At Issue this week... November 23, 2016 2016 Election Barone (22) Fields (14) Hollis (9) Morris (4) Sowell (11) Will (18) Bangladesh Bay (30) Biased Educators Saunders (23) Blacks Williams (25) Bureaucracy McCaughey (20) Dear Mark Levy (19) Democrats Lowry (4) Harsanyi (2) Electoral College Schlafly (21) Forgotten Man Goldberg (24) Massie (11) Murchison (12) Napolitano (1) Hollywood Left Bozell (28) Shapiro (20) Immigration Reform Barone (29) Chavez (28) Leftist Jews Prager (27) Leslie’s Trivia Bits Elman (14) Liberals Jeffrey (23) Limbaugh (3) Limited Government Jeffrey (15) Media Bias Bozell (18) Politics Greenberg (12) Tyrrell (26) Will (25) Pollsters Saunders (5) Post-Election Protests Lowry (7) Race Card Shapiro (5) Republicans Krauthammer (10) Slacker Mandate Malkin (13) Trump Agenda Buchanan (31) Sowell (30) Thomas (8) Trump, Donald Buchanan (16) Charen (26) Coulter (7) Cushman (17) Elder (8) Lambro (6) Thomas (17)
Forgotten Man by Andrew Napolitano
The forgotten man decided the election
T
he forgotten man decided the presidential election. Donald Trump persuaded the forgotten man to repose his anger and frustration and power into Trump’s hands. Who is the forgotten man? What does he want from government? Why did he vote for Trump? When the tide began to turn against Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night, I planned to write this column about the unwarranted and unlawful injection of the FBI into the political process. At the time, I was seated with the Fox News number crunchers and generally was exposed to trends and vote totals — and the number crunchers’ lucid explanation of them — long before they were revealed on-air. I am more an ideas guy than a numbers guy. ON TUESDAY night, the numbers were so overwhelming it was clear that the FBI had nothing to do with the outcome of the presidential election. The numbers on Tuesday told a tale that needs to be related. What the FBI did and failed to do assaulted the rule of law, but that is for another column. Whatever the impression Trump may have given you — a carnival barker, a hero, a jerk, a courageous leader — he brilliantly tapped into a deep vein of millions of American men and women who believe they have been forgotten by the government they pay for. These good people have been alienated by the elites who dominate American government and culture and civic life. On Tuesday night, they found a home. The forgotten man believes that the Obama administration doesn’t care about him. The forgotten man knows that the government put into place regulations of economic activity that put him out of work or into a lowerpaying job. These forgotten men and women resent the Obama administration’s telling them they must have health insurance or they will be taxed for it and then so incompetently manipulating the marketplace as to cause the cost of that insurance — often an unwanted product — to skyrocket. These good folks cringed when their family doctor told them that he could no longer afford to treat them because the feds had overregulated the practice of medicine. They simply couldn’t believe that their own government would make the practice of medicine so expensive that doctors in droves could not afford to stay in business. And they were outraged when their doctors told them the feds could see their medical records and dictate their medical treatment.
The forgotten man has profound resentment for a government that is telling him how to live. The forgotten man’s union dues have shot up. His union leaders use his dues to support political candidates he doesn’t know or like. Yet he has usually voted for the Democrats — out of a traditional belief that the Democrats would think of him and his needs when framing federal legislation. They haven’t.
Andrew (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
Napolitano
THE FORGOTTEN man speaks his mind but isn’t drawn to lofty arguments about the freedom of speech. The forgotten man wants the government to work but couldn’t tell you which aspects of its behavior are unconstitutional. The forgotten man wants elected officials who don’t and won’t forget him. The forgotten man hopes he never sees a judge in a courtroom, but if he does, he wants to be judged by someone who understands him. The forgotten man wants sexual freedom and privacy, but not babies being ripped from the womb for convenience. The forgotten man doesn’t want war but loathes military defeat even more. The forgotten man wants inexpensive goods but will pay more if they are made here by people like him. The for-
gotten man doesn’t want the government to take so much money from those who work hard that they lose their incentive to work or close up their businesses and kill jobs. The forgotten man wants everyone to be able to keep the lion’s share of what he earns. The forgotten man forgives but doesn’t forget. Trump got all that. Trump tapped into all that as no presidential candidate had since Ronald Reagan in 1980. The forgotten man viewed Clinton as having no interest in him. The forgotten man believed that Clinton would work for special interests and not for him. The forgotten man saw that what Trump grasped, Clinton overlooked; what Trump understood, Clinton ignored; and what Trump turned into votes, Clinton took for granted. I DOUBT that the forgotten man saw what I did recently. At the Al Smith dinner in New York City last month — a 1,500-person black-tie fundraiser for the Archdiocese of New York at which Trump’s speech was mediocre and Clinton’s was stellar — I tried to shake the hands of both of them but ran into a Secret Service roadblock around the head table. Trump waved to me with a twinkle in his eye. When I saw Clinton, I saw a lonely face without joy. On Wednesday morning, it dawned on me that she was doomed and she knew it. The forgotten man knew it, as well. November 10, 2016
2
Conservative Chronicle
DEMOCRATS: November 11, 2016
Dems have no one to blame but themselves for Trump
T
hough in many ways the 2016 presidential contest was an uprising against the establishment, let’s face it; Republicans weren’t punished. And that’s not a new development. 2016 is the fourth consecutive election in which the GOP has won the Senate and House. Nearly every conventional conservative Senate candidate — the ones Donald Trump’s fans supposedly hate — ran ahead of the GOP presidential nominee. This includes Republicans who were reticent supporters or outright critics of Trump’s.
A MELODRAMATIC Van Jones is free to claim that Trump’s victory is a “white-lash.” But ever since Barack Obama’s unprecedented passage of Obamacare, his party has lost more than 1,000 seats nationally in three wave elections. Since 2010, the electorate has demanded that Washington share power, but the president didn’t listen, relying on executive power, bureaucracy and the judiciary to pass agenda items without consensus or compromise. In all their vast coverage of agitated right-wingers, it may have escaped the attention of many in the media that over the past eight years, the Democratic Party has moved dramatically to the left on an array of issues. It’s now a party of cultural imperialists and economic technocrats who want to rule through fiat. It is a party
more comfortable coercing Americans sick of hearing manicured talking points. who see the world differently than con- An Associated Press-GfK poll also found vincing them. It is a movement propelled that 92 percent of Americans thought by liberal pundits who have stopped de- Clinton’s email setup either broke the bating and resorted to smearing millions law or was in “poor judgment.” Only six percent believed she did nothing wrong. they disagree with. Trump may also have been the benObama might be capable of governing this way and remaining popular, but his eficiary of decades of vacuous liberal tacks on Republican political talents aren’t transferable — not a t candidates, all of to House or Senate whom have supposDemocrats, who edly been racist and have been paying misogynist. Voters for his policies, may be becoming and certainly not (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate increasingly imto Hillary Clinton. Democrats nominated a corrupt candi- mune to these histrionics. Yet as soon date with abysmal political instincts, a as it became apparent that Trump would decadeslong habit of mendacity and a win, liberal commentators began blaming bigotry again. The left has become so dearth of new ideas. The Democratic Party establishment saturated in identity politics that it can’t never entertained any other nominee imagine that anything else might drive a seriously, and the liberal punditry never voter. earnestly lamented Clinton’s inadequaBELTWAY TYPES — and I incies. There was never any question that all the money, power and infrastructure clude myself in this objectionable group of the left would mobilize behind Clin- — take everything politicians say seriously and literally, because we sort of ton. Democrats nominated one of the least have to. There is value in parsing policy, trusted people to ever run for the presi- ideology and rhetoric, but it has limdency. According to the final Washington ited significance in a nonpolitical world. Post/ABC News tracking poll, Ameri- Voters don’t care if every utterance is cans trusted Clinton six points less than fact-checkable when they have intuition they did Trump, whose absurdities and and experience to guide them. They are outright fabrications probably came off far less horrified by every gaffe than the as straight talk to millions of Americans average reporter.
David
Harsanyi
I recently visited my middle/workingclass hometown in suburban New York. Not exactly Factoryville, Ohio, or rural Mississippi, it was still more typical of the average American life than many people realize. It’s a place where families, though not destitute, often struggle with excessive property taxes, mortgage payments, subpar schools and rising health care bills. None of the Trump voters who surrounded me — most of whom I’d consider moderate Republicans — argued that the GOP nominee is an exemplary person or that he was an optimal candidate for the presidency. Their support had nothing to do with white patriarchal supremacy or any of the ugly themes that preoccupy the progressive left (and now the entire Democratic Party). Certainly, none of these voters cared for the reasons I was opposing a Trump presidency, either — which, broadly speaking, would be the preservation of constitutional processes and the expansion of free trade. The consensus solidified around one thought: Clinton was worse. A lot worse. She was a corrupt, power-hungry would-be dictator who needed to be kept out of the White House. BECAUSE THEY were so convinced Trump was going to win, I sort of felt sorry when anticipating their disappointment — not only because I personally disliked many of Trump’s positions and the thought of one-party rule but also because nothing I read or saw from the experts pointed to a GOP victory. The joke, of course, was on me.
•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?
Contact us at 800-888-3039 or email: conserve@iowaconnect.com
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
3
November 23, 2016 LIBERALS: November 11, 2016
If we say we want inclusiveness, mean it and practice it
I
Liberals talk about unity, but Presiam uplifted by Tuesday’s presidential election results because I dent Obama has been the most divisive believe we have a good chance to president in modern American history. start turning things around in the coun- Admittedly, the country was deeply ditry for the better, from economic issues vided under President George W. Bush, to social issues and matters of national as well, and we are always going to be divided politically and ideosecurity and the rule of law. logically because There is one liberals and consersubject, however, vatives have largely I feel compelled different worldto address above views and vastly many others today, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate different visions as I see it raised by so many Democratic leaders and many for America. So let’s not pretend that liberals throughout the country — inclu- we are going to come together in some historic wave of kumbaya. The best we siveness. should aspire to is civil discourse and IN THEIR postelection speeches, mutual respect. But Bush didn’t try to divide us. He Hillary Clinton and President Obama both called for unity and inclusiveness. needed to unite the nation to fight a comThese are very nice-sounding words. mon enemy in Iraq and radical Islam. But “inclusiveness,” like so many other He tried to reach across the aisle on iswords of the left, is pregnant with im- sues, such as making genuine overtures plications and accusations. In reality, it to Sen. Ted Kennedy on education, and has been not an appeal for unity, except Democrats rebuffed and ridiculed him in the most superficial sense, but a battle and eventually slandered him as a war cry to liberals and an indictment of con- criminal. President Obama, by contrast, has servatives. Those who typically preach inclu- tried to ignite passions in terms of race, sion practice the most exclusive form gender, income, religion, policing, globof politics. One’s actions must validate al warming and a host of other things. the words, or they are nothing more than He hasn’t sought consensus other than nominally. He said, “I won” and “I’m the cynical tools to achieve political ends. Just look at Clinton’s words. She president.” And he crammed his agenda wants a nation that is “hopeful, inclusive down our throats, from his deceitful legand bighearted.” She laments that the na- islative power plays on Obamacare to his tion is divided. Yet she — her team, her lawless executive orders on that, immiparty — appeals to people not as individ- gration and many other issues. Obama and Clinton talk a good game ual Americans but as faceless members of groups, lumping people in terms of race, about inclusiveness, but this nation couldn’t be more fractured on so many religion, gender and sexual orientation.
David
Limbaugh
levels. Race relations in some areas are arguably worse than they’ve been in my lifetime, including the 1960s. Tensions abound between many other groups. The main reason is that the Democrats’ political power wholly depends on dividing America into identity groups and alienating them from each other. If they didn’t consistently garner some 90 percent of the African-American vote, they probably wouldn’t be competitive in national races. They are striving for the same with the Hispanic vote. Obama irresponsibly uses inflammatory language about the disparate treatment of blacks in the criminal justice system and distorts the data to support his claim. He has directly appealed to minority groups to vote for him based on their racial and ethnic interests. He openly accuses “bitter clingers” of not being comfortable with people “who don’t look like them.” DEMOCRATS ALSO stir the pot on gender. In framing the abortion issue, they characterize pro-life advocates as being oppressive and callous toward women and their health rather than wanting to protect innocent babies. They sim-
ilarly try to alienate women from Republicans in their demagogic campaigning for equal pay for equal work when they know that the differences in pay between men and women are based on not the law or discrimination but other factors and when, in any event, the institutions they control see similar disparities in pay. Democrats divide us not only through identity politics but also with their policies. They say they want everyone in America to succeed, but they demonize businesses, individual entrepreneurs and corporations as greedy and evil. They punish the very activities that lead to prosperity for all people. That is, their policies have the effect of excluding a wide array of people from access to the American dream. If you want all Americans to succeed, shouldn’t you strive to get as many as possible in the workforce? To reduce the government dependency cycle so that people can support themselves and not rely on bribery from politicians to make ends meet? To ensure that the government level the playing field and not stack the deck against certain industries, such as coal? To quit pursuing policies that keep minorities trapped in inferior innercity schools? To quit suppressing the conscience rights of Christians? To quit trying to convince minorities that the other half of the nation is racist and bigoted? In his victory speech, Donald Trump also called for unity, but conservatives have a different idea about unity and inclusiveness. To them, those concepts are based on equal opportunity and equal justice for all. The general goal is to reduce the size and scope of government in areas it was never intended to intrude in and to promote policies that will allow people — irrespective of race, gender or religion — to thrive. WE’VE EXPERIENCED eight years of unbridled liberal policies, and half the nation is not paying income tax and is on some form of government assistance. Record numbers of people are out of the labor force altogether. Health premiums are going through the roof. Incomes are down. And people are at each other’s throat. Let’s let freedom ring again and truly promote inclusiveness in the sense that all Americans are free and encouraged to achieve their dreams for a more prosperous nation for everyone.
4
Conservative Chronicle
DEMOCRATS: November 11, 2016
President Barack Obama’s stinging rebuke
I
What happened? From the beginning, n the course of about six hours, what was supposed to be a Repub- President Obama pushed the leftmost lican existential crisis turned into plausible agenda without regard to political consequences. His signature inia Republican wave. What was supposed to be a victory of tiative, Obamacare, was forced through the coalition of the ascendant became a Congress despite its manifest unpopularwith the crucial asdispiriting rout of the coalition that didn’t ity and sistance of obvious show up. falsehoods. When What was supObama’s initial legposed to be the islative overreach crowning politicost him his concal achievement of (c) 2016, King Features Syndicate gressional majoriBarack Obama’s ties, he proceeded presidency set the with executive overreach, especially on predicate for the unraveling of his legacy. Since before he was elected president, environmental regulation and immigraObama put down as a marker the trans- tion. Having made no real effort at partyformational example of Ronald Reagan. That entailed moving the political center building and after a series of disastrous of gravity of the country in his direction; midterms where his campaigning basiwinning re-election; and cementing his cally saved no one, he had no protege standing by securing a de facto third term available to try to win his third term. He had to reach back to his vanquished rival, ratchet, turning the country’s politics for a Democratic successor. Hillary Clinton, whose inadequacies he steadily to the left. In its first big post-Obama test, the AS OF 7 P.M. EST Tuesday, the Rea- had exposed in the 2008 primaries and gan standard looked to be in Obama’s who was almost comically ill-suited to coalition failed. Now many of the president’s substantive achievements are ungrasp. His approval rating stood above energize the Obama coalition. der threat, especially Obamacare, which 50 percent. He campaigned vigorously, THOSE VOTERS were considered is in a semicrisis, and his vast number of and apparently effectively, in front of adoring crowds. The last round of pub- Obama’s enduring political contribution unilateral actions. President Trump will lic polling and the exit polls on Election — an ever-growing bloc of minorities, soon pick up his own pen and phone. President Obama’s party is lurching Day showed Hillary Clinton getting over millennials and the college-educated the top, and her victory seemed likely to who would constitute an ideological toward a bloodletting after losing to perprecipitate an ugly, self-destructive Republican civil war. 2016 ELECTION: November 11, 2016 By the wee hours of Wednesday, this scenario turned to ashes, and Obama could only survey the wreckage of the Democratic Party and, by extension, his highest ambition. Obama is a once-in-a-generation pohe 2016 election is heralding overused and voters come to see them litical athlete who will always be remema new Republican Party and as unreliable sources of information. bered as the nation’s first African-Amer— Television advertising, in general, a sharp reversal of roles. The ican president. But a goodly portion of Democratic Party is now the one for the is increasingly ineffective. Hillary domwhat he has labored for over two terms rich and the GOP is now the party of the inated the paid media for all of June, could now wash out with the political less privileged. July, August and September. It was not tide. until mid or late October that Trump ran His party has been devastated beneath BUT THE election also betokens ads. The free media and social media him. It began in 2010, when Republicans major changes in political science, so dominated the environment that paid took the House by winning 63 seats, which any student of the process must advertising had less of an impact than the biggest pickup since 1948, and six examine. ever before. seats in the Senate. In 2014, Republicans — The era of the negative ad is dygained another 13 House seats and took ing. Hillary Clinton’s wall-to-wall atcontrol of the Senate. Democrats lost tack ads did almost nothing to dent more than 900 state legislative seats in Donald Trump’s vote share. She this period. drowned Trump in negative ads, outThis was chalked up to the midterm spending him by more than 5-1, entirely (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate effect, the product of a smaller, more Re- monopolizing the airwaves until the fipublican-leaning electorate in nonpresi- nal four weeks of the contest. Yet votdential years. Well, on Tuesday night, the ers discounted the negatives. When the — And, as a result, money lost a lot GOP won Senate races in blue states. It free media reflected news about Trump of its power. As television advertising minimized losses in the House. It picked — the Access Hollywood audiotape or — by far the leading expense in modern up governorships and made striking the women who charged him with sex- campaigns — became less important, so gains in state legislatures. ual assault — The Donald’s vote share did the massive sums of money raised All in a presidential year. The GOP dropped predictably. But when Hillary by campaigns. Trump was outspent in controls the presidency, the U.S. Senate sought to keep the issues alive through the primaries by Jeb Bush, Marco Ruand House, and roughly two-thirds of the negative ads or to resurrect the embar- bio, Ted Cruz and even John Kasich. In country’s governorships and state legis- rassing quotes from Trump’s past, it just the general election, Clinton spent siglatures. The Democrats are now, judging didn’t work. Negatives will continue nificantly more than Trump did. Yet the by the scorecard of major offices, the na- to be useful in campaigns, but they are money did not make a big difference. tion’s minority party. diminishing in importance as they are Sensing the diminished importance of
Rich
Lowry
haps the least likely presidential candidate in all of American history. NOTHING IS permanent in politics, and victories often carry the seeds of future defeats. But elections are always clarifying. We now know that President Obama’s larger project has come a cropper. He is no Ronald Reagan, not even close.
The political lessons of 2016
T
Dick
Morris
money, even the Koch Brothers ratcheted back their spending. — Passion and enthusiasm proved more effective than mechanics in generating turnout. In recent years, the marketplace for political tools has been saturated by various schemes to identify voters, usually based on their lifestyle preferences, and use the information to carefully target the campaign message and pull them out to vote. Campaigns have regularly sought to allocate hundreds of millions to get out the vote efforts of this sort, outdoing each other in the sophistication of their targeting. In exit polls, twice as many voters reported having been personally contacted by the Clinton campaign as by the Trump campaign. Yet it was Donald Trump who brought droves of new voters to the polls. The passion his message generated — while Hillary Clinton used mechanics to bring out the vote — proved far more effective in getting it done. AFTER EACH new war, generals have to redesign their strategic texts and learn the lessons of the battlefield. Politics is less responsive to these lessons, but the failure to learn them can be fatal in modern campaigning
5
November 23, 2016 POLLSTERS: November 13, 2016
How ‘herding’ blinded pollsters to Trump win
H
ow did the national polls, Brown responded: “Answer your da— which overwhelmingly pre- phones, people.” Pollster Rose Kapolczynski, who dicted a Hillary Clinton victory, get the presidential election has worked for Democratic Sen. Barso wrong? A Capitol Weekly elec- bara Boxer, suggested that the news tion postmortem panel Thursday gave media and the public look at polls with “skepticism.” Sage me the opportunity to ask California m o r e advice. pollsters unaffiliAll three pollated with the bad sters noted that national polls. national polls corMark DiCamillo rectly predicted of the Field Poll (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate Clinton’s win in saw the Bradley the popular vote, effect with female Trump voters. (The “Bradley ef- they just got the states wrong. (Probfect” was born in 1982 when the late lem: With the Electoral College, getpollster Mervin Field proclaimed that ting the states wrong sort of defeats the voters would elect Los Angeles May- whole purpose of polling.) “All the people who get lots of or Tom Bradley to be California and America’s first black governor. He was money on this were spectacularly wrong, he believed, because voters wrong,” Henry Olsen, a senior fellow would not admit to pollsters they sup- at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, ported George Deukmejian lest they told me the day after the election. That frosts Olsen, because he crunched the appear racist.) numbers in a way that recognized how MANY CRITICS believe polls un- undecided and third-party voters tend der-sampled white blue-collar voters. to break toward their political parties. To which veteran pollster Jonathan On election morning, he blogged that
Debra J.
Saunders
Clinton probably would prevail, but Donald Trump could confound conventional wisdom with a win. “The analysts should have made the choice that I made,” Olsen said. Note Olsen did not predict a Trump win — that would have been career suicide. His mere suggestion that Trump had a chance brought down the hammer of social media derision. By Wednesday, he looked like a prophet. TWO MAJOR polls — the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll and the Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll — put Trump ahead. Critics tried to get the L.A. Times poll kicked off the presti-
RACE CARD: November 9, 2016
Is race baiting finally finished?
D
onald Trump won the most shocking election victory in American history on Tuesday evening. He did so in the face of a media calling him racist, labeling his supporters “deplorables” and terming his victory a sign of “whitelash,” as Van Jones of CNN put it. He won a higher percentage of blacks and Hispanics than Mitt Romney in 2012; Hillary Clinton drew a far lower turnout among minorities than Barack Obama. All of this suggests that the left’s race card may be dead. It may be dead because Obama’s presidency killed it.
OBAMA CAME into office on the wings of high-flown rhetoric about coming together as a nation, healing our centurieslong racial rift. Instead, he delivered a racially polarized presidency, suggesting that American law enforcement was plagued by systemic antiblack bias and that the American justice system sought to crush minorities. The despicable Black Lives Matter movement earned White House invites, and police departments earned Department of Justice consent decrees. Mitt Romney — perhaps the most decent man to run for the White House in the last century — was pilloried by all of these forces as a nefarious agent of bigotry. Vice President Joe Biden said openly that Romney wanted to put
black people “back in chains.” Obama himself stated that Romney wanted to push America back to the 1950s — a backhanded reference to segregation. The media treated any and all opposition to Obama’s policies as a form of covert racism; MSNBC trafficked in such nonsense for eight long years. Hosts on CNN held up their hands in the “hands up, don’t shoot” posture, even though that posture itself was based on a lie. The media routinely crafted narrative lies about police-involved
Ben
Shapiro (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
killings, ranging from Michael Brown to Freddie Gray, then covered the ensuing riots as “uprisings” and spontaneous outbursts of underprivileged rage against the white superstructure, even in cities with a black majority, like Baltimore, Maryland. ON COLLEGE campuses, professors preached the lie of “white privilege,” the concept that all racial inequalities in American society must be due to a structural imbalance created by whiteness. “Safe spaces,” including racially segregated spaces, became common, even as white students were told that to say that the phrase “I’m colorblind” was
a “microaggression” requiring a “trigger warning.” By the time Trump came around, the American people were sick and tired of it all. They didn’t want to hear about Trump’s supposedly Hitlerian tendencies — the media had already punched itself out with Romney. They didn’t want to hear from Clinton and Obama about American “deplorables” — not after watching American cities burn with Obama’s tacit approval. They didn’t want to hear from diversity-oriented, six-figure-earning college professors about white privilege. They just wanted a candidate who told them they weren’t a bunch of racists, that America was still a good and great place. So the race card failed. BUT IT IS a mistake to think it’s gone forever. The demographics are still shifting. The race card is dead with white voters, but it’s still very much alive with minority voters. And Democrats will not run another white person for the presidency again — not after Clinton’s dramatic failure among minorities in the wake of Obama’s new minority-heavy electoral coalition. Meanwhile, Trump has an opportunity, as president, to reach out and demonstrate that the race card is a lie and a sham. Here’s hoping he does it, rather than hunkering down in a bubble of his own support.
gious RealClearPolitics average of polls because it was an outlier. Dan Schnur, a former aide to GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, director of USC’s Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics and self-described “midwife” of the USC poll, endured his share of abuse. Many reporters, he believed, could not lash out at Trump, so they vented at his poll. The pressure to conform must have been overwhelming. Schnur answered that his people “are very steadfast. They wouldn’t have changed the methodology even if I begged them to.” During the panel, pollster Brown explained the phenomenon of “herding,” where pollsters decide to reconfigure their numbers so that they fit other polls. Clearly, there is an institutional bias that pushes pollsters to ignore their own findings and stick to the so-called narrative. Later I asked Brown: Aren’t pollsters nervous about pushing their data in the wrong direction. “It’s better to be wrong with everyone,” he replied. The L.A. Times poll showed Trump ahead because of its unique methodology — the poll followed individuals to discern their enthusiasm for a candidate. Clinton voters lacked enthusiasm, while Trump voters were stoked. What should pollsters learn from 2016? Schnur noted that his poll missed the mark on the popular vote. The key isn’t one approach, but for researchers to employ a wider range of methodologies. They also have to be open to new information that contrads their assumptions. In the meantime, many voters don’t trust pollsters. From the audience, Oceanside attorney Laura Kennedy offered that she would never talk to a pollster. She’s a Trump supporter who is sick of Clinton boosters calling Trump voters racists and idiots. “I’m not ashamed of it (her vote),” Kennedy noted. “I just don’t want to listen to the backlash.” Pollsters, you have to make people want to answer the da-- phone. THE NEWS media don’t help when they cover every movement in the polls — as if polls are infallible — instead of focusing on issues or listening to voters. Polls indicated a Clinton win. Once she was installed on top, pollsters questioned her lead at their professional peril. 2016 was the year of the polling bubble. Tuesday, the bubble burst.
6
Conservative Chronicle
DONALD TRUMP: November 10, 2016
Trump’s stunning victory a rebuke of Obama’s record
T
uesday’s stunning presidential irrationally wacky, uninformed, ignorant election was, first and fore- belief that she could strengthen our econmost, a devastating rebuke of omy by raising tax rates on business, inBarack Obama’s presidency, especially vestors, job-creators and anyone who, she believed, made too much money. his economic record. To add icing to the GOP’s cake, ReMany issues, no doubt, influenced the voters’ decisions to put the Republicans publicans held on to the House and Senback in charge of the White House and ate, putting their party in full control of the executive branch of government. But the government for the next four, and eight, years. none was more intense than the anger m a y b e What this means and angst over the is that Trump will economy. sign the RepubliAfter eight cans’ tax reform long, painful years legislation that has of a weak, slow(c) 2016, United Media Services been languishing growth, underperforming economy, the American people on Capitol Hill for years, as well as the said they had enough, voting to end the GOP’s repeal and replace bill that will Democrats’ wasteful, big-spending, end Obamacare, and tighten budgets that scandal-ridden, high-tax reign of medi- will beef up defense spending. Equally important, it will mean fillocrity. ing the vacancy on the Supreme Court DONALD TRUMP ran on many with a strict constructionist in the mold issues, but the core of his pro-growth of the late, great Antonin Scalia. Trump agenda was across-the-board tax reforms has already put forward a lengthy list of that would cut the rates for businesses possible nominees that have met with and individuals to get America investing widespread approval from the Senate’s conservative leaders. and growing again. But the new pro-growth, pro-job inThat was the linchpin of Trump’s extraordinary political victory in the wake centives can’t come soon enough to get of a largely unpopular president whose our country back on track. Obama and approval ratings rarely crept out of the 40 his apologists in the national news mepercent range, and whose sluggish econ- dia kept insisting that the economy was omy couldn’t do better than an anemic strengthening, no matter how weak the economic data was. two percent growth rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Hillary Clinton, who ran as a proxy for the continuation and expansion of an- last week reported that unemployment other four to eight years of the Obama was at a low of 4.9 percent last month administration, clung to the Democrats’ and that employers added a minuscule
Donald
Lambro
161,000 workers. But the low jobless figure was largely the result of discouraged job-seekers who hadn’t looked for work in a week or more, most of whom were uncounted as unemployed. If you read way down to the fine print in last month’s BLS jobs report, you will find that a total of 21.1 million people were unemployed for one reason or another. Yet the New York Times reported that the job numbers showed “an economy that is basically healthy.” Huh? THE AMERICAN people knew better, and so did the business community. Here’s what the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies, said in a recent report: The “U.S. economy continues to perform well below expectations. Unemployment is down, but the workforce participation rate is at a 35-year low. “U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is growing too slowly — we need policies that will spur economic growth and vitality. The U.S. economy lacks momentum,” the CEOs said.
But if Trump is going to hit the ground running after he’s sworn in next year, he will need a skilled, fully experienced team of people in his Cabinet. And, dare I say it, people who are part of the nation’s political establishment. It doesn’t get much news coverage, but he has already surrounded himself with some of those people. Start with the man who heads Trump’s transition team, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who chaired the National Governors Association. The team is run by his longtime adviser Rich Bagger, and includes William Hagerty, a key adviser and strategist in Mitt Romney’s 2012 transition team, and many other veteran establishment operatives. No single staff person will be more powerful and have more influence in the White House than the chief of staff, and Trump is said to be considering Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, who maintains close ties to all of the GOP’s elected officials. Former Utah Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in George W. Bush’s administration, and who headed Romney’s transition group, is said to be “informally advising” Trump’s team. And, talk about the establishment, CNBC reported Thursday that Trump was considering Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, for Treasury secretary. Dimon, who describes his political alignment as “barely Democrat,” once said of Hillary Clinton, “She reaches across the aisle.” So while Trump poses as the archenemy of the political establishment, the fact remains that he’s schmoozed with people on both sides of the aisle over his long business career. His decision-making standard can be summed up in “I only like the best.” Meantime, while Trump will be focused like a laser beam on the economy, other parts of his agenda are in deep doubt. There is no way a Republican Congress is going to enact trade tariffs, another form of taxation, that would hit consumers in their pocketbooks and hurt our economy. AS FOR building a $400 billion, 20foot wall on our 2,000-mile southern border, and forcing Mexico to pay the bill, it’s never going to happen.
7
November 23, 2016 DONALD TRUMP: November 9, 2016
President Donald Trump’s first 100 days
W
ell, that was the easy part. All Trump had to do was vanquish people too stupid to pick up the thousand-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk — smug, smirking, out-of-touch establishment drones. Now comes the part Americans have desperately hoped for, but almost never seen: A politician keeping his promises to the American people. (See, e.g., Senate candidate Marco Rubio’s 2010 promise to oppose amnesty if elected; Sen. Mitch McConnell’s 2014 promise to block Obama’s executive amnesty if Republicans were handed a Senate majority; Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Ted Cruz’s promise to support the 2016 Republican presidential nominee.) HEY, ANYBODY else remember “Read My Lips?” That was from the family too pristine to sully themselves by voting for Trump. With the self-assurance of everything else wrong they’ve said about
Day 15: Continue building the wall. Trump from Day One, the media are Day 16: Continue building the wall. already announcing that he, too, will Day 17: Continue building the wall. betray the American people. Day 18: Continue building the wall. I don’t think so! To help Mr. Trump Day 19: Continue building the wall. keep his promises, I’ve compiled a deDay 20: Continue building the wall. tailed schedule for his first 100 days Day 21: Continue building the in office. Please note that each day is wall. meticulously planned: Day 22: Continue Day 1: Start building the wall. building the wall. Day 23: ConDay 2: Continue building the tinue building the wall. wall. (c) 2016, Ann Coulter Day 24: ConDay 3: Contintinue building the wall. ue building the wall. Day 25: Continue building the wall. Day 4: Continue building the wall. Day 26: Continue building the wall. Day 5: Continue building the wall. Day 27: Continue building the wall. Day 6: Continue building the wall. Day 28: Continue building the wall. Day 7: Continue building the wall. Day 29: Continue building the wall. Day 8: Continue building the wall. Day 30: Continue building the wall. Day 9: Continue building the wall. Day 31: Continue building the wall. Day 10: Continue building the wall. Day 32: Continue building the wall. Day 11: Continue building the wall. Day 33: Continue building the wall. Day 12: Continue building the wall. Day 34: Continue building the wall. Day 13: Continue building the wall. Day 35: Continue building the wall. Day 14: Continue building the wall.
Day 36: Continue building the wall. Day 37: Continue building the wall. Day 38: Continue building the wall. Day 39: Continue building the wall. Day 40: Continue building the wall. Day 41: Continue building the wall. Day 42: Continue building the wall. Day 43: Continue building the wall. Day 44: Continue building the wall. Day 45: Continue building the wall. Day 46: Continue building the wall. Day 47: Continue building the wall. Day 48: Continue building the wall. Day 49: Continue building the wall. Day 50: Continue building the wall. Day 51: Continue building the wall Day 52: Continue building the wall. Day 53: Continue building the wall. Day 54: Continue building the wall. Day 55: Continue building the wall. Day 56: Continue building the wall. Day 57: Continue building the wall. Day 58: Continue building the wall. Day 59: Continue building the wall. Day 60: Continue building the wall. Day 61: Continue building the wall. Day 62: Continue building the wall. Day 63: Continue building the wall. Day 64: Continue building the wall. Day 65: Continue building the wall. Day 66: Continue building the wall. Day 67: Continue building the wall. Day 68: Continue building the wall. The post-election mayhem could be Day 69: Continue building the wall. written off as the work of an unruly Day 70: Continue building the wall. fringe, if it weren’t that the Democratic Day 71: Continue building the wall Party is so beholden to the sensibilities Day 72: Continue building the wall. of its cosseted youth, whom it mistakes Day 73: Continue building the wall. for the shock troops of the future. A Day 74: Continue building the wall. party that considers it forbidden to say Day 75: Continue building the wall. “all lives matter” because it will offend Day 76: Continue building the wall. the enforcers of political correctness is Day 77: Continue building the wall. a party that is going to have trouble apDay 78: Continue building the wall. pealing to Middle America. Day 79: Continue building the wall. One anti-Trump protester was seen Day 80: Continue building the wall. the other day holding a sign reading Day 81: Continue building the wall “Your vote was a hate crime.” It’s hard Day 82: Continue building the wall. to imagine a better distillation of the coDay 83: Continue building the wall. ercive small-mindedness that prevails Day 84: Continue building the wall. on college campuses. This attitude enDay 85: Continue building the wall. sures a state of perpetual shock and outDay 86: Continue building the wall. rage at the lived reality of a continental Day 87: Continue building the wall. nation of more than 300 million free Day 88: Continue building the wall. men and women. Day 89: Continue building the wall. The anti-Trump protests will in all Day 90: Continue building the wall. likelihood continue. They aim to assoDay 91: Continue building the wall ciate the president-elect with chaos and Day 92: Continue building the wall. delegitimize him from the outset. But it Day 93: Continue building the wall. is fully in Trump’s power, so long as he Day 94: Continue building the wall. doesn’t show irritation or anger, to see Day 95: Continue building the wall. that they backfire. One petulant tweet Day 96: Continue building the wall. aside, he has struck a unifying tone, Day 97: Continue building the wall. while it is his adversaries who are unDay 98: Continue building the wall. hinged. Day 99: Continue building the wall. Day 100: Report to American peoTRUMP’S CRITICS are certain ple about progress of wall. Keep buildthat he is the champion of a blinkered ing the wall. worldview. But the election and its aftermath show that it is the self-styled GOOD LUCK, President Donald citizens of the world who need to get Trump! out more.
Ann
Coulter
POST-ELECTION PROTESTS: November 14, 2016
America is not a safe space Pity the anti-Trump protesters thronging the streets of American cities. Apparently, no one ever told them that they live in a geographically, economically and ideologically varied nation, and that about half of its inhabitants might support a Republican candidate for president. They mistook the country for the campus of Oberlin College. The news that it actually isn’t arrived with the force of a thunderclap on Nov. 8. The shock of Donald Trump’s election has occasioned tears, rending of garments and days of protests showcasing the rank infantilism of the American left.
more open-minded vision of America. (The left’s street protesters act as if there is no social or political problem that can’t be addressed by hurling things at cops.) The same media that would have denounced pro-Trump protests as a threat to democracy has treated the anti-Trump protests as a natural symptom of a divided country. Erupting in rage at the result of an election went from a grave offense against our system to the latest front in the battle for social justice right around the time that the Upper Midwest was called for Trump.
PRIOR TO the election, liberal commentators obsessed over Trump’s rumblings about not accepting the outcome and worried about his supporters lashing out. Trump shouldn’t have preemptively declared the election rigged, but the specter of Republican mayhem was always far-fetched. When was the last time that GOP protesters ran out of control and burned down local business establishments? Tea-party rallies were famous for their orderliness — participants in a massive rally on the Mall in Washington, D.C., even picked up their own trash. It is left-wing protests that invariably devolve into lawbreaking, and so it was that the same kids who think Donald Trump is too divisive were soon smashing windows and throwing projectiles at police in behalf of their supposedly
Rich
Lowry (c) 2016, King Features Syndicate
THE LEVEL of self-awareness of the protesters isn’t high. Some hold signs reading “This is what democracy looks like.” It is true that the right to peaceful assembly is a key aspect of any liberal democracy (even if some protesters need to work on the “peaceful” part), but as an illustrative exercise in democracy, you can’t beat the national election last Tuesday that has so outraged anti-Trump protesters. They have now adopted the slogan “Not my president,” a phrase that the day before yesterday the left considered a racist slur when hurled at President Barack Obama.
8
Conservative Chronicle
DONALD TRUMP: November 10, 2016
I hate to say I told you so — actually, I really don’t
T
ers who, by doing this, malign many friends. I live in California. Honestly, soon-to-be Trump-voting Americans, how many conservative friends do you who feel they’re working harder and have? I bet the answer is — after this longer and making less money as a re- letter — none. “Larry” sult of the policies of the last eight years. David’s response: “When he gets elected, go to the near“These kinds of divisions are inevitaest mirror — you played a large role in ble when people are presented it. choices that are this “I’ve been doing this a long time. I w i t h momentous. Amerihave a much betcans faced a simiter handle on how lar choice in the much of America 1850s, Germany feels and thinks in the 1930s. I than you do. You (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate told you before think you do, but that Trump is a categorically different you don’t. candidate. He is not a (John) McCain, “I’VE SEEN the Trump phenome- or a (Mitt) Romney, or a George or Jeb non divide friends and families. I never Bush, men with whom I disagree but really thought it would happen between who are honorable, decent people, and none of whom support Trump. Trump you and me. “But this is the first time I truly feel is a demagogue and a racist. He openly “THE ASSERTION that only he insulted, demeaned and caricatured by admires dictators like Kim Jong Un and can save us ... “This is unique to American politics, you — simply because I see things dif- Vladimir Putin, and if the report regardLarry. But the world has seen this be- ferently. I have many, many left-wing ing his keeping the book of Hitler’s fore. “If you can’t see it after last night’s TRUMP AGENDA: November 15, 2016 speech I am afraid you will never see it. “You have spent your entire career denying that racism still exists. You were wrong. Racism is a powerful force, a dark and tempting lure that can be used by a fanatical leader to frighten and mat didn’t take long. Journalists, future. This could be done immediately nipulate multitudes. Now you have a editorial writers and columnists while waiting for Congress to pass a raving lunatic racist as the Republican who hate Donald Trump and con- school voucher plan and would encournominee. What will you do? Will you sistently opposed his election are now age others to make similar contributions continue to support him? Will you stay advising him what not to do. to charitable scholarship funds. silent? You are a man of great influence, The Heritage Foundation, a conserNewspaper headlines claim Trump is and I have faith in you to do the right pulling back on his campaign promises. vative think tank based in Washington, thing and help to save our country. Editorials encourage him not to do ev- D.C., is again playing a central role in “David” erything he pledged, although his pledg- the transition. Many of its ideas on doMy response: es are what got him elected. The ACLU mestic and foreign policy are posted at “David, bought a full-page ad in the New York heritage.org. Heritage provided many “Name one time I ‘denied that racism Times, vowing to use its army of law- policy suggestions to Ronald Reagan, still exists’! One. I’ve never written such yers and volunteers to thwart Trump’s which he embraced during his two a thing, said such a thing, or believed agenda. terms. such a thing. It is beyond insulting. “Not only does racism still exist in SINCE EVERYONE else is offerAmerica, but bigotry does. And you are ing advice, here is mine: Begin with an example of it. You’re bigoted against the economy. Propose to Congress cuts conservatives, against people who be- in individual and corporate taxes and a (c) 2016, Tribune Media Services lieve the government is too big, against plan to do away with the tax code, repeople, like my father, who grew up in placing it with a flat or fair tax. A SOURCE familiar with what is the Jim Crow South during the Great On illegal immigration, start building occurring inside the transition tells me Depression, who believed that racism, the wall, but announce that to help pay “landing teams” from Heritage will be sexism and whatever ‘isms’ you want to for it a toll system will be implemented, visiting federal departments and agenput forth are no longer major forces in charging people who cross our southern cies beginning Wednesday to ask quesAmerica. border in each direction. Drivers have to tions and retrieve information for the “By making such an asinine state- pay tolls to get in and out of Manhattan. new administration. They will be rement you reduce yourself to the sub- Why not tolls for getting in and out of minded that President Obama is presiterranean level of credibility you claim America? The new president could also dent until Jan. 20 and to be “respectful.” Trump possesses. ask for contributions from the public to We only have one president at a time. “After that I need not — and won’t help build the wall, which can bring in The Trump administration plans to — respond to anything else you said in additional funds. We’ll see if Mexico follow Speaker Paul Ryan’s advice and your email. “go big, go bold.” Hundreds of execupays anything. “But I will say this. Get used to it. Trump says he will forgo the tive orders are being prepared, along You just heard the next president of the $400,000 presidential salary. Here’s a with language members of Congress United States. He’s going to get elected. better idea. Take the money and donate can use to formulate new legislation and And it will be, in no small measure, be- it to scholarships for poor children so repeal old laws. These include school cause of the hysterical, unfair, demonic they can escape failing public schools choice, repealing and replacing most of characterization of him by you and oth- and get a decent education for a better Obamacare and reversing various social he day after one of the greatest political upsets in world history, I dug out my July 2016 exchange with “David,” an Ohio leftwing retired law professor whom I once considered my best friend. He wrote: “Larry, “Donald Trump — the screaming, the red face, the slashing hand gestures, the repeated appeals to familial blood spilled by outsiders, the vow to deport three percent of the American population. “The demonization of our present leaders as stupid, as weak, as corrupt, as criminals, as traitors, as not citizens, as not Christians. “The mischaracterization of our country as broken, as suffering, as crushed underfoot by foreign forces.
Larry
Elder
speeches at his bedside is accurate, then him as well. He openly appeals to violence and has expressly vowed to imprison his principal political opponent if he wins and has implicitly called for her to be assassinated if he loses. He rejects the Western alliance of democratic nations in favor of doing business with the Russian kleptocracy. “I am not deceived as to Trump’s popularity. You are right that many people adore Trump. I had hoped you were not one of them. His level of support does not change his essential character; it is what makes him dangerous. I deeply mourn our friendship. But this is just the beginning of this conflict, and the choices we make will define all of us.” THIS IS, indeed, “just the beginning of this conflict” — the conflict between those who denounced Trump as a racist and a bigot and the American voters who see him and his vision in a very different way. Deal with it.
Advising the president-elect
I
Cal
Thomas
engineering orders, such as transgender bathroom requirements. The transition team is combining the New York and Washington offices and entering what was described to me as the “execution stage,” moving from policy pronouncements, to enactment. Conservatives should be encouraged that vice president-elect Mike Pence has been put in charge of the transition. He is a rock-solid conservative who will be helpful in making sure people who hold conservative views are placed in key posts. The emphasis should shift from ideology to what works. If, for example, poor children are liberated from government schools and their grades and outlook on life improve, their testimony will be evidence enough that school choice has been a success. Here’s another suggestion. The major media hate Trump and always will. At his press conferences, he should include more conservative journalists who will eschew “gotcha” and “what do you say to people who say” questions and seek to obtain information of use to the public. THIS WILL BE the Republicans’ last opportunity for a generation to show that their ideas work and to promote the general welfare. The possibilities are great if Trump and Pence and the Republican Congress ignore critics who want them to fail and press on to receive the prize that success will bring, not only to them and the GOP, but to a nation that longs for it.
9
November 23, 2016 2016 ELECTION: November 10, 2016
Donald Trump gets elected: Postmortem 2016
F
our years ago, I wrote a column our border, nor can we risk what Euthat went viral, offering a few rope is facing: Hordes of undocumented observations about President refugees who are being used as screens Obama’s re-election. Today presents the for an admittedly small handful of evil opportunity to reflect in a similar fash- people who can do damage disproporion on the election of Donald Trump as tionate to their numbers. The left treats such concerns as beneath contempt. The president of the United States. 1. We didn’t want the left’s “funda- American voters disagreed. 3. At some point, you compromise mental transformation.” The left has hornswoggled Ameri- enough principles to lose the moral high cans for years with obfuscating language ground. Liberals and progressives view themlike “tolerance” and “choice.” Having the moral superiors of slowly but steadily permeated academia, selves as conservatives. In the media and the support of their arentertainment ingument, they often dustry, it needed point to their hisonly to get control tory of support for of government — (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate civil rights, and which it got with Barack Obama — to go all-in. Over the efforts to alleviate poverty and other past eight years, it became abundantly human suffering. Leaving aside that clear that the left’s endgame was not conservatives also work toward these “tolerance,” but a jackbooted determina- and other worthy objectives, look at tion to use every lever of government to what we’ve witnessed this campaign: force their ideologies down our throats. Collusion with the press, manipulation America is basically a live-and-let-live of the primary process, bragging about country. Progressivism is anything but. voter fraud, shocking violence directed They overplayed their hand, and Ameri- toward Trump supporters, deceit and cans pushed back. Don’t look for this to pay-to-play allegations and breaches of professional ethics at the highest levchange anytime soon. els of the Democrat Party. It’s time the 2. Immigration matters. Cries of “racism!” and “xenophobia!” Democrats take a good long look in the notwithstanding, there are legitimate fis- mirror; their self-perception needs a secal stability and national security issues rious adjustment. 4. Lady smarts beat lady parts. associated with illegal immigration that The Democrats won in 2012 by creis deliberately left unpoliced, and immigration laws that are deliberately left ating a “war on women” out of whole unenforced. We cannot afford to sup- cloth. This year, they played from the port millions of people pouring across same deck by demonizing anyone who
Laura
Hollis
didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton as sexist. They are still saying it. A woman can succeed in America, can run for president, and can win. But American men and women in significant numbers (42 percent of women voted for Trump. Or against Clinton, take your pick) rejected Clinton’s policies, her duplicity and her perceived corruption. This has nothing to do with her being female, and insisting that it does only ensures that the left will continue to be blindsided by the very people they refuse to understand. 5. The Clintons got greedy. First lady, United States senator, and secretary of state were never enough; Clinton had decided years ago that she was entitled to the presidency. 2008 was going to be her year. Upstaged by the talented and telegenic Barack Obama, she got pushed back to 2016. But it became clear early on in this campaign cycle that the candidate whose message was resonating with the left’s voter base was Bernie Sanders, not Clinton. Instead of embracing a path to Democrat victory, Clinton and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz conspired to wrest the nomination away
from Sanders, alienating millions of voters. I suspect that a Bernie Sanders/ Elizabeth Warren ticket — especially up against Trump — would have produced a different result. 6. The corrupt media is — still — the enemy. I’ve been crying in the wilderness on this issue for two decades. But now everyone knows it, thanks to Project Veritas and WikiLeaks. The press hasn’t been just in the tank for the Democrats, they were on the team, sharing information, fielding questions and covering up for misconduct. The American media has been utterly discredited, and the fallout from this has yet to be fully appreciated. 7. This is what a big tent looks like. For whatever else one can say about it, the Trump campaign proved that Republicans can attract a diverse voter base. And Trump did: Record numbers of evangelicals, gays (most visibly, instigator Milo Yiannopoulos), Libertarians, African-Americans (Trump got eight percent of the black vote; twice Mitt Romney’s number), and of course, the working-class support that put him over the top. It will be interesting to see how the GOP plans to replicate that. 8. Trump and the GOP do have a mandate. I wrote in 2012 that President Obama neither had a mandate, nor needed one. His subsequent comments (“I have a pen and a phone”) and conduct proved me right. One might argue that since half the country voted against Donald Trump, he has no mandate, either. But this election was the third part of a People’s Trifecta: In 2010, in a furious reaction to Democrats’ unilateral passage of Obamacare, voters gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives. In 2014, the GOP were given control of the Senate. (It’s worth remembering that the press called those elections wrong, as well.) Yesterday, control of Congress was preserved and the Republican candidate took the White House. Voters’ message to the GOP is clear: Do what we’ve sent you to Washington to do. IF PAST IS precedent, the GOP will have two years in which to accomplish something, before the midterm elections hand control of Congress back to the Democrats. They’d better get cracking.
10
Conservative Chronicle
REPUBLICANS: November 11, 2016
How the new Republican majority can succeed
D
onald Trump won fair and popular (56 percent in the latest Gallup). square and, as Hillary Clin- As a charismatic campaigner, whenever ton said in her concession his name is on the ballot, he wins. But speech, is owed an open mind and a when it’s not — 2010, 2014, now 2016 chance to lead. It is therefore incumbent — the Democrats get shellacked. The reason is no mystery. The probupon conservatives (like me) who have been highly critical of Trump to think lem was never with Obama himself, but through how to make a success of the with his policies. Before each of those losing elections Obama would coming years of Republican rule. campaign saying that It begins by his name wasn’t on recognizing the ballot but his Trump’s remarkpolicies — and able political innow his legacy — stincts. As Paul (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group were. The voters Ryan noted in made clear what his morning-after olive-branch news conference, Trump they thought of his policies and legacy. Simply put, from the beginning of heard “a voice out in this country that no one else heard.” Trump spoke to and his presidency, Obama overreached for a working class squeezed and ruined ideologically, most spectacularly with by rapid technological and economic his signature legislative achievement — Obamacare. The spike in Obamacare transformation. premiums and deductibles just two ONE OF THE principal tasks for the weeks before Tuesday’s election proved now-dominant GOP is to craft a gov- a particularly damaging reminder of erning agenda that actually alters their what Obamaism had wrought. Hence the other principal task for lives and prospects. In the end, it was this constituency of those left behind by the now dominant GOP: Undo Obathe new globalized digital economy that maism. Begin with canceling Obama’s executive orders on everything from delivered the presidency to Trump. Nonetheless, this election was not immigration to climate change. Then just about the social/economic divide. overturn his more elaborate legislative It was also about the ideological di- adventures into overweening liberalism, vide between left and right. The most starting, of course, with Obamacare. The promise of a Trump presidency overlooked factor in the election is the continuing deep and widespread dissat- is that, if it can successfully work with a Republican Congress, it could turn isfaction with Obamaism. It tends to be overlooked because Obamaism into a historical parenthesis. President Obama remains personally Republicans would then have a chance
Charles
Krauthammer
to enact the Reaganite agenda that has been incubating while in exile from the White House. FOR YEARS Washington gridlock has been attributed to GOP obstructionism. On the contrary, serious legislation, such as Medicare reform passed by the GOP House, was either strangled in the Senate by Democratic leader Harry Reid or died by veto on President Obama’s desk. Beyond the undoing, there’s now the prospect of doing. Serious border enforcement, including a wall, for example. That’s not only a good in itself, it
would offer leverage in a grand bargain that would include eventual legalization of resident illegal immigrants, an idea supported (according to the exit polls) by more than seven in 10 voters. Another given is a reshaping of the currently rudderless Supreme Court with the nomination of a conservative justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia. During the campaign, Trump’s populism often clashed with traditional Reaganism. The key to GOP success is to try to achieve an accommodation, if not a fusion. Two agendas: One ideological, one socioeconomic. They both need to be addressed. Onto the Reaganite core of smaller government and strict constitutionalism must be added a serious concern for the grievances of the constituency that animated the Trump insurgency, the long-suffering, long-neglected working class. If Reaganite conservatives want to head off wrongheaded solutions — such as massive tariffs, mercantilist economics and trade wars — they must be prepared to accept such measures as federal wage subsidies and targeted restraints on trade. This involves giving up a measure of economic efficiency. But the purpose is to achieve a measure of social peace and restore dignity and security to a stressed and sliding working class. Some might even call it compassionate conservatism. THE KEY TO success for a Trump presidency is for the Reaganite and populist elements in the party to be willing to advance each other’s goals even at the cost of ideological purity. This will require far-reaching negotiations between a Trump White House and a GOP Congress. The Republicans have gained control of all the political branches. They have the means to deliver. They now have to show that they can.
11
November 23, 2016 FORGOTTEN MAN: November 14, 2016
Three groups made the difference for Trump
T
here were three groups of voters who were overlooked by the “smarter than thou” pollsters and political handicappers; and suffice it to say these groups, were significant factors on November 8th. One group is the people who have either not voted for many election cycles and/or those who have not voted going back to the Vietnam War. I was reminded about this particular group the other morning over breakfast with a dear friend. MY FRIEND belongs to a larger group than you would ever think to factor in when it comes to elections. They are those I will call the “pragmatically disillusioned.” They are not the Timothy Leary “Turn on, tune in, drop out” crowd. They are the “We are tuned in
THAT IS, until the arrival of the gathand realized many, many years ago there wasn’t a dime’s bit of different between ering storm named Donald J. Trump. In the two political groups right down to Donald Trump they saw a person they them telling the same lies with a different could trust and have confidence in specifically because he is the antithesis of emphasis.” The people in this particular group everything they have come to expect political status quo. are not unaware nor are they unin- from the This group was not formed. They are counted nor were they pragmatists, and as been polled. They such they have rewere not interfused to participate viewed but they in being what has (c) 2016, Mychal Massie have been paying amounted to hamattention and they sters on a wheel, were informed. And more importantly accomplishing nothing regardless of how fast they churn. They are the people who they are engaged in rallying those like realized long ago that their votes counted themselves. I believe they played a sigfor naught and who believed that regard- nificant role in votes cast. Another group who played a signifiless of whom they voted for the outcome cant role in the election outcome were would be the same.
Mychal
Massie
2016 ELECTION: November 14, 2016
The election’s over: What now?
T
he good news is that we dodged a bullet in this election. The bad news is that we don’t know how many other bullets are coming, or from what direction. A Hillary Clinton victory would have meant a third consecutive administration dedicated to dismantling the institutions that have kept America free, and imposing instead the social vision of the smug elites. That could have been the ultimate catastrophe — not just for our time, but for generations yet unborn.
IN ONE SENSE, Donald Trump’s victory was a unique American event. But, in a larger sense, it represents the biggest backlash among many elsewhere, against smug elites in Western nations, where increasing numbers of ordinary people are showing their anger at where those elites are leading their countries. There, as here, mindlessly flinging the doors open to peoples from societies whose fundamental values clash with those of the countries they enter, has been a hallmark of arrogant blindness and disregard of negative consequences suffered by ordinary people — consequences from which the elites themselves are insulated. Nor is this the only issue on which the blindness of elites has set the stage for a political backlash. The anti-law enforcement fetish among the insulated elites has even more tragically sacrificed the safety of the general public. This too has been common on both sides of the Atlantic. Riots in London, Manchester and other cities in England in 2011 were incredibly similar to 2014 riots in Ferguson, Missouri, 2015 riots in Baltimore
and similar riots in other American cities. The fact that the rioters in England were mostly white, while those in America were mostly black, gives the lie to the facile excuse that such riots are due to racial oppression, rather than being a result of appeasing mobs and restricting the police. Nor is the election of Donald Trump likely to lead the elites to having second thoughts about the prevailing dogmas of their groupthink. On the morning after Mr. Trump’s upset victory over Mrs. Clinton, a newswoman at CNN mentioned the disappointment of
Thomas
Sowell (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
some women that “the glass ceiling” was not shattered as expected. What an insult to everyone’s intelligence is that catch phrase, “glass ceiling.” What does “glass” mean, if not that you cannot see the ceiling, but somehow you just know that it is there? And how do you know? Because it has been repeated so often. IT IS LIKE the fable of the emperor’s new clothes, but a fable for adults. Demagogues like Hillary Clinton can point to the fact that women as a group do not receive as much income as men as a group. But, factual studies over the past 40 years have shown repeatedly that, when you compare women who work as many hours a year as men, and as many continuous years in the same occupations as men, the income differ-
ences shrink to the vanishing point, and sometimes even reverse. But how many politicians or media people care about facts, when the facts go against their preconceptions? Donald Trump’s unexpected victory should send a lot of people back to the drawing board to rethink their assumptions about many things. That includes not only the political left but also the Republican establishment. But don’t count on it. The Republican establishment has been called many things, but introspective is not one of them. One thing they might reconsider is their assumption that they alone know just what kind of presidential candidate is needed to win elections. But the two most surprisingly successful Republican candidates of the past half century — Ronald Reagan and now Donald Trump — bore no resemblance to the candidates who epitomized the Republican establishment’s model, such as Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Among others who could also use some rethinking is Donald Trump himself. When he acted like a petulant adolescent, he may have gotten the adulation of his core constituents. But it was only toward the end, when he began to act like a responsible adult seeking the highest office in the land, that he began to overtake Hillary Clinton. DONALD TRUMP is a wild card. We don’t know whether he was playacting when he carried on like a juvenile lout or when he played the role of a mature adult. But he and the country could both benefit from some serious introspection on his part.
those who were all in for Donald Trump but who only made it known when their ballot was cast for him. A friend told me not long ago, that a Donald Trump grassroots person was going door-to-door offering Trump/Pence signs. The person reported back that nearly every door they knocked on, the residents told them they would absolutely be voting for Donald Trump but they didn’t want any signs or bumper stickers because they feared their property/autos would suffer damage at the hands of Clinton supporters. The Trump team member passing out the yard signs also reported back that in almost every instance the residents would talk on and on about why they supported Donald Trump and why they believed he was the last chance to turn America around. This was not an insignificant sized group. There are always a percentage of people who, for a plethora of reasons, elect not to have property signs and bumper stickers. But I submit there has never been a group of such demonstrable numbers as there were who supported Mr. Trump but were afraid/reluctant to publicly portray same. But on November 8th, they made their numbers known. The third group was those who were tired of being lied to and talked down to. They were the ones who have believed and hoped against hope that a candidate would honor their campaign promises. They are the people who have been the traditional loyal Democrats who obediently smiled and pulled the “Donkey” lever for a straight Democrat ticket. They are the ones who have been repeatedly told the only Party that cared about them is the Democrats. And after years and years of promises, these people continued to find themselves unemployed and being pushed further to the back as illegal aliens and so-called refugees are placed at the front of the line. These same people are those whose children are forced to attend failing schools staffed with unqualified teachers. These were the people who have heard the promise of free college even as they have watched their children go unprepared while attending the free public schools. These were the people who are tired of hollow campaign promises from those who only show up at election time and believe me, they were a sizeable group. It is with this last group alone that Donald Trump may well have destroyed the Democrat Party and destroyed the Karl Rove, Bush family control and influence over the Republican Party. IF PRESIDENT-ELECT Trump does a percentage of what he has promised — the congealing of the three groups I have referenced can silently applaud their great awakening as having played a key role the temporary restoration of America.
12
Conservative Chronicle
POLITICS: November 14, 2016
The nature of change in politics — just how fast
T
he more things change, contrary to the French expression, the more they keep changing. To cite only one example, Obamacare is fast going from this president’s signature achievement to his signature failure. And both the winners and losers of last week’s election took due notice. Only a couple of days ago, the Wall Street Journal was anticipating the deeply divided nation that faced the next president of these once again Disunited States of America. To quote its front-page headline, “Winner Faces a Fractured Nation,” but talk about a turnaround: As the world turns, so do its politicos. By the time the sun came up the next day right on schedule, and the sky hadn’t fallen contrary to so many predictions, the whole political map had changed. The losers certainly noticed. “Reeling after defeat,” the Journal reported on its front page, “Democrats call for change in party’s message, tactics.”
THE LOSERS tend to remember past struggles longer and far more vividly than the winners. Case in point: Our own civil war, which left the country divided over not just its results but what to call it. The War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression? The actors who re-enact its battles are still caught up in that war’s thrall. It wasn’t that the winner and next president of the United States had come out of nowhere, but that he’d come from everywhere, such as real-estate development and the specialized branch of business known as showbiz. And if Democrats were intent on uniting in the face of defeat, Republicans were also wondering about just what their party now stood for and how to get behind their and the country’s new leader. The first item on their agenda would seem to be giving Obamacare a decent burial. But it’s not likely to be the last, for the Republicans have a whole legislative agenda to enact. Naturally enough, Republicans’ plans to end Obamacare at last have angered and infuriated every special interest with a stake in it. To quote Ron Pollack, who’s been executive director of Families USA for three stultifying decades, “The clock is ticking because Republicans seem to be saying health care is going to be the first item on their list with repeal of the (Affordable Care Act) being the banner for that, so we realize this work has got to be done quickly and effectively. This will be the most intense fight I remember. One should never underestimate an extraordinary backlash that occurs when people have something that they really value and it is taken away.” Or the extraordinary backlash when the bureaucrats and educrats and all the other assorted -crats have something they’ve taken years to put in place and now find in danger.
This president has vetoed any such as plain English: “The ACA as we know change in his namesake piece of legisla- it would seem to be toast. Repealing tion and pledged never to sign onto it. Obamacare has been such a mantra But as Tevi Troy, former deputy secre- for conservatives. ... The difficulty for tary of health and now chief executive them comes now in trying to come to of the American Health Policy Institute, some consensus about how to unwind it to replace it with. I hastened to point out: “Congress in- and what don’t think there tentionally set it has been a reversal up so they could of any public bendemonstrate a legefit that would be islative pathway” as large as this.” to completely (c) 2016, Tribune Media Services Give folks change large parts something they can of the law. “It was a strategic move.” Like retaining view as a benefit, and they might not the Constitution’s co-equal branches of only try to keep it but expand it. Just as government. For the Founders were a Medicare was expanded to include catafar-sighted bunch, unlike those lobby- strophic coverage in 1988 so those with ists who just swing and sway with every pre-existing medical problems would be covered. But that was before the benefit passing wind. took effect. It’s a lot easier to give up LARRY LEVITT, senior vice-pres- a benefit that’s only in prospect than ident of the Kaiser Family Foundation, one We the (grabby) People haven’t put it in that now arcane tongue known started to enjoy yet. Just be sure to get
Paul
Greenberg
‘em hooked on the habit first — the way knowing drugs dealers do. Liberals and conservatives are not so deeply divided in this country as they may appear to be in the eyes of partisans of each philosophy. They each believe in change, for both recognize that change is the law of life. It’s just that liberals want to change faster. Conservatives are in favor of making change more slowly. “MAKE HASTE slowly” is the real conservative mantra. For conservatives in this country are dedicated to conserving the principles of a liberal revolution that occurred at least a couple of centuries ago. You take your choice between what we today call liberals and conservatives, radicals and reactionaries, and you pay for the ride fast or slow. But this merry-go-round ain’t about to stop going in circles. Enjoy the ride. It’s called Change.
FORGOTTEN MAN: November 15, 2016
The discovery of America Oh, what a great moment for America! I’d better clarify. I mean that expression of rapture not in terms of what Donald Trump may do to or for America (inasmuch as we can’t be sure yet what he’s capable of doing, one way or another). The majesty of the moment consists in the siren blasts and whiz-bang explosions that enliven the world around us. Amid the uproar, we’re taking a look at ourselves. It’s time.
THIS PRICELESS moment takes the form, partly, of tantrums raging in the media and on the streets of cities like Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon, by folks whose definition of democracy is “your freedom to agree with me.” Let ‘em rant, I say; let ‘em cavort. It’s part of something larger: To wit, the birth of the understanding that in our complex age we are a complex people reluctant to confront complex problems due to the sullen simplicities retailed by our Keepers of Opinion — who presently are in flight. They’ll recover their form, but meanwhile... Donald Trump came to bust things up. I didn’t latch onto this for a while, and said so publicly. I thought many of his backers expected of him no higher purpose than that of kicking over some furniture in our political and cultural living room. Well, maybe. However — to switch the metaphor — I think he has turned over some flat rocks, revealing assumptions and habits of mind that don’t fit present necessities. The first assumption is that of an intellectual governing class based on the
East and West Coasts: Well-educated, spacious in viewpoint, taking its cues from the New York Times (more on that in a moment). The governing class trafficked in large ideas — e.g., Obamacare — that it sought to apply to local situations, without reference to local needs and capabilities. The second assumption is that of education and “knowledge” mattering more than virtues such as responsibility, self-restraint and personal dignity.
William
Murchison (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
The third assumption is that of a media establishment — including, conspicuously, the New York Times — sifting conscientiously the information we need most and dispensing it to us, with accompanying instructions for its use. THE FOURTH assumption is that of the marginality, if not the worthlessness, of social and cultural norms: Particularly such norms as derived from a “God” no one can see (who, according to them, is probably just a fairy tale for kids). The fifth assumption is of deep-dyed American guilt for historical “sins” (good religious word as it might be) not atoned for in the judgment of the governing class: For instance, slavery, an institution abolished a century and a half ago at the cost of 750,000 Ameri-
can lives and the ruination of a whole region. A duty to open our doors to the world — no filter applied for merit or need — comes with this recognition of past crimes, at least in the judgment of the governing class, whose members scan the New York Times for counsel. Naturally. There are more assumptions, but these will get us started. What the presidential election seems to have achieved is less the enthronement of a new governing class than the aborning recognition that another America lies to the west of the Appalachians and the east of the Rockies. The Columbuses of the media have discovered, in their embarrassment, an America that spurned recommendations (commands?) to vote for Hillary Clinton. Of the media’s take on all this, the Columbia Journalism Review’s editorin-chief, Kyle Pope, declared this week the need for “diversifying our newsrooms so they more accurately reflect the country we’re supposed to be covering” (with opinion, he added, isolated from reporting). There should be more of this sort of thing, as maybe there will be, once the acknowledgement has sunk in that this strange country, America, has dimensions, viewpoints and plain old needs unguessed at by the genius whose email I received this morning: “Boycott Trump States: Make moral spending choices.” OH, BOY. Where do you start with such? At the ballot box, possibly.
13
November 23, 2016 SLACKER MANDATE: November 16, 2016
The slacker mandate and the safety pin generation
N
Who pays for this unfunded governews flash, kids: Things aren’t free. Things cost money. ment mandate? As usual, it’s responsible And “free” things provided working people who bear the burden. Earlier this year, the National Bureau to you by the government cost other of Economic Research found that the No people’s money. Donald Trump gets it — somewhat. Slacker Left Behind provision resulted in He vows to repeal Obamacare’s most wage reductions of about $1,200 a year burdensome federal mandates that are for workers with employer-based insurjacking up the price of private health ance coverage — whether or not they children on their insurance. But he also plans to pre- had adult plans. In effect, serve the most pochildless working litically popular people are subprovisions of the sidizing workers Orwellian-titled with adult children Affordable Care (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate who would rather Act, including the so-called “slacker mandate.” It’s stay on their parents than get their own. Moreover, according to company surthe requirement that employer-based health plans cover employees’ children veys and other economic analysis, the slacker mandate has resulted in overall until they turn 26 years old. increased health care costs of between That’s right: Twenty-freaking-six. one and three percent. The nonpartisan IS IT ANY wonder why we have a American Health Policy Institute reportnation of dependent drool-stained cry- ed one firm’s estimate of millennial covbabies on college campuses who are erage mandate costs at a whopping $69 still bawling about the election results million over 10 years. At the time the federal slacker manone week later? Trump briefly mentioned during a 60 date was adopted in 2010, some 20 states Minutes interview on CBS this week- had already adopted legislation requiring end that the slacker mandate “adds insurers to cover Big Kids — some up cost, but it’s very much something to age 31! Yes, thirty-freaking-one. we’re going to try and keep.” That’s In Wisconsin, the slacker mandate because most establishment Republicans in Washington, D.C., are resigned covered not only adult children, but also to keeping it. Once the feds hand out a the children of those “children” if they sugary piece of cradle-to-grave entitle- lived in single-parent homes. In New Jerment candy, it’s almost impossible to sey, champions of the provision claimed it would help cover 100,000 uninsured snatch it back.
Michelle
Malkin
young adults. But health policy researcher Nathan Benefield of the Commonwealth Foundation reported that “only six percent of that estimate has been realized” in its first two years. “The primary reason — health insurance is still too expensive.” THAT HAS only gotten worse, of course, as Obamacare’s other expensive mandates — especially guaranteed issue for those with pre-existing conditions — sabotage the private individual market for health insurance, leaving young and healthy people with fewer choices,
higher premiums and crappier plans. The solution is not more mandates, but fewer; more competition, not less. The Obama White House will brag that the slacker mandate has resulted in increased coverage for an estimated three million people. As usual with Obamacare numbers, it’s Common Core, book-cooked math. Health care analyst Avik Roy took a closer look and found that the inflated figure came from counting “(1) young adults on Medicaid and other government programs, for whom the under-26 mandate doesn’t apply; and (2) people who gained coverage due to the quasi-recovery from the Great Recession.” To add insult to injury, another NBER study found that roughly five percent of people younger than 26 dropped out of the workforce after the provision was implemented. They used their spare time to increase their socialization, sleeping, physical fitness and personal pursuit of “meaningfulness.” Then there are the hidden costs of the millennial mandate: The cultural consequences. All this “free” stuff, detached from those actually paying the bills, reduces the incentives for 20-somethings to grow up and seek independent lives and livelihoods. Why bother? The societal sanctions have been eroded. Now, the nation is suffering the consequences of decades of that collective coddling. Precious snowflakes can’t handle rejection at the ballot box or responsibilities in the marketplace. Appropriately enough, the new virtue signals of tantrum-throwing young leftists stirring up trouble are safety pins — to show “solidarity” with groups supposedly endangered by Donald Trump. SAFETY PINS are also handy — for holding up the government-manufactured diapers in which too many overgrown dependents are swaddled.
14
Conservative Chronicle
2016 ELECTION: November 11, 2016
When fantasy has nothing on real life The election of ‘16 was revealed as a Southern Gothic political tale If Tuesday were a novel, or even a dream, we could finish the last page and put the book down to wake up to realize the book included no literal truth, that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton had been elected president of the United States. That’s how six in 10 voters would have felt, saying in the exit polls that both candidates were “unfavorable and untrustworthy.”
THE READER of a novel can always fantasize an outcome to please the imagination. A farce, which this campaign sometimes seemed to be, might have ended with a deux ex machina, a crazy revelation to eliminate the candidate least liked, only to dance past a knock-out punch. When the Donald was caught as having talked dirty about an imaginary woman more than a decade ago, or when Hillary’s emails were discovered on the computer of a man under investigation for “sexting” a real underage girl, it looked like an unrecoverable blow to the solar plexus. But both fighters were saved by the bell, to return to the ring to diverting chatter at ringside. We discovered that we still have to elect a president the old-fashioned way, with majorities in the Electoral College. The numbers jumped around and arranged themselves on the screen in a fresh way, showing Donald Trump winning against long odds in the battleground states — Fla., N.C., Ohio and finally Pa. The dominant voices in the media never quite got those numbers right, but others recognized early that the Donald was on to something. Hillary had to bring on Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi to get a crowd and the Donald energized huge rallies just with himself. “Idealogues will tell you that the personal is political, but novelists will tell you that the political is personal,” writes novelist Thomas Mallon, known for his fictional takes on elections with titles like Dewey Beats Truman, or Watergate, a Novel, presenting a Nixon character for whom he shows a little redeeming empathy. He captures Hillary with a Nixonian psychology, rendering her a more tragic character than merely corrupt. Hillary’s from Illinois by way of New York, but she lived in Arkansas long enough to reveal herself as having taken on the coloration of pure Southern Gothic. “If Nixon was shredded and poisoned by each of his pre-presidential defeats,” writes Thomas Mallon in he New Yorker magazine, “Hillary died a little with each of Bill’s victories, one after another, in Arkansas and beyond, all of them forcing her to stand at a spot on the stage that she knew she should not be occupying. Her life was supposed to take place behind the lectern, not beside it, hoisting
gage followed her to the moment, as if on a later train. She couldn’t erase from public memory the discarded Hillaries HIS POINT, from the psychological we watched climb to power — the Hillperspective of political psychology, was ary who made the trillion-to-one killing rendered all the more poignant when we on cattle futures, the Hillary who felt saw her husband standing behind her as the need to hide policy meetings when she made her concession speech. She she worked on health care policy as first lady, the Hillary who even lost Arkansas lied to the families big time, where of the dead at Bengshe was the goverhazi that their loved nor’s wife. ones died because You don’t have (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate of an obscure vidto be a novelist to eotape. feel in your bones Or the Hillary who, as secretary of that in this election the political was personal. Many women liked the idea State, blurred the distinction between the that there would finally be a woman as State Department and the Clinton Founpresident, but Hillary was not the exem- dation to satisfy the donors to the famplary woman who deserved the honor ily till. The enormous fees for her boilof shattering the glass ceiling. Her bag- erplate speeches earned a reputation for the hand of the man who’d just got the votes.”
Suzanne
Fields
greed and avarice by both Hillary and the mister. Hillary planned her victory speech at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York, with its gorgeous glass ceiling that she would have symbolically broken through. Instead she conceded defeat from her hotel, testifying to the very different future than she or her supporters expected. THOMAS MALLON, in imagining a novel about this campaign, anticipated that Hillary Clinton as president would provide the point of view because the Donald was a character too flat to be interesting. “Trump cannot surprise in any way,” he says. But life as lived can be truer to life than fiction, even Southern Gothic, and filled with surprise after surprise. We got the biggest surprise of all on Tuesday night.
LESLIE’S TRIVIA BITS: November 14, 2016
Leslie’s Trivia Bits
W
hether American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) are born male or female depends on the temperature where the eggs incubate before they hatch. Below 86 degrees Fahrenheit and they’ll all be female. Above 91.2 degrees they’ll be male. At temperatures in between, the hatchlings will be a mix of males and females. Biologists call this phenomenon temperature-dependent sex determination, and it’s not unusual in egg-bearing reptiles, including turtles.
IN NOVEMBER 1898, Harper’s Bazaar magazine recommended turtleneck sweaters for the active woman “who makes up her mind to keep up her bicycle-riding as regularly as possible” even when “the winds are growing keen and the frost is in the air.” English writer-actor Noel Coward often gets credit for popularizing turtlenecks as casual men’s wear in the 1920s, and the classic New York department store Best & Co. declared them a women’s fashion musthave for fall in 1924. Kolyma Highway extends about 1,260 miles between Nizhny Bestyakh and Magadan in Russia’s desolate, brutally cold Far East region. The route was intended to give access to the gold mines in Magadan, but working on its construction was equivalent to a death sentence for the prisoners from the Stalinist Gulag labor camps, who built it using hand implements. The hundreds of thousands who died there were buried beside the road or in the road bed itself, which is why Kolyma Highway is also known as the Road of Bones. Cranberry growers don’t judge a ber-
ry only by its color. They use the bounce test. Small pockets of air inside the berries make them bounce. Ripe, firm berries will bounce on a wooden surface. Rotten berries fall flat. The air pockets also make cranberries float in water, which is helpful during harvesting in flooded cranberry bogs. THE WORLD’S smallest independent republic is the Pacific island nation of Nauru, with a total area of eight square miles — about one-tenth the area of Toledo, Ohio — and a population that hovers around 9,500. It’s so small, it doesn’t have an official
Leslie
Elman (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
capital city. It also doesn’t have its own currency — it uses the Australian dollar. But it has its own airline and its own distinct language. It also has another national distinction: Thanks to a generally unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle, Nauru has the world’s highest per capita obesity rate. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the best-known work by French composer Paul Dukas. (Remember the multiplying broomsticks in Walt Disney’s 1940 classic Fantasia?) His other compositions include the opera Ariane et Barbebleue (Ariadne and Bluebeard) and a piece called “Villanelle” written especially for the French horn. Only 13 of his works were published in his lifetime and just one more was published after his death. A highly regarded teacher and
music critic, Dukas was such a perfectionist that he destroyed the rest of his manuscripts rather than have them published for posterity. TRIVIA 1. Which tennis hall-of-famer was nicknamed “The Crocodile?” A) Rene Lacoste B) Ivan Lendl C) Suzanne Lenglen D) Fred Perry 2. Developed by David Bushnell, the “Turtle” was what type of device for military use? A) Combat helmet B) Cooking pot C) Submarine D) Tank 3. Which city is Russia’s largest Pacific Ocean port and the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway? A) Arkhangelsk B) Novosibirsk C) Sochi D) Vladivostok 4. How do cranberries grow? A) On bushes B) On trees C) Underground D) On vines 5. What’s depicted on the reverse of the Australian $1 coin? A) Five kangaroos B) Sydney Opera House C) Three koalas D) Uluru 6. Reader Peter Clark asks: What is Paul McCartney’s real first name? A) James B) John C) Michael D) Richard (answers on page 19)
15
November 23, 2016 LIMITED GOVERNMENT: November 9, 2016
Trump’s great challenge — and opportunity
D
onald Trump’s victory in the government. The current president has so little represidential election was an historic upset that presents spect for the constitutional limits on exhim and this nation with an historic op- ecutive power and the authority vested in the legislative branch that he unilaterportunity. Our first president, George Wash- ally ordered U.S. military intervention ington, faced a great challenge. Trump, in Libya’s civil war and has attempted to unilaterally legalize who will be our 45th, faces one, too. immigrants in this Wa s h i n g t o n country illegally. took office in a However, during new republic with this administration, an untested conthe government’s stitution. He was (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate most significant firmly committed new assault on libto act only within its strict limits on federal power, to erty — Obamacare and its regulatory avoid amassing public debt, to engage schemes — involved collaboration bein no unnecessary wars and to recognize tween the president, the Congress and that American freedom was ultimately the Supreme Court. By itself, it illustrates much of what rooted in the moral and religious conhas gone wrong in America. victions of the American people. Congress joined in enacting ObamHE REMAINS the model of great- acare, which, for the first time in our nation’s history, empowered the federal ness for an American president. Trump will take office in a republic government to order individuals to buy that is 240 years old with a Constitution a product — health insurance — that that for decades has been disrespected, politicians deemed good for them. The Supreme Court, led by a chief disobeyed and deliberately attacked by duplicitous and self-interested politi- justice nominated by a Republican president, upheld this new federal power to cians. These politicians were not commit- coerce individuals based on the specious ted to the Constitution’s limits on feder- argument that when the federal governal power. They did not avoid amassing ment mandates what products individupublic debt. They did engage in unnec- als must buy it is merely engaging in a essary wars. And they failed to recog- legitimate extension of its power to tax. Under the same power, as this colnize — or actively rejected — the truth that American freedom is ultimately umn has noted before, the federal govrooted in the moral and religious con- ernment could order you to buy broccoli. victions of the American people. But the Department of Health and The result: Americans now risk surrendering their freedom to their own Human Services did not use this power
Terry
Jeffrey
to order people to buy a preferred fruit or vegetable. It ordered people to buy insurance that covered sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs and devices. Thus did an order of Catholic nuns (along with other devout Christians) find themselves in the Supreme Court, fighting the president to protect themselves from his administration’s order that they cooperate in the taking of innocent human life. A DIVIDED Supreme Court could not bring itself to unambiguously declare that the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion prohibits the government from ever ordering the Little Sisters of the Poor — or anybody else — to do such a thing.
At the same time, Obamacare expanded the number of people financially dependent on the federal government by increasing the number of people on Medicaid and by providing subsidies for people making less than 400 percent of the poverty level to buy governmentordered insurance. During President Obama’s time in office, the federal debt has grown by more than $9 trillion. On Election Day, it reached $19,806,239,858,606.04. That equaled approximately $159,480 for each of the 124,193,000 people the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates had a full-time job in October. Trump’s great challenge is not simply to repeal Obamacare. It is to reverse the accelerating trajectory toward more government and less freedom that we are on. It is to turn America back toward this nation’s founding principles of constitutionally limited government, prudence and restraint in both fiscal and foreign affairs, and respect for the moral and religious tradition that allowed this nation to be free in the first place. Many of the causes Trump advocated in his campaign would help do this. These include naming Antonin Scalialike constitutionalists to the Supreme Court, defunding Planned Parenthood and advancing the right to life, securing our borders and enforcing the immigration laws, turning away from the failed nation-building foreign policy of the last two administrations, cutting taxes and reducing discretionary federal spending by one percent per year. But like others who have come before him to Washington with a mandate from the voters, Donald Trump should not be judged by what he promised to do as a candidate. HE SHOULD be judged by whether he conscientiously fights for those things, using every constitutional tool in the president’s power, after he has taken the oath of office.
16
November 23, 2016
Memo to Trump: ‘Action this day!’ “In victory, magnanimity!” said Win- until 1972 — and bring the Vietnam War to an earlier end and with fewer U.S. caston Churchill. Donald Trump should be magnani- sualties. Nixon’s decision not to inflame the mous and gracious toward those whom he defeated this week, but his first duty social and political crisis of the ‘60s by is to keep faith with those who put their rolling back the Great Society bought him nothing. He was rewarded with faith in him. backed mass demonThe protests, riots and violence that mediastrations in 1969 to have attended his break his presidentriumph in city afcy and bring about ter city should only an American deserve to steel his feat in Vietnam. resolve. (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate “Action this As for promptday!” was the ings that he “reach out” and “reassure” those upset by his scribbled command of Prime Minister victory, and trim or temper his agenda Churchill on his notepads in World War to pacify them, Trump should reject the II. This should be the motto of the first poisoned chalice. This is the same old months of a Trump presidency. For the historic opportunity he and con. the Republican Party have been given by TRUMP SHOULD take as models his stunning and unanticipated victory of Nov. 8 will not last long. His adversarthe Democrats FDR and LBJ. Franklin Roosevelt, who had sav- ies and enemies in politics and press are aged Herbert Hoover as a big spender, only temporarily dazed and reeling. This great opening should be exploitlaunched his own New Deal in his first ed now. 100 days. Few anticipated Tuesday morning History now hails his initiative and what we would have today: A decapiresolve. Lyndon Johnson exploited his land- tated Democratic Party, with the Obamas slide over Barry Goldwater in 1964 to and Clintons gone or going, Joe Biden erect his Great Society in 1965: The Vot- with them, no national leader rising and ing Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid. only the power of obstruction, of which He compromised on nothing, and got it the nation has had enough. The GOP, however, on Jan. 20, will all. Even those who turned on him for control both Houses of Congress and the Vietnam still celebrate his domestic White House, with the real possibility of remaking the Supreme Court in the imachievements. President Nixon’s great regret was age of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCothat he did not bomb Hanoi and mine Haiphong in 1969 — instead of waiting nnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan have
Pat
Buchanan
indicated they are willing to work with President Trump. There is nothing to prevent the new GOP from writing history. In his first months, Trump could put a seal on American politics as indelible as that left by Ronald Reagan. A PARTIAL agenda: First, he should ignore any importunings by President Obama to permit passage of the TransPacific Partnership in a lame-duck session — and let the trade deal sink by year’s end. On Jan. 20, he should have vetted and ready to nominate to the high court a brilliant constitutionalist and strict constructionist. He should act to end interference with the Dakota Access pipeline and call
on Congress to re-enact legislation, vetoed by Obama, to finish the Keystone XL pipeline. Then he should repeal all Obama regulations that unnecessarily restrict the production of the oil, gas and clean coal necessary to make America energy independent again. Folks in Pa., southeast Ohio, Ky. and W.Va. should be shown, by executive action, that Trump is a man of his word. And when the mines open again, he should be there. He should order new actions to seal the Southern border, start the wall and begin visible deportations of felons who are in the country illegally. With a new education secretary, he should announce White House intent to work for repeal of Common Core and announce the introduction of legislation to put federal resources behind the charter schools that have proven to be a godsend to inner-city black children. He should propose an immediate tax cut for U.S. corporations, with $2 to $3 trillion in unrepatriated profits abroad, who will bring the money home and invest it in America, to the benefit of our economy and our Treasury. He should take the president’s phone and pen and begin the rewriting or repeal of every Obama executive order that does not comport with the national interest or political philosophy of the GOP. Trump should announce a date soon for repeal and replacement of Obamacare and introduction of his new tax-and-trade legislation to bring back manufacturing and create American jobs. Donald Trump said in his campaign that that this is America’s last chance. If we lose this one, he said, we lose the country. THE PRESIDENT-ELECT should ignore his more cautious counselors, and act with the urgency of his declared beliefs. November 11, 2016
This Week’s Conservative Focus
17
Donald Trump
Trump’s chance to change the narrative
D
onald Trump’s impressive Democrats, including nearly half of the victory in Tuesday’s election union members who cast ballots, but he offers him a rare opportunity also had coattails, allowing Republicans to maintain control of both houses of to change the narrative. Secular progressive policies at home Congress. This was more than a change election. and abroad are not working. The establishment has had its chance — multiple It was a revolution. Now, the question What will the Repubchances, in fact — to fix things, but it has becomes: licans do with it? failed, or didn’t try, If Trump is smart, under Republican he will call on the and Democratic GOP congressional administrations. leadership to write Voters are taking (c) 2016, Tribune Media Services the legislation that a big chance with will achieve his Trump, but things have gotten so bad that the election objectives. These include the repeal and shows many millions of Americans are replacement of Obamacare, immigration reform and building the wall, school willing to try something new. choice for the poor, rebuilding inner TRUMP ACHIEVED what most of cities and infrastructure, and nominatthe experts, the ruling class, the major ing conservative judges to the Supreme media (including most pundits and once Court and lower courts. The election vindicates the decision again the pollsters), Republican leaders and many others thought was impos- by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCosible. He not only won back the Reagan nnell not to hold hearings on President
Cal
Thomas
Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, until the election results were known. Garland will never join the high court. THE COURTS may be saved from secular progressives for years to come and the Constitution respected again. That is victory by anyone’s definition. An added bonus is that Trump can use executive orders to immediately reverse President Obama’s executive orders, which he used to bypass Congress. An even bigger bonus is that the Clintons
The work is just beginning
S
itting in the New York City Hilton, watching the cable newscasters’ body language on TV as the numbers began to add up towards a Trump victory was fascinating. Even though I could not hear them, I could see that their body language conveyed an air of disbelief — an inability to comprehend what was happening. Perhaps that was because, after months of dismissing Trump as more of a joke than a presidential candidate, they could not believe that he might just win the night. Georgia, a state Trump won with 51 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 46 percent, was not called until 11:37 p.m. Maybe they were hoping that, if they waited long enough, the red tide would turn blue for Georgia, as the news media has incorrectly predicted for years will eventually happen. BUT, IN THE end, Trump triumphed in Georgia and everywhere else that he needed to triumph. He turned the order of things upside down. The American people, by electing Donald Trump, pushed back against the long-entrenched establishment in Washington to begin the work of making America work for all Americans, rather than just for those in power. An outsider, a businessman, a person who was laughed at when he announced he was running has won. Who’s laughing now? Not Trump. Instead, he set about getting to work. His victory speech, which he delivered at the New York Hilton, set the perfect tone to begin to bind our na-
tion together. He acknowledged his competitor: “Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely.” Then he rapidly moved on, looking toward the future of our country. “Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division ... To all Republicans and Democrats and Independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.
Jackie
Gingrich Cushman (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
It’s time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me.” HE THEN reached out graciously and with humor to his opponents: “For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people. ... I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.” He then articulated what the run and the victory stood for: “As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign, but rather an incredible and great movement made up of millions of hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for
themselves and for their families. It’s a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs who want and expect our government to serve the people, and serve the people it will.” From there he moved on to what is to come: “Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream. I’ve spent my entire life and business looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world. That is now what I want to do for our country. Tremendous potential. I’ve gotten to know our country so well — tremendous potential. It’s going to be a beautiful thing. Every single American will have the opportunity to realize his or her fullest potential. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” He then expanded our view: “Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach. America will no longer settle for anything less than the best. We must reclaim our country’s destiny and dream big and bold and daring.’ But his truest words were the ones that he used to close out the night, “And I can only say that, while the campaign is over, our work on this movement is now really just beginning.” THE WORK is just beginning, but dreaming big, working hard and making a difference is what we as Americans are all about. November 10, 2016
have been swept out of politics. Foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation will likely close their checkbooks now that Hillary won’t be able to do anything for them. The left will demand that Trump “reach out” and work with Democrats, but that is a trap. Recall what Democrats did when they won the White House, the Senate and House in 2008. They rammed through legislation that reflected their worldview. Trump should do the same, but without triumphalism. He must prove his policies work and can achieve the goals he has set: economic growth, more private-sector jobs, bringing corporations home from overseas with a lower corporate tax rate, and defeating the Islamic State. The only reason to have power is to use power. Democrats understand this. Too often timid Republicans don’t. They must now use it, or they will lose it. Trump’s victory is part of a global movement to throw off incompetent leaders, reduce the size and cost of government, and restore countries to the values that have made them uniquely British, German, French and American. It also is a victory of a culture that eschews the coarseness and crudeness of the likes of Jay-Z and Beyonce and the Hollywood elites. Mogul Barry Diller says he will leave the country, for which many will be grateful, especially if he takes others who promised to leave if Trump won with him. Now comes the hard part. Because Trump’s background is neither politics nor government, he must call on those with such experience to help him. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is the perfect starting point. Pence’s years in Congress and his executive experience as governor of Indiana make him the go-to guy for navigating the labyrinth that is Washington. He may turn out to be the most consequential vice president since Dick Cheney. ALL THE PIECES are now in place to yank America back from the brink. This is an opportunity that comes along once in a century. Success will silence the critics, who won’t go quietly and accept defeat. If Trump succeeds in all he has promised, he will have saved the country from disaster. It will be said of him that he really did make America great again. November 10, 2016
18
Conservative Chronicle
2016 ELECTION: November 9, 2016
A disruptive yet ruinous triumph for the GOP
A
t dawn Tuesday in West Quoddy Head, Maine, America’s easternmost point, it was certain that by midnight in Cape Wrangell, Alaska, America’s westernmost fringe, there would be a loser who deserved to lose and a winner who did not deserve to win. The surprise is that Barack Obama must have immediately seen his legacy, a compound of stylistic and substantive arrogance, disappearing, as though written on water in ink of vapor.
HIS HEALTH care reform has contributed to three Democratic drubbings. The 2010 and 2014 wave elections, like scythes in a wheat field, decapitated a rising generation of potential party leaders. Then came Tuesday’s earthquake, which followed shocking increases of Obamacare’s prices. This law has been as historic as Obama thinks, but not as he thinks: It might be the last gasp of progressivism’s hubris expressed in continentwide social engineering imposed from the continent’s Eastern edge. Hillary Clinton’s proposed solution to Obamacare’s accelerating unraveling was a “public option:” Intensified government manipulation to correct the consequences of government manipulation of health care’s 18 percent of the economy. Her campaign’s other defining proposal, “free” tuition in public higher education, insulted the intelligence of voters aware that “free” means “paid for by others, including you.” Obama’s foreign policy legacy, aside from mounting chaos worldwide, was the Iran nuclear agreement. By precedent and constitutional norms, this should have been a treaty submitted to the Senate. Instead, disdainfully and characteristically, he produced it as an executive agreement. Because the agreement lacks legitimizing ratification by senators, the presidentelect will feel uninhibited concerning his promise to repudiate it. The simultaneous sickness of both parties surely reveals a crisis of the American regime. The GOP was easily captured, and then quickly normalized, by history’s most unpleasant and unprepared candidate, whose campaign was a Niagara of mendacities. And the world’s oldest party contrived to nominate someone who lost to him. To an electorate clamoring for disruptive change, Democrats offered a candidate as familiar as faded wallpaper. The party produced no plausible alternative to her joyless, stained embodiment of arrogant entitlement. And she promised to intensify the progressive mentality. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it?” Actually, you can’t even keep your light bulbs.
Americans perennially complain back from a Republican executive about Washington gridlock, but for the legislative powers that Congress seven decades they have regularly pro- has ceded to the administrative state, duced gridlock’s prerequisite — di- and to overreaching executives like vided government. From 1944 through Obama, whose executive unilateralism 2016, 22 of 37 elections gave at least the president-elect admires. From Clinton’s nastiest aspiration, one house of Congress to the party not now safe. She promholding the presidency; since 1954, 21 we are ised Supreme Court of 32 did; since justices who would 1994, eight of 12. reverse Citizens Republicans now United, thereby lack excuses: If eviscerating the 40 Democratic (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group First Amendment senators block by empowering repeal of Obamacare (or Supreme Court nominees), the political class to regulate the quanthe Republicans’ populist base will de- tity, content and timing of campaign mand Democratic behavior — revision speech about itself. This will never of Senate rules to make this body more happen. Demography need not dictate for majoritarian. Republicans a grim destiny but it soon FOR CONSTITUTIONAL conser- will, unless they act to counter adverse vatives, the challenge is exactly what trends. Republicans should absorb Tim it would have been had Clinton won: Alberta’s data in National Review: ArTo strengthen the rule of law by restor- izona whites have gone from 74 pering institutional equilibrium. This re- cent to 54 percent of the population quires a Republican Congress to claw in 25 years; minorities will be a ma-
George
Will
jority there by 2022. Texas minorities became a majority in 2004; whites are now 43 percent of the population. Nevada is 52 percent white and projected to be majority-minority in 2020. Georgia is 54 percent white, heading for majority-minority in 2026. Because of inexorably rising minorities, Clinton, an epically untalented candidate, did better than Obama did in 2012 in Ga., Texas, Ari. and where one in eight Americans lives — Calif. The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on, perhaps soon to inscribe this: In 2016, Republicans won a ruinous triumph that convinced them that they can forever prosper by capturing an ever-larger portion of an ever-smaller portion of the electorate. THIS KAMIKAZE arithmetic of white nationalism should prompt the president-elect to test his followers’ devotion to him by asking their permission to see the national tapestry as it is and should be.
MEDIA BIAS: November 16, 2016
60 Minutes grills the new president
D
onald Trump is a persistent critic of the media and is attacked for not granting them enough access. But three days after the election, there he was, the presidentelect, recording a long interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS’ 60 Minutes, whom he could expect to push, push, push from the left. Stahl presented him as a terror for minorities: “I want to ask you all about something that’s going on right now around the country. A lot of people are afraid. They’re really afraid. AfricanAmericans think there’s a target on their back. Muslims are terrified.” Trump accurately replied that’s “horrible,” but it’s “built up by the press.”
SHE KEPT channeling fears. Are you really going to build a wall and deport millions? Are you really going to appoint a Supreme Court justice that will overturn Roe v. Wade? Are you really going to repeal and replace Obamacare? Are you really going to appoint a special prosecutor for Hillary Clinton’s email fiasco? CBS News presented Trump’s election as a nightmare for everyone — including the millions who eagerly voted for him — and heavily implied he needs to take back every campaign promise it can’t abide. This is how the media try to run America between the elections. Stahl wants to repeal and replace the decision voters just made.
And yet, the liberals were unsatisfied with CBS. New York Daily News columnist Gersh Kuntzman complained, “Lesley Stahl played the Matt Lauer role on 60 Minutes on Sunday night, letting President-elect Trump off the hook on virtually every issue.” Apparently, she needed to slap him after every unsatisfactory answer.
Brent
Bozell (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
IF LIBERALS want to know what it’s like to let a new president off the hook, go back to 2008. On Nov. 9, the first Sunday after the election, 60 Minutes interviewed then-President elect Barack Obama’s campaign aides David Axelrod, David Plouffe, Robert Gibbs and Anita Dunn. Interviewer Steve Kroft asked in amazement: “You ran an incredibly effective and disciplined campaign, maybe the most effective, I mean, certainly one of the most effective presidential campaigns that’s ever been run. There was no infighting, no real leaks, almost no turnover. How did you manage that? Even the Republicans were in awe.” No one was asked about the American people being terrified of Obama. No one was asked whether Obama would scare people by daring to enact things he promised during the campaign. No
one asked how easy it is to look “effective and disciplined” with a supine media. On Nov. 16, 2008, Kroft suggested to Obama that he could be the next Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “People are comparing this to 1932. ... Is that a valid comparison, do you think?” Obama didn’t accept the hyperbole: “Well, keep in mind that (in) 1932 (and) 1933 the unemployment rate was 25 percent, inching up to 30 percent.” Like Stahl, Kroft pressed from the left, asking, “How high a priority are you placing on re-regulation of the financial markets?” He also pressed Obama to say whether he will “take early action” to issue executive orders “to shut down Guantanamo Bay” and “change interrogation methods that are used by U.S. troops?” Obama said, “I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that.” THIS IS why anyone who watches television news for an hour or two knows CBS and the rest of the “objective” media favor the left. They’re going to spend the next four years doubling down on their effort to tar Trump as a politically incorrect horror and lunging to prevent everything conservative that Trump ever promised to implement. The only path for him to get positive coverage is to cave in desperately to their agenda.
19
November 23, 2016 DEAR MARK: November 11, 2016
President-elect Trump, Hillary pardon, daughters DEAR MARK: I am thrilled that Donald Trump is now President-elect Trump. Tuesday night was one of the greatest moments of my life. Even though defeating Hillary is exciting, the reality is now the work begins. What do you think Presiden-elect Trump should do first? — Deplorables and the Cubs Win Dear Deplorables: I actually have a few suggestions for President-elect Trump just in case his people read my column. First and foremost don’t gloat.As Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith said about scoring touchdowns: “Act like you’ve been there before.” The United States has been through a brutal election and a large divide remains and we must all fight the urge to spike the football in the face of the Hillary supporters. (Even though I really want to.) This attitude needs to begin at the top. Move boldly yet pragmatically. Donald Trump won the election because of his grandiose solutions for the problems the country faces. The GOP has two years before the next election that could affect President Trump’s ability to implement his agenda. This gives Trump ample time to propose thoroughly written legislation that is challenge-proof when the liberals take it to court and believe me they will. Just wait and see what happens when Planned Parenthood is defunded. Don’t worry about pleasing the detractors. In two months Donald Trump will officially become President Trump and his detractors will go after him like rabid jackals. Liberals believe the caricature that all Republicans are racist, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-poor xenophobes and nothing will ever alter
this view. The anti-Trump protestors believe “hate” won the election and no amount of positive results will change their hearts. As George Bernard Shaw once said: “Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” Ignore them. Focus on jobs initially. A rising tide lifts all boats and creating more jobs is the salve that will heal a lot of the country’s ills — from the national debt to the inner cities to college debt to healthcare. Of course a simple piece of legislation to build the wall can be done at the same time.
Mark
Levy (c) 2016, Mark Levy
Remember President Obama’s legacy. President Trump will actually be doing President Obama a favor by repealing Obamacare, the Iran Nuke Agreement and all of the various executive orders thus making President Obama’s legacy look better in the history books. Finally, please put away Donald Trump’s “Twitter machine.” If President Trump plays his hand right, the results will speak for themselves. Liberals have gone apoplectic in response to the election; just imagine how much it will hurt them to see conservative principles succeed.No need for President-elect Trump’s late night tweets anymore. DEAR MARK: Donald Trump has dominated the news coverage lately but the fact remains Hillary Clinton committed some crimes with her email server. It seems like her
crimes as well as the problems at the Clinton Foundation have been swept under the rug. I’m worried that Hillary will be pardoned. Do you think that’s possible? — Pardon Me in Michigan Dear Pardon: Sadly I believe one of Barack Obama’s last acts as president will be to pardon Hillary. His justification will be that Hillary has already paid a steep price for her “mistakes” while another investigation could further divide America. With that being said, pardoning Hillary is not the same as pardoning the Clinton Foundation which could still pose problems for Hillary, Bill and Chelsea. DEAR MARK: Hillary supporters are a bunch of crybabies. They’re screaming sexism while protesting and rioting in the streets because their candidate lost. They actually believe the only reason she lost is her gender. Celebrities and other libs are wondering how they can possibly explain the election of Trump to their daughters. What idiots. — No Helen Reddy Dear No Helen: Since liberals worship at the altar of abortion, why are they even worried about talking to their daughters about Trump? Planned Parenthood has gotten rid of millions of daughters and possibly the first woman president in the process. The question I have for these “snowflakes” protesting in the streets and on college campuses is this. Were Bernie Sanders supporters sexist because they voted for a 75 year old white man over Hillary during the primaries? E-mail your questions to marklevy92@aol.com. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkPLevy
CONTACT INFORMATION Individual Contact Information Fields - suzannefields2000@gmail.com 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 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 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) French tennis champion Rene Lacoste, creator of the Lacoste tennis shirt, was nicknamed “The Crocodile.” 2) David Bushnell invented the Turtle, a submarine used during the American Revolution. 3) Vladivostok is Russia’s largest Pacific Ocean port and the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. 4) Cranberries grow on vines. 5) Five kangaroos are depicted on the reverse of the Australian $1 coin. 6) Paul McCartney was born James Paul McCartney on June 18, 1942.
Need to make a correction on your mailing label? Contact us at 800-888-3039 or conserve@iowaconnect.com
20
Conservative Chronicle
HOLLYWOOD LEFT: November 16, 2016
America’s celebrity class vs. flyover country
O
n the Saturday night after for the Democratic National ConvenDonald Trump’s stunning tion. Dunham appeared onstage at the presidential victory over convention. Beyonce and Jay-Z camfor Clinton. So did Hillary Clinton, Saturday Night Live p a i g n e d Bruce Springsteen. decided to forego And all of them its mandate — did so for a woman humor — in favor whose closest conof a full-on potact with flyover litical wake. Kate (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate country came McKinnon, who during a highly has done a creditable job mocking Clinton for most of choreographed stop at Chipotle. this election cycle, led off the show AMERICANS MAY never get over with a full rendition of the recently deceased Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” their obsession with celebrity. But they There were zero laughs and plenty of sure don’t want to hear those celebrities talk down to them. Hollywood has delicious, delicious celebrity tears. disconnected itself from rural America, MCKINNON WASN’T the only and rural Americans were more than one crying. Lady Gaga, who intro- willing to punish Hollywood for that duced Clinton at her last pre-election sin. If Democrats hope to win down the rally, apparently wept openly back- road, they’ll have to do better than trotstage as Clinton lost on election night. ting out the scornful glitterati. So did Cher. Katy Perry was so overcome that she skipped singing the naBUREAUCRACY: November 16, 2016 tional anthem. Lena Dunham of Girls and bragging-about-sexually-abusing-hersister-in-her-memoir fame penned an open letter: “I touched my face and realized I was crying. ‘Can we please go Despite Congress enacting “reforms” onald Trump’s triumph over home?’ I said to my boyfriend. I could Hillary Clinton presages an and President Obama appointing a new tell he was having trouble breathing, even bigger battle against the VA secretary in 2014, the bureaucracy and I could feel my chin breaking into heart of the Democratic establishment: continues to block giving vets access hives. ... At home I got in the shower The federal workforce. This army of bu- to civilian care. How impossible is it to and began to cry even harder. My boy- reaucrats — almost three million strong fire anyone at the VA? A surgeon found friend, who had already wept, watched — gave Clinton a large majority of their guilty of abandoning a patient on the me as I mumbled incoherently, clutch- votes and over 90 percent of their cam- operating table and leaving the medical ing myself.” paign contributions. Count on federal center still got an $11,000 bonus. To put it mildly, bwahahaha. Or less workers and their union bosses to use Candidate Trump promised to make mildly, BWAHAHAHA. every trick in the book to block Trump’s swift changes at the VA. Exit polls show The left spent its time during this reform agenda. military families voted for him 2-1 over election cycle lecturing Americans Trump’s ability to fix the Department Clinton. Dan Caldwell of Concerned from the Hollywood Hills. It didn’t of Veterans Affairs, clean up IRS abus- Veterans for America says he’s encourwork. After years of President Barack es, rollback job-killing regulations and aged to see civil service reform at the Obama traipsing into studios in Los get taxpayers’ their money’s worth all top of Trump’s agenda. Angeles to read mean tweets, after hinge on uprooting the entrenched civil nearly a decade of listening to the service. Newt Gingrich, a top Trump sophomoric unearned moral superior- advisor, warns that “if you don’t fix this ity of actors and actresses who earn problem, nothing in government is gomillions for reading lines other people ing to work.” (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate write, after watching 9/11 truther rapThat’s a tall order. The bureaucracy pers go to the White House, Americans generally retains its vise-like grip on the said no to celebrity culture. And the same changes needed to turn executive branch, as presidents come around the VA have to be made across all and go. AND THEY did so by electing a cefederal departments. Right now, worklebrity. PUBLIC UNIONS are already dig- ers found guilty of serious misdeeds — The great irony of Trump’s victory ging in for a fight. Responding to the tax evasion, watching porn on the job is that he was an anti-celebrity celeb- election, J. David Cox, President of the and fraudulent collection of unemployrity. He had all the perks of celebrity, American Federation of Government ment benefits — typically keep their but he reveled in them. He didn’t try to Employees dismissed Trump’s plans as jobs and get bonuses. Firing requires so claim that he was a better human being more or less irrelevant. AFGE members many months of documentation, hearthan white middle-class voters in Wis- have their own big-government agenda, ings and appeals that bosses decide it’s consin by virtue of living in New York and “that never changes no matter who not worth the trouble. No-show jobs are in a penthouse covered in gold leaf. sits in the White House.” Protection of rampant, costing $1 billion a year. SuTrump played the everyman on televi- the status quo at any cost. pervisors ignore the costs and just hire sion, and it worked. Even death. Thousands of sick vets someone else to get the work done. Meanwhile, celebrities who didn’t died at the VA because of employee grow up in tremendous wealth hob- self-dealing. Bureaucrats doctored the BREAKING UP the federal emnobbed with the elites. Singers and ac- medical wait lists to earn bonuses while ployee protection racket will require tresses taped a “Fight Song” rendition vets languished without care. muscle from Congress and the Depart-
Ben
Shapiro
Trump vs. the federal bureaucracy
D
Betsy
McCaughey
ment of Justice. Obama’s DOJ obstructed efforts to fire wrongdoers and incompetents. Now with the White House and Congress under Republican control, taxpayers can take heart. A bipartisan VA reform bill with real teeth has already passed the House and is ready for Senate action. It will shorten the process for firing and demoting VA senior personnel, even eliminating appeals to the misnamed Merit Systems Protection Board, which protects criminals and deadwood, not merit. Count on fierce opposition from union-funded pols like Senators Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who gutted previous efforts to hold VA employees accountable. Will Trump, a newcomer to Washington, D.C., succeed where other presidents have failed? Possibly. He’s shown he gets his money’s worth. After all, he defeated spendthrift Clinton with less than a quarter of the campaign staff and half the spending. But federal employees will scramble to stay on the gravy train. They earn a whopping $123,160 a year on average — about a third more than private sector employees — get over a month off with pay and don’t lose sleep over getting fired. Hard to call them civil “servants.” PRESIDENT OBAMA hiked their pay, and Hillary Clinton promised to give them even more, in return for their votes, of course. One hand washes the other. But Donald Trump understands who should be calling the shots in Washington: Not federal bureaucrats, but the taxpayers who cover their salaries.
21
November 23, 2016 ELECTORAL COLLEGE: November 15, 2016
Yes, we still need the Electoral College
D
onald Trump won a spectacular victory, fair and square. Special thanks are due to his triumvirate of conservative advisers, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and David Bossie, who guided Trump through the intense thicket of media bias and inhuman smears. Phyllis Schlafly is celebrating posthumously, and more than a few have wondered if she pulled some strings from above. Her vision in praising and endorsing Trump early and often was proven right in this stunning victory.
WHILE TRUMP won a clear majority of the votes in the Electoral College, he did not win the most popular votes. Some liberals are engaging in sore-loser backbiting by falsely focusing on the meaningless outcome in the popular vote. The Chicago Cubs did not score more runs than the Cleveland Indians in the World Series, yet the Cubs were declared the winner. Was that unfair, or does anyone challenge that result? Of course not. A baseball team is not rewarded for running up the score in one game, and winning a game by 6-0 (as the Indians won game one) does not count any more than winning a game by 1-0 (as the Indians won game three). Our Electoral College uses the same fair system as our national pastime. Hillary Clinton “ran up the score” in liberal states like Calif., N.Y., and Ill., but that should not and did not give her any
extra advantage in the election. In illegal-immigration friendly California, Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by more than two million votes, and ballots were not even fully counted by the end of last week. But the election results should not depend on how many votes a candidate can obtain in a liberal, insolvent state like California, and our Nation need not wait until all those votes are counted before declaring the winner. Our Electoral College prevents tyranny by the majority, or giving one state so much influence over the others. Instead, our Founders wisely compartmentalized our Union such that each state, even tiny ones like New Hampshire, has an influence all its own. This usually ensures that one candidate attains a majority of the Electoral College vote, even though none of the candidates garner a majority of the popular vote. In more than half of the presidential elections over the past quarter century, no candidate attained a majority of the popular vote. Twice in the last five presidential elections the winner of the Electoral College did not receive more popular votes than his rival, but that is only because California is so one-sidedly Democrat. Without including California, the Republican candidates won the popular vote in three of the past five elections. Our Nation should not be hostage to California’s refusal to enforce America’s immigration laws, even refusing to
take reasonable steps to prevent illegals from voting. Likewise, we should not be victim to the Democratic political machines in large cities that are notorious for withholding their vote totals until late in the evening, to see how many votes they need to flip a result trending Republican. SOME FAIL to recognize that the Electoral College is the single greatest safeguard against voter fraud and a potential national crisis if there is a disputed presidential election outcome. Chicago can cheat all it wants in voting,
as it has historically done, but that will not change the outcome today under the ingenious system of our Electoral College. Our Founders opposed tyranny by the majority, and the Bill of Rights stands against allowing a mere “majority vote” to impose its will on everyone else. The Electoral College is there for the same reason, to provide a buffer against the whims of the masses. Opponents of the Electoral College could repeal it by hijacking a Convention of States, which is a euphemistic term for a new constitutional convention. While promoters of the Convention of States deny repealing the Electoral College as their goal, they do not disclose the identity of their financial backers so there is no way to know for sure what their real underlying intent is. The wonderful Republican Platform of 2016, which helped carry Donald Trump to his victory, rejects any “scheme to abolish or distort the procedures of the Electoral College,” including the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. That compact, enacted by ten states so far, attempts to bypass the Electoral College without changing the Constitution. TO THE LIBERALS demanding an end to the Electoral College, why aren’t they also demanding that the Chicago Cubs return their World Series trophy? For the same reason it makes sense not to allow a baseball team to benefit from running up the score in a single game of the series, it also makes sense not to allow a liberal presidential candidate to benefit from running up her vote tally in a few liberal states. 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.
22
Conservative Chronicle
2016 ELECTION: November 11, 2016
Donald Trump’s astounding victory: How and why
A
“deplorables” and infected with “implicit racism.” They may have been shy in responding to telephone or exit polls, but they voted in unanticipatedly large numbers, at a time when turnout generally sagged. At the same time, Clinton was unable to reassemble Obama’s 2012 51 percent coalition. Turnout fell in heavily black Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee. Millennial generation turnout was tepid, and Trump carried white millennials by five points. Unexpectedly, Trump won higher percentages of THIS APPROACH was foreseen by Hispanics and Asians than Mitt Romney RealClearPolitics analyst Sean Trende did in 2012. Trump’s surprise victory, owing in his “Case of the Missing White Voters” article series in 2013. Non-college- much to differential turnout, resembles educated whites in this northern tier, the surprise defeats, defying most polls, tablishment positions once strong for Ross Perot, gave Barack of esin 2016 referendums Obama relatively in Britain and Cohigh percentages lombia. In June, 52 in 2008 and 2012. percent of Britons Many grew up in voted to leave the Democratic union (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate European Union households and were willing to vote for the first black — the so-called Brexit, opposed by most major-party leaders and financial president. Now they seem to have sloughed off elites. In October, 50.2 percent of Cotheir ancestral Democratic allegiance, lombia’s voters rejected the peace plan much as white Southerners did in 1980s with FARC terrorists negotiated by their presidential and 1990s congressional president. elections. National Democrats no longer IN BOTH cases, the capital city’s had anything to offer them then. Hillary Clinton didn’t have anything to of- metro area and distinctive peripheries — fer northern-tier non-college-educated Scotland, the Caribbean coast — voted with the establishment. But the historiwhites this year. It didn’t help that Clinton called half cal and cultural hearts of these nations of Trump supporters “irredeemable” and — England outside London, the central stounding. That’s the best word to describe the tumultuous election night and the (to most people) surprise victory of Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton hoped to win with votes of Northeasterners, including those who have moved south along Interstate 95 to North Carolina and Florida (44 electoral votes). Instead, Trump won with votes along the I-94 and I-80 corridors, from Pennsylvania through Ohio and Michigan to Wisconsin and Iowa (70 electoral votes).
Michael
Barone
Andes cordillera in Colombia — rejected and defeated the establishment position. Something like that seems to have happened here. If you take the proestablishment coasts — the Northeast except Pennsylvania, the West Coast — the vote as currently tabulated was 5838 percent for Clinton. That’s similar to Obama’s 60-38 percent margin in these states in 2012. But the heartland — roughly the area from the Appalachian ridges to the Rocky Mountains, with about two-thirds of the national vote — went 52-44 percent for Trump. Trump didn’t do much better than Romney, who got 51 percent
there. But Clinton got only 44 percent of heartland votes, down from Obama’s 47 percent. The Republican margin doubled, from four to eight percent. British elites responded to Brexit with scorn for their heartland’s voters. Those voting for Brexit were “poorly educated, nativist, unsophisticated, racist and unfashionable.” You can hear similar invective hurled by American coastal elites (though not, to their credit, Clinton and Obama) at their fellow citizens beyond the Hudson River and the Capital Beltway. “Deplorable” is the least of their insults. They take glee in noting that Trump ran behind previous Republican nominees among college graduates but well ahead among non-college-educated whites. There’s an echo here of Rush Limbaugh’s scorn for “low-information voters.” But the people who complain about less educated whites voting as a bloc have no complaints about the even larger percentages received by the candidates they favor from black voters. The better approach is to show respect for each voter’s decision, however unenlightened you may consider it. Trump’s victory undercuts crude projections based on the sophisticated analysis of journalist Ron Brownstein and Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg — namely, that increasing percentages of nonwhites and millennial generation voters will result in an “ascendant” majority producing inevitably Democratic victories. In a closely divided country, election victories are contingent on issues, events and candidates’ characteristics. IT WOULD be a mistake also to suppose that Trump’s Electoral College victory means that Democrats are doomed to defeat because they lost their hold on non-college-educated whites this year. That depends on decisions and events that have not yet occurred.
23
November 23, 2016 LIBERALS: November 16, 2016
Married, mature, church-going, self-sufficient When Americans marry and stay Assume, for the next few minutes, that you are a Machiavellian political married it hurts the liberal cause. Is generational change an issue? Yes. strategist. Among voters 44 and younger, ClinYou do not care about the liberty and prosperity of our nation or of future ton beat Trump 52 percent to 40 percent. But among voters 45 and older, generations. The only thing you want to ensure is Trump beat Clinton 53 percent to 44 that all American presidents elected af- percent. When Americans ter Donald Trump live to middle age are liberals in the and longer, it hurts mold of Hillary the liberal cause. Clinton. Is upward moSo, what sort (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate bility an issue? of cultural and deYes. mographic changAmong voters with incomes of es would you like to see in the United $49,999 or less, Clinton beat Trump, 52 States? An examination of the network exit percent to 41 percent. But among votpoll taken last Tuesday might give you ers with incomes of $50,000 or more, a general idea about whom your most Trump beat Clinton 49 percent to 47 likely future supporters will be — and it percent. Trump’s largest margin, among the might not match the model of the liberal six income brackets listed in the exit coalition the liberal media promotes. poll published by CNN, was among those who earn between $50,000 and IS MARRIAGE an issue? Yes. Among unmarried voters, according $99,999. Among these voters, Trump to the exit poll published by CNN, Clin- beat Clinton 50 percent to 46 percent. ton beat Trump 55 percent to 38 percent. But he also beat her 48 percent to 46 But among married voters, Trump beat percent among voters earning $250,000 or more. Clinton 53 percent to 43 percent.
Terry
Jeffrey
WHEN VOTERS make more money — attaining a middle-class income or higher — it hurts the liberal cause. Is where you live an issue? Yes. Among voters in urban areas, Clinton beat Trump 59 percent to 35 percent. But among voters in the suburbs, Trump beat Clinton 50 percent to 45 percent; and among voters in rural areas, he beat her 62 percent to 34 percent.
BIASED EDUCATORS: November 15, 2016
Anti-Trumpers, leave the kids alone
H
illary Clinton voters, I feel your pain. I’ve been on the losing side more times than I cared to be. It’s painful and personal. I would venture to add that Donald J. Trump’s victory probably is more bitter than a Clinton win would have been for conservatives because you didn’t see it coming. You lost and you were sucker punched. Ouch. For most of you, the approach voiced by Kevin Eckery, a GOP consultant who did not vote for Trump, should be instructive. “We got head-faked,” Eckery told me. The election was never about Trump, it was about his voters. In the future, Eckery plans to “listen with a little more humility.”
OVER TIME, one gets used to election loss, the stab of betrayal recedes from sharp to dull pain. You learn to accept it. At least Trump is capable of pleasantly surprising. Sunday, protesters surrounded Oakland’s Lake Merritt to renounce the president-elect. As long as they don’t destroy people’s businesses and block traffic, they are free to voice their concerns and proudly exercise their First Amendment rights. Partisans, however, do not have a right to turn classrooms into Democratic caucuses, as suggested in a lesson
plan which San Francisco Unified Assistant Superintendent Bill Sanderson sent to schools. It instructed teachers: “Let us please not sidestep the fact that a racist and sexist man has become the president of our country by pandering to a huge racist and sexist base.” And: “DO NOT: Tell them that we have LOST and that we
Debra J.
Saunders (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
have to accept this. We do not have to accept ANYTHING except that we must and will fight for justice against an unjust system and against unjust people.” IT IS SCARY to think that people entrusted with children’s education are so clueless that they see it as their job to inculcate students with a cartoonish view of Trump voters. Also, the lesson includes no recognition that the people have spoken. Many Democrats were aghast when Trump said he wasn’t sure if he would accept the verdict of the election. Yes, it was poor form, but I knew that if the tables were turned, many Clinton voters would not be real zen about it. I’ve had many adults tell me they
didn’t know how they could tell their children Trump won. May I suggest that some kids would not be so “traumatized” if their parents hadn’t whipped them into a lather of indignation about “The Other?” But also, while the lesson says it wants all students to feel respected, it doesn’t give so much as a nod to the notion that some students might like Trump. In San Francisco, Trump won 10 percent of the vote. (That’s probably more than the number of transgender students administrators work overtime to make feel welcome. So share the love.) The California Education Code prohibits school employees from engaging in political activities on the job. “Even if not directly unlawful, a question still arises as to whether or not an employee recommending the substitutionary lesson for the day’s assignment is appropriate and allowable,” explained Bill Lucia of the school reform advocacy group EdVoice. ALL RACISTS, eh? One-third of the 676 counties that elected President Obama twice switched to Trump. Inquiring minds should want to know why. Obama might call this one of his “teachable moments,” but that only works for those ready to learn about other people.
When voters move to the suburbs and the country, it hurts the liberal cause. Does faith play a role in our national destiny? Yes. Among voters who attend religious services only a few times a year, Clinton squeaked by Trump 48 percent to 47 percent. And among voters who never attend religious services, she stomped him 62 percent to 31 percent. But among voters who attend religious services monthly, Trump beat Clinton 49 percent to 46 percent. And among those who attend religious services once a week or more, he stomped her 56 percent to 40 percent. When voters practice their faith, it hurts the liberal cause. Now, imagine an unmarried 22-yearold, who lives in a city, works parttime making $20,000 per year, and has not gone to a religious service in four years. How would that person be likely to vote? Suppose, then, this same person gets married, starts working full-time and overtime, earns more than $50,000 per year, buys a home in the suburbs, and regularly attends religious services with the spouse and children. How would this person be likely to vote then? But what if this person followed another path? They married and then divorced, decided it was not worth it working full-time, went on food stamps and never went to church. The ultimate question is not how a person will vote, but what will give them a fulfilling life. It is not what persons will hold political office in United States of America, but what values will keep us free and prosperous. THE SAME values that made this nation great can unite this nation again. They are family, faith, hard work and the desire to live a long and good life without government standing in your way.
24
Conservative Chronicle
THE FORGOTTEN MAN: November 15, 2016
President Donald J. Trump and ordinary Americans It’s been about a week since the election and, like a lot of Americans, I’m still in a state of shock. Just about nobody saw it coming. The polls got it wrong. Reporters got it wrong. The pundits got it wrong. Wall Street got it wrong. I got it wrong. I don’t believe that even Donald Trump thought he’d win.
HERE WAS A man who never held office in any level of government; who never was appointed to any political position; whose claim to fame was that he was a businessman with a hit reality TV show. Here was a man who more than a few “intellectuals” of the left breezily compared to Hitler; a man who was notoriously thin-skinned and vindictive and who seemed to have an unhealthy need for the admiration of the crowds. And despite all that, he won. Everybody who thought they knew what they were talking about didn’t know what they were talking about. This is how Jim Rutenberg put it in the New York Times. “The misfire on Tuesday night was about a lot more than a failure in polling. It was a failure to capture the boiling anger of a large portion of the American electorate that feels left behind by a selective recovery, betrayed by trade deals that they see as threats to their jobs and disrespected by establishment Washington, Wall Street and the mainstream media.”
Liberal elites (and some conservative elites, too) not only don’t understand half of the American population, but also they too often look down their noses at ordinary Americans. They don’t share the values of ordinary Americans. Elites wouldn’t get caught dead in Branson, Missouri, going to a family song and dance show. Elites summer with other elites in Martha’s Vineyard. Michael Moore, the left-wing gadfly who desperately wanted Trump to lose, was prescient in his analysis, which came just days before the election. “Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant because he’s saying the things to people who are hurting and it’s why every beaten down, worthless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump.” Moore said that Trump was the “human Molotov cocktail that they’ve been waiting for — the human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them. ... Trump’s election is going to be the biggest ‘f--- you’ recorded in human history. And it will feel good.” The email scandal, of course, didn’t help Hillary Clinton. That added to the impression a lot of Americans had of her — that she was dishonest and didn’t play by the same rules as everybody else. But there was something else that might have been far more damaging. You’ll recall that Clinton went to a fundraiser in Manhattan and told a bunch of well-heeled liberal swells that
half of Donald Trump’s supporters be- she was campaigning in Cleveland with Jay Z and Beyonce. One raps about longed in a “basket of deplorables.” pimps and bit--es and the other sings THAT KIND of talk plays well in about “stains” that some guy put on her places like Cambridge, Massachusetts, dress. Voters noticed the hypocrisy. where Clinton won 89. 2 percent of the So, this election was about the culture vote, but doesn’t hit ordinary Americans in a good way. She apologized, but at least as much as it was about emails it was too late. Trump was giving a great or skyrocketing health care premiums big middle finger to the elites during the or President Obama’s precious legacy, entire campaign, and here comes Clin- which the voters made clear they didn’t ton telling these elites how “irredeem- care very much about. This is from Michelle Malkin in National Review: able” so many Trump supporters are. “The good news is that after being And while she was running TV ads that put Trump’s vulgarity on display, blasted as haters by Clinton’s hate-filled minions, after being slapped down as racial ‘cowards’ by Clintonite holdover Eric Holder, after being lambasted as ‘xenophobes’ and ‘nativists’ by immigration expansionists in both parties, after enduring a string of faked hate crimes blamed on conservatives, after ceaseless accusations of ‘Islamophobia’ in the wake of jihad attacks on American soil, after baseless accusations of ‘homophobia’ ... and after mourning a growing list of police officers ambushed and targeted by violent thugs seeking racial vengeance, an undeniable movement of citizens in the 2016 election cycle decided to push back.” And so we are witness to one of the biggest presidential election stories in U.S. history. Nothing quite like this has ever happened in any presidential campaign. But that’s what you get when the elites think they’re not just smarter, but also better than ordinary Americans. Think of the election as a revolt of the “deplorables.” DONALD TRUMP may have won less than half of the total vote. But he won all of the presidency. Now let’s see what he does with it. This column was written by guest columnist Bernard Goldberg.
25
November 23, 2016 POLITICS: November 13, 2016
Americans need a respite from furiousness
T
he Republican Party resembles the man who told his psychiatrist, “I have an identity problem, and so do I.” The party’s leader is at best indifferent to, and often is hostile to, much of the party’s recent catechism: Limited government, the rule of law, a restrained executive, fiscal probity, entitlement reforms, free trade, the general efficiency and equity of markets allocating wealth and opportunity, and — this matters especially — the importance of decorousness in political discourse. AMERICANS STANDING on scorched earth that is still smoldering need a respite from furiousness. Andrew Jackson was, until last Tuesday, the only person elected president who was defined by his anger. He seems to have been constantly angry after 1780, when at age 13 he carried messages for the patriots fighting the British at the Battle of Hanging
Rock in South Carolina. He was taken all the most important ones, cannot be efprisoner, and a British officer ordered him fectively advocated at the top of the adto clean the officer’s boots. When Jack- vocates’ lungs. Try to shout a persuasive son refused, the officer swung his sword, argument for caring about the separation gashing Jackson’s head and fingers. of powers, or why the judiciary should Today, many Americans seem to rel- be actively engaged in countering the exish being furious. An indignation indus- cesses of the majoritarian branches. try has battened on the Republican Party, Critics will respond: Most voters do feeding this addiction. This industry is not give a tinker’s damn about such matinimical to conservatism’s health. ters. This is true, which is preA veteran basecisely why persuaball coach once sion is necessary to said baseball is temper the public’s not a game you instinctive aversion can play with your to the patience (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group teeth clenched. that politics reThe sport of the long season requires quires — the public’s proclivity for disemotional equipoise, a continuous com- paraging institutional impediments to bination of concentration and relaxation. immediate gratification. Only conservaAs does democratic politics, which is an tives will undertake such persuasion. unending exercise in patient persuasion. Furthermore, in politics, style and INDEED, MAKING difficult consubstance are braided. Many things, and stitutional arguments is central to con-
George
Will
BLACKS: November 16, 2016
Blacks and politicians
D
onald Trump’s surprise win has millions of Americans, many of whom are black, in a tizzy. Many, such as Kareem AbdulJabbar, are writing about what it means to be black during a Trump administration even though Trump’s presidency has yet to begin. My argument has always been that the political arena is largely irrelevant to the interests of ordinary black people.
MUCH OF the 1960s and ‘70s civil rights rhetoric was that black political power was necessary for economic power. But the nation’s most troublesome and dangerous cities, which are also cities with low-performing and unsafe schools and poor-quality city services, have been run by Democrats for nearly a half-century — with blacks having significant political power, having been mayors, city councilors and other top officials, such as superintendents of schools and chiefs of police. Panic among some blacks over the upcoming Trump presidency is unwarranted. Whoever is the president has little or no impact on the living conditions of ordinary black people, even when that president is a black person, as the Obama presidency has demonstrated. The overall welfare of black people requires attention to devastating problems that can be solved only at the family and community levels. Mountains of evidence demonstrates that outcomes are not favorable for children raised in female-headed households. Criminal behavior is
greater, and academic achievement is much less for such children. This is a devastating problem, but it is beyond the reach of a president or any other politician to solve. If there is a solution, it will come from churches and local community organizations. EDUCATION IS vital to upward mobility. Most schools labeled as “persistently dangerous” are schools with predominantly black populations. At many schools, students are required to walk through metal detectors and place their book bags and purses on a conveyor belt that goes
Walter
Williams (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
through an X-ray machine. Armed police patrol the school to try to stem school violence. But even with a police presence, teachers, staff and students are assaulted. A policy that permanently removes troublemakers would make a greater impact on black education than anything a U.S. president could do. The fact that black parents, teachers and civil rights organizations tolerate and make excuses for the despicable and destructive behavior of so many young blacks is a gross betrayal of the memory, struggle, sacrifice, sweat, tears and blood of our ancestors. The sorry and tragic state of black education is not going to be turned around until there’s a change in what’s acceptable and unacceptable behavior by
young people. That change could come only from within the black community. Using 2012 data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Law Street Media offers some sobering statistics in an article titled “Crime in America: Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities Over 200,000” (http://tinyurl.com/qeusjj4). The nation’s most dangerous big cities are Detroit, Oakland, St. Louis, Memphis, Stockton, Birmingham, Baltimore, Cleveland, Atlanta and Milwaukee. The most common characteristic of these cities is that they have predominantly black populations. Another common characteristic is that for decades, all of them have been run by Democratic and presumably liberal administrations. Some cities — such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark and Philadelphia — haven’t elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century. Here are some indisputable facts: Crime imposes a huge cost on black communities in the forms of human suffering and economic well-being. It matters little whether the U.S. president is black or white, Democrat or Republican. It also matters little whether local politicians are black or white or Democrats or Republicans. What will matter is an unyielding black intolerance for crime, along with a willingness to allow policing authorities to do what is necessary to stop criminals from preying on the overwhelmingly law-abiding people of the community. IN LIGHT of the many difficulties within black communities, focusing energy and resources on the election of Donald Trump is gross dereliction.
servatism’s raison d’etre. This is particularly urgent now that conservatism is identified with the president-elect, a conservative-of-convenience who expresses his adopted convictions as though he recently purchased a Rosetta Stone program for quick fluency in speaking conservatism. People who have been conservative since before 2015 should, in considering how to relate to the president-elect, ask themselves some questions, such as: What are we saying if we say we are against free trade? Protectionism is comprehensive government intervention in economic life. It supplants commercial calculations with political considerations. Using tariffs, which are taxes imposed at the border, government imposes its judgment of what Americans should be permitted to purchase, in what quantities and at what prices. If conservatism can embrace such statism, can it distinguish itself from progressivism — the doctrine that government experts are wiser than markets in determining individuals’ choices and directing the efficient use of labor and capital? Progressives think — or did until last Tuesday evening — as Woodrow Wilson did about the delights of unconstrained presidential power. In 1887, Professor Wilson of Bryn Mawr College regretted that America has excessively “studied the art of curbing executive power to the constant neglect of the art of perfecting executive methods.” It exasperated him that America “has been more concerned to render government just and moderate than to make it facile, well-ordered and effective.” Progressives may regret Donald Trump’s executive methods if he emulates Barack Obama’s “just try to stop me” approach to presidential enforcement (or non-enforcement) and regulatory (or deregulatory) actions. Before the election, Trump’s more thoughtful supporters conceded his comprehensive unfamiliarity with governance but insisted that he would be sufficiently wise to surround himself with seasoned people and sufficiently humble to heed them. He could make these suppositions more plausible by nominating Kelly Ayotte to be attorney general. A FORMER attorney general of New Hampshire, Sen. Ayotte distanced herself from Trump during her unsuccessful reelection campaign this autumn. But the Justice Department has been politically tainted by, among other things, its lassitude regarding the IRS’ abuses against conservative advocacy groups. It needs a steely but amiable leader, not someone with a recent record of hysterical partisanship (e.g., Rudy Giuliani). By such Cabinet choices President-elect Trump can begin to present a persona more measured and less bellicose than that of candidate Trump.
26
Conservative Chronicle
DONALD TRUMP: November 9, 2016
The challenge for Republicans, and the nation
M
y feelings this morning are so radically mixed that my brain resembles a Cuisinart. I cannot help but be glad that Hillary Clinton was defeated. I am shaking my head in amazement about the Senate, and accordingly about the Supreme Court. The election results feel like a gorgeous, gleaming new BMW in the driveway. But instead of a bow on the roof, there’s a vial of nitroglycerin. I wish president-elect Donald Trump nothing but good this morning. I pray for him and for the country, but fingers of fear still grip my heart. The glow of victory cannot obscure or perfume who the man is. Trump has demonstrated emotional unsteadiness, cruelty and wild irresponsibility. He is most unhinged when his fragile ego is wounded. He is, in many ways, a spoiled child.
HIS CHARACTER is the great challenge for the nation and the Republican Party going forward. On this post-election morning, it seems advisable that those Republicans who signed statements of opposition to him — particularly foreign policy experts — reassess. A president has the most scope for independent action on the world stage, and it is there that he can do the maximum amount of damage. Trump has indulged in ignorant bluster to gain popularity (he would crush ISIS “very quickly,” “take the oil” from the Middle East, renegotiate NAFTA, force Mexico to pay for a border wall, “get along very well” with Vladimir Putin, and encourage nuclear proliferation). But one thing we know about Trump is that he will say almost anything for attention and effect, and he has contradicted himself thousands of times. He will need advisers with experience, judgment and keen psychological skills to temper his instincts and guide him toward policies more in line with American interests and values. Even foreign policy experts who were appalled by Trump’s campaign rhetoric — in fact, especially they — should consider serving in his administration. Trump has been on both sides of most of the contentious issues in American life. He’s been pro and anti socialized medicine, for and against (mostly) entitlement reform, for (mostly) and against abortion. He is, primarily, an entertainer, who hasn’t given much thought to public policy at all, but is expert at playing to a crowd and ventilating its resentments. But even more than riling up his audiences, Trump’s lodestar has always been himself. Everything comes back to him, especially when he’s feeling attacked or disrespected. I am praying that because he will now have his heart’s desire — the nonstop shower of attention and yes, flattery, that comes with the Oval Office, that this will serve as a tonic for his outsized ego and
her, for example) have acknowledged as much. But what the Republican grassroots did not grapple with adequately is OTHERS WILL need wisdom as that this time, many of the outrageous well. After the shock of his victory wears charges the media trotted out were true. off, the press will return to treating him as Their job was easy. All they had to do radioactive — which will be taken by his was quote the candidate, not dig through school records to find supporters and much of the Republican his middle prank. Trump has Party as evidence that he must be right. s o m e said reprehensible That’s a mistake things and winked for both sides. The at open bigotry. He mainstream press is indecent and loutis biased, openly ish. so, and they need (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate The right-wing to swallow hard and own it. That doesn’t mean they are media Trump empowered have circualways wrong. As I’ve said often during lated absurd conspiracies and lies. They the general election, the press and Dem- are no better, and in some ways they are ocrats have cried wolf on racism and worse, than the “lying media” they dexenophobia so many times that they’ve spise. Our duty to stand for responsible discredited themselves. A few (Bill Ma- journalism and to rebuke the Brietbarts
perhaps supply him the calm he will need to serve wisely.
Mona
Charen
and InfoWars types only grows more urgent this morning. Trump has frightening, undemocratic impulses. He admires strongmen. But — perhaps this is a saving grace — he also has a notoriously short attention span. The great challenge for Republicans will be to oppose him if (when?) he strays in dangerous directions as president, whether in restricting civil liberties, undermining international alliances, inaugurating devastating trade wars or casting aside constitutional restraints on executive power. This will be the most difficult of trials for Republican officeholders, because their constituents will not thank them for it, only their posterity. MAY GOD grant all the charity and grace to navigate the uncharted waters we’re in.
POLITICS: November 10, 2016
Well, it is over — finally
W
ell, it is over! The most poisonous, slanderous, hate-filled American election of all time is now history, and the pity is that there is no historian living in this great Republic who is capable of doing it justice. At least, Donald Trump was entertaining and usually right. Moreover he has only been a practicing politician for a little over a year and a half. Hillary Clinton has been perpetrating politics for her entire adult life, and in the end we discover that she could not even properly maintain classified documents on her server. (FBI Director James Comey said she was “extremely careless” in handling intelligence.) Her foundation is equally lax, and her housekeeper was regularly imposed upon to print out her correspondence — including classified documents. It is now clear that she has been a crook for most of her life. She came across as a schoolmarm, with all the grace of a schoolmarm, but unlike most schoolmarms she is a consistent liar. How did America get into such a mess? I WOULD date it from Feb. 12, 1999. That is when the United States Senate failed in its duty to convict President William J. Clinton at the end of his impeachment trial. The impeachment had been initiated by the House of Representatives when it voted for two charges, one of perjury, the other of obstruction of justice. The House sent the charges over to the Senate. The charges stemmed from Clinton’s mendacious testimony before a grand jury regarding Monica Lewinsky, his White House paramour or should I say one of
his White House paramours? She was 22 years old when it started. There is no doubt that he lied under oath or that he obstructed justice, but the Senate decided, to quote a phrase popular at the time, “it was only about sex.” Presumably if Clinton lied and obstructed justice to cloak some graver wrong the Senate would have adjudged him guilty, though I have my doubts. We were entering the first stages of the age of lawlessness that we have now become inured to.
R. Emmett
Tyrrell (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
Thus Clinton became only the second president in American history to be impeached. The other was President Andrew Johnson after the Civil War, and Johnson at least had the excuse of being inebriated. He was a famous drunk, though there is no record of him imposing his will on a 22-year-old intern or even on a barkeep. The only other president who came close to impeachment was President Richard M. Nixon. Yet he had the grace to resign from office before putting the country through the uncertainties of an impeachment process. To Clinton it did not matter. IF THE SENATE had found Clinton guilty, presumably Bill and his lovely wife, Bruno, would have disappeared from our public life. As it was, their tawdry, grasping antics began almost immediately after impeachment
with the selling of White House pardons and commutations and the pocketing of White House furnishing as they absconded from the premises. Shortly thereafter the New York Observer editorialized on Hillary Clinton, “Had she any shame, she would resign” from the Senate, and many of the hierarchy in the media and the Democratic Party hurled invective at the hunkering couple. Their fury lasted hardly a year, and then the Clintons could count on the media to forgive and forget their intemperance. For a quarter of a century I have noted this historically unparalleled development, the arrival in politics and media of the episodic apologist. Nor is the arrival of this poisonous political atmosphere unique to this side of the Atlantic. A week ago, my friend Algy Cluff, for 25 years the chairman of the board of the Spectator of London, wrote to tell me that he was very much looking forward to attending the Spectator’s annual Parliamentarian of the Year awards dinner. He wrote that it is “usually fun, one of the rare occasions when the Left and the Right get together with humor.” Alas, Algy reported back to me over the weekend that though “the Tories poked fun at each other ... this time the prize winners from the left were illtempered and uncivil. In particular Diane Abbott (surly and rude), the Mayor of London (snarling and rude),and Hilary Benn (high-minded and pompous). But that is the world we live in.” YES, POLITICS on both sides of the Atlantic are in a poisonous state, and on the U.K.’s side, Labour is practically in a state of collapse.
27
November 23, 2016 LEFTIST JEWS: November 15, 2016
Left-wing Jews are embarrassing Judaism
A
So, I say this with only sadness: highly respected American rabbi named Dr. Irving “Yitz” Many American Jews on the left, inGreenberg used to tell Ameri- cluding rabbis and lay leaders, are emcan Jewish audiences, whether Reform, barrassing Jews and Judaism. I say this Conservative Orthodox, “I don’t care to ring an alarm in Jewish life and to tell what denomination you’re a member of, non-Jewish America that these people represent leftism, not Judaism. as long as you’re ashamed of it.” Furthermore, I am I have adopted talking only about that phrase, and leftist Jews, not I apply it to reliliberal Jews. Ungions generally. fortunately, howOne could just as (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate ever, liberalism easily say to Cathhas become synolics, Protestants and Muslims, “I don’t care what reli- onymous with leftism both within and gion you identify with, as long as you’re outside Judaism. This past week, the embarrassing beashamed of it.” Meaning, of course, you’re ashamed of what many of its havior of left-wing Jews reached a new level. members have done to it. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reJUST THINK of what has happened ported that Jews and their clergy at to much of mainstream Protestantism; to various synagogues around America much of Catholicism, including, sadly, were gathering to sit shiva — the Hethe current pope; and most especially, to brew and Jewish term for the seven-day period of grieving that Jews engage in the Islamic world. Given the subject of this column — after the loss of an immediate relative the destructive influence of leftism on — because Donald Trump was elected Jews and Judaism — it is relevant to president. Consider for a moment how childmention some of my Jewish involvement. Among other things, I taught Jew- ish and narcissistic this is, using the ish history and religion at Brooklyn Col- sacred ritual reserved for the death of lege, was the spokesman for the Student one’s child or parent as a way to express Struggle for Soviet Jewry, have written disappointment over a presidential electwo books and hundreds of essays and tion. And of course, there were the ircolumns on Jews and Judaism, received the American Jewish Press Association responsible, over-the-top outbursts by Louis Rapoport Award for Excellence in Jewish columnists and academics. Take Jewish Commentary, have brought many Washington Post columnist Dana Milthousands of Jews to Judaism and have bank, who devoted his column after the lectured to more Jewish groups in the election to writing an open letter to his past 40 years than almost any living Jew. 12-year-old daughter.
Dennis
Prager
“As I watched the returns at Donald Trump’s celebration here Tuesday night,” Milbank began, “the hardest part was trying to reassure my seventh-grade daughter at home, via phone and text, that she would be okay. “She had expected to be celebrating the election of the first female president, but instead, this man she had been reading and hearing horrible things about had won.” THE MAN’S 12-year-old daughter “feared her own world could come apart” because of the election result. He reassured her, however, that her world would be fine, especially since she would be receiving so much love at her upcoming bat mitzvah. Milbank’s daughter’s trauma was
more than matched by the reaction of a Jewish adult, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine. On Nov. 8, he tweeted, “This is the worst thing that has happened in my life.” Chait was 31 years old on 9/11. A response to his tweet by a woman named Bethany S. Mandel pretty well summarized the maturity level of Chait’s comment. She said: “I took my mom off life support at 16 & dad hanged himself three yrs later. I’m sorry this election was so hard for you.” I am sure Ms. Mandel would join me in paying Mr. Chait a shiva call. Speaking of 9/11, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said on Bill Maher’s show that Trump’s victory is “a moral 9/11.” He suggested that Trump becoming president might be worse than 9/11, for 9/11 happened to us, but “we did this to ourselves.” Paul Krugman, Friedman’s colleague at the New York Times, wrote that he now realizes that he “truly didn’t understand the country we live in.” Never have truer words been written. It’s tough to understand those for whom you only have contempt. Add similar comments made during the election by other Jewish leftists in the media and academia, and you get the picture. How are we to understand this? Here’s one explanation: When Jews abandoned Judaism, many of them did not abandon Judaism’s messianic impulse. From Karl Marx — the grandson of two Orthodox rabbis — and onwards, they simply secularized it and created secular substitutes, such as Marxism, humanism, socialism, feminism and environmentalism. IF LEFT-WING Jews want to sit shiva, they should do so for their religion, which, like much of Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholicism, has been so deeply and negatively influenced by leftism.
28
Conservative Chronicle
IMMIGRATION REFORM: November 11, 2016
Let’s help Trump fix immigration the right way
I
mmigration was clearly the issue that galvanized many of Donald Trump’s supporters. But if he is to try to unite the nation, he needs to think carefully about how to proceed. If he does it right, he could pleasantly surprise his critics, including me. Trump has repeatedly said he will cancel President Barack Obama’s “illegal” executive orders, day one, including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Some four million people who came here illegally as children would once again be subject to removal from the United States, an inhuman and economically self-defeating proposition. But Trump could mitigate the effect by accompanying this action with a pledge to support the DREAM Act. The bill originally proposed by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has had bipartisan support in the past. It would accomplish the same thing as President Obama’s DACA program in a way that honors the legislative process — providing legal status to those who came here before the age of 15, have no criminal record, have paid taxes if they’ve been employed, completed or are in the process of completing high school, served or are willing to enlist in the U.S. military and learned English. Americans overwhelmingly approve — 70 percent, according to the exit polls on Election Day — of giving legal status and a path to citizenship to this group, as they do giving legal status to the rest of the 11 million who are here illegally but have paid taxes and committed no crimes since their arrival.
our society. We can make sure that they will be by bringing in sufficient numbers of people with the right skills — including the ability to speak English — but also by limiting access to welfare BUILDING WALLS and deporting programs for at least 10 years. One other novel thing Trump could workers would harm our economy, not help it. President-elect Trump claims he do, which might assuage those who will make America great again, but he worry that immigrants are an economic to create a system for could not do so by depopulating it. We burden, is American citizens need younger peoand immigrants ple in our aging here legally to acAmerican populacept some financial tion. The median responsibility by age of Mexican(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate sponsoring those born immigrants who come here. is 25, while the median age of Americans is 37. These Under the immigration laws in effect in younger workers pay taxes, which make the 1970s and ‘80s, I sponsored a handour social safety net possible, especially ful of immigrants, for whom I accepted Social Security and Medicare. A grow- financial responsibility if they ended up ing population adds to our wealth; it not being able to support themselves. doesn’t detract from it, provided those I even had to submit my tax returns who come are productive members of to demonstrate I could do so. I would What those living in the shadows most want is the right to work legally, pay taxes and become part of the fabric of American life.
Linda
Chavez
gladly do the same again, especially for people who are already here and living in the shadows. So why not create a program whereby current residents here legally, citizens, businesses and nonprofit or religious organizations could sponsor unrelated individuals or families and guarantee the recipients will not become dependent on public assistance? Most would-be immigrants would jump at the chance of eschewing future welfare benefits. Even now, immigrants are less likely to receive public assistance than comparable native-born individuals, and undocumented immigrants are already prohibited from everything but emergency medical care. IF DONALD TRUMP is looking to solve the immigration problem, he needs to broaden his horizons beyond building walls and deporting people. There are good ideas out there; he just needs to start listening.
HOLLYWOOD LEFT: November 11, 2016
Enjoying Hollywood’s doomsaying
T
he election has passed, and the American people gave the spoiled celebrities of Hollywood the heave-ho. Despite all of their earnest YouTube lectures and pro-Hillary Clinton concerts and campaign appearances, the next president is Donald Trump. Little did they realize that John Q. Public is done with these multi-multimillionaires positing themselves as BUT IF President-elect Trump is to champions of the working class, or even keep his promise to stop illegal immi- more remarkable, the downtrodden. gration, he has to do more than build a wall. Americans want better border seGET OUT the popcorn for their curity, and Trump has already pledged wailing and gnashing of teeth on the to increase spending, hire more agents internet. On election night they went and stop the practice of catching and certifiably bonkers. Their horror is unreleasing those apprehended at the bor- fashionable. der. But the most effective method of Nashville actress Connie Britton deterring illegal immigration remains spoke for many liberals, seeing immiallowing the market to dictate how nent persecution of all minorities: “Dear many newcomers we need. We must Muslim, Mexican, immigrant, refugee, provide a way for needed workers to handicapped, black, gay, female human immigrate legally — something that beings, & also dear Earth ... you are not simply doesn’t exist under current law. forgotten. Promise.” Trump could begin by offering legFormer child star Alyssa Milano islation for a new, vastly expanded asked: “Is it possible that this country is guest-worker program that would pro- more sexist than racist? May God help vide work permits for both high-skilled us all.” and low-skilled workers. We need more For disgusting reactions, there is coengineers and more agricultural work- median Jena Friedman, who wailed on ers. This used to be a tenet of GOP im- Stephen Colbert’s Showtime special, “It migration policy, and the new president feels like an asteroid has just smacked should make it one again. He could also into our democracy. ... It is so scary and make those temporary visas available sad and heartbreaking. And I just wish first to undocumented immigrants who I could be funny. Get your abortions are already working, paying taxes and now.” contributing to the economies in which Why is democracy damaged when they’ve lived, sometimes for decades. Democrats don’t win? Did Trump
cheat? No, it’s that the wrong voters won. Or consider the scabrous sex columnist/MTV personality Dan Savage. “Colorado approves assisted suicide,” he tweeted. “That’s going to come in handy.” Actor John Cusack is a reliable source of spittle: “The fascism is real -what U see is what U get—will be no comforting illusions left to hide in ... look at it with clear steely eyes.”
Brent
Bozell (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
So is Alec Baldwin, whose acidulous Saturday Night Live Trump impression apparently failed to persuade people: “The billionaire Republican businessman is close to winning the race and world markets are crashing. He’s all yours, America. He’s all yours.” YOU CAN TASTE the smugness in that one. Former Saturday Night Live castmember Taran Killam exemplified the entertainment elites on Twitter: “Rural = so stupid.” Chris Evans, who plays Captain America in the movies, might want to consider moving to another country. “This is an embarrassing night for America. We’ve let a hatemonger lead our great nation. We’ve let a bully set our course. I’m devastated.”
Director Judd Apatow yelled at no Trump voter in particular: “You just elected the swamp! You gave the swamp total control. You are a fool. You didn’t do the math. Putin celebrates your ignorance.” West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin was inconsolable: “Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate. ... Hate was given hope.” Scandal actor Joshua Malina complained: “Somewhere tonight there’s a little, racist, narcissistic, woman-hating, Jew-baiting kid who now knows that he can grow up to be President.” Actor/polemicist Dax Shepard: “Dear all my friends, I was wrong. It wasn’t a landslide for Hillary.” He really had his finger on America’s pulse, or so he thought. Or there’s Lindsay Lohan, who tweeted “Retweet if you want a recount.” Retweet if you think Lohan makes sense — ever. Comedian Patton Oswalt was trying to improve morale with this confusing lesson: “We survived 8 years of Bush. We can survive 2 1/2 years of Trump.” Hmm. The Parliament’s having a noconfidence vote in 2019? THE HOLLYWOOD left demand everyone watch them, adore them and, when necessary, obey them. It’s great fun to see the results of our civil disobedience.
29
November 23, 2016 IMMIGRATION REFORM: November 15, 2016
The new key to reform: High-skilled immigrants
O
That’s now off. The interesting quesne of the issues Presidentelect Donald Trump says he tion is, What kind of bill could a Repubwants Congress to act on is lican Senate and House pass? First prinimmigration. That’s not entirely surpris- ciple: It must be acceptable to Trump. Such a bill wouldn’t provide for the ing, given that he spotlighted just that issue, in incendiary terms, after gliding immediate deportation of 11 million down that escalator in the Trump Tow- undocumented immigrants or a ban on immigrants. In the er and announcing he was running 17 M u s l i m campaign, Democrats months ago. seized on Trump’s Last week, statements backing when many assuch moves and — sumed Hillary understandably, Clinton would be (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate for partisan camelected — perpaigners — ighaps even with a Democratic Senate — many liberals nored his later statements dialing back also highlighted immigration legislation from those positions. Mainstream media — less underas an immediate priority. They looked forward to passage of something very standably, seeing as they’re supposed much like the Gang of 13 bill, which to report the facts — ignored those passed the Senate with bipartisan sup- statements, too, even though they were port in 2013, and the very similar bills set forth with careful precision in the that passed the Senate in 2006 and were speech he delivered Aug. 31 in Phoenix squelched there in 2007 by the legisla- immediately after his respectful meettive malpractice of the new majority ing with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in Mexico City. leader, Harry Reid. In that speech, Trump reiterated his THOSE BILLS provided for imme- promise to build a wall along the Mexidiately giving legal status to millions of can border but said decisions on giving immigrants, plus provisions purporting legal status to noncriminal undocumentto strengthen border control and work- ed immigrants would be made “in sevplace enforcement — but critics thought eral years, when we have accomplished they would prove as ineffective as simi- all of our enforcement and deportation lar provisions in the bipartisan 1986 goals.” And he would not bar all Muslims but suspend “visas to any place law. It seemed reasonable that a Demo- where adequate screening cannot occratic Senate would advance such a cur.” Enforcement measures would inbill and that House Speaker Paul Ryan, sympathetic to it in the past, would al- clude not just the wall but a biometric low it on the floor, where it would get entry-exit visa system (about half of undocumented immigrants overstayed enough Republican votes for passage.
Michael
Barone
legal visas) and mandatory E-Verify for job applicants. Those provisions would most likely produce attrition of the undocumented population as Arizona’s EVerify requirement did there. Trump obviously would not approve the provisions to give immediate legal status that vote-hungry Democrats want and that Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us lobby backs. And Ryan, after lunch with Trump last week, insisted that enforcement must come first. Ryan also backed the little-noticed 10th of Trump’s 10 points in his Phoenix speech: Shifting legal immigration from extended-family reunification, mostly of low-skilled immigrants, and setting aside many more places for high-skilled immigrants “based on merit, skill and proficiency.”
That resembles the point systems of Canada and Australia. As law professor F.H. Buckley points out, Canada, with one-tenth the U.S. population, admits about 160,000 immigrants yearly under economic categories — more than the U.S.’ 140,000. As a result, immigrants in Canada, unlike here, have incomes above, not below, the national average. Some serious Democrats agree with Trump. “Our immigration laws should be reoriented to favor immigrants with higher skills,” wrote Clinton administration policymaker William Galston in the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 2. Lawrence Summers, treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and economic adviser to Barack Obama, called for more high-skilled immigration in an American Enterprise Institute talk Nov. 4. It’s possible that almost all Republicans and some Democrats, especially senators facing re-election in 2018 in states where Trump won, would support a bill with tougher enforcement, deferred decisions on deporting or giving legal status to noncriminal undocumented immigrants and a shift toward high-skilled immigration. Who wants to argue for a lower-skilled future population or against enforcement measures technologically less challenging than transactions Visa and MasterCard process every day? Who wants to argue that immigrants who came here illegally and have committed other crimes should not be deported and that “sanctuary cities” should be able to block enforcement of federal immigration laws? DEMOCRATS WOULDN’T be happy if they had to abandon their goal of giving immediate legal status to millions of people they want to be Democratic voters, and Zuckerberg’s tech buddies wouldn’t be happy to abandon the H-1B visas, which enable them to hire low-cost indentured servants, and have to pay market salaries to high-skilled immigrants. But Trump and the Republicans, if they were to play it right, might force them to.
30
Conservative Chronicle
BANGLADESH: November 16, 2016
Bangladesh battles Islamist terror and ethnic cleansing
I
mpoverished, predominantly Muslim and below-media-radar Bangladesh continues to wage a careful war on militant Islamist terrorists. This is good news. Bangladesh is the world’s eighth most populous country, with around 168 million people. Unfortunately, the latest news begins with an act of calculated Islamist terror that also had a greed-driven criminal angle. Beginning October 30, militant Islamists conducted a series of attacks on a Hindu neighborhood in the Nasirnagar sub-district (eastern Bangladesh). The attacks injured at least 100 Bangladeshi Hindus (150 according to one report) and damaged 17 Hindu shrines and temples. The attackers looted shrines and businesses. They also looted the homes of at least 100 Hindu families.
THE ISLAMISTS justified their attacks as retribution for outrageous religious sacrilege. They accused a Hindu from the brutalized community of making a comment on social media disrespecting the Great Mosque of Mecca, a venerated Islamic holy site. Yes, in the sensitive, easily perturbed minds of violent Islamist extremists, an internet comment by one young man justifies hideous sectarian violence and the mass looting of an entire community. Of course the roused Islamist militants were so infuriated by the lone comment’s disrespect they completely ignored local police who attempted to assuage their hot button-ignited passion by arresting the young fellow on the legally spurious charge of “hurting religious sentiment.” But no matter. The militants attacked the Hindu community. Here are some instructive demographic statistics. Bangladesh says eight percent of its population is Hindu. Hindus claim eight is a slight undercount. Nasirnagar is located in Brahmanbaria district. The name (Brahmin) hints at the region’s historical Hindu connections. About 40 percent of Nasirnagar’s current population is Hindu. The militant Islamist attacks and looting spurred outrage throughout Bangladesh — in Muslim and as well as Hindu and Buddhist communities. Political and civic groups demanded the government quickly investigate the crime and then arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. By November 6, national police had arrested 53 people allegedly involved in the attacks and theft. Authorities indicate more arrests could occur. An initial investigation by Bangladesh’s National Human Rights Commission found evidence that the riot and attacks were a “pre-planned conspiracy.”
In other words, forget the Islamists’ the riot. The riot, in many respects, was faux outrage and venting over a snarky a cover for a looting expedition. internet comment. The attacks on HinA spokesman for the Bangladesh dus were pre-planned, and militant lead- Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council ers were seeking an excuse to launch a (which defends the rights of Bangladesh communal war. religious minorities) claimed the attacks According to Reuters, the NHRC h a d a goal:To drive Hindus also concluded from their homes. the Nasirnagar This echoes the aim sub-district adof Serbian Orthodox ministration and vigilantes who atpolice were “negtacked Bosnian (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate ligent and calMuslim villages lous in handling” in 1991. The world the situation. Nasirnagar authorities let decried that cruelty. the militant Islamists conduct political The attacks and theft by the Islamist demonstrations to express their alleged militants were criminal acts. Local outrage and grievance at the comment’s police malfeasance was inexcusable. disrespect. However, the national government in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation MILITANTS USED the demonstra- didn’t ignore the wrongs. It responded tions as a cover operation for triggering appropriately.
Austin
Bay
That’s no surprise. StrategyPage. com recently reported “Islamic terrorists are very much a tiny minority in Bangladesh and a very unpopular one at that.” Though Islamic terrorist-related murders in 2016 are likely to triple the 42 registered in 2015, StrategyPage concluded that long-term trends demonstrate Islamist terrorism has “a difficult time getting a foothold in Bangladesh.” BANGLADESH WAS once East Pakistan. Today Bangladesh’s government contends Pakistan supports Islamic terrorism within Bangladesh. There’s ugly history behind the claim. In the 1971 Bangladesh rebellion against Pakistan, Islamist radicals committed numerous atrocities. Memory of those atrocities helps explain Bangladesh’s commitment to fight al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates.
TRUMP AGENDA: November 14, 2016
The election’s over: What now? Part II
A
s the post-election shock of some, and the euphoria of others, both begin to wear off, the country and the new administration will have some very serious problems to face, at home and abroad. How those problems are faced — or evaded — will tell us a lot about the next four years, and about the longer-run future as well. As the multiple disasters of Obamacare become ever more painfully visible with the passage of time, the big question is whether to repeal it or to start tinkering with it, in hopes of being able to “save” it. THIS DILEMMA is not accidental. Obamacare was clearly so structured that it would be hard to get rid of politically. In that sense, it was a political masterpiece, even though a social disaster. One big test of the new Republican administration that takes office in January will be whether it falls into the trap of trying to rescue this monstrosity created by the Democrats, and succumbs to the siren song of bipartisanship that is sure to be heard from the media. Whatever the new administration hopes to accomplish, on this issue and many others, it needs to accomplish early on, if it expects to get things done and establish its credibility. For that it needs unity within a party that has fragmented too often in the past. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has been preparing various policy positions, so that there will be a program already in place that Republicans can unite behind and hit the ground running when
they take control in January. But there is one other thing that they will need, and which they have seldom had in the past. That is some well thought out, and clearly articulated, explanation to the American public as to what they are doing and why. What was called “the Reagan revolution” of the 1980s took place without President Reagan’s ever having had Republican control of both Houses of Congress, and despite a hostile media. What Reagan had instead was a rare ability to persuasively articulate to the public what he was doing and why.
Thomas
Sowell (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate
WHEN PRESIDENT Reagan got the voters on his side, even Congressional Democrats knew that it was politically risky to try to block what he had convinced the public needed to be done. Without effective articulation to the public, control of both Houses of Congress can lead to futility and the collapse of political support by frustrated voters who feel betrayed. That has been the recent history of Republicans. Articulation is not just a gift of nature. It takes hard work, work that Ronald Reagan had done for years before he ever got to Washington. More fundamentally, effective articulation requires a recognition of the great importance of articulation, so that it gets all the time and effort it requires. Another very high priority for the new administration should be trying to
fill the great void on the Supreme Court left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. It is not just a quantitative void but, above all, a qualitative void. This is one of those situations where caution may be the most dangerous course. Too many Republican Supreme Court nominees in the past have been chosen to avoid a confirmation fight in the Senate — and the country has paid a huge price in bad Supreme Court decisions for decades thereafter. If you wanted to pick someone whose nomination to the Supreme Court would send a clear and unmistakable signal that the Constitutional values so well represented by the late Justice Scalia were paramount, you could not do that more convincingly than by nominating Senator Ted Cruz. Whatever one thinks of Senator Cruz’s political career and tactics — both of which have been criticized in this column more than once — no one can question his commitment to Constitutional principles that are in jeopardy today. His uncompromising refusal to go along to get along, which has made him controversial in politics, is desperately needed in the Supreme Court, where too many “conservative” justices, over the years, have wilted like delicate flowers in the Washington heat. SENATOR CRUZ’S unpopularity among more moderate Republican Senators can even be an asset in gaining Senate confirmation, since they would be unlikely to be sorry to see him leave the Senate.
31
November 23, 2016 TRUMP AGENDA: November 15, 2016
A Trump Doctrine — ‘America First’
H
owever Donald Trump came in 2007 and 2011, Iran did not even upon the foreign policy have a nuclear weapons program. views he espoused, they were Other hardliners want to face down as crucial to his election as his views on Beijing over its claims to the reefs and trade and the border. rocks of the South China Sea, though Yet those views are hemlock to the our Manila ally is talking of tightenGOP foreign policy elite and the liberal ing ties to China and kicking Democratic interus out of Subic Bay. ventionists of the In none of these Acela Corridor. places is there a Trump promU.S. vital interest ised an “America so imperiled as to (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate First” foreign poljustify the kind of icy rooted in the national interest, not in war the War Party would risk. nostalgia. The neocons insist that every Trump has the opportunity to be the Cold War and post-Cold War commit- president who, like Harry Truman, rediment be maintained, in perpetuity. rected U.S. foreign policy for a generation. ON SUNDAY’S 60 Minutes, Trump After World War II, we awoke to find said: “You know, we’ve been fighting our wartime ally, Stalin, had emerged as this war for 15 years. ... We’ve spent $6 a greater enemy than Germany or Japan. trillion in the Middle East, $6 trillion Stalin’s empire stretched from the Elbe — we could have rebuilt our country to the Pacific. twice. And you look at our roads and In 1949, suddenly, he had the atom our bridges and our tunnels ... and our bomb, and China, the most populous airports are ... obsolete.” nation on earth, had fallen to the armies Yet the War Party has not had enough of Mao Zedong. of war, not nearly. As our situation was new, Truman They want to confront Vladimir Pu- acted anew. He adopted a George Kentin, somewhere, anywhere. They want nan policy of containment of the world to send U.S. troops to the eastern Baltic. Communist empire, the Truman DocThey want to send weapons to Kiev to trine, and sent an army to prevent South fight Russia in Donetsk, Luhansk and Korea from being overrun. Crimea. At the end of the Cold War, howevThey want to establish a no-fly zone er, with the Soviet Empire history and and shoot down Syrian and Russian the Soviet Union having disintegrated, planes that violate it, acts of war Con- George H.W. Bush launched his New gress never authorized. World Order. His son, George W., inThey want to trash the Iran nuclear vaded Iraq and preached a global crudeal, though all 16 U.S. intelligence sade for democracy “to end tyranny in agencies told us, with high confidence, our world.”
Pat
Buchanan
A policy born of hubris. Result: The Mideast disaster Trump described to Lesley Stahl, and constant confrontations with Russia caused by pushing our NATO alliance right up to and inside what had been Putin’s country. How did we expect Russian patriots to react? The opportunity is at hand for Trump to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy to the world we now inhabit, and to the vital interests of the United States. WHAT SHOULD Trump say? “As our Cold War presidents from Truman to Reagan avoided World War III, I intend to avert Cold War II. We do not regard Russia or the Russian people
as enemies of the United States, and we will work with President Putin to ease the tensions that have arisen between us. “For our part, NATO expansion is over, and U.S. forces will not be deployed in any former republic of the Soviet Union. “While Article 5 of NATO imposes an obligation to regard an attack upon any one of 28 nations as an attack on us all, in our Constitution, Congress, not some treaty dating back to before most Americans were even born, decides whether we go to war. “The compulsive interventionism of recent decades is history. How nations govern themselves is their own business. While, as JFK said, we prefer democracies and republics to autocrats and dictators, we will base our attitude toward other nations upon their attitude toward us. “No other nation’s internal affairs are a vital interest of ours. “Europeans have to be awakened to reality. We are not going to be forever committed to fighting their wars. They are going to have to defend themselves, and that transition begins now. “In Syria and Iraq, our enemies are al Qaeda and ISIS. We have no intention of bringing down the Assad regime, as that would open the door to Islamic terrorists. We have learned from Iraq and Libya.” Then Trump should move expeditiously to lay out and fix the broad outlines of his foreign policy, which entails rebuilding our military while beginning the cancellation of war guarantees that have no connection to U.S. vital interests. We cannot continue to bankrupt ourselves to fight other countries’ wars or pay other countries’ bills. THE IDEAL time for such a declaration, a Trump Doctrine, is when the president-elect presents his secretaries of state and defense.
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
3
Your Own Subscription.
2
(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.
1
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 11/23/16 Periodicals Postage Paid Mailed 11/17/16
Read Pat Buchanan, Cal Thomas & Jackie Gingrich Cushman on Pages 16-17
Donald Trump
This week our CONSERVATIVE FOCUS is on:
Read Andrew Napolitano’s Column on Page 1
Ordinary Americans for Trump
The Forgotten Man
Wednesday, November 23, 2016 • Volume 31, Number 47 • Hampton, Iowa