Conservative Chronicle for October 19 2016 by Mid-America Publishing Corporation

At Issue this week... October 19, 2016 2016 Election Barone (10) Bozell (25) Buchanan (16) Lowry (3) Napolitano (18) Sowell (17) Bill Clinton’s Impeachment Jeffrey (15) Clinton, Hillary Tyrrell (24) Constitution, The Thomas (1) Dear Mark Levy (19) Education Williams (14) Idle Men Charen (29) Will (28) Ignorance on Business Hollis (12) Left-Wing Hysteria McCaughey (26) Prager (27) Leslie’s Trivia Bits Elman (14) Liberal Hypocrisy Bozell (13) Elder (11) Shapiro (26) Thomas (5) Libya Bay (29) Media Bias Coulter (7) Obamacare Harsanyi (4) Obama Presidency Krauthammer (2) Presidential Campaigns Fields (20) Presidential Debate Barone (23) Saunders (22) Schlafly (22) Putin, Vladimir Will (30) Republicans Lowry (9) Murchison (3) Syria Bay (30) Buchanan (31) Tax Privileges de Rugy (13) Trump, Donald Greenberg (21) Lambro (8) Massie (6) Morris (10) Shapiro (6) Will (9) Vice Presidential Debate Cushman (25) Limbaugh (5) Saunders (20)

The Constitution by Cal Thomas

At stake this election: The Constitution

his election is about a lot of things, but it is fundamentally about the U.S. Constitution and whether federal judges will adhere to their oath to “... faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me ... under the Constitution and laws of the United States,” or dilute, attack and destroy our founding document. That the Constitution is on the ballot in the persons of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who hold differing views of it and have pledged to appoint radically different judges to federal benches, is revealed in a recent op-ed for Slate by Richard Posner, a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. IN HIS OP-ED, as reported by the Washington Times, Judge Posner claims to see “absolutely no value” in studying the Constitution because “18th-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century.” I suspect if they had seen modern culture with our fixation on Kim Kardashian, they might have retreated to England. Even the Bill of Rights, says Posner, “do not speak to today.” Wow. Freedom of speech, assembly, the press, religion, no warrantless searches and more are outmoded concepts? Who knew? Posner continued: “I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries — well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments).” After receiving severe criticism, Judge Posner apologized for his “careless” remarks, but he still doesn’t think the Constitution is relevant for today because, you know, those dead white guys owned slaves and didn’t have the internet. Imagine if such illogic was applied to other creations of the 18th century. There was much literature and music, in addition to political writings, that came from that era. Are Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Goethe, William Blake, Henry Fielding, all of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton (there’s a modern hit musical about him)

and the music of Bach and Beethoven, to mention a few, also irrelevant today? This is the arrogance of some judges who think they know better than the Founders. It is the choice in this election between a president and the judges he or she will appoint who believe, as late Justice Antonin Scalia did, that the Constitution sets boundaries for limited government in order to guarantee liberty to American citizens, or whether it means only what an unelected judge says it does.

Cal

POSNER IS NO fan of Scalia. In a clever turn of phrase he writes, “Let’s not let the dead bury the living.” He continues: “I worry that law professors are too respectful of the Supreme Court, in part perhaps because they don’t want to spoil the chances of their students to obtain Supreme Court clerkships. I think the Supreme Court is at a nadir. The justices are far too uniform in background, and I don’t think there are any real stars among them ...”

Washington Times reporter Jessica Chasmar sought reaction from David Bernstein, who teaches at Antonin Scalia Law School, formerly George Mason University School of Law. Bernstein described Posner’s attack of Scalia as “revolting,” adding, “We all know Posner doesn’t think highly, to say the least, of Scalia. Judging from what Posner writes, the distaste seems to stem primarily from jealousy — Posner thinks he would be a far better Supreme Court justice than Scalia was, and he resents that as a ‘lower court’ judge, his writings, though highly influential in their own right, will never get the same attention and accolades as Scalia.” THIS ELECTION will determine the direction of our courts and whether judges will write laws, or interpret under the Constitution the intent of the legislators who wrote them. It will also decide whether the Constitution remains a selfauthenticating document, protecting our liberties from encroaching government, or something that in the minds of judges like Richard Posner can be shredded along with our liberties. October 11, 2016

Conservative Chronicle

OBAMA PRESIDENCY: October 7, 2016

The stillborn legacy of Barack Obama

nly amid the most bizarre, most tawdry, most addictive election campaign in memory could the real story of 2016 be so effectively obliterated, namely, that with just four months left in the Obama presidency, its two central pillars are collapsing before our eyes: Domestically, its radical reform of American health care, aka Obamacare; and abroad, its radical reorientation of American foreign policy — disengagement marked by diplomacy and multilateralism.

OBAMACARE. On Monday, Bill Clinton called it “the craziest thing in the world.” And he was only talking about one crazy aspect of it — the impact on the consumer. Clinton pointed out that small business and hardworking employees (“out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week”) are “getting whacked ... their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half.” This, as the program’s entire economic foundation is crumbling. More than half its nonprofit “co-ops” have gone bankrupt. Major health insurers like Aetna and UnitedHealthcare, having lost millions of dollars, are withdrawing from the exchanges. In onethird of the U.S., exchanges will have only one insurance provider. Premiums and deductibles are exploding. Even the New York Times blares “Ailing Obama

Health Care Act May Have to Change This blessed vision has just died a to Survive.” terrible death in Aleppo. Its unraveling Young people, refusing to pay dis- was predicted and predictable, though proportionately to subsidize older and it took fully two terms to unfold. This sicker patients, are not signing up. As policy of pristine — and preening — the risk pool becomes increasingly un- disengagement from the grubby imperbalanced, the death spiral accelerates. a t i v e s of realpolitik yielded And the only way Crimea, the South to save the system China Sea, the rise is with massive of the Islamic State, infusions of tax the return of Iran. money. And now the hor(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group What to do? ror and the shame The Democrats of Aleppo. will eventually push to junk Obamacare After endless concessions to Rusfor a full-fledged, government-run, sian demands meant to protect and presingle-payer system. Republicans will serve the genocidal regime of Bashar seek to junk it for a more market-based Assad, last month we finally capitupre-Obamacare-like alternative. Either lated to a deal in which we essentially way, the singular domestic achieve- joined Russia in that objective. But ment of this presidency dies. such is Vladimir Putin’s contempt for our president that he wouldn’t stop THE OBAMA DOCTRINE. there. The president’s vision was to move He blatantly violated his own ceaseaway from a world where stability and fire with an air campaign of such spec“the success of liberty” (JFK, inaugural tacular savagery — targeting hospitals, address) were anchored by American water pumping stations and a humanipower and move toward a world ruled tarian aid convoy — that even Barack by universal norms, mutual obligation, Obama and John Kerry could no longer international law and multilateral insti- deny that Putin is seeking not comprotutions. No more cowboy adventures, mise but conquest. And is prepared to no more unilateralism, no more Guan- kill everyone in rebel-held Aleppo to tanamo. We would ascend to the higher achieve it. Obama, left with no options moral plane of diplomacy. Clean hands, — and astonishingly, having prepared clear conscience, “smart power.” none — looks on.

Charles

Krauthammer

At the outset of the war, we could have bombed Assad’s airfields and destroyed his aircraft, eliminating the regime’s major strategic advantage — control of the air. Five years later, we can’t. Russia is there. Putin has just installed S-300 antiaircraft missiles near Tartus. Yet, none of the rebels have any air assets. This is a warning and deterrent to the only power that could do something — the United States. Obama did nothing before. He will surely do nothing now. For Americans, the shame is palpable. Russia’s annexation of Crimea may be an abstraction, but that stunned injured little boy in Aleppo is not. “What is Aleppo?” famously asked Gary Johnson. Answer: The burial ground of the Obama fantasy of benign disengagement. What’s left of the Obama legacy? Even Democrats are running away from Obamacare. And who will defend his foreign policy of lofty speech and cynical abdication? In 2014, Obama said, “Make no mistake: [My] policies are on the ballot.” Democrats were crushed in that midterm election. THIS TIME around, Obama says, “My legacy’s on the ballot.” If the 2016 campaign hadn’t turned into a referendum on character — a battle fully personalized and ad hominem — the collapse of the Obama legacy would indeed be right now on the ballot. And his party would be 20 points behind.

•USPS: 762-710/•ISSN: 0088-7403 Published by Hampton Publishing Co. (Established 1876)

Division of Mid-America Publishing Corp. The Conservative Chronicle is published weekly for $75.00 (U.S.) per year by Hampton Publishing Co., 9 Second Street N.W., Hampton, IA 50441, and entered at the Post Office at Hampton, Iowa 50441, as periodicals postage under the Acts of Congress. Editorial Offices Conservative Chronicle, P.O. Box 29, Hampton, IA 50441. Ph. 1-800-888-3039. Editorial Coordinators, Kevin and Ruth Katz Circulation & Subscriber Services Conservative Chronicle P.O. Box 29, Hampton, IA 50441-0029. Ph. 1-800-8883039. Circulation Manager, Deb Chaney. Subscription Rates One Year.......................................... $75.00 (Call for outside USA rates for Air Mail) Single Copy........................................ $3.00

Need to make a correction on your mailing label?

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Conservative Chronicle, P.O. Box 29, Hampton, IA 50441-0029. E-mail address: conserve@iowaconnect.com Visit our web site at: www.conservativechronicle.com

October 19, 2016 2016 ELECTION: October 6, 2016

The year of the normal Republican Mike Pence’s vice-presidential debate game. If the bottom falls out for him, it victory was a striking blow for normal- will inevitably sink other Republicans, too. ity. But Trump’s incendiary populism is In fact, beneath the sound and the fury of the Trump campaign, normal Republi- represented only at the top of the ticket, it is losing a winnable cans are having a pretty good year. Pence w h e r e race, while more had an exemplary conventional downintroduction on ballot Republicans the national stage. are so far hanging in GOP Senate canthere. didates are hold(c) 2016, King Features Syndicate Republican ing their own. Senate candidates House Speaker Paul Ryan, flying the banner of a tradi- consistently outperform Trump. Accordtional Republican agenda of uplift, could ing to the latest batch of Quinnipiac polls, well minimize Republican losses in the Marco Rubio is at 48 percent in Florida and Trump is at 44. Rob Portman is at 55 House. in Ohio and Trump is at 46. Pat Toomey OF COURSE, normal Republicans is at 50 in Pennsylvania and Trump is at lost in a rout to Donald Trump in the pri- 43. Richard Burr, though, is even with maries, and their fate is intertwined with Trump at 46 in North Carolina. According to the RealClearPolitics his. He is still running close to Hillary Clinton, which keeps everyone in the average, Kelly Ayotte is running 10

Rich

Lowry

points ahead of Trump in New Hampshire. Even an embattled incumbent senator like Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson is doing 3.3 points better than Trump in his state. This is not typical. A Republican consultant who looked at data going back to 1996 found that swing-state Senate incumbents tend to run even with the presidential candidate and no more than two points ahead, except in a couple extraordinary cases.

REPUBLICANS: October 11, 2016

When things fall apart

hat with writers and speakers everywhere quoting William Butler Yeats’ poetic appraisal of modern times, as I read recently, maybe we can better appreciate House Speaker Paul Ryan’s present dilemma and resolve to leave the guy alone. He is a good man doing the best he can in bad — no, awful — times, despite the revilement falling upon him for his Monday announcement about campaigning no more with Donald Trump. Ryan fears the Democrats could win everything worth winning in November — the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives. He understands the Trump candidacy opens the door to that prospect, and he hopes to forfend it. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” wrote Yeats presciently in “The Second Coming” in 1919.

YOU CAN’T win for losing, even when you’re one of the best-grounded, most honorable men in contemporary politics — when you’re Paul Ryan, I mean, and everything’s out of kilter. Nor have you or anyone else the power to make everything right. Whatever you do, critics pounce, because the intertwined problems of morality and good government have come in our time to defy political solution. We brawl because brawling is all we know. We lay about one another with bullwhips and bung starters. Take that! And that! It’s unconstitutional, I gather, on the basis of ongoing attacks on Ryan by Trump supporters — including, conspicuously, Trump — to regret that Trump, as taped, spoke like a frat boy or an NFL

wide receiver concerning Ladies He Hoped to Grope. The point, I guess, was which is worse: Frat-boy patter or the prospect of three or four more Ruth Bader Ginsburgs ascending to the Supreme Court via presidential appointment? The latter point, surely, is worse by far, thus the confusion that envelops the country. Trump or Clinton? It shows what we may have come to by lowering social and cultural standards while raising hosannas to the beauty of government power. Trying to undo the mess isn’t pretty, assuming that’s what we’re actually up to — restoring portions of such delicate balance, as America enjoyed before the center got out of kilter and things, a la Yeats, began falling apart.

William

WHAT RYAN deserves, at this unholy pass, isn’t criticism — least of all from his party’s presidential candidate. What he deserves is profound sympathy for his efforts to avoid surrender to either side — the side of big, obtrusive government and the side of tell-the-other-side-to-stuff-itbecause-we’re-taking-over. He’s a man caught in the uncomfortable territory between extremes, the place most Americans regard as the best ground for doing things that need doing. The center, woe and alas, cannot hold — not when we’re all purists, each demanding our way. Of the two candidates on the ballot (the only two who count), Trump is like-

lier to go along with those things Ryan sees as necessary to national health and prosperity, meaning rationalization of the tax code, the overhaul — if not general destruction — of Obamacare, the tightening of immigration controls and so on. Trump’s unwillingness to acknowledge the overall benefits of free, or free-ish, trade puts him at odds with Ryan. But the two can work that stuff out, and other stuff as well, such as Ryan’s attitudes toward October campaigning. Does anyone think Clinton, who’s so imperiously bent on spanking Trump for bad manners, squashing the Supreme Court’s conservatives and strengthening the Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders wing of her party, would make Ryan’s conservative critics happier than they are at present? I invite these same hardliners, Trump included, to explain how bad-mouthing the most sensible House speaker in decades would make life easier or more free or achieve any end besides a handover to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — she whose landmark achievement was enacting that little piece of legislation you had to read to find out “what was in it.” It was Obamacare, of course. Come on, people. And you, too, Donald. Enough with the divisiveness and back-biting. Quit knocking people who fail to see ideas and strategy in precisely the same way you do. THE QUESTION of the Trump ascendancy isn’t worth re-fighting. It’s settled. We are where we are. Paul Ryan knows it. Let him fight his own way.

Consider Rob Portman. He is no one’s idea of a bomb-thrower. His political hero is George H.W. Bush. But he is doing better than Trump in a Trump-friendly state. Portman has a strong and trusted political brand that he has carefully protected this year, endorsing Trump while distancing himself from him at the same time. And the Ohio senator has done the fundamental blocking and tackling of a serious, disciplined candidate determined to win. IN A YEAR when all the rules are supposed to be suspended, the rules are still highly useful. Mike Pence prepared for the debate in boringly conventional ways. He studied up. He held mock debate sessions with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. He had a strategy and executed it, deflecting things he didn’t want to talk about (i.e., most of Trump’s controversial statements and heterodox positions) and pivoting back to things he did want to discuss. If Trump had done the same in the first presidential debate, the race might look different today. His highly combative and unorthodox campaign style, coupled with a focus on trade and immigration almost to the exclusion of anything else, is proving to be an obstacle to overcome, rather than a boost for the party and himself. In other words, the question is whether Trump can win despite his abnormality rather than because of it. This isn’t to say that Trump doesn’t have distinctive strengths. Surely, if Mike Pence had run for president this year, Trump would have squashed him like a bug just like he did everyone else — festooning him with an unflattering nickname and belittling and unmanning him at the debates. Nonetheless, Trump has been at his best this campaign when he has tried hardest to attain a simulacrum of normality. His new discipline after his August swoon was the reason — together with Hillary Clinton’s struggles — that he nearly pulled into a tie before the first debate. If he is going to come back again, it won’t be with 3 a.m. tweets and attacks on ordinary people who have crossed him. IT STILL wants to be a change election, which is another way of saying that it wants to be a Republican year — if Trump can somehow act the part.

Conservative Chronicle

OBAMACARE: October 7, 2016

The GOP should be Obamacare’s death panel

hen the New York Times tells you Obamacare is “ailing” and must change to survive, rest assured that the law is in serious trouble. Then again, people who read the New York Times might be under the impression the only way to fix a collapsing state-run program is to pass another, more intrusive state-run program — in this case, a “public option.”

year. Instead, average premiums were expected to rise to $3,700 by this year. Colorado, for instance, expects health insurance rates to jump 20 percent on average for individual buyers next year alone. All those explanations, skewed charts and pretend projections were wrong. Obama also pledged that once state marketplaces “have fully implemented, you’re going to be able to buy insurance through a pool so that you can get the same good rates as a group that if you’re IN TRUTH, it was probably some- an employee at a big company you can thing of a shock to most Times readers get right now — which means your prethat the Affordable Care Act has strug- miums will go down.” They haven’t. Not gled at all. For years, left-wing punditry only have rates risen but there has has been churning our prodigious quanti- been an exodus of insurance ties of Obamacare providers, who are fanfic, praising and unable to compete hailing every ACA even in these constumble as another trived and subsiunrealized meadized exchanges. (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate sure of success. Kaiser Family They made this denial loop possible by Foundation recently released a study in reframing Obamacare’s expectations and which it estimates 974 counties across reimagining its purpose. the country will only feature a single inHere’s something worth remember- surer on Obamacare exchanges in 2017. ing: If we evaluate Obamacare using the In 2016, it was 225. Five states are likely parameters Democrats themselves laid to have only one Obamacare insurer in all out when campaigning and passing the counties. Rather than create competition, historically partisan reform, we have no this experiment has only strengthened inchoice but to view it as a debacle. state insurance cartels. Of course, there are the obvious inObama promised that Obamacare stances of outright falsehoods. Take wouldn’t add a penny to the deficit and Obama’s “If you like your health care would cost less than a trillion dollars (replan, you can keep it” assertion. Millions member the 10 years taxation for the eight of Americans have been forced off their years of ACA?). Meanwhile, Obama has insurance plans, no matter how much spent billions of health care dollars — they liked them. without any congressional authority — to The president also assured Americans bail out his struggling program. that Obamacare would lower premiums Perhaps the only real achievement for the typical family by up to $2,500 a Obama and his allies can dependably

David

Harsanyi

point to is the increase in insured Americans. But when we consider that the government penalizes you for failing to buy insurance, it’s hardly a surprise. It’s tantamount to bragging about increasing military recruitment numbers after passing a draft. And Democrats do seem perversely satisfied with idea of using state force as a marketing tool. OBAMACARE WAS ostensibly about controlling greedy insurance companies (who wrote most of the cronyistic bill in the first place) and “bending the cost curve.” In reality, Democrats have used Obamacare as a tool for social engineering and expanding the welfare state. As Obamacare falls apart, Democrats now turn to the “public option” — a staterun program — because incrementalism is what they always do. The public option is not new. Six years ago, before the Democratic Party had ful-

ly completed its hard-left turn, its moderates rejected the “public option.” One of the prevailing myths of the Obamacare battle was that the president had attempted to negotiate with the Republican Party in good faith. Every concession that was offered was meant to entice moderate Democrats to vote for the bill — because every last one of them was needed to pass it. In a sycophantic interview with New York magazine, Obama argues that moderate Dems who supported his bill were being brave. Hardly. At the time, redstate Democrats were sold on the idea of Obamacare becoming popular once it passed. Yet, despite repeated assurances from politicians and pundits, Obamacare is still just as unpopular in polls. By passing a national reform without any buy-in from half the country, Democrats destroyed their majority and made it impossible to move any meaningful domestic legislation for the rest of Obama’s presidency. Liberals like to mock Republicans for being obsessed with overturning Obamacare. Now that it’s useful, though, be prepared for lots of conversations about the future of the bill; about GOP obstructionism; about how conservatives hate sick women and children, etc. But if Republicans capitulate and help “fix” Obamacare, either through another taxpayer-funded insurance bailout or a “public option,” they will become co-owners of a disaster. OREGON SEN. Jeff Merkley introduced a Senate resolution for the “public option,” claiming it “is critical to bringing more competition and accountability to the insurance market.” Never in the history of mankind has a state-run entity in a private marketplace created more competitiveness or accountability. This is a debate conservatives should welcome because we might be talking beauty queens and a billionaire’s 20-year-old tax return today, but after the election the GOP has a chance to effectively finish off Obamacare. And it should take it.

October 19, 2016 VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: October 7, 2016

Kaine reveals emptiness of Democratic policies

delivered with an inappropriate smile, would elapse in 30 seconds. Just imagtrumps likability and common decency. ine a neutral college debate judge issuOr is it that their debate training and ing verbal time warnings every time a handlers inform them that mocking and debater hit pay dirt. Pence was remarkinterrupting are such effective tactics ably unruffled, though, and managed to that they’re worth whatever fallout they stay focused, but that wasn’t enough, because when he continued with his bring? Am I overthinking this? Could it be point, either Kaine or Quijano would that Kaine’s insolence is in his makeup make sure no one heard it. And unlike Kaine’s spurious atand was not a strategy to knock Pence some of Pence was raising off his game? I ask because even lib- t a c k s , very serious issues eral commentathat are relevant to tors seemed surthe nation’s future. prised by Kaine’s Hillary Clinton’s deportment. One (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate email and foundawondered aloud tion scandals matwhether he’d been wrong in assuming Kaine is a nice guy. ter; they are not just Republican talking It wouldn’t have been so awful if points. Quijano hadn’t been serving as Kaine’s PENCE WAS gracious and cogent, tag-team partner. But as predisposed as I am to see left-wing media bias, Qui- and when it came to social issues, he was refreshingly unapologetic about jano’s was screamingly obvious. When Pence launched on Clinton’s his politically incorrect beliefs, which IT MAKES you wonder whether email and foundation scandals, Quijano was a joy to watch. True, he didn’t eftheir focus groups have convinced invariably cut him off midsentence fectively defend some of Trump’s stateDemocrats that aggressive rudeness, with annoying warnings that his time ments, but that would be difficult for ecause of his stellar debate performance, some think Mike Pence was positioning himself for a presidential run in 2020. But if likability still matters, it’s likelier that Tim Kaine was taking himself out of the 2020 running. From the very beginning, it was as though Kaine was auditioning for the role of a despicable shyster in some cheesy TV legal drama. And with her frequent interruptions of Pence at key moments, it’s also as if debate moderator Elaine Quijano was trying to help him get the part. Kaine focused mainly on three things: Smarmily interrupting and taunting Pence, mouthing tired Democratic talking points and slamming Donald Trump. What is it with Democratic vice presidential candidates such as Kaine and Joe Biden that compels them to act like jerks in these debates?

David

Limbaugh

LIBERAL HYPOCRISY: October 6, 2016

It is a taxing situation

hat would you think of an individual or a company that earned a pre-tax profit of $29.9 million in one year, paid nothing in taxes and still received a $3.5 million refund? Am I speaking of Donald Trump? No, it is the New York Times Company. Forbes magazine studied the newspaper’s 2014 annual report, in which the company explained: “The effective tax rate for 2014 was favorably affected by approximately $21.1 million for the reversal of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the lapse of applicable statutes of limitations.” IN OTHER words the Times took advantage of tax laws that only good tax attorneys understand and in doing so was no different than Donald Trump. The Times, which obtained Trump’s supposedly confidential tax returns, made a big deal out of the Republican presidential candidate’s use of loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Democrats are trying to make this part of their “fair share” scenario when, in fact, they are making the argument Republicans have been making for years for tax reform, which Trump has promised to do if he’s elected president. The federal government is taking in record amounts of tax revenue, but is approaching a $20 trillion debt. The problem, noted Ronald Reagan, is not that the American people are taxed too

little, but that their government spends too much. No one is saying that Trump’s deductions were illegal, but that doesn’t matter to Democrats. As a Wall Street Journal editorial noted on Monday, “The left is committed to defeating Mr. Trump by whatever means possible, as many believe this end justifies any means, much as progressives have justified the Edward Snowden leaks despite the damage to national security.”

Cal

Leaking sealed or private documents is not a new strategy for Democrats. When Barack Obama was a candidate in the Democratic Senate primary in Illinois, the sealed divorce papers of his opponent, Jack Ryan, were shamelessly used to help defeat the “family values” Republican. Had that dirty trick not been used, Obama might never have been a senator, much less president. DOES ANYONE expect an IRS or Justice Department investigation into who leaked Trump’s tax records? Unlikely. FBI Director James Comey’s refusal to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her deliberate mishandling of classified information

seems to prove that the Obama administration is little more than an arm of her presidential campaign. The left’s narrative — stated and implied — is that everything government does is good, and so it is only right that taxpayers pay increasing amounts of taxes no matter how irresponsible government is in spending them. In this thinking, government has replaced God and taxes have replaced the collection plate, which at least amasses voluntary contributions. Politicians mostly like the tax code the way it is because they can tweak it in exchange for campaign contributions from lobbyists. For the rest of us, the tax code is a foreign language impossible for most to understand. Even the IRS doesn’t fully understand it. If you call the IRS for advice and the advice they give you is wrong, you can still be subject to penalties and interest. Republicans in high tax states and at the federal level should use the left’s “smoking gun” on Trump’s taxes as a weapon to demand tax reform. Flat and fair taxes have been suggested. Anything is better than the current system. Real tax reform would ensure that Trump paid some taxes, though they would likely be lower for him than for everyone else who pays them. AFTER THAT, maybe the conversation can shift to the real problem: Government spending.

anyone, and he did point out that Kaine was often distorting and exaggerating and avoiding a discussion of policy issues. Kaine, for all his obnoxiousness in demeanor, was even worse on the issues — when he was cornered into addressing them. He and Clinton can’t afford to engage in a substantive policy debate, because they embrace President Obama’s indefensible record, from the perpetually anemic economy to the staggering national debt to America’s declining military to the explosive proliferation of terrorism at home and abroad from the Islamic State group and Islamic State-inspired individuals and groups to our porous borders to executive lawlessness to the disastrous Obamacare, which even Clinton’s spouse has ridiculed. Kaine could only cite bogus statistics that contradict the undeniable experience of millions of Americans — a point Pence drove home — and try to scare traditional Democratic constituency groups into voting with the abominable multi-headed lie that Republicans are uncompassionate, racist, sexist homophobes who care only about the wealthy. Whether in this life or the next, there eventually has to be accountability for the left’s ceaseless exploitation of minorities and women, whom they view as objects and treat as props — all because they care more about political power than about people or the good of the country. How dare Kaine and Clinton ridicule Republicans for eroding infrastructure when their devotion to pseudo-religions such as environmentalism and their enslavement by liberal ideology lead them to divert tax revenues to unconscionably wasteful projects. How dare they shame us about the plight of minorities and the middle class when their policies are designed to make more and more people dependent on government and keep them in power. The Clinton-Kaine strategy in a nutshell, which Kaine implemented in the debate, is, “Well, if we were forced to be honest, we’d have to admit that our policies are making America less safe, devastating minorities and the middle class, smothering the economy, dismantling America’s social fabric, destroying race relations and fomenting class envy and resentment. So the only way we can win elections is to convince Americans that Republicans hate people worse than Democratic policies do.” LET’S HOPE Kaine was just creepy enough to alienate even a small sliver of the Democrats’ core constituency groups. It wouldn’t take many to make a dramatic electoral difference.

Conservative Chronicle

DONALD TRUMP: October 10, 2016

I don’t care what Trump said but what Hillary will do

continue to support Donald Trump for president, his not uncommon locker room braggadocio notwithstanding. I continue to support him because his observations pursuant male/female consensual adult sexual relations are no comparison to what the composition of the Supreme Court will be if Hillary Clinton is allowed to steal the election. I’m not withdrawing my support because remarks he made 11 years ago, or last week, in no way impacted the respectful manner in which his female employees are treated. His remarks didn’t translate into a hostile work environment for women.

I AM NOT withdrawing my support for Donald Trump because I am beyond outraged with the pernicious duplicity of the media and politicians who themselves are guilty of far more than just hollow words. And I particularly appalled at false piety. Bill and Hillary Clinton rode into Washington on waves of sexual scandals, and proven accusations of bigotry and racism. Dolly Kyle author of the book Hillary: The Other Woman, was Bill Clinton’s lover during their time together in high school and during his marriage. Kyle tells of Hillary calling disabled children who were invited to an Easter egg hunt at the Arkansas Governor’s mansion “F--king ree-tards.” Kyle wrote that Hillary called the people of Arkansas “ignorant hillbillies.” Kyle wrote of Hillary referencing Jews as: “Stupid Kike[s]” and “f--king Jew bastard[s]. Kyle joins a legion of people who insist that Bill Clinton called Reverend Jesse Jackson a “g-d-d--ned nigger.” The media saw nothing wrong with those remarks; in fact, the media and politicians ignore Hillary’s racism and anti-Semitism. Donald Trump’s locker room talk didn’t result in Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willy being raped and Paula Jones being beaten. Donald Trump didn’t say when you drive through a trailer park Paula Jones is what you get — but the Clinton campaign did. Donald Trump’s legacy is not stains on a blue dress. Do the media and dirty tricksters really want us to believe Mr. Trump’s earthy comments are worse than Bill Clinton using cigars as sexual devices on a White House intern in the Oval Office? What Mr. Trump said 11 years ago or one year ago isn’t the same as Hillary Clinton abandoning Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith, Ambassador Stevens, and Glen Doherty to be murdered in Benghazi. Mr. Trump’s “alpha boasting” did not contribute to the national debt, to 95 million Americans being out of the job force, 50 million Americans being on

Donald Trump’s remarks pale in food stamps, porous borders, terrorism in our streets, loss of jobs, ad nauseum. comparison to Hillary telling Wall Rapper Rick Ross has written the Street financiers it was necessary to demost vulgar and sexually graphic songs ceive the public for her to carry out their in the history of rap. One of Ross’s mission. Mr. Trump’s alpha boasting so-called songs was about about him in no way compares with Bill Clinton ing and boasting that drugging and raping “ho’s.” The media l a u g h Hillary was making wasn’t interested a mockery of FBI, when the hip-hop et al. mogul attended I refuse to alan Obama White low another canHouse event pro(c) 2016, Mychal Massie didate that We the moting the “empowerment” of black and Latino youth. People support to be destroyed as Karl Ross attended in full rap regalia com- Rove, the media and politicians on both plete with a court ordered ankle moni- sides of the aisle did to Herman Cain. tor as a condition of his release for kid- Do you not find it remotely curious napping and assault charges. And these that Karl Rove, the media and amoral same people feign insult about locker politicians say and do as they please with impunity but those we support are room talk? tarred and forced to drop out of races I SUPPORT Donald Trump regard- for saying and/or doing things that are less of his “locker roomisms” because not tangentially close to the words and those comments aren’t the issue. The actions of treasonous politicos? It seems the only time it matters jobs report month ending was abysmal and economic indicators are telling us what a person running for office says we will be in a full-blown recession by is when it is someone We the People support. Well, not this time. We have the general election.

Mychal

Massie

real issues that must be addressed and jocular remarks made by Donald Trump 11 years ago or six months ago are not in the same discussion with what will happen if Rove helps Hillary steal this election. I don’t care that Mr. Trump made off-color comments. I care that the next president will shape the Supreme Court for next 30-40 years. I care that the next president will either abolish Obamacare or find a way to prop it up. I care that the next president will either protect our borders or allow illegals to flood our cities at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars annually. I care that the next president will either respect the Constitution or deprive us of our Second Amendment rights. WE HAVE significant concerns facing this nation and the absolute least of those concerns is a Mr. Trump comment in a sexually explicit conversation. Good grief, by the standards of these infidels David would not have remained King of Israel.

DONALD TRUMP: October 5, 2016

How Trump became the issue

n Tuesday night, by consensus, Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence wiped the floor with Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine. Kaine appeared nervous, flustered and confused; Pence appeared comfortable and in control. Pence’s attacks on Hillary Clinton’s corruption and policy evils were well-calibrated and hard-hitting. There was only one problem: Kaine spent the entire evening hitting Donald Trump, and Pence spent the night attempting to treat Trump as though he was the child on the milk carton. Kaine slammed Trump’s imbecilic comments over the course of the campaign, from Mexican judges to Miss Universe; Pence slapped back weakly with Clinton’s “deplorables” comment, then registered for the Federal Witness Protection Program. NO WONDER Trump was reportedly fighting mad at his running mate, according to CNN’s John King. Pence didn’t defend him. He spent the night trying to fight Clinton instead. And that’s a tactic Trump just won’t stomach. Going into the 2012 election, Republicans were looking for a candidate who could do one thing, and one thing well: place a glaring spotlight on Clinton, and leave it there. Clinton is one of the least popular major party candidates

in American history. She had trouble escaping a brutal primary season with a near-octogenarian nutcase Vermont senator with no history of accomplishment other than being from the same state that produced Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. And she has been facing down a federal investigation for setting up a private server in order to destroy or hide classified information. So naturally, Republicans nominated the one man capable of drawing headlines to himself: Trump.

Ben

And he hasn’t failed. After the Democratic National Convention, he stepped directly into the media-set bear trap of the gold star Khan family. Then, in an attempt to correct course, he rightly went quiet for weeks, sticking to the teleprompter and avoiding the media. BUT DURING the first presidential debate, Trump couldn’t stop being Trump. Taunted by Clinton into defending himself over everything from IRS records to his position on the Iraq War to the aforementioned Miss Universe comment, Trump melted down. And he spent the next week melting down, al-

lowing the media to direct all of its fire against him instead of the FBI’s rigged investigation of Clinton, the continuing collapse of Clinton’s Syria policy and the implosion of Obamacare. He jabbered about her cheating on Bill Clinton. And blabbed about Miss Universe’s weight again and again. Donald Trump made Election 2016 about Donald Trump. Pence tried his best to put the genie back in the bottle during the vice presidential debate. VP debates simply don’t have that kind of weight. But Pence may have given Trump a chance — one last chance — to reset. And so, the question, as always, returns to Trump. Can he control himself? The Trump campaign now says that Trump will hit Clinton over her intimidation of her husband’s alleged rape and sexual harassment victims. But can Trump attack in methodical fashion, or will he lose his mind when Clinton jabs him? Can Trump even stand a week of decent coverage of his running mate, whom the media will rightly characterize as a candidate focused on the 2020 or 2024 elections? THE SMART money’s on Trump failing. But Trump has beaten the house before. The problem is that he’ll have to beat the house by folding a bad hand rather than going all in. And that’s never been his strength.

October 19, 2016 MEDIA BIAS: October 5, 2016

Media’s outrage should start working any day now

The only advance in the narrative is that the octaves of journalists’ voices keep getting higher, as they repeat the exact same attacks on Trump. Each time, the media claim victory by asserting with bland certainty that any drop in Trump’s poll numbers is because of something very upsetting to journalists, but which is generally quite popular with voters — the Mexican rapists speech, the Muslim ban, and his response to the choleric Muslim, Khizr IN FACT, all of the shocking new Khan. The media can tell us where the canTrump scandals were aired in the very first GOP presidential debate, where he didates stand in the polls. They can’t why. Nonetheless, they was asked seven questions about the fol- tell us insist on identifying lowing charges: the precise statement (1) He is mean of Trump’s that has to women. caused any setback, (2) He is mean which always hapto Mexicans. (c) 2016, Ann Coulter pens to be what(3) He said nice things about Obamacare. (Since ever the media is being hysterical about. Most absurd was the widely repeated dropped by the media in order to help claim that Trump’s “insult” of GOLD Hillary avoid the subject.) STAR DAD Khizr Khan caused him to (4) He is corrupt. dip in the polls. Except the problem is: (5) He is a bad businessman. (6) He is not a Republican. (Also (1) He didn’t insult Khan; and (2) anysince dropped — Hillary’s losing enough one who occasionally leaves his apartDemocrats to Trump without reminding ment realizes that no one would have them that he’s not a “real Republican.”) minded if he had. Khan’s son was one of 14 Muslims to (7) His “tone.” All that’s already been priced into the die serving in the U.S. military, which, Trump brand. What new results do the coincidentally, is the precise number of media expect from telling us that Trump American soldiers who have been killed not only insulted Rosie O’Donnell, but by Muslims serving in the U.S. military. At the Democratic Convention, Khan also insulted Hispanic Mattress Girl, Alicia Machado: Baby mama to a Mexi- waved a copy of the Constitution, asking Trump, “Have you even read the can drug lord? pproximately every other week since he announced has been called “Trump’s worst week yet!” — “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!” Reviewing the state of the presidential race, I see that very little has changed for the past year. Every few weeks, the media roll out a new Trump “scandal” that has already been thoroughly covered, day in, day out, for the last 15 months.

Ann

Coulter

U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words, ‘the right of all Muslims in the world to move to America shall not be abridged!’” Actually, that’s not in the Constitution. Incomprehensibly, Khan told Trump to look for the words “liberty” and “equal protection of law” — words that are noticeable for not mentioning “the right of all Muslims in the world to move to America.” HE ROUNDED out his harangue saying to Trump: “You have sacrificed nothing and no one!” In an article titled “Ire for Trump as He Derides Muslim Parents,” the New York Times described Trump’s response to Khan as “startling,” and said it “drew quick and widespread condemnation.” This included a tweet from Bush speechwriter Peter Wehner, calling Trump “a man of sadistic cruelty. With him there’s no bottom. Now go ahead and defend him.” I must have accidentally been out of the country for a few days because

I missed the part where Trump insulted the Khans. But according to the Times, Trump was “derid(ing)” the Khans when he went on Good Morning America and called the snarling Muslim a “nice guy,” wished him luck, wondered why his wife didn’t say anything, and talked about the reasons Americans might want to hit the pause button on mass Muslim immigration. To wit, Trump said: “Well, I would say, we have had a lot of problems with radical Islamic terrorism, that’s what I’d say. We have had a lot of problems where you look at San Bernardino, you look at Orlando, you look at the World Trade Center, you look at so many different things. You look at what happened to the priest over the weekend in Paris, where his throat was cut, 85-year-old, beloved Catholic priest. You look at what happened in Nice, France, a couple of weeks ago. I would say, you gotta take a look at that, because something is going on, and it’s not good.” I understand why the media are upset that Trump mentioned these notable contributions of Muslim immigrants, but unless I don’t know the country at all anymore, I do not believe a majority of Americans minded one bit. The media are betting that after 9/11, the diaper bomber, the shoe bomber, the Boston Marathon, Fort Hood, Chattanooga, San Bernardino, the Orlando nightclub, the Chelsea bombing, and the recent mall attacks in both Minnesota and Washington, the revulsion of the American public to anti-Muslim bigotry will be a HUGE factor in this election. Journalists swim in a sea of agreement. They don’t stop to think that the identity politics they majored in back in college might not be popular with all Americans. Polls showed a post-convention bounce for Hillary before Trump had said word one about Khan. Perhaps their nonsense headlines about Trump attacking a GOLD STAR FAMILY also helped them in the short run. BUT AS SOON as the public found out that it was this specific family and, also, that Trump didn’t attack them, voters weren’t mad at Trump, but they sure were with the media.

Conservative Chronicle

DONALD TRUMP: October 6, 2016

Trump’s campaign appears to be going off the rails

he 2016 presidential campaign head and insisted Trump never said will go down in U.S. history these things, or he refused to respond to as a nasty, below-the-belt po- Kaine’s charges and changed the sublitical brawl, filled with juvenile, mean- ject. As Kaine brought up one insult after spirited behavior that has embarrassed another by Trump, Pence was increduour country before the world. Take the first campaign debate, af- lous, replying in mock surprise, “Ours ter which the Republican frontrun- is an insult-driven campaign?” But the day after the debate, the ner suggested that one of the anchors, ton campaign sent who asked why he insulted women he C l i n out a video showing didn’t like — Kaine leveling his calling them “fat charges, followed pigs,” “dogs” and by tape recordings “slobs” — was of Trump saying on her menstrual (c) 2016, United Media Services what Pence insistcycle. For Donald Trump, it was the begin- ed he never said. Yet even Pence wasn’t willing to fulning of his immature, schoolyard rants in which he bragged about his manhood, ly embrace Trump’s over-the-top praise insulted a fellow candidate on her looks, of Putin’s murderous policies in Syria in and mocked a New York Times reporter support of Bashar Assad’s reign of terror. who has a physical disability. “Beneath the smooth patter,” the IN THE general election, Trump Washington Post said, “there were sigpraised Russian dictator Vladimir Pu- nificant cracks with Trump — especially tin — whose war planes are killing with regard to Russia and its role in the men, women and children in Syria and war in Syria — that showcased how far bombing their hospitals — as a “strong Pence’s instincts stray from Trump’s.” “I just have to tell you that provoleader,” insisting that the former KGB thug would never invade Ukraine when cations by Russia need to be met with American strength,” Pence said. “If he already had. Some of these and other bombastic Russia chooses to be involved and constatements made by Trump over the tinue, I should say to be involved in this course of this campaign were raised by barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Sen. the United States of America should be Tim Kaine of Virginia, in this week’s prepared to use military force to strike vice presidential debate with Indiana military targets of the Assad regime.” While Trump was calling Putin “a Gov. Mike Pence. In most cases, Pence just shook his strong leader,” whom he liked and said

Donald

Lambro

he could work with, Pence made it clear he didn’t share his running mate’s dopey views — calling Putin “a small and bullying leader.” Meantime, over the past several weeks, Trump’s reality show candidacy has been hit by one political bombshell after another. There was the New York Times’ report, based on one of his tax filings, that Trump’s casino and other real estate investments lost close to $1 billion in the 1990s, which would have allowed the billionaire businessman to write off all of his federal income taxes over an 18year period. YET DURING this period, he bought a luxury 727 jet for his personal use, and a string of real estate properties in New York, Palm Beach and Colorado. That, say observers, is the reason why he refuses to disclose his tax documents — something that every major presidential nominee has done in the last four decades — that would reveal his real annual income.

This week, Forbes magazine published its annual list of the 400 richest Americans that showed Trump at No. 156, with a fortune of $3.7 billion. On Tuesday, in a “notice of violation,” New York’s attorney general ordered Trump’s personal charity, the Trump Foundation, to cease fundraising immediately, because he had been raising money without legal state authorization or annual audits. In a stunning investigative report earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that since 2008, his foundation depended entirely on other people’s donations and none of his own. Trump has been showing signs of increasing erratic behavior: attacking Alicia Machado, a stunning former Miss Universe whom he mocked and embarrassed for her weight gain 20 years ago; deciding to make former president Bill Clinton’s sexual affairs a major issue in his campaign; raising new political questions about Hillary Clinton’s health; and renewing his war on the news media. With polls showing that voters are worried most about the weak economy, jobs and falling incomes, GOP officials feared the Trump campaign was going off the rails in the wake of last week’s first presidential debate. “Can this thing just end — please?” Ohio’s Republican Party chairman Matt Borges said. “My G--, what a nightmare.” There certainly were bigger issues for Trump to flog in erratic campaign. The Obama economy has nearly stopped moving under the Democrats’ rule, growing at little more than one percent. Consumer spending slowed sharply in August, turning in its weakest performance in five months. Personal income was nearly flat throughout the summer. Obamacare was coming apart at the seams as health insurers were leaving the program in droves, forcing the administration to try and prop up health plans with billions of dollars from an obscure Treasury fund to circumvent the Republican Congress. Of course, Hillary Clinton, who would raise taxes on the economy, saddle businesses with more regulations and sharply raise spending, would be no better. SADLY, ONE of them is going to become president.

October 19, 2016 DONALD TRUMP: October 10, 2016

Trump’s vile candidacy is chemotherapy for the GOP “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” — “Me and Bobby McGee” What did Donald Trump have left to lose Sunday night? His dignity? Please. His campaign’s theme? His Cleveland convention was a mini-Nuremberg rally for Republicans whose three-word recipe for making America great again was the shriek “Lock her up!” This presaged his Banana Republican vow to imprison his opponent.

THE ST. LOUIS festival of snarls was preceded by the release of a tape that merely provided redundant evidence of what Trump is like when he is being his boisterous self. Nevertheless, the tape sent various Republicans, who until then had discovered nothing to disqualify Trump from the presidency, into paroxysms of theatrical, tactical and synthetic dismay. Again, the tape revealed nothing

about this arrested-development ado- work,” or his ignorance of the nuclear lescent that today’s righteously re- triad — is required to prompt some coiling Republicans either did not al- Republicans to have second thoughts ready know or had no excuse for not about him, so be it. knowing. Before the tape reminded the FOR EXAMPLE, Sen. Richard pathologically forgetful of Trump’s feral appetites and deranged sense of Burr, a North Carolinian seeking a term, represents a entitlement, the staid Economist maga- t h i r d kind of Republizine, holding the can judiciousness subject of Trump regarding Trump. at arm’s-length Having heard the like a soiled sock, tape and seen reminded readers (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group Trump’s “apoloof this: “When gy” (Trump said, Mr. Trump divorced the first of his three wives, Iva- essentially: My naughty locker room na, he let the New York tabloids know banter is better than Bill Clinton’s bethat one reason for the separation was havior), Burr solemnly said: “I am gothat her breast implants felt all wrong.” ing to watch his level of contrition over His sexual loutishness is a sufficient the next few days to determine my levreason for defeating him, but it is far el of support.” North Carolinians will down a long list of sufficient reasons. watch with bated breath as Burr, meaBut if it — rather than, say, his enthu- suring with a moral micrometer, caresiasm for torture even “if it doesn’t fully calibrates how to adjust his sup-

George

Will

REPUBLICANS: October 10, 2016

The agony of the Republicans

ess than a month before the election, the Republican speaker of the House says he won’t defend or campaign with his party’s presidential nominee. The nominee has responded by slamming the speaker on Twitter, and his campaign manager is accusing some (unnamed) elected Republicans of sexual harassment against her. The Donald Trump campaign and the Republican Party show every sign of entering into an ugly death spiral. The revelation of the Trump Access Hollywood tape last Friday occasioned a historic rupture, with elected Republicans around the country denouncing Trump and calling on him to step aside.

ANY HOPE of Trump turning a corner with his relatively competent second debate was dashed when House Speaker Paul Ryan told his colleagues that he is concentrating on saving his House majority as a check on Hillary Clinton. It is a fact that one out of two majorparty presidential campaigns fail. Some fail badly. But the GOP may be about to experience an unprecedentedly wrenching debacle because its nominee is an ideological interloper with no impulse control or regard for political norms. No matter how bad or weird the campaign seems now, it could get worse and stranger still. Bob Dole was a horrible presidential candidate and not a particularly conservative Republican. But he was an honorable man who had a loyalty to things

bigger than himself, including his political party. When Republicans had to cut him loose in 1996 to try to save their congressional majorities, he was a good and loyal solider. Does anyone expect that of Donald Trump? His investment in the party is nil, and he takes all slights personally, whether they are from Alicia Machado or the speaker of the House. The Access Hollywood tape was a tipping point. In isolation, perhaps Republicans could have looked beyond it. But after so many controversies and interventions and alleged pivots, t h e dam finally broke.

Rich

Trump depended on brute force more than on persuasion or personal relationships to unite the party. Many Republicans were tentatively and insincerely aboard the Trump Train to begin with. They went through the motions in public, while conceding in private Trump’s failings and worrying about the consequences of his candidacy. NONE OF them will ever be up for Profile in Courage Awards. Not coincidentally, they broke with Trump as the polls began to slide the wrong way, with the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing him down by double digits. (Nothing pricks a politician’s conscience like bad poll numbers.)

The split over the past few days creates the predicate for a GOP internal war until November and beyond. It will pit swing-state Republicans and those who want to save them, like Paul Ryan, against Trump’s hard-core base and the balance of ordinary partisan Republicans who want the party to fight even harder for Trump. The disunity itself will be damaging and dispiriting. There will be every incentive for Trump to exacerbate rather than try to smooth over, or at least look past, the divide. Hitting back at his party critics energizes his fans, and, if he is headed for a loss in November, it sets up a stabbed-in-the-back narrative after the election. So his party detractors are insiders, quislings and, to believe his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, sexual harassers. The period before the first presidential debate, when Trump pulled close to a tie with Hillary Clinton, feels like an eon ago. He had come back with a month of relative discipline beginning in mid-August that now looks like a parenthesis in an otherwise recklessly selfish campaign. THAT TRUMP would become a poisonous wedge issue within the GOP was always a plausible worst-case scenario. Now, it is upon us. Trump supporters in the primaries wanted to “burn it down.” They may well be able to point to the wreckage of the post-November GOP as an indicator of their smashing success.

port to Trump’s unfolding repentance. Burr, who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not received this nugget of intelligence: Contrition is not in Trump’s repertoire. Why should it be? His appetites, like his factoids, are self-legitimizing. Trump is a marvelously efficient acid bath, stripping away his supporters’ surfaces, exposing their skeletal essences. Consider Mike Pence, a favorite of what Republicans devoutly praise as America’s “faith community.” Some of its representatives, their crucifixes glittering in the television lights, are still earnestly explaining the urgency of giving to Trump, who agreed that his daughter is “a piece of a--,” the task of improving America’s coarsened culture. Because Pence looks relatively presidential when standing next to Trump — talk about defining adequacy down — some Republicans want Trump to slink away, allowing Pence to float to the top of the ticket and represent Republicanism resurrected. This idea ignores a pertinent point: Pence is standing next to Trump. He salivated for the privilege of being Trump’s poodle, and he expresses his canine devotion in rhetorical treacle about “this good man.” What would a bad man look like to pastor Pence? Still, some journalists, who seem to have no interests beyond their obsession with presidential politics and who illustrate Kipling’s principle (“What should they know of England who only England know?”), are so eager to get started on 2020 that they are anointing Pence the GOP’s frontrunner. Perhaps Republicans will indeed embrace a man who embraced a presidential candidate whose supposed “locker room banter” merely echoed sexual boasts he published in a book. TODAY, HOWEVER, Trump should stay atop the ticket, for four reasons. First, he will give the nation the pleasure of seeing him join the one cohort, of the many cohorts he disdains, that he most despises — “losers.” Second, by continuing to campaign in the spirit of St. Louis, he can remind the nation of the useful axiom that there is no such thing as rock bottom. Third, by persevering through November 8 he can simplify the GOP’s quadrennial exercise of writing its post-campaign autopsy, which this year can be published November 9 in one sentence: “Perhaps it is imprudent to nominate a venomous charlatan.” Fourth, Trump is the GOP’s chemotherapy, a nauseating but, if carried through to completion, perhaps a curative experience.

Conservative Chronicle

2016 ELECTION: October 7, 2016

Robin Hood economics falls flat in debates

Trump’s trademark line in his reality TV show. Clinton’s “trickle-down” political shorthand, with an ancient lineage, once triggered a more elaborate argument familiar and persuasive to many workingclass Democratic voters. It would have been readily understood, for example, by the 125,000 people — mostly men, mostly white, mostly union members — who gathered in downtown Detroit’s Cadillac Square to hear Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy speak on Labor Day in 1960. You don’t see rallies like that in the now-reFOR A generation, the jousting be- named Kennedy Square anymore. They believed that the high tween Republicans and Democrats has tax rates imposed by been waged within Franklin Roosevelt a pretty narrow in the 1930s (top range. The former rate 63 percent) want a top rate of and then by bipar33 percent, the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate tisan consensus latter 42 percent. during World War However, Hillary Clinton, evidently trying to win over II and left in place thereafter (top rate 91 wary Bernie Sanders fans, now says she percent) were a way of taking the outsize gains of a few corporate bosses and movwants to raise it to 65 percent. What’s apparent from the first presi- ie stars and distributing the proceeds to dential debate and the vice presiden- ordinary workingmen and their families. As it happens, as president, Kennedy tial debate is that the arguments for this Robin Hoodism aren’t persuasive. The didn’t make that argument at all. Recogtwo gimmicky catchphrases enunciated nizing that high tax rates encourage tax by the members of the Democratic presi- avoidance and discourage growth, he dential ticket seemed to land with a thud. proposed what became the 1964 tax cuts, “Trickle-down economics all over which were a model for former actor again,” Hillary Clinton character- Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The problem with “trickle-down” and ized Donald Trump’s tax plan. “I call it trumped-up trickle-down because that’s “hire/fire” is that they are addressed to a exactly what it would be.” A clever segment of the electorate that no longer phrase, but not one she repeated as the exists — or at least is no longer a plausible target for Democratic candidates. One debate went on. Tim Kaine came prepared with a nov- recent poll showed non-college-graduate el formulation: “Do you want a ‘you’re white men voting only 17 percent for hired’ president in Hillary Clinton, or Hillary Clinton. Trump does better than do you want a ‘you’re fired’ president in that with Hispanics. Donald Trump?” Mike Pence congratuTHE ERA OF boss-vs.-worker polilated him on his gimmicky turn of phrase, tics, in which the key issue was economic and viewers didn’t hear the line again. Kaine’s phrase at least had a some- redistribution, has long been over. For at what contemporary reference point, least a generation, maybe two, we have obin Hood is dead. Or at least seriously ailing. The politics of taking from the rich and giving to the poor — the politics that philosophers from Aristotle to James Madison dreaded — just doesn’t seem to be working as it used to. That’s not to say that the United States is about to give up on progressive taxation. With its graduated income tax, the American tax system is by some measures the most progressive in any advanced country.

Michael

Barone

been in an era of identity politics, in which cultural issues divide voters. Democrats were able to squeeze a few votes as the tribune of workers versus bosses in Midwestern target states in 2012 against Mitt Romney, the son of an auto executive. But that hasn’t been working against Trump. Downscale whites don’t see Trump as a boss who would fire rather than hire them. They see him as a champion who might somehow fire the cultural elitists who look down on them as waste material in a “basket of deplorables,” vermin infected with “implicit racism.” Trump does arouse fears among many voters — fears of impulsive foreign initiatives, trade wars, attacks on political

enemies. Multiple provocative comments have provided some basis for those fears. But they don’t fear the specter that Clinton and Kaine sketched out, that his tax cuts would produce financial collapse. No serious economist — liberal or conservative — believes those Democrats’ preposterous theory that the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts led inexorably to the 2008 financial collapse. CLINTON AND Kaine seek to rally a coalition of blacks, Hispanics, young people and college-educated single women large enough to total 50 percent. Robin Hood economics, as they seemed to recognize as they dropped “trickle-down” and “hire/fire,” doesn’t get them there.

DONALD TRUMP: October 12, 2016

Trump must pivot

he highly personal tone of way or the other, he will lose his chance charge and countercharge in to win. It’s time for issues and positive Sunday’s debate was necessary proposals. Trump has dug himself not just into due to the huge impact of the Donald Trump dirty-talk tape over the weekend. a hole but into a potential grave. The WSJ poll has him But now Trump must pivot to issue ideas N B C / 14 behind in a twothat demonstrate way and 11 back why he should be in a four-way race. president. Rasmussen polls, Trump’s debate which I trust the performance was (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate most, has Trump excellent. He articulated the email issue very well, drew falling from minus one to minus seven the comparison between his words and over this disastrous weekend. Hillary Clinton’s depredations against the BUT BENEATH the carnage, he has women who were Bill’s alleged victims. one redeeming feature: Donald Trump BUT WHEN the debate turned to has persuaded America that he is the canObamacare, he really scored points by didate of change and that Hillary Clinton hammering away at the deficiencies of is the equivalent of President Obama’s the program. Now he must continue in third term. Now he must articulate of what that change consists while he has that vein. If he gets mired in the more familiar our attention. and sensational turf of sexual charges one

Dick

Morris

October 19, 2016 LIBERAL HYPOCRISY: October 6, 2016

Trump, taxes and liberal hypocrisy

In 2001, Kerry’s state of Massaet’s describe the relationship of the media and their Demo- chusetts lowered its income tax rate. cratic cohorts to taxes and If, however, the guilty Bay State liberthose who “don’t pay them” as, well, als wanted to pay the higher rate — so as not to deprive schools, hospitals and complicated. In 2012, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl all — they could check a box and do so. claimed on television that an auto me- Out of over three million tax filers, only chanic making $75,000 a year paid a fraction of one percent (930 taxpayers) a higher federal income tax rate than voluntarily agreed to pay the old, highthat paid by then-Republican presi- er rate. Not among that fraction of one dential nominee Mitt Romney. But, as percent was then-Rep. Barney Frank, DI later told Karl in a radio interview, Mass., who once said, “There are a lot of that would only be true if Mr. Auto Me- very rich people out there whom we can asked about the apparent chanic had no children, owned no home tax.” When diction, Frank said, “I and therefore did not take the same de- contradon’t trust the (Reductions as those publican-led state) taken by Romney. government to In an apples-tospend the money apples compariproperly.” son, I informed (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate The late Sen. him, Romney, at a 14 percent rate, pays twice the rate paid Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., cast many votes opposing decreases in the estate tax. by Mr. Mechanic. But his father, Joe Kennedy, placed his KARL SAID he would look into family’s fortune in trusts to avoid paythat, and get back to me. He must’ve ing the very estate tax that his son later used Hillary Clinton’s email server, be- advocated during his Senate career. The late Democratic tax-the-rich Ohio Sen. cause I never heard back. Democrat’s 2004 presidential nomi- Howard Metzenbaum relocated to Flornee, John Kerry, through marriage, is ida upon retirement, a move reportedly also a wealthy man. A few years ago, he made so that upon death he would avoid bought a 76-foot yacht, but docked it in state estate taxes. Based on where he was nearby Rhode Island, rather than Mas- when he died, mission accomplished. Then there are the tax-the-rich hosts sachusetts where he lived and presumably used the yacht. It turns out by do- at cable news channels, with the list led ing so he could avoid $500,000 in sales by MSNBC’s Rev. Al Sharpton, whose and excise taxes. Embarrassed by a me- endorsement was vigorously pursued by Hillary Clinton, even though she criticizdia expose, he later paid up.

Larry

Elder

es Donald Trump for having “paid nothing in federal taxes.” Sharpton, according to the New York Times in 2014, owes “more than $4.5 million in current state and federal tax.” IT WAS THE New York Times that dropped the “bombshell” that for years Donald Trump “paid no federal income taxes.” This would be the same New York Times that, in 2014 — and who knows what other years — paid zero federal income taxes. Donald Trump is a rich businessman. Business people typically do not become

rich by willingly pay more in taxes than they believe they owe. He took legal deductions, apparently using losses and his casino businesses to offset his income taxes. Perfectly legal, nothing to see here. Trump does pay taxes — a lot of them. He pays payroll taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, local taxes and whatever fees imposed by the various states in which he does business. And as for his claim that he’s undergoing an audit and therefore does not want to release returns? The explanation is simple, if not clear to people who don’t run a complicated business. Trump and the IRS are very likely in disagreement over how much he owes and how the tax code should be interpreted to come up with the correct amount. Trump, who says he gets audited every year, probably has these disagreements every year. If he were to disclose his returns, and the public became aware of the amount the IRS says he owes versus the amount he thinks he does, the IRS will be publicly shamed into digging in its heels, refusing to negotiate lest they be perceived as caving in to a rich guy. In short, Trump would lose his leverage and very likely millions of dollars in taxes. What sane person does that? Warren Buffett, who claimed he paid a lower tax rate then did his secretary, disputed what the IRS claimed one of his companies owed. Given that Buffett famously wants income taxes raised, why doesn’t he simply accede to the IRS’ request, pay the money voluntarily and increase the federal treasury? By the way, while we’re at it, has anybody seen Buffett’s returns and those of his secretary to confirm his assertion that he pays a lower tax rate than she does? BUT THEN, neither Buffett, nor, we presume, his secretary, is a Republican. Different strokes for different folks.

Conservative Chronicle

IGNORANCE ON BUSINESS: October 6, 2016

Will someone please teach the left about business?

ere we go again — it’s the to monetize that interest. Facebook is a countdown to Election Day, great example, but it is hardly the only and so we have to watch one one. Companies like Snapchat, Twitter, anti-business shibboleth after another Instagram, Pandora and Zillow have paraded out to enrage and confuse vot- rock-star status in the public’s mind, and ers. The latest is the outrage over Donald they are valued in the billions despite Trump’s taxes. But that is, frankly, just being unprofitable. 2. Busi- nesses DO create jobs, part of a much larger national converwealth and economic sation that reveals growth. just how ignorant This isn’t Clinmuch of the press ton’s first display — and the left in of appalling busigeneral — is about (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate ness ignorance. business in the How many reUnited States. So here are a few talking points for Trump, member her now-infamous quote from Mike Pence and anyone else who’d like two years ago? At an event for failed to defend the contributions that business Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley, Clinton said, “Don’t makes to this country. 1. Even successful businesses lose let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs. money. A few days ago, in reference to Don- You know that old theory, trickle-down ald Trump’s $916 million loss in 1995, economics. That has been tried. That has Hillary Clinton tossed out another one of failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.” her insults: “What kind of genius loses CUE THE laugh track. First of all, a billion dollars in a single year?” Well, let’s see. How about Jeff Bezos, founder the idea that businesses create jobs isn’t and CEO of Amazon. He lost over six “trickle-down economics;” it’s fact. Has Clinton bothered to check with the Butimes that amount in a single day. reau of Labor Statistics? Out of about LOTS OF companies lose money. 144 million Americans working today, Sometimes it is because they fail to re- 116 million are employed in the private spond to changes in the competitive sector. According to the most recent ecolandscape. Sometimes it’s because of nomic census data, there are 29 million global events. Eleven businesses lost $4 firms in the United States. The vast mabillion or more in 2015; eight of those jority of those are very small businesses. were in the energy sector, affected by Only about 5.7 million firms employ the tumbling price of oil. Other times anyone other than their owners. But it is because new technologies grab the small employer firms (those with fewer public’s attention before it’s clear how than 20 employees) create a dispropor-

Laura

Hollis

tionate number of net new jobs every year. By the same token, very large companies (those with more than 500 employees) employ more than half of those 116 million Americans. So, yes, corporations and businesses do create jobs. 3. The world is looking to replicate America’s business success. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is an organization that has been studying entrepreneurial behavior and economic development for 17 years. More than 500 scholars in 300-plus institutions conduct research in more than 100 countries. The results are quite clear, and reflect a growing global consensus: Entrepreneurship, business creation and business growth are indispensable to a healthy, vibrant economy that lifts people out of poverty.

Indeed, we have powerful proof. The Millennium Development Goal of getting half of the world’s poorest out of poverty between 1990 and 2015 was accomplished five years early: By 2010, the number of people on the planet living on less than $2 day had been reduced by nearly a billion people. As the Economist noted three years ago, “Most of the credit ... must go to capitalism and free trade, for they enable economies to grow — and it was growth, principally, that has eased destitution.” Finally, on a more pedestrian note ... 4. Business losses are tax-deductible. Yes, you read that right. If a business loses money, it is permitted to deduct those losses from its taxable income. A big enough loss could result in — grab your smelling salts, dearies — paying no taxes. That is what the U.S. Code and IRS regulations permit. An absolutely critical part of any entrepreneurial economy is to encourage responsible risk-taking. Every new business is a risk; some ideas will pay off, and some will not. We need people who are willing to take those risks — we all benefit when they succeed. Tax deductions for business losses, like our bankruptcy laws, are among the devices that minimize the impact of those losses on those who fail. To an extent, it’s understandable that Clinton doesn’t understand business, since her primary source of income over the past three decades has been a salary paid by taxpayers, or six-figure speaking fees. So maybe she thinks that everyone gets a quarter of a million dollars for 45 minutes of work. SO ENOUGH with the trumped-up (couldn’t resist) outrage, Hillary Clinton. No one’s insisting that you go start a business or create a few jobs. But we are demanding a lot less indignation and a lot more gratitude for those who do.

October 19, 2016 LIBERAL HYPOCRISY: October 12, 2016

The Trump tape vs. Hillary the assault enabler

The women who were actually han the election cycle dominated by Donald Trump, it should rassed by Bill Clinton were never ofnot be much of a shock that the fered any support from Hillary Clinton, first October Surprise came from “Ac- or her femi- nist army in the press. ary of 1994, Paula cess Hollywood.” In a 2005 outtake, In FebruJones held a press Trump told thenconference to ac”Access” co-host cuse Bill Clinton Billy Bush how he of exposing himcould rudely grab self and requesting women’s genitals (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate oral sex in a hotel and get away with it because “when you’re a star, they let room in Little Rock, Arkansas. Other than 16 seconds on ABC, the media you do it. You can do anything.” They say it was a recent discovery. decided that wasn’t news ... until Jones No media October Surprise there. No, filed a lawsuit and the Clintons hired a lawyer three months later. siree. But the Jones case vanished from the SMELLING TRUMP’S blood in press and played no significant role in the water, the Clinton-enabling press the 1996 presidential campaign. There sprung into action. None of them were 11 network stories during the enseemed to reflect for five seconds about tire election year. Half of them were how Trump could be describing Bill perfunctory notices of legal claims, and Clinton’s modus operandi. Trump talk- the other half focused on the Republied as Clinton did. The press’ moral out- can National Committee making an ad rage was as phony as Hillary Clinton’s. mocking Bill Clinton for claiming that “This is horrific,” Clinton shamelessly he couldn’t be sued because he was on tweeted. “We cannot allow this man to “active duty” as commander-in-chief. Once Clinton was safely re-elected, a become president.”

Brent

Bozell

TAX PRIVILEGES: October 6, 2016

few establishment media outlets decid- a huge, national nightmare — in part ed that maybe there was something to because both Bill and Hillary Clinton this Jones thing. claimed for months that Lewinsky was lying. When the story broke, Hillary THE LAWSUIT eventually led to Clinton even said on ABC that Lewinthe deposition of former Clinton intern sky misunderstood that Bill Clinton is Monica Lewinsky, so the story became just “a happy, friendly, loving, kind, good person.” He “reaches out to all kinds of people.” ABC enabled that. No laugh track. No skepticism. It was gullible to a fault. The emergence of Lewinsky led to other women who said that Clinton assaulted them. In March of 1998, Ed In our calculations, 65 percent of Bradley interviewed Kathleen Willey on corporate tax expenditures privilege CBS 60 Minutes. Willey said the presicertain activities or industries while dent fondled her breast and put her hand excluding others. They result in effec- on his crotch during a 1993 Oval Office tive tax disparities that not only are visit. Willey had been begging for a job. unfair and encourage rent-seeking but The Clinton team quickly put out letalso distort consumption and invest- ters Willey had written Clinton to erase ment, which harms the economy. For the idea that she was assaulted, and the instance, our tax code contains special story vanished. A federal judge ruled in deductions for many Blue Cross Blue 2000 that the Clinton White House vioShield companies, deductions that are lated the Privacy Act with that disclonot extended to their competitors. sure. The Big Three TV networks gave The conversation on tax expen- that ruling 66 seconds combined. ditures is often muddied by a lack of This pattern was even repeated with distinction between crony tax expendi- Juanita Broaddrick, who declared in a tures and anti-double taxation deduc- Dateline NBC interview in 1999 that tions. However, it shouldn’t stop us Clinton raped her in a Little Rock hofrom trying to fight the exemptions that tel room in 1978 (“You better get some are just tax privileges to special cor- ice for that,” he told her after). On the porate interests. As a first step in that evening newscasts, CBS aired one story, fight, lawmakers could let those crony and ABC and NBC did nothing — even tax extenders expire. They could also though NBC secured the interview! expand narrowly applied expenditures When Trump invited these women that aim to move the tax code toward to the second presidential debate, guess a neutral base and eliminate expendi- what the networks did. They attacked tures that fail to perform this function. Trump for going “personal.” So ask yourself this question: How ULTIMATELY, MEMBERS of many times since 1994 have TV interCongress could adopt a broad-based viewers asked Hillary Clinton what she consumption tax system to replace did or didn’t do to smear these women? the complicated and unfair income Try and find one occasion. tax we have now. And until they do, they should abstain from adding new AS REPUGNANT as it was, tax privileges to serve their corporate Trump’s offense was words. The Clinfriends. tons’ offenses were actions. The cynicism boggles the mind.

Lame ducks & corporate tax privileges

ongress recently passed another short-term continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown and fund the government until Dec. 9. It was a small victory for those of us who fight against cronyism, as the cronies failed to use the bill as a way to restore the full lending authority of the Export-Import Bank, whose charter expired for a short time last year. Sadly, it is opening the way for the mother of all crony legislation: An omnibus bill during the lame-duck session. Congress will once again have to consider a massive and unaccountable 2017 spending bill during that postelection twilight period when outgoing politicians are able to push through legislation before the new president and new Congress take power. WE CANNOT overstate the risk faced by taxpayers during that time. The lame-duck session provides lawmakers with a unique opportunity to load the omnibus bill with pork projects, such as a full Ex-Im revival and other special interest handouts. And this year, the stakes are high for interest groups and lobbyists because some $19.4 billion in tax extenders — privileges granted to politically favored special interests — are set to expire. They include $26 million in tax privileges for NASCAR and Hollywood

movie studios, $7 billion in renewable energy subsidies, $336 million in rum subsidies and a $433 million railroad maintenance subsidy (with all numbers representing two-year costs). As part of President Barack Obama’s last hurrah, we should also expect Democrats to push for billions of dollars in

Veronique

taxpayers’ money to bail out insurance companies crushed by the failed promises of the Affordable Care Act. NOW, TO BE fair, these handouts are only a small share of the cronyism that takes place in our tax code day in and day out. In a study just released by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University to review selected corporate tax privileges, my colleague Adam Michel and I examine the current state and accounting of what are commonly called tax expenditures. We find that not all tax expenditures are created equal. Some of these tax exemptions are meant to address economic inefficiencies created — mostly through the double taxation of capital income — by the income tax code. However, many of them are simple government-provided tax subsidies.

Conservative Chronicle

EDUCATION: October 12, 2016

Failing schools: A Constitutional right to literacy

a Detroit schools representative, substitutes, principals and other staffers must cover classes, a situation not unique to COLIN FLAHERTY, author of Detroit (http://tinyurl.com/p9sf2d9). In Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry, has California, signing bonuses of $20,000, compiled news stories and videos that “combat pay,” aren’t enough to prevent ers from leaving show how black students target teachers t e a c h altogether or seekfor violence. He ing out less violent discusses some of schools. it in his Jan. 12, The depart2015, American ments of EducaThinker article, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate tion and Justice titled “Documented: Black Students Target Teachers for have launched a campaign against disViolence” (http://tinyurl.com/l67857g). proportionate minority discipline rates, As a result of school violence and oth- which show up in virtually every school er problems, many teachers quit when district with significant numbers of June rolls around. Every year, Detroit black and Hispanic students. The posIN TERMS of per-pupil expendi- loses about five percent of its teaching sibility that students’ behavior, not edutures, the state does not treat Detroit positions (135 teachers). According to cators’ racism, drives those rates lies public school students any differently than it does other students. According LESLIE’S TRIVIA BITS: October 10, 2016 to the Michigan Department of Education, the Detroit school district ranks 50th in state spending, at $13,743 per pupil. This is out of 841 total districts. That puts Detroit schools in the top six percent of per-pupil expenditures in the he Brix scale is used to mea- found in Australia from wildlife in Asia. state. Discrimination in school expensure sugar content in wine, Wallace conducted research into evoluditures cannot explain poor educational fruit juice, and fruits and veg- tion in Indonesia while Charles Darwin outcomes for black students in Detroit etables. It’s named for Adolf Brix, the did his thing in the Galapagos. Although or anywhere else in the nation. Let’s 19th-century Austro-German mathema- they worked independently, they’re listlook at routinely ignored educational tician who devised it, and it’s expressed ed as co-authors on the first scientific impediments in Detroit and elsewhere. as “degrees Brix” or degree-sign Bx. paper to explain natural selection, pubAnnie Ellington, director of the De- Ripe grapes usually measure 18 to 24 lished in 1858. troit Youth Violence Prevention Ini- degrees Brix, pineapples around 14 deOpal, the iridescent multihued Octotiative, reported that 87 percent of the grees Brix, and garlic (believe it or not) ber birthstone, takes its name from the 1,301 Detroit public school students typically measures more than 30 de- Sanskrit word upala, meaning precious interviewed in a survey last year knew grees Brix. stone. Yet, somewhere between ancient someone who had been killed, disabled Mr. Bigglesworth in the Austin times and the Middle Ages, commonly or wounded by gun violence. According Powers movies was played by a hair- accepted “wisdom” decreed that the to an article published by the American less Sphynx cat named Ted Nudegent. word opal was related to Psychological Association, 80 percent (Nude Gent, see?) He was named, of of teachers surveyed nationally in 2011 course, for the rocker who gave us “Cat had been victimized at school at least Scratch Fever” way back when. Ted’s once during that school year or the prior understudy was another Sphynx named year. Detroit public schools are plagued Mel Gibskin. His nephews, Hairless (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate with the same problems of violence Potter and Skindiana Jones, also have faced by other predominately black appeared in films and on TV. the ancient Greek word for eye, ophschools in other cities. thalmos. (As in ophthalmologists, the In Baltimore, each school day in KHMER, THE official language of doctors who treat diseases of the eye.) 2010, an average of four teachers and Cambodia, has the world’s longest al- This led to the belief that opals helped staff were assaulted. In February 2014, phabet with 69 letters currently in use protect a person’s sight and, conversely, the Baltimore Sun reported that more and another five or so considered ob- to the belief that wearing opals could than 300 Baltimore school staff mem- solete. The world’s shortest alphabet is render a person invisible. bers had filed workers’ compensation the one used in the Rotokas language claims during the previous fiscal year spoken by an estimated 4,300 people in IF YOU’RE a guy who looks good because of injuries received through as- Papua New Guinea. It consists of 11 or in pink, wear it proudly. The idea that saults or altercations on the job. A 1999 12 letters (depending on which source pink is a color for girls and that blue is Michigan law requires school districts you consult). To put this in perspective: for boys came along relatively recently. to expel any student in sixth grade or The English alphabet (as you probably In fact, pink traditionally was a symbol above who physically assaults a school know) has 26 letters, Icelandic has 32 of vigor and health, which made it apemployee. The Lansing Board of Edu- letters in regular use and modern Rus- propriate for robust boys who’d grow cation ignored the law and refused to sian uses 33 letters. up to be manly men. Meanwhile, blue expel four students for throwing chairs Wallacea is a heart-shaped region was considered serene and ethereal, perat an employee, slapping a teacher and of islands in the Pacific, including the fect for dainty girls who’d become depunching another in the face. It took a nation of East Timor and several In- mure women. Dig into history, tradition Michigan Supreme Court ruling to get donesian islands. It’s named for Alfred and “expert advice” through the ages the board to enforce the law. The court Russel Wallace, a 19th-century natural- and you’ll find as many recommendasaid the law was enacted “specifically ist who documented the geographical tions of pink for boys/blue for girls as (to) protect teachers from assault and to transition zone that separates wildlife the other way around.

etroit school students, represented by the Los Angelesbased public interest firm Public Counsel, filed suit last month against the state of Michigan, claiming a legal right to literacy based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Ninetythree percent of Detroit’s predominantly black public school eighth-graders are not proficient in reading, and 96 percent are not proficient in mathematics. According to the lawsuit, “decades of State disinvestment in and deliberate indifference to Detroit schools have denied Plaintiff schoolchildren access to the most basic building block of education: literacy.”

assist them in more effectively performing their jobs.”

Walter

Williams

Leslie’s Trivia Bits

Leslie

Elman

outside the Obama administration’s conceptual universe. Black people ought to heed the sentiments of Aaron Benner, a black teacher in a St. Paul, Minnesota, school who abhors the idea of different behavioral standards for black students. He says: “They’re trying to pull one over on us. Black folks are drinking the Kool-Aid; this ‘let-them-clown’ philosophy could have been devised by the KKK.” Personally, I can’t think of a more racist argument than one that holds that disruptive, rude behavior and foul language are a part of black culture. HERE’S MY prediction: If the Michigan lawsuit is successful, it will line the pockets of Detroit’s teaching establishment and do absolutely nothing for black academic achievement.

TRIVIA 1. Which classic video game was designed by a programmer at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1984? A) “Asteroids” B) “Breakout” C) “Pong” D) “Tetris” 2. On the TV series How I Met Your Mother, what was Ted Mosby’s profession? A) Architect B) Attorney C) Financial advisor D) Teacher 3. The flag of Cambodia has two blue stripes, one red stripe and what pictured in the center? A) Angkor Wat temple B) Golden eagle C) I Ching trigrams D) White crown 4. The Galapagos Islands are a province of what country? A) Argentina B) Chile C) Ecuador D) Venezuela 5. The Opal card transit pass is used in what city, located in the world’s top opal-producing nation? A) Almaty, Kazakhstan B) Edmonton, Alberta, Canada C) Mumbai, India D) Sydney, Australia 6. In 1893, which newspaper began printing on pink paper so it would stand out on the newsstand? A) Financial Times B) Le Monde C) New York Post D) Yomiyuri Shimbun (answers on page 19)

October 19, 2016 BILL CLINTON’S IMPEACHMENT: October 12, 2016

Bill Clinton ‘gave false or misleading testimony’

eventeen years ago, as a RepubSo, what did Feinstein’s resolution lican-controlled Senate conclud- say? ed its impeachment trial of PresAs recorded in the Congressional ident Bill Clinton, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Record, it said: “Whereas William JefD-Calif., expressed her concerns about ferson Clinton, President of the United how future generations would perceive States, gave false or misleading testiwhat had happened. mony and his actions have Feinstein — had the effect of along with every impeding discovery other Senate Demof evidence in judiocrat and five Recial proceedings; publicans — voted “Whereas Wil(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate on Feb. 12, 1999 liam Jefferson that Clinton was “not guilty” of either Clinton’s conduct in this matter, is unof the two Articles of Impeachment the acceptable for a President of the United House brought against him. States, does demean the Office of the “Clinton acquitted but tarnished forev- President as well as the President himer by impeachment,” said an Associated self, and creates disrespect for the laws Press headline the next day. of the land ... “[T]he Senate, with Democrats solidly “Whereas future generations of in his camp, acquitted him on charges of Americans must know that such beperjury and obstruction of justice,” said havior is not acceptable but also bears the AP story. grave consequences, including the loss of integrity, trust and respect ...” BUT FEINSTEIN had recruited 37 In one of its final paragraphs, it reother senators, including some Repub- solved: “That the United States Senate licans, to co-sponsor a resolution she recognizes the historic gravity of this hoped the Senate would pass to “cen- bipartisan resolution and trusts and sure” Clinton. urges that future congresses will rec“[D]uring these trying days,” Fein- ognize the importance of allowing this stein said, according to the Congressional bipartisan statement of censure and Record, “the question has been asked of condemnation to remain intact for all many of us: ‘What will we tell our chil- time.” dren about this sordid period in our NaRepublican Sen. Phil Gramm of tion’s history?’” Texas, who had voted that Clinton Future Secretary of State John Kerry was “guilty” of both Articles of Imco-sponsored Feinstein’s resolution. So peachment, moved to block Feinstein’s did future Senate Democratic Whip Dick resolution from coming up for a vote. Durbin and future Senate Republican Feinstein needed 60 votes to overcome Leader Mitch McConnell. Gramm’s move. She only got 56. But

Terry

Jeffrey

every Senate Democrat — except Rob- quoted from Judge Susan Webber ert Byrd of West Virginia — voted with Wright’s ruling. her. “The record demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that the presiTWO MONTHS later, a headline dent responded to plaintiffs’ questions in the New York Times said: “Clinton by giving false, misleading and evasive is Found to Be in Contempt on Jones answers that were designed to obstruct Lawsuit.” the judicial process,” the judge said, ac“A federal judge held President cording to the Times. Clinton in contempt of court today, Two years after that, on the day Presisaying he had willfully provided false dent Clinton left office, a New York Times testimony under oath about his rela- story carried this headline: “Exiting Job, tionship with Monica S. Lewinsky in Clinton Accepts Immunity Deal.” the sexual misconduct lawsuit filed by “In a stunning end to the long meloPaula Corbin Jones,” said the first para- drama and pitched legal battles over graph of the Times’ story. President Clinton’s relationship with a “The court takes no pleasure what- White House intern, Mr. Clinton today soever in holding this nation’s presi- agreed to a settlement in which he will dent in contempt of court,” the Times avoid the possibility of indictment in exchange for admitting that he gave false testimony under oath and agreeing to surrender his law license for five years,” the Times reported. Sen. Slade Gorton, R.-Wash., who voted that Clinton was “not guilty” on the first Article of Impeachment but “guilty” on the second, predicted serious consequences for America if Clinton was not removed. “The Republic will not be weakened if we convict,” he said, according to the Congressional Record. “But if we acquit, if we say that some perjuries, some obstructions of justice, some clear and conscious violations of a formal oath are free from our sanction, the Republic and its institutions will be weakened,” said Gorton. “One exception or excuse will lead to another, the right of the most powerful of our leaders to act outside the law — or in violation of the law — will be established,” he said. “OUR REPUBLICAN institutions will be seriously undermined,” he said. “They have been undermined already, and the damage accrues to all equally — Republicans, Democrats, liberals and conservatives.”

October 19, 2016

The Donald lives! Don’t count him out

onald Trump turned in per- ary Clinton defend her behavior toward haps the most effective per- them after their encounters with Bill. As the moderators and Hillary Clinformance in the history of ton scrambled to refocus on Trump’s presidential debates on Sunday night. As the day began, he had been de- comments of a decade ago, Trump nounced by his wife, Mike Pence, and brought it back to Bill’s criminal mishis own staff for a tape of crude and conduct against women, his lying about and Hillary’s aiding and lewd remarks in a decade-old “locker it, abetting of the First room” conversation on Predator. a bus with Billy It was like a tawBush of “Access dry courtroom draHollywood.” ma in an X-rated Tasting blood, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate movie, a new low the media were in in presidential a feeding frenzy. Trump is dropping out! Pence is bolting debates. But what it revealed is that if the ticket! Republican elites are about Trump is going down, his enemies will to disown and abandon the Republican carry away their own permanent scars. As Caesar said of Cassius, “Such nominee! Sometime this weekend, Trump men are dangerous.” Hillary Clinton has never been hammade a decision: If he is going down to defeat, he will go out as Trump, not mered as she was Sunday night, and it some sniveling penitent begging for- showed. Knocked off her game, she was giveness from hypocrites who fear and no longer the prim and poised debater of Hofstra University. loathe him. There were other signs that, win or HIS FIRST move was to host a lose, Trump intends to finish the campress availability, before the debate, paign as he began, as a populist-nawhere a small sampling of Bill Clin- tionalist and unapologetic adversary of ton’s alleged victims — Kathleen Wil- open borders, globalization and neoley, Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick — imperialism. When moderators Martha Raddatz made brief statements endorsing Trump and denouncing the misogyny of the and Anderson Cooper revealed their bias by asking Trump tougher questions Clintons. “Mr. Trump may have said some and more follow-ups, and interrupting bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me,” him more rudely and often, he called said Broaddrick, “and Hillary Clinton them out. “It’s one on three!” said Trump. And threatened me.” The press had to cover it. Then the it sure looked like it. How could the moderators have igwomen marched into the auditorium at Washington University to watch Hill- nored that other leak of last week, of

Pat

Buchanan

Clintons’s speech to Brazilian bankers where she confessed she “dreams” of a “hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders.” If the quote is accurate, and Clinton has not denied it, she was saying she dreams of a future when the United States ceases to exist as a separate, sovereign and independent nation. SHE ENVISIONS not just a North American Union evolving out of NAFTA but a merger of all the nations of North, South and Central America, with all borders erased and people moving freely from one place to another within a hemispheric super-state. If this quote is accurate, Clinton is working toward an end to the independence for which our Founding Fathers fought the American Revolution.

After all, Thomas Jefferson did not write some declaration of diversity in 1776, but a Declaration of Independence for a new, unique and separate people. Clinton dreams of doing away with what American patriots cherish most. When the issue of Syria arose, Clinton said she favors a “no-fly zone.” Unanswered, indeed unasked by the moderators, was whether she would order the shooting down of Syrian or Russian planes that violate the zone. Yet, what she is suggesting are acts of war against Syria, and Russia if necessary, though Congress has never authorized a war on Syria, and Syria has not attacked us. Trump did not hesitate to overrule the suggestion of Mike Pence that we follow Clinton’s formula. He believes ISIS is our enemy, and if Syria, Russia and Iran are attacking ISIS, we ought not to be fighting them. As of sunrise Sunday, the media were writing Trump off as dead. By Sunday night, they were as shocked and stunned as Hillary and Bill. What did Trump accomplish in 18 hours? He rattled Hillary Clinton, firmed up and rallied his base, halted the stampede of the cut-and-run Republicans, and exposed the hypocrisy of liberal and secular celebrants of the ‘60s “sexual revolution,” who have suddenly gotten religion where Trump is involved. Trump exposed the fraudulence of the Clintons’ clucking concern for sexually abused women, brought Pence back into camp, turned the tables and changed the subject from the Trump tapes to the Trump triumph at Washington University. Upshot: The Donald is alive. WHILE HIS path to 270 electoral votes still looks more than problematic, there is a month to go before the election, and anything can happen. Indeed, it already has — many times. October 11, 2016

This Week’s Conservative Focus

2016 Election

Words versus deeds: The greater danger

onald Trump’s gutter talk Western countries to carry out terrorist about women shows yet attacks in support of their cause. That is a lot worse than some stuagain that he is bad news. The problem is that Hillary Clinton is pid and gross words by Donald Trump, which even he has had to repudiate. far worse. Trump’s talk is indefensible. But Make no mistake about it. Neither parHillary Clinton’s actions as Secretary ty has a good candidate for President. of State, carrying out the Obama ad- The choice is between bad and disasministration’s foreign policies, have trous. Are women more cost many lives in in danger from many places, inTrump’s words or cluding the AmerHillary’s actions? ican ambassador Are Americans and others killed (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate in general more in Benghazi. in danger from Women have a right to be offended by Trump’s words. Trump’s shallowness on issues or HillBut women have suffered a far worse ary’s ruthless grabs for money and fate from Secretary Clinton’s and Pres- power — a track record that goes all ident Obama’s actions. Pulling Ameri- the way back to the days when Bill can troops out of Iraq, despite military Clinton was governor of Arkansas? Mrs. Clinton’s own announced advice to the contrary, led to the sudden rise of ISIS and their seizing of many agenda attacks the very foundation of American Constitutional government, women and young girls as sex slaves. on which Americans’ own freedom A MESSAGE from one of these depends. She has already said that she women urged the bombing of ISIS. She will appoint Supreme Court justices said she would rather be dead than live who will specifically overturn a recent the life of a sex slave. Some women Supreme Court decision, “Citizens who tried to commit suicide and failed United versus FEC.” That decision said that both corporahave been tortured for trying. Meanwhile, President Obama tried tions and labor unions have freedom of to downplay ISIS with flippant words, speech, including the right to contribby calling them the junior varsity. His ute money toward political campaigns. Hillary Clinton’s determination to half-hearted, foot-dragging military response has allowed ISIS to parade be- pick judicial appointees on the basis of fore the world as triumphant conquer- their willingness to overturn that deciors, appealing to disgruntled people in sion is a more brazen extension of the

Thomas

Sowell

political left’s other attempts to stifle ernment officials can get away with all the free speech of those who oppose sorts of abuses, if others are not free to their agenda. talk about those abuses. Despite Hillary Clinton’s claims to DEMANDS THAT various advoca- be a champion for black people, her cy organizations reveal the names of all political agenda threatens the educatheir donors are an obvious attempt to tion of black children, the employment scare off those donors, with harassment of black adults and the physical safety by everyone from vandals to rioters to of black communities. the Internal Revenue Service and other Mrs. Clinton is on the side of the government bureaucrats. teachers’ unions that want to stop the Without the right to free speech, expansion of charter schools, even none of the other rights is safe. Gov- though these are among the very few places where black children can get a quality education to prepare them for a better future. Here, as with other issues, her public statements are contradicted by her actions. No law has done more damage to the employment prospects of young blacks than the federal minimum wage law. But nothing is easier, or more popular, than for some politician to raise the minimum wage — despite the fact that unemployment rates among black young people have skyrocketed to several times what they were before. You don’t get any wage at all when you are unemployed. And if you are young and unemployed, you don’t get any job experience to help you rise up the ladder, when you don’t get on the ladder. As for safety in the black community, Hillary Clinton has allied herself with those who demonize the police. The net result has been a sharp increase in the number of blacks killed by other blacks, as criminal elements take control of the streets when the police are not allowed to. DO YOU choose a President by talk — or by actions and consequences? October 11, 2016

Conservative Chronicle

2016 ELECTION: October 6, 2016

What if Trump and Clinton have the same core beliefs?

hat if the most remarkable and Donald Trump couldn’t care less aspect of this presidential about that? What if both of them reject the Madielection is not how much the two principal candidates disagree sonian principle that the federal governwith each other but how much they ac- ment is limited in scope to the 16 unique and discrete powers given to it by the tually agree? What if they are both statists? What Constitution? What if they even reject ollary to that principle, if they both believe that the govern- the corwhich is that the balment’s first duty ance of governmenis to take care of tal powers — those itself? What if not delegated by they both believe the Constitution in the primacy of (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate to the feds — rethe state over the sides in the states? individual? What if, in clashes between the state and indi- What if they both reject the Madisonian viduals, they both would use the power principle that in areas of governmental of the state to trample the rights of indi- power retained by the states, the states should be free from federal interferviduals? ence? What if this principle of a limited WHAT IF the first priority of both is not to decrease the size and scope of federal government depends upon the government but to expand it? What if principle of natural rights — areas of they both believe that the federal gov- human behavior and choice stemming ernment may lawfully and constitution- from our humanity and immune from ally right any wrong, tax any behavior government interference? What if the and regulate any event? What if they Declaration of Independence and the both want to add a few thousand new Ninth Amendment to the Constitution employees to the federal payroll, give define our natural rights as inalienable? them badges and guns and black shirts, What if both Trump and Clinton reject and engage them as federal police to that? What if she believes in killing ininsulate the federal government further nocents by drone and he believes in torturing innocents at Gitmo? from the people and the states? What if both Clinton and Trump acWhat if, when James Madison wrote the Constitution, he took great pains to cept the principle that the federal govreserve powers to the people and the ernment can address any problem for states that were not delegated away to which there is a national political conthe feds? What if both Hillary Clinton sensus? What if this idea — champi-

Andrew

Napolitano

oned by Woodrow Wilson, who hated the values of Madison — is the opposite of what the Framers wrote and intended? What if this Wilsonian principle has unleashed the federal government to regulate nearly all aspects of personal behavior and to enhance immeasurably the powers of an unelected, unseen and unaccountable federal bureaucracy, which never seems to shrink or change? WHAT IF both Trump and Clinton embrace the idea that federal power, rather than being limited by the Constitution, is limited only by what the feds can’t get away with politically? What if this concept was expressly rejected by the Framers but both Trump and Clinton don’t care? What if neither of them believes that a limited federal government must reside and remain within the confines of the Constitution? What if Trump wants the police to be able to stop anyone they wish based on just a hunch that the person is armed or possessing contraband? What if the

Fourth Amendment — which requires the police to have individual articulable suspicion, not just hunches and not judgments based on race, in order to stop a person — was expressly written to prohibit just what Trump wants? What if Trump doesn’t care because he prefers votes to constitutional fidelity? What if Clinton wants free higher education for all in America who go to community colleges, all of which are government-owned? What if the Constitution does not delegate regulatory or spending authority over education to the feds? What if there is no such thing as “free” college? What if someone somewhere will need to pay for it? What if all federal revenue is already committed to wealth transfers (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare), interest payments on the federal government’s debt (now north of $400 billion annually) and the Pentagon (which spends crazily so its budget won’t be reduced in the future)? What if the Clinton “free” college deal would mean the feds would need to tax more or borrow more or both? What if more taxation means less money for the productive aspects of society? What if more borrowing produces a decrease in the value of what you already own? What if a dollar spent by the feds produces far less wealth — jobs, income, productivity — than a dollar invested in the private sector? What if Clinton doesn’t care because she prefers votes to economic productivity? What if both Trump and Clinton believe they can use the federal government to bribe the poor with handouts, the middle class with tax breaks, the rich with bailouts and write-offs, and the states with block grants? What if Trump himself has benefited enormously from federal write-offs available only to the very rich? What if neither talks about personal liberty in a free society? What if they both talk about the government’s duty to keep us safe? What if neither talks about the government’s first duty, which is to keep us free? What if neither believes that the government works for us? What if they both really believe that we work for the government? WHAT IF Mark Twain was right when he said that the reason we get to vote is it doesn’t make much difference?

October 19, 2016 DEAR MARK: October 7, 2016

Trump taxes, creepy clowns and sexy burkas DEAR MARK: I am a Trump supporter but I’m at a loss as to how to defend him when it comes to his taxes and business losses. Hillary and her supporters are having a hay day attacking my candidate and saying this is proof that Mr. Trump is a poor business man and should not be president. My neighborhood has a mixture of Trump, Hillary, and even a few Gary Johnson signs so you can see what I’m up against. What should I say to my neighbors? — Mr. Rogers Dear Mr. Rogers: First of all you must come to grips with the reality that liberals don’t understand capitalism, math or why we even have taxes. So trying to convince them with logic and numbers is futile and might even put a damper on your neighborhood gatherings. As you know back in 1913 the 16th Amendment made the federal tax system permanent but the money collected was reasonable and only funded the bare necessities of a minimally intrusive federal government. Flash forward to today where liberals believe it’s government’s responsibility to provide everything from womb to tomb which therefore created the notion that avoiding taxes is akin to heresy. My response would be to ask if Donald Trump broke any laws, which he did not, then follow up with the question “Did you know Hillary and the New York Times used the same exact laws to avoid paying taxes as well?” As far as what Mr. Trump should do; I believe he should acknowledge that he has had some failed business ventures as do all great business leaders. He should continue to explain that today Trump

businesses employee thousands of people of all colors and gender contributing millions in tax revenue. Then he should ask Hillary directly “How many jobs has the Clinton Foundation created, oh that’s right only three: You, Bill and Chelsea.”

DEAR MARK: What is going on with all the creepy clown sightings around the country? Clowns are supposed to be fun, make balloon animals for kids and squirt each other with seltzer bottles. They are not supposed to be the blood dripping, threatening, ghouls walking around scaring people. Is there something that can be done about it? — No Bozo Here Dear No Bozo:

Mark

Come on, it’s the political season so of course there are creepy clowns running around all over the country. Actually I believe this began with some pranksters trying to have fun by scaring people. Albeit a very strange way to have fun. The results may make for some chuckles with the perpetrators but unfortunately law enforcement is not laughing. In fact down here in Texas authorities are warning the jokesters that Texas is a concealed carry state and that if individuals feel threatened by clowns, the amateur performers could end up making balloon animals out of surgical gloves lying in a hospital bed. This sick fad, fueled by the internet, has become so bad that real clowns have

organized a “Clown Lives Matter” protest in Arizona to march against creepy clowns in order to protect their reputation. According to Snuggles the Clown, “Everyone took this as a joke but it’s really become serious now and I just want all these teenagers to know that it’s not a game anymore. You’re ruining my job and other actors around the world.” Hillary couldn’t be reached for comment. As one can imagine some liberals are offended at the Clown Lives Matter group pilfering the Black Lives Matter moniker but from what I’ve seen, there are more clowns leading the Black Lives Matter movement than participating in this new movement. DEAR MARK: I just read where Amazon pulled sexy burka costumes from its UK website because the costume was found to be offensive to Muslims. Is this another instance of crazy political correctness? — Trick but No Treat

Dear Trick: You’re exactly right but this is political correctness on steroids. Look around at how many sexy nun outfits are available for Halloween not to mention the satirical priest and Rabbi costumes. Unfortunately the major difference is that selling sexy burkas could result in violent retaliation which tells you all you need to know about the peace loving sensibilities of radical Islamists. 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, Suzanne Fields, 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) “Tetris” was designed by a programmer at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. 2) Ted Mosby, played by Josh Radnor on How I Met Your Mother, was an architect. 3) Angkor Wat temple is pictured at the center of the Cambodian flag. 4) The Galapagos Islands are a province of Ecuador. 5) The Opal card is a transit pass used in Sydney, Australia. 6) The Financial Times has been printed on salmon pink paper since 1893.

Need to make a correction on your mailing label? Contact us at 800-888-3039 or conserve@iowaconnect.com

Conservative Chronicle

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS: October 7, 2016

Harsh and mean — politics as usual

very four years we get not tional character, after all, didn’t begin only a presidential election to turn raucous until after the election but also a ferocious debate of our first president, who stood above over how we elect the president. Is this the fray and won all 69 of the electorreally the best way to elect the leader al votes of that early day. But George of the United States and, by default, the Washington was chosen by a process leader of the free world? Must we be that would be wholly unacceptable There were no primasatisfied with campaigns that become t o d a y . ries, no nominating carnivals of trash conventions, no and trivia? competing candiIn a world dates and no debate Venom seemed to spill from everyone’s amok, when Presion issues of inter- mouths, beginning with the struggle bedent Obama insists (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate est to the masses. tween John Adams and Thomas Jefferon leading from behind and two-thirds of the voters tell And the people were not allowed near son. The two contenders restrained their pollsters the country is careening in the a ballot box. own rancor, but their supporters in the “The election of George Washington “media” of their day — handbills, pamwrong direction, can we seriously consider one prospective successor who was a perfect expression of the popular phlets and party newspapers in which dwells on the delicate feelings of an will,” writes Paul Boller in Presidential opponents were “denounced, disparoverweight, overwrought beauty queen Campaigns, a chronicle of a quirky sys- aged, damned, decried, denigrated, and of dubious character; or another, her op- tem through our rough-and-rowdy eras. declaimed” — definitely did not. ponent, who takes the bait with a story Politics got considerably more compliThroughout the history of the reabout how he got Miss Universe to slim cated once the general assumed office public, campaigns have been circuses, down to save her crown and title? This and national survival was no longer carnivals, brawls and burlesque. Ronwas more an infomercial for a miracle at issue. Good manners and dignified ald Reagan described politics as “show diet than an audition to play the Palace. behavior have rarely characterized an business,” and though he was ridiculed American presidential campaign since. by his opponents as merely a gradeIT WAS ONCE the vice presidenB movie actor who achieved stardom POLITICAL PARTIES, which as the co-star of a chimpanzee, he got tial candidate who was chosen for his talent to insult and affront, to raise the Washington had warned against, quick- the last laugh on the way to the White temperature of debate with the vulgar- ly devolved into hyperpartisan sniping. House. ity to shield the presidential candidate from having to do it. That wasn’t the VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: October 6, 2016 task this week for Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence. Instead of invective, the Veeps-in-waiting were assigned to supply a modicum of calm after the stormy debate of their running ’ve not had a lot of use for Mike it for the first time in a debate, it’s conmates. They only half-succeeded. The Pence since Donald Trump chose vincing. split television screen mostly revealed Many have criticized Virginia Sen. the Indiana governor to be his Kaine’s hyperactivity. Where was the running mate. The Hoosier who de- Tim Kaine for his frequent interrupnanny with the Ritalin? The debate did change the subject for scribes himself as a “Christian, a con- tions. But I think Kaine’s biggest probthe five days before the next presiden- servative and a Republican, in that lem is that he treated the debate as if it tial debate, enabling everyone time to order,” never seemed like a natural fit were a word game, not a battle of ideas refocus and adjust attitudes. The Dem- for the casino owner’s ticket. In April, — first you whack your opponent for ocrat struggled to defend the status quo, when Pence announced he would vote something he or the nominee arguing that the economic recovery is for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the GOP a success; and the Republican replied presidential primary, he cited Cruz’s that voters in Scranton, Pennsylvania, “knowledge of the Constitution.” Now and Fort Wayne, Indiana, “know differ- he’s stumping for a candidate who ent.” But “Miss Piggy” commanded the thinks everything’s negotiable. (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate attention of the media, which cover the TUESDAY NIGHT’S debate, howcampaign as if it were a reality show hungry for ratings. The question for ever, cast Pence in a new light. He’s said in an effort to put the other team on the rest of us is whether ‘tis better to the canny Christian conservative who the defensive, then you throw in some choose Donald Trump, who requires understands that making the election gotcha sound bites and you win. That on-the-job training, or Hillary Clinton, about American decline under Secre- approach might work well in a junior the chairman of Clinton Inc., who has tary of State Hillary Clinton and Barack high debate, but it represents a problem pre-sold her presidency — if there is Obama provides the only path for a Re- that has plagued the 2016 election and sowed voter discontent. When network one — to foreign Clinton Foundation publican win. Also, Pence has mastered that look news shows devote days and weeks to contributors. The beauty queen episode, as a mi- of umbrage at Kaine’s repeated efforts the latest outrageous quote to pop out crocosm illustrating the tenor of the to tie the Hoosier to Trump’s often ill- of Trump’s undisciplined mouth, they campaign, hardly bequeaths confidence chosen rhetoric. The straight-and-nar- have devolved from reporting imporin the electoral process — until we look row governor has this way of project- tant events to serving as game show back at other campaigns that became ing his view that it’s beneath critics to referees. serious once the candidates dispensed tie the GOP ticket to Trump’s remarks TO MANY Americans, the econowith the lies and the garbage-covered because, well, everyone knows Trump epithets. The rowdy politics of Ameri- will say anything. Over time Pence’s my is stalled and our image abroad has ca, which is a reflection of a rowdy na- posture could get old, but when you see soured. The threat of Islamist terrorism

Suzanne

Fields

If vulgar rhetoric and character defamations seem worse today, that’s because the megaphones are bigger and the targets are broader and closer at hand. Sex and morality, in varying degrees, have always been fair game. In 1884, an English visitor found the match between Grover Cleveland and James G. Blaine dominated by the “copulative habits” of one candidate and the “prevaricative habits” of the other. Sound familiar? WHETHER DONALD Trump calling immigrants rapists and murderers was worse than Hillary Clinton describing half of his supporters as “deplorables,” a collection of racists and bigots, is a draw. It’s business as usual. The good news is there’s only a month to go.

Hoosier daddy trumps talky Tim

Debra J.

Saunders

looms. American voters are anxious about their future — and the sorry state of political discourse has done nothing to reassure them. Words matter, but voters care most about the thoughts behind them. Exchanges between Kaine and Pence on Vladimir Putin highlight the great political disconnect. Kaine started it, when he said the GOP ticket loves Russia and, “These guys have praised Vladimir Putin as a great leader.” PolitiFact reported that Kaine’s statement was accurate: Trump gave Putin an A for leadership while Pence said, it’s “inarguable that Vladamir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.” BUT KAINE lost that round because he made it all about words — what Trump said, what Pence said — divorced from the reality that the thuggish Putin thinks he’s stronger since Clinton pushed the Russian relations “reset” button. OK: Clinton speaks with sophistication about Russia, while Trump sometimes sounds as if he has a crush on its shirtless strongman. But Putin was undaunted by Clinton’s accomplished vocabulary. That’s what Pence understands and Kaine seems not to.

October 19, 2016 DONALD TRUMP: October 10, 2016

Two candidates of limitless faith in themselves

et’s just say Lincoln-Douglas win, win, win — and now he’s going to it wasn’t. There wasn’t a real make us all winners. Just leave it to him. Where the Bible urges man to search idea expressed or debated during the whole mindless ordeal. Instead his heart for sin and iniquity and seek forthe two presidential candidates this year giveness, it’s hard to imagine The Donald traded personal barbs. Who won and who doing any such thing. A true disciple of lost, and does it matter? There’s no doubt Dr. Peale, he plows ahead unaware that about Donald Trump’s being the better Christianity — hold on to your hats — showman, or at least there wasn’t during is a religion of losers, slaves, the downden of this world. the first half-hour of the match. All eyes t r o d He denounced and the television the widow whose camera gravitated house he tried to toward him as the take as a “terrible best two-out-ofhuman being” and three-falls contest (c) 2016, Tribune Media Services referred to her began, and largely lawyer as a loser. stayed there. It was enough to cast a glaring light on the spirit He’s made fun of a reporter for having a crippled hand. He’s applauded Planned of our age, or rather the lack of one. Parenthood for doing “very good work.” The man is a piece of work himself. TO KNOW a candidate’s history is to know that candidate. It should not come And so is his opponent this presidential as a surprise to learn, as we did from Mat- year, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s thew Schmitz’ profile in the August issue scarcely an example of the wretched of of First Things, that Donald Trump was the earth. Back in 1955, Walter Lippmann baptized and confirmed at First Presby- wrote a book titled The Public Philosoterian Church in New York City, where phy. In it he argued that basic American Norman Vincent Peale presided. Adlai commitments to majority rule, freedom Stevenson once commented that he found of speech, the rule of law and private St. Paul appealing but Peale appalling. It property are worthless without being was Norman Vincent Peale who wrote founded on a basic moral understanding. The Power of Positive Thinking, a kind of Without them, they turn into just anothspiritual version of Dale Carnegie’s book er struggle for power. Like the kind the about how to win friends and influence country is seeing this year. Beware: When a court can twist the people. Dr. Peale, according to Schmitz, found that The Donald had a “profound meaning of a basic institution of society streak of honest humility.” Which no one from time immemorial into some pagan else seems to have detected, and no won- parody, then the courts can just as well der, for the theme of his campaign, as of call black white and red green. What then his life, would always seem to have been does it mean in today’s funhouse mirror

Paul

Greenberg

of law to be a mother or father or child? Everything’s up for grabs, and The Donald is urging all of us to grab while the grabbing is good. Then we can all be the great successes he and HRC have been throughout their lives, God help us. THE WORLD is founded, Lippmann argued, on certain biblically undeniable truths, which he summed up as natural law. Richard John Neuhaus liked to cite Martin Luther King’s vision of justice, equality and a covenant that included all of the above. There is a great, over-riding, objective truth that cannot be forever ignored. Lest we all turn into preening prima donnas. And abandon all hope, ye who enter there. For there may be no exit from such a depraved world. Why settle for the world to come when you can have this one as well? It’s the American way, isn’t it? Everything for everybody all the time! Donald Trump made the perfect apostle for St. Norman. “I was his greatest student of all time,” The Donald announced and pronounced himself early in his self-worshipping career. Much as The Donald promotes himself now.

St. Norman, a kindly man at heart, called the United States “the greatest country in the world” and dedicated his books to the “everyday people of this land” who “are my own kind whom I know and love and believe in with great faith,” writes Schmitz. For St. Norman had met them in the masonic halls, bythe-sea resorts and on cruise ships where he testified to his faith. He spoke of our innate decency and ability, and assured all of us we could be as successful as he had been if only we walked in his masterful footsteps. Just harness his own Power of Positive Thinking, and our potential was limitless. St. Norman told his church that its members would experience “constant energy” if only they would banish from their thoughts anything negative and so be eternally charged with cheerfulness and smiling good will. Those were the signs of eternal selection. That all this was a grotesque perversion of Calvinist theology seems to have escaped St. Norman’s followers. So naturally The Donald would badmouth Jeb Bush early in this presidential campaign for being “low-energy” and therefore committing the unforgivable sin of being a loser. Losers are to be despised, not celebrated. As for the facts of the matter, they don’t count. For Peale, “attitudes are more important than facts,” reports Schmitz in First Things. And the man who shows “a confident and optimistic thought pattern can modify or overcome the fact altogether.” Forget those small facts otherwise known as human frailty, bad marriages, economic misfortune and such. Just let a smile be your umbrella and the wages of sin would never have to be paid. If the Bible urges man to search his heart and repent, St. Norman told those who suffer that all they need do is “make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 percent.” If the heart is deceitful above all things, as Jeremiah warned us, for Dr. Peale its darkest corners were really illuminated by pure California sunshine. CAMPAIGNING IN Iowa, The Donald confessed that he had never sought forgiveness for his sins, seemingly unaware that by seeking forgiveness for ourselves, we lay the foundation for forgiving others. And from what Norman Vincent Peale derided as “fear thoughts” comes the light of Christian love.

Conservative Chronicle

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: October 11, 2016

Trump takes charge at second debate

unday night’s town hall telecast from Washington University in St. Louis was a reminder of why Donald Trump dominated the field of 17 candidates who tried out for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump’s compelling performance in the second presidential debate was one that none of the other Republican hopefuls could have given. As if in response to the pundits who demanded that he be more disciplined and “presidential” in the debates, Trump gave what amounted to a master class in those skills. Without yielding his steady command of the evening, Trump was quick on his feet and several of his retorts seemed to unnerve Hillary as she pursued her strategy of relentless put-downs.

FOR EXAMPLE, when Hillary pontificated why she considered Donald unfit to be in charge of the laws of our country, Trump responded by telling Hillary that the real reason is “because you’d be in jail” if Trump were administering the laws. People have had their lives destroyed based on a fraction of the legal violations that Hillary has perpetrated. Hillary switched back and forth on camera from her phony smile and her mean-spirited real self, which the split screen on television captured for tens of millions of viewers to see. Trump, in contrast, came across as honest and far more believable. Perhaps the most telling moment in the debate was when Hillary was asked about the long-delayed release of excerpts from her highly paid speeches to Wall Street bankers. She had concealed those sentiments during her campaign for the Democratic nomination, despite Bernie Sanders’ taunt that her paid speeches were more important to the voters than Donald Trump’s tax returns. In one of those secret speeches, she told her exclusive audience that “you need both a public and a private position” on the issues facing America. When Martha Raddatz asked her about that two-faced admission, Hillary stammered and compared herself to Abraham Lincoln as portrayed in the Steven Spielberg movie based on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Trump looked directly into the camera in disbelief at Hillary’s ridiculous answer and subsequently retorted, “Honest Abe never lied. That’s the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you.” In another 2013 speech, given in New York to executives of a Brazilian bank that paid her $225,000, Hillary said: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.” That was what her well-

heeled Wall Street audience wanted to hear, but it’s the opposite of what Trump and Sanders voters support. Of the handful of Republicans who have turned against Trump, many, like Hillary, are themselves staunch supporters of “open trade and open borders.” Hillary’s “dream” of a “hemispheric common market” has been a longstanding project of the Bush family, including President George W. and his brother Jeb. Hillary’s “private position” for “open borders” echoes what her husband, former president Bill Clinton, said to business leaders in Melbourne, Australia on September 10, 2001. As the host of that private meeting told the local newspaper, “The (former) president believes the world will be a better place if all borders are eliminated.”

LESS THAN 24 hours after his Melbourne speech, 19 Muslims from the Middle East exploited our open borders to launch the 9/11 attacks against America.

Two years later at Yale University, Bill declared: “I think the great mission of the 21st century is to create a genuine global community” with an “over-arching system” of global governance. And in 2007 Bill Clinton praised the benefits of “open borders” and “easy immigration” while delivering the keynote address to a conference of 14,000 Indian Americans. Eliminating national borders is the ultimate goal of globalists in both parties, who now say we must open America’s doors to thousands of Muslims posing as refugees from the civil war in Syria. Hillary would not deny or disavow Trump’s charge that she plans to increase by 550 percent the number of Syrian refugees that Obama has allowed to resettle here. In a 2013 speech in Chicago, just released by Wikileaks, Hillary admitted that Syrian refugees pose a real threat because Syria’s immediate neighbors, Jordan and Turkey, “can’t possibly vet all those refugees. So they don’t know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees.”

Trump also effectively blamed Hillary for the thousands of criminal aliens, including murderers, who are set free and allowed to remain here because their home countries won’t take them back. As secretary of state, Hillary failed to use her leverage to pressure countries to take back their own citizens. TRUMP’S STRONG performance in the second debate should silence his critics and energize his immense base that cuts across the entire political spectrum. Projecting a calm authority while staying relentlessly on message, Trump has reset his campaign on a path toward victory over the establishment and the media. John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: October 11, 2016

There’s nobody left to like

here are too many faults stacked in Donald Trump’s towering inferno. Republicans have trained themselves to downplay his negatives such that he seems poised to destroy the GOP. Hillary Clinton knows them well. During the debate Sunday night she recited a handy list of his sins: Trump never apologizes. He didn’t make amends to the Khans, the Muslim Gold Star parents who lost a son in Iraq. He suggests crazy, unrealistic schemes like barring Muslims from entering the United States. He made fun of a disabled reporter and stoked the absurd “birther” rumors about America’s first black president.

HIS STAUNCHEST defenders know his demerits well, yet they are so demoralized about the direction of this country that they have chosen to see his shortcomings as strengths. At least, they tell themselves, Trump breaks the mold. Trump certainly broke with etiquette by inviting to the debate Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick — three women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. To his die-hard fans, Trump demonstrated that he is not afraid to get bloody in a partisan fistfight. To me, it seemed an act of unnecessary cruelty toward Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea. The Commission on Presidential Debates probably saved Trump from himself in

refusing to allow Clinton’s accusers to sit in the Trump family box. Likewise, Trump nailed Hillary Clinton. The Donald faulted the former first lady for enabling her husband’s extramarital behavior. Too bad for Trump that his reasoning ends with the realization that both Bubba and The Donald are dogs. When Trump said, “Nobody has more respect for women than I do,” Fox News’ Frank Luntz’s real-time polling showed Trump’s numbers tank.

Debra J.

TRUMP WAS best when he challenged Clinton’s self-serving story about her homebrew email server. “I take responsibility for using a personal email account,” she responded. “Obviously, if I were to do it over again, I would not. I’m not making any excuses. It was a mistake. And I am very sorry about that.” If there were a debate fairy, then I’d make one wish. Can someone please ask Clinton: What does it mean when you take responsibility? How is it different from when you do not take responsibility? Self-styled undecided voters asked questions that suggested they were not really undecided. Am I supposed to

believe that the Muslim woman who asked both candidates what they’d do about Islamaphobia was thinking of voting for Donald Trump? Moderators Martha Raddatz’s and Anderson Cooper’s questions followed the same trail of breadcrumbs — questions that get asked over and over again but never really get answered. They always ask about Syria and the fate of Aleppo. Then Clinton always says she’s against putting U.S. boots on the ground in Syria — when they’re already there. Then Trump brags he’ll destroy ISIS — after he falsely claims to have opposed the war in Iraq from the start. Is there a philosophy behind those statements? Not that you’d notice. TRUMP FORGOT to mention Clinton’s recently leaked remarks in support of “open trade and open borders” — no shock, given his limited attention span. Still, it’s practically professional malpractice that neither moderator asked Clinton what she would do to support border security, given immigration’s role in the GOP primary. Which undocumented immigrants would get to stay, and which, if any, would have to go? Clinton’s answer to that question might inform voters. Instead the town-hall debate served as a popularity contest. More voters have an unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton than favorable, but a majority apparently believe they have nowhere else to go.

October 19, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: October 9, 2016

Will Trump make a race of it in the debates?

n the midst of the most debate- his wife in how policy works on the heavy week of the fall campaign ground, noted that under Obamacare, season, with the vice presiden- people “wind up with their premiums tial debate last Tuesday and the second doubled and their coverage cut in half. presidential debate Sunday, let’s look at It’s the craziest thing in the world.” New York Times has run what remains uncertain about this year’s Even the a story admitting that Obambizarre contest. acare is foundering For those of and needs major reyou who are readvision. ing this column afAs for the Irater Sunday night, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate nian nuclear deal, the first and largest Trump can repeat uncertainty will be partially resolved: Will Donald Trump his previous denunciations. He might put in a debate performance that makes also suggest how he would replace the him competitive with Hillary Clinton, Obama-Kerry groveling diplomacy to Vladimir Putin with using American leas he was before the Sept. 26 debate? verage to outmaneuver a skillful but (he TRUMP HAS boasted that he should concede) malign adversary. If Trump were not to improve in doesn’t bother with debate prep, but surely someone who has his attention debates, much uncertainty would be has pointed out that it’s not to his advan- leached out of the campaign. Current tage to respond to Clinton’s goads like polling shows him trailing nationally an out-of-control bull. He might have and in target states by margins ranging taken the same lesson from watching from large to perceptible. Straight-line Mike Pence deflecting Tim Kaine’s jabs extrapolation produces an electoral vote or from reviewing the first 20 minutes margin much like 2012’s 332-206 in favor of the Democrats. of his own performance Sept. 26. There would remain questions about There are plenty of targets for Trump attacks. Clinton has promised to extend whether Republicans could run far both of President Barack Obama’s his- enough ahead of him to hold their matoric policy initiatives (as described by jorities in the Senate (quite possibly) the millennial generation’s Henry Kiss- and the House (very likely). But you inger, his aide Ben Rhodes), Obamacare probably wouldn’t have to stay up late and the Iranian nuclear deal. Neither is on election night to see who’s elected president. popular. It’d be another thing if Trump were Last week in Michigan Bill Clinton, more interested than Obama and to do well in the debates or if Clinton

Michael

Barone

were to crumple or come across as anHis weakness among college gradunoying as Kaine. ates in such places as north Dallas and west Houston threatens to cut RepubONE REASON is that in a race that’s lican margins in states such as Texas. close to even nationally, Trump might But his potential strength — visible in have an advantage in the Electoral Col- pre-first debate polls — among nonlege. Obama carried 115 of 130 elec- college-educated whites could provide toral votes in the 10 2012 target states; decisive votes in states with older blueif there are shifts, Democrats have more collar whites, such as Ohio, Iowa, Wis. to lose than Republicans. And as David and Nev., maybe even in Pa. and Mich. Byler of RealClearPolitics points out, Another uncertainty is something Trump’s appeal, insofar as it’s differ- pollsters can’t accurately project: Turnent from that of previous Republicans, out. Reassembling Obama’s 51 percent means that he’s trading votes in safe Re- coalition requires robust turnout among publican states for votes in target states. blacks, Hispanics and young people. Their turnout has been low in off-year elections, and turnout generally, after rising in the Bush years, has been falling since 2008. Blacks are unlikely to provide Clinton with as much support as they did the first black president, and polls have found Hispanics less interested in the campaign than whites or blacks. Young people are a special problem for Clinton, who seems to repel them. Washington Post reporter James Hohmann tracked a young Clinton staffer canvassing around the 65,000-student Ohio State campus. In two hours, the number of people he got to register or sign a card committing to vote: Zero. Clinton’s organizational edge — 57 offices, 300 paid staff in Ohio alone — may not prove cost-effective. The enormous edge in television advertising she’s had heretofore may not, either. In the Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Anderson pointed to evidence that when Trump has reduced Clinton’s TV spending advantage, he’s done better in polls — and he has been raising enough money to reduce her edge in the weeks left to go. ODDS CLEARLY favor Clinton. But if Trump can figure out how not to flub debates, uncertainty will increase.

Conservative Chronicle

HILLARY CLINTON: October 6, 2016

Hillary’s hired thugs: Sleuths and targets

hrough the years, one of my pantsuits, it is easy for us to have forgotfavorite sallies against the ten the intimidating specter she struck Clintons has been referring to for such women as Gennifer Flowers, Hillary Clinton as “Bruno.” At times, Kathleen Willey, the young Monica Lereaders have asked, “Why do you call winsky or even Juanita Broaddrick, who her Bruno?” It is because there has al- was allegedly raped by smiling Bill. Yet ways been an atmosphere of thuggish- in decades past, Hillary Clinton was a ness about her. Another way of putting it highly volatile figure and, in fact, posed to White House peris, time and again, she acts as though the a threat sonnel. There are all rule of law does those witnesses who not pertain to her have reported seeing — for instance, her bean her huson the matter of band or members the many women (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate of the Secret Serwho have willvice with a book ingly or unwillingly been pulled into her husband’s or a lamp. I think even the loyal George lubricious ambit. How many times have Stephanopoulos reported her aggression. As a matter of public record, there you read or heard a quote attributed to her where she vows to “crush” or “cru- is a catalogue of private investigators cify” a woman whom Bill Clinton rutted employed by Clinton, and some of their with? One even reads such quotes in the exploits are even recorded. In fact, if mainstream media, or MSM. Yet she is elected, she will be the first presidential candidate ever to have hired private inportrayed as a champion of women. vestigators to serve her ends en route to JUST LAST week I read Hillary the White House. In recent weeks, both Clinton quotes full of menace in the the Post and the Times reported that she Washington Post. And this week I read employed San Francisco private investisome in the venerable New York Times. gator Jack Palladino to harass and vilify Were similar quotes ever attributed to Gennifer Flowers when she appeared on Nancy Reagan, or any other first lady? the scene in the early 1990s. But there But then again, no other first lady was were others. I have listed the names and advenmarried to Bill Clinton. Of course, today the matronly Hillary tures of three more private investigators Clinton is long past her prime as a plau- employed by Clinton in my 2007 book, sible Bruno. As she breaks out in cough- The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy Presiing spells and has to be propped up at dent’s Life After the White House. I find the lectern in her heavily cushioned it curious that neither newspaper men-

R. Emmett

Tyrrell

tioned these fellows. Maybe the mistake is innocent. Possibly the newspapers put too much trust in Carl Bernstein, whose book on Clinton they both cited. For some reason he only mentions Palladino, though I know from my sources that he was aware of the other investigators and even called one or two of them. People can cut a lot of corners when covering the Clintons, eh, Carl? YET MAYBE it is not so innocent. Based just on what I have written about the employment of these investigators, Clinton’s claim of being a champion of

women is very much in doubt. In fact, their employment makes it evident that she has enabled Bill Clinton’s goatishness. In the early 1980s in Arkansas, Hillary Clinton hired Ivan Duda to collect the names of her husband’s women, not to prepare for a divorce, as some thought, but rather to prepare, as Duda told me, “for any charges that might come up” regarding scandal in his forthcoming election campaign. Then there is Los Angeles investigator Anthony Pellicano, who helped the Clintons in their efforts of intimidation in the 1992 election and was tapped again to quiet down Lewinsky in 1998. Hillary Clinton is particularly skittish about Pellicano because he is spending time in the big house for possession of military-grade plastic explosives and hand grenades. The aforementioned Palladino has been paid handsomely for his duties. Finally, there is Terry Lenzner, about whom I know very little, save that I think he was a football player. I CAN WELL understand why Clinton would want to keep hidden away all these sleuths and their unfortunate targets. Her complicit MSM might, too. But why did she bring forward at her debate with Trump the name of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado? And why has her campaign been so eager to book Machado all over television ever since? It’s possible Trump did make an unseemly reference to her weight 20 years ago during the contest. Or, possibly, that was his job. But since then, Machado has been allegedly engaged in criminal behavior and pornography. Now she is a spokeswoman for Clinton. I guess having such a scandalous woman representing Clinton’s campaign is just one more sign of the Clintons’ debasement of America. Apparently the MSM do not mind being part of this debasement.

October 19, 2016 VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: October 6, 2016

The understudy: What can be learned

hope Donald Trump was watching his running mate during the vice presidential debate this week. If so, I expect that he learned some valuable lessons. The debate between Sen. Tim Kaine, D., Va., and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, R., was held at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. Kaine and Pence sat a table with the moderator, CBS’ Elaine Quijano, who was rarely visible to viewers at home. Instead, TV screens were filled for most of the evening with split-screen pictures showing the two candidates: Kaine appeared aggressive, angry and aggravated; Pence was, well, presidential.

DURING THE 90-minute debate, Pence was interrupted more than 70 times, mostly by Kaine, but retained his composure and smiled. The debate outcome: A huge win for the Trump/ Pence ticket, a distraction for the Clinton/Kaine ticket (from which they will

move on rapidly), and an incredible he measured up for the biggest job in learning experience for Quijano, who the world. lost control early on and rarely reIN HIS ANSWER, Kaine recalled gained it. Historically, the vice presidential Hillary Clinton asking him to join the debates have not made a big difference ticket. “And she said to me, ‘You’ve in the presidential race, but they have been missionary and a civil rights lawshored up uncertain voters’ confidence yer. You’ve been a city councilman and mayor. You’ve been a lieutenant about those on top of the ticket. nor and governor and Quijano started by laying a foun- g o v e r now a U.S. senadation that went tor. I think you will back a few years, Jackie help me figure out citing a quotation how to govern this from the Demonation so that we cratic participant (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate always keep in in the 1988 veep mind that the sucdebate against Dan Quayle. “Lloyd Bentsen said the vice presidential de- cess of the administration is the differbate was not about the qualifications ence we make in people’s lives.’ And for the vice presidency, but about how, that’s what I bring to the ticket, that if tragedy should occur, the vice presi- experience having served at all levels dent has to step in without any margin of government.” Clinton, too, has vast government for error, without time for preparation, to take over the responsibility for the experience, from serving as first lady biggest job in the world,” Quijano of Arkansas and then the United States, said. She then asked how each man felt followed by serving as a senator from

Gingrich Cushman

2016 ELECTION: October 7, 2016

Mangling Trump talk on veterans

taff Sgt. Chad Robichaux is a Marine who developed posttraumatic stress disorder in the aftermath of eight tours in Afghanistan. After years of suffering, he now runs a counseling program dedicated to helping veterans avoid suicide, divorce and other attendant problems. He knows from his own experience that a faith-based approach works. Our government — allergic to faith-based programs — isn’t really interested, especially under President Barack Obama. SO WHEN Donald Trump came to a meeting of the Retired American Warriors PAC on Oct. 3, Robichaux asked a question: “Spiritual fitness works on these types of problems. The government is not taking advantage of these programs and services. So my question for you is, when you become president, will you support and fund a more holistic approach to solve the problems and issues of veteran suicide, PTSD, TBI and other related military mental and behavioral health issues?” Trump said yes: “When people come back from war and combat and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over, and you’re strong, and you can handle it. But a lot of people can’t handle it. And they see horror stories. They see events that you couldn’t see in a movie, nobody would believe it.” Was that a marble-mouthed answer?

Of course — it’s Trump. Could an observer covering Trump conclude that he was criticizing our veterans who “can’t handle it?” Of course — if you want to savage Trump. What Trump said next was skipped over. Regarding a statistic of veteran suicides, he said: “So we’re going to have a very, very robust, level of performance having to do with mental health. We are losing so many great people that can be taken care of if they have proper care. You know, when you hear the 22 suicides a day it’s

Brent

a big part of your question. But when you hear the 22 suicides a day, that should never be.” HIS SYMPATHY for the plight of veterans was clear, but it made no difference. The snide headlines were already written. The leftist website Buzzfeed sneered, “Trump Suggests That Soldiers With PTSD Aren’t ‘Strong.’” And the Daily Beast doozy was, “Draft-Dodger Donald Trump Implies PTSD Sufferers Are Weak.” CNN’s and NBC’s websites also mangled the quote. Were this the case, the veteran to whom the answer was directed would

certainly be deeply offended. But afterward, Robichaux was so upset with the press that he issued a statement, saying: “I think it’s sickening that anyone would twist Mr. Trump’s comments to me in order to pursue a political agenda. I took his comments to be thoughtful and understanding of the struggles many veterans have, and I believe he is committed to helping them.” So what? Democrats pressed ahead. On the stump, Hillary Clinton claimed that Trump’s remarks are “not just ignorant, they’re harmful.” Vice President Joe Biden went on CNN and asked: “How can he be so out of touch? He’s not a bad guy. But how can he be so out of touch and ask to lead this country? ... This is an ignorant man. This guy says things he has no idea about. He’s not a bad man. But his ignorance is so profound, so profound.” AFTER THE ongoing scandals dealing with the wretched state of health care by the Department of Veterans Affairs under Obama-Biden, you’d think it would take more than a little chutzpah for Democrats to claim that any Republican is “out of touch” with the needs of veterans, and for their allies in the press to give them the oxygen they need. But as the Geico slogan goes, it’s what you do.

New York and finally as Secretary of State. Think of them as the government experience ticket. Pence responded similarly. “I’m a small-town boy from a place not too different from Farmville ... I would hope that if — if the responsibility ever fell to me in this role, that I would meet it with the way that I’m going to meet the responsibility should I be elected vice president of the United States. And that’s to bring a lifetime of experience, a lifetime growing up in a small town, a lifetime where I’ve served in the Congress of the United States, where — where I’ve led a state that works in the great state of Indiana, and whatever other responsibilities might follow from this, I — I would hope and, frankly, I would pray to be able to meet that moment with that — that lifetime of experience.” Additionally, Pence focused on his running mate’s outside experience. “Donald Trump has built a business through hard times and through good times. He’s brought an extraordinary business acumen. He’s employed tens of thousands of people in this country.” Think of them as the outsider/conservative ticket. Pence’s performance at the vice presidential debate provides Trump with two opportunities for the next debate, to be held this Sunday against Clinton. The first is to answer questions about potentially controversial matters such as his tax returns. The second opportunity is for him to ask questions unasked by the moderator of Clinton during the debate regarding her private email server, the Clinton Foundation and her handling of Benghazi. Regarding his taxes, a possible response is for him to simply say to voters, “Just like you, I follow the tax laws of our nation and pay taxes as they state. I know how crazy our current tax system is — it must be simplified and restructured. Every dollar the government spends comes from taxpayers, either collected from you today — or in some point in the future due to government borrowing. I want to make sure that the government spends every one of your dollars wisely and not wastefully.” THIS SUNDAY, we will have the opportunity to watch Clinton and Trump debate again. Let’s hope that Trump was watching Pence and taking notes — especially about his running mate’s temperament — that he can put into play. Communicated properly — the voters’ choice will be clear.

Conservative Chronicle

LIBERAL HYPOCRISY: October 12, 2016

Astounding hypocrisy of Hollywood, media and Dems

Is it possible that’s because he’s a his week has been a full-scale disaster for Republican candi- Republican? date Donald Trump. His poll THEN THERE are the Democrats. numbers are dropping toward Australia. His establishment-Republican sup- They claim that Trump’s comments are porters are panicking. His campaign disqualifying. Yet they backed PresiClinton despite allegahas swiveled toward slapping defectors dent Bill tions of rape, sexual assault rather than drawing new voters. and sexual harassAll of this is ment; and now because Trump they back Hillary turned out to be Is it possible that’s because he’s a Clinton despite a Hollywood me(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate allegations that Republican? dia celebrity with she has targeted Democratic leanHERE’S THE truth: Trump isn’t her husband’s victims. They lauded the ings ... who ran as a Republican. late Sen. Ted Kennedy as a moral force a Republican in anything other than HOW ELSE could we explain the in the Senate, despite the fact that he name. His politics are statist, and he media’s sudden obsession with a 2005 drove a car off a bridge with a woman donated more money to Democrats tape of Trump riding on an Access Hol- in the back seat and left her to drown. than Republicans between 1980 and lywood bus? In the tape, Trump jabbers They still worship at the altar of John 2010. He’s a Hollywood insider, a man in disgusting fashion about wanting to F. Kennedy Jr., who allegedly sexually who appeared at the Emmy Awards “f—k” a married woman and his ten- harassed interns on a grand scale. But alongside Megan Mullally of Will & Grace. He’s a media member, too — dency to “just start kissing (women).” Trump’s the end of the world. He said: “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a LEFT-WING HYSTERIA: October 12, 2016 star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab them by the p—-y. You can do anything.” This is reprehensible. It’s repulsive. It’s a celebration of sexual abuse. But the left’s sudden shock and dismay oters’ top concerns are the ist” Billy Bush. Trump bragged to his don’t wash. stagnant economy and the buddy “I moved on her like a b---h.” Trump said all of this on a lot in threat of terrorism, but you Clinton feigned outrage when she heard Hollywood. Here are a couple of other wouldn’t know it from Hillary Clinton’s it, calling it “horrific.” Hollywood names that might jog your TV ads or campaign speeches. She’s Manhattan Institute scholar Heather memory: Roman Polanski and Woody trying to twist the presidential race into MacDonald chuckles at Clinton’s hypAllen. Polanski earned a standing ova- a referendum on political correctness. ocritical “sudden onset of Victorian vation at the 2003 Oscars after winning Too embarrassed to run on her party’s pors.” an Academy Award for The Pianist. He economic record or her failed stint as After all, Clinton has no problem was convicted of raping a 13-year-old secretary of state, she’s positioning her- with the salacious lyrics of her pal and girl both vaginally and anally in 1977. self as top cop of the speech police. supporter Beyonce, even when she The offense happened at Jack Nichsings: “I came to slay b---h. ... olson’s home. Woody Allen’s ex-wife CLINTON’S RUNNING an ad of and children still say that he sexually preteen girls looking self-consciously abused his adopted daughter when she in the mirror, agonizing over their bodwas seven years old. But he continues ies. Sometimes such young girls’ worto receive plaudits and rave reviews ries turn into deadly eating disorders, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate from his friends in Tinseltown. And ultimately killing 10 percent of those the Hollywood casting couch remains affected. Clinton cynically exploits the alive and well. But Trump said that he pain and fear felt by thousands of fami- When he f--k me good I take his a-- to engaged in precisely the same behav- lies. Her ad uses a voiceover of Donald Red Lobster.” Clinton says, “I want to iors other Hollywood stars often en- Trump saying things like “she ate like a be as good a president as Beyonce is a gage in, and the Hollywoodites are up pig” and “does she have a fat (bleep)?” performer.” in arms. Parents struggling with their child’s Is it possible that’s because he’s a eating disorder run to one doctor after TRUMP CAN’T catch a break with Republican? another frantically seeking answers. Clinton, even when he’s trying to do the Then there’s the media. NBC had The causes are complex and still not right thing. Another Clinton ad attacks access to this tape for 11 years. A pro- entirely known, but no one believes the Trump reaching out to inner-city Afriducer from The Apprentice claims that cause is Donald Trump. Some experts can-Americans with promises of more there are “far worse” tapes of Trump attribute part of the cause to Holly- jobs and school choice. Reminding than those released by “Access Hol- wood’s glorification of skinny women. minority voters that Democratic politilywood.” But Trump somehow main- Instead of trying to muzzle Trump and cians have failed to improve opportunitained a top-rated show on NBC for other men, why isn’t Clinton calling out ty for them, Trump asks for their vote, over a decade despite such activities, her big supporters in the entertainment saying, “What the he-- do you have to and NBC continued to play him up as industry? lose?” Clinton’s ad says “Everything.” a wonderful rough-and-tumble busiIt follows her ad featuring Ku Klux The same question applies to Clinness genius. Yet MSNBC and NBC ton’s double standard, bashing Trump Klan members praising Trump. It’s Mcare now ripping Trump up and down for lewdness but celebrating it in popu- Carthyite guilt by association. Trump for precisely the sort of behavior they lar music. Clinton’s latest super PAC has no connection to the group. What’s overlooked when he was earning them ads condemn Trump’s bawdy 2005 re- Trump actually guilt of? Poaching on cash. marks on a bus with show biz “journal- Clinton’s turf.

Ben

Shapiro

NBC paid him for years. All of these groups knew what Trump was for decades. But they’ll punish him because he’s a Republican. That’s how social standards work for the left: If you have the right politics, you can get away with anything. If you have the wrong ones, it’ll ignore its own hypocrisy to nail you to the wall.

Hillary Clinton’s speech police

Betsy

McCaughey

Worse than tarring Trump, she’s labeling cops, teachers and millions of other Americans as racists. Whenever she talks to black audiences, she stokes racial resentment. She told the NAACP that whites “need to recognize our privilege and practice humility.” All whites, she claims, have “implicit bias” and she wants bias training for police and other professions. Implicit bias — you’re told you have it, no matter how colorblind you try to be, and denying your bias just proves it. Implicit bias is politically correct drivel. There’s no solid data to support it, cautions social scientists Philip Tetlock of University of Pennsylvania, Gregory Mitchell of the University of Virginia, and experts from New York University and the University of Connecticut. But if Clinton becomes president, we’ll all be undergoing reeducation at school or work to cure our “implicit bias.” To see what President Hillary Clinton’s America would be like, look at most college campuses today. No one dares question Black Lives Matter, militant multiculturalism, and “safe spaces” to spare students from challenging ideas. Clinton’s dictating how Americans talk about race, sex, even body shapes. Donald Trump calls it like he sees it. HE DOESN’T stick to the well-rehearsed rhetoric of a career politician. But his supporters are sick and tired of political correctness. He’s not running for saint. He’s running to get the job done, something Hillary Clinton has already proven she can’t do.

October 19, 2016 LEFT-WING HYSTERIA: October 11, 2016

Trump’s comments: The latest left-wing hysteria

a new left-wing manufactured, mediasupercharged hysteria. The latest is the tsunami of horror in reaction to Donald Trump’s gross and hysteria. To understand how and why, it is juvenile comments made in private 11 necessary to understand the indispens- years ago. The tsunami of condemnation of his able role hysteria plays on the left. The left is always in major crisis mode. And, remarks is quintessential left-wing hysin nearly every case, the crisis is either teria. That more than a few Republicans and conservatives have joined in is a teswildly exaggerated or simply false. tament to the power of mass media and hysteria to influence normally sensible FOR EXAMPLE: — Few people deny that the earth is people. This is hysteria first and foremost warming. To assert that is not hysteria. What is hysteria is the left’s position because the comments were made in would say the same that carbon emissions will destroy life private. I thing if crass comon Earth. ments made by — No one deHillary Clinton in nies that there are private conversaracist cops. What tion had been reis hysteria is the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate corded. In fact, I left’s claim that did. In 2000, in a innocent blacks are routinely shot to death by racist Wall Street Journal column, I defended Hillary Clinton against charges that she cops. — The widespread protests against was an anti-Semite. That year it was rethe name Washington “Redskins” were ported that Clinton had called Paul Fray, pure left-wing hysteria — ended only the manager of her husband’s failed by the revelation through polling that 1974 congressional campaign, a “f---ing the vast majority of American Indians Jew bastard.” Even the left-wing newspaper, the couldn’t care less about the name. The examples are endless: From the Guardian, reported that three people — alleged epidemic of heterosexual AIDS two witnesses and Fray — confirmed in America and preschool molestation the report. Nevertheless, I wrote in the Journal, scares in the ‘80s to the wildly exaggerated dangers of secondhand smoke “I wish to defend Mrs. Clinton. I do so and the baseless fears about electronic as a practicing Jew and a Republican. ... We must cease this moral idiocy of judgcigarettes. We are regularly forced to endure ing people by stray private comments.” egarding Donald Trump’s private sexual comments: We are living through a national

Dennis

Prager

I gave two more examples: One was Harry Truman, who often used the word “kike” when referring to Jews. Yet, he was the Jews’ greatest friend when he changed Jewish history by resisting powerful State Department opposition and recognized the State of Israel. THE OTHER was Richard Nixon, who made anti-Jewish remarks in private conversations in the Oval Office. These were revealed on tapes he himself made of his conversations, and he was accordingly widely labeled an anti-Semite. Yet, as president, Nixon appointed the first American Jewish

secretary of state and, more importantly, literally saved Israel’s life with his quick airlift of military supplies during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As I concluded: “It is highly misleading to probe private comments for evidence of antiSemitism, racism, bigotry and sexism.” In addition to not taking all private comments seriously, Republicans, conservatives and independents need to ask themselves if what Trump said — not did, but said — in a private conversation is any way comparable to the truly awful things Hillary Clinton and her husband have done both to women and to the country. They also need to ask themselves if it is worth giving the left the White House over such trivia. If Hillary Clinton wins, will Republicans and conservatives who gave up on Trump because of this recording really think that it was worth: Having a left-wing Supreme Court for the next 30 years; having left-wing judges completely dominate lower federal courts; radically curtailing religious liberty in America; having speech codes go from colleges to the society as a whole; massively increasing the size of the government and of the debt; bringing in tens of thousands of refugees from the Arab Middle East; and having open borders? How can anyone answer in the affirmative? The answer is the left-wing hysteria got to them. On the same day the recording came out, so did leaked emails that revealed that Hillary Clinton told a Brazilian Bank in 2013 that she is for “open borders.” OPEN BORDERS mean the end of the United States as we know it. That, my fellow Americans, is worth getting hysterical about.

Conservative Chronicle

IDLE MEN: October 6, 2016

‘Quiet catastrophe’ of men choosing to not seek work

he “quiet catastrophe” is par- half times more numerous than men that ticularly dismaying because government statistics count as unemit is so quiet, without social ployed because they are seeking jobs. What Eberstadt calls a “normative turmoil or even debate. It is this: After 88 consecutive months of the economic sea change” has made it a “viable opexpansion that began in June 2009, a tion” for “sturdy men,” who are neiing nor looking for smaller percentage of American males ther workchoose “to sit on the in the prime working years (ages 25 to work, to economic sidelines, 54) are working living off the toil than were working or bounty of othnear the end of the ers.” Only about 15 Great Depression percent of men 25 in 1940, when the (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group to 54 who worked unemployment rate was above 14 percent. If the labor not at all in 2014 said they were unforce participation rate were as high to- employed because they could not find day as it was as recently as 2000, nearly work. For 50 years, the number of men in 10 million more Americans would have that age cohort who are neither working jobs. nor looking for work has grown nearly THE WORK rate for adult men has four times faster than the number who plunged 13 percentage points in a half- are working or seeking work. And the century. This “work deficit” of “Great pace of this has been “almost totally unDepression-scale underutilization” of influenced by the business cycle.” The male potential workers is the subject of “economically inactive” have eclipsed Nicholas Eberstadt’s new monograph the unemployed, as government statisMen Without Work: America’s Invisible tics measure them, as “the main categoCrisis, which explores the economic ry of men without jobs.” Those statistics and moral causes and consequences of were created before government policy and social attitudes made it possible to this: Since 1948, the proportion of men 20 be economically inactive. Eberstadt does not say that governand older without paid work has more than doubled, to almost 32 percent. This ment assistance causes this, but obvi“eerie and radical transformation” — ously it finances it. To some extent, men creating an “alternative lifestyle to however, this is a distinction without a the age-old male quest for a paying job” difference. In a 2012 monograph, Eber— is largely voluntary. Men who have stadt noted that in 1960 there were 134 chosen to not seek work are two and a workers for every one officially certi-

George

Will

fied as disabled; by 2010 there were just over 16. Between January 2010 and December 2011, while the economy produced 1.73 million nonfarm jobs, almost half as many workers became disability recipients. This, even though work is less stressful and the workplace is safer than ever. LARGELY BECAUSE of government benefits and support by other family members, nonworking men 25 to 54 have household expenditures a third higher than the average of those in the bottom income quintile. Hence, Eber-

stadt says, they “appear to be better off than tens of millions of other Americans today, including the millions of single mothers who are either working or seeking work.” America’s economy is not less robust, and its welfare provisions not more generous, than those of the 22 other affluent nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Yet America ranks 22nd, ahead of only Italy, in 25 to 54 male labor force participation. Eberstadt calls this “unwelcome ‘American Exceptionalism.’” In 1965, even high school dropouts were more likely to be in the workforce than is the 25 to 54 male today. And, Eberstadt notes, “the collapse of work for modern America’s men happened despite considerable upgrades in educational attainment.” The collapse has coincided with a retreat from marriage (“the proportion of never-married men was over three times higher in 2015 than 1965”), which suggests a broader infantilization. As does the use to which the voluntarily idle put their time — for example, watching TV and movies 5.5 hours daily, two hours more than men who are counted as unemployed because they are seeking work. EBERSTADT, NOTING that the 1996 welfare reform “brought millions of single mothers off welfare and into the workforce,” suggests that policy innovations that alter incentives can reverse the “social emasculation” of millions of idle men. Perhaps. Reversing social regression is more difficult than causing it. One manifestation of regression, Donald Trump, is perhaps perverse evidence that some of his army of angry men are at least healthily unhappy about the loss of meaning, self-esteem and masculinity that is a consequence of chosen and protracted idleness.

October 19, 2016 IDLE MEN: October 7, 2016

The new non-working class: One out of six “He that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled). For the labors of 30 or 40 honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain 150 idle loiterers.” — John Smith, 1609 One out of six prime-working-age adult males in the United States is not temporarily unemployed, or “between jobs,” or “looking for work.” No, a huge cohort of men in America is now neither employed nor looking for work. They are just skating by on a combination of girlfriends, wives, mothers and government benefits. Their status, argues Nicholas Eberstadt in Men Without Work, is a “quiet catastrophe.” UNTIL RELATIVELY recently, choosing not to work was a luxury only the wealthy could afford. Everyone else had to keep the wolf from the door (though the temptation to try to live off others has always been with us —

see John Smith above). In the 1950s, day, even accounting for the extra stu98 percent of prime-age males were dents enrolled in education programs, working or looking for work (i.e., in an additional 10 percent of America’s the labor force). Today it is 88 percent. young men would be employed. “The Recessions have affected labor-force overwhelming majority of adult male participation, but the downward trend job trainees,” Eberstadt writes, “appear holders already. ... line has been consistent for decades. to be job Most men enrolled Only 15 percent in formal schoolof non-working ing are also in the men cite inabilworkforce.” ity to find work Is it the decline as the reason for (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate in manufacturtheir idleness. ing jobs? EberEberstadt examines the usual explanations. The re- stadt acknowledges the possibility but tirement of baby boomers? It doesn’t thinks it’s been overstated. Other inaccount for the decline in work by dustrialized nations such as Australia those aged 25-54 (traditionally, the and Sweden experienced an identical group most likely to be employed). decline in manufacturing employment The participation of prime-age men in without the steep withdrawal from the labor force fell from 94.1 percent in work recorded among American men. 1948 to 84.3 percent in 2015. WHO ARE these new non-workAren’t more men in college? If the work patterns of 1965 were obtained to- ers? Most are low-skilled, never mar-

Mona

Charen

LIBYA: October 5, 2016

Warring Libyans common interest

efeating ISIS fighters in Libya is proving to be a grinding, bloody struggle. The multisided battle among Libyans for control of their own oil industry is an even more complex war — but an opportunity to settle may have just emerged. Let’s address ISIS first. On August 22, Libya’s UN-backed Government of National Accord announced that the defeat of ISIS fighters in the city of Sirte was imminent. Sirte is in the western half of Libya, a region also known by its old Roman Empire provincial name, Tripolitania. With the support of American air strikes, a militia coalition backing the GNA had seized Sirte’s city center and trapped ISIS fighters in two neighborhoods. An ISIS force outside the city had retreated. The Misrata Brigades militia is the largest and most powerful member of the GNA militia group.

THE BATTLE mattered to the GNA. The GNA is headquartered in Tripoli. Taking back Sirte and dealing ISIS a defeat would be a political coup, internationally and domestically. It would validate UN, Western European and U.S. support for the GNA. It would help secure the GNA’s base in Tripolitania and strengthen the GNA’s political position in Libya’s multi-sided civil war. A major defeat of ISIS would one-up its chief rival government, the Tobruk-based House of Representatives. Tobruk is in eastern Libya, which is also known as Cyrenaica, its old Roman name.

Several analysts suggest that thinking of Libya as a collection of citystates helps non-Libyans understand the country’s fractious politics. The comparison to classical Greek citystates is a stretch but makes a point. In Libya, local, tribal and regional loyalties are stronger than national ties. The west versus east rivalry (Tripolitania versus Cyrenaica) is a domestic political reality.

ment and which coalition will control revenues is still a casus belli. In mid-September, General Kahlifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army seized control of four major Libyan oil ports in eastern Libya. Haftar opposes the GNA. He is an easterner. Many easterners accuse the western Tripoli government of “looting” eastern oil wealth. Several news reports portray Haftar’s LNA as a rogue army. Haftar’s supporters contend the real rogue army is the Petroleum Facilities Guards, led by Ibrahim Jadhran. In 2013, Jadhran’s PFG made the claim that it was the only force capable of protecting oil facilities in eastern Libya. Many Libyans, however, accuse Jadhran of running an extortion racket. He would shut down the facilities unless he got a cut of the oil sales. After defeating the PFG, Haftar surprised everyone and turned control of oil exports over to Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC). The NOC can bank the revenue as long as the GNA does not control revenue distribution.

THERE IS no question Misrata Brigades militiamen are loyal to their hometown, the city of Misrata. Their loyalty to the GNA, however, is less than absolute. Regular paychecks buy their continued loyalty — and that takes us to the oil war. Libya needs revenue from oil exports to rebuild destroyed cities. Slowly but surely, Libya has been reviving its oil industry. However, which govern-

LIBYA’S CITY states and regions and tribes do have a common interest in oil revenue. Libya currently produces 400,000 barrels of oil a day and is poised to produce a million a day. Haftar’s dramatic gesture is a political opportunity. Will Libya’s warring parties take it? Who knows, but if they can agree to stop fighting among themselves, they will have the cash to rebuild Sirte and thoroughly eradicate ISIS.

It is six weeks later and the house-tohouse battle isn’t over, not quite. ISIS terrorists in Sirte are now isolated in one small neighborhood. ISIS terrorists bet the government’s militia coalition wouldn’t press the fight. They resisted fanatically. However, the militia coalition has fought well. I’ll wager U.S. and allied air strikes gave the coalition a morale boost as well as a means to destroy ISIS strong points.

Austin

Bay

ried and native-born, and many are African-American. High school dropouts are the most likely group to be out of the labor force, but 40 percent of nonworkers have some college under their belts, and one-sixth are college graduates. A significant number have felony convictions and/or prison time in their pasts. How do they spend their time? The non-employed consistently spend more time on personal care (including sleep) than unemployed men. They spend the same amount of time on caring for household members as employed men (about 28 minutes per day), and they spend much more time on “socializing, relaxing, and leisure” than employed men, unemployed men and employed women. Watching TV shows and movies consumed an average of 5 1/2 hours of each day for the non-employed. How do they make ends meet? Many live with family members who earn income — and then there are government benefits. The average working man received $500 in benefits from the government in 2014. The average nonworking man got $5,700. Disability payments seem to account for a large share of the benefits the non-employed receive, and it’s an open secret that most are not truly disabled. Households with non-working prime-age men are not as well off as those with working men, but they aren’t at the bottom, either (that distinction belongs to single mothers). Race and ethnicity take you only so far in understanding the flight from work. Labor-force participation rates are higher for Latinos than for non-Hispanic whites. And married black men are more likely to be in the workforce than unmarried white men of the same age. Similarly, the labor-force participation rate for married whites with only a high school degree exceeds that of unmarried whites with some college or associate degrees. The factors contributing to nonwork are clearly complex, but the role of social mores is highly significant. When a man feels the traditional role of father and husband is no longer valued, he has less incentive to become the sort of person who can hold down a job. Our family roles give life meaning and purpose. Marriage is a far better predictor than race or ethnicity of whether a man will be employed, contributing to his community and caring for others. The causality goes both ways, too. A man raised by a single mother is less likely to be mature and responsible (i.e., marriageable) than a man from an intact family. NON-MARRIAGE AND non-work are locked in a downward spiral. Eberstadt’s book is a fire bell.

Conservative Chronicle

VLADIMIR PUTIN: October 0, 2016

Vladimir Putin is bringing back the 1930s

ladimir Putin’s serial humiliations of America’s bewildered secretary of state regarding Syria indicate Putin’s determination to destabilize the world. Here is an even more ominous indication of events moving his way: On just one day last week, Italian ships plucked 6,055 migrants from the Mediterranean.

WHAT HAS this to do with Putin? It portends fulfillment of his aspiration for Europe’s political, social and moral disorientation. The Financial Times reports that of the 138,000 migrants who have come by sea to Italy this year, few are from Syria. The “vast majority” are from Africa, with the largest number from Nigeria. The U.N.’s World Population Prospects says that only 10 percent of global population is in Europe, which is projected to have fewer people in 2050 than today. Just 16 percent of the world’s population is in Africa but “more than half of global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur” there. It will have the world’s highest growth rate, and 41 percent of its people currently are under 15. Of the nine countries expected to experience half the world’s population growth by 2050, five are in Africa (Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda). Nigeria’s population, currently the world’s seventh largest, is the most rapidly growing. Even without what is likely — population pressures producing some failed African states — a portion of Africa’s multitudes, perhaps scores of millions of migrants, might cross the Mediterranean to Europe. There, 24 percent of the people are 60 and over, and no country has a birth rate sufficient to maintain current population sizes. Who but immigrants can work and fund Europe’s welfare states for its graying publics? Europe has recently been politically destabilized and socially convulsed by the arrival of a million Syrian migrants seeking asylum. Future migrations from Africa, with a large Muslim component, could pose the greatest threat to the social cohesion of Europe since 1945, or even since invading Arab forces were halted at Poitiers in 732. Undermining the West’s confident sense of itself is important to Putin’s implementation of his ideology of Eurasianism. It holds that Russia’s security and greatness depend on what Ben Judah calls a “geographically ordained empire” that “looks east to Tashkent, not west to Paris.” Writing in the British journal Standpoint, Judah reports that Russian television relentlessly presents “a dangerous, angry wonderland:” “Russia is special, Russia is under attack, Russia swarms with traitors, Russia was betrayed in 1991, Russia was glorious under Sta-

lin’s steady hand.” This justifies gi- Shevtsova says Putin is simultaneously gantic military, intelligence and police imposing a domestic revolution of culestablishments steeped in Eurasianist tural conservatism, converting Russia tracts published by the Russian General into a revanchist power and “forging an anti-Western International.” She warns: Staff. “Ever since Stalinism’s relentless Putin’s Russia, writes Owen Maton all ‘horizontal’ thews in the Spectator, is developing a a s s a u l t ties (even those of “state-sponsored family), Russians culture of prudhave been tragiery” to make it a cally at the mercy “moral fortress” of the state and its against Western (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group claims: Individudecadence. The als are invited to Russian Orthodox Church benefits from a 2013 law that compensate for their helplessness by criminalizes “offending the feelings of looking for meaning in collective nareligious believers.” Twenty-one per- tional ‘successes’ that promise to bring cent of Russians want homosexuals them together and restore their pride.” “liquidated” and another 37 percent fa- Such as the annexation of Crimea. In the same volume, Peter Pomervor “separating them from society.” antsev, a student of 21st-century propaIN A NEW collection of essays, Au- ganda, says “the underlying goal” of Puthoritarianism Goes Global (Johns Hop- tin’s domestic disinformation is less to kins), the Brookings Institution’s Lilia persuade than “to engender cynicism”:

George

Will

“When people stop trusting any institutions or having any firmly held values, they can easily accept a conspiratorial vision of the world.” Putin’s Kremlin is weaving a web of incongruous but useful strands. Its conservative nationalism is congruent with that of rising European factions on the right. Its anti-Western, especially anti-American, message resonates with the European left. It funds European green groups whose opposition to fracking serves Putin’s agenda of keeping Europe dependent on Russian gas. IN MANY worrisome ways, the 1930s are being reprised. In Europe, Russia is playing the role of Germany in fomenting anti-democratic factions. In inward-turning, distracted America, the role of Charles Lindbergh is played by a presidential candidate smitten by Putin and too ignorant to know the pedigree of his slogan “America First.”

SYRIA: October 12, 2016

ISIS and the Battle of Dabiq

he looming battle for the small Syrian town of Dabiq presents Islamic State commanders with a well-deserved dilemma. Do they retreat from Dabiq’s “physical” ruins north of Aleppo or do they fanatically defend the “metaphysical” Dabiq of Muslim tradition in a battle that is a sign of Earth’s end times? Unlike al Qaeda, ISIS controls territory. Control of two cities made the Islamic State a state with staying power: It’s Syrian “capital,” Raqqa, and the huge Iraqi city of Mosul. Raqqa and Mosul matter. Raqqa has oil. Mosul has people. Both cities give ISIS commanders the economic, political and military leverage to exploit divisions among their Syrian and Iraqi enemies. Defending Raqqa and Mosul makes sense. DABIQ IS a large village. Located between Aleppo and the Turkish border, in peacetime barely 4,000 people called it home. Its physical condition in October 2016 is verifiably wretched — shell-cratered roads, empty neighborhoods, damaged buildings and bunkers manned by Islamic State fanatics. For these Islamic State fanatics, however, Dabiq has compelling metaphysical significance. According to a hadith touted by ISIS commanders, a victory by Islam’s best soldiers over Christians at Dabiq is a portent of “the Last Hour.” In other words, Muhammad indicated “the end” won’t begin until Muslims defeat Christians at Dabiq.

Hadiths are traditional sayings attributed to Muhammad or traditional narratives about the Prophet’s life. Hadiths do not have the authority of the Koran but they do inform Islamic law. Muslim scholars evaluate the accuracy and validity of hadiths and opinions differ. No matter. ISIS doesn’t brook differing opinions. When ISIS seized Dabiq, the town became a key recruiting theme. ISIS even named its recruiting magazine Dabiq. God has given us Dabiq to defend. Come fight for the Islamic State and be there as the Apoca-

Austin

Bay

lypse begins. It’s a fair bet that many of Dabiq’s bunkered fanatics were recruited by ISIS propaganda touting victory at Dabiq as a step toward the apocalypse. IN AUGUST, Turkish military forces entered northern Syria and quickly drove ISIS from the border town of Jarablus. Turkey’s methodical incursion is ongoing and has focused on a region between the Euphrates River to the east and Aleppo to the west. The Turkish army is cooperating with an anti-ISIS Syrian rebel force that has needed training and supplies. The U.S. government backs Turkey’s attacks on ISIS but has criticized Turkey for attacking Syrian Kurds. In late September, a large force of anti-ISIS Syrian rebels began assembling

outside Dabiq. European news agencies reported that Turkish army tanks and mechanized infantry have moved into the area. The Turkish air force is supporting the incursion. Bottom line: ISIS fighters in Dabiq face overwhelming firepower. In the maze of a large city like Mosul lightly armed forces can disperse and hide. Dabiq, however, is small and all but surrounded. Military common sense argues that Dabiq’s ISIS defenders should retreat, avoid decisive combat and live to fight another day. A wise retreat, however, could deal a huge defeat to ISIS morale. ISIS commanders didn’t just use Dabiq’s religious power to attract volunteers. Their interpretation of the hadith was explicit. Dabiq would be the “ultimate battle” between Muslims and Christians. ISIS’ control of Dabiq demonstrated that the movement had God’s divine sanction. TURKS ARE Muslims. ISIS commanders could argue they don’t face a “Christian” army, but what a technicality. The Turks are allied with what ISIS calls “Christian” European and North American powers. ISIS clerics have also declared Turkish leaders to be Muslim “apostates,” which means they are subject to execution. U.S. Special Forces are participating in the Turkish operation, so there are Christians on the battlefield. Some of the Syrian rebels may be Christians.

October 19, 2016 SYRIA: October 7, 2016

ISIS, not Russia, is the enemy in Syria

enouncing Russian air strikes since Richard Nixon went to Damascus. President Obama, who has four on Aleppo as “barbaric,” Mike Pence declared in Tues- months left in office, is not going to intervene. And Congress, which has the day’s debate: “The provocations by Russia need to sole power to declare war, has never aube met with American strength. ... The thorized a war on Syria. Obama would be committing an United States of America should be prepared to use military force, to strike mil- impeachable act if he started shooting down Russian or Syrian itary targets of Bashar Assad regime.” planes over Syrian John McCain territory. He might went further: also be putting us “The U.S. ... on the escalator to must issue an ulWorld War III. timatum to Mr. (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate For Russia has Assad — stop flying or lose your aircraft ... If Russia con- moved its S-400 anti-aircraft system into tinues its indiscriminate bombing, we Syria to its air base near Latakia, and its should make clear that we will take steps S-300 system to its naval base at Tartus. As the rebels have no air force, that to hold its aircraft at greater risk.” message is for us. Russia is also moving its aircraft carYET ONE GETS the impression this rier, Admiral Kuznetsov, into the Med. is bluster and bluff. Pence has walked his warnings back. Vladimir Putin is doubling down in And there are few echoes of McCain’s Syria. Last weekend, the Russian Foreign hawkishness. Even Hillary Clinton’s call for a “no-fly zone” has been muted. Ministry warned that U.S. attacks in The American people have no stom- Syria “will lead to terrible tectonic consequences not only on the territory of ach for a new war in Syria. Nor does it make sense to expand our this country but also in the region on the enemies list in that bleeding and broken whole.” Translation: Attack Syria’s air force, country — from ISIS and the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front — to Syria’s and the war you Americans start could armed forces, Russia, Iran and Hezbol- encompass the entire Middle East. lah. LAST WEEK, too, the chairman of These last three have been battling to save Assad’s regime, because they see the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, warned that creating a “no-fly vital interests imperiled should it fall. We have not plunged into Syria, be- zone” in Syria could mean war — with cause we have no vital interest at risk Russia. Dunford’s crisp retort to Sen. in Syria. We have lived with the Assads Roger Wicker:

Pat

Buchanan

“Right now, Senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria it would require us to go to war, against Syria and Russia. That’s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make.” And neither, thankfully, will Barack Obama. So, where are we, and how did we get here? Five years ago, Obama declared that Assad must step down. Ignoring him, Assad went all out to crush the rebels, both those we backed and the Islamist terrorists. Obama then drew a “red line,” declaring that Assad’s use of chemical weapons would lead to U.S. strikes. But when

Obama readied military action in 2013, Americans rose up and roared, “No!” Reading the country right, Congress refused to authorize U.S. military action. Egg all over his face, Obama again backed down. When Assad began losing the war, Putin stepped in to save his lone Arab ally, and swiftly reversed Assad’s fortunes. Now, with 10,000 troops — Syrian, Iraqi Shiite militia, Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Afghan mercenaries — poised to attack Aleppo, backed by Russian air power, Assad may be on the cusp of victory in the bloodiest and most decisive battle of the war. Assad and his allies intend to end this war — by winning it. For the U.S. to reverse his gains now, and effect his removal, would require the introduction of massive U.S. air power and U.S. troops, and congressional authorization for war in Syria. The time has come to recognize and accept reality. While the U.S. and its Turkish, Kurdish and Sunni allies, working with the Assad coalition of Russia, Hezbollah and the Iranians, can crush ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria, we cannot defeat the Assad coalition — not without risking a world war. And Congress would never authorize such a war, nor would the American people sustain it. As of today, there is no possibility that the rebels we back could defeat ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, let alone bring down Bashar Assad and run the Russians, Hezbollah, Iran and the Iraqi Shiite militias out of Syria. TIME TO stop the killing, stop the carnage, stop the war and get the best terms for peace we can get. For continuing this war, when the prospects of victory are nil, raises its own question of morality.

Name _________________________________________________ Address ________________________________________________ City _____________________ State _____________ Zip _________ Credit Card Number # ___________________________________

Billing Information.

Name _________________________________________________ Address ________________________________________________ City _____________________ State _____________ Zip _________

Send a Free Sample.

(U.S. Currency Only) Call for current foreign rate information.

Name _________________________________________________ Address ________________________________________________ City _____________________ State _____________ Zip _________

______/_______

Expiration Date

Credit Card

❏ American Express

❏ Discover Card

❏ MC / VISA

❏ Check Enclosed

Order Total $___________

❏ 52 issues - $75.00

❏ 26 issues - $41.00

❏ 13 issues - $23.00

Select the number of issues you would like.

❏ 52 issues - $75.00

❏ 26 issues - $41.00

❏ 13 issues - $23.00

Select the number of issues you would like.

Michael Barone, Austin Bay, Brent Bozell, Pat Buchanan, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, Ann Coulter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, Larry Elder, Leslie Elman, Joseph Farah, Suzanne Fields, Paul Greenberg, David Harsanyi, Laura Hollis, Terence Jeffrey, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, Donald Lambro, David Limbaugh, Rich Lowry, Michelle Malkin, Mychal Massie, Stephen Moore, Dick Morris, William Murchison, Andrew Napolitano, Marvin Olasky, Dennis Prager, Debra J. Saunders, Phyllis Schlafly, Ben Shapiro, Thomas Sowell, Cal Thomas, Matt Towery, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., George Will, and Walter Williams.

Featured and Contributing Columnists

The weekly publication that features newspaper columns from America's leading conservative commentators.

Conservative Chronicle

Place your order on line at www.conservativechronicle.com

Call toll free in the US 1-800-888-3039

Send this form with payment to: Conservative Chronicle, Box 29 Hampton, IA 50441-0029 or

Your Own Subscription.

(2 or 3 would be great!)

Name _________________________________________________ Address ________________________________________________ City _____________________ State _____________ Zip _________ Sign Gift Card as: ________________________________________ Attach extra sheets for additional gifts.

Give a New Gift Subscription.

You can share this publication and help us expose the truth in 3 ways.

Help Us Spread The Conservative Message.

•NEWSPAPER• •DATED MATERIAL•

RUSH!

Postmaster: Timely Material Please deliver on or before 10/19/16 Periodicals Postage Paid Mailed 10/13/16

Read Pat Buchanan and Thomas Sowell on Pages 16-17

2016 Election

This week our CONSERVATIVE FOCUS is on:

Read Cal Thomas’ Column on Page 1

This Election Decides the Direction

Supreme Court

Wednesday, October 19, 2016 • Volume 31, Number 42 • Hampton, Iowa