Conservative Chronicle for December 14, 2016 by Mid-America Publishing Corporation

At Issue this week... December 14, 2016 2016 Election Barone (9) Morris (22) Big Government Lowry (10) Bolton, John Thomas (30) Book Review Thomas (22) Castro, Fidel Cushman (30) China Bay (28) Buchanan (31) Murchison (29) Clinton, Hillary Elder (6) Corporate Tax de Rugy (14) Dakota Access Lowry (12) Dear Mark Levy (19) Democracy Shapiro (13) Democrats Tyrrell (6) Economics Moore (13) Electoral College Barone (4) Williams (4) Fake News Bozell (18, 26) Buchanan (17) Charen (16) Saunders (17) Family Businesses Jeffrey (12) Filibuster Morris (9) First Lady Fields (11) Flag Burning Napolitano (23) Foreign Policy Krauthammer (29) HUD Parker (21) Jones, Van Malkin (20) Kafka, Franz Greenberg (21) Left, The Harsanyi (1) Hollis (2) Prager (27) Sowell (15) Leslie’s Trivia Bits Elman (14) Miscarriage of Justice Malkin (24, 25) Obama, Barack Limbaugh (3) Obamacare Morris (18) Political Correctness Massie (26) Will (25) Trump, Donald Chavez (10) Coulter (7) Lambro (8) Schlafly (5)

The Left by David Harsanyi

Trump won, so why aren’t you freaking out?

ell, for starters, allowing liberals to determine my level of anxiety — which would be full-blown, round-the-clock histrionics — over what’s nothing more than another election would be foolish. Until it’s not. The era of Trump hasn’t even started yet, and the entire establishment keeps using the term “era of Trump” as if things have actually changed. They haven’t. If you’re genuinely interesting in being an effective critic of the next president, acting like Adolf Hitler is pounding at your doorstep every time Trump tweets something might not be the most effective plan in the long run.

now horrified that former Gen. David Petraeus — who, like Clinton, shouldn’t be in any Cabinet, but who, unlike Clinton, actually paid a price for his mishandling of classified information — is under consideration for a position in the new administration. Moreover, Trump hasn’t really done anything out of the ordinary — not yet.

NOT TO mention, the left has been such an astonishing hypocrite on so many issues related to Trump that it’s a bit difficult to move forward without pointing it out. Joining activists who’ve spent years attacking the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Amendments — and now the Electoral College — in a newfound veneration Emoluments Clause is a bit much. Of course, Trump should be held accountable for his potential conflicts of interest, and one hopes conservatives who value good government will stand up when tangible evidence emerges that they exist. But the critics on the left aren’t serious about the Constitution. They’re serious about the Democratic Party. Who can take journalists seriously — who’ve never once uttered a word of concern over the Democratic Party’s crusade to empower government to ban political speech by overturning Citizens United — when they lose it over a tweet about flag-burning? If it were up to them over the past eight years, Trump would now be imbued with far more power to achieve the things they fear — unilaterally. There was more angst over the president-elect ditching a reporting pool to have a steak than there was over any of President Obama’s numerous executive abuses. So when you hear people say democracy needs journalism “now more than ever,” remember that they’re admitting they weren’t doing their job yesterday. We also needed journalism more than ever back then. Those who kept telling us that Hillary Clinton’s corrupt foundation and blatant favor-trading with the world’s most illiberal regimes were merely a conspiracy theory now act as if the republic will crumble if Trump’s hotel hosts the same Bahraini princes that were buying access in the Obama administration. The same people who told us Clinton’s emails were bulls--t and a silly distraction are

WHAT’S REALLY upset Democrats, it seems to me, is that traditional conservative policy proposals — the sorts of thing Republicans have campaigned on for years, and the policies that have helped them win over 1,000 local seats and governorships and two wave elections — will probably be moving forward. The overwrought rhetoric used to describe the overturning of Obamacare or the reforming of entitlements — “gutting,” “privatizing” etc. — would be precisely the same if we had President-elect John Kasich. Trump’s Cabinet nominees are the kind of run-of-the-mill selections any Republican would pick. You’ll remember that last week America was supposed to freak out about the chaos and sluggishness of the transition process. Then it was supposed to freak out about the potential white-maleness of the Cabinet. Well, his Cabinet members Nikki Haley, Elaine Chao, Seema Verma and Betsy DeVos

David

are going to be just as extreme to the left as an actual extremist. I mean, Dr. Tom Price is going to be accused of plotting the death of the poor because he opposes Obamacare no matter how many times the American Medical Association endorses him as secretary of Health and Human Services. This is because he’s a Republican, not because he’s being nominated by Trump. THAT’S NOT to say there haven’t been things that should upset you. Thankfully, we have a Constitution to protect us from Trump’s attacks on flag-burning, and the liberal attacks on political speech in general. This probably wouldn’t have been the case for long had Clinton prevailed. But Trump’s crony bailout of Carrier Corp. is disturbing because it sounds a lot like the “economic patriotism” agenda of the left. It’s the standard cronyism in which we’ve seen one administration after the next indulge. Cronyism. Bullying. It’s a bad deal for American workers in the long run, but sadly, “picking winners and losers” is not outside the norm of big-government politics. If Obama had pulled off the Carrier deal, the same people would have been complaining on opposite sides of the issue. Moreover, Trump’s contention that giant infrastructure bills and government spending are economic drivers is also something conservatives should oppose. But that doesn’t make this the era of Trump; it means we’re still in the era of Washington, D.C. Freak out accordingly. December 2, 2016

Conservative Chronicle

THE LEFT: December 1, 2016

What does the American left really want?

And what are they willing to do to get of political prisoners formed the “La- famine in Ukraine, killing millions (redies in White,” who peacefully protested ferred to by Ukrainians as Holodomor, or In the wake of Fidel Castro’s death, after Sunday Mass; Castro responded “murder by hunger”). Though the Times these are questions that every American by arresting and imprisoning them as has since issued statements denouncing — in particular, every American voter well. Castro was infamous for his firing Duranty’s regurgitation of Soviet prowho identifies as a Democrat — needs to squads. Thousands on this tiny island paganda, his Pulitzer has never been rebe asking. country died at the hands of Castro and voked. (As it happens, Duranty was also I was appalled — but not surprised — his murderous thugs. Nearly half a mil- a sexual deviant who fell in early on with to see the glowing reviews of El Coman- lion were able to flee to the United States. Satanist Aleister Crowley. Make of that dante’s life and work splattered across Many died trying. The rest lived in fear what you will.) traditional and social media. Green Party and poverty. presidential candidate Jill Stein posted ALL TOLD, nearly 100 million peoBut it’s all cool, right? Because evthis tweet: “Fidel Castro was a symbol eryone got “free education” (aka propa- ple died under dozens of communist of the struggle for justice in the shadow ganda and indoctriregimes across the of empire. Presente!” The Communist nation) and equal globe during the Party of the USA posted a tribute which access to lousy 20th century: At closed with, “Always in our hearts, we re- health care. least 45 million of member Comrade Fidel Castro Ruz, prethese were in ChiThe accolades (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate sente!” So, the Communist Party and Dr. for Fidel Castro na alone; nearly a Stein are of one mind about Castro? Are are part and parcel third of the entire his methods those Stein espouses? of a disturbing propensity of the Ameri- population of tiny Cambodia was killed Black Lives Matter’s statement was can left to ignore egregious human rights under the Khmer Rouge. even worse. It said, “We are feeling many abuses as long as they’re being done in Every single one of these regimes was things as we awaken to a world without the name of “the people.” Isolated aca- purportedly established “for the people” Fidel Castro ... Although no leader is demics, dopey Hollywood millionaires to bring about “equality.” without their flaws, we must push back and the press are among the worst ofWhat does it take for the left to acagainst the rhetoric of the right and come fenders. knowledge that there is no utopia under to the defense of El Comandante.” Consider Walter Duranty, a reporter these collectivist ideologies? Political Good grief — Castro’s excesses are for the New York Times, whose articles oppression, poverty, misery and death mere “flaws?” Let’s take a look at some about the Soviet Union under Josef Sta- are the rule, not the exception. (And will of those “flaws,” shall we? lin won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. Du- someone on the left please explain why, Homosexuals in Castro’s Cuba were ranty’s reports were filled with glowing if these systems are so great, no one is rounded up and sent to forced labor praise for the dictator’s egalitarian aspi- allowed to leave?) camps, where they were beaten, buried rations. But Duranty refused to tell the Comparisons between America’s left alive, tied up naked with barbed wire and truth about Stalin’s murderous, oppres- and the world’s communists are disstarved. Political opponents were impris- sive policies, his purges, the thousands missed as hysteria. I’m not so sure. Cononed and tortured, fed watery soup laced he sent to die in gulags or his collec- sider just some of what we’ve seen this with shards of glass. Mothers and wives tivization plans that caused widespread election cycle: it?

Laura

Hollis

— The overwhelmingly left-leaning national press was exposed as little more than a propaganda arm for the Democratic Party. — Democratic operatives bragged about vote fraud. — Trump supporters were subjected to brutal mob violence, simply for attending a rally. — After Trump won the election, there were riots; the 62 million Americans who voted for Trump were denounced using every conceivable slur. I personally observed people calling Trump voters “bad people,” “evil” and “filled with hate.” (When we get to “enemies of the people,” the propaganda conversion is complete.) — Now there are calls to eliminate the Electoral College, which was put in place to protect the rights of small population states. Electors are receiving death threats. — Witnesses to the violence both before and after the elections have made the same observation: “I don’t feel like I’m living in America anymore.” Here’s what troubles me: The same people who are singing Fidel Castro’s praises want control of our government. THE DEMOCRATIC Party is licking its wounds after the 2016 elections. But they will never win again if their membership consists of those who praise dictators, who make excuses for oppression, murder and tyranny, or who proclaim that collectivism will solve all our ills. The rest of us will fight to make sure they are never anywhere near the levers of power in this country. Viva los Estados Unides libres!

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December 14, 2016 BARACK OBAMA: December 2, 2016

It’s Obama, not the American people, who won’t listen

ou have to give President be brought along carefully into the 21st Barack Obama credit for one century, where progressivism has ushthing: Consistency. Nothing is ered in a new age of enlightenment. His ever his fault. Nothing will ever be his only failing has been in inadequately refault. Faulting Fox News and the Ameri- educating the bitter clingers. Let me give you another example. Recan people, on the other hand, now that’s member Obama’s depiction of the Islama different story. group as “a JV team?” Do you remember when Obama ic State How about his claim, traipsed around the night before the the country and terrorist massacres desperately pleadin Paris, that the ed with Americans Islamic State was to vote for Hillary (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate “contained?” Clinton because Did he ever acknowledge his errors his agenda and his legacy were on the ballot? He made a similar pitch before there? No. Again, his only failing was in the shellacking his party took in the 2014 not having communicated sufficiently his counterterrorism strategies to the Americongressional elections. can people. He said his strategy against YET DID HE acknowledge after this the Islamic State was working. (This 2014 failing that he had anything to do was before, as I recall, his admission with it? Does he own up to his leading that he had no policy.) The problem was role in last month’s presidential election? that saturated media coverage after the Let’s rewind the tape further, to Paris attacks was fueling terror fears in Obama’s reaction to his party’s stun- the United States. He said: “We haven’t, ning defeat in the 2010 congressio- on a regular basis, I think, described all nal elections, which was largely about the work that we’ve been doing for more Obamacare. He didn’t acknowledge than a year now to defeat” the Islamic any personal culpability for visiting that State. “If you’ve been watching televimonstrosity on the American people sion for the last month, all you’ve been through trickery and deceit. He simply seeing, all you’ve been hearing about is lamented that he hadn’t done a good these guys with masks or black flags who enough job getting the message out to the are potentially coming to get you. And so American people about it, despite his 50 I understand why people are concerned propaganda speeches trying to persuade about it.” Again, there’s nothing to see here. It’s us to ignore our lying eyes. Do you see the pattern here? Obama’s not a terrorism problem but a perception view is that the American people — those problem. There’s no Obamacare probin the red states, anyway — are a little lem; it’s just that the American people slow, paranoid and bigoted and need to don’t get it.

David

Limbaugh

Even liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd acknowledged, in 2012, that Obama and his wife, Michelle, are condescending and aloof. The Obamas “do believe in American exceptionalism — their own, and they feel overassaulted and underappreciated,” she wrote. The Obamas haven’t disappointed Americans; “we disappointed them.” Even earlier, in February 2010, Obama pledged to “listen” to Republicans at a health care summit. But, as columnist Joseph Curl wrote, “turns out he meant he’d be listening to his own voice. By the end of the televised event, Mr. Obama had spoken for 119 minutes — nine minutes more than the 110 minutes consumed by 17 Republicans. The 21 Democratic lawmakers used 114 minutes, giving the president and his supporters a whopping 233 minutes.” AND WHY DO the rubes keep misperceiving Obama’s greatness? Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity. In a recently published interview with Rolling Stone, Obama denied that he and his party overlooked the “cohort of working-class white voters” that sup-

posedly accounted for Donald Trump’s victory. Absolutely not his fault. “Part of it,” said Obama, “is Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country, but part of it is also Democrats not working at a grassroots level, being in there, showing up, making arguments.” The challenge Democrats have, according to Obama, is not that they’ve neglected these communities from a policy perspective. “What is true, though, is that whatever policy prescriptions that we’ve been proposing don’t reach, are not heard by, the folks in these communities. And what they do hear is ‘Obama or Hillary are trying to take away (your) guns’ or ‘they disrespect you.’” I repeat: This guy is remarkably, incorrigibly consistent. He has made no policy errors; his message just isn’t getting through, partly because the conservative media are lying about it and partly because people are just too darned dense. I hate to keep bringing up the past, but his war on the conservative media is nothing new, either. I wrote about it in 2010 in my book Crimes Against Liberty. He began snubbing Fox reporters at news conferences for insufficiently pandering. The White House blog regularly denounced Fox News and other critics. White House communications director Anita Dunn recommended a “rapid response” to counteract “Fox’s blows” against the administration, calling Fox News “part of the Republican Party.” Presidential adviser David Axelrod said Fox News Channel is “not really a news station.” Remember when Obamacare’s principal architect, Jonathan Gruber, openly admitted that the Obama administration was able to deceive the American people about Obamacare and chalked it up to “the stupidity of the American voter?” SO GO AHEAD and cry us a river about how the conservative media are mistreating you, Mr. Obama, and misleading the public. You have been trying to deceive us for eight years, and the public has been onto you for at least 6 1/2 of those years. Now voters have handed you your biggest spanking yet, and you still will not listen. You can’t listen. It’s not what you do. But the American people have been listening, and they do understand your policies. And it’s a new day in America.

Conservative Chronicle

ELECTORAL COLLEGE: December 6, 2016

CA could impose imperial rule on a colonial America

hey’re still counting the votes, going on four weeks after the election, in California. In Brazil, a nation with much more challenging geography, they manage to do it in five hours. The seemingly endless dillydallying of California’s (presumably unionrepresented) public employees has obscured two interesting things about this year’s presidential election. THE FIRST is that Electoral College loser Hillary Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote by a considerably wider percentage than her counterparts in the elections of 2000 and 1888 — Al Gore and Grover Cleveland, respectively — though she apparently won by a slimmer margin than Samuel Tilden in 1876. The second is that the most populous state was a political outlier, voting at one extreme in the national political spectrum. You can see this easily if you array the states in order of Democratic percentage. At the top, before any state, was the District of Columbia, where 91 percent of voters chose Clinton. Next, some 5,000 miles away, was Hawaii, which went 63 percent for Clinton. Then came giant California, the nation’s most populous state. As I am writing this, the latest count has California at 62 percent Democratic. Well, yeah, you might say. California has been called the Left Coast for quite a while. Just about everyone in the Silicon Valley except Peter Thiel and in Hollywood except Pat Sajak supported Clinton. White middle-class families have been pretty much priced out of the state by high taxes and housing costs, and the Hispanic and Asian immigrants who have replaced them vote far more Democratic. Those developments have put California increasingly out of line with the national average. In 2012, six states and D.C. were more Democratic. In 2008, it was eight states and D.C.; in 2004, it was seven. Now it is only one — and not by much. THE TREND is recent — and clear. California was about 14 points more Democratic than the nation this year, versus 10 points in 2012, nine points in 2008 and six points in 2004 and 2000. In the nine elections before that and after California passed New York to become the most populous state in 1963, the average of California’s Democratic and Republican percentages was never more than five points off the national figures. In four of the five elections between 1964 and 1980 (the exception was the McGovern year, 1972), it actually voted more Republican than the nation as a whole.

In this respect, it resembled New lege. In the two exceptions, 1876 and York, the most populous state in every 1888, the popular vote winner was a census from 1820 to 1960. In elections New Yorker. If California continues to occupy from 1856 to 1960, New York’s Democratic and Republican percentages sel- one extreme of the national political dom varied more than five points from spectrum, there may well be more such splits — at least until the Democratic the national average. The exceptions were 1928, when Party figures it needs to make a case New York’s Al Smith was the Demo- with more appeal beyond Califorit wants to win 270 cratic nominee; 1920, when its Irish nia if electoral votes. and German votAll of which ers disliked the prompts renewed outgoing presiarguments about dent, Woodrow the Electoral ColWilson; 1896, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate lege. The case for when urban New York rejected William Jennings Bry- abolishing it is simple: Every Amerian’s rural populism; and the two elec- can’s vote should count the same. But it won’t happen. Two-thirds of each tions just before the Civil War. The fact that New York voted much house of Congress and 38 of the 50 like the nation as a whole meant there state legislatures will never go along. The case against abolition is one were few elections when the popular vote winner lost in the Electoral Col- suggested by the Framers’ fears that

Michael

Barone

voters in one large but highly atypical state could impose their will on a contrary-minded nation. That largest state in 1787 was Virginia, home of four of the first five presidents. New York and California, by remaining closely in line with national opinion up through 1996, made the issue moot. CALIFORNIA’S 21st-century veer to the left makes it a live issue again. In a popular vote system, the voters of this geographically distant and culturally distinct state, whose contempt for heartland Christians resembles imperial London’s disdain for the “lesser breeds” it governed, could impose something like colonial rule over the rest of the nation. Sounds exactly like what the Framers strove to prevent.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE: December 7, 2016

Majority rule equals tyranny

t is alleged that Hillary Clinton won a popular vote majority. Therefore, if the nation were not burdened with the antiquated Electoral College, anguished and freaked-out Americans whine, she, instead of Donald Trump, would be the next president of the United States. You say, “Hold it. Before you go further, Williams, what do you mean it is alleged that Clinton received most of the popular vote? It’s a fact.” I say “alleged” because according to Gregg Phillips of True the Vote, an estimated three million noncitizens voted. Presumably, those votes went to Clinton.

For example, California is our most populous state, with about 39 million people. Wyoming is our least populated state, with about 600,000 people. California’s population is about 66 times larger than Wyoming’s. California has 55 electoral votes, and Wyoming has three. Thus, in terms of electoral votes, California’s influence is only 18 times that of Wyoming. Even though

IN 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote just as Hillary Clinton allegedly did. Such outcomes have led to calls to abandon the Constitution’s Article 2 provision for the state electors to select presidents. Despite the fact that the system has served us well for over 200 years, many Americans now call for its abandonment in favor of electing presidents by popular vote. Before we abandon the Electoral College, let’s consider the function it performs. According to 2013 census data, nine states — Calif., Texas, N.Y., Fla., Ill., Pa., Ohio, Ga. and Mich. — have populations that total roughly 160 million, slightly more than half the U.S. population. It is conceivable that just nine states could determine the presidency in a popular vote. The Electoral College gives states with small populations a measure of protection against domination by states with large populations. It levels the political playing field a bit.

our nine high-population states have a total of 241 electoral votes, a candidate needs 270 to win the presidency. That forces presidential candidates to campaign in thinly populated states and respect the wishes of the people there.

Walter

THE FOUNDING FATHERS held a deep abhorrence for democracy and majority rule. In fact, the word democracy appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. In Federalist No. 10, James Madison wrote, “Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” John Adams predicted, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Edmund Randolph said, “That in tracing these evils

to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” Chief Justice John Marshall observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.” Throughout our Constitution are impediments to the tyranny of majority rule. Two houses of Congress pose one obstacle to majority rule. Fifty-one senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators. The president can veto the wishes of 535 members of Congress. It takes twothirds of both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto. To change the Constitution, an amendment must be proposed, which requires not a majority but a two-thirds vote of both houses, and enacted, which requires ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures. Finally, the Electoral College is yet another measure that thwarts majority rule. DESPITE A public consensus on the issue — resulting from miseducation — there’s nothing just or fair about majority rule. In fact, one of the primary dangers of majority rule is that it confers an aura of legitimacy and respectability to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical. Think about it. How many decisions in your life would you like made through majority rule? What about what car we purchase, where we live and whether we should have ham or turkey for Thanksgiving dinner? I am sure you would deem it tyranny if these decisions were made by a majority vote.

December 14, 2016 DONALD TRUMP: December 6, 2016

Donald Trump starts draining the swamp

onald Trump promised to “drain the swamp” when he reached the White House, but Washington’s swamp creatures are putting up a heck of a fight. The people who inhabit the permanent government are doing their best to resist and obstruct the kind of change that Trump promised. A good example is the furious reaction to the news that Trump accepted a 10-minute courtesy call from the president of Taiwan. As if on cue, Washington-based pundits and so-called experts erupted with criticism of Trump for taking the call, and some even warned that it could provoke war with China.

TAIWAN IS a free and independent nation of 24 million Chinese people who live on an island off the Chinese coast. Ever since Jimmy Carter, U.S. presidents have refused to extend diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, whose official name is the Republic of China, preferring to do business with the Communist People’s Republic on the mainland. As we’ve learned to expect, Trump responded to his critics on Twitter: “Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so!” The uproar inside the beltway over Taiwan’s telephone call is a skirmish in the coming battle over global trade.

No matter which party wins the election, Washington is still the place where foreign lobbyists can gain access to the lucrative American market through onesided trade deals. The Taiwanese telephone call came right after the “Carrier coup” — the deal brokered by the President- and Vice President-elect to save nearly 1,000 manufacturing jobs from moving to Mexico. Trump astounded even his critics by redeeming a campaign promise so quickly, even before he’s inaugurated. The Republican primary contest was in full swing last February when Carrier, the famous maker of air conditioners, announced it would close a large factory in Indianapolis and relocate its production to Monterrey, Mexico. That decision would have allowed the company to eliminate 1,400 jobs where Americans earn over $20 an hour and replace them with Mexicans earning $3 an hour. A cell phone video captured a hapless Carrier manager giving the bad news to a roomful of angry workers who were soon to be laid off. The manager pleaded that “this is strictly a business decision” the company made in order to “stay competitive and protect the business for the long term.” TRUMP TOOK up the cause of the Carrier workers, who perfectly illustrated his campaign speeches about the costs of bad trade deals, especially NAFTA. Trump rode the issue to win Indiana, first with a decisive victory over Ted Cruz in the May 3 primary, be-

fore cruising to a 19-point victory over “There will be a tax on our soon to be Hillary in the general election. strong border of 35% for these companies wanting to sell their product, cars, AS USUAL, Trump celebrated on A.C. units etc., back across the border. Twitter: “The U.S. is going to substan- This tax will make leaving financially tially reduce taxes and regulations on difficult, but these companies are able to businesses, but any business that leaves move between all 50 states, with no tax our country for another country, fires its or tariff being charged.” employees, builds a new factory or plant In the final installment of his sixin the other country, and then thinks it part tweet, Trump concluded: “Please will sell its product back into the U.S. be forewarned prior to making a very without retribution or consequence, is expensive mistake! THE UNITED WRONG!” STATES IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS.” Although the Carrier deal involved In a single brilliant stroke, Trump has much more carrot than stick, Trump’s already begun to reward the votes of his tweet repeated his earlier warnings to supporters while disarming the fears of companies pondering a move offshore: his opponents. A new poll from Politico/ Morning Consult finds that 60 percent of voters have a more favorable view of Donald Trump as a result of Carrier’s decision to keep some of its manufacturing jobs in Indiana, while only nine percent view him less favorably. Before the election, the same people who assured us that Trump could not win, also predicted that his election would lead to a stock market crash and a collapse of world trade. One month after he won, business conditions have already improved so much that people are calling it the “Trump bump” in the economy. TRUMP’S DECISIVE handling of the Carrier crisis recalls the way President Reagan, in his first weeks in office, dealt with the illegal strike by air traffic controllers. George Shultz said that was Reagan’s most important foreign policy decision because it showed America’s enemies that our president meant what he said and his words were to be taken seriously. 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.

Conservative Chronicle

DEMOCRATS: December 1, 2016

Inevitable end of the prototypical liberal candidate

hat is it like in the Clinton household now that the last prototypical liberal presidential candidate has lost her run for the White House? Hillary the Inevitable? I attempted to correct that mediawide delusion months ago, as I did in 2008. Where is my Pulitzer? Close students of presidential politics, such as the eminent Michael Barone and Charles Krauthammer, know that liberals go to painful lengths to live up to their prototypical image. They have studied it assiduously and made occasional alterations as the prototype changes with the times, adding and subtracting attributes always subject to public tastes. Inevitably, the goal is the same: To create a candidate who is fundamentally irresistible.

AT FIRST, the prototypical liberal candidate was an intellectual who cared enormously for the poor. Recall, if you will, the late Woodrow Wilson — professor Woodrow Wilson — and the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Being an intellectual presented no problem for Wilson, but it did for the philistine Roosevelt. He overcame his lack of intellectual heft with a nocturnal resort to martinis and several fine speechwriters, plus an in-house poet or playwright. Other ingredients of the prototypical liberal presidential candidate were boldness and being eternally youthful regardless of age. Think of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. Being highly cultured also seemed to matter, which presented no problem for Kennedy thanks to his wife, who spoke French and even ate French. But cultural interests tripped up Clinton, so he and his wife confused the issue by conflating cultural interests with nerdiness. Then there was athleticism, which was a late arrival to the prototypical liberal presidency. Athleticism almost killed Jimmy Carter. Remember his ill-fated 10K run, and the time he foolishly jogged around the top deck of a riverboat? Flap, flap went his shoes. It was 6:00 a.m., and the rest of the boat was asleep! Then there were Bill Clinton and his sidekick Al Gore, who were rendered absurd when they snarled traffic in the nation’s capital by running through rush-hour traffic in what appeared to be their underpants. Even the war hero, Jean-Francois Kerry, looked stupid windsurfing and skateboarding, and there was that dreadful mishap on his bicycle. Clinton, of course, was the ultimate prototypical liberal presidential candidate. He cared for the down and out, was an intellectual, bold and athletic, and played a musical instrument. If I recall, it was a saxophone or a banjo.

Even now, Hillary Clinton is resurrecting her profound concern for the nation’s urchins. She has spoken to the Children’s Defense Fund and is again BUT NOW HIS oafish wife has contemplating a late-in-life pregnancy, did back in her White brought liberalism — actually, crude as she House days. Bill left-wingery — to a pretty low ebb. Clinton comes into The Clinton matheir Chappaqua chine is chalhome after a welllenging the vote received morning in Wisconsin. I (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate latte with his arms doubt it will do full of books, and more than demonstrate what a botch Hillary Clinton he warms up the family chessboard. has proven to be for the present-day Hillary Clinton reads stuff like Albert inheritors of liberalism, though my Camus (she adores his sense of humor), agents who have utterly infiltrated the E.E. Cummings and the complete NorClinton camp tell me that the Clintons man Mailer. She is also reading books on how to avoid prosecution for Clinare going to give it one more try. He had it all. He was charismatic and then some. The girls loved him, even after his impeachment.

R. Emmett

Tyrrell

ton Foundation fraud and mishandling intelligence documents, though these last tomes she does not read in public. Mozart sounds throughout the house, and in the evening the Clintons invite Huma Abedin over to hear recordings by John Cage after they have said their vespertine prayers to NPR’s All Things Considered. THEY ARE trying out all the elements of the prototypical liberal presidential candidacy — the intellectual stuff, the athleticism (yoga for her, Pilates for him). And occasionally, she limbers up her right arm by heaving a lamp or a vase. I do believe it is all quite hopeless. The only thing inevitable about her is retirement.

HILLARY CLINTON: December 1, 2016

Clinton vs. Trump II, 2020

very sane person expects Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s attempt to overturn the election with her vote recount effort to crash and burn. Given this, why would the Hillary Clinton campaign file a motion in support of a Stein-initiated request for a hand vote recount in Wisconsin? Under the reasonable assumption that what’s good for the Clintons is good for the Clintons, one is left with but one conclusion. Hillary Clinton’s political death is premature. After the election, Donald Trump analysts, having seen the Clintons pull a raft of rabbits out of a hat, should know better. There is no such thing as the “end of the era of the Clintons.” WITH THE Democrats’ Trump Derangement Syndrome already in full bloom, and the clowns at MSNBC practically drafting articles of impeachment of President-elect Trump, Hillary Clinton expects the Trump presidency to be a disaster, or at least to be quasicredibly attacked as such — which is the same thing. Health permitting, she’s gearing up for another shot in 2020. In fact, it’s inaccurate to say “gearing up.” She never stopped. As usual, Clinton can count on a big assist by the major media that, for example, slams Trump for claiming that non-citizens voted while giving Stein/ Clinton the soft treatment as they make similar assertions. When Trump balked at agreeing to accept the election results, Democrats and their media colluders dismissed concerns about voting integrity as “baseless” and “unsubstantiated.” Buoyed by her popular-vote margin of some two million over Republican

winner Donald Trump and his slender, combined 100,000-vote margin in Pa., Mich. and Wis., Clinton no doubt feels that Clinton vs. Trump Round 1 was hers to lose. Next time, better advisers. And no more taking the Midwest for granted. Stein’s recount effort will not produce enough votes to change the outcome, but it will feed the narrative that Trump is an interloper, elected by “outside interference” or some other dark possibility. Credibility is irrelevant as long as it feels true to enough non-Trump voters. Only in America can Stein lavish praise on dictator Fidel Castro, who ran unopposed, while protesting the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.

Larry

SURE, CLINTON blasted Trump for asserting, during the last pre-election debate, that he would not commit to accepting the election results: “That’s horrifying. You know, every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it is is rigged against him. ... This is? — this is a mindset. This is how Donald thinks. And it’s funny, but it’s also really troubling. So that is not the way our democracy works. We’ve been around for 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections. We’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them. And that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election. ... Let’s be clear about what he is saying and what that means.

He is denigrating — he is talking down our democracy. And I am appalled that someone who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that position.” But that was so October. The shameless about-face on challenging the result was on full display when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer questioned Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who supports Stein’s recount. “Jill Stein is taking advantage of an existing provision in the law that allows you to ask for a recount and pay for it within a certain period of time,” said Coons. “Donald Trump is undermining the whole concept that this was a free and fair election by suggesting that literally millions of illegal votes were cast for which there is absolutely no evidence.” “But,” said Blitzer, “you would have been adamantly opposed to it if Donald Trump had lost the election and Hillary Clinton won and he was doing what she is doing right now.” “We were concerned,” explained Coons, “what Donald Trump might do is refuse to accept the results, and challenge them — not the way Jill Stein is doing within the boundaries of the law and within a time and process set out — but by simply refusing to accept the results and inciting his supporters around the country.” In other words, had Trump questioned the results, he would have gathered up a mob and passed out pitchforks, knives and guns. Stein uses lawyers. AS FOR Clinton’s role in all of this, with apologies to Sarah Palin, she can see November 2020 from her Chappaqua front porch.

December 14, 2016 DONALD TRUMP: November 30, 2016

How Trump could ruin his presidency

After he gave that Mexican rapoon after Trump’s announcement speech, I said he would ists speech, and never backed down, win the nomination and likely Trump’s base would have brushed off the election. It wasn’t that hard to pre- six more Access Hollywood tapes. All dict. For anyone familiar with the Re- because they think Trump will take the publican Party’s repeated betrayals of shot. He’d better! As the popular vote the American people, it was a two-foot proves, we don’t have 30 seconds on the putt. I issue this warning with the same clock. It’s only three. But if he breaks a major campaign certitude — in fact, for the exact same reason I knew anyone running on promise, his supporters will turn on him a blind ferocity, dwarfing Trump’s platform would have unbreak- with their rage toward Jeb! beable support from millions of voters. cause Trump’s is the What comore exquisite con. alesced Trump’s He will have duped base, what made them. And he will his support tem(c) 2016, Ann Coulter never, ever, ever pered steel, was get them back. the fact that voters Most of his promises can be kept had been lied to, over and over again — on many things, but most smugly and with little trouble: He will appoint good judges, cut regulations, replace Obamrepeatedly on immigration. acare and renegotiate trade deals. In HOW MANY times did we have to other words, he’ll do all the things any see the GOP choke? There’s 30 seconds Republican president would do — plus left in the game, Republicans are down the trade deals. But the moment Trump attempts to by two, they move the ball up the court, have a man in position — and, every make good on his central promise — to time, the GOP would do anything to remove troublesome immigrants and give us our country back — every major avoid taking the 3-point shot. That is the beating heart of the anger institution in America will declare war that voters felt toward the party. No one on him. trusted Republicans to ever score when TRUMP KNOWS that. In his Phoethey had the ball. It’s why Trump’s supporters stuck nix immigration speech, he said: “To all with him through thick and thin — his the politicians, donors and special interattack on war hero John McCain (he ests, hear these words from me and all deserved it), his mocking a disabled re- of you today. There is only one core isporter (a lie), his lazy first debate per- sue in the immigration debate, and that formance (totally true) and the Access issue is the well-being of the American people.” Hollywood tape (oh well).

Ann

Coulter

If powerful interests were not furiously opposed to Trump’s idea that immigration should benefit Americans, rather than foreigners, our immigration policies would already do so. It will surprise consumers of American media to learn this, but every promise Trump made on immigration is already the law. Why? Because politicians know that’s what the public wants. So they pass the laws — and then refuse to enforce them. But if Trump doesn’t appoint the sort of people capable of fulfilling his campaign promises on immigration, he will fail. He’ll be just another lying politician, and his supporters will watch in horror as rapists, terrorists and drug dealers continue living in our country. There will be no one person to blame.

No one is ever to blame in Washington. They just won’t get it done. Then, well into the Trump presidency, some Muslim will commit a machete attack, shoot up a community center, stage a mass slaughter at a gay nightclub or bomb a marathon. There’s no question but that the terrorist attacks won’t stop — unless Trump nominates people who know what needs to be done and aren’t intimidated by testy New York Times editorials. There will be more Americans like Kate Steinle, Grant Ronnebeck and Joshua Wilkerson killed by illegal aliens. There will be more children addicted to heroin brought in by Mexican drug cartels. There will be more parents joining the Remembrance Project. But this time, they’ll blame Trump. And then it will be Trump’s opponents saying, “What is wrong with our politicians, our leaders — if we can call them that. What the he-- are we doing?” If Trump betrays voters on immigration, he can have as many rallies as he wants, but Americans will say, Been there, done that — you screwed us. He will never escape the stink of broken campaign promises. So unless Trump has another 60 million voters hiding someplace, the appointments he makes today — to State, Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, even the IRS — will determine whether he is remembered as America’s greatest president, or if the Trump name becomes a cautionary tale in American politics. At this precise moment — not after his inauguration, not in year two of his administration, but today, as he fills his Cabinet — Trump has to decide if he’s going to be like every other Republican and throw a brick or grab the ball and score. WHETHER HE’S listening or not, his supporters are screaming: TRUMP! NOW! TAKE THE SHOT!!!

Conservative Chronicle

DONALD TRUMP: December 1, 2016

Trump’s cabinet picks have deep establishment ties

resident-elect Donald Trump sharply reduced, spurring increased and his Cabinet nominees capital investment for business exwon’t be in office until next pansion and new start-up enterprises, month, but the stock market is already which have been notoriously weak unshowing bullish signs of better days der the Obama administration. Democratic leaders, whose leftist ahead under his pro-growth, tax reform agenda was spurned by the voters, lost agenda. On Wall Street, they’re calling it no time in attempting to resurrect their claims that Trump’s “the Trump rally,” which has sent the f a l s e tax cuts will favor Dow soaring into only the rich. record territory His treasury secsolely on the exretary nominee, pectations that his Steven Mnuchin, presidency is go(c) 2016, United Media Services flatly rejected that ing to break the tax-and-spend shackles the Democrats claim this week. “There will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class,” he have slapped on the U.S. economy. said in a joint appearance on CNBC IT’S NOT THE kind of adminis- with secretary of commerce nominee tration his most fervent fans may have Wilbur Ross. There will be a big tax cut expected, filled as it is by Wall Street for the middle class.” Both men repeatedly said during the billionaires and nominees straight out interview that the U.S. economy will be of the GOP’s establishment. His top picks to date have shown us Trump’s highest priority after taking ofwhat his highest priority is: Dsmantling fice, as it will in the Republican House President Obama’s failed economic and Senate, where the GOP’s ambitious policies and replacing them with lower tax reform bill will be ready to hit the tax rates and the kind of economic de- ground running on day one. But if Trump’s die-hard, grassroots regulation that will get America movsupporters believed that he would break ing again. It’s already being hailed as the larg- the big-business establishment mold in est tax cut since Ronald Reagan, who staffing his team, they were in for a ushered in an economic expansion that rude awakening. Indeed, Trump “is putting together gave us four, five, six, seven and eight percent quarterly GDP growth rates and what will be the wealthiest administraended a severe recession in just two tion in modern American history,” the Washington Post reported Thursday — years. Corporate tax rates — the highest including at least two billionaires and in the industrialized world — will be several multimillionaires.

Donald

Lambro

Mnuchin has been a Wall Street veteran for decades, working at high-level executive posts at Goldman Sachs for 20 years until he left to build a successful hedge fund, Dune Capital, and a very successful career in the banking industry. ROSS IS reported to have amassed a $2.5 billion fortune as an industrialist. His likely deputy at Commerce is Todd Rickets, son of a multibillionaire and the co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. To date, the rest of Trump’s nominating list reads like a Who’s Who of the rich and famous. Heading up the Education Department will be Betsy DeVos, a Michigan billionaire and the daughter of Richard DeVos, co-founder of Amway. Meantime, you can’t get much cozier with the GOP’s establishment than Trump’s nomination for transportation secretary: Elaine Chao, daughter of a shipping magnate and the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But what matters in all this is not how wealthy they are or their long connections to the GOP’s establishment, but

their experience and their ability to move Trump’s agenda on Capitol Hill. In their CNBC interview Wednesday on the business network’s morning program, Mnuchin and Ross went to great lengths to emphasize that they would work together with GOP House and Senate leaders on a tax reform bill that Trump hopes will be the first bill he signs into law. Both men said the administration’s goal will be to boost annual economic growth by three to four percent, a level that Obama never achieved over his eight years in office. But there are major differences between Trump’s tax reform plan and the bill Republican leaders have crafted, which would cut taxes across the board, but not as much as Trump’s intention to make deeper cuts for lower- and middleincome Americans. There are also issues being negotiated over reducing or eliminating certain tax breaks and loopholes for business, to make the tax changes as revenue-neutral as possible. House Speaker Paul Ryan signaled this week that he was confident that a compromise bill can be achieved early next year. “I am excited to get to work with this strong team to fix our broken tax code, ease the regulatory burden on American businesses and grow our economy,” he said. Praise for Trump’s economic team also came from yet another high-powered establishment figure, John Engler, president of the influential Business Roundtable. “They understand that modernizing our outdated, anti-competitive tax system will be the most effective way to produce the economic growth that puts more people to work in good jobs,” Engler said. Throughout his bombastic campaign, Trump played fast and loose with his histrionic, incendiary rhetoric that made a lot of promises he could not and cannot keep. But the campaign’s over, and now it’s time to negotiate with the governing institution he rarely mentioned in his offthe-cuff speeches: Congress. IT SAYS A lot about the real Donald Trump that he is now turning to heavyweight establishment figures to close the deal.

December 14, 2016 2016 ELECTION: December 2, 2016

Trump and outstate Midwest redraw the partisan lines

ould any Republican be- Romney among non-college-educated sides Donald Trump have whites weren’t very clear, particularbeaten Hillary Clinton ly when his controversial comments and been elected the 45th president? caused his overall numbers to sag. Going well into the fall, few polls It’s an interesting question, not susceptible to a definitive answer but with showed the surge of votes that decidconsequences for politics going for- ed the election in what I have called the outstate Midwest — the counties ward. metropolitan areas with Last fall, I shared the widespread o u t s i d e lion-plus people in view that Clinton was the only Demo- a milWis., Mich., Ohio crat who could and (sort-of-Midlose to Trump and western) Pa., states Trump was the with 64 electoral only Republican votes that went to who could lose (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate Barack Obama in to Clinton. Given the fact that elections are a zero-sum 2012 and Trump in 2016. Those outstate areas trended the game because one candidate must win, this view was more an expression of same way as Iowa, none of whose 99 counties is in a metro area with a distaste rather than a prophecy. million-plus people and whose six BUT IT WAS based also on poll- electoral votes went for Obama and ing conducted during the spring, be- for Trump. There, polls showed Trump fore Trump eliminated his remaining opening up a significant lead over Republican opponents in the Indiana Clinton in mid-September. In Iowa primary May 3. National polls and and the outstates, Trump won percentsome state polls showed Marco Rubio ages higher than George W. Bush did running stronger against Clinton than in 2004, while Clinton ran far behind Trump, with John Kasich running even Obama’s 2012 showing — 12 points behind in outstate Ohio, 11 points bestronger and Ted Cruz a bit better. This seemed to make sense then. hind in Iowa and outstate Michigan, Trump had much higher negatives, nine points behind in outstate Wisconespecially among white college gradu- sin and eight points behind in outstate ates, who had voted 56-42 percent for Pennsylvania. These are all places with many Mitt Romney in 2012. Without similar non-college-educated whites and few support, how could he hope to win? We have an answer to that question blacks, Hispanics and Asians. Trump’s now. Springtime polls seemed to as- stands on trade and immigration — sume the electorate would look much distinctly different from those of other like the one in 2012. The signs that Republicans — were surely partly reTrump would run much better than sponsible for his outstate margins, and

Michael

Barone

it seems unlikely another Republican nominee could have matched them. Two other factors were in play, factors that led to sharp Democratic gains in these same areas in the 1970s. One was honesty. The outstate Midwest recoiled against Richard Nixon’s Republicans in the Watergate years, and this year, these voters had a similar reaction to Clinton’s email lawbreaking and lies. That helped Trump, though it probably would have helped any other Republican nominee. THE OTHER factor was dovishness. The Upper Midwest has long been the most isolationist part of the country. In the 1970s, voters there re-

FILIBUSTER: November 30, 2016

The filibuster and the Supreme Court

hanging the Supreme Court is at the core of the Republican Party agenda this year. With one seat vacant and several other justices nearing retirement age, the men and women the president appoints will shape the four years to come.

BUT UNLESS President-elect Trump gets serious with stalwart Senate Republicans who are resisting altering the filibuster rule, he will have to settle for lukewarm changes as a result of deals with the Democrats. While conservatives are demanding an end to the need for a super-majority to confirm Supreme Court justices and to pass ordinary legislation, the longtime Brahmins of the Senate are resisting any alteration in this long tradition. Senators like John Thune, R-S.D., Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. and Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., are calling for no

change in the filibuster rule. They say that they are concerned about what would happen if the filibuster were eliminated and the Republicans lost control of the Senate. But their concerns are without merit. The GOP is certain to control the White House for four years at least — and possibly eight.

Dick

And the House will likely remain Republican for some time. The district lines offer great protection against a Democratic takeover, and, with GOP control of the majority of the state governments, the likelihood is that the new district lines after the 2020 census will be just as favorable.

Their concern also misses the key point: America is desperate for major change and all its hopes are pinned on the new administration. If Trump cannot deliver, the Republicans — and America itself — may not have a second chance. Unless we can completely repeal Obamacare and rescind all the President Obama over-reaches in executive power, we will be dogged by his legacy for decades. And, unless we can pass real tax cuts we will have a sluggish economy for many more years. All hinges on killing the filibuster. If we have to bargain for a compromise judge — a Roberts or a Kennedy — we will never restore the Constitution to its primacy and will go further down the path of judicial legislation. ALL CONSERVATIVES must unite and make noise to force our Senators to back elimination of the filibuster. Now.

acted against Republicans’ support of the Vietnam War. This year, they seem to have moved toward Trump, who opposed military interventions supported by other Republicans. It seems unlikely another Republican nominee could have duplicated this appeal. So I find myself leaning reluctantly toward the conclusion that no other Republican could have won, at least the way Trump did. Yes, others would have run better with white college graduates, whom Trump carried by only a 49-45 percent margin, and would have run much better among groups with high levels of social connectedness, such as Mormons in Utah and Dutch-Americans in metro Grand Rapids, Michigan. But Trump saw, or stumbled into taking advantage of, an opening spotted by only a few political analysts — blogger Steve Sailer way back in 2001, RealClearPolitics’ Sean Trende in a 2013 article series and FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten in analyzing Republican Joni Ernst’s big Senate win in Iowa in 2014. I made similar observations but didn’t nail it the way they did. That opening was the fact that Democrats were taking for granted their above-national-average support from non-college-educated outstate voters in their determination to build a new, “ascendant” majority of blacks, Hispanics, single women and millennials. They figured that outstate Obama voters were locked into the Democratic Party and didn’t need any special attention. Turns out they weren’t and they did. SO THE FAMILIAR partisan lines of the past 20 years have been redrawn, and now we have a more downscale Republican Party and a Democratic Party confined to its coastal and campus cocoons. We’ll see how that works out.

Conservative Chronicle

BIG GOVERNMENT: December 1, 2016

No, the large swamp won’t be drained

t wasn’t quite “build the wall” or “lock her up,” but “drain the swamp” was a signature Donald Trump slogan. It evoked visions of pinstripe-suitwearing influence peddlers getting pulled from their Georgetown cocktail parties en masse and tossed into the Potomac River, as Washington returned to the once-sleepy burg it was 100 years ago, a humbled and more righteous town. This was always a fantasy. The oldest story in Washington is a new president elected on a pledge to clean up Washington, who then turns to practiced Washington hands and well-connected financiers to help shepherd his administration. It was true of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and now will be true of the even more populist and anti-Washington Donald Trump.

the swamp is always going to be ex- more government does, the more intensive and miasmic. As long as there centive every special interest has to is so much power and money in D.C., hire swamp creatures, for both proand advantage. And the lobbyists, the consultants, the asso- t e c t i o n the more complex ciations, the media government is, the pooh-bahs, the more opportunity contractors and those creatures the courtiers will have to thrive in gather and jockey (c) 2016, King Features Syndicate niches unknown for influence here. or poorly underThere is no neutron bomb that can be set off to vapor- stood by everyone except insiders. Second, and more specifically, ize them. the federal government should be A PROPER anti-swamp agenda wrenched out of its cozy relationship should consist of two things. First, with large, established businesses and most fundamentally, it should and institutions in areas ranging from seek to reduce the size of the federal health care to finance to education. This agenda would have the adgovernment, and cut regulations and make them as simple as possible. The vantage of uniting the conservatives

THE SWAMP will endure; it always does. This doesn’t mean that a Trump administration can’t make the swamp a little less important. The meaning of “drain the swamp” is pleasingly inexact (Ronald Reagan used the phrase, and so has Nancy Pelosi). The left has, absurdly, chosen to read Trump’s use of the slogan as an implicit pledge not to hire anyone who is wealthy. So the nominations of Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary, Wilbur Ross as commerce secretary and Betsy DeVos as education secretary are criticized as proof Trump never meant it. But Trump obviously didn’t intend to impose a wealth test on his administration, or he would have failed it himself. He is proof that a fortune isn’t necessarily an obstacle to being a champion of an agenda of populist reform. (Although the charge against Mnuchin, who worked for Goldman Sachs for 17 years, has more force. The job of treasury secretary almost seems to be the endowed Goldman Sachs chair of the U.S. government. And you could be forgiven for thinking candidate Trump had a dim view of anyone associated with Goldman, given how he excoriated Ted Cruz — “puppet!” — for his connections to the institution.) Trump’s formal anti-swamp platform consists of a few more strictures on lobbyists. These proposed rules may be salutary, but they are typical of restrictions periodically imposed in Washington and that lobbyists are expert at getting around and surviving. (What are lobbyists for, if not finding loopholes?) The fact is that in a country with an enormous federal government and a First Amendment that guarantees the right to petition the government,

President-Elect Trump’s picks

Rich

Lowry

(whose animating passion is reducing the size of government) and the populists (whose animating passion is combating a “rigged” system). A number of Trump’s Cabinet picks point in this direction. But it’s not clear where Trump will ultimately go. If he replaces Obama’s liberal industrial policy focused on green energy with his own populist industrial policy focused on traditional manufacturing, as suggested by the Carrier deal, he will just spend and subsidize in different ways. IN OTHER words, he won’t truly drain the swamp, but simply feed different alligators.

DONALD TRUMP: December 2, 2016

ike many conservative neverTrumpers, I have decided to take a wait-and-see attitude on the president-elect — and so far, I’d give him mixed reviews. Donald Trump has made some good Cabinet appointments. Betsy DeVos is an education reformer who will do well at the Department of Education. Rep. Tom Price as secretary of health and human services starts the job with a sound background in medicine and public policy, and he may actually have some ideas on how to provide health care to those who have trouble affording it while not destroying the world’s best medical care system in the process. Similarly, Elaine Chao has credentials as an experienced agency head, having served George W. Bush for eight years as labor secretary, and as deputy secretary in the Department of Transportation, where she will now have the top job. MIKE POMPEO and Jeff Sessions are both clearly prepared for their jobs — as CIA director and attorney general, respectively — though the latter’s hard-line stance against both legal and illegal immigration is worrisome. Trump’s pick for Defense, James Mattis, a retired general who led U.S. efforts in the Middle East as Central Command chief from 2010 to 2013, has drawn praise even from Democrats. But Trump’s choices for Commerce and Treasury are a bit puzzling. Wilbur Ross, his nominee for secretary of commerce, is part of Trump’s elite New York billionaires crowd, but he’s also a Democrat and protectionist, and at 79, he hardly seems likely to be able to

change his tune much. Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, is also an odd one. Trump railed against Wall Street and hedge funds in particular, yet Mnuchin is a veteran of both, having founded his own hedge fund after leaving Goldman Sachs, where he worked for 17 years. What both men have in common is that they are Trump supporters and have lived and worked in the circles Trump is most comfortable in for years. TOO BAD the president-elect hasn’t occupied himself solely with picking people for his Cabinet and other top posts during

Linda

the past three weeks. Conservatives might have had their quibbles, and liberals would have had the usual heartburn, but he would have played out the role of his many predecessors properly. Instead, he’s taken to Twitter to suggest that flag burners should have their citizenship revoked or be jailed and accused millions of undocumented immigrants of voting in the election. Of course, he did this a lot during the campaign and still won, which seems to be his rationale for continuing to do it. He’s also fulfilled one of his campaign promises, to keep several hundred jobs in Indiana at a Carrier plant that was scheduled to move some of its operations to Mexico. He’ll be given plaudits by his supporters for this. But the question remains, Is this what a president should be doing?

Meanwhile, he apparently is skipping many of his daily national security briefings and keeps picking up the phone to talk to foreign leaders without any preparation or background to keep him from sticking his foot in his mouth. A call from Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to Trump has raised eyebrows. Our relationship with Pakistan is fraught, given the role some believe that Pakistani intelligence has played in fostering terrorism, so Trump’s effusive praise for Sharif and the country may prove premature. “Your country is amazing, with tremendous opportunities,” Trump said, according to the Pakistani government. “Pakistanis are one of the most intelligent people. I am ready and willing to play any role that you want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems.” MAYBE DONALD Trump will grow in the role, learning when not to say anything and, more importantly, learning how to listen to people who actually know what they are talking about. Maybe he’ll finally give up his Twitter account, start reading briefing papers and learn something about complex issues he’s not been interested in before. Or maybe he will just keep picking good people and let them do the job of running the government. We just don’t know yet. We’ve never had anyone like him in the Oval Office before. The American people placed a big bet. The wheel is still turning, and no one knows where the ball will eventually land.

December 14, 2016 FIRST LADY: December 2, 2016

How about discarding the idea of a first lady

he role of first lady is out of man frequently took refuge from Washdate, an anachronism and ington, D.C. Presidential homeplaces benign nepotism at best. At of all sizes have to take their lumps worst it’s an unelected appendage to the when the trappings of fame and powpresident. In Donald Trump time, when er intrude. Neighbors in the affluent all assumptions are subject to revision, Kalorama neighborhood of Washingthe time is right to think again about the ton, D.C., where the Obamas will live post-White House, aren’t so pleased ultimate “wife of.” coming invasion of Melania Trump has done us a favor about the gawkers either. by postponing her Besides, it will arrival in Washonly be a short trip ington, D.C. She from New York doesn’t want to to Washington, disrupt the school (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate D.C., when Meyear in New York City for their 10-year-old son, Barron. lania Trump is needed for a significant She wants to be a mother first. Fair social gathering, or to have a quiet dinenough. No one elected her to anything, ner in the White House with her husanyway, and she’s got her priorities band. First lady staffs, which typically straight. Donald Trump represents the run from a few to a few dozen, are necparty of family values, so she should fit essary to smooth the path of a celebrity “wife of” in the modern media culture. right in. But unless she decides to become acTHE MOST ferocious critics of her tive in politics, a small staff should be decision rebuke and reprove from Man- all she needs. Rethinking the role of the first lady hattan, where never is heard an encouraging word for anything Trump. The may upset some traditionalists, but beautiful people hate the traffic jams the role was never rooted in tradition. they expect at Trump Tower, but their Rather, it was improvised as an extraconcerns don’t count for much. New constitutional position dependent on York Mayor Bill de Blasio is looking who was married to the first gentleman. for ways to be reimbursed for the costs Perceptions of women were different of the Donald’s visits, which have made then. The real power of the president’s wife has always come from pillow talk, business as usual impossible. New York is not Plains, Georgia, and we’re not privy to that. In the beginning, no one knew what population 776, whence came Jimmy Carter; nor is it Little Rock, Arkansas, to call the wife of the president. Marfrom which Bill Clinton sprang; nor In- tha Washington was sometimes called dependence, Missouri, where Bess Tru- Lady Washington, pomp and pompos-

Suzanne

Fields

ity having lingered in the imaginations of young Democrats in the fledgling republic. She refused to talk politics, choosing to charm rather than engage her husband’s official company. ABIGAIL ADAMS, who followed Washington, was ridiculed by her husband’s enemies for loyally supporting his views. When he was away, she kept him apprised of the political machinations against him. Dolley Madison intruded herself diplomatically into the social life of politics, entertaining friends and keeping her husband’s enemies close to train an eagle eye on both.

Not all first ladies limited themselves to being helpmates. When a stroke felled Woodrow Wilson, his wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, became his understudy, without a rehearsal. Critics were outraged when she determined who met with the president and accused her of running a “petticoat government.” Eleanor Roosevelt was censured for her personal observations as her husband’s “eyes and ears,” and she traveled into slums, fields and even coal mines to champion his New Deal projects. She held press conferences with women of the press. First ladies flourished with that title through several presidencies, often inviting ridicule, sycophancy and power. Jackie Kennedy forbade her staff to call her first lady because she thought it made her sound like a saddle horse, and she fled her duties in Washington as often as she could. Since her husband pursued clandestine assignations -- not necessarily to discuss the farm bill or a crisis in Kenya -- it was her escape from more than politics. Bill and Hillary Clinton campaigned for the presidency with the slogan “Buy one, get one free.” When he put her in charge of health care and she held secret meetings that produced only controversy, the public soon recognized a bad bargain. Hillary Clinton thought this year she would have to find a project for the first dude, and the idea of making work for a “husband of” became a joke. MELANIA TRUMP suggests that as first lady she will focus on cyberbullying. It’s good enough, if a bit contrived. (Trump haters suggest she start with her husband’s tweeting.) A confident woman who’s fluent in five languages and enjoyed a successful career in modeling, she prefers her privacy to the limelight and wants to be full-time mother. We should just let Melania be Melania. But you know we won’t.

Conservative Chronicle

FAMILY BUSINESSES: December 7, 2016

Patriotism applies to business, too It is your hometown. You have lived there for decades and raised your children there. A few blocks from your house, in an open-air shopping center, two restaurants sit next door to each other. One is an outlet for a massive chain that is a subsidiary of a public-stock multinational corporation. It has unisex bathrooms and willfully hires immigrants here illegally to clean them — and serve food. The top managers of the corporation that owns the chain have never visited your hometown — and never will.

THE OTHER restaurant is owned by a family that lives in town. They worked and saved for years to collect the capital to start their own business. At least one member of the family can be found working in that restaurant every day of the week — from the moment it opens to the moment it closes. They have never employed an illegal immigrant. But they do employ legal immigrants — as well as local high school and college students. They have separate bathrooms for the separate sexes — and those bathrooms are always clean. These old-time American capitalist entrepreneurs are part of your community. Some of their kids (they have several) went to school with your kids. They played football, basketball and baseball together. They love America. All other things being equal, which restaurant would you prefer to patronize? Would you sometimes go to the local family-owned business precisely because you wanted to support that family and what they were doing? Would you admire and respect what they did? Feel solidarity with them? Want more people like them in your neighborhood, your town, your country? Now, in this same town, years before you arrived, there were two factories making the same product. Each was owned by a different local family. When the leader of one of these factory-owning families died, the federal government imposed an estate tax on the family that equaled half the assessed value of the business it had taken them three generations to build. The family had no choice but to sell their business to pay the government its death tax. The only potential buyers were massive public-stock corporations. One bought the factory and after several years shut it down and moved its production to a country governed (quite literally) by the Communist Party. It partnered there with the Communist government (in a “state-owned enterprise”) to manufacture its products

using much cheaper labor than avail- God, His moral law, their neighbors, their town, their country and their able in the United States. It brought these products back into countrymen. Their profit margin might have been the United States to sell in competition with businesses that had kept their pro- smaller than it would have been if they had moved their production overseas. duction here at home. These included the family-owned But their hearts were bigger. They understood the need to make manufacturer that still maintained a production facility in your hometown a profit and they worked every day to that a reality. But it was — and in other towns around the Unit- m a k e not the only reason ed States. This family-owned busi— or even the highness had managed est reason — they to stay alive and were in business. grow. But among They brought the things pre(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate the same values venting it from into their business growing even further were the burdens imposed by fed- activities that they brought into every other aspect of their lives. eral taxation and regulation. Whom would you rather buy prodBUT THE FAMILY who owned ucts from? The multinational or the and managed this domestic manu- family? The examples given here are fictifacturer — unlike their multinational competitors — felt a loyalty to their tious but they point to a real dichotomy

Terry

Jeffrey

in the American economy. Massive public corporations are not run like family businesses and with a family’s values. And some government policies in America today discriminate against family businesses — especially those operated by Americans with traditional values. Public corporations — no matter how massive — do not pay death taxes. The family that owns a successful restaurant or a manufacturing firm will. Public corporations generally do not have scruples about such things as abortion, same-sex marriage or biological males being permitted to use female restrooms and locker rooms. Many American families do. THE FEDERAL government has been on the wrong side of these things in recent years. Perhaps it will take the right side now.

DAKOTA ACCESS: December 5, 2016

To kill a pipeline — again

ne of the Obama administration’s core competencies is suspending pipeline projects with no cause. It will leave office with another notch in its belt, now that the Army Corps of Engineers has acted to block a final piece of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The 1,200-mile pipeline is designed to move oil from North Dakota to Illinois and will have to await completion in a Trump administration with a more rational attitude toward pipelines specifically and fossil fuels generally.

THE STORY of the Dakota Access Pipeline will be familiar to anyone who followed the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline. As with Keystone, the builders of the pipeline have taken years to dutifully check every environmental and bureaucratic box, only to get stymied when protesters — this time a Native American tribe — made the project a hate totem for the left. With Keystone, the narrative was that the pipeline would doom the planet by bringing to market oil from the tar sands of Canada. With Dakota Access, the narrative is that Native Americans are once again getting railroaded by greedy interests who don’t care about their history or their welfare. After the decision by the Army Corps, one demonstrator told the press that the victory was “due to our people for the hundreds of years of genocide and oppression,” which is putting a lot of weight on what should be a routine bureau-

cratic decision to approve an otherwise unremarkable pipeline. The protests have been led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota. The tribe alleges that the Dakota Access project will trample on culturally sensitive sites and taint its drinking water, without much in the way of supporting evidence.

Rich

THE DISPUTE centers around the pipeline’s planned crossing of the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. This isn’t exactly virgin territory. Around the lake, the pipeline will run within 22 to 300 feet of the existing Northern Border Gas Pipeline, which has been in service since 1982 and hasn’t devastated the Standing Rock tribe. The pipeline also tracks with an overhead utility line. A decision by a federal judge in September to reject a bid by the Standing Rock tribe to block the pipeline cataloged how deliberate the developers of Dakota Access have been about culturally sensitive sites. According to the opinion, the company found 149 potentially sensitive sites in its own surveying in North Dakota. It modified the route to avoid 140 of them and came up with a plan with the state of North Dakota to limit any effect on the other nine. It will run the pipeline with horizontal drilling in

sensitive areas, allowing its installation without a trench and with minimal disruption. Throughout most of this process, representatives of the Standing Rock tribe notably did all they could to make themselves unavailable and unresponsive. When the Army Corps invited them to a general meeting to discuss the pipeline in November 2015, five tribes attended, but not Standing Rock. In the spring of 2016, the Corps coordinated with the pipeline’s developers to allow tribes to conduct their own cultural surveys at locations around the route. Three tribes participated; Standing Rock did not. The tribal surveys identified additional sites of concern, where Dakota Access duly agreed to take additional protective measures. There is no real defense, though, against protesters staging cable-TVready disturbances against a project and making it a cause celebre. For the overwhelming majority of its route, the Dakota Access pipeline requires no permitting, since it traverses private land. It’s the tiny percent that would affect waterways that made it subject to federal approval, and thus to political hostage-taking. FOR THE LEFT, Dakota Access is a symbol. In reality, it is simply a means of moving half a million barrels of crude oil a day from Point A to Point B, an activity that shouldn’t be considered dastardly or untoward. Fortunately for Dakota Access, and everyone else in the energy industry, help is on the way.

December 14, 2016 DEMOCRACY: December 7, 2016

Chipping away: When democracy fails

Democracy relies on three factors, as ne of the great lies of the 21st century is that republicanism expressed by Harvard University’s Yasand freedom are inevitable. cha Mounk and the University of MelActually, representative government and bourne’s Roberto Stefan Foa: A belief that cy is itself important, a individual liberty are the exception, not democrabelief that nondemothe rule, and individual liberty often cratic forms of govdissipates in the ernment are wrong name of the coland a belief that the lective, along with democratic system truly representative (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate is legitimate. If government. And those beliefs erode, yet, it’s that feeling of inevitability that allows us to attack the so, too, do republicanism and freedom. basic values that undergird republicanism THE LEFT has been hammering and freedom. Because we never think that those institutions are under assault, we’re away at those three beliefs for a full cenunafraid of chipping away at their foun- tury. Leftism is based on the notion that if you give government massive power, it dations in the name of partisan politics. will revenge itself on the bourgeois who IF WE CHIP away enough at those have stomped you down. More basically, foundations, the superstructure will Marxism is based on the notion that human beings cannot become decent withcrumble.

Ben

Shapiro

ECONOMICS: December 6, 2016

out a new system. That system cannot be products of the democratic system, and removed democratically, since we are all are therefore corrupt. Leftism, too, has scorned democracy as the only solution. Fascism of the proletariat would be better. In 2010, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said: “What if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, cies and income tax rates that are the you know, authorize the right solutions, highest in the nation, at 13 percent or and I do think there is a sense of that, more. Florida and Texas are right-to- on, on everything from the economy to work states with no income tax. Is it re- environment.” That’s not rare. The left ally a shocker that people would choose spent most of the 1930s gazing enviously zero income tax over 13 percent? New across the seas toward the fascist left in York politicians know that their record- Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union. Finally, the left has declared repeatedly high tax rates are killing growth, which is why the state is spending millions that American democracy is illegitimate of dollars on TV ads across the coun- because it stands in favor of cruel capitry trying to convince people that New talism. It’s plutocratic and corrupt, and York has low taxes. Sure. And Chicago it must be heavily regulated. Today, the left claims that millions of voters are disis crime-free. Even when it comes to income in- enfranchised simply on the basis of race equality, blue states fare worse than red without evidence to support such idiocy. But here’s the problem in 2016: All states. According to a 2016 report by the Economic Policy Institute, three of three of the foundations of democracy are the states with the largest gaps between now being undermined by the reactionary rich and poor are those progressive right, too. Democracy, say many on the icons N.Y., Conn. and Mass. Sure, Bos- right, is not important so long as it means ton, Manhattan and Silicon Valley are making America great again — who booming as the rich prosper. But outside cares if Carrier Corp. must be leveraged these areas are deep pockets of poverty into keeping jobs at home, so long as the jobs remain at home? Democracy, say and wage stagnation. The lesson to be learned from the many on the right, isn’t the only solution experimentation of the states is that the — why not just trust Trump to do what’s “progressive” tax and spend agenda right? After all, he’s certainly popular! leads to much slower growth and ben- And democracy doesn’t work anyway, efits the rich and politically well-con- say many on the right — the people must nected at the expense of everyone else. be lied to in order to get them to vote corTrump is now promising that on a na- rectly. And voter fraud is rampant! tional scale, he will cut taxes, deregulate SO WE NOW have partisan politics and cut wasteful government spending. In the presidential debates, Clinton dis- that suggest that power is more important paraged this agenda as “trumped up, than reliable institutions or deeper valtrickle-down economics,” and she said ues. That’s a danger point for American politics. Donald Trump may turn out to it had never worked. be a wonderful president; we may yet see YET PROSPERING red states such a new birth of freedom in America. But as Fla., Tenn., Texas and so many oth- so long as partisans on both sides are preers keep stealing jobs and growth from pared to blow up democracy in order to save it, we’re at risk of an explosion. blue-state America.

The progressive-state depression

he blue states of America are in a depression. I don’t mean the collective funk of liberal voters because they lost the election to Donald Trump. I’m talking about an economic malaise in the blue states that went for Hillary Clinton. Here is an amazing statistic courtesy of the just-released 2016 edition of “Rich States, Poor States,” which I co-authored with Reagan economist Arthur Laffer and economist Jonathan Williams: Of the 10 blue states that Democrats won by the largest percentage margins — Calif., Mass., Vt., Hawaii, Md., N.Y., Ill., R.I., N.J. and Conn. — every single one of them lost domestic migration (excluding immigration) between 2004 and 2014. Nearly 2.75 million more Americans left California and New York than entered these states.

THEY ARE the loser states. They are all progressive: High taxes rates; high welfare benefits; heavy regulation; environmental extremism; high minimum wages. Most outlaw energy drilling. The whole left-wing playbook is on display in the Clinton states. And people are leaving in droves. Day after day, they are being bled to death. So much for liberalism creating a worker’s paradise. Now let’s look at the 10 states that had the largest percentage vote for Trump. Every one of them — Wyo., W.Va., Okla., N.D., Ky., Tenn., S.D. and Idaho — was a net population gainer. This is part and parcel of one of the greatest internal migration waves in American history, as blue states, es-

pecially in the Northeast, are getting clobbered by their low-tax, smallergovernment rivals in the South and the mountain regions. By the way, pretty much the same pattern holds true for jobs. The job gains in the red states that Trump carried by the widest margins had about twice the job-creation rate as the bluest states carried by Clinton. The latest “Rich States, Poor States” report, published by the American Legislative Exchange Council, shows a persistent trend of Americans moving from blue to red states. The

Stephen

best example is that from 2004-2014, the two most populous conservative states — Florida and Texas — gained almost one million new residents each. The two most populous liberal states — California and New York — saw an equal-sized exodus. IT’S EASY to understand why people might want to leave gray and rusting New York. But California? California has, arguably, the most beautiful weather, mountains and beaches in the country, and yet people keep fleeing the state that is supposed to be a progressive utopia. What doesn’t make California and New York paradise is the high cost of living — thanks to expensive environmental regulations, forced union poli-

Conservative Chronicle

CORPORATE TAX: December 1, 2016

A holiday recipe for government growth

conomic research shows that rate income tax rates have declined the corporate tax is harmful throughout the rest of the world as to workers’ wages and over- nations compete to keep businesses all economic growth. If left to their from fleeing their jurisdiction, the desbased cash flow tax own devices, politicians still wouldn’t tinationwould be inescapbe likely to reable. If you sell in duce or eliminate the U.S. market, the destructive you would pay the tax. They only act tax, regardless of when tax compe(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate where your comtition — whereby sive nature — yes, VATs hit lower-inpany is located. taxpayers shop That means that future politicians come taxpayers the hardest — they are around for favorable tax environments would have little incentive to keep revenue engines and have helped fuel — forces their hand. the dramatic growth of European govrates down. This is just a recipe for bigger governments in recent decades. THAT’S WHY it is alarming that House Republicans — I repeat, House ernment, as Europe discovered when it ACADEMIC SUPPORTERS of Republicans — are talking about a instituted the very similar value-added change to the corporate tax that would taxes. In part because of their regres- the new tax admit that their goals are insulate it from competitive pressures going forward. The change in the RyLESLIE’S TRIVIA BITS: December 5, 2016 an-Brady blueprint (as in Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee Kevin Brady) would turn the corporate income tax into a “destination-based cash flow tax” with many similarities t’s possible that the world’s old- of the Jolly Rancher ice cream shop in to European-style value-added taxes. est coin-operated machine was a Golden, Colorado, began selling candy To be sure, it would also lower the holy water dispenser devised by to keep sales up during the cold weathU.S. corporate tax rate — which is cur- the ancient Greek engineer we know er. That’s how the Jolly Rancher candy rently higher than any other in the de- as Heron of Alexandria. When a coin company was born. It started with Fire veloped world — and move to a com- was inserted, the machine produced Stix, a flat bar of super-hot cinnamon mon-sense territorial system in which a stream of water that allowed a wor- hard taffy. Watermelon, green apple income would be taxed only in the shipper to cleanse himself before en- and other flavor “stix” followed. At country where it was earned. It would tering a temple to pray. Heron also in- one point, the Harmsens estimated they also alleviate some of the double taxa- vented mechanical toys, a syringe and were making a million pounds of cantion of savings and somewhat simplify one of the world’s first steam-powered dy a week in the Jolly Rancher candy the tax code, even as it could become a engines. kitchen. compliance nightmare for companies. But it would be simpler to just do CHRISTMAS MOVIES capture away with the corporate tax altogether. hearts, but they don’t grab many AcadMany people know that, but Repub- emy Awards. Even It’s a Wonderful licans continue to appease those who Life, that Christmas classic, had five (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate view all money as belonging first to Oscar nominations but no wins. The the government by insisting that tax short list of Christmas films that earned cuts must be “paid for” according to Oscars includes 2000’s How the Grinch The standard playing card suits of the Keynesian math of the Congressio- Stole Christmas, which brought Rick clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds nal Budget Office. Baker and Gail Rowell-Ryan an Os- originated in France in the 15th cenSo here’s where we are: To pay for car for best makeup. Edmund Gwenn tury. Earlier German playing card their desired cut to the corporate tax won best supporting actor for portray- suits were acorns, leaves, hearts and rate, Republicans are suggesting a ing Kris Kringle in 1947’s Miracle on bells. In Switzerland, the suits were conversion of the corporate income tax 34th Street. And a best original song (and sometimes still are) acorns, flowinto a “cash flow tax,” or a consumption Oscar went to Irving Berlin for “White ers, shields and bells. The oldest suits tax base with a deduction for payroll. Christmas” from 1942’s Holiday Inn. from Italy and Spain are coins, cups, Protectionist “border adjustments” At the World War II Valor in the swords and caveman-style clubs. They then make it “destination-based” by Pacific National Monument in Hawaii came from the Middle East and North exempting exports from taxation and is a monument to the repair ship USS Africa, where playing cards originated. denying deductions for imports. The Vestal. On the morning of the Japanese Back then, each suit consisted of 10 move might be better described as be- attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, numbered cards and three face cards: longing to the idiotic school of export the Vestal was moored beside the bat- A king, a cavalier and a knave, but no mercantilism, meaning there would be tleship USS Arizona. Two direct bomb queen. higher prices for consumers (including hits combined with the explosions from domestic producers that use imported the attack on the Arizona, blew the VesWE TEND to think of all conifer parts). I can also guarantee that con- tal’s captain and hundreds of crewmen trees, like the spruce, the fir and the trary to the promise lawmakers will overboard. Seven crew members were pine, as being evergreen, but nature make about it, this feature would not killed and the ship was severely dam- reliably provides an exception to evappreciably boost exports. aged, but the Vestal wasn’t finished. ery rule. Larch, bald cypress and dawn After repairs it continued in service redwood are members of a small group BUT THE REAL danger from the through the end of World War II. known as deciduous conifers, meaning plan comes from how it would change Winter isn’t typical ice cream season, they produce cones and have needlepolitical incentives. Whereas corpo- so Bill and Dorothy Harmsen, owners like leaves that turn red or gold and

Veronique

de Rugy

Leslie’s Trivia Bits

Leslie

Elman

to grow government and institute more progressive tax burdens. Republican lawmakers think they need it to trade for lowering the corporate rates, but they ought to know better than to hand future Congresses the means to easily power government growth.

drop off in the fall then regrow fresh and green in spring. TRIVIA 1. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World included what type of structure in Alexandria, Egypt? A) Lighthouse B) Mausoleum C) Palace D) Pyramid 2. According to the classic film, where did the Miracle on 34th Street take place? A) Central Park B) Empire State Building C) Grand Central Terminal D) Macy’s department store 3. Pearl Harbor is located on which Hawaiian island? A) Hawaii (the “Big Island”) B) Lanai C) Molokai D) Oahu 4. Which American painter lived at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico? A) Louise Nevelson B) Georgia O’Keeffe C) Jackson Pollock D) Gilbert Stuart 5. According to legend, what hand was Wild Bill Hickok holding when he was shot during a poker game in 1876? A) Full house, aces over tens B) Royal flush in diamonds C) Straight, king-high D) Two pair, black aces and eights 6. From 1992 to 1995, the Cones Hotline in the U.K. fielded phone calls from citizens about what subject? A) Healthcare B) Ice cream trucks C) Recycling D) Road construction (answers on page 19)

December 14, 2016 THE LEFT: December 6, 2016

The left’s gambles ... with others’ lives

Minimum wage laws are described ometimes life forces us to make decisions, even when as preventing workers from being “exwe don’t have enough infor- ploited” by employers who pay less mation to know how the decision will than what third parties want them to turn out. The risks may be even greater pay. But would people accept wages when people make decisions for other that third parties don’t like if there people. Yet there are some who are not were better alternatives available? This is an issue that is very peronly willing, but eager, to take decito me. When I left home sions away from those who are directly sonal at the age of 17, going out affected. into the world as a Something as black high school personal as what dropout with very doctor we want little experience to go to has been and no skills, the taken out of our (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate minimum wage hands by Obamacare. What job offer, at what pay rate, law had been rendered meaningless someone wants to accept has been by ten years of inflation since the law taken out of their hands by minimum was passed. In other words, there was no minimum wage law in effect, for all wage laws. practical purposes. It was far easier for me to find jobs SICK PEOPLE who are dying are prevented from trying a medication then than it is for teenage black high that has not yet completed all the long school dropouts today. After the miniyears of tests required by federal regu- mum wage was raised to keep up with lations — even if the medication has inflation, for decades the unemploybeen used for years in other countries ment rate for black male 17-year-olds never fell below TRIPLE what it was without ill effects. One by one, innumerable decisions for me — and in some years their unhave been taken out of the hands of employment rate was as much as five those directly affected. This is not just times what it was when I was a teensomething that has happened. It is a ager. Yet many people on the left were central part of the agenda of the political left, even though they describe able to feel good about themselves for what they are doing in terms of the bad having prevented “exploitation” — things they claim to be preventing and that is, wage rates less than what third the good things they claim to be creat- parties would like to see. No employer in his right mind was going to pay me ing.

Thomas

Sowell

what third parties wanted paid, when I do not stay at those jobs for life. The had nothing to contribute, except in the turnover rate among people who are simplest jobs. flipping hamburgers was found by one study to be so high that those who have AS FOR ME, my options would such jobs on New Year’s Day are very have been welfare or crime, and wel- unlikely to still be there at Christmas. fare was a lot harder to get in those In short, the left has been gambling days. As it was, the ineffectiveness of with other people’s livelihoods — and the minimum wage law at that time the left pays no price when that gamble allowed me time to acquire job skills fails. that would enable me to move on to It is the same story when the left presuccessively better jobs — and even- vents dying people from getting meditually to complete my education. Most cations that have been used for years people who have minimum wage jobs in other countries, without dire effects, but have not yet gotten through the long maze of federal “safety” regulations in the U.S. People have died from such “safety.” Police are dying from restrictions on them that keep criminals safe. San Francisco is currently trying to impose more restrictions on the police, restrictions that will prevent them from shooting at a moving car, except under special conditions that they will have to think about when they have a split second to make a decision that can cost them their own lives. But the left will pay no price. One of the most zealous crusades of the left has been to prevent law-abiding citizens from having guns, even though gun control laws have little or no effect on criminals who violate laws in general. You can read through reams of rhetoric from gun control advocates without encountering a single hard fact showing gun control laws reducing crime in general or murder in particular. Such hard evidence as exists points in the opposite direction. BUT THE GUN control gamble with other people’s lives is undeterred. And the left still pays no price when they are wrong.

December 14, 2016

Fidel Castro: Sixty years of fake news

panic is sweeping the land credulous reporters in the Sierra Mae— or at least something like stra. The joke that made the rounds in it has unnerved CNN, Vox 1980s was that Castro could have been and other precincts of progressive sen- featured in one of those ads boasting sibility. They are alarmed that millions “I got my job through the New York of Americans are being misled by “fake Times!” Starting in 1957, Times reporter Herbert Matthews visited with the rebel news.” published accounts of As someone whose inbox has lately leader and less commitment bulged with items about Hillary Clin- his selfto “his” people. ton’s impending “Power does not demise due to a interest me,” Casconcealed, termitro told Matthews. nal illness; who “After victory I has shaken her (c) 2015, Creators Syndicate want to go back to head at “breaking news” that Turkish coup plotters had my village and just be a lawyer again.” The evidence of Castro’s monstrousgotten their hands on NATO nuclear weapons at Incirlik air base; and who ness was available more or less immehas sighed at the endless iterations of diately after his victory. Fulgencio Bastories like “47 Clinton friends who tista’s supporters were shot en masse mysteriously turned up dead,” I don’t — some in a carnival atmosphere in deny that misinformation, disinforma- front of stadiums of people making the tion, rumors and malicious gossip ap- “thumbs down” gesture. Former revopear to have achieved new salience in lutionary allies were next to mount the the national conversation. I shun right- scaffold for the modern equivalent of leaning publications and sites that traf- the guillotine. Independent newspapers were closed. Unions were forbidden to fic in this sort of drivel. strike. Religious colleges were closed, YOU KNOW there’s a “but” com- and priests were forced into exile (they ing, and here it is: The death of Fidel had plenty of company). Those who reCastro reminds us that the respectable sisted the regime were arrested, denied press, the “two-sources” press, the press medical care and sometimes tortured. that enforces standards and performs re- Their families were harassed. Casality checks and practices “shoe leath- tro promised free elections within 18 er” journalism and all that, has been months. That was 708 months ago. Cupeddling “fake news” about Cuba and bans are still waiting. The New York Times and other liberal Castro for 60 years. The mainstream press has been soft outlets entered a profound senescence on Fidel Castro since he first grabbed a where Cuba was concerned. Stories pistol and started granting interviews to about neighborhood spies, beatings and

Mona

Charen

jailings of the Ladies in White, shortages of all basic commodities (yes, even sugar and cigars), forced labor and the rest of the miseries that a despotic government can inflict were hard to find. You discovered them mostly in rightleaning journals, or in human-rights watchdog publications, or in memoirs such as Armando Valladares’ wrenching account of 22 years in Castro’s prisons, Against All Hope (one of the most harrowing prison memoirs of the 20th century).

dlinger, National Review’s indefatigable voice for the oppressed, has pointed out again and again, the myth of Cuba’s wonderful, free, universal health care system will not die. President Obama lauded it. Michael Moore beatified it. Bernie Sanders cited it to shame the United States by comparison! What can you say to people with such a profound need to believe? Their faith is religious in nature and accordingly very resistant to logic or argument. Again, to cite Jay Nordlinger: There are actually three health services in Cuba. There is A SIN OF omission, you may say. one for tourists, featuring state-of-theYes, but there was the other piece — art equipment. There is a second for the diligent myth-tending. As Jay Nor- high-ranking communists, the military, approved artists and so forth. This, too, is a good system. And then there is the squalid, dirty, understaffed, massively under-equipped medical system that ordinary Cubans (the vast majority) must endure. In the third system, overworked doctors reuse latex gloves, antibiotics are scarce, and patients must “bring their own bed sheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper.” A 2014 report from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting found that in Cuban hospitals “the floors are stained and surgeries and wards are not disinfected. Doors do not have locks and their frames are coming off. Some bathrooms have no toilets or sinks, and the water supply is erratic. Bat droppings, cockroaches, mosquitoes and mice are all in evidence.” AND YET, even such an august publication as the Atlantic (I say that sincerely) published a piece after Castro’s death titled “How Cubans Live as Long as Americans at a Tenth of the Cost.” You can call it invincible ignorance. You can call it journalistic malpractice. You can even call it “fake news.” December 2, 2016

This Week’s Conservative Focus

Fake News

The grandmaster: Fake news and War Party lies “I have in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler’s government — by the planners of the New World Order,” FDR told the nation in his Navy Day radio address of Oct. 27, 1941. “It is a map of South America as Hitler proposes to reorganize it. The geographical experts of Berlin, however, have ruthlessly obliterated all the existing boundary lines ... bringing the whole continent under their domination,” said Roosevelt. “This map makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States as well.” OUR LEADER had another terrifying secret document, “made in Germany by Hitler’s government. ... “It is a plan to abolish all existing religions — Protestant, Catholic, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish alike. ... In the place of the churches of our civilization, there is to be set up an international Nazi Church... “In the place of the Bible, the words of Mein Kampf will be imposed and enforced as Holy Writ. And in place

It was FDR who desperately wanted of the cross of Christ will be put two symbols — the swastika and the naked war with Germany, while, for all his sword. ... A god of blood and iron will crimes, Hitler desperately wanted to take the place of the God of love and avoid war with the United States. Said Cong. Clare Boothe Luce, mercy.” The source of these astounding se- FDR “lied us into war because he did not have the political courage to lead cret Nazi plans? They were forgeries by British us into it.” By late 1941, most Americans still agents in New York operating under to stay out of the war. William Stephenson, Churchill’s “Man w a n t e d believed “lying BritCalled Intrepid,” whose assignment T h e y ish propaganda” was to do whatabout Belgian baever necessary bies being tossed to bring the U.S. around on Gerinto Britain’s war. man bayonets had FDR began (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate sucked us into his address by describing two German submarine World War I, from which the British attacks on U.S. destroyers Greer and Empire had benefited mightily. What brings these episodes to mind Kearny, the later of which had been torpedoed with a loss of 11 American is the wave of indignation sweeping this capital over “fake news” allegedly lives. Said FDR: “We have wished to created by Vladimir Putin’s old KGB avoid shooting. But the shooting has comrades, and regurgitated by U.S. instarted. And history has recorded who dividuals, websites and magazines that are anti-interventionist and anti-war. fired the first shot.” Ohio Sen. Rob Portman says the The truth: Greer and Kearny had and disinformation been tracking German subs for British “propaganda threat” against America is real, and we planes dropping depth charges.

Pat

Buchanan

Fake news versus junk news

he big “fake news” stories of 2016 were the polls. Most showed Donald Trump losing big in November, thus cable news ran countless renditions of the many ways Trump could not possibly win the necessary Electoral College vote. Getting the story utterly wrong should result in hand-wringing, hair-pulling and painful introspection in my profession; instead many in the news business have turned their hungry eyes on “fake news” disseminated on Facebook and Google.

THAT’S RIGHT. After a year of getting the story consistently wrong, journalism gurus are pointing to phony stories not produced by the mainstream media. After the election, the New York Times ran a piece about Election Day titled “The Hoaxes, Fake News and Misinformation We Saw on Election Day.” An example from the piece: A GOP mayor in Georgia tweeted that Republicans vote on Tuesday, 11/8, but Democrats vote on Wednesday, 11/9. Hello, Gray Lady; it was a joke. How desperate do you have to be to include that tweet as an example of misinformation? “Fake stories and memes that crop up during live news events have been a problem on social media for years, but a wild election season has highlighted

went to a D.C. pizzeria to investigate a bogus story about Hillary Clinton. Kudos to the good reporting that took apart the bogus “pizzagate” story. Thing is, for days before that incident, cable news was buzzing about “fake news” and the election — as if hard-toswallow conspiracy theories swayed those voters who had not decided between Clinton and Trump. Methinks “fake news” would not be TRUMP COULD spin out days’ worth of free TV time from a single a ubiquitous story if Clinton had won tweet — two days on the tweet itself the White House. It certainly wasn’t followed by two days on Trump’s news when Donald Trump won the failure to react appropriately. (“We GOP primary. “Fake news” got big when voters acted in a way that did not wouldn’t even be discussconfirm the mainstream media’s preconceptions. the news media’s slow response to them,” the Times’ story began. Slow response? Au contraire, the media have been too quick to seize upon every little speck of dirt one can find surfing social media. Back in the day, TV news looked to newspapers for good stories; now producers troll Twitter for what they call “content.”

Debra J.

ing this,” some droll expert would assert, if Trump had walked back his original offense.) Journalists always have been overly concerned with what people say as opposed to what they do. Trump understood how to exploit that preoccupation by mining the public’s contempt for the media. Yes, I know that there are real “fake news’ stories — such as the one about the armed man, who fired off a round or two before he was arrested, who

THERE SEEMS to be a cautionary tale in these “fake news” stories, as in: If only voters had heeded “real” news, then Trump would not be president-elect. But really, journalists have only themselves to blame for handing the reins of reportage to amateurs. If a candidate’s remarks on social media confirmed the biases of most of the journalism class, then it was a cable news story. 2016 was the year of empty-calorie reportage. Fake news, bad. Junk news, our bad. December 6, 2016

must “counter and combat it.” Congress is working up a $160 million State Department program. Now, Americans should be on guard against “fake news” and foreign meddling in U.S. elections. Yet it is often our own allies, like the Brits, and our own leaders who mislead and lie us into unnecessary wars. And is not meddling in the internal affairs, including the elections, of regimes we do not like, pretty much the job description of the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy? History suggests it is our own War Party that bears watching. Consider Operation Iraqi Freedom. Who misled, deceived, and lied about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, the “fake news” that sucked us into one of our country’s greatest strategic blunders? Who lied for years about an Iranian nuclear weapons program, which almost dragged us into a war, before all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies debunked that propaganda in 2007 and 2011? Yet, there are those, here and abroad, who insist that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program. Their goal: War with Iran. Were we told the whole truth about the August 1964 incident involving North Vietnamese gunboats and U.S. destroyers Maddox and C. Turner Joy, which stampeded Congress into voting a near-unanimous resolution that led us into an eight-year war in Southeast Asia? One can go back deeper into American history. Cong. Abe Lincoln disbelieved in President Polk’s claim that the Mexican army had crossed the Rio Grande and “shed American blood upon American soil.” In his “spot” resolution, Lincoln demanded to know the exact spot where the atrocity had occurred that resulted in a U.S. army marching to Mexico City and relieving Mexico of half of her country. Was Assistant Navy Secretary Theodore Roosevelt telling us the truth when he said of our blasted battleship in Havana harbor, “The Maine was sunk by an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards?” No one ever proved that the Spanish caused the explosion. Yet America got out of his war what T.R. wanted — Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, an empire of our own. “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” SO SAID Winston Churchill, the grandmaster of fake news. December 2. 2016

Conservative Chronicle

FAKE NEWS: December 7, 2016

Facebook and the ‘fake news’ crackdown

acebook boss Mark Zuckerberg ated. He doubled down and praised the is under enormous pressure hippie hoaxmeisters of campus rape, sayfrom the left to crack down on ing: “Good journalism continues to this the “fake news” circulating on the social- day. There’s great work done in Rolling media giant. He is well-advised to run as Stone.” Are the red flags for fake news only far as he can from the News Police. target stories that In a recent note on Facebook, Zucker- going to liberals? The leftist berg claimed he wanted to err “on the side u p s e t group Media Matof letting people ters for America is share what they claiming it will dewant whenever emphasize its Fox possible. ... We do (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate News obsession to not want to be arfocus instead on biters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community websites like Breitbart and the “alt-right” and trusted third parties.” The hard left, platforms in an effort to be that “trusted beginning with President Obama, wants third party” to help run Facebook’s algoto be that community, that supposedly rithms. Do you think they would ever call out disinterested third party. It is another step in the long march toward silence conser- leftist fake news outlets like, oh, themselves? vative thought in America. The networks have labored mightily to MAKE NO mistake about it: Fake avoid videotapes demonstrating Planned news does exist. Everyone is used to false Parenthood allegedly sold dead baby click-bait, like the recent “Megyn Kelly parts to fetal-tissue researchers. The left leaving Fox?” story floating around the said those taped admissions are somehow internet, which claims she’s leaving to faked, even after all the footage, which promote some blah-blah-blah skin care shows no such thing, was made availproduct. Then there are the offshore fake able. Then there’s hidden camera footage news factories churning out “shocking” of Democratic operatives who discussed reports about Pope Francis backing Don- sending thugs in “Trump is a Nazi” Tshirts to agitate Trump supporters and ald Trump. Are these annoyances? Yes. Are they “draw them out to punch (them)” in front of the cameras. Clearly that is fake news. threats to Western civilization? Hardly. The left saw an opening with talk of Where are Obama and Media Matters fake news and pounced. On the campaign when we need them? If messing up and publishing or broadtrail, Obama said: “If they just repeat attacks enough, and outright lies over and casting false news ruins an entire outlet over again, as long as it’s on Facebook as fake news, then goodbye, mainstream and people can see it, as long as it’s on so- media. ABC faked the sales of rancid cial media, people start believing it. And meat at Food Lion. CBS offered unveriit creates this dust cloud of nonsense.” It fied Texas Air National Guard memos was an obvious slam of the Trump team. against former President George W. Bush. If what Trump states is false, then to NBC faked a pickup truck explosion. The give it endless oxygen by writing story Washington Post had Janet Cooke. The after story on it is to engage in fake news. New York Times had Jayson Blair. CNN Fox News is mocked as Faux News had Peter Arnett ... and Brian Williams, by this camp. Obama told Rolling Stone Brian Williams and Brian Williams. that part of the problem is seeing “Fox MARK ZUCKERBERG really News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country,” which is as inap- doesn’t want to mess with this mess. It is propriate a complaint as it was exagger- censorship at its ugliest.

Brent

Bozell

OBAMACARE: December 7, 2016

Let it wither away

acare requirement that everyone buy expensive, soup-to-nuts coverage. — Continue Obamacare requirements that bar discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions and that make parental plans cover children through age 26. — Make health insurance premiums deductible on federal tax forms. — Allow interstate competition among insurance firms to broaden choice and reduce costs. — Continue subsidies to those who SOME HAVE proposed a typical Washington compromise: Repeal Obam- qualify — whether or not they buy poliacare now but don’t let the death sen- cies through the Obamacare exchanges. — Let people keep their Obamacare tence be carried out until 2018 or 2019. if they’d like to. The idea is that as the clock ticks down, policies And then, let Republicans — Obamacare wither aided by patriotic away from the inside Democrats — will out. Millions now find a program to covered will want take its place. (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate to switch to lowerThe reality, of cost policies more course, is that as we approach the cliff, Obamacare will go on closely tailored to their needs. Why pay and on with nobody having the courage extra premiums to cover drug abuse therapy or sex-change surgery if you don’t to pull the plug. But doctors, patients and insurance want it? Many young and healthy men companies are fleeing Obamacare in and women will opt for low-cost catadroves. The spiraling premiums, rising strophic coverage since it’s all they need. As the young and the healthy move deductibles and limitations on treatment options have kept tens of millions from out of the rigid, costly Obamacare plans, signing up — many preferring to pay a the premiums of these plans will rise, fine and have no insurance to enrolling driving even more to leave. in the program. THEN, WHEN Obamacare is down HERE’S WHAT the Republicans to the truly needy with very high medical bills and chronic conditions, put these should do: — Immediately repeal the require- four or five million folks under Medicaid ment that everyone has to buy health in- and let the government provide for their surance and any mandate that forces an needs. But don’t let their medical needs drive up premiums for the rest of us. employer to purchase it for him. Let Obamacare wither away from — Let people choose how much insurance they want and repeal the Obam- within. epublicans are tying themselves in knots over how to wind down the Obamacare experiment when Donald Trump takes office in January. Eager to be seen as keeping his promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, but worried about denying ongoing insurance to the 20 million Americans the program now covers, party leaders are stumbling in the dark in search of a solution.

Dick

Morris

December 14, 2016 DEAR MARK: December 2, 2016

Castro’s demise, she’s back and blame FOX News DEAR MARK: Ding dong the witch is dead or in this case, Fidel Castro has finally kicked the bucket. It’s unbelievable how some people are lauding praise upon this dictator who murdered and oppressed the people of Cuba for almost 60 years. Even our own president couldn’t find it in his heart to call Castro what he really is. Why do liberals gravitate to dictators? — Cappy the Capitalist Dear Cappy: Most liberals will never admit this but they actually hate America and they will sympathize with anyone else who hates America — even murderous dictators. Now these same liberals will become defensive and claim they love America as much as conservatives, it’s just that they would like to see some changes. Unfortunately the socialistic changes they want would destroy the very freedoms that make America, America. Liberals tend to believe that the United States is only a piece of land whereas conservatives believe that America is not only a piece of land but also a set of ideas and principles. Liberals believe in a centralized authority and do not understand liberty, rugged individualism and inalienable rights — the very tenets of our country. Referring to Castro’s demise, President Obama offered this wishy washy statement for the ages.“We know that this moment fills Cubans in Cuba and in the United States with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.”

Wow Barack Obama had more severe words for Donald Trump than an olive drab fascist. I believe the soon to be former President of the United States couldn’t bring himself to use negative language against one of his own. Then again Barack Obama still refuses to use the term “radical Islam.” Gotta be a coincidence. Liberal defenders of Castro claim he provided a great health care and education system for his people which is debatable at best. For the sake of the argument let’s say that’s true. What good is education and health care if the citizens don’t have the freedom to use them?

just say “reasonable Democrat?” Pundits will tell you that Pelosi survived the vote because she still has the ability to raise mountains of money for Democrat candidates as well as the national party. Personally I believe Pelosi survived because she has unflattering dossiers on every Democrat house member and knows where the bodies are buried in DC. Donald Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway summed up my feelings best in the following tweet: “What a relief. I was worried they had learned from the elections and might be competitive and cohesive again.”

DEAR MARK: I can’t believe that House Democrats re-elected Nancy Pelosi as House Minority Leader. Pelosi is a cackling lib who has done nothing but

DEAR MARK: Barack Obama is whining again about FOX News unfairly influencing politics. I don’t read Rolling Stone magazine but I saw the excerpt of the president’s interview and think it’s a bunch of crap. Why does he continue to beat the FOX News drum? — No Moss in Missouri Dear Moss: Liberals blame whoever they can because they just can’t accept that their ideas are the reason they are losing elections. In the interview President Obama basically said that Democrats could not effectively get their message out to certain voters. The president went on “Part of it is FOX News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country.” Let’s see, FOX News shown in all of these job creating small businesses, um I guess the president doesn’t see the obvious connection.

Mark

cost Democrats seats in the House. I’m no Democrat but as a political hack, I do wonder how this will benefit them strategically. What were they thinking? — Deplorable and Happy Dear Deplorable: The re-election of “San Fran Nan” is music to the ears of this conservative columnist. Pelosi is always good for ridiculous quotations and public stances. Pelosi who represents the liberal wing of the party defeated Ohio Representative Tim Ryan who sounds like a reasonable Democrat and is more in line with the Reagan Democrats of the eighties. Did I

E-mail your questions to marklevy92@aol.com. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkPLevy

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TRIVIA ANSWERS T rivia B I T S

ANSWERS 1) The lighthouse, or pharos, of Alexandria was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 2) Miracle on 34th Street centers on Macy’s department store. 3) Pearl Harbor is on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. 4) Georgia O’Keeffe had a house at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. 5) According to legend, Wild Bill Hickok’s “Dead Man’s Hand” was two pair, black aces and eights. 6) The U.K.’s Cones Hotline (as in traffic cones) fielded citizens’ questions about road construction.

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Conservative Chronicle

VAN JONES: December 7, 2016

The messy truth about Van Jones heart. The Chicago power broker took They never learn. The grand journalism pooh-bahs at full credit at a fringe Daily Kos blogCNN were humiliated this election cy- ger conference for recruiting him and cle when WikiLeaks revealed that for- closely following his career. “You guys know Van Jones?” she mer CNN contributor and interim DNC chair Donna Brazile had shared a ques- asked to roaring applause. “Ooh. Van Jones, all right!” she tion with the Hillary Clinton campaign “So, Van Jones. We in advance of a March Democratic pri- c o o e d . were so delighted mary town hall to be able to redebate. Accordcruit him into the ing to CNN, “acWhite House. We tivist anchor” Rowere watching land Martin and (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate him, uh, really, his production he’s not that old, team at CNN’s debate partner and identity politics for as long as he’s been active out in network TV One were responsible for Oakland. And all the creative ideas he the leak. CNN host Jake Tapper called has. And so now, we have captured the episode “very, very troubling” and that. And we have all that energy in the White House.” condemned the breach: One of Jones’s more “creative ideas” “Journalistically, it’s horrifying,” he was signing a petition in 2004 calling told WMAL radio. for congressional hearings and an inCNN PRESIDENT Jeff Zucker de- vestigation by the New York attorney clared after an internal investigation general into “evidence that suggests that the network “would not partner high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the Septemever again” with TV One. But instead of weeding out left-wing ber 11th attacks to occur.” That’s right. Valerie Jarrett took partisans masquerading as mainstream political analysts from their lineup, credit for recruiting a 9/11 truther who CNN is doubling down. This week, the endorsed a petition peddling the cracknetwork debuted a news special called pot theory that President George W. The Messy Truth hosted by “political Bush “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a commentator” Van Jones. pretext for war.” Yeah, that guy. Under fire, Jones disavowed the Before he was pontificating on CNN airwaves, he was a top environmental statement he had attached his name official of the Obama administration. to — and decried those who dared to The special advisor for green jobs at hold him responsible for his “creative the White House Council on Environ- ideas.” It was conservative bloggers, mental Quality held a special place in not “real journalists,” who exposed Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett’s Jones’s long record of radicalism to the

Michelle

Malkin

public — leading to his resignation in September 2009. Van Jones did not just accidentally slip through the cracks of the Obama vetters. They knew what he espoused before they installed him. So did his bosses at CNN who hired him in 2013. IT WASN’T his expertise in political science, political history, electoral trends or journalism that got him the job. It was his social justice resume. He rose to public prominence as a racebaiting agitator at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, funded by the George Soros-supported Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the liberal Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He became a public fixture in the Bay Area after crusading to free convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal for a Marxist orga-

nization and lambasting moderate civil rights leaders for objecting to politicizing the classrooms. In 2011, the late great Andrew Breitbart pulled no punches in describing Jones as a “commie punk” and a “cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak.” Jones had employed classic, radical Saul Alinsky-inspired campaign tactics to have Breitbart banned from a website he helped create — the leftwing Huffington Post — simply for writing articles providing alternative views of the tea party and for reporting on the Obama administration’s transparency-stifling measures. Bending to the censorious mob, HuffPo assailed Breitbart’s “ad hominem” attack on Jones, which violated “the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched.” The progressives had nothing to say, of course, about Van Jones’s own ad hominem attacks when he obscenely and publicly assailed Republicans as “a--holes” — and when he financed, produced and participated in cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal’s rap album, which railed against “imperialist” America and white “mother------s” as the “true terrorists.” Now, Jones — who most recently race-baited Donald Trump supporters by blaming them for a “whitelash” — has reinvented himself as a roving correspondent traveling the nation to analyze the election results and to lecture others to “be passionate. But be compassionate, too” with fellow citizens who hold different political viewpoints. This is CNN: Enabling a lifelong, extremist demagogue — who has actively stifled and smeared conservatives, law enforcement and honorable public servants — to pose as a reasonable news personality Van-splainin’ the world. THIS GOES beyond the sin of “fake news.” It’s gross media malpractice of the highest order.

December 14, 2016 HUD: December 7, 2016

Preparing HUD for surgery with Dr. Carson

ith the selection by President-elect Donald Trump of Dr. Ben Carson to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, we have a brilliant man of principle cast to step in to lead a $50 billion federal department with nationwide impact. I recall when, 25 years ago, I had my daughter read Carson’s first book, Gifted Hands. Back then he wasn’t very wellknown outside of the black community.

NOW HE IS a national celebrity, and few have not heard his incredible story of rising from a Detroit ghetto to becoming head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. But in addition to having been a brilliant neurosurgeon, Carson is also a deeply Christian man and an American patriot. This new job will surely require that he tap into all his talents and strengths

— his great mind and analytical power, the single-minded focus of a surgeon, his desire to help the country he loves and, of course, his courage and faith. HUD, created in 1965, is another legacy of President Johnson’s “leadership” in bringing unprecedented government activism and social engineering together to allegedly make our lives better. This was all part of the war on poverty and creating the “Great Society.” But what it did was drive huge growth in government, too often to the detriment of the very people, and the very nation, it was created to help. HUD is unique in that the role it assumes in urban communities has profound ramifications throughout the economy, well beyond its specific mission in housing. HUD’s efforts to expand financing for mortgages for “affordable housing” played a major role in creating the cir-

cumstances that led to the financial collapse of 2008. The Federal Housing Administration, part of HUD, pushed to lower down payments to dangerously low levels. As explained by economist Lawrence H. White of George Mason University, down payments were down to three percent in one of FHA’s most popular programs, with a push in Congress underway to get them to zero. And HUD pushed giant governmentsupported mortgage lenders Freddie

FRANZ KAFKA: December 5, 2016

Franz Kafka, bureaucrat

here are certain proper nouns that become adjectives, they so embody their era and perhaps all eras. As in Shakespearean or Homeric — but who’d have thought one of those names would be Franz Kafka’s? For his writings have come to stand for 20th-century man’s sense of bereavement and bewilderment as he found himself lost in a world he never made.

BUT IN HIS day job, Kafka turned out to be the model civil servant, keeping old Austria’s social insurance programs in his times — the equivalent of Social Security and Medicaid in ours — on an even financial keel. Much as Arkansas’ own Mark Story did during his all too short lifetime. In his place, this state’s Legislative Council has just approved spending some $680,000 in order to provide the multitude of services Mr. Story once did all by himself. Mark Story, meet Franz Kafka, a kindred spirit. At least at the office. It doubtless would be too much to hope that some bureaucrat in the labyrinth that is this state’s Department of Human Services is keeping a diary, or even writing fiction, that one day will give posterity an artist’s interpretation of what’s really going on in state government. In place of the bureaucratese that now issues forth from the press releases that are supposed to inform the public but instead only stupefies it. A little sample of such alleged prose goes a long, long way ... until the innocent reader is grateful to turn to the sports

section for relief. For sad example take (please) this slice of mysterious verbiage from the director of Arkansas’ Department of Human Services and general mystification, Cindy Gillespie: “To manage the services and programs of DHS efficiently, the Office of Finance must forecast, manage, administer and implement its divisions’ budgets and agency budget with extreme care and diligent oversight,” which is a reference to a budget that comes in at more than $8 billion this fiscal year. The bigger a government agency’s budget,

Paul

it seems, the bigger the waste, duplication and needless complications. FRANZ KAFKA, an actuary by trade, did his job without fear or favor. No 25-cent words and other bureaucratic frills. But his inner life was a bubbling cauldron of not conflicting but congruent loyalties out of which he made strangely enduring art. Or as W. H. Auden, poet and chronicler of his time and ours, put it, if he had to “name the artist who comes nearest to bearing the same kind of relation to our age that Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe bore to theirs, Kafka is the first one would think of.” Welcome to the Age of Kafka, which still goes on — like a recording set on repeat.

Kafka grew up in a Jewish middleclass minority within a German-speaking minority within a Czech minority within an Austro-Hungarian empire that was already a fading minority within a world full of collapsing empires in the wake of what was then called The Great War, though it would soon enough be followed by a greater one. Minorities within minorities, wheels within wheels, wars followed by greater ones. And yet Kafka did not seek refuge from all these whirring confusions by withdrawing into his own Jewish identity. “What have I in common with Jews?” he once asked. “I have hardly anything in common with myself.” HERR KAFKA proceeded to do his clerical duties with a Teutonic thoroughness that could only impress superiors and subordinates alike. One of only two Jews in the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute, he set health-insurance premiums, conducted inspection tours of factory sites to assure they were safe places to work, responded to inquiries from politicians, answered the daily mail and generally did his office job faithfully. Any employer might be glad to have name on the payroll today. “In the office,” Kafka wrote in his diary, “I fulfill my duties satisfactorily, at least outwardly, but not my inner duties, and every unfulfilled inner duty becomes a misfortune that never budges.” And to whom did he owe that inner duty? To himself, his art, and to those of us still stranded in his shadow and waiting for a metamorphosis of our own.

Mac and Fannie Mae to increase their purchases of mortgages going to lowand moderate-income borrowers. BEHIND IT all was the backing of the U.S. government, “guaranteeing” these mortgages, so brokers making the loans didn’t care if borrowers could actually afford them. The result was a huge expansion of lending to unqualified buyers. The critical headline today is that the circumstances and institutions that led to this crisis are all still in place today. Treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin has already said that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should be privatized. In parallel with HUD’s housing finance activities are the huge programs for public housing and rental subsidies for the poor, known as Section 8. Rental subsides, or housing vouchers, were supposedly an answer to the overt failure of public housing projects. The idea was to create a market where low-income residents could receive a voucher and choose where to live. Unfortunately, even this is highly regulated, with government dictating the requirements for where vouchers can be used. About two million low-income residents are receiving vouchers and about another 1.3 million receive subsidies on rent in particular buildings, all at a total cost to taxpayers of around $25 billion per year. Because the vouchers are not free of government controls and dictates, the result is still poor, blighted neighborhoods defined by government-directed housing policies. We need to purge all this government control and simply offer unregulated vouchers to qualifying low-income residents. DR. CARSON will have shown again his “gifted hands” if he can bring badly needed reform to this government monstrosity. Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Contact her at www.urbancure.org.

Conservative Chronicle

2016 ELECTION: December 1, 2016

Why the pollsters missed Trump’s victory

And because the pollsters and meven as Donald Trump begins to form his administration, dia didn’t follow the sharp tilt of white people are still wondering high school men toward Trump in the why the nation’s top polling organi- final three weeks, they did not see any zations failed to spot his surge in the reason to commit resources to trackcampaign’s final weeks. The reasons ing in Mich., Wis. or Pa. The election they were wrong are important to any would be decided in Fla., Ohio and retrospective analysis of the election NC. The Rust Belt states wouldn’t and offer a major lesson for future matter, because they were Clinton’s polling. But more important still is “blue wall.” that we recognize that our failure to SO NOW WHITE men with high follow the opinions of the white, high school educations have finally earned school graduate men who delivered t h e i r place in the sun. the election to Trump is a national We will, hopefully, blind spot. It is track their views akin to the old in polls and focus days when we groups and will did not recognize understand that gender gap as po(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate their power is at litical reality. the core of the emerging identity poliDONALD TRUMP beat Hillary tics of America. Clinton by winning white, high school graduate men in the last three weeks of the election. It was this late surge — more than any other factor — that caused his victory and enabled him to break up Hillary Clinton’s “blue wall” BOOK REVIEW: December 6, 2016 of the Democratic states of Ohio, Pa., Mich. and Wis. According to the Fox News poll, Trump led among white high school graduate men by 14 points three weeks before Election Day. Two nly five of the 335 men who up inside seemingly every American, weeks out, he doubled his margin to survived the unprovoked coming out in the songs we sang, in 30 points. With only a week to go, his attack that sunk the USS the movies produced, in the newspaper lead in this demographic swelled to Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941 remain alive. articles that were written. ... We were 40 points. And according to exit polls Donald Stratton, 94, is one of them. He ordinary men. What was extraordinary on Election Day itself, he beat Clinton has added to the historical knowledge was the country we loved.” Compare this sentiment to what we 67-20 — by 47 points — among this of that day and the beginning of Amerdemographic. Similarly situated white ica’s entry into World War II in a new see in today’s movies, newspaper arwomen also went for Trump but by book, All the Gallant Men: The First ticles and songs. Stratton writes, “We loved who (America) was, what she smaller margins. Memoir By a USS Arizona Survivor. How did the polling firms miss it? Typical of so many men of that era, stood for. We loved her for what she the book (written with Ken Gire) is meant to us, and for what she had givTHEY FOCUSED obsessively on less about Stratton, a 19-year-old kid en us, even in those meager times.” the black vote, the Latino vote and from a tiny Nebraska town ravaged by the female vote, but not at all on the the Great Depression, and more about white, high school educated vote. It the men with whom he served. just didn’t occur to them. It was not in their lexicon of political trends. ACCORDING TO the book, total When these voters began to tip toward casualties at Pearl Harbor on that fate(c) 2016, Tribune Media Services Trump heavily, they never noticed it. ful day amounted to 2,403 dead and People of that generation were The pollsters did not include this de- 1,176 wounded. Many of Stratton’s mographic in their data and did not re- shipmates lie interred in the bowels of taught to be grateful for the little they port it to the journalists who recounted the Arizona, which still secretes oil, a had and not to be envious of others, who might have more. That’s another the survey results. Methodologically, constant reminder to “never forget.” they probably lumped white high People too young to have known contrast with the envy-greed-entitleschool men in with all other high men of that era, or who never asked ment spirit of our age. school grads, whether black or His- grandparents about their World War II THERE HAVE been numerous acpanic or white or male or female. So experience, will find in Stratton’s book they could not spot the trend among a quality that has declined in modern counts of that awful day, but few as this crucial group. times — modesty. “We were not ex- personal as Stratton’s. What comes Because these voters were not traordinary men,” he writes. “Truth be through as one reads about the unbeblack or Latino or female or (neces- told, most of us had enlisted because lievable cruelty of “smiling and wavsarily) young, they didn’t count. They there were precious few jobs to be ing” Japanese pilots, as they rained death on a nation that was officially at were 20 percent of the American elec- found where we lived.” torate, but they were never entitled to The isolationist spirit was strong in peace, was the heroism of young men their own subset in the polling. Their 1941. Here’s Stratton on the patriotism who witnessed explosions, flying body votes were just churned into the na- that overwhelmed isolationism after parts, burning oil, shattered metal and tional trends. the attack: “Love for country welled peeling flesh.

Dick

Morris

Remembering Pearl Harbor at 75

Cal

Thomas

Where did that heroism come from? These were still mostly adolescents whose previous battles were over acne and getting a date for a Saturday night dance. It is a question raised by historians and commentators over the years. The answer is that their strength was instilled in them by parents and the circumstances of their lives. Doing without material things can force one to focus on what matters, such as developing character and other virtues that seem in short supply in today’s celebrity culture. All the Gallant Men is deeply personal. Stratton still remembers the names of many of his shipmates who died, as well as those who survived. He brings them back to life as ghosts from the past, their futures snuffed out by war. Today we are a divided nation. Nothing unites us. We prefer tearing down to building up, and suffer for it. STRATTON’S BOOK reminds us of a better America, an America that was strong in character, not just military power. As president-elect Donald Trump attempts to “make America great again,” he might recall that true greatness is not found in external prosperity or military might alone. Rather, as Donald Stratton reminds us, it comes from within.

December 14, 2016 FLAG BURNING: December 1, 2016

Is burning the American flag protected speech? “If there is any fixed star in our con- dressed this twice in the past 17 years, stitutional constellation, it is that no of- I am addressing whether you can burn ficial, high or petty, can prescribe what your own American flag. The short anshall be orthodox in politics, national- swer is: Yes. You can burn your flag and ism, religion or other matters of opin- I can burn mine, so long as public safety ion.” — U.S. Supreme Court Justice is not impaired by the fires. But you cannot burn my flag against my will, Robert H. Jackson Is flag burning protected speech? This nor can you burn a flag owned by the ernment. old issue returned front and center ear- g o v Before the Sulier this week after preme Court ruled President-Elect that burning your Donald Trump own flag in public tweeted that he is lawful, federal found it so repre(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate law and numerhensible, it should be criminal. He even suggested a punish- ous state laws had made it criminal to ment — loss of citizenship or one year in do so. In analyzing those laws before jail. Is the president-elect correct? Can it declared them to be unconstitutional, the government punish acts that accom- the Court looked at the original public pany the expression of opinions because understanding of those laws and conthe government, or the public generally, cluded that they were intended not as fire safety regulations — the same stathates or fears the opinions? utes permitted other public fires — but rather as prophylactics intended to coHERE IS the backstory. Last weekend, in a series of contin- erce reverence for the American flag by ued emotional responses to the elec- criminalizing the burning of privately tion of Donald Trump as president of owned pieces of cloth that were recogthe United States, and prodded by the nizable as American flags. That is where the former statutes ran death of Fidel Castro — the long-time, into trouble. Had they banned all pubbrutal, profoundly anti-American dictator of Cuba — students on a few Ameri- lic fires in given locations, for public can college campuses publicly burned safety sake, they probably would have American flags. These acts regenerated withstood a constitutional challenge. the generation-old debate about the law- But since these statutes were intended fulness of this practice, with the presi- to suppress the ideas manifested by dent-elect decidedly on the side of those the public flag burning, by making the public expression of those ideas crimiwho condemn it. For the sake of this analysis, like nal, the statutes ran afoul of the First the U.S. Supreme Court, which has ad- Amendment.

Andrew

Napolitano

THE FIRST Amendment, which prohibits Congress from enacting laws infringing upon the freedom of speech, has consistently been interpreted in the modern era so as to insulate the public manifestation of political ideas from any government interference, whether the manifestation is by word or deed or both. This protection applies even to ideas that are hateful, offensive, unorthodox and outright un-American. Not a few judges and constitutional scholars have argued that the First Amendment was written for the very purpose of protecting the expression of hateful ideas, as loveable or popular ideas need no protection. The Amendment was also written for two additional purposes. One was, as Justice Jackson wrote as quoted above, to keep the government out of the business of passing judgment on ideas and deciding what we may read, speak about or otherwise express in public. The corollary to this is that individuals should decide for themselves what ideas to embrace or reject, free from government interference.

In the colonial era, the Founding Fathers had endured a British system of law enforcement that punished ideas that the King thought dangerous. As much as we revere the Declaration of Independence for its elevation of personal liberty over governmental orthodoxy, we are free today to reject those ideas. The Declaration and its values were surely rejected by King George III, who would have hanged its author, Thomas Jefferson, and its signers had they lost the American Revolutionary War. Thank God they won. Justice Jackson also warned that a government strong enough to suppress ideas that it hates or fears was powerful enough to suppress debate that inconveniences it, and that suppression would destroy the purposes of the First Amendment. The Jacksonian warning is directly related to the Amendment’s remaining understood purpose — to encourage and protect open, wide, robust debate about any aspect of government. All these values were addressed by the Supreme Court in 1989 and again in 1990 when it laid to rest the flag burning controversies by invalidating all statutes aimed at suppressing opinions. Even though he personally condemned flag burning, the late Justice Antonin Scalia joined the majority in both cases and actively defended both decisions. At a public forum sponsored by Brooklyn Law School in 2015, I asked him how he would re-write the flag burning laws, if he could do so. He jumped at the opportunity to say that if he were the king, flag burners would go to jail. Yet, he hastened to remind his audience that he was not the king, that in America we don’t have a king, that there is no political orthodoxy here, and that the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, leaves freedom of expression to individual choices, not government mandates. THE AMERICAN flag is revered because it is a universally recognizable symbol of the human sacrifice of some for the human freedom of many. Justice Scalia recognized that flag burning is deeply offensive to many people — this writer among them — yet he, like Justice Jackson before him, knew that banning it dilutes the very freedoms that make the flag worth revering.

Conservative Chronicle

MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE: December 1, 2016

What if the convicted ‘serial rapist cop’ is innocent? “To he-- with Daniel Holtzclaw, and his tears.” — MTV News correspondent Jamil Smith “Drown in your tears, a--hole.” — NYC playwright/actress Mara Wilson “Where is the widespread outrage? Where is the media coverage? Why don’t we matter???!!?” — actress Gabrielle Union Former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw’s emotional breakdown went viral one year ago this week in the worst way possible. He became a national punching bag when a jury convicted him on 18 of 36 counts of sexual assault-related crimes against eight black women. His sentence: 263 years.

BUT WHAT if he didn’t do it — any of it? To the casual observer, Holtzclaw’s tears looked like the tears of a man sorry he got caught. But I am no longer a casual observer. For the past several months, I’ve reviewed extensive court records, accuser testimony, and discovery documents, video and audio. I visited the alleged crime scenes. I interviewed the two lead detectives who constructed the case against him, along with local community activists, a top DNA expert, Holtzclaw’s family and friends, and Holtzclaw himself. The truth about the Holtzclaw case is that a monstrous miscarriage of justice has occurred in the courts of law and public opinion. Just raising the possibility of his innocence has caused an angry backlash. Last week, social justice activists forced a billboard company in Oklahoma City to yank an advertisement for my new investigative web-based TV series on the case for CRTV.com that simply asked: “What if he didn’t do it?” Here’s what the protesters don’t what you to know. Prosecutors failed to present a single, corroborating witness or a single piece of direct forensic evidence proving Holtzclaw committed any of the 36 alleged assaults allegedly perpetrated at 17 different crime scenes. Holtzclaw never once asked for a lawyer during a two-hour interrogation by sex-crimes detectives — which came just 12 hours after he allegedly forced a 57-year-old woman to perform oral sex on him during his last overnight shift on June 18, 2014. In fact, Holtzclaw was completely forthcoming and consistent in his description of the 15-minute traffic stop involving northeast OKC resident and star accuser Jannie Ligons. He readily agreed to take a lie detector test “anytime,” voluntarily submitted to a buccal swab, handed over his uniform for DNA analysis, and signed a waiver allowing detectives to search his home, computers and phone. “I want everything” done, Holtzclaw told detectives — even when they false-

The forensic evidence backed up ly claimed to have incriminating video that “doesn’t look really good” and pur- Holtzclaw, not Ligons. She claimed Holtzclaw forced her portedly showed “a whole lot of action to put her hands on the hood of his car being performed.” One surveillance video from a near- during the stop. She also alleged that by commercial building did record he put his hands on the roof while purHoltzclaw and Ligons’s cars on the side portedly assaulting her as she sat in the as he stood on the rear of the road. But the video is too grainy backseat passenger side with and distant to conthe door open. Exfirm anything tensive fingerprint other than the fact and DNA tests all that a traffic stop over Holtzclaw’s took place. The (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate vehicle — again, video showed sevjust hours after the eral cars pass by alleged assault — also came up empty. during the 15-minute encounter. These are hardly the place and manTHE FORENSIC evidence backed ner in which a serial predator would try to conceal his conduct from prying eyes. up Holtzclaw, not Ligons. Holtzclaw’s demeanor during his inA sexual assault nurse examiner test on Ligons, who claimed Holtzclaw terrogation is all the more remarkable forced her to put his penis in her mouth and exculpatory when you consider that “for about 10 seconds,” came up empty later in the investigation, detectives profor Holtzclaw’s DNA. Sex-crimes de- cured two other accusers who claimed tective Kim Davis explained away the Holtzclaw assaulted them on the same negative SANE results to me by noting day as the Ligons’ stop. These women that Ligons had told her that Holtzclaw (and the vast majority of the rest of the accusers) were actively hunted down “did not ejaculate.” But in the police interrogation video, by detectives, who primed the pump by Davis had warned Holtzclaw: “Do you falsely stating in advance that they “had understand that you don’t have to full- a tip” the women could be victims of a blown ejaculate to get something out sexual assault by a police officer they of the SANE exam?...We can get skin had encountered in the past. Prosecutors argued that Holtzclaw cells. We can get pre-ejaculate. We can “targeted” these vulnerable women bedo all that and still get DNA.” Davis pressed him: “Did your penis cause they were the “perfect victims.” go in her mouth?” Holtzclaw firmly an- But my conclusion is that detectives targeted what Holtzclaw’s defense team swered: “No. It did not.”

Michelle

Malkin

called “the perfect accusers.” Outside of the courtroom, their stories became insulated from deeper public scrutiny because of their politically correct status. Now, 12 of 13 accusers (including four on whose charges Holtzclaw was acquitted) are suing for monetary damages. The litigation circus is being led by Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown family lawyer, Benjamin Crump. Those women included: — Convicted felon Sherry Ellis, who testified under oath at a preliminary hearing that her attacker was “black” and short (Holtzclaw is light-skinned and 6’1” tall), and who could not identify that attacker as Holtzclaw while he sat in the courtroom. — Convicted felon Tabitha Barnes, who described Holtzclaw as “darkskinned” and had not reported any inappropriate behavior — until a sexcrimes detective informed her about the Holtzclaw investigation, supplied her with a date and she changed her story. Barnes testified positive for PCP on the morning she testified at trial. She had also ingested hydrocodone and marijuana. — Carla Raines, who denied seven times she had been the victim of any inappropriate police conduct — until a sex-crimes detective informed her about the Holtzclaw investigation and she changed her story to claim that he had forced her to expose her breasts. (continued next page)

December 14, 2016 POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: December 4, 2016

The sensitivity police strike again

he word “inappropriate” is chromosomal defect that causes varyincreasingly used inappropri- ing degrees of mental disability and ately. It is useful to describe some physical abnormalities, such as departures from good manners or other low muscle tone, small stature, flatness social norms, such as wearing white af- of the back of the head and an upward to the eyes. Within living ter Labor Day or using the salad fork slant ry, Down syndrome with the entree. But the adjective has m e m o people were called become a splatter Mongoloids. of verbal fudge, Now they are a weasel word included in the falsely suggesting (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group category called measured seri“special needs” ousness. Its misty imprecision does not disguise, it adver- people. What they most need is nothing special. It is for people to understand tises, the user’s moral obtuseness. A French court has demonstrated their aptitudes, and to therefore quit how “inappropriate” can be an all-pur- killing them in utero. Down syndrome, although not compose device of intellectual evasion and moral cowardice. The court said it is in- mon, is among the most common conappropriate to do something that might genital anomalies at 49.7 per 100,000 disturb people who killed their unborn births. In approximately 90 percent of babies for reasons that were, shall we instances when prenatal genetic testing reveals Down syndrome, the baby is say, inappropriate. aborted. Cleft lips or palates, which ocPRENATAL GENETIC testing en- cur in 72.6 per 100,000 births, also can ables pregnant women to be apprised of be diagnosed in utero and sometimes a variety of problems with their unborn are the reason a baby is aborted. In 2014, in conjunction with World babies, including Down syndrome. It is a congenital condition resulting from a Down Syndrome Day (March 21), the

George

Will

Global Down Syndrome Foundation prepared a two-minute video titled “Dear Future Mom” to assuage the anxieties of pregnant women who have learned that they are carrying a Down syndrome baby. More than seven million people have seen the video online in which one such woman says, “I’m scared: What kind of life will my child have?” Down syndrome children from many nations tell the woman that her child will hug, speak, go to school, tell you he loves you and “can be happy, just like I am — and you’ll be happy, too.” THE FRENCH state is not happy about this. The court has ruled that the

MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE: December 1, 2016

Michelle Malkin continued — Convicted felon Terri Morris, a drug addict diagnosed as a “paranoid schizophrenic with depressive features” who couldn’t pick out Holtzclaw from a line-up and described him as having skin with a “dark color,” either “Indian” or “Irish” or maybe “white” and in his “thirties, forties, I don’t know, fifties.” She also misidentified Holtzclaw’s patrol car, told the investigators to “leave me alone,” and called their questions “bulls---.” — Convicted felon Shardayreon Hill, who had been rushed to the hospital in December 2013 at the behest of Holtzclaw and his assisting officers after she crushed a vial of PCP in her mouth and spilled more PCP on her skin. Hill called police in September 2014 alleging Holtzclaw had sexually assaulted her — only after the Ligons allegations went public and only after she faced felony charges for destroying evidence and intent to distribute PCP. — A.G., a 17-year-old girl who excitedly told her mother that Holtzclaw was a “hot cop” with whom she was going to go on “dates.” She came forward to allege that Holtzclaw vaginally raped her — but only after her mother was contacted by sex-crimes detectives who told her in advance she may be a victim of police abuse and only after her mother searched the internet for news and a photo of Holtzclaw.

purse.) Nor were the pants fluoresced or tested for other body fluids. Furthermore, prosecutors failed to note the presence of at least three other sources of DNA on Holtzclaw’s pants, including an unknown male’s — a glaring omission now being raised on appeal that further bolsters the innocuous transfer theory. Prosecutor Gayland Gieger sneered at the transfer DNA phenomenon in closing arguments, again in direct contradiction to the State’s own crime lab expert, who acknowledged BUT THE STATE’S own crime lab under oath the possibility of secondary expert admitted on the stand that no test- transfer and its extensive documentation ing was done to establish the presence in peer-reviewed scientific journals. of vaginal fluid on the pants. I’VE JUST shown you the tip of the “The only thing I can tell you is it is a biological material that originated from” iceberg of reasonable doubt that exists the teenager, Oklahoma crime lab analyst in this case. The truth matters because Elaine Taylor testified. “(H)ow it was put the tactics used against Holtzclaw could there or how it got there, I wasn’t there, I be used against anyone. But I don’t didn’t see what happened so I can’t really want you to just take my word on it. As Holtzclaw, who turns 30 on Dec. 10, the tell you exactly what happened.” As Wright State University biology one-year anniversary of his convictions, professor and president of Forensic Bio- told me in a phone interview from jail: informatics, Dr. Dan Krane, a leading “I want the world to read in detail about DNA expert, emphasized to me, indirect my case ... I want the world to see that “transfer is a well documented and real this can happen to you.” possibility.” Yet, no testing was conduct“Daniel in the Den: The Truth About ed anywhere else on the pants to rule out this phenomenon of secondary or even the Holtzclaw Case,” a two-part series, tertiary transfer due to casual interaction airs exclusively on CRTV.com’s new such as a handshake or other indirect program, “Michelle Malkin Investicontact. (Holtzclaw had searched A.G.’s gates,” beginning Dec. 5.

The discovery of A.G.’s DNA on the crotch area of Holtzclaw’s uniform pants was touted as the prosecution’s “smoking gun.” But the skin cells were derived from a minuscule sample that measured a billionth of a gram and this “evidence” continues to be brazenly mischaracterized. In closing arguments, prosecutor Gayland Gieger falsely asserted that the DNA came “from the walls of her vagina” and “was transferred in vaginal fluids.”

video is — wait for it — “inappropriate” for French television. The court upheld a ruling in which the French Broadcasting Council banned the video as a commercial. The court said the video’s depiction of happy Down syndrome children is “likely to disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices.” So, what happens on campuses does not stay on campuses. There, in many nations, sensitivity bureaucracies have been enforcing the relatively new entitlement to be shielded from whatever might disturb, even inappropriate jokes. And now this rapidly metastasizing right has come to this: A video that accurately communicates a truthful proposition — that Down syndrome people can be happy and give happiness — should be suppressed because some people might become ambivalent, or morally queasy, about having chosen to extinguish such lives because ... This is why the video giving facts about Down syndrome people is so subversive of the flaccid consensus among those who say aborting a baby is of no more moral significance than removing a tumor from a stomach. Pictures persuade. Today’s improved prenatal sonograms make graphic the fact that the moving fingers and beating heart are not mere “fetal material.” They are a baby. Toymaker Fisher-Price, children’s apparel manufacturer OshKosh, McDonald’s and Target have featured Down syndrome children in ads that the French court would probably ban from television. THE COURT has said, in effect, that the lives of Down syndrome people — and by inescapable implication, the lives of many other disabled people — matter less than the serenity of people who have acted on one or more of three vicious principles: That the lives of the disabled are not worth living. Or that the lives of the disabled are of negligible value next to the desire of parents to have a child who has no special, meaning inconvenient, needs. Or that government should suppress the voices of Down syndrome children in order to guarantee other people’s right not to be disturbed by reminders that they have made lethal choices on the basis of one or both of the first two inappropriate principles.

Conservative Chronicle

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: December 3, 2016

Anarchistic college students as tomorrow’s adults

f the rebellious, anarchistic, disrespectful college children we see are the youth of today, what will they be like as the adults of tomorrow? That’s not a rhetorical question. What can we expect from young people who today are everything we would expect the offspring to be like, if Rosemary’s Baby had married one of the witches from Salem’s Lot and began to procreate at a prodigious rate?

THE RICH spoiled little Marxist domestic terrorists of the 1960s, who were and are the true faces of privilege, exchanged their tie-dye shirts, military fatigue jackets, Mao’s Little Red Book, riots and taking over campus buildings for Calvin Klein, Dockers and Donna Karan. They then infested higher education by becoming professors, department heads, and in time became university chancellors and college presidents. During this period they have successfully replicated themselves, installing their progeny into every area of government and anti-traditional American advocacy group. They have successfully neutered society vis-a`-vis political correctness and cultural Marxism. The protests, flag burning and the pernicious heterodoxy of today’s campus anarchists is not new, it’s just transmogrified from an excess of stupidity to unmitigated insanity. Thus begs answer to the question: If the Marxist elementals of the 1960s produced the mindless hooligans, who today are demanding the removal of our nation’s flag from our universities, what they be like as tomorrow’s adults? In approximately 52 years blacks have gone from advocating for their Constitutional civil rights, (hate-filled Communists like Angela Davis notwithstanding), to demanding special rights based solely on skin color. Black students have gone from fighting for integration to now demanding colleges acquiesce to their demands for segregation. If miserably ignorant black youth on college campuses today have been so profoundly inculcated with a selfdestructive intellectual dishonesty that they willfully accept stenotopic environs and malaise that robs them of modernity — what will they be like as adults? It would have been difficult for reasoned minds to foresee the movement by black college students of today who are demanding skin-color based segregation in practically every facet of college life. If they are so painfully foolish as to believe this is advancing a viable agenda modeled for success, what can be expected of them as tomorrow’s adults? If colleges and public schools are knowingly depriving children of today the great literary works that were penned by the greatest writers in literary history — what understanding of American

culture will the young people of today understand as the adults of tomorrow? (See: PUBLIC School in Virginia Bans Two Classic American Novels Over Concerns About ‘Racial Slurs;’ Aleister; thegatewaypundit.com; 12/2/2016)

what the struggle for Civil Rights was about. If many young blacks today have rejected modernity out of a debilitating and self-limiting belief that embracing same is tantamount to being an Uncle Tom — how will they view life when they are the adults of tomorrow? IF MORALLY opprobrious calumSince the founding of America we niators masquerading as educators are have watched our young people adopt, depriving young people today of devel- embrace and advance the bar of oping interest in achievement by elthese literary clasevating modernity to sics by successfulthe gold standard of ly poisoning their exceptionalism in minds against said our brief 200-year (c) 2016, Mychal Massie historical literary history. However, work — what can if the young peowe reasonably expec these young people ple of today refuse to realize and emto embarce as adults? brace that truth, what does a tomorrow, Young blacks are bombarded with in which they are the adults, hold for the one or two famous quotes of Dr. Martin future of America? Luther King but apparently, they have eiEvery fiber of the fabric of the Amerther forgotten or they have never learned ica I/we love and value is under attack.

Mychal

Massie

Cultural-Marxists are determined to change America — and not for the better. We have witnessed the revising of history by so-called educators that has led to historical illiteracy heretofore unimagined. We were fortunate enough to have remaining members of America’s great past and the progeny of same valiantly withstand the neo-Leninism advanced by Obama and the elitist Republican establishment by rejecting the establishment dictates in the 2016 presidential election. BUT IN THE time remaining, should the Lord tarry in His return — based upon the young people we see today, conceding that they do not reflect the whole — are there enough young people of substance today for us to be secure about the future?

FAKE NEWS: December 2, 2016

Check your soul at The Daily Show

iberals in the press have spent weeks trashing “fake news” purveyors — which is to say, those in the press who are not liberals — while continuing to bow deeply to the fake newsmakers at The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Jon Stewart and New York Magazine writer Chris Smith have written a new book called The Daily Show (The Book): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests, and they’re the toast of Leftyville. On CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose set the adoring tone for Stewart, saying: “It became, for all of us, a kind of cultural event. ... More than a show.” Rose later added: “There was nothing quite like him. A lot of people did it very well. But Jon had a special place.” IT’S ANNOYING how liberals speak for “all of us.” An audience of two million liberals in a country of 322 million people is not all of us. Rush Limbaugh enjoys an audience six or seven times bigger. Now try to imagine Rose using that phrase while describing “An Oral History of the Rush Limbaugh Show.” Stewart speaks for Rose; Limbaugh does not. Rose and CBS did not remember Stewart’s show’s disreputable habit of mangling interviews with people it did not care for and calling it “satire.” The Hollywood Reporter at least seemed to have read the “oral history” enough to pluck out how Stephen Colbert advised other fake correspondents, “Check your soul at the door.”

Daily Show alumni Rob Corddry and Ed Helms called it “invaluable” advice for doing the kind of recorded “news” pieces that liberals loved best. Colbert explained: “When you’re in the field, you’re in the character of a correspondent. You are going to suck them dry like a lamprey until you get everything you can out of this interview. That behavior has to be cold-blooded. What you’re doing might get on you — the badness of what you are doing — and you don’t want to get it on your soul.”

Brent

Some of those “satire” victims that went into the editing wood chipper were experts. Economist Peter Schiff revealed two years ago that Samantha Bee interviewed him about problems with the minimum wage for three hours, and then they merged parts of sentences together that were uttered hours apart to make the worst possible impression. SOME VICTIMS were just everyday people. In that same year, Bee’s husband, Jason Jones, spent three hours interrogating four Washington Redskins fans who wanted to keep the team’s name. Then he brought in a group of angry Native Americans, who were told in advance of the ambush, to have a debate. He got some beer and chicken wings to watch, implying he was going to enjoy watching as the Redskins fans

suffered a psychological beating they weren’t told they were getting. It was an attempt to shame and humiliate the “racist” Redskins fans. Journalists cheered this stunt. Washington Post reporter Paul Kane announced on Twitter: “I’m sorry but at this stage you can’t complain about being ‘misled’ by Daily Show/Colbert interviewer. Joke’s on you.” Stewart’s crew was so typically misleading that reporters put “misled” in quotes. In other words, you’re a numbskull if you don’t realize they lie to their victims. We suppose there’s a certain amount of truth here if the subject is a seasoned political pro. They should know some producers lure their guests by lying through their teeth. But a simple Redskins fan won’t. Silly man. He’ll trust that Jon Stewart is honest. This is what liberals call comedy. We welcome the correction, but we can’t think of a single conservative program, television or radio, that engages in this “gotcha” journalism. Stewart told Charlie Rose in an hourlong PBS interview, “If it stimulated a curiosity for people to look behind the veil of what is seen publicly and deconstruct what they see on television or what they see on political campaigns, I would consider that an incredible compliment to the show.” BUT HE wouldn’t want anyone to deconstruct that cold-blooded badness that his “correspondents” unloaded on innocent people on television. That wouldn’t leave a complimentary feeling.

December 14, 2016 THE LEFT: December 6, 2016

Is President-Elect Trump a misogynist?

Like the other charges against him and those who voted for him, it is repeated so often — by every liberal columnist and commentator; by CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and every other left-wing newspaper; and by all the left-wing Christian and Jewish clergy — that people just assume it to be so. Amazingly, there is little, if any, eviI HAVE COME to believe that both dence to support the charge. The eviare true. As a student of the left since dence supports charges of insensitivity, graduate school at the Harriman Insti- boorishness, crassness, immaturity and tute at Columbia University’s School verbal impulsivity. But not misogyny. Take the most infamous of the alof International and Public Affairs, I am proofs of Trump’s more aware than most people of how old l e g e d misogyny: The and ubiquitous this 2005 recording of mode of attack a private converis. Since Josef sation between Stalin got away Trump and Acwith calling Leon (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate cess Hollywood Trotsky a fascist host Billy Bush in — Trotsky, the father of the Bolshevik Revolution (along which Trump said: “I’m automatically with Vladimir Lenin) and the founder of attracted to beautiful (women) — I just the Red Army — the left has relied on start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. defaming its opponents. And whatever it Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can says often enough it comes to believe. Moreover, the libel list never ends. do anything. ... Grab them by the p----. The left may not produce liberty or pros- You can do anything.” Why does that demonstrate misogyperity, but it does produce labels. We now have “misogynist” and “transpho- ny? How is that hatred of women? It’s crass, juvenile, sexually aggresbic,” for example. In every single area where the left differs from the right, it sive, improper, etc. But in what way does it demonstrate hatred of women? assigns a label to the right. It doesn’t. This brings us to the constant charge In fact, in his professional life, as that President-elect Donald Trump is a reported during the campaign by the misogynist, a hater of women. ou have to marvel at the ease with which our fellow Americans who call themselves progressive label those with whom they differ as sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist and bigoted. I always wonder: Do they believe it? Or do they say it because they lack intellectual arguments?

Dennis

Prager

Washington Post, Trump was known for hiring women for the highest positions in the American real estate industry. Read the Post’s Nov. 24, 2015, piece, “Donald Trump, a champion of women? His female employees think so.” OTHER PROOFS of Trump’s misogyny are his insulting statements toward women. But for every one of those one can point to insulting comments he made toward men. Remember “Lyin’ Ted” and “Little Marco” and his devastating put-downs of Jeb Bush?

And nothing he has said to women is as bad as what he said during the campaign about Dr. Ben Carson, calling him incurably pathological and comparing him to a child molester. So why do so many women — and men — call Trump a misogynist? Because he has so often described women in sexual terms. Because, as the charge goes, he “objectifies” women. Now, before responding to that, it is worth noting that this clearly disturbs college-educated women and men far more than it does those who did not attend college, which either means the college-educated are wiser on this matter, or the non-college-educated are wiser. As in most matters, my position is that college makes most people less wise. You have to go to college to think that men who see women they find attractive as sex objects hate women. Throughout history, women understood that men sexually objectify women, that this is male nature and has nothing — repeat, nothing — to do with hatred. Only the well-educated equate sexual objectification with hatred. If sexually objectifying women makes men haters of women, then gay men hate men, because gay men sexually objectify men exactly the same way heterosexual men objectify women. If you have a problem with this — and I can understand why people do — you need to take it up with God or Charles Darwin. But this is how male sexual nature works: It objectifies the object of its sexual attraction — male or female. THE GOOD news is that every healthy male is capable of both respecting women and sexually objectifying them. Even Donald Trump.

Conservative Chronicle

CHINA: December 7, 2016

Trump combines art of the deal and Art of War

Trump’s decision to speak with Taimonth after the presidential election, U.S. president- wan’s president should be what I’ll elect Donald Trump has exe- call an “expected surprise.” Surprise cuted his own political “pivot to Asia.” is a component of Trump’s “art of the Trump’s pivot consisted of two deal.” (Advice to Beijing: Go brush up phone calls, one with Taiwan’s presi- on Sun Tzu’s Art of War.) Frankly, China’s Communist govdent and the other with the president of ernment has earned a mild shock or the Philippines. perhaps two dozen mild The explicit topics discussed matter, t w o , shocks. but the critical fact is that Trump spoke President Barack with the Asian Obama’s “Asia pivleaders. Taking ot” gave Beijing a the personal calls mild and oversends a diplodue shock. The matic message. (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate term “Asia pivot” In Taipei and Manila, it is a message of reassurance and served as Obama Administration shortsupport. Taiwan, the Philippines and hand for shifting American strategic several other Asian nations confront a focus from the Middle East to East China pursuing increasingly militant Asia. The Reagan Administration foresaw and expansionary policies in the South China Sea and northeast Asian littoral. China’s rise to regional power status. Every subsequent administration has BEIJING HAD a different take on sought to peacefully manage the comTrump’s conversations — particularly plex and intricate U.S.-China relationhis chat with Taiwan. The Chinese ship. Obama Administration officials government appeared to be shocked. concluded that East Asia’s economic Beijing regards Taiwan as a province vitality and China’s growing power of China, not a separate country. China made the region the world’s key geoinsists on a “One China” policy. Since political theater. Moreover, friction with Beijing was the U.S. recognized the Communist regime in Beijing as China’s govern- increasing. In the 1990s, China began ment, American presidents have de- asserting its claims to the South China ferred to Beijing’s wishes and avoided Sea with muscular displays of military and economic power. Beijing reinovert contact with Taiwan’s leaders. Trump isn’t president — not yet. His forced its naval presence in the region phone calls, however, indicate he may and began an artificial island construction program. not practice “business as usual.”

Austin

Bay

THAT’S RIGHT — creating land in a sea zone. China’s neighbors argue Beijing’s program amounts to conquest with concrete braced by steel, and they’re right. The concrete transforms what international law calls “sea features” into fake islets big enough to support airfields for combat aircraft. These man-made islets become immobile aircraft carriers. In this decade, the territorial grabs became more persistent and more threatening (particularly to Vietnam and the Philippines). So the Obama Admin-

istration’s pivot emphasized reallocating military resources to the region and strengthening diplomatic and economic ties with smaller Asian nations confronting China’s “slow imperialism.” China claims sovereignty in the South China Sea from its mainland to what Beijing calls the “nine-dash line.” This boundary line dips south for hundreds of kilometers from China’s southern coast to near the island of Borneo. Beijing’s gargantuan claim puts it in direct conflict Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore as well as Vietnam and the Philippines. Action stirs reaction. These nations are slowly forming a de facto anti-Beijing alliance. The de facto alliance, however, is fragile without U.S. support. The U.S. has certainly provided the southeast Asians with rhetorical support. Washington has strengthened its security ties with the Philippines and begun providing Vietnam with some security assistance. The U.S. has also quietly but firmly sided with Japan in its maritime territorial conflicts with China. However, Beijing and the rest of the world took notice when the Obama Administration failed to back up its Syrian “red line” threat and its feeble response to Russia’s February 2014 invasion and annexation of the Crimean peninsula. The Obama Administration appeared feckless and weak. In the summer of 2014, China increased its aggressive actions in the South China Sea. The smaller nations wondered if the U.S. would support them if China “Crimeaed” their territory. TRUMP’S PHONE calls — as well as his campaign promises to pursue “fair” trade — tell China that the incoming administration understands both “art of the deal” and Art of War.

December 14, 2016 FOREIGN POLICY: December 2, 2016

After a mere 25 years, the trumph of the West is over

wenty-five years ago — December 1991 — communism died, the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union disappeared. It was the largest breakup of an empire in modern history and not a shot was fired. It was an event of biblical proportions that my generation thought it would never live to see. As Wordsworth famously rhapsodized (about the French Revolution), “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/ But to be young was very heaven!” That dawn marked the ultimate triumph of the liberal democratic idea. It promised an era of Western dominance led by a pre-eminent America, the world’s last remaining superpower. AND SO IT was for a decade as the community of democracies expanded, first into Eastern Europe and former Soviet colonies. The U.S. was so dominant that when, on Dec. 31, 1999, it

gave up one of the most prized geostra- party’s newly nominated presidential tegic assets on the globe — the Panama contender is fashionably conservative and populist and soft on Vladimir PuCanal — no one even noticed. That era is over. The autocracies are tin. As are several of the newer Eastback and rising; democracy is on the ern Europe democracies — Hungary, defensive; the U.S. is in retreat. Look Bulgaria, even Poland — themselves no further than Aleppo. A Western- showing authoritarian tendencies. And even as Europe tires of the sancbacked resistance to a local tyrant — imposed on Russia for he backed by a resurgent Russia, an ex- t i o n s its rape of Ukraine, panding Iran and President Obama’s an array of proxy much touted “isolaShiite militias — tion” of Russia is on the brink of has ignominiannihilation. Rus(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group ously dissolved, sia drops bombs; as our secretary America issues of state repeatedly goes cap in hand to statements. What better symbol for the end of Russia to beg for mercy in Syria. The European Union, the largest that heady liberal-democratic historical moment. The West is turning inward democratic club on earth, could itself and going home, leaving the field to the soon break up as Brexit-like moverising authoritarians — Russia, China ments spread through the continent. At and Iran. In France, the conservative the same time, its members dash with

AS FOR CHINA, the other great challenger to the post-Cold War order, the administration’s “pivot” has turned into an abject failure. The Philippines has openly defected to the Chinese side. Malaysia then followed. And the rest of our Asian allies are beginning to hedge their bets. When the president of China addressed the Pacific Rim countries in Peru last month, he suggested that China was prepared to pick up the pieces of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, now abandoned by both political parties in the United States. The West’s retreat began with Obama, who reacted to (perceived) post-9/11 overreach by abandoning Iraq, offering appeasement (“reset”) to Russia and accommodating Iran. In 2009, he refused even rhetorical support to the popular revolt against the rule of the ayatollahs. Donald Trump wants to continue the pull back, though for entirely different reasons. Obama ordered retreat because he’s always felt the U.S. was not this sort of abasement the kowtow. A good enough for the world, too flawed foreigner was supposed to beat his nog- to have earned the moral right to be gin on the floor before the throne, in the world hegemon. Trump would follow suit, disdaining allies and avoidpretended humiliation. No more of this for America — or ing conflict, because the world is not anyway, less of it than before. Donald good enough for us — undeserving, Trump sliced, in Alexandrian fash- ungrateful, parasitic foreigners living ion, through the Gordian moral knot. safely under our protection and off our He spoke on the phone with Taiwan’s sacrifices. Time to look after our own president. Hooray. A few of us superan- American interests. Trump’s is not a new argument. nuated hardliners, the sort who discern shame in shameful actions, hope Jimmy As the Cold War was ending in 1990, Carter, upon hearing the news, tipped Jeane Kirkpatrick, the quintessential neoconservative, argued that we should over his morning orange juice. The media and the “diplomatic com- now become “a normal country in a munity” are atwitter over the Trump normal time.” It was time to give up phone call’s potential for undermining the 20th-century burden of maintaining relationships with the still-very-red (for world order and of making superhuman all their commercial success) Chinese. exertions on behalf of universal values. One might riposte that if Chinese cen- Two generations of fighting fascism sorship over the phone calls our presi- and communism were quite enough. dent makes is the price of good relation- Had we not earned a restful retirement? At the time, I argued that we had ships, that’s too high a price, and high earned it indeed, but a cruel history time we quit forking over. Clearly, no sane American, Trump would not allow us to enjoy it. Repose included, wants bad relationships with presupposes a fantasy world in which China. On the other hand, relationships stability is self-sustaining without the might prove more genuine and durable United States. It is not. We would incur with American insistence on regain- not respite but chaos. ing control of our phone lines, in acA QUARTER-CENTURY later, we cordance with the good old theory that respect is the currency of the powerful, face the same temptation, but this time and shame is the pocket change of the under more challenging circumstances. Worldwide jihadism has been added nail-biters. to the fight, and we enjoy nothing like I LOOK forward to seeing how our the dominance we exercised over connext president deals with the outmoded ventional adversaries during our 1990s and not-always-creditable niceties that holiday from history. We may choose repose, but we govern our relationships with other collaborators in the democratic enterprise: won’t get it. Israel, say.

Charles

Krauthammer

CHINA: December 6, 2016

Trump and that phone call

hen President Jimmy Carter, in 1978, said he was ending diplomatic relations with the Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan, the Dallas Morning News, a journal widely admired at the time for its robustly conservative viewpoint, called the administration’s action “shameful.” I should know. I wrote the editorial. Why choose the word “shameful?” For a very good reason. By giving the back of his diplomatic hand to the Nationalists so as to embrace, and cavort with, the communists of the mainland, Carter brought shame to his country.

THAT IS A strong statement: Especially as it concerns our born-again 39th president, with his inexhaustible penchant for lecturing lesser beings on their lesser grasp of morality. The government that Chiang Kai-Shek had established on Taiwan in 1949, after the reds drove him from the mainland, was what you might call an inherited ally. We had fought alongside the Nationalists in World War II. Chiang was inarguably a defective leader, but he represented democratic, pro-Western government, as contrasted with the brutal prisoncamp style of communism that Mao Zedong had imposed on the mainland. A period of isolation commenced between the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America. This period Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger ended in the name of Realism. In 1978, the government on Taiwan occupied the Chinese seat on the United Nations Security Council — that was

when the U.N. still had two or three serious bones in its body — and enjoyed a certain prestige for political and military viability. There were, in essence, two Chinas: one free, the other oppressed. Nixon’s visit to Mao, in 1972, changed the terrain. “Red China,” as many Americans still called the mainland, demanded our recognition of its claim to represent all Chinese as the one and only China. Taiwan had to be delegitimized: A task to which Carterian moralism proved very much equal.

William

Thenceforth, to American officialdom, there was but one China: Mao’s. The U.S. continued to sell the Nationalists arms and to guarantee their independence. That was on the practical side. On the moral side, the Americans spoke with forked tongue about the reds’ right to rule. We supported Chinese democracy — except when we didn’t. NOT TO appreciate the hypocrisy of the position to which Carter gave flesh is to understand diplomacy in its most, shall we say, shameful guise. Nothing exactly new about it, but no fun to contemplate. Think of it: American presidents ceased being able to talk to Taiwanese presidents on the phone, lest they incur the wrath of the dragon kingdom. The Chinese emperors of old used to call

unseemly haste to reopen economic ties with a tyrannical and aggressive Iran.

Conservative Chronicle

FIDEL CASTRO: December 1, 2016

Responses to Castro’s death reveal wide chasm

his past week, Fidel Castro, Cuban dictator, died. The responses from President-elect Donald Trump and the Obama White House underscored how different the two men are, and provided a window into how the next four (or possibly eight) years will differ from the past eight. President Obama’s statement was without emotion, worded not to offend anyone, (except those who had endured horrors under Castro), and did not acknowledge the horrors that Fidel Castro and his brother Raul have inflicted on the Cuban people. They were, in fact, ridiculous when viewed against reality.

“WE KNOW that this moment fills Cubans — in Cuba and in the United States — with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation,” Obama said. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.” Trump’s statement was more direct, more emotional: “Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights. “While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve. Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty.” Singular figure versus brutal dictator. Fidel Castro, for me, was a brutal dictator whose brother murdered a friend’s father. Fidel Castro wrested the reins of power from Cuban military dictator Fulgencio Batista on Jan. 1, 1959. My friend, Luis Haza, was eight. His father, Col. Bonifacio Haza, commanded the National Police in Santiago. Batista had ruled with military might, leading a reign of terror that saw people taken from their homes, never to return. By the time Fidel Castro rode victoriously into Santiago, the prevailing belief (including among the island’s business leaders) was that Castro’s overthrow of Batista would lead to democracy and free elections. Col. Haza

believed democracy was Cuba’s des- pointed an associate concertmaster of tiny and stood with Castro on a stage a professional orchestra in Cuba. According to Haza, “the power structure soon after. But it became evident that Castro wanted to see if I could be ‘integrated’ neither believed in nor would support into the system. If they integrate the democracy; Col. Haza withdrew his son of an executed man, it would be a model for all the young people.” support. But Luis Haza had a different Within a few days, Col. Haza was “To come to the United forced into a dark cow pasture where d r e a m : States for freedom. he and 70 other We knew that in prisoners were Jackie Cuba, eventually executed under we would die, just the direction of like we had seen Raul Castro, Fi(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate neighbors die, and del’s younger so-and-so disapbrother and now peared. It was a daily thing, a daily Cuban president. “My father thought the revolution subject: American freedom, to go to was for democracy,” Luis Haza told the United States.” After Haza refused to play for the me. “Castro betrayed my father and the elder Castro, a military squad charged entire revolution.” into a rehearsal and pointed machine BY 1963, Luis Haza had become guns at the pianist. “Boy! Play somean accomplished violinist and was ap- thing!” they shouted.

Gingrich Cushman

He did. “I played the American national anthem, ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ The entire thing! You could hear a pin drop. I finished playing, and nobody knew what to do.” Soon after, Haza fled with his family to Spain, where they waited to emigrate to the United States. They arrived in New York on Election Day — November 3, 1964. In his death, Col. Bonifacio Haza served his country, and in serving his country he served his family, including his eight-year-old son, who now lives in freedom. WHILE MANY Americans take their freedoms for granted, Col. Haza’s story and that of his son remind us that the freedoms we have we enjoy are extraordinary, and that freedoms are never free.

JOHN BOLTON: December 2, 2016

For secretary of state, John Bolton

resident-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering seriously at least two men for the critical position of secretary of state. One, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has divided the Trump team between those who think it is a good idea and those who think Romney’s severe criticism of Trump during the campaign disqualifies him. The other is retired general and former CIA Director David Petraeus. A major problem for Petraeus is his mishandling of classified documents, which he reportedly leaked to his biographer-mistress, Paula Broadwell. After Trump hammered Hillary Clinton for her “extremely careless” handling of classified material when she was secretary of state, it would be hypocritical of Trump to name Petraeus.

“When you have a regime that would be happier in the afterlife than in this life, this is not a regime that is subject to classic theories of deterrence.” In his book Surrendering is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations, Bolton is unrelenting in his criticism of the toothless UN and of many U.S. policies that have not produced results in America’s best interests — precisely the attitude of President-elect Trump, who wants to look out for America and its interests first. In this pursuit he is not unlike one of his predecessors,

THOUGH ALSO in the running, former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani is thought to be running a distant third, if the number of visits in and out of Trump Tower are any indication. So, of the top two contenders, who? How about someone with experience as a diplomat, including within the State Department and as a former U.N. ambassador? John Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a regular commentator on cable news, does not engage in wishful thinking, or project American morals on those who don’t share them in the vain hope they might be contagious. Here is Bolton on the threat of radical Islamic terrorism:

Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, who said, “What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.” It is a mugging, and too often it is the United States and Israel who get mugged.

Cal

HERE’S ANOTHER Bolton quote: “Negotiation is not a policy. It’s a technique. It’s something you use when it’s to your advantage, and something that you don’t use when it’s not to your advantage.” That is the opposite of wishful thinking. In a July 2015 column for the Dallas Morning News, Bolton wrote that it is a fiction to believe Iran won’t vio-

late terms of the nuclear weapons deal it made with the Obama administration. He argues that “snapback” sanctions won’t work because sanctions failed before. He thinks the only option for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of the ayatollahs is Israel. “However, Iran may well retaliate,” Bolton acknowledges. “At that point, Washington must be ready to immediately resupply Israel for losses incurred by its armed forces in the initial attack, so that Israel will still be able to effectively counter Tehran’s proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, which will be its vehicles for retaliation. The United States must also provide muscular political support, explaining that Israel legitimately exercised its inherent right of self-defense. Whatever Obama’s view, public and congressional support for Israel will be overwhelming.” Who is to blame for this situation? Bolton writes: “American weakness has brought us to this difficult moment. While we obsessed about its economic discomfort, Iran wore its duress with pride. It was never an even match. We now have to rely on a tiny ally to do the job for us. But unless we are ready to accept a nuclear Iran (and, in relatively short order, several other nuclear Middle Eastern states), get ready. The easy ways out disappeared long ago.” THIS IS sober reality and precisely the worldview that is needed at the Department of State.

December 14, 2016 CHINA: December 6, 2016

Is Donald Trump calling out Xi Jinping?

What did China get out of the new ike a bolt of lightning, that call of congratulations from Tai- U.S. policy? Vast investment and $4 wan President Tsai Ing-wen to trillion in trade surpluses at America’s President-elect Donald Trump illumi- expense over 25 years. From the backward country mired nated the Asian landscape. We can see clearly now the profit and in the madness of the Great Proletarloss statement from more than three de- ian Cultural Revolution in 1972, China cades of accommodating and appeasing grew by double-digits yearly to become most manufacturing China, since Richard Nixon and Henry the foreon earth, and has Kissinger made their historic journey in nation used its immense 1972. earnings from trade What are the to make itself a gains and losses? military power to Soon after Nixrival the United on announced the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate States. trip in July 1971, China now claims all the islands of our World War II ally, the Republic of China on Taiwan, was expelled from the the South China Sea, has begun conUN, its permanent seat on the Security verting reefs into military bases, tarCouncil given to the People’s Republic geted hundreds of missiles on Taiwan, of China’s Chairman Mao, a rival of claimed the Senkakus held by Japan, ordered U.S. warships out of the TaiStalin’s in mass murder. wan Strait, brought down a U.S. EP-3 IN 1979, Jimmy Carter recognized on Hainan island in 2001, and then dethe regime in Beijing, cut ties to Taipei manded and got from Secretary of State and terminated the Sino-American Mu- Colin Powell an apology for violating tual Defense Treaty of 1954. All over Chinese airspace. Beijing has manipulated her currenthe world countries followed our lead, shut down Taiwan’s embassies, and ex- cy, demanded transfers of U.S. technolpelled her diplomats. Our former allies ogy, and stolen much of what of U.S. have since been treated as global pari- did not over. For decades, China has declared a ahs. During the 1990s and into the new goal of driving the United States out century, Republicans, acting on behalf beyond the second chain of islands off of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Asia, i.e., out of the Western Pacific and Business Roundtable, voted annually to back to Guam, Hawaii and the West grant Most Favored Nation trade status Coast. During these same decades, some of for China. They then voted to make it permanent and escort China into the us were asking insistently what we were getting in return. WTO.

Pat

Buchanan

Thus Trump’s phone call seemed the right signal to Beijing — while we recognize one China, we have millions of friends on Taiwan in whose future as a free people we retain an interest. CHINA BRISTLED at Trump’s first communication between U.S. and Taiwanese leaders since 1979, with Beijing indicating that Trump’s failure to understand the Asian situation may explain the American’s gaffe. Sunday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence assured us that nothing of significance should be read into the 15-minute phone call of congratulations. Trump, however, was less polite and reassuring, giving Beijing the wet mitten across the face for its impertinence:

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?” Trump then answered his own question, “I don’t think so.” According to the Washington Post, the phone call from Taiwan to Trump was no chance happening. It had been planned for weeks. And people in Trump’s inner circle are looking to closer ties to Taiwan and a tougher policy toward Beijing. This suggests that Trump was aware there might be a sharp retort from Beijing, and that his tweets dismissing Chinese protests and doubling down on the Taiwan issue were both considered and deliberate. Well, the fat is in the fire now. Across Asia, every capital is waiting to see how Xi Jinping responds, for a matter of face would seem to be involved. On the trade front, China is deeply vulnerable. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods would cause a sudden massive loss of income to factories in China and a stampede out of the country to elsewhere in Asia by companies now producing in the Middle Kingdom. On the other hand, without China using its economic leverage over North Korea, it is unlikely any sanctions the U.S. and its allies can impose will persuade Kim Jong Un to halt his nuclear weapons program. China can choke North Korea to death. But China can also step back and let Pyongyang become a nuclear weapons state, though that could mean Seoul and Tokyo following suit, which would be intolerable to Beijing. BEFORE WE go down this road, President-elect Trump and his foreign policy team ought to think through just where it leads — and where it might end.

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Michael Barone, Austin Bay, Brent Bozell, Pat Buchanan, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, Ann Coulter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, Veronique de Rugy, Larry Elder, Leslie Elman, 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, Star Parker, Dennis Prager, Debra J. Saunders, John and Andy Schlafly, Ben Shapiro, Thomas Sowell, Cal Thomas, Matt Towery, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., George Will, and Walter Williams.

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Wednesday, December 14, 2016 • Volume 31, Number 50 • Hampton, Iowa