent obeisance to the old Ronald Reagan quip that the government’s view of the economy is: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Obamacare’s boosters are loath to admit that there might be something wrong with the structure of a law that they have celebrated as a glorious success from the day it passed. Instead, they will now argue that Republicans are sabotaging it by declining to double down on its subsidies. BUT IT OBVIOUSLY makes no sense for the government to make a product more expensive with one hand and then to subsidize its cost with the other. This was pointed out at the time the law was being debated. But the Obama administration and its allies were too transfixed with “making history.” And so they did — by passing an Affordable Care Act that is one of the great misnomers in the history of major American legislation.

September 7, 2016 ENVIRONMENTALISTS: August 26, 2016

Have more kids. It’s good for the planet

he problem with environmen- James Madison University, will soon be talists isn’t merely that they “largely uninhabitable for humans,” and have destructive ideas about it’s “gonna be post-apocalyptic movie the economy, but that so many of them time.” According to NPR, these intelembrace repulsive ideas about human lectual nuggets of wisdom left students speechless. beings. Oh, no! Did someone forget to tell Take a recent NPR piece that asks, nials that the mega“Should We Be Having Kids In The m i l l e n tons of greenhouse Age Of Climate gases that cellphone Change?” If you charging emits into want to learn about the atmosphere how environmenis going to cretalism has already (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate ate a dystopia? affected people in society, read about the couple ponder- That’s an unforgivable oversight by our ing “the ethics of procreation” and its culture and public schools — which alimpact on the climate before starting a most never broach the topic of climate family, or the group of women in a pros- change. What can we do? Well, Rieder says, perous New Hampshire town swapping stories about how the “the climate crisis “Here’s a provocative thought: Maybe we should protect our kids by not havis a reproductive crisis.” ing them.” The idea that we should have fewer THERE ARE, no doubt, many good reasons a person might have for not children to save the planet hasn’t been wanting children. But it’s certainly tragic provocative in about 50 years. It would that some gullible Americans who have take these students five minutes of the means and emotional bandwidth — Googling to understand that doomsayand perhaps a genuine desire — to be ers have been ignoring human nature parents avoid having kids because of a and ingenuity since the 18th century, at quasi-religious belief in apocalyptic cli- least. They might read about Paul Ehrlich mate change and overpopulation. Then again, maybe this is just Dar- and our “science czar” John Holdren, who co-authored a 1977 book sugwinism working its magic. In the article, NPR introduces us to a gesting mass sterilizations and forced philosopher, Travis Rieder, who couches abortions to save the world. (We’re these discredited ideas in a purportedly decades past the expiration date.); or moral context. Bringing down global about Supreme Court Justice Ruth fertility rates, he explains, “could be the Bader Ginsburg, who not long ago said that she always assumed Roe v. Wade thing that saves us.” Save us from what, you ask? The was “about population growth and parplanet, he tells a group to students at ticularly growth in populations that we

David

Harsanyi

don’t want to have too many of.” Did she mean poor people? Did she mean people who recklessly use air conditioners? It’s still a mystery. Overpopulation is regularly cited by journalists — who quite often live in the densest, yet somehow also the wealthiest, places on Earth — as one of the world’s pressing problems, thrown in with war and famine and so on. BUT IT’S GOT a bit of a new twist these days. As Rieder tells it, Americans and other rich nations are responsible for more carbon emissions per capita than anyone. And since the world’s poorest nations are most likely to suffer “severe climate impacts,” it all “seems unfair.” However, we have fewer hungry people than ever in the world; fewer

people die in conflicts over resources; and deaths due to extreme weather have been dramatically declining for a century. Over the past 40 years, our water and air is cleaner, despite population growth. Everything is headed in the wrong direction for environmental scaremongers. If we’re already experiencing the negative force of climate change — which I’m told we are every time we have ugly weather somewhere in the country — shouldn’t things be getting worse? Well, the real trouble is always right over the horizon. Take India. Not only does it have to deal with Americans despoiling the Earth but its population has exploded from 450 million in 1960 to 1.25 billion today. Yet, by every tangible measurement of human progress, the Indian people live better now than they did before the colonialists started using refrigerators. And it’s not just India. Even the United Nations estimates that the world population of nine billion expected by 2050 could be supported with the technology we already possess. What Malthusians never take into consideration are the efficiencies and technology we don’t have yet, which continually amaze us and undermine their dark vision of humankind’s future. The real problem we face is sustaining population. The replacement fertility rate is 2.1, and in certain places where they fail to meet this threshold — parts of Europe and Japan, for example — they’ve suffered economic and cultural stagnation. Here in the United States we have, for a variety of reasons, long struggled with this problem, as the Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Last has argued. The success of developing nations also portends a similar slowdown. HERE’S A provocative thought: Maybe it’s the best time in history to have children.

Conservative Chronicle

VOTING TRENDS: August 26, 2016

Is 2016 redrawing the political map?

s the political map, so familiar that even non-pundits offhandedly refer to red, blue and purple states, changing before our eyes? Yes, at least to a limited extent — and it’s probably about time. The political map has been pretty static for almost two decades, the longest since the 1880s. In the last four presidential elections 40 states and the District of Columbia, with 422 electoral votes, have voted for nominees of the same party each time. In only a few cases were the margins very close, as was the case with the five states with 41 electoral votes that voted for a second party just once (N.C., Ind., Iowa, N.M., N.H.). THAT LEAVES only five states, with 75 electoral votes, supporting the winning candidates, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in all of the last four elections. You will recognize them as the purplest of purple states: Fla., Ohio, Va., Colo., Nev. Current polling, which shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by four points nationally, suggests it’s possible that all 40 steadfast states will stay in the same column next November. Clinton is actually running stronger in 2012 target states than nationally, perhaps because her campaign has been running reams of television ads in most of them and Trump’s hasn’t. But there’s also something else going on, some significant though not overwhelming (and to some extent countervailing) trends among identifiable segments of the electorate. Trump has tended to run better than earlier Republicans among noncollege-graduate whites and weaker among college graduates, and better among the old than the young. That explains why he’s apparently running far behind in purple states Va. and Colo., with their young and higheducation populations, to the point that the Clinton campaign has canceled ad buys there. Actually, this is an extension of the trend that shifted those two states from safe Republican in the Bush elections to national-average purple states in the Obama elections. At the same time, Trump’s comparative strength among non-college whites has left him competitive in Fla., Ohio and Iowa and well ahead in Indiana, with their older, less educated populations. And it’s made him at least potentially competitive in the industrial swath from western Pennsylvania to eastern Iowa where, as New York Times Upshot writer Nate Cohn has explained, near-majorities of noncollege whites, many who grew up in union households, voted for Obama over management scion Mitt Romney in 2012.

The map may also be changing in Ga. and Ariz., where polls show close races. In recent elections college graduate whites there have been casting huge Republican percentages, overcoming Democratic margins among their growing black and Hispanic minorities. Trump’s weakness among college grads may help Clinton carry their 27 electoral votes.

Goldwater carried the deep South, running even better than Dwight Eisenhower had there. Though the process was delayed by the deep-South-based George Wallace and Jimmy Carter, that region became solidly Republican by 1984 and has been ever since. McGovern ran relatively strongly in America’s northern tier, especially in the Germano-Scandinavian upper MidWILL THESE shifts prove endur- west, and in Oregon and northern Caliing, however this election turns out? f o r n i a . Walter Mondale and Evidence from Michael Dukakis ran history suggests relatively strong in they might. Barry the northern tier in Goldwater and the 1980s, and it’s George McGovbeen more Demo(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate ern, about as far cratic than the out of line with national average their parties’ previous nominees as ever since. Trump is of his, lost in 1964 and 1972 Goldwater and McGovern lost the landslides, respectively. But the groups national popular vote by 23 percent among which they made gains became margins, back in the years when most part of their parties’ bases in the future. voters remembered the Great Depres-

Michael

Barone

sion and World War II and were willing to cross party lines to re-elect a president who seemed to produce prosperity and peace. Today’s polarized electorate, unfamiliar with such disasters, is less ready to cross party lines, and Trump is not 23 points behind. But many voters seem willing to abandon their party: 21 percent say they’re not voting for either major-party nominee. That suggests low turnout, as well as more states in play if the race tightens up. In the longer run, questions lurk. If Clinton wins with less than 50 percent, can her party hold on to college grads unable to stomach Trump? Can postTrump Republicans hold onto non-college whites he’s attracted? MY GUESS is that the answers will be no and yes. What’s yours?

DONALD TRUMP: August 26, 2016

Donald Trump’s amnesty plan

t would be funny if the stakes weren’t so deadly serious. Donald Trump, who launched his campaign for the presidency by attacking Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “criminals,” is suddenly embracing the idea of working out a way to give legal status to undocumented immigrants who have been here a long time and have kept out of trouble.

TRUMP WON’T call it amnesty, of course, but his position is little different from what’s in the “Gang of Eight” bill his allies on conservative talk radio and cable shows have been deriding as amnesty for years. Of course, Trump’s position could change again between the time you begin reading this column and the time you finish it, but for the moment, let’s take Trump at his (latest) word. In a town hall meeting hosted by Sean Hannity this week, Trump said the following: “Everybody agrees we get the bad ones out. But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I’ve had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me, and they’ve said, ‘Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person that’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr. Trump.’ I mean, I have it all the time. It’s a very, very hard thing.” Indeed. Trump said his version isn’t amnesty. “No citizenship. Let me go a step further: They’ll pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes. There’s no amnesty,

list assault on the bill by crying “Amnesty!” But many of the bill’s actual provisions would be much tougher than Trump’s latest, admittedly sketchy, plan.

undocumented would require that the government demonstrate that border security has improved significantly. Toward that end, the legislation would include an additional $3 billion in funding for more drones and other security measures, allow for the hiring of 3,500 additional border agents, and appropriate another $1.5 billion for more border fencing. The Department of Homeland Security would have to demonstrate it has achieved 100 percent surveillance along the Mexican border and can apprehend 90 percent of unlawful crossers at high-intensity cross points along the southern border before any permanent status or citizenship could take place. Moreover, no previously undocumented immigrant would be provided permanent resident status until all current legal applicants receive their green cards.

IMMIGRANTS WHO entered illegally would have to not only pay back taxes but also pay a $1,000-per-person fine, learn English and remain employed. Though the bill would provide a so-called path to citizenship, following that path would take a long, long time. During the first 10 years, the immigrants would be eligible for renewable temporary permits and then could apply for permanent residency. Only after three additional years — 13 years in total — could they apply for citizenship, and they would have to meet all the usual requirements to qualify. Most importantly, all the provisions easing access to legal status for the

THE BILL is far from perfect, but it’s not the free ticket to citizenship for lawbreakers that its detractors claim. Trump’s latest comments that it makes no sense to deport millions of people who have lived in the U.S. for a decade or more — which constitutes two-thirds of the undocumented immigrants here now — are a far cry from what he had been saying for the previous 14 months. If he were a serious man rather than a provocateur, he’d have figured this out a long time ago. Better late than never? Maybe. We’ll see how long he sticks to this new proposal after the anti-immigrant crowds he’s stirred up turn on him.

as such, there’s no amnesty, but we work with them,” he said. Has Trump even read the Senate’s Gang of Eight bill? The legislation, sponsored by four Republicans — Sens. John McCain, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake — passed the Senate in 2013 but subsequently died in the House after conservative talk radio and ca- b l e news shows sparked a popu-

Linda

September 7, 2016 MINORITIES: August 24, 2016

Donald Trump — the great unifier

This dramatic transformation didn’t he modern Democratic Party is obsessed with voting blocs happen because “blacks and browns” they call “Latinos,” “Hispan- came together in peace and harmony in our vibrant melting pot, but because ics” and the “blacks and browns.” But apart from ethnic pimps trying Mexicans moved in and decided they to get money from the government, no wanted blacks out, which they accomauthentic person calls himself a “His- plished with violent racist attacks and panic.” They’re “Portuguese,” “Cu- drive-by shootings. Unlike white Americans, Mexicans ban” or “Colombian” — and they don’t are unguiltable. think of themselves as “brown.” Nearly 20 years Everybody else is from a country. ago, both black and It’s an insult to Hispanic Americans imagine that rebegged Congress cent immigrants to do something are all in a simabout illegal immering rage at (c) 2016, Ann Coulter migration. Rich Trump’s affront to white people see the brown masses. Salvadorans and Guatemalans resent illegal immigrants only as their maids. having to pretend they’re Mexican — Blacks and Hispanics live in their much less Mexican illegal immigrant neighborhoods. Terry Anderson, a black radio talk rapists. show host from South Central Los MEXICO IS heaving Hondurans Angeles, told a U.S. House subcomout of their country. El Salvador and mittee on immigration in 1999 how Honduras went to war over a soccer illegal immigration had changed his game. But we’re supposed to imagine predominantly black community. (That that the moment they cross the Rio was then; today South Central is 99 Grande, they all become blood broth- percent Mexican.) He said all anyone ever hears about is the “poor, poor imers. The only people who believe in migrant,” and the immigrant worker, something called “Hispanics” are white “who works harder than the black perliberals and the RNC. The condescend- son works and he will take the job that ing class is not happy unless they are nobody else takes.” But, Anderson said: “You never hear infantilizing minorities. Republicans B.T. (Before Trump) that every time that illegal alien comes worked overtime to reinforce these arti- here, he displaces somebody else .... “You never hear about all the raceficial group identities as one big happy (and aggrieved) family, constantly bab- based organizations that step forth and bling about reaching out to — as Rand advocate for the illegal alien. You have MALDEF, MEChA, LULAC, La Raza Paul says — “blacks and browns.” Has he heard of Compton? The city and others who are exclusive only to memorialized in the song “Straight one race of people and advocate for Outta Compton,” by the hip-hop group those people only ... “(You) will never hear from these N.W.A. (modern translation: AfricanAmericans With Attitude), is now ma- people about the 17-year-old black kid in my neighborhood who went to Mcjority Mexican.

Ann

Coulter

Donald’s and was told you can’t work here because you don’t speak Spanish.” In response to Anderson’s claim that only Spanish-speakers could get jobs at McDonald’s, Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee tried to put the onus entirely on McDonald’s. Anderson wasn’t having any of it. EVERY TIME Rep. Lee tried to say the responsibility belonged to corporate America, Anderson responded with, “And to the illegal alien who takes the job. Yes, ma’am.” Would any politician ever blame the foreign law-breakers themselves? That’s a rhetorical question — the answer is “no.” Until Trump. A Latina witness, Angie Morfin from Salinas, California, told the committee that illegals were bringing “crime, gangs and an overloaded social safety net” and that “the Latino-American citizens of our community want illegals removed.” She blamed Reagan’s amnesty for the rise of Mexican gangs in the U.S., saying, “You gave them a right.” Republicans obsessed with winning the “Hispanic vote” act as if these Hispanics don’t exist. The only Hispanics in their circle of concern are those who broke into our country illegally. By constantly groveling to ethnic activists, the GOP simply confirmed the idea that people should see themselves as ethnic identity groups — and ought to be bloc-voting for whichever party offers their team the most goodies. Their argument to Hispanics was: We’ll give you everything the Democrats are offering, but not as much. Paul Ryan’s “opportunity society!” was not cutting it. Democrats must go home and laugh themselves silly at the GOP’s incom-

petence at sucking up to minorities. We buffaloed them out of talking about immigration once again! Instead of cooing at immigrants and trying to lick their necks, Trump treats them like Americans. They like America! They came here. And they’d like good-paying jobs without the endless competition of cheap foreign labor. Trump’s plan to stop job-killing trade deals, H1-B workers replacing American workers, and the dump of millions of low-skilled workers on the country has made him the great unifier! The media’s only move is to quadruple down on the phony “racism” charges. But to accuse Trump of “racism” because he wants to protect jobs for our own poor, working-class and native-born is like squeezing a balloon. His popularity with the employers of nannies and diversity coordinators may be in the dumps, but oh my gosh — look at what’s happening at the other end! It looks like Americans want jobs! Let Hillary produce studies showing that it’s much better for African-Americans to have to compete with Mexicans. Yes, that’ll work! No one really enjoys thinking of himself as a victim. Trump sees Americans as winners, and he doesn’t care if you’re black, white, gay or a disabled Eskimo. He’ll bring back jobs for everyone — except the plutocrats outsourcing manufacturing and importing cheap labor while making the rest of us subsidize their foreign workforces. BECAUSE OF his positions on immigration, Trump has a sneaky appeal to everybody. For more on how great America is going to be under our next president, get “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!”, out this week.

Conservative Chronicle

MEDIA BIAS: August 25, 2016

Donald Trump speaks, media translates “Do you ever get tired of defending (Republican-majority) House of Representatives has been run, it has been run Donald Trump?” a critic asked. It isn’t that Donald Trump does not like a plantation — and you know what say things that are cringe-worthy. It’s that I’m talking about!” It wasn’t Donald Trump, but Debbie his opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, says and does things even more cringe- Wasserman Schultz, then the chair of the worthy. So forgive those who feel that Democratic National Committee, who Trump’s supposedly “outrageous” state- said that Republicans “want to literally ments are nothing more than selective drag us all the way back to Jim Crow She also said, “The outrage, double standards, and the typi- l a w s . ” focus of the Republical “Republicans can Party on turning are racist” meme. back the clock for Democrats rouwomen really is tinely say vulgar, something that’s bigoted, divisive, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate unacceptable and outrageous things shows how callous while getting a tolland insensitive they are towards womfree pass. en’s priorities.” And just last month, she IT WASN’T Donald Trump, but tweeted, “Donald Trump and the GOP Donna Brazile, then Al Gore’s campaign want to turn back the clock on civil rights manager, who said Republicans have a and women. We won’t allow it.” It wasn’t Donald Trump, but How“white-boy attitude.” It wasn’t Donald Trump, but Demo- ard Dean, then-chair of the DNC, who cratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Mis- referred to the Republican Party as “the souri, who said, after Hurricane Katrina, white” party. This brings us to one of Trump’s “George (W.) Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they most recent alleged “outrages.” During were poor and because they were black.” a campaign speech, Trump warned that It wasn’t Donald Trump, but Vice Clinton’s election could mean several President Joe Biden, who, before a most- more left-wing justices on the Supreme ly black audience, criticized then-Repub- Court, threatening the individual right lican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to keep and bear arms. After all, in the and Republican resistance to Wall Street 2008 Heller decision, four justices supregulation, saying: “He’s going to let the ported regulation that came very close big banks once again write their own to outlawing the home possession of a rules — unchain Wall Street! They’re firearm. At a fundraiser last year Clinton said, “We’ve got to go after this. ... the going to put y’all back in chains!” It wasn’t Trump, but then-Sen. Hill- Supreme Court is wrong on the Second ary Clinton, who told a black church au- Amendment. And I am going to make dience, “When you look at the way the that case every chance I get.” Later a top

Larry

Elder

Clinton adviser said, “Clinton believes Heller was wrongly decided.” Doesn’t all of this explain why Second Amendment supporters are worried and confused? What exactly did Trump say? He said, “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. ... And if she gets to pick her judges — nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.” THE REACTION was swift. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut sent out several tweets. Tweet No. 1: “Casual reading assignment tonight: Federal criminal statute on threatening to kill a candidate for President.” Tweet No. 2: “Was (Donald Trump) suggesting his supporters shoot Hillary? Shoot her nom-

inee? Who knows. It’s all so disgusting and embarrassing and sad.” Tweet No. 3: “This isn’t play. Unstable people with powerful guns and an unhinged hatred for Hillary are listening to you, (Donald Trump).” Tweet No. 4: “Don’t treat this as a political misstep. It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.” It takes some kind of mind to interpret that as a call to urge supporters to murder Clinton. But the media was already off and running with its storyline: Trump, if he lost the election to Hillary, had urged supporters to kill her. So, for your convenience, here is the Media Trump Translator: Trump: “Lovely smile.” Media translation: “I wish they’d bring back slavery!” Trump: “Good morning.” Media translation: “It’s a great day to organize a posse and burn down mosques!” Trump: “Pass the salt.” Media translation: “Drink hemlock, you scumbag!” Trump: “Nice tie.” Media translation: “Your granddaughter should be beheaded!” Trump: “How are you?” Media translation: “I pray that your wife gets ovarian cancer.” Trump: “How about that Michael Phelps?” Media translation: “May your sister get raped by an ISIS lieutenant with the Zika virus.” Trump: “It’s raining cats and dogs.” Media translation: “As president, I will force-euthanize all family pets.” Not only does Trump, like all Republicans, face Hollywood, academia and media, but reportedly Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are somehow manipulating social media to promote Clinton and denigrate Trump. THE GOOD news is that there are less than 90 days to go before election time. The bad news is that the Trump pileon increases the odds of Hillary Rodham Clinton becoming the next president.

September 7, 2016 PROGRESSIVES: August 31, 2016

Forget ‘Alt Right:’ Let’s take a look at ‘Alt Left’

efore Hillary Clinton offered and racism. The Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis up her latest paranoid rant on the “Alt Right,” I received a figured prominently into this new, number of calls from the media inquir- emerging coalition, according to the reporters who called me. ing about my thoughts on the subject. “How many Nazis and Klan memI consider myself a pretty informed person when it comes to politics, but, bers do you know?” I asked. “I don’t before this flurry of press calls, I had know any. I don’t know any racists. If wouldn’t invite them honestly never heard the term. Maybe I did, I to my daughter’s I wasn’t invited to wedding. I wouldn’t the secret club. attend their wedI discouraged dings or accept these interviews by money from them explaining ahead (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate as Hillary Clinton of time that I was did. I would have unfamiliar with the label and uncomfortable and suspicious blown the dog whistle on them years of contrived political classifications gen- ago, decades ago, rather than wait until these people I considered racist were erally. running for president against me. Do IT DIDN’T help. It became apparent you see why this allegation has no to me the Big Media were determined credibility coming from Hillary Clinto set the stage for Hillary’s latest con- ton?” Silence on the other end of the spiracy theory about a realignment of the right that incorporated nationalism phone.

Joseph

Farah

DONALD TRUMP: August 25, 2016

I know Clinton and the Democrats the allegation against me was my dislove to smear people with the racism dain of Barack Obama. tag. I’ve had it thrown at me. The only evidence anyone ever introduced into BUT THAT hardly makes me a racist. It makes me someone who loves freedom rather than slavery to government. It makes me someone who loves the Constitution and hates lawlessness. It makes me someone who reveres America and doesn’t want to see it “fundamentally transformed.” It makes candidate to try to reach every voter in me someone who loves humility and the country, and Hillary Clinton doesn’t rejects prideful arrogance. However, that’s not really what I have the same deep connection to black want to talk about today. voters that her husband, Bill, did. I don’t think the so-called “Alt George W. Bush got 16 percent of the black vote in Ohio in 2004, after Right” as I have seen it defined in reyears of concerted courting of African- cent days is much of a factor in our Americans. For Trump to show up one world today. But I do believe I can day after running a consistently incen- make the case that Hillary Clinton and diary campaign and say, “Oh, by the the Democratic Party are using this way, I’d like to win black voters” is to term to create a kind of alternate reality to disguise what they are doing. invite charges of insincerity. Have you ever noticed how some That said, anything Trump can do to take the edge off minority opposition to people accuse others of doing what him is a good thing, and seeing what they themselves do? That’s what’s going on here. he’s doing, some suburban white voters Whatever the “Alt Right” might might find him more palatable. be, it’s politically irrelevant compared Trump’s turn is an implicit acknowledgment that the Republican Party with what we’ll call the “Alt Left.” What is the “Alt Left?” can’t just be a Trump party and hope to It’s a movement of phony self-righwin. It has to have broader reach than working-class whites, and avoid posi- teousness and “compassion” that it tions and rhetoric that convince people uses to gain power. It will do anything already inclined to believe such things and say anything to achieve its goal of that the GOP is thoughtless and retro- hammerlock control not only of govgrade. In other words, the party needs ernment, but every significant cultural the likes of Paul Ryan — so scorned by institution — from schools, universiTrump allies — who has invested the ties and the press to churches, foundatime in coming up with a serious anti- tions, Hollywood and unions. poverty policy agenda. IT HAS created a self-funding IF TRUMP loses, one of the trage- mechanism that includes a club of dies of the campaign will have been that guilt-ridden billionaires who insulate a more populist Republicanism could, themselves from attack by donating in theory, have won over working-class to the “Alt Left” causes. It also uses voters of all races. This is something shakedown tactics to intimidate cowerthat should have been a focus of the ing corporations into doing its political campaign many pivots ago, if not when and cultural bidding. Trump first descended his escalator.

The kinder, gentler Trump Behold the kinder, gentler Donald Trump. The latest of Trump’s “pivots” is more far-reaching than a stab at greater message discipline. It is an effort to make him more appealing to minorities and college-educated whites by adopting a more inclusive message. It is an attempt to engineer on the fly a “compassionate populism.” Someone at the campaign clearly has run the numbers and figured out — belatedly — that Trump’s demographic base is too narrow to win a national election. Trump’s theory of the case in the primaries was that he had to light up white working-class voters, and his theory of the case for the general election was that he had to keep doing it, only more so. THE NEW iteration of Trumpism is a last-minute adaptation awkwardly grafted onto the existing campaign. Trump’s still-evolving shift on immigration and his play for black voters recalls the Samuel Johnson gibe (well before the days of political correctness) about a woman preaching: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” On immigration, Trump is at sea on a signature issue. If he cares about immigration (which he had given very little indication of prior to running for president), Trump obviously has no idea what he really thinks about it, besides the most obvious cliches.

His most distinctive positions in the primaries were wholly impractical political symbolism. Now that the electoral calculation is different and there is more of a premium on realism, they are dropping like flies. The Muslim ban has become “extreme vetting.” Mass deportation is getting deep-sixed. Trump still insists that he will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it. There are only two problems: 1) The wall isn’t going to be built; and 2) Mexico isn’t going to pay for it.

Rich

In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Trump sounded at times like Jeb Bush as he floated an amnesty — although he didn’t call it that — for otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants. CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway about the 11 million undocumented immigrants already here, and she replied, “We need to find the mechanism that works and that is fair.” Someone probably should have thought about this before launching a campaign that is, in part, a crusade on immigration. TRUMP ALSO is making a new pitch to black voters. This is welcome and sensible. It behooves a Republican

Conservative Chronicle

REGULATIONS: August 24, 2016

New 700,000-word regulation is good for you

he nine-second video of two federal bureaucrats the White House posted on its blog last week was notable for something it omitted. That something was very big — and putting it on display might not have fit with the apparent propaganda purpose of the video. The video itself starred EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who sat side-by-side at a table.

THE VIDEO starts with McCarthy and Foxx simultaneously scratching their signatures onto separate and apparently singular sheets of paper. Eight seconds into the nine-second clip, when McCarthy has finished signing her name, she looks up and declares: “Done.” Foxx, who signed even faster than McCarthy, spreads his arms in a gesture that appears to say: That’s it, folks. Then he echoes McCarthy: “Done.” So, what exactly had these two bureaucrats done? McCarthy and Foxx published a blog text that accompanied the video on the White House website. In it, they explained that — as part of President Obama’s “Climate Action Plan” — they had approved a regulation that imposes new “greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency standards” on vehicles ranging from heavy-duty pickup trucks to tractor-trailer combinations used to haul cargo. A copy of the final regulation is posted as a PDF on the EPA website. The top of each page carries this disclaimer: “This document is a prepublication version, signed by the Secretary of Transportation, Anthony R. Foxx, and the EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy, on August 16, 2016. We have taken steps to ensure the accuracy of this version, but it is not the official version.” The regulation is 1,690 pages long. Page 1,689 is the signature page for Secretary Foxx. Page 1,690 is the signature page for Administrator McCarthy. When Foxx and McCarthy signed the regulation — as recorded in the video on the White House website — they did not place the first 1,688 pages anywhere within view of the camera. Was that in deference to trees? Or did the Obama administration not want to show America that these two unelected bureaucrats were signing a 1,690-page regulation. As this writer reported on CNSNews. com this week, the regulation includes an average of about 420 words per page or a total of about 700,000 words. According to the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, by model year 2027, the regulation will increase the cost of tractor trucks,

depending on the type, between $10,235 and $13,749. Trailers will cost from $1,204 to $1,370 more.

creases in cold mortality in the United States,” it says. “Compared to a future without climate change, climate change is expected to increase ozone pollution THE REGULATION follows from over broad areas of the U.S., including the EPA administrator’s determination, in the largest metropolitan areas with the made seven years ago under the terms of w o r s t ozone problems, and the Clean Air Act, thereby increase the that greenhouse risk of morbidity gas emissions, inand mortality.” cluding carbon diMcCarthy and oxide, “endanger Foxx argued that (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate public health.” making truck op“Climate change erators buy the caused by human emissions of GHGs more expensive vehicles the regulation threatens public health in multiple mandates will save these truckers monways,” says the new regulation. ey. “By raising average temperatures, “Today’s final standards will promote climate change increases the likelihood a new generation of cleaner and more of heat waves, which are associated with fuel efficient trucks,” they wrote. “That increased deaths and illnesses,” it says. means 1.1 billion fewer tons of CO2 will “While climate change also decreases be emitted into the atmosphere, and opthe likelihood of cold-related mortality, erators will save two billion barrels of evidence indicates that the increases in oil and $170 billion in fuel costs. The heat mortality will be larger than the de- additional cost of a new truck will be

Terry

Jeffrey

recouped within two-four years, saving truck owners more over the long haul.” The EPA also wants non-truck-driving Americans to believe this new regulation will save them money, too. “The program will also benefit consumers and businesses by reducing the costs for transporting goods,” says an EPA fact sheet. “In total, the program will result in up to $230 billion in net benefits to society over the lifetime of vehicles sold under the program. This includes fuel savings, carbon reductions, health benefits, energy security benefits, along with travel benefits, and refueling benefits.” This is the liberal vision for the future: New rules approved by bureaucrats that increase the capital costs to start, grow or maintain a business, will help save the world from climate change while saving Americans money. JUST DON’T let people see the actual size of the regulation.

ECONOMY: August 30, 2016

Our one percent economy

ave you noticed that Hillary Clinton wants to talk about the economy about as much as she wants to talk about Monica Lewinsky or Benghazi? Here’s why: The economy is lousy. Feeble. Barack Obama’s own numbers prove it. We got revised GDP numbers from the Commerce Department on Friday and the economy is actually getting worse. The rate of economic growth was slightly less than one percent for the first six months of 2016. No wonder almost half of Americans think we are still in a recession. They are personally in recession.

IS THIS really the best that the mighty American engine of economic growth can do? The Wall Street Journal recently reported this is the most tepid recovery from a recession since the 1940s. That was with two percent growth. Now we are peddling faster for slower speeds. The business sector of the economy has sunk into what Larry Kudlow of CNBC calls a “soft recession.” Profits are shrinking (down 2.4 percent last quarter), so how long can the stock market rise? The consumer is keeping the economy out of negative territory, but that’s only because we are spending more than we are earning. The federal government thinks it can borrow and borrow forever, but how long can families do that before they go bust? About as long as the housing bubble could inflate without bursting. This is some recovery. Under Ronald

Reagan we had growth rates quarterly of four, five and even six percent. Economists in the ‘80s worried about overheating. Too much growth. Now growth is nowhere to be seen — except for those at the very top of the income ladder. The Democrats who keep

Stephen

saying how well the economy is doing seem to be living in an alternate universe. And that’s probably because so many of the left-wing pundits and economists live and work in Washington, D.C., which really is doing just fine. D.C. is booming thanks to the tribute taxpayers from real America send each month to the capital. Three of the five wealthiest counties are around D.C. That tells you everything about who is getting rich off liberal government expansion policies. CLINTON SAYS that what the economy really needs now is a tax increase. That’s crazy talk. A new study by the National Center for Policy Analysis says that Clinton’s economic plan will eventually shave one percent off GDP. That would technically sink the economy down to zero growth. Oh, and speaking of government borrowing, there was more “wonderful” news this past week. The deficit is now climbing again to an estimated $600 billion this year. The red ink is headed back

to $1 trillion on current course. Some states are facing a 20 percent or more rise in Obamacare premiums this year. Clinton and Obama point to the low unemployment rate. We are creating jobs, but they are burger flipper and “Would you like fries with that order?” jobs. The good jobs are disappearing. The Financial Times reports that more than one million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2007. So much for morning in America. What is needed to turn the ship of state? Tax cuts. Deregulation. American energy production. The repealing of of Obamacare. Trump should talk about little else if he wants to win. Clinton seems clueless about where jobs come from. This is the woman who once said that businesses don’t create jobs. Could it get worse? Here’s how economist David Tuerck described Clinton’s jobs plan in his NCPA study: “What we have here is a plan to destroy hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs just to pad government payrolls while, in the process, doing almost nothing to improve tax fairness.” OBAMA AND now Clinton keep promising more growth and more fairness. So far, they have produced neither. As the Wall Street Journal recently put it, Clinton’s agenda theme should be called “Hope and No Change.” Voters need to decide if they think four more years of this will lead to any different result.

September 7, 2016 2016 ELECTION: August 25, 2016

Voters focus on crucial issues though candidates don’t

“That contrasts with the top probhe chief problems in our country that voters worry about lems — health care and the economy — most are jobs, the economy, about which 54 percent and 53 percent, health care and government misman- respectively, of the public said they worried about a great deal,” he wrote. agement. Since then, for the most part the GalWhen Donald Trump announced his has shown that the candidacy for the presidency last year, lup poll economy, jobs and the first problem government still rehe raised and main the big issues made his domifacing our counnant issue was iltry, with immigralegal immigrants (c) 2016, United Media Services tion further down from Mexico. But that wasn’t a major public concern at on the list. If anything, Trump’s focus on illethe time — not even close, according to gal immigration and his plan to deport the Gallup Poll — and it still isn’t. an estimated 11 million illegal HispanGALLUP REGULARLY polls the ics has become a problem for his own issues that are among voters’ greatest campaign. Polls show that he’s losing concerns, and soon after the real estate the lion’s share of the Hispanic vote, tycoon pushed immigration into the the largest ethnic voting bloc in the U.S. forefront of the news media’s attention electorate. And it has become an issue for many on June 16, 2015, Frank Newport, the polling firm’s editor-in-chief, wrote an American voters who think his proposed mass deportation of millions of analysis that said this: “For one thing, we know that im- Hispanics and their families, who have migration is not seen as the top prob- lived and worked here for 10, 20, 30 lem facing the nation today by most years or more, have never committed a Americans, but it is perceived as an crime and contributed to our economy, important issue.” Just “seven percent of is a bit extreme. Apparently Trump and some of his Americans say immigration is the most important problem facing the country new advisers think so, too, because he has begun signaling that he may be open today.” In March, Newport said, “We gave to “softening” his deportation plan. The candidate began his presidential Americans a list of 15 problems and asked how much they personally worry bid last year by saying that all illegal about each. ‘Illegal immigration’ was immigrants “have to go,” and that he ninth on the list, with 39 percent saying would establish a nationwide, policestyle “deportation force” to round them they worried about it ‘a great deal.’

Donald

Lambro

up and send them back to their native countries. But at a town hall gathering on Tuesday hosted by Fox News in Austin, Texas, Trump said he was open to “softening” the immigration laws for illegals who have established roots here and lived law-abiding lives. “Did he use the word ‘soften’?” an incredulous Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a Trump backer, asked reporters who sought his reaction to the candidate’s unexpected remark. BUT TRUMP appears to be playing down or avoiding any mention of deportations lately, notably during a rally on the Florida State Fairgrounds on Wednesday. He touched on it only briefly in terms of protecting jobs and focusing only on those who have criminal records. His new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, may be influencing his shift. When asked Sunday if Trump was going to readjust his position on mass deportations, she coyly replied, “To be determined.”

“What he supports is to make sure we enforce the law ... and that we are fair and humane for those who live among us in this country,” Conway said. Trump told Fox News that he was “not flip-flopping” on the issue, but added, “We want to come up with a really fair but firm answer.” What brought about the change in tone? The answer can be found in half a dozen major, head-to-head polls on the Real Clear Politics website, showing Hillary Clinton leading Trump by margins of five to eight percent. While we wait for Trump and his curious crew to figure out just where they stand on this issue, the voters remain far more focused on what’s important to them — like a spendthrift government drowning in nearly $20 trillion in debt, threatening our country’s economic survival as never before. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a new report this week that projects the budget deficit this fiscal year will be close to $600 billion — one-third higher than last year’s deficit. The CBO projects that the budget deficit will rise to $1.2 trillion by 2026 unless fiscal policies are changed. Among other things, CBO blames the mushrooming deficit on a weakening Obama economy and lower-than-expected tax revenue. Economic growth has slowed to a crawl in President Obama’s last year in office, coming in at little more than one percent in the first and second quarters. And the CBO estimates that the economy will grow by just 1.7 percent, at best, over the next two years under present policies. In his new book, Full Faith and Credit: The National Debt, Taxes, Spending, and the Bankrupting of America, historian Alan Axelrod paints a gloomy portrait of our country’s future. Calling the mounting debt load “the greatest threat to American security and prosperity” in our history, Axelrod says that the human cost will be measured in “families imperiled, aspirations thwarted, hope of promising futures abandoned.” THIS IS ONE of the important issues that Americans really worry about — and that both presidential candidates are ignoring to our peril.

Conservative Chronicle

ENVIRONMENTALISTS: August 31, 2016

Eco-activists: Colorado’s anti-fracking crackup

f a pair of extreme green balDespite massive funding from lot measures fall in the Rocky such dark money donors as billionMountains and no one in the lib- aire hedge fund manager turned clieral media is paying attention, does the mate change warrior Tom Steyer, the collapse make a sound? big green propaganda machine keeps This week, two anti-fracking initia- coming up short. The enviros failed to tives backed by deep-pocketed environ- gather enough signatures for a similar mental lobbying heavyweights, such as m e a s u r e two years ago. Skitthe Sierra Club tish Democrats, inand Greenpeace, cluding Colorado failed to gather Gov. John Hickenenough signalooper, have distures. The more tanced themselves (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate draconian of the from the eco-radiefforts, Initiative cals, as the energy 78, would have imposed a mandatory sector generates thousands of jobs and 2,500-foot setback around all oil and billions of dollars to the state economy. gas operations — essentially halting One thing the anti-frackers have drilling in upward of 95 percent of Col- been successful at: Manufacturing orado’s energy-rich land area. self-serving excuses for their failures. They complained that their allies THESE DRASTIC attempts to sab- didn’t spend enough on them. They otage the oil and gas industry didn’t just carped that their opponents spent too miss by inches. They missed by a mile much on opposing them. They whined high and wide. that the secretary of state’s office was Colorado Secretary of State Wayne “biased” against them for throwing out Williams announced that supporters invalid signatures. of the two measures surpassed the required signature threshold but not by AND THEY pouted when their enough to compensate for the number phony attempt to con reporters into of signatures that were rejected during a believing that their measures would random sampling. One of the initiatives get on the ballot blew up in their facgarnered 77,000 signatures out of about es three weeks ago. A day after vol98,000 needed to qualify for the bal- unteers paraded into the secretary of lot; the other, 79,000. Every other state state’s office with dozens of boxes initiative campaign (on issues ranging of signatures, an official noted that a from primary election reform to ciga- large number of the boxes were halfrette taxes to assisted suicide) this year full — or half-empty. hit the mark. Hypocritical save-the-planet solWorse for eco-activists, the secretary diers who bemoan our dependence on of state reported that the petition for the foreign oil are hellbent on strangling de facto fracking moratorium included the fracking revolution, which has “several potentially forged signature doubled domestic U.S. oil output and lines” and has been referred to the state helped drive gas prices down. attorney general for investigation. At Here’s what the job-killing fractivleast one hired signature gatherer told ists just won’t admit: Coloradans like KUSA-TV that homeless men in Den- their thriving energy sector, and they ver filled out forms with “bull---.” want to keep it. Election fraud? What election fraud? Is Hillary Clinton paying attention? Yep, that election fraud. She has vowed to her lefty voter base

Michelle

Malkin

that despite reaping big bucks from fossil fuel campaign finance bundlers, she will ensure that there are not “many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.” It’s as clear a threat as President Barack Obama’s

campaign vow to make electricity rates “skyrocket.” LET’S HOPE that as the antifracking crackup goes in the Rockies, so goes the nation.

POLITICS: August 29, 2016

Politics or high water

r. President, you’re doin’ ignore at the Saintsville Church of God a heckuva job. Which is in Christ across the street from the airwhat another president — port where Mr. Obama had arrived. VolGeorge W. Bush — told his man on the unteers were unloading a truck full of scene before the political roof fell in af- much-needed supplies from a church in even as the presidential ter Katrina struck New Orleans. But if Milwaukee cade, sirens blartruth be told, as it often isn’t in politics, m o t o r ing, was preparthe bayou state ing the president’s doesn’t need grand entrance. more feel-good This president statements after has played this a natural disaster. (c) 2016, Tribune Media Services familiar game beNot after it’s been mugged by watery reality yet again. But fore, but from the opposite angle. When here was the Hon. Barack Obama issu- he was only a presidential hopeful ining the familiar false comfort when he stead of an occupant of the Oval Ofcame to visit the water-logged scene of fice, he lambasted George W. Bush for what he called that president’s failure still another natural disaster. to respond soon enough or effectively “THIS IS NOT a one-off, this is not enough to a hurricane’s wrath. But now a photo-op issue,” this president sol- we’re all supposed to believe he’s above emnly declared on making a photo-op politics when his record often enough stop. “I know how resilient the people shows he’s below it. of Louisiana are and I know that you OF ALL PEOPLE and politicians, will rebuild again.” Only to be wiped it was Hillary Clinton who issued a out again, he might have added. “These are some good people down statesmanlike announcement saying here,” said the president. “They got a lot she planned to visit south Louisiana “at of work to do and they shouldn’t have a time when the presence of a political to do it alone.” And they aren’t. Not just campaign will not disrupt the response, water is flooding into Louisiana but help to discuss how we can and will rebuild from church people all over the country. together.” Or even not rebuild, for as the They really don’t need politicians and Good Book says, “To everything there PR types getting in the way. Including a is a season, and a time to every purpose master of the political game like Barack under Heaven. ... A time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a Obama. Meanwhile, help isn’t just on the way. time to dance.” A time to build and, in It’s arrived. The contrast between politi- New Orleans’ case, a time not to. Like cal words and loving deeds was hard to now.

Paul

Greenberg

September 7, 2016 GOVERNMENT DEPENDENCY: August 25, 2016

The War on Poverty — a better way

n January 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson kicked off the War on Poverty during his State of the Union speech, declaring “unconditional war on poverty in America.” Congress joined with him and created programs to provide benefits to those in need. “Our aim,” stated Johnson, “is not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.” THE FOCUS was on how many people we could provide assistance to and how much money was spent, not on how many people moved upward into opportunity jobs and higher incomes. Since then, our government has spent more than $22 trillion, yet we have not hit the target. Money spent, programs created, more people in poverty. According to the U.S. Census website, 11.1 percent of Americans were

living at or below the poverty level in continue down the same path, without 1973. In 2014, that number had climbed adjustment, would be insanity. Albert to 14.8 percent. We have failed not only Einstein may have defined insanity best, to win the war, but to hold our ground. as “doing the same thing over and over Our current path is not working. In again and expecting different results.” The Republican approach contains response, the House Republicans have rolled out “A Better Way to Fight Pov- five areas of focus: Reward work, taierty.” Their goal is to move from “a bro- lor benefits to people’s needs, demand improve schools and ken system that traps too many people results, skills, and plan and in a cycle of desave for the future. pendence to one Jackie According to the that emphasizes speaker.gov webwork and indesite, “Some 44 perpendence, to give (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate cent of work-capeople on welfare pable households a chance to draw a paycheck, not a welfare check ... the using federal rental assistance report no opportunity to succeed at home and at annual income from wages.” This just does not make sense. work.” Johnson’s intent to improve the lives THE FIRST AREA, reward work, of Americans is to be commended — but the fact is we have not successfully encompasses “better access to job trainattacked and solved the problem. To ing and skills development,” giving

Gingrich Cushman

REGULATIONS: August 31, 2016

Economic conspiracies

general economic principle is that any law or regulation that restricts market entry tends to impose the greatest burden on those who can be described as poor, latecomers, discriminated-against and politically weak. The president of the NAACP’s St. Louis chapter, Adolphus Pruitt, has petitioned a circuit court judge to reject the St. Louis Metropolitan Taxicab Commission’s conspiratorial call to issue a temporary restraining order that would force Uber to shut down. He says the order would negatively impact nearly 2,000 African-Americans who work as Uber partners in black neighborhoods that have long been ignored by taxis and other transportation providers. In a statement, Pruitt said, “The immediate harm of a (temporary restraining order) would strand thousands of African American riders who depend on Uber to travel around a city that has measurable gaps in its transportation system and has failed to serve our neighborhoods for decades.” ST. LOUIS taxicab restrictions are not nearly so onerous as those in some other cities. In New York, the license, called a medallion, to own one taxi costs $704,000. In Chicago, the medallion price in 2015 was $270,000, down from $357,000 in 2013. Boston medallions currently sell for about $200,000, and that’s down from $700,000 several years ago. The effect of these licensing restrictions is to close the market to those who do not have hundreds of thousands of dollars or are unable to ac-

quire a loan to purchase a medallion. I’d ask my liberal friends: Who are the people least likely to have those resources? Entry restrictions are not necessarily a racial issue. Those who are in a monopoly arrangement find it in their interest to keep outsiders out. If they can do so, it means they can charge higher prices and earn higher income. That means blacks who are part of a taxicab monopoly share the same interests as whites in that industry. THERE ARE hundreds of conspiratorial entry restrictions that work against blacks. George Leef has a

My colleagues at the Institute for Justice have waged war against economic restrictions since 1991 and have had a number of important successes. Among hair braiders the Institute for Justice has liberated from onerous regulations are those in Ark., Calif., Iowa, Wash. and Mo. The institute has successfully waged war against taxi licensing and other transportation restrictions in Bowling Green, Milwaukee, Chicago, Florida, Cincinnati, Denver, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Minneapolis and elsewhere. Its successes in other areas of liberty can be found on its website, at http://www.ij.org.

THE MOST devastating and difficult-to-change economic conspiracy is the minimum wage law. The conspiratorial aspect of the law is that it prices (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate all people out of the job market whose story in Forbes about a case before the skills do not provide the value of the courts, Pritchard v. Board of Cosmetol- minimum wage. Put yourself in the ogy. The plaintiff is Tammy Pritchard, a place of an employer and ask yourself policewoman who would like to supple- whether you would hire a person whom ment her income by working in a hair the minimum wage law mandates you salon owned by a friend. The salon spe- pay $7.25 an hour if that person were cializes in African hair braiding, and so unfortunate that he could add only $5 Pritchard wants to shampoo customers’ worth of value an hour. Most employers hair. After she had been working a few would view hiring such a low-skilled months, Tennessee Board of Cosmetol- person as a losing economic proposiogy officials barred her from washing tion, but they might hire him if he could hair because she lacks a governmental be paid $5 an hour. Unfortunately, the license to do so. Under the board’s reg- minimum wage law is seen as sacroulations, an individual must complete sanct, and that conspiracy will continue “not less than 300 hours” of instruction in perpetuity — robbing youngsters, “in the practice and theory of shampoo- particularly black youngsters, of a ing” at an approved school. Pritchard chance to get their feet on the bottom cannot afford the time and money costs, rungs of the economic ladder. so she has lost a source of income.

Walter

Williams

“states greater flexibility to help people find a new job more quickly,” and providing “more children ... access to special education services, and mental or physical therapies.” Unfortunately, today’s system often penalizes those who work and get promoted. With overlapping programs and benefits, a new job or higher income can result in a larger deduction of benefits — leading people to decline offers of new positions or promotions to maintain their income. This is where the second area of focus, tailoring benefits to people’s needs, will help. By providing “new authority for states to link poverty programs ... states could repackage your benefits.” It would also provide more flexibility, allowing housing allowance recipients to move to “areas with more jobs and opportunities.” By demanding results, not programs, we would track improvements in peoples’ lives, not in money spent. This would be done through pay-forsuccess partnerships, as well as payfor-outcome models. Johnson was right when he identified poor schools as one reason for continued poverty. The problem is that, after 50 years of government control and spending, many school are still failing their students. The fourth area of focus is to improve schools and skills and address the problems in a different way. Instead of waiting to begin teaching when a child reaches kindergarten age, it will include early childhood development programs. Instead of pushing failing students ahead, it will start and programs that seek to rehabilitate atrisk youth. Access to better meals for children and improvement to job training would also be addressed. The fifth area of focus, plan and save for the future, underscores how very different the Republican approach is from the current system. The plan is not only to provide help and assistance, but to offer a path to a drastically better future to those currently in poverty — a future that they would control. This will include expanding “access to basic banking services” and “access to affordable retirement advice, providing low- and middle-income families.” WHILE THE intent of progressive Democrats might be commendable, one fact is clear: Government-controlled programs have not worked. Our current system has created a culture of dependence and despondency rather than given “our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities,” as was Johnson’s goal. To meet this goal, government, individuals and corporations must work together to create opportunities, provide ladders up and encourage all to work towards their best future.

Conservative Chronicle

EXECUTIVE OVERREACH: August 26, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s felonious friends in Virginia

Virginia’s former governor Tim Kaine, now a vice presidential candidate, was asked to do what McAuliffe has done, but he decided that a “blan“SCORES OF restoration orders ket order restoring the voting rights of have been issued for more than a cen- everyone would be a rewrite of the law tury to specific felons who requested rather than a contemplated use of the that their civil rights be restored. Never executive clemency powers.” Citing gations under the Virbefore, however, have any of the prior his obliginia Constitution, 71 Virginia Govhe declined. ernors issued a All prior govsua sponte clemernors, the court ency order of any noted, had exerkind, whether to (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate cised their power restore civil rights to grant reprieves, or grant a pardon, to an entire class of unnamed felons pardons, commutations and rights reswithout regard for the nature of the torations, on a case-by-case basis. This crimes or any other individual circum- was consistent with the “cautious apstances relevant to the request. What is proach to any expansions of executive more, we are aware of no point in the power” the court enforces, and “faithhistory of the Commonwealth that any ful to the belief that the concerns motiNOW, IT MAY or may not be a Governor has even asserted the power vating the original framers in 1776 still survive in Virginia.” good idea to deny felons permanently to issue such an order.” the right to vote, serve on juries, hold public office or serve as notary publics. LESLIE’S TRIVIA BITS: August 29, 2016 I’m personally open to the idea of restoring rights to ex-felons. But the law in the state of Virginia is very clear. The elected representatives have declined to change it, though some 69 resolutions Hermione Baddeley received a best he idea of counting sheep to to that effect have been offered since fall asleep might come from supporting actress Oscar nomination the 1980s, one as recently as this year. a fable in the 12th-century for the 1959 film Room at the Top, deNone passed the General Assembly. Gov. McAuliffe could have used all book “Disciplina clericalis.” To help spite spending a total of two minutes of the legitimate powers of his office a king fall asleep, the royal storyteller and 32 seconds on screen. Hers is the along with his persuasive ability, such invents the tale of a man who buys a shortest Oscar-nominated performance as it is, to urge the legislature to pass thousand sheep at a fair. While bring- on record. As for Oscar winners with a bill he could sign. Instead, with the ing the sheep home, the man has car- minimal screen time, Beatrice Straight stroke of a pen, he announced that he ry them across a river, which he does holds that distinction, winning a best was granting clemency to a whole class three sheep at a time. That’s a lot of supporting actress Oscar for the five trips back and forth. Just hearing about minutes and 40 seconds she was onof people. screen in the 1976 film Network. We’re focused, during this cam- it put the king to sleep. Sleeping Beauty Castle at Dispaign, on the ethical sewer that is the Democratic nominee, but it’s worth neyland was inspired by the real-life recalling that President Obama paved Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. this road. He may not have been for And Neuschwanstein Castle was insale in the Clinton style, but he has spired by German composer Richard done something perhaps more sinister Wagner. Ludwig II of Bavaria, a great (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate in the long run: He has demonstrated admirer of Wagner’s operas, commisthat a president can flout the law and sioned the castle on a cliff, where he CANADA GEESE eat often, digest pay no price. Remember the moral of imagined he’d hide away from the Watergate — “the system worked?” world and entertain his friend Wagner. quickly and poop prodigiously. A typiWell, it didn’t work in Obama’s case. It took 20 years from the start of con- cal adult Canada goose can leave beThough ultimately thwarted by the Su- struction for Ludwig to move into the hind one to three pounds of droppings per day. That’s as much as half a ton of preme Court in some cases, he attempt- castle. He died two years later. droppings per year! ed unilaterally to alter immigration “She sells seashells by the seaTHERE ARE 24 time zones on law, environmental law, civil rights shore” might have been inspired by earth, each one spanning about 15 delaw and much more, especially his own Mary Anning (1799-1847). She did grees of longitude. The earth makes health law. For the most part, he was sell seashells. More importantly, she one complete revolution every 24 successful. sold fossils and dinosaur bones that hours so, roughly, every 15 degrees The Washington Post’s reporting she unearthed by the seaside near her of longitude represents an hour in the notes that McAuliffe’s action was pophome in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England. earth’s rotation. The idea of dividing ular, with 61 percent of respondents expressing support. What difference does the planet into time zones came from One of the great fossil hunters of all this make to the law? If we’re going to Sir Sandford Fleming, who, in the time, she found them, studied them, have government by plebiscite, let’s re- mid-19th century, oversaw construc- categorized them, sketched them, then peal the Constitution and do everything tion of a trans-Canada railroad. Among sold them on to male geologists who its advantages, Universal Standard used them in research and rarely gave by SurveyMonkey. The Virginia Supreme Court issued Time made it easier to coordinate train her credit for her contribution to the field. a rebuke to McAuliffe that should have schedules. erry McAuliffe is a Hillary Clinton pal. He fronted $1.3 million for her house in Chappaqua, New York. We should all have such friends. Thanks to the Republicans who shut down the government in 2013, McAuliffe is now the governor of Virginia, a swing state, and thus in a position to help Clinton get another house — on Pennsylvania Avenue. Any governor has political strings to pull, but Gov. McAuliffe is going beyond sharing voter information, getout-the-vote operations and other traditional political tools. He’s creating new voters by unilaterally restoring voting rights to 206,000 convicted felons. McAuliffe is focused on this: In 2012, Barack Obama’s margin of victory in Virginia was 3.88 percent, which represented 149,298 votes.

settled the matter. It didn’t, which we’ll get to. But here’s a taste of the reproof the court offered:

Mona

Charen

Leslie’s Trivia Bits

Leslie

Elman

The court ordered state officials to remove from the voting rolls the felons McAuliffe had restored and to keep careful records. Pretty definitive, right? Except Gov. McAuliffe is defying the court. On Aug. 22, he announced that 13,000 felons had been added back. So: Between July 22, when the court ruling was announced, and Aug. 22, did McAuliffe personally evaluate 13,000 cases? No. He doesn’t even claim that. The only change from his previous executive order was the addition of a letter to each ex-offender, and McAuliffe has declared his intention to do the same for the rest. IT MAY NOT make any difference to the 2016 election (which is not looking close), but it does undermine the rule of law in a flagrant and disgraceful way.

TRIVIA 1. Which Old Testament figure’s occupation was “keeper of sheep?” A) Aaron B) Abel C) Daniel D) Saul 2. Which famous author of spy novels also wrote the children’s classic “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?” A) Leslie Charteris B) Ian Fleming C) John Le Carre D) Helen MacInnes 3. The prime meridian, or 0 degrees longitude, runs through what location? A) Greenwich, England B) Sydney, Australia C) Toronto, Canada D) Washington, D.C. 4. Maude was a spin-off of All in the Family. Which show was a spin-off of Maude? A) Family Matters B) Family Ties C) Good Times D) Rhoda 5. A relative of the Canada goose, the nene is most closely associated with which U.S. state? A) Alaska B) Florida C) Hawaii D) Maine 6. Amber is fossilized what? A) Dinosaur blood B) Fish eggs C) Insect larvae D) Tree resin (answers on page 19)

September 7, 2016 HILLARY CLINTON: August 31, 2016

Hillary Clinton on partial birth ban

Clinton argued that what she deillary Clinton went down to the Senate floor on March 12, scribed as a move “to criminalize a 2003, to advocate for the cul- medical procedure” would start America ture of death while claiming to oppose down a road that would end up making this country like Cold War-era Romania the culture of debt. The legislation up for debate that day and Communist China. “In pre-democratic Romania, they aimed to prohibit a specific means of had a leader named Ceausescu, a Soviettaking innocent life. As described in its first paragraph, style Communist dictator, who decided it duty of every Romait would make illegal that act when “a was the nian woman to bear physician delibfive children so they erately and intencould build the Rotionally vaginally manian State,” Clindelivers a living, ton said. “So they unborn child’s (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate eliminated birth body until either control, they elimithe entire baby’s head is outside the body of the mother, nated sex education, and they outlawed or any part of the baby’s trunk past the abortions.” “Once a month you would be rounded navel is outside the body of the mother and only the head remains inside the up at your workplace,” she said. “You would be taken to a governwomb, for the purpose of performing an overt act (usually the puncturing of the ment-controlled health clinic,” she said. back of the child’s skull and removing “You would be told to disrobe while you the baby’s brains) that the person knows were standing in line. You would get up on the table. You would be examined by will kill the partially delivered infant.” a government doctor with a government BANNING THIS act was neither secret police officer watching. And if you a partisan nor sex-specific endeavor. were pregnant, you would be monitored Then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom to make sure you didn’t do anything to Daschle supported it. So did future Sen- that pregnancy.” Then there were the Communists in ate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. So did Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu China. “If you wanted to have a child in Chiand Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole. na, you needed to get permission or face Hillary Clinton did not. Her speech — recorded by CSPAN punishment,” Clinton said. “After you and transcribed in the Congressional had your one allotted child, in some parts Record — defended the legality of par- of China, you could be sterilized against tial-birth abortion and condemned the your will or forced to have an abortion.” The move to ban partial-birth aborRepublican leadership for bringing up a tion, Clinton argued, would move Amerbill to ban it.

Terry

Jeffrey

ica toward a Romanian or Chinesestyle police state. “I don’t think we could dismiss these examples,” Clinton said in that 2003 speech. “I have seen where government gets this kind of power, it can be quickly misused. The old standard maxim by Lord Acton: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. “I RAISE these issues not because they are part of the past or because they happened somewhere far away, but because I can guarantee you, standing here as a senator, if we go down this path, you are going to have the same kind of overzealous, interfering prosecutors and police officers doing the very same kinds of things in this country,” Clinton said.

Yes, as a senator, Clinton guaranteed this. At the beginning of that 2003 speech, Clinton listed a number of things she thought the Senate ought to be debating instead of whether to ban partial-birth abortion. The growing federal debt was one of them. “Why aren’t we debating how we can get our federal budget back on the road to balance and begin to diminish these overwhelming deficits and this increasing debt load we will leave on the backs of our children?” she said. On the day Clinton gave this speech, the federal debt was $6.46 trillion. Today, it is $19.48 trillion — having climbed $8.86 trillion in the Obama years alone. In 2014, when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4, that the government could not force the family-owned Hobby Lobby company to act against the religious beliefs of its owners in providing insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and devices as required by an Obamacare regulation, Hillary Clinton condemned the idea that a family-owned business should have “religious freedom.” “It’s the first time that our court has said that a closely-held corporation has the rights of a person when it comes to religious freedom,” Clinton said at the Aspen Ideas Festival, “which means that the corporation — and closely-held are often family-based, not exclusively, but usually—that the corporations, employers, can impose their religious beliefs on their employees. And, of course, denying women the right to contraception as part of their health care plan is exactly that. I find it deeply disturbing that we are going in that direction.” In Clinton’s view, a partially born baby has no right to life and a Christian family has no right not cover employees for abortion-inducing drugs. AND SHE MUST be outraged by that $19.48 trillion debt.

September 7, 2016

There seems to be lots of smoke here, Hillary

The stench is familiar, and all too Clinrediction: If Hillary Clinton wins, within a year of her in- tonian in character. Recall. On his last day in office, Jan. auguration, she will be under investigation by a special prosecutor on 20, 2001, Bill Clinton issued a presidencharges of political corruption, thereby tial pardon to financier-crook and fugitive from justice Marc Rich, whose wife, continuing a family tradition. For consider what the Associated Denise, had contributed $450,000 to the Clinton Library. Press reported this week: The Clintons appear belatedly to have The surest way for a person with prinized their political vate interests to get a meeting with Secre- r e c o g peril. tary of State ClinBill has promton, or a phone call ised that, if Hillary returned by her, is elected, he will it seems, was to end his big dog dump a bundle of (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate days at the founcash into the Clindation and stop taking checks from forton Foundation. Of 154 outsiders whom Clinton eign regimes and entities, and corporate phoned or met with in her first two years donors. Cash contributions from wealthy at State, 85 had made contributions to the Americans will still be gratefully acceptClinton Foundation, and their contribu- ed. One wonders: Will Bill be writing tions, taken together, totaled $156 milthank-you notes for the millions that will lion. Conclusion: Access to Secretary of roll in to the family foundation — on State Clinton could be bought, but it was White House stationery? By his actions, Bill is all but concednot cheap. Forty of the 85 donors gave $100,000 or more. Twenty of those whom ing that there is a serious conflict of interClinton met with or phoned dumped in est between his foundation raking in millions that enhance the family’s prestige $1 million or more. and sustain its travel and lifestyle, while TO GET TO the seventh floor of the providing its big donors with privileged Clinton State Department for a hearing access to the secretary of state. Yet if Hillary Clinton becomes presifor one’s plea, the cover charge was high. Among those who got face time with dent, the scheme is unsustainable. Even Hillary Clinton were a Ukrainian oli- the Obama-Clinton media might not be garch and steel magnate who shipped oil able to stomach this. pipe to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions AND EVEN Clinton seems to be conand a Bangladeshi economist who was under investigation by his government ceding the game is up. “I know there’s a and was eventually pressured to leave his lot of smoke, and there’s no fire,” she said in self-defense this week. own bank.

Pat

Buchanan

She is certainly right about the smoke. And if, as Democratic apparatchik Steve McMahon assures us that there is “no smoking gun,” no quid-pro-quo, no open-and-shut case of Secretary Clinton taking official action in gratitude to a donor of the family foundation, how can we predict a special prosecutor? Answer: We are not at the end of this scandal. We are at what Churchill called the “end of the beginning.” Missing emails are being unearthed at State, through Freedom of Information Act requests, that are filling out the picture Clinton thought had been blotted out when her 33,000 “private” emails were erased by her lawyers. Someone out there, Julian Assange, Russia, or the rogue websites doing all this hacking, are believed to have many

more explosive emails they are preparing to drop before Election Day. And why is Clinton is keeping her State Department calendar secret from the AP, if it does not contain meetings or calls she does not want to defend? She has defied requests and the AP had to sue to get the schedule of her first two years at State. Moreover, the AP story on the State Department-Clinton Foundation links was so stunning it is sure to trigger follow-up by investigative journalists who can smell a Pulitzer. Then there are the contacts between Huma Abedin, her closest aide at State, and Doug Band at the Clinton Foundation, the go-betweens for the donor-Clinton meetings, which has opened a new avenue for investigators. These were unearthed by Judicial Watch, which is not going away. The number of persons of interest involved in this suppurating scandal, which has gone from an illicit server, to a panoply of Clinton lies to the public that disgusted the FBI director, to erased emails, to “pay for play,” and now deep into the Clinton Foundation continues to grow. All that is needed now, to bring us to an independent counsel, is calls for the FBI to reopen and broaden its investigation in light of all that has been revealed since Director Comey said there was not evidence enough to recommend an indictment. If Clinton controls the Justice Department, calls for a special prosecutor will be resisted, but only until public demand becomes too great. For there were independent counsels called in Watergate, Iran-Contra and the scandals that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. HILLARY CLINTON says there is no fire. But something is causing all that smoke. August 26, 2016

This Week’s Conservative Focus

The Clintons

Is there Karma for the Clintons at last?

old on; we may finally be getting some fireworks in this lackluster presidential campaign — as the Clinton Foundation scandal seems to be gathering steam. Could the Clintons finally have to face the music for their adult-lifetime of corruption? Is it possible that Hillary Clinton’s lifelong scheme to be America’s first female president could be derailed by this power couple’s wanton venality? I’ve watched closely through the years the Clintons’ uncanny agility at hurdling real scandals and coming out almost unscathed. Yes, Bill Clinton was impeached, but what a dud that turned out to be, with Clinton rising to the figure of beloved statesman among Democrats and his accusers being painted as petty partisans. THERE HAS been no justice, and they have made off like bandits ever since. One might argue that it’s unfair to impute Bill Clinton’s misdeeds to his wife, but it’s not a matter of imputation. Hillary Clinton has been integrally in-

volved every step of the way — from joint alibis for the Clintons through the enabler to enforcer to joint participant. years have puffed the Clintons up with a Don’t ever forget her complicity, such as sense of invincibility. The couple have to her leading role in destroying the train of believe there is nothing they could do that women who dared to blow the whistle on would bring them down. When I first heard about the foundahim. From the beginning, these two have tion’s influence peddling, I had little stepped all over people (Travelgate) and doubt there was truth to it, but I had no mutually abused .and destroyed Bill’s expectation that anything would come of harassment victims. But do you remem- it. In a sense, the Clintons have benefited the plethora of charges ber the grating mantra of the Clinton- f r o m leveled against them guarding media? over the years. After “These are private a while, these allegamatters that have tions — no matter nothing to do with how credible — behis public life. (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate come just noise and Private conduct is irrelevant to one’s fitness for public of- are easily characterized as another chapter in a decades-long partisan witch hunt. fice.” Well, these disgraceful hacks don’t IT’S AWFULLY convenient for the have that excuse in their arsenal of dodges this time. There is no way even a journal- Clintons and their liberal hatchet men to ism school valedictorian could credibly paint every scandal as a politically moargue that the Clinton Foundation graft tivated slander, but when the media and didn’t directly involve the public interest. the Democratic Party themselves always The media and Democratic Party’s refuse to put truth above their own ideo-

David

Limbaugh

Where there’s smoke there’s fire

he prize quote of this incendiary political year may go to Hillary Clinton. In response to Donald Trump’s charge that the Clintons set up a pay-for-play arrangement that granted big contributors access to Clinton while she was secretary of state, Hillary Clinton said, “My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces. I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans safe and protect our interests abroad.” She added, “I know there’s a lot of smoke, and there’s no fire.”

CAN THERE be smoke without fire? I asked an expert. My son, Jay Thomas, has spent most of his professional life as a firefighter. He tells me: “Very simply put, where there is smoke there is, or was, fire. Smoke is a byproduct of combustion. There are three stages of fire: Smoldering, incipient and free burning. Each one (emits) smoke.” For more, I turn to the website Programmerinterview.com: “The phrase ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire’ means that if something looks wrong then it probably is wrong — just like if you see smoke there probably is a fire somewhere. ... When the signs of trouble are there, then that means that trouble is probably there as well.” Clear enough? The Clintons have been lighting and trying to put out “fires” started by the combustible material of their shifting ethics and morals at least since Bill was governor of Arkansas. Earliest

memory recalls Hillary making a killing in the cattle futures market. A 1994 report by Charles R. Babcock, staff writer for the Washington Post, reveals a type of smoke screen surrounding her dubious practice: “Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to order 10 cattle futures contracts, normally a $12,000 investment, in her first commodity trade in 1978, although she had only $1,000 in her account at the time, according to trade records the White House released yesterday.

Cal

“THE COMPUTERIZED records of her trades, which the White House obtained from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, show for the first time how she was able to turn her initial investment into $6,300 overnight. In about 10 months of trading, she made nearly $100,000, relying heavily on advice from her friend James B. Blair, an experienced futures trader. “The new records also raise the possibility that some of her profits — as much as $40,000 — came from larger trades ordered by someone else and then shifted to her account, Leo Melamed, a former chairman of the Merc who reviewed the records for the White House, said in an interview. He said the discrepancies in Clinton’s records also could have been caused by human error.”

Ah, yes, human error, but not on her part, of course. There are always “discrepancies,” or mistakes made by others, or vast right-wing conspiracies. The Clintons’ motives are pure and those of us who doubt them are the ones who are wrong. It always seems the Clintons manage to escape accountability for anything that would lead to the arrest, indictment, conviction and jailing of just about anyone else. The Associated Press, hardly a rightwing entity, first reported the story about Hillary Clinton’s foreign visitors to the State Department, who “happened” to have given large amounts of cash to the Clinton Foundation. The wire service received a partial schedule and has requested the rest of her calendar by Oct. 15. The State Department has said it won’t provide the calendar until after the election, possibly by Dec. 30. How convenient for her. It’s been seven months since a federal judge ordered monthly releases of her daily schedule. Hillary Clinton’s ethical challenges might stand out more were it not for Donald Trump’s own record when it comes to telling the truth. IN THE END, will it matter? If we care too little about ethics and morals in our leaders, it shows we do not hold these virtues in high regard. That says at least as much about us, as it does about them. And that’s not blowing smoke. August 30, 2016

logical and political interests, it’s inevitable that only Republicans would bring these charges. But the Clinton Foundation scandal seems to be different. It is objectively true that the Clintons have become megamillionaires since the close of Bill’s second term — and they’ve done it through exorbitant speaking fees, which, absent other consideration, couldn’t possibly benefit the payers commensurate to their payments, and bizarre contributions to their foundation by foreign interests that had unusual access to Hillary’s State Department. Bill Clinton flippantly dismissed the suggestion of any quid pro quo, saying there is no evidence that any of the donors received anything for their donations. When asked whether there is at least an appearance of impropriety, he said, “I’m not responsible for anybody else’s perception.” It couldn’t be more fitting that he was the first postmodern president. He lent Oval Office credence to the demonic lie that words have no meaning apart from what people choose individually to assign to them. He’s unctuously transitioned from “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” to “I can’t be held accountable for your accurate perception that my wife and I are wholly corrupt and have not only used our public positions to financially profit but also compromised and damaged the nation’s interests in the process.” Just think about the charge that Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain secured a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that led to her approval of certain extremely controversial arms sales to Bahrain after his kingdom donated up to $150,000 directly to the Clinton Foundation and some $32 million to the Clinton Global Initiative. This alone would be enough to bring down a deified Roman emperor. The Associated Press reported that more than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state donated to the Clinton Foundation either individually or through related entities. Clinton apologists are already trying to tell us there’s nothing to see here, but sentient human beings know better. No president in modern history, including Richard Nixon, has been the scandal virtuoso that both of the Clintons are in their own right. The jig just may be up. WIKILEAKS EDITOR Julian Assange promises more email dumps that will bring Hillary Clinton down. Wouldn’t it be the profoundest poetic justice if the Clintons were done in by the very emails Hillary thought she had deep-sixed months ago? August 26, 2016

Conservative Chronicle

HILLARY CLINTON: August 31, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s illicit plan: Pay to play

partment ethics officers, would have the final say. Amazing. The agreement protected the foundation from government oversight, but it didn’t protect the nation. Then Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., persistently questioned Clinton, warning that her foundation would be “a temptation for any foreign entity or government that believes it could curry favor through a donation.” Even foreign companies and individuals pose a risk, he explained, urging that OF COURSE, appearances alone the agreement be tightened. Clinton refused, saying, “The agreedon’t prove anything. The proof of as written already goes far her illicit intent is what she told the ment what any spouse of Senate Committee on Foreign Rela- beyond a cabinet official tions during her has ever done.” Jan. 2009 confirOf course it did. mation hearing. No other cabinet She rejected any nominee in Amerattempts by the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate ican history was senators to prevent her from turning the State De- the wife of a former president — or partment into a cash machine for the had a high-profile, big family foundation looking for funds. foundation. nless you’re a high-ranking government official, it’s hard to get a meeting with any secretary of state. But during Hillary Clinton’s tenure, there was another way: Pay up. A staggering 85 of the 154 private-sector people who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton donated money to the Clinton Foundation. That looks highly improper, as if she used her position to raise money for her family foundation.

Betsy

McCaughey

cited a foundation donor who appeared to have connections to Iranian terrorism. Clinton dodged the question. “Well, again, this is an agreement that been worked out between all of the parties,” she blathered, noting that the concerns “were thoroughly discussed.” But they were not remedied. Clinton gave the senators the runaround in 2009 because she knew what she intended to do as secretary of state: Sell her influence to raise money for the Clinton Foundation. Sadly, all but one senator on the committee fawned

The senators suggested that money pouring into the foundation while Clinton was secretary of state would give the appearance that U.S. policy is up for sale. Too bad, she shrugged. She said that she had worked out an agreement with president-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, and she refused to change it. The agreement imposed little restrictions on who could give — including foreign governments — or how much. In response to every request from senators to limit fundraising or disclose the size and timing of gifts to the foundation, she said no. She stonewalled them. Clinton said that if the State Department or the White House ever had concerns about a proposed gift, the foundation would listen. But under the agreement, the Clinton Foundation, not the White House or the State De-

Lugar then asked if the agreement could be amended to disclose the timing of gifts, the amounts, and future pledges, not just donors’ names. Clinton used her stock answer, saying, “The agreement already goes far beyond what any spouse of a Cabinet official has ever done.” She disclosed that if any concerns were raised by the Obama White House or the State Department about foundation fundraising, the foundation would be the arbiter of what’s “appropriate,” not the U.S. government. Amazing. Her jaw-dropping reassurance was, “In many, if not most cases, it is likely that the foundation or President (Bill) Clinton will not pursue an opportunity that presents a conflict.” Translation: It will depend on the amount of money being dangled in front of the ex-president. Then Senator David Vitter, R.-La.,

over Clinton, despite her lack of cooperation, and voted to confirm her. Only Sen. Vitter stuck to his principles. RECENTLY RELEASED emails between foundation staff and Clinton’s State Department aides confirm that Vitter was right. People who couldn’t get a meeting with the secretary through official channels managed to get one with foundation help once they were donors. Pay to play.

September 7, 2016 DEAR MARK: August 26, 2016

Racist accusations and the corrupt Clinton Foundation Dear Mark: I’m confused. I keep hearing that Donald Trump is a racist but I can’t recall a single instance of racism being reported. Trump did talk about Mexico sending its worst people but Mexico isn’t a race, is it? He spoke of a temporary ban on Muslim immigration but “Muslim” isn’t a race either. Where is this racism we constantly here him accused of? Or have words come to mean whatever his critics decide they mean? — Don’t See It in Pittsburgh Dear Pittsburgh: The fact that you emailed me tells me you are highly intelligent and I get the sense that your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek. As you know, Democrats don’t need actual proof to make false accusations against opposing candidates and Trump is no exception. The Democrats along with their lap dogs in the mainstream media always attack Republicans and conservatives as being racist. If Jesus Christ himself decided to run for the lower office of president the media would hammer him for his lack of diversity when choosing his 12 apostles. For years Donald Trump through all his bluster and braggadocio has always been popular with politicians, Hollywood and the media. Never was he accused of being racist until he decided to run against Democrats. Then again, Democrats have never let the truth stand in the way of their narrative in order to reach their political ends. Nothing illustrates that better than the most recent Hillary campaign ad that attempts to link Trump with the KKK. In the ad, Klansmen talk about why they

support Trump as if Trump can control who will vote for him. Maybe a GOP PAC should create an ad showing the Black Lives Matter punks who burn down neighborhoods “articulating” their support for Mrs. Bill Clinton. The Hillary KKK ad is no surprise other than she premiered it this early in the campaign. Usually an ad of this vacuous nature is saved for the end of October so that an opponent can’t respond. That tells me Team Hillary is in panic mode and doing anything it can to change the subject from Crooked Hillary’s fifteen thousand newly released emails, the Clinton Foundation revelations and Huma Abedin’s Muslim journal years.

Mark

What I find amusing is that liberals are not used to a GOP candidate countering with such a powerful straight right to the kisser. Trump called Hillary a bigot for her support of Democrat policies that have decimated the African-American community and the Democrats with their noses bloodied really don’t have an answer other than to play the race card. As for the meaning of words, Democrats often alter the vernacular just to keep political opponents on the defensive and to intentionally label someone as racist. Just look at the evolution of these terms. Negroes to colored people to Afro-Americans to Blacks to AfricanAmericans to people of color. Or Illegal aliens to illegal immigrants to undocu-

mented workers. If one innocently uses the wrong term that person will pay dearly unless you’re a Democrat.

DEAR MARK: The Clinton Foundation is coming under fire after newly released emails revealed a connection between the foundation and the State Department. In response, defenders are pointing out all of the good that the Clinton Foundation is doing around the world. Is their merit to their defense? — Okie Not From Muskogee Dear Okie: Taking into account the potential corruption charges, it’s not much of a defense considering how many donors received expedited access to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After all, Mussolini kept the trains on time and the mafia helped many in Little Italy. No, that wasn’t a Freudian slip; I believe people made substantial donations to the Clinton Foundation to grease the right palms for political favors. I also believe the Clintons used Hillary’s cabinet position to facilitate more donations keeping the Clinton corruption beast fed. The lynch pin to this story is Hillary and Bill’s private email server that contains a lot more emails about the cozy relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department than it does about Hillary’s yoga classes. The Clinton Foundation has helped a lot of people around the world but sadly the altruism is simply a means to an end for the Clinton’s personal economic prosperity. E-mail your questions to marklevy92@ aol.com. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkPLevy

CONTACT INFORMATION Individual Contact Information Greenberg - pgreenberg@arkansasonline.com Krauthammer - letters@charleskrauthammer.com Levy - marklevy92@aol.com Lowry - comments.lowry@nationalreview.com Malkin - malkinblog@gmail.com Massie - mychalmassie@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, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, Larry Elder, Leslie Elman, Erick Erickson, Joseph Farah, David Harsanyi, Laura Hollis, Terry Jeffrey, Larry Kudlow, David Limbaugh, Dick Morris, William Murchison, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, Thomas Sowell, Matt Towery Contact - info@creators.com Contact through Universal Press Ann Coulter or Donald Lambro Contact by mail : c/o Universal Press Syndicate 1130 Walnut Street Kansas City, MO 64106 Answers from page 14

TRIVIA ANSWERS T rivia B I T S

ANSWERS 1) Genesis 4:2 says that “Abel was a keeper of sheep.” 2) Ian Fleming, who created James Bond, also wrote “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” 3) The prime meridian — 0 degrees longitude — runs through Greenwich, England. 4) Good Times, starring Esther Rolle and Jimmie J.J. Walker, was a spin-off of Maude. 5) The nene is the official state bird of Hawaii. 6) Amber is fossilized tree resin.

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Conservative Chronicle

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: August 28, 2016

Don’t kill the death penalty in California

California Gov. Jerry Brown had pponents of California’s death penalty have been pledged to implement the death penalty, highly successful at thwart- even though he personally opposes it, ing executions since the state resumed yet his corrections department was hapexecutions in 1992 after a 20-year hia- py to sit back and let the law not work tus. Their latest ploy is Proposition 62, for years. In exasperation, the toughCriminal Justice which would repeal the death penalty on-crime Foundation filed a and resentence death row inmates to life Legal lawsuit on behalf without parole. of the families of Measure sponmurder victims of sors argue that two death row incapital punishmates to prod the ment presents the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate state into develrisk of executing an innocent person, but also state that oping a drug protocol that should pass California’s death penalty is “simply muster with the U.S. Supreme Court. California Attorney General Kamala unworkable.” Harris, who also said she would uphold THAT’S A cheeky stand, coming California’s law despite her personal from the corner that has been throw- objections, tried to block the suit on the ing monkey wrenches into the criminal dubious grounds that the victims’ famijustice system to subvert death penalty lies “lack standing.” She failed. The law. Over the years, appellate attorneys families won. Sacramento finally dehave introduced endless time-sucking, vised a one-drug protocol, which should frivolous appeals that have jammed the go into effect after a vetting period excourts, largely on technical grounds that pected to end soon. So now, just as the obstructionists are have nothing to do with guilt or innocence, e.g., the trial lawyer wasn’t top- about to run out of string, they have put drawer; the defendant’s parents were a measure on the November ballot to abusive; lethal injection may not be end California’s death penalty. Anti-death penalty activist Matt painless. In 2006, lawyers argued that convict- Cherry of Death Penalty Focus told the ed torturer-murderer Michael Morales San Francisco Chronicle editorial board might feel pain in his last moments be- that capital punishment “has failed in cause of the state’s three-drug lethal in- California.” Since 1992, he added, “just jection protocol. A federal judge grant- 13 people have been executed,” which ed their appeal and effectively froze he noted constitutes about one percent the capital punishment pipeline for a of the 930 individuals sentenced to death since 1978. It’s like an extorting decade.

Debra J.

Saunders

mobster telling an honest businessman that it no longer pays to work hard and follow the rules: “You might as well just toss me the keys to the shop and save yourself some heartache.” IN THEIR ballot argument, Prop 62 supporters warn that when executions resume, California risks executing an innocent person — someone like Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in 1989 before an “independent investigation later proved his innocence.” Problem: Texas executed DeLuna. Prop 62’s backers can’t name an exonerated individual from California’s post-1978 death row because there aren’t any.

In 2012, I asked Gov. Brown whether he had considered appointing a panel to recommend death row inmates deserving of a commutation. Brown personally remains a death penalty opponent, so his answer is instructive: “As attorney general, I think the representation was good. I think people have gotten exquisite due process in the state of California. It goes on for 20 or 25 years, and to think that they’ve missed anything like they have in some other states, I have not seen any evidence of it. None. I know people say, ‘Oh, there have been all these innocent people.’ Well, I have not seen one name on death row that’s been told to me.” At a different editorial board meeting, former San Quentin State Prison Warden Jeanne Woodford, Ana Zamora of the ACLU and Berkeley law professor Elisabeth Semel vigorously defended all of the high jinks played by anti-death penalty lawyers. They oppose both the death penalty and Prop 66, which is supposed to streamline executions. Why does it take a year to process an appeal based on a convicted killer’s childhood? Why doesn’t the Habeas Corpus Resource Center focus on worthy appeals and stop jamming up the courts with frivolous paper — and then complain about court backlogs? Why have opponents gone after the state for getting lethal injection drugs from compounding pharmacies or other states, after opponents made it impossible to secure drugs from once-legal sources? The answer to everything: Defense attorneys have to do it because “it’s the law.” Well, so is the death penalty. IF CALIFORNIA voters should decide to repeal capital punishment, do not believe for one minute they won’t use every dirty trick to undermine life without parole. And they’ll tell you they have to because “it’s the law.”

September 7, 2016 FEMALE VOTE: August 26, 2016

‘Petticoat politics’ is still a dangerous game

exual politics is always a slippery game. Democrats are salivating at the possibility of winning a Hillary Clinton White House. They’re enamored of the wide female gender gap in her favor. (Nobody says very much about the male gender gap running the other way.) But sexual politics has frequently been difficult to gauge. It’s quicksilver coursing through improbable cultural moments, exploited from various vantage points, and it slides enigmatically across the landscape of politics. Sometimes sexism is in the blinded eye of the beholder. WE’VE COME a long way since women first employed their sexuality to determine who occupies the White House. It was “petticoat politics,” as

women’s participation in campaigns was described during the 1840 presidential campaign. Whigs nominated William Henry Harrison, a hero of a battle with the Shawnee Indians on the Tippecanoe River in Indiana, who was famously described along with his running mate John Tyler as “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” It was the first time women were actively drawn into a presidential campaign, and they rallied for Harrison against Martin Van Buren, the incumbent. Harrison was 67 years old. He would be the last president born a British subject and the first president to die in office. (He was younger than Clinton and Donald Trump are now.) He was no longer a dashing officer in gaudy uniform, derided as “granny Harrison.” Women were encouraged to rally to a man few

had seen and to spread feminine idealism through nostalgia. What Harrison really needed was a woman to tell him, “button up your overcoat,” because he rode his white horse down Pennsylvania Avenue to his inauguration in a driving rain on a raw March day. Several days after he spoke for almost two hours, bareheaded and without a coat, he caught a cold, which became pneumonia. Three weeks later he died. WOMEN COULDN’T vote, but they influenced the vote. In his book, The Carnival Campaign, Ronald Shafer tells how the campaign of 1840 was “the mother of modern presidential contests.” For the first time women went on the hustings, reflecting mixed messages of female power that have come down to us today, for better and for worse.

PROGRESSIVES: August 24, 2016

Leo DiCaprio’s dirty dollars

ctor-playboy Leonardo DiCaprio walked away from a fender bender in the Hamptons this weekend without a scratch. But the outspoken liberal should not escape unscathed from his train wreck of high-dollar financial dealings with donors and businessmen in one of world’s most rotten regimes. FORGET ABOUT the saving the environment, son. Clean up your entourage. Tinseltown’s self-proclaimed “King of the World” is entangled with accused kleptocrats in Malaysia. The activist celebrity ostentatiously condemned the “politics of greed” at the Oscars in February. Yet, he’s been partying it up with some of Kuala Lumpur’s most corruption-stained elites. Recent investigations by the Hollywood Reporter tied donations received by DiCaprio’s charitable foundation to a shady Malaysian government “sovereign wealth fund” known as 1MDB. Instead of being spent on economic development as intended, an estimated $3 billion from the public investment fund allegedly disappeared into offshore companies, shell accounts and the pockets of the prime minister’s cronies. The money-laundering scheme that spans three continents is the subject of a sprawling Justice Department probe and asset recovery case. DiCaprio is not accused of any wrongdoing, but two key players named by DOJ are more than just passing acquaintances of his. They are Riza Aziz, the stepson of scandal center Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, and Malaysian billionaire businessman Jho Low,

who financed Aziz’s film company, Red Granite, which underwrote DiCaprio’s 2013 flick, The Wolf of Wall Street, with $100 million. Low — a frequent party pal of DiCaprio’s, with the around-the-world carbon footprint to match — allegedly used purloined funds to pay for lavish art (including a pricy Roy Lichtenstein sculpture donated for a DiCaprio charity auction); real estate (including a film production office housed in DiCaprio’s Sunset Boulevard complex); and a week-long, 11-million-dollar Las Vegas gambling jaunt with DiCaprio (who had publicly thanked Aziz and Low for their role as movie production “collaborators”).

Michelle

Malkin

THIS IS NOT the first time DiCaprio has been enmeshed in funding funny business. In exchange for his equity investment and political advocacy of electric carmaker Fisker Automotive (an infamous beneficiary of President Obama’s crony green energy slush fund loan guarantee program), the company agreed to support his charitable foundation and join him in a “mutual promotional arrangement via his organization dedicated to global sustainability.” Unfortunately for taxpayers who were forced to subsidize unsustainable Fisker to the tune of $529 million in green stimulus bucks, the company’s product was a bust. While DiCaprio proudly touted his ownership of the first Fisker product to roll off the produc-

tion lines, the $100,000 luxury hybrid Karma, the government-backed vehicle became an embarrassing symbol of federal eco-scams. For every car sold, Fisker squandered $660,000 in tax dollars and private investment. It outsourced manufacturing to Finland, laid off its American workforce, and went bankrupt in 2013. (So did its battery maker and fellow green crony loan recipient, A123.) A Chinese industrial giant bought out both companies and has now rolled out a new version this summer claiming that its solar roof will “create enough energy to power the car.” If horse manure were sunshine, maybe. Remember this rip-off rendezvous the next time DiCaprio’s lecturing you about your insufficient attention to the well-being of underprivileged or indigenous peoples. What’s next? Champion of the downtrodden DiCaprio raised eyebrows this week when he bowed out of hosting a tony campaign fundraiser for his gal Hillary Clinton amid concerns that her own pay-for-play foundation troubles might invite more scrutiny of his. Pop star Justin Timberlake stepped in at DiCaprio’s request and raked in $3 million for the Democratic presidential candidate. I can’t stop the feeling that if Hollywood gets its way in November, Madam Moneybags will soon be dispensing more government-funded quid pro quo favors disguised as DiCaprio-esque dogoodism to show her appreciation. DIRTY BIRDS of a feather flock together.

A female Whig speaker told the ladies: “When the sound of war whoops on our prairies was the infant’s lullaby, our mothers reposed in security, for Harrison was their protector ... We would indeed be traitors to our sex if our bosoms did not thrill to his name.” More prim than their female forebears in the Aristophanes play, Lysistrata, who deprived their men of sexual favors until they ended the Peloponnesian War, Whig women teased their suitors that they wouldn’t marry a man who voted for Van Buren. Such men were “dumb and unpatriotic.” One woman threatened to call off her wedding if her betrothed voted for Van Buren. Another took the challenge to her front lawn, where her husband was hooting at a parade of Harrison supporters. She gently put her hand over his mouth and waved a Harrison banner. The Harrison crowd roared approval. Even then, it was the economy, Stupid. A Whig woman in Massachusetts confronted her husband, a Van Buren man, and asked demurely, with sweet innocence, how could he vote for Van Buren when under his Democratic administration his wages were cut and they couldn’t pay their bills. It was his turn to demur. “Women for Harrison” gave voice to serious subjects invading male clubs, and Van Buren men accused them of “unsexing” themselves. They rode against the enemy in decorative bonnets and sashes with campaign slogans and waved from canoes on the shoulders of men in torchlight parades. Men spilling from taverns pelted them with eggs. Such tales reminded me of the contemporary couples, mentioned in a story in the Washington Post, who are riding marital turbulence of differing enthusiasms for Clinton and Trump. One such woman told her husband, “I will divorce you and move to Canada” — only half-joking, surely — if he votes for the Donald. Trump brought in pollster Kellyanne Conway to manage his campaign and shore up support from women. She thinks he can demonstrate how his policies will be good for women if he cuts out the crude insults. She says suburban caregivers, waitress mothers, religious women and seniors all have good reasons to listen up. BUT IF women are to get his message, Conway may have to act like that Harrison supporter who covered her husband’s mouth to keep Trump from sounding off. That’s not easy to do, and modern turf is slippery, too. We welcome our new columnist Suzanne Fields who is currently working on a book that will revisit John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Conservative Chronicle

THE CLINTONS: August 31, 2016

The unfolding Clinton Foundation fiasco

he Clinton Foundation has foundation on President Jimmy Carter, become a serious problem for but that “he’s Jimmy Carter with a betthe Hillary Clinton campaign. ter touch.” Chris Matthews replied: Everyone knows the Clintons made a “And much bigger in terms of the mockery of the promises they made to amplification of what he’s been able Team Obama. Even the left-wing site to do. The Clinton Global Initiative is PolitiFact says that it’s “Mostly False” huge. And by the way it’s done a lot to build his role in history... that they obeyed the rules. beyond anything Like her hushe was able to do band, Bill Clinas president.” ton, who infaOn Aug. 23, the mously claimed, Associated Press “I did not have (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate underlined the sexual relations degree to which with that woman,” Monica Lewinsky, Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton’s promises were vagoing around claiming, “My work as porized. More than half the people secretary of state was not influenced outside the government (at least 85 of 154 people) who met or had phone by outside sources.” conversations scheduled with Clinton ON JAN. 5, 2009, Clinton sent a during the first half of her “public serletter to State Department Designated vice” at the State Department donated Agency Ethics Official James Thessin promising, “I will not participate PERSONALS: August 25, 2016 personally and substantially in any particular matter that has a direct and predictable effect on my financial interests or those of any person whose interests are imputed to me,” including ave you noticed? There’s a her husband. classic American short story Who didn’t anticipate that this every day in the paper. It can would end up in an ethical mess? What genius hasn’t observed over the be found in the small type of the claslast 25 years how the Clintons break sified ads under the Personals, and its their promises? Some people saw this author could be a combination of Miss as a potential scandal, but they didn’t Lonelyhearts, Flannery O’Connor and stand a chance with the Clinton-loving one of today’s evangelists seeking to spread the Word. Why? For love or press. In Oct. 2007, liberal pundit Mat- money or maybe a mix of both. The classifieds’ opinion section ofthew Yglesias asked in the Los Angeles Times, “Who’s giving money to fers a diligent reader an abundance of Bill Clinton?” He complained that the the pious and profane, charity and its Clintons should release a list of their hard-hearted opposite, patriotic appeals foundation donors before Hillary Clin- or just politics as usual. There are peoton could become president in 2009, ple in search of lost memories or a lost saying: “Disclosing who’s contribut- love. They may be looking for criminal ing to Bill Clinton’s foundation after evidence or just a good used car. There his wife wins the election would be are poorly disguised ads on behalf of about four years too late. The voters lawyers searching for clients, and some ought to have this information before not disguised at all but upfront about the election, when it could still make it. It’s all served up with side dishes ranging from public service announcea difference.” Surprise, surprise: Clinton didn’t ments to whodunits. Some will inspire win, and the Clintons didn’t release a your pity, others your skepticism. You donor list until Dec. 2008, when she name it. was asked to become secretary of HERE’S A sampling to whet your state. The blather on the TV networks was all about how President Obama’s curiosity: ABSOLUTELY NO inmates. SBF cabinet was a team of geniuses. “We have not seen this kind of combination ISO gentleman. Hot chocolate ... BEWARE OF Beebe’s shyster of star power, brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet in handyman married couple. Just to let you know where you are, our lifetimes,” gushed George Stephanamely in the heart of the Bible Belt, nopoulos on ABC. The fix was in. there’s also a full quota of biblical quoAS CLINTON’S four years wound tations. (SHE WAS arrayed n purple & down, the pundits celebrated the won- scarlet color and decked with gold & derful work of the Clinton Foundation. precious stones. Rev 17:4.) ALAN, TELL Tiff just because On The Chris Matthews Show on July 16, 2012, journalist Howard Fineman I don’t carry much cash on me that said that Bill Clinton had modeled his doesn’t mean I ain’t got it.

Brent

Bozell

to the family foundation. At least 40 donated more than $100,000, and 20 contributed more than $1 million. The AP based these investigations off half of Clinton’s office calendars from her State Department tenure, which it only received after filing a Freedom of Information Act request to acquire them. The other half of the calendars won’t be released until after the election.

ONCE AGAIN, the Clintons are making promises to downsize their involvement with the foundation if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency. At this point, that sounds as believable as former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s promise to stop texting. But the Clintonenabling reflex in the media is dangerously strong, and the Clintons are threatening to take advantage of it for the rest of this campaign.

Short stories from everyday life

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ALFA ROMEO 1983 Spyder, 148 K miles. One Owner. $5,000 ... FREE DIVORCE help and divorce recovery. Call ... PERSONAL INJURY, 25 years ... Attorney at Law ... It all makes for eye-opening, heartrending reading. There’s food here for trust or doubt, belief or lack thereof. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry or maybe you’ll just give up and go on to the sports section or, in desperation, even the editorial page. Where there’s life, there’s always hope something better will turn up. To quote Nathanael West, the cynical originator of Miss Lonelyhearts himself: “Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears. When they finish, they feel better. But to those without hope, whose anguish is basic and permanent, no good comes from crying. Nothing changes for them. They usually know this, but still can’t help crying.” ALL THE hopeless out there can still change the subject even if they feel they can’t change themselves. And what easier way to take their minds off their own troubles than to read about other folks’ joys and sorrows, hopes and despairs? It certainly beats television, the movies or any other diversions. For the Personals are indeed deeply personal. And they change every day. So hurry, hurry, hurry. Immediate seating and no waiting. The price of admission is minimal, the pain fleeting and the satisfaction guaranteed. Why worry when the Personals are so handy? Every day.

September 7, 2016 BLACKS: August 22, 2016

Unpopular truths that blacks won’t like

or present. Whites were not singularly responsible for the slave trade; Muslims played the greater role and continue to at this very time in history. Slavery was immoral but it wasn’t illegal and America had the good sense and decency to abolish it. Jim Crow was a white Democrat construct of rabid segregation but that hasn’t stopped blacks from supporting Democrats en masse for the over 50 years, but again, I digress. Another unpopular truth is that most blacks are more interested in being crayon colors than they are in modernity. They complain and blame whites when THEY EXPRESSED their outrage the ramifications of their bad behavior by burning down their own neighbor- and irresponsible decisions result in crihood and then calling for the burning sis. The media and fallacious studies redown of what they viewed as white fuse to acknowledge the truth of what I stated. They’d rather neighborhoods. Thankfully for the po- have just make excuses for said lice officer (who commonality and anis black), police ti-societal behavior. body-cams reIt is time to stop corded the scene making excuses as it unfolded. (c) 2016, Mychal Massie and it is time to (I’m sure Obama stop allowing is hating police body-cams right about now, but I di- blacks to define propriety. And it is long past time to stop blaming whites for gress.) Blacks would be going along their some mythical privilege that they alone merry jaundiced way if Smith had been enjoy. White people owe blacks nothing. Many blacks go through life with a successful in killing the police officer and avoided being shot. There would chip on their shoulder ready to blame be no national black outrage and there any slight real or perceived as represenwould be no smoldering ashes caused by tative of racism. They go through life believing the white man is holding them rioters. The unpopular truth is that most back and white police are out to gun blacks are not interested in achieve- them down. Which brings me to another unpopument as such nor moral propriety. Most are motivated to make white people pay lar truth. Not all blacks subscribe to bad for some perceived injustice, past and/ behavior but barely enough blacks to be ome years ago I wrote: “There is an Erebusic modality among blacks that is based on a rejection of the truth confronting them. Said being: They are their own worst enemy and they refuse to grasp that factuality.” (See: The Sad Truth Many Blacks Reject; 8/29/2014) This truth was on full display by blacks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after a lifelong gangbanger thug, with a police record that rivaled any of the most notorious gangsters, was shot and killed by police after he pulled a fully loaded stolen gun on them.

Mychal

Massie

community routinely enjoys a compartmentalized lifestyle of stigma-free living. Or in other words ... blacks will never pass judgment on other blacks ... no matter what they happen to do ... because the end result usually reveals that the enemy of my enemy is in fact, (by default,) my friend. And just who is that ‘enemy’ anyway? “Hatred for whites runs deep in the black community. And I do fear that it’s a cancer that’s already effectively been proven to be malignant to the patient that black America has unfortunately become. As a white man ... I know for a fact that I’m hated by militant, racist blacks from the domestic terror organization known as the ‘Black Lives MatA VERY BRAVE white psychologist ter’ movement. But ... am I also paswas once quoted as saying... “The black sively hated by my respectable black neighbor who seemingly harbors no outward ill-will directed toward me at all?” Another unpopular truth is that blacks must decide if they want to be crayons, i.e., a color, or Americans. They must overcome the mentality of self-segregation. If there were two mosquito catchers and both were black they would form the national association of black mosquito catchers. That’s not modernity, it is the practice of selflimitation vis-a`-vis self-segregation. Some children are afraid there’s a bogeyman under their bed, but they grow up and realize there’s no such thing as bogeymen. It is time for blacks to grow up, and stop using ignorance, bad behavior and anecdotal incidents as evidence of the lie of whites out to get them.

measured publicly admonish the boorish behavior of the black masses. A subscriber to my VideoRant YouTube Channel recently wrote: But almost all blacks are guilty of remaining silent in the face of such shameless national black dysfunction and violent, racist militancy. Even the black people that I know seem to have the peculiar attitude of ‘total judgment reservation’ in the face of violent black militancy ... as they seem to default to a completely passive, non-judgmental point of view when they witness so much black social dysfunction right before their very own eyes. The silence within the black community is literally deafening.

IT’S NOT popular to say, but it will not be until blacks get over being colors and view themselves as Americans, not hyphenations that they will step into modernity. I believe it is going to be a difficult struggle to convince them of same but I unequivocally believe it can be done.

Conservative Chronicle

ACADEMIA: August 25, 2016

Abolishing ‘man’ at Princeton University “He created them male and female ancient Israelites? OK, that’s easy. It and blessed them. And he named them can be called bread. Will they no lon“Mankind” when they were created. ger serve a Manwich in the Princeton cafeteria? (Genesis 5:2 NIV) There is something deeper occurPoor God. He, or maybe I should say, “It,” was so behind the times. If ring in culture than any university seeking to wipe out the deity had only gone to Princeton guidelines sense and a notion University and had its consciousness common of who we are. Acraised ... ademic liberalism, Princeton, that once thought to be once great school instructive, even whose purpose (c) 2016, Tribune Media Services ennobling, is now at its founding in part of a larger 1746 was to train ministers and whose motto remains effort to not only destroy America’s Dei Sub Numine Viget (Under God’s foundations, but dilute and diminish Power She Flourishes), has, like other God’s greatest creation. It is an unreschools of “higher” learning, jumped lenting attack on humanness (another into the deep end of the pool of politi- word with man in it that Princeton will likely frown upon). cal correctness.

Cal

Thomas

JUST IN time for the fall semester, Princeton has issued “Guidelines for Using Gender Inclusive Language.” The guidelines, approved by the university’s Office of Human Resources and Office of Communications and endorsed by the Orwellian-like Institutional Equity Planning Group as a preferred University practice, show you where this is headed. “Gender-inclusive language is writing and speaking about people in a manner that does not use gender-based words,” says the guidelines. “Gender binary is the traditional view on human gender, which does not take into consideration individuals who identify as otherwise, including and not limited to transgender, genderqueer, gender nonconforming, and/or intersex.” Gone are references to men and women, male and female. It’s what’s in your head, not your genitalia, that defines you and me. Though Princeton insists this is not policy, merely guidelines, and no words are banned, it encourages the use of a vocabulary that is more gender neutral. So, instead of man and wife use spouses or partners. Instead of man made, use artificial, handmade, manufactured, synthetic. Gone is the verb to man, as in to work something, instead use to operate or to staff. Throw out workmanlike and replace it with skillful. No more actresses, only actors. Coed? Out. Replaced by student. Forefathers? Gone. Ancestors is the preferred word. Forget freshman. It’s now first-year student or frosh. If students play Scrabble on campus, this could be a problem. A search of WordFind.com turns up scores of words with man in them. They include manifest. How will history students be able to study Manifest Destiny, a philosophy central to the creation and sustaining of America? What about the manna from Heaven eaten by the

JOHN WITHERSPOON, a founding father of the United States and president of the College of New Jersey, which would later become Princeton University, was a Scottish-born American Presbyterian minister, the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence. His required course called “Moral Philosophy” was considered essential, not only for ministers, but also lawyers and people holding positions in government.

Witherspoon would be shocked to read that moral philosophy has been replaced by gender neutrality. As a Christian, he would be astounded at how the nation has moved from the notion that we are created by God — who presumably may no longer be referred to as “He” at Princeton and from Whom our

rights come — and replaced by a secular progressive worldview. C.S. LEWIS put it this way in a classic quote that became the title of his book: “Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.”

ANTHONY WEINER: August 30, 2016

There is no arc, and there is no hero

ome people do not learn from their mistakes. Anthony Weiner is one. The husband of Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin resigned from Congress in 2011 when he was caught sending shots of his tumescent privates to a number of women not his wife. His first instinct was to lie about the messages and claim someone had hacked his Twitter account. Over the three weeks between the story’s breaking and the seven-term Democrat’s resignation from his House seat, Weiner tried but failed to make light of his colossally bad judgment. Yet his pronouncements only made him look worse, as when, for example, Weiner said of his female correspondents, “To the best of my knowledge, they were all adults.”

OBSERVERS FIGURED that Weiner must have cleaned up his act when he ran for mayor of New York in 2013 — because, well, surely he would not risk putting his wife and young son through a second-time-around sexting scandal. Also, surely Abedin would not participate in the campaign unless she were convinced Weiner would not selfdestruct. Weiner noodled to the press

about “the arc of the hero” as he prepared for his big comeback. Then reality struck — illustrated with pixelated Weiner parts. Weiner continued to sext under the alias Carlos Danger while running for mayor. When the tabloids got the story, Abedin stood by her husband’s side and told the press she loved and forgave her husband. Months later, Weiner received less than five percent of the primary vote.

Debra J.

NOW THERE’S no need to wonder what, if anything, Weiner could do to prompt his wife to leave him. Weiner crossed the line over the weekend when he sent a photo of his underweared self to a woman he had never met. The New York Post put the photo on its front page. Lying next to Weiner is his toddler son — who appears to be napping and, I would like to think, unaware of what his father was up to. Abedin issued a statement: “After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision

to separate from my husband.” News reports informed that the couple had been separated for close to a year. Already she had stopped wearing her wedding ring. What had Weiner learned? He learned all the wrong things — for example, that he could play upon voters’ belief in political second acts. He learned to divert attention by invoking Donald Trump. He recently told the New York Times, “There’s no doubt that the Trump phenomenon has led a lot of people to say to me, ‘Boy, compared to inviting the Russians to come hack someone’s email, your thing seems almost quaint.’” Finally, on Monday, the selfie king showed that he had learned something useful when he shuttered his Twitter account. MY FIRST reaction was to note the incongruity of the cheating husbands of America’s (very likely) first female president and her trusted aide. I expect something different from feminists. But as I consider, I take it back. Throughout history, powerful men have gotten away with bad behavior. Think Trump. The progress can be found in the fact that straying men now pay a price. Alas, the price probably won’t be so painful as what Abedin and the couple’s son will pay.

September 7, 2016 ACADEMIA: August 29, 2016

Survivor’s guide: Learn but be willing to talk back

hristian students encountering secular liberal professors at non-Christian colleges and universities often fall into one of two errors. The most frequent one: To succumb to professorial mocking and start regurgitating academic biases. Students who lose their Christian salt in college often do so not because of their reason but because of their emotion: With biblical belief culturally unfashionable, they slide to what will preserve them from social excommunication. The milder form of surrender is to see the Bible as personally meaningful but irrelevant to public discussion. That’s also destructive to faith in Christ’s lordship. THE OPPOSITE extreme: Begin a course disposed not to learn, even though the professor does have a lot to teach. That’s certainly true in STEM

majors — science, technology, engi- are members of Cru’s Faculty Comneering, math — and in any field that mons or advisers to campus Christian requires learning of techniques. It’s groups will probably be able to put you partly true in the humanities and social in contact with a Christian professor sciences, although in some classes the willing and able to recommend helpful books. propaganda percentage is high. 2) Bulwark your understanding of How, then, should Christian students prepare to be active but not belliger- a Christian worldview with books that pare you generally. ent in class discussions? (And, let’s be will preHere are two each frank: Students from probably the who want to globest “accessible rify God still do theology” writnot want to be ers of three reacademic-suicide (c) 2016, God’s World Publications cent generations: bombers stuck C.S. Lewis, Mere with scarlet F’s on their transcripts.) Here are seven pieces Christianity and The Screwtape Letters; Francis Schaeffer, The God Who of advice: 1) Be willing to read not only books Is There and Escape from Reason; Tim on the syllabus but also books that offer Keller, The Reason for God and The opposing views. It’s hard to do double Prodigal God. Two new books that I’ll the reading, but the Christian life at Big review at length when we have room: U. will never be easy. Professors who Alvin Plantinga’s Knowledge and

But such faculty support required a sense of mission, beyond a quiet life on campus in which to pursue one’s own career. Even as grade inflation soared, and failing grades virtually disappeared in some colleges and universities across the country, that was not true among professors of economics who had been trained at the University of Chicago. A survey in the economics department at Cornell University, during a year in the 1960s when I taught there, showed that the only students who received a failing grade in any economics course that year were students who took courses taught by professors who were trained at the University of Chicago. In later years, when I gave failing grades to one-fourth of my class at UCLA, I discovered that this was not at all unusual in UCLA’s economics department, which had a sizable contingent of economists trained at the University of Chicago. We also opposed many politically correct policies of the UCLA administration. One of the many name-calling responses to people who do not go along with political correctness is to use the all-purpose smear, “racism.” But the first time I saw a white professor at a white university with a black secretary, it was Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago in 1960 — four years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Christian Belief and Michael Rota’s Taking Pascal’s Wager. 3) Learn about the major trends of academic thought within your majors. P&R Publishing is putting out “Faithful Learning” booklets: The list now includes Chemistry, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science and Sociology. Crossway has 11 “Student’s Guide” books (subjects include Psychology, Natural Sciences, History, Political Thought, and Art and Music) and a Christian Guides to the Classics series containing Leland Ryken’s expert analyses of major works. While not specifically Christian, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s 16 Guides to the Major Disciplines will help you understand some specific challenges in history, economics, literature and other fields. 4) Once you’ve done basic reading, visit a liberal professor during his office hours. Tell him where you’re coming from intellectually and why you have questions about his approach, but be a legitimate seeker after dialogue rather than an arrogant know-it-all, especially because you still know very little. You’ll become a human being in his eyes. You may broaden his perspective. 5) Those visits will help you learn which liberal professors tolerate challenge. Some who have taught a pet course many times before will enjoy a student who can make the classroom livelier. Ask thoughtful questions. Good news: Some professors on the left still distinguish between teaching and preaching. 6) Bad news: Some Marxists, feminists, and other “-ists” are totalitarians who get pleasure out of making omelets by cracking student eggs. As a student you’re in a position of weakness, so discretion in this instance may be valorous: Don’t take the course. If you have no alternative, hold on to all your papers and essay tests, and — when confronting totalitarians — tape what goes on in the classroom or in professor/ student conferences. If you can’t win internally, you might be able to apply external pressure through conservative journalists. 7) One final bit of preparation: If you get into an exchange with a professor and find yourself not knowing how to respond, you can always stall for time (and the opportunity to arrange your thoughts) by asking him one of these four questions: What do you mean by that? Where do you get your information? How do you know you’re right? What happens if you’re wrong?

YEARS EARLIER, the first black tenured professor at an elite white university was Allison Davis at the University of Chicago. But who cares about facts in these politically correct times?

Email molasky@wng.org Reprinted with permission of WORLD. To read more news and views from a Christian perspective, call 800951-6397 or visit WNG.org.

Marvin

Olasky

ACADEMIA: August 30, 2016

A real gem in Chicago

e have gotten so used to seeing college presidents and other academic “leaders” caving in to so many outrageous demands from little gangs of bullying students that it is a long overdue surprise to see a sign that at least one major university has shown some backbone. Dr. Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago, has spoken out in the plainest language against the stifling of opinions that differ from political correctness, on campuses across the country. “Free speech is at risk at the very institution where it should be assured: The university,” Dr. Zimmer said. “Invited speakers are disinvited because a segment of a university community deems them offensive, while other orators are shouted down for similar reasons,” he said. Demands have been made that assigned readings in some courses be eliminated because they “might make some students uncomfortable.” WORST OF all, such demands “have been supported by university administrators,” Dr. Zimmer pointed out. By contrast with many other colleges and universities where speech codes restrict what students can and cannot say, freshmen students entering the University of Chicago have been informed by a letter from the Dean of Students that “freedom of expression” is one of that institution’s “defining characteristics.” The Dean of Students spelled it out: “Members of our community are encouraged to speak, write, listen, chal-

lenge and learn, without fear of censorship. Civility and mutual respect are vital to all of us, and freedom of expression does not mean the freedom to harass or threaten others.” That such things need to be said is a painful commentary on the academic world in general. It is doubtful if any such declaration or policy could be made at any of the Ivy League universities, which are bastions of political correctness.

Thomas

At Harvard, not only have invited speakers been shouted down and sometimes assaulted, even a Harvard professor’s classroom was invaded by disruptive students who didn’t like what he was teaching. Such things have also happened at Berkeley and other elite institutions across the country, as well as at less renowned institutions. THE UNIQUENESS of the University of Chicago is not something new. Back in the 1960s, as campus riots spread across the country, and academic administrators caved in to even the most outrageous demands, dozens of disruptive students were simply expelled from the University of Chicago and dozens more were put on probation. As Professor George J. Stigler, a Nobel Prizewinning economist, said, “Our faculty united behind the expulsion of a large number of young barbarians.”

Conservative Chronicle

HILLARY CLINTON: August 25, 2016

Real reasons Hillary refused going to Louisiana

After a lavish 70th celebration party But as I said, there are two important for husband Bill’s birthday Friday eve- things to note pursuant to Clinton’s disning in Martha’s Vineyard, Clinton the missive behavior. The second is that as next evening attended a swank soiree a colleague and I discussed this week, with the Rothschilds. Then Sunday eve- we must question if another prining Cher hosted a mary reason for her star studded funnot going to Louisidraiser in Cape ana is the bacterium Cod that bagged that is savaging the Clinton a reported area. (c) 2016, Mychal Massie $1.5 million. HillHillary can ary preened for her deny the reports of Hollywood sycophants including taking her failing health, but We the People are selfies with Justin Timberlake and others. going to believe our “lying eyes’ rather than her lying tongue. We’ve seen the BUT BESIDES a statement on her photos of her looking haggard and needFacebook page, which she was forced ing pillows to prop herself up; and colto make after Donald Trump took much leagues have witnessed her seizure-like THE PROBLEM is that her actions needed supplies and cash to Louisiana, behavior and coughing spells first hand. show it is the rich and elite class she cares she has shown zero interest. If, as mounting evidence seems to point for, not the poor and the suffering. Not one to concern herself with the whole MEDIA BIAS: August 25, 2016 fossil fuel thing that she has pushed to destroy the coal industry, she took what was essentially a “wheels down” flight in her private jet the 20 miles from Martha’s Vineyard to Nantucket where a $100,000 per person fundraiser was thrown for her his week I am going to do though for certitude it has now gone beby the Rothschilds. See: Hillary Clinton something unusual. I am going yond the point of no return. As he says: Flies 20 Miles In Private Jet To Attend to enter into a conversation with “The mainstream media’s reputations Rothschild Nantucket Fundraiser; Tyler another columnist. Doing so was not so will likely never recover, nor will the Durden; zerohedge.com; 8/21/2016) unusual a few decades back. Bill Buck- standards. No future producer, editor, There are two important things to note ley and James Jackson Kilpatrick did it reporter or anchor can be expected to about Clinton’s behavior. The first thing when provoked, and it was always inter- meet a test of fairness when that stanto note is how easy it was and is for her esting. But today columnists are godlike dard has been trashed in such willful to ignore the plight of suffering Ameri- figures. They communicate solely with and blatant fashion.” This is a historic cans. This is another of Hillary’s “what Mount Olympus, and the result is often moment. Mainstream Americans will does it matter now” moments that she a bit tedious. continue their migration to the internet. displayed during her testimony before That is their alternative. And in using it, the Committee tasked with getting to the I PROPOSE to address the New York they will continue the steady bankruptbottom of what took place in Benghazi. Post’s Michael Goodwin and congratu- cy of the news organizations of It’s easy for Clinton to give lip ser- late him on noting that mainstream me- MSM. vice that the lapdog media then parrots dia, or MSM, have passed yet another nonstop for days. It is indicative of her milepost in their decline. In his column kind. Obama had his Homeland Security this weekend, Goodwin wrote: Director Jeh Johnson tell the people of “Donald Trump may or may not fix Louisiana “he was busy” and that “he his campaign, and Hillary Clinton may (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate couldn’t be expected to be everywhere;” or may not become the first female presithis as real-time photos were emerging dent. But something else happening beTheir abandonment of the standards of him on the golf course. fore our eyes is almost as important: The for fairness and accuracy is completely As I pointed out in “What The Media complete collapse of American journal- willful. They find themselves indignant Won’t Ask About Hillary” (8/11/2016), ism as we know it. The frenzy to bury by the looseness with which Trump Clinton and her criminal rapist husband Trump is not limited to the Clinton cam- says certain things. Most egregious was were paid $153 million in speaking fees paign and the Obama White House. They their hysteria over a sentence fragment from February 2001 until May. She was are working hand in hand with what was about what Second Amendment advopaid $7.7 million for 39 speeches to big considered the cream of the nation’s cates might or might not do in response banks including Goldman Sachs and news organizations.” to Clinton’s attacks on the amendment. UBS. And she was paid $1.8 million for Goodwin writes for a Rupert Mur- The MSM insisted he was encouraging speeches since January 2016. doch newspaper, and I write for the violence. Among mature adults that reAccording to a CharityWatch Report good Washington Times and the Ameri- sponse was considered preposterous. issued April 2016, for the fiscal year can Spectator. None is a member of the 2014, Hillary’s “Charity Foundation” MSM, and I would venture that neither THE MSM are aroused by Trump’s took in a reported $325 million with cal- of us is as tyrannized into homogeneity words, but unbothered by actions that culated expenses of $242 million. as the writers for the MSM. In fact, there Clinton has actually taken. It seems to If as Hillary’s campaign ads point out exists more diversity of opinion about think that Trump’s misfired jokes or and the media parrots, she has such deep Trump and Clinton where we write than loosely formulated statements are more and abiding concern for Americans that within the MSM. We trust our readers to dangerous to the commonwealth than she is compelled to run for president, decide for themselves. Clinton’s decisions with her emails and why hasn’t she shown a little concern My only quibble with Goodwin is that her mendacious cover-ups. and sent money and supplies to Louisi- I doubt the MSM had much credibility Evidence of what FBI Director James ana? before it began its ambush of Trump, Comey called Clinton’s “extremely careeople in Louisiana are suffering from what the Red Cross has called the worst flooding since Hurricane Sandy. Many have lost everything they owned and for no few that included the loss of life of family members, loved ones, friends and pets. Still others have suffered without the medicine that is vital to their lives. In the face of such catastrophe you would have a better chance of finding “Waldo” than you would finding Hillary Clinton within a several state radius of Louisiana. This despite the fact that she is spending tens of millions of dollars on campaign ads that claim she cares for the people of America.

Mychal

Massie

The media make history

R. Emmett

Tyrrell

out, her health is in free fall, being in Louisiana, having to traverse unimaginable filth, carrion, and human waste could be potentially fatal because of her deteriorating health. The aforementioned notwithstanding, neither reason is sufficient for her not to send money and supplies even though she refused to go. And regardless of the reason(s), her actions clearly define her continued disdain and dismissive attitude for the people of America. I suggest we think about that the next time we see her campaign ads telling what she plans to do for America. IT’S NOT WHAT she plans to do for America, it’s what she has done to America and the American people that we need to stay focused on.

less” mishandling of classified documents does not arouse the MSM’s sense of alarm. Even evidence of repeated conflict of interest in her commingling of Clinton Foundation work and State Department work does not trouble the MSM. Their aphorism is not that actions speak louder than words, but that words are more alarming than actions. Actually, Clinton’s server will be to her candidacy what Monica Lewinsky’s DNA-bespattered dress was to Bill Clinton’s presidency. That is to say, her server will be remembered as high-tech proof that Clinton is a liar. Consider her polls. A recent poll shows that 68 percent of the electorate already considers her “untrustworthy.” And as of Monday evening, we were informed of the discovery of 14,900 more emails that she failed to turn over to the authorities. The MSM may think that Clinton’s actions do not reverberate as loudly with the American people as a handful of cavalier utterances from Trump, but I think they are mistaken. Her acts and the lies she has repeated to cover them up are going to become increasingly consequential in this race. They will be repeated on the internet, within the alternative media, in the conservative press and — at least transiently — in the MSM itself. Repeated conflicts of interest and lying about mishandled intelligence may not be serious matters to the MSM. My guess is they are to the average American. MICHAEL GOODWIN has drawn our attention to an important historical development. With the trashing of Donald Trump and the celebration of a career criminal, the mainstream media have become passé.

September 7, 2016 HILLARY CLINTON: August 30, 2016

On Hillary Clinton as a model for young girls

Given that the former secretary of ne of the most oft-heard claims made by supporters of state used her office to enrich herself and Hillary Clinton is what a pos- her husband; given that she so willfully itive role model she would be for young compromised national security by setting up her own private email server in girls as president. They say: “Then, my daughters will order to avoid congressional and public know that nothing is to too great for oversight; given that she has repeatedly these actions; given them to aspire to. A woman can indeed lied about that she lied to the be president of the mothers and fathers United States.” of the men killed by So goes the arterrorists in Benggument. hazi; and given According to (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate that she has a long the latest Quinhistory of lying (a nipiac University poll, women will vote for Clinton by New York Times columnist called her a 60 percent to 36 percent, a margin of 24 “congenital liar” in the 1990s), the nopercent. In the last presidential election, tion of Clinton as a model for America’s girls and young women is nothing, if not the margin was 10 percent. depressing. Parents who think this way must eiIF THE POLLS are accurate concerning the lopsided female support for ther be willfully fooling themselves about how corrupt a person Clinton is, or Clinton, there are three likely reasons: — Many women really want a wom- they are being honest with themselves, but they nevertheless conclude that all an president. — Many women want this model for that matters is that their daughter and other girls see a woman in the White their daughters and all other girls. — Some women who might have House. Of course, even these people are voted for a Republican male just won’t not being fully honest with themselves, because the vast majority of them would vote for Donald Trump. In a previous column, I addressed the never vote for an honest — let alone disissue of how morally primitive it is for a honest — woman if she were a Repubwoman to vote for a woman because of lican. This obsession with a woman in the her gender. I will therefore only address the widespread notion that it will be very White House is a liberal preoccupation. good for young girls if Clinton is elected The vast majority of conservatives, in because they will be able to realize that contrast, wouldn’t care. Why is that? nothing in America is closed to them.

Dennis

Prager

THE ANSWER is that conservatives do not think like liberals. People on the left think of themselves as worldly, and with regard to national identity, this is largely true. Viewing themselves as world citizens, liberals value national identity far less than conservatives do. That’s why on national holidays you will find so many fewer American flags in liberal neighborhoods than in conservative neighborhoods. What the left has done is trade in national identity and solidarity for race, gender and class identity and solidarity. Conservatives affirm national identity and solidarity (“e pluribus unum”),

but not gender, race or class identity and solidarity. Most conservative women are not impressed with the idea of “female solidarity.” They regard it as intellectually and morally foolish. And all conservatives — male and female — regard “racial solidarity” as just another term for racism. Second, more conservative women think that if a woman is going to serve as a model for their daughters, that woman might indeed be a president or a CEO. But she might just as likely be a woman who makes a wonderful home that fosters good people, good Americans and a good marriage. I have to believe that even many liberals would acknowledge that the country now needs more good homes than good astronauts, CEOs, lawyers, professors, etc. Third, conservative women are far less likely to believe that a corrupt conservative woman could serve as a model for their daughters. We all understand that sometimes we feel compelled to vote for someone we may not admire because the cause is more important than the individual. That is understandable. So, if liberal women were to argue that they support Clinton because they will vote for an unethical Democrat over any Republican, then that would be intellectually honest. But liberal women do not say that. Instead, they laud Clinton and say that they want a female president as a role model for their daughters. And that is what is morally troubling about such support of liberal women (and many liberal men as well) for Clinton. Parents who want their daughters to regard Hillary Clinton as a model are telling their daughters that gender solidarity is more important than moral character. THE COUNTRY will pay a terrible price for this message.

Conservative Chronicle

SYRIA: August 30, 2016

Involvement in Syria: Their war, not ours The debacle that is U.S. Syria policy lah, Iran and Russia. Damascus buys its weapons from Moscow and has granted is today on naked display. NATO ally Turkey and U.S.-backed Russia its sole naval base in the MediArab rebels this weekend attacked our terranean. And Vladimir Putin protects most effective allies against ISIS, the his interests and stands by his friends. To Iran, the Alawite regime of Assad Syrian Kurds. Earlier in August, U.S. planes threat- is a strategic link in the Shia cresthat runs from Tehened to shoot down Syrian planes over c e n t ran to Baghdad to Hasakeh, and our Damascus to South Iraq-Syria war Beirut and Lebacommander, Lt. non’s border with Gen. Stephen Israel. Townsend, is(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate If Syria falls to sued a warning to Syria and Russia against any further air Sunni rebels, Islamist or democratic, that would mean a strategic loss for strikes around the city. Who authorized Gen. Townsend to Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, which is threaten to shoot down Syrian or Rus- why all have invested so much time, blood and treasure in this war. sian planes — in Syria? If they are going to lose Syria, Assad, WHEN DID Congress authorize an Iran, Hezbollah and the Russians are American war in Syria? Is the Constitu- probably going to go down fighting. And should we decide to fight a war tion now inoperative? That we are sinking into a civil war to take them down, we would find ourwhere we sometimes seem to be fight- selves with such de facto allies as ISIS ing both sides is a tribute to the feckless- and the al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al ness of the Barack Obama-John Kerry Qaeda. Have the hawks who want us to tarforeign policy and the abdication of a Congress that refuses to either name our get Assad considered this? The American people would never real enemy or authorize our deepening sustain such a war in the company of involvement. Our Congress appears again to have such allies, with its risks of escalation, to remove Assad, who, whatever we abdicated its war powers. Consider the forces that have turned think of him, never terrorized AmeriSyria into a charnel house with 400,000 cans or threatened U.S. vital interests. Years ago, Assad dismissed Obama’s dead and millions injured, maimed and demand that he surrender power, then uprooted. On the one side there is the regime of defied Obama’s “red line” against the Bashar Assad and its allies — Hezbol- use of chemical weapons. He is not go-

Pat

Buchanan

ing to depart because some U.S. president tells him he must go. As for the Syrian Kurds, the YPG, they have sealed much of the border with Turkey and fought their way ever closer to Raqqa, the capital of the ISIS caliphate. But what has elated the Americans has alarmed the Turks. FOR THE YPG not only drove ISIS out of the border towns all the way to the Euphrates; this summer, with U.S. backing, they crossed the river and seized Manbij. Turkey’s fear is that the Syrian Kurds will link their cantons east of the Euphrates with their canton west of

the river and create a statelet that could give Turkey’s Kurds a privileged sanctuary from which to pursue their 30year struggle for independence. If, when the war ends in Syria, the YPG is occupying all the borderlands, Ankara faces a long-term existential threat of dismemberment. After recent terrorist attacks on his country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recognizes that ISIS is a monster with which he cannot live. Thus, this weekend, he sent tanks and Arab troops to drive ISIS out of the Syrian border town of Jarablus. Now Turkish troops and their Arab allies are moving further south into Syria to expel the Kurds from Manbij. Joe Biden, visiting Turkey, told the Kurds to get out of Manbij and back across the river. How does the U.S. protect its interests while avoiding a deeper involvement in this war? First, recognize that ISIS and the alNusra Front are our primary enemies in Syria, not Assad or Russia. Geostrategists may be appalled, but the Donald may have gotten it right. If the Russians are willing to fight to crush ISIS, to save Assad, be our guest. Second, oppose any removal of Assad unless and until we are certain he will not be replaced by an Islamist regime. Third, we should assure the Turks we will keep the Kurds east of the Euphrates and not support any Kurdish nationstate that involves any secession from Turkey. AMERICA’S BEST and wisest course is to stop this slaughter that is killing a thousand Syrians a week, use our forces in concert with any and all allies to annihilate the Nusra Front and ISIS, keep the Kurds and Turks apart, effect a truce if we can, and then get out. It’s not our war.

September 7, 2016 COMEDY CENTRAL: August 26, 2016

Is Comedy Central racist? It’s laughable

non-white stars get the same resources and latitude as white hosts, being allowed to experiment with staff and being given several years to fail, to improve, to find their voice.” In other words, commercial television should be like public television? Ironically, even NPR has canceled its black-oriented talk shows — more than once — due to low interest. With both NPR and Comedy Central, you A LACK OF market demand on a can’t blame the crusty, old right-wingIt’s those hip, young leftfor-profit network is apparently no ex- ers. too. They aren’t cuse to cancel a show. NPR TV critic wingers, watching, either. Eric Deggans The only ones leaped to the who are upset are microphone to the quotaphiles on pound the affir(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate the left. Wilmore mative-action couldn’t hold Stehard line: Had Comedy Central’s audience “ultimate- phen Colbert’s audience, just as Trevor ly rejected a black man talking boldly Noah isn’t keeping Jon Stewart’s old about race in late night television?” audience. Comedy Central was the one to hire He complained, “The real measure of equality in Hollywood will be when the untested black hosts and reap the omedy Central frustrated racial bean counters across America when it abruptly canceled The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore for the obvious reason: It “hasn’t resonated.” Its ratings were terrible, and nothing it aired went viral. It was a desperate stretch when one Wilmore staffer described their audience as “small, but (mighty).”

Brent

Bozell

“diversity” publicity generated by the quota-centric announcement. Now, when it fires them, it’s only natural to face accusations of racism. You reap what you sow. APPARENTLY, LEFTISTS can’t muster the clicking courage of the channel’s convictions at home when it comes to black-oriented talk shows. Or maybe the public senses there’s just not a serious appetite for satire when the left refuses to find anything to ridicule in the careers of Barack Obama or

FREEDOM: August 31, 2016

We have nothing left holding us together

n Friday, a South Carolina high school stopped students from bringing American flags to a football game against a heavily Hispanic rival school. Why? The principal was presumably worried that waving the flag might offend the Hispanic students. According to the principal, “This decision would be made anytime that the American flag, or any other symbol, sign, cheer, or action on the part of our fans would potentially compromise the safety of all in attendance at a school event.”

THIS ISN’T the first such situation. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that a public school in California could ban students from wearing a shirt emblazoned with an American flag on Cinco de Mayo thanks to fears over racial conflict at the school. The lawyer for the children complained, “This opens the door for a school to suppress any viewpoints that are opposed by a band of vocal and violent bullies.” Meanwhile, has-been San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been widely praised in the media for refusing to stand for the national anthem during football games. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” explained the man earning an average of $19,000,000 per year for sitting on the bench. He continued: “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be

selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” We’re watching the end of America in real time. That doesn’t mean that the country’s on the verge of actual implosion. But the idea of America required a common definition of being American: a love of country on the basis of its founding philosophy. That has now been undermined by the left.

Ben

LOVE OF country doesn’t mean that you have to love everything about America, or that you can’t criticize America. But loving America means understanding that the country was founded on a unique basis — a uniquely good basis. That’s what the flag stands for. Not ethnic superiority or racial solidarity or police brutality but the notion of individual liberty and equal rights before God. But with the destruction of that central principle, the ties that bind us together are fraying. And the left loves that. In fact, the two defining philosophical iterations of the modern left both make war with the ties that bind us together. In President Obama’s landmark second inaugural address, he openly

said, “Being true to our founding documents...does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way.” This is the kind of definition worshipped by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has singlehandedly redefined the Constitution. He said, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” But this means that liberty has no real definition outside of “stuff I want to do.” And we all want to do different stuff, sometimes at the expense of other people’s liberty. Subjective definitions of liberty, rather than a common definition, means a conflict of all against all, or at least a conflict of a government controlled by some who are targeting everyone else. It means that our flag is no longer a common symbol for our shared definition of liberty. It’s just a rag that means different things to different people based on their subjective experiences and definitions of reality. And that means we have nothing holding us together. THE ONLY way to restore the ties that bind us is to rededicate ourselves to the notion of liberty for which generations of Americans fought and died. But that won’t happen so long as the left insists that their feelings are more important than your rights.

the Clintons. Satirizing Donald Trump might have seemed fresh and fun a year ago, but that shtick has turned seriously stale. What’s truly laughable is the proposition that America will diminish by the loss of a leftist forum — as if every other late-night host is a Republican. Sophia McClennen at Salon exemplified this idiocy, saying, “In an election cycle dominated by racial aggression, the mainstreaming of misogyny, and the denial of structural inequality, Wilmore and his team offered their audience one of the few spaces where these issues could be debated rationally and intelligently.” There is a true lack of diversity in late-night programming. No one is a conservative. What’s worse, when liberal journalists write about the satirists, from Wilmore to Colbert to John Oliver to Samantha Bee, they refuse to describe any of them as a liberal. The public is to conclude that leftism is mainstream and conservatism is not welcomed. Journalists can’t even accurately describe their satire as harsh. Take New York Times TV critic Mike Hale. He says: “As hosts, Mr. Noah and Mr. Wilmore have been cerebral, restrained presences. Given the level of scrutiny they have received, restraint is an understandable choice.” Someone drug test this man. How is it “cerebral” to call Ted Cruz a “selfhating dildo?” Wilmore asked about Cruz: “What’s inside him? Besides thousands of writhing cicadas crawling around in his ill-fitting skin suit?” And when Cruz fried bacon with a machine gun, he asked, “Do you know how small your d--- has to be to do something like that?” Wilmore’s idea of “satirizing” Bernie Sanders was to ask: “Millions of people come to hear you speak your sermons on mounts. Are you Jesus?” During the Flint water crisis, Wilmore’s concept of “restraint” was to call for the death of Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, asking, “Which type of execution?” APPARENTLY, NOT even Comedy Central’s audience found that amusing.

Conservative Chronicle

IMMIGRANTS: August 30, 2016

Abstract immigrants in an abstract world

However lovely this vision may seem, and however much it flatters those who embrace it, admitting immigrants is an irreversible decision, regardless of how it turns out. Any problems, or even disasters, that MANY OF these elites seem to see particular immigrants may cause are to be caused within themselves as citizens of the world, and unlikely the gated communito regard national ties or other upscale borders as unforenclaves where the tunate relics of the elites live. benighted past. However much If people with(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate educational stanin those borders dards or behavioral are so much better off than other people outside those standards may suffer in schools when borders, then to such elites it is only a immigrant children from a poorer backA HUNDRED years ago, when im- matter of fairness or “social justice” to ground flood in, that is not likely to afmigration from other parts of the world let the outsiders in, to get a share of our fect the elite’s children in pricey private schools. was a major issue, there was a govern- windfall gain. ment study which provided voluminous statistics on how immigrants from variFREEDOM: August 25, 2016 ous countries performed in American society — economically, educationally and in terms of social pathology. Today, it would not be considered right — that is, not politically correct — even to ask such questions about imhich states in our union are fiscal issues, that its land use freedom migrants, especially if immigrants were the most tolerant of mari- is decent, that it has no minimum wage, broken down by country of origin. Dejuana and guns? Which in- that it’s one of the best states for gun spite some among the intelligentsia who terfere the least with your life? Which laws, that it has too many government like to refer to the past as “earlier and are likelier to hand out special goodies employees and that it’s in serious need simpler times,” it is we today who are so to politically connected companies? of criminal justice reform because it has simple-minded as to discuss immigrants Those are some of the questions an- one of the highest incarceration rates in as if they were just abstract people in an swered by economists Will Ruger and the country, even controlling for crime abstract world, to whom we could apply Jason Sorens in the 2016 edition of their rates. our abstract principles. The rankings also deliver important study “Freedom in the 50 States.” Yet there are immigrants from some Their ranking of the states in the U.S. lessons for lawmakers. In Virginia, Socountries who swell the welfare rolls, in terms of freedom is based on three rens and Ruger write, “victimless crime while immigrants from some other public policy dimensions affecting eco- arrest rates are about average. Asset forcountries almost never go on welfare. nomic, social and personal freedoms. feiture is virtually unreformed, and loImmigrants from some countries are Sorens, a lecturer in the government cal police frequently circumvent it highly educated — more so than most department at Dartmouth College, and Americans — while immigrants from Ruger, vice president of research and other countries have little education and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, few skills. scored more than 200 policies, includSo much of what is said about im- ing things such as gambling restriction, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate migration today simply lumps very dif- trans fat bans, the audio recording of ferent immigrants together, and even police, occupational licensing restriclumps very different circumstances to- tions, mandated family leave and the anyway with equitable sharing. The gether. Insipid statements about how ability of couples to enter into private state’s approach to cannabis produc“we are all descendants of immigrants” contracts. ers and consumers is draconian.” They blithely ignore the fact that millions of suggest that the state reform “sentencAmericans are descendants of legal imACCORDING TO their opening for nonviolent offenses with an eye migrants who were not allowed into source methodology, in 2014 the fre- to reducing the incarceration rate to the the country until they met medical and est states were N.H., Alaska and Okla., national average in the long term.” other criteria. while N.Y., California and Hawaii THE REPORT shows that when ranked the least free. In terms of just TODAY PEOPLE flood across the one indicator, S.D., Idaho and Tenn. are controlling for climate and other variborder with whatever diseases they the freest economically and N.Y., Calif. ables, all three dimensions of freedom bring, and are dispersed to various com- and Hawaii the least. And personal free- are positively correlated to migramunities around the country by the fed- doms are best served in N.M., Colo. and tion, but the results are exceptionally eral government, without even a notice Nev., with Ky., Tex. and Ala. ranking strong for economic (fiscal and regulato local authorities as to what history of the least free. tory) freedom. Edition after edition of diseases, or crimes, these immigrants It’s valuable to know how free your the “Freedom in the 50 States” index bring — much less what risks of terror- state is. I, for instance, value freedom confirms that people tend to move to ism they bring. for its own sake, so I’m interested in economically freer states because ecoSuch high-handedness is neither in- knowing that Virginia, where I live with nomic freedom tends to be a fairly good cidental nor accidental. It is part of a my two school-age daughters, ranks indicator of prosperity. More economic much wider pattern, extending beyond 21st in the overall index. I also enjoy growth usually means more jobs, and immigration, and extending beyond knowing that the state isn’t too bad on that attracts people. hy would a country with the world’s largest Jewish population, outside of Israel, admit large numbers of immigrants from countries where hatred of Jews has been taught to their people from earliest childhood? This question is ultimately not about Muslims and Jews. It is about discussing immigrants in the abstract, rather than in terms of the specific concrete realities of particular immigrants in particular circumstances at a particular time and place — that time being now and that place being the United States of America.

the United States to many European countries, where narrow elites imagine themselves so superior to the rest of us that it is both their right and their duty to impose their notions on us.

Thomas

Sowell

European countries have gone much further down this road, and their elites have been even more immune to hard facts about the disasters they have created. Rapes of women on the streets of Germany by male refugees from the Middle East have been ignored or downplayed by authorities. Recurrent terrorist attacks across Europe from the same source have not caused any reconsideration of “hate speech” laws that can be invoked against anyone who warns of the dangers. AMERICAN ELITES who say that we should learn from other countries almost always mean that we should imitate what they have done. But what we need to learn most of all is not to repeat their mistakes.

Ranking freedom, one state at a time

Veronique

de Rugy

The lesson for lawmakers is that if you want to attract productive people to your state or if you want to lose fewer productive taxpayers, you’d better implement policies that trigger economic growth and create jobs. In 2014, New York’s net migration was negative 11.2 percent. California was negative 4.9 percent, and Hawaii was negative 3.3 percent. That raises the question of why so many people still live in the least free states. The fact is that when it comes to where people choose to live, intrinsic characteristics of a state weigh heavily in the decision. Among the factors that keep people in less-than-free places are jobs, family, friends and city amenities. There’s a certain stickiness to states that has nothing to do with how free these places are. The federal tax and regulatory systems are incredibly burdensome and can weigh on us all more than most state policies, which can hinder interstate mobility. However, there are times when that stickiness isn’t so important — for example, when you are younger, are looking for a job and haven’t settled anywhere yet or when you’re about to retire. (Net migration in Florida was 10 percent in 2014.) THE BOTTOM line is — whether you value freedom intrinsically or you’re a lawmaker who wants to improve your state’s economic outlook or slow down out-migration — you’re better off knowing where your state stands so you know what to do. “Freedom in the 50 States” will help you achieve this goal.

September 7, 2016 BORDERS: August 30, 2016

Maybe borders aren’t the worst invention ever “Borders are the worst invention ever elected leadership of a league of most made by politicians.” Those were the European nations, is thinking farther words of Jean-Claude Juncker, president back, to 1914 and 1940, when Luxemof the European Union’s European Com- bourg as well as Belgium and much of mission, at the Alpbach Media Academy France were overrun by German troops in two horrifying world wars. Recalllast Monday. Nonsense, most readers will surely ing a warning from former French think, in numbers going far beyond the P r e s i d e n t Francois Mitterrand, who an ambiguous part in legions of Americans dismayed with the played the second of those choices they face wars, Juncker said, in this year’s pres“We have to fight idential race. But against nationalit’s worth thinking ism, we have the a bit more about (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate duty not to folwhere Juncker is coming from, and the implications of his low populists but to block the avenue of statement in what is, in Europe as well populists.” Such is the faith of the Eurocrats: The as America, a fraught political year. EU exists to prevent another war beLITERALLY, JUNCKER comes tween France and Germany. Never mind from Luxembourg, a 998-square-mile that the chance of such a war has been country wedged between France, Ger- zero since 1945, 71 years ago. Never many and Belgium, where he served mind that Hitler did not respect borders, as prime minister from 1995 to 2013. but erased them. Juncker was denouncing Austria and If you look up Luxembourg in lists of world economic statistics, you’ll find it other nations for erecting border conrated No. 2 in gross domestic product trols to keep out Muslim refugees. Evidently he believes that World War III per capita. That’s thanks to what Juncker called will somehow break out if they are kept politicians’ worst invention ever, bor- out. In a similar vein, Hillary Clinton opders. For Luxembourg is a financial haven and headquarters of the world’s poses deportation of the bulk of the 11 largest steel company, ArcelorMittal. million illegal immigrants in this counWithout their borders and national laws, try who haven’t been convicted of felothe 576,000 Luxembourgers wouldn’t nies. That would put out a welcome mat to millions of other potential migrants be as affluent as they are. But Juncker, having moved on from who might come here in violation of a big post in a small nation to the un- U.S. laws. And curiously, Donald Trump

Michael

Barone

has pivoted to suggesting he might not like them that way. Wouldn’t refugees deport all that many illegals either. from Syria — or young men from Libya or Bangladesh or Eritrea or Honduras DENIGRATION OF borders is an — be better off in Europe or the United example of what Nico Colchester in a fa- States than where they are? If so, then mous 1988 Economist leader (editorial, why should we let a dotted line on a in Britspeak) called sogginess. The op- map stand in their way? So let’s replace posite was crunchiness. “Crunchy sys- crunchy restrictions with soggy benevtems are those in which small changes olence and let as many come in as they have big effects leaving those affected want. by them in no doubt whether they are up To Jean-Claude Juncker’s dismay, or down,” Colchester wrote. “Sogginess European voters are recoiling against is comfortable uncertainty.” this, not least in Germany, whose chanBorders are crunchy, or ought to be. cellor Angela Merkel declared open But those inclined to sogginess don’t doors to 800,000 newcomers — one percent of pre-existing population — in September 2015. Earnest editorialists argued that incoming young men would supply the labor force low-birth-rate Germany needs. None of the great and good figured they wouldn’t blend soggily in. Those prognostications proved wrong. Refugees asked to work say they are guests of Angela Merkel. Despite government and media cover-ups, voters found out that “refugees” have been assaulting women by the thousands and setting off bombs and wielding axes against innocent bystanders. Borders, it turns out, are not the worst inventions ever made by politicians. They operate most of the time to protect a citizenry that, in Europe and North America, is for the most part productive and tolerant and observant of common moral norms and cultural behaviors. Inviting in unlimited numbers of young men who share none of these traits is generosity turned to sogginess — and is being met with crunchy rejection. AMERICA’S PLIGHT is less dire than Europe’s. But Clinton’s sogginess on borders could face crunchy rejection too, depending on what Donald Trump’s position turns out to be

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Read Pat Buchanan, David Limbaugh & Cal Thomas on Pages 16-17

The Clintons

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Read Laura Hollis’ Column on Page 1

What Matters Is What They Say

Leftist Hypocrisy

Wednesday, September 7, 2016 • Volume 31, Number 36 • Hampton, Iowa