Conservative Chronicle for December 28 2016 by Mid-America Publishing Corporation

At Issue this week... December 28, 2016 Aleppo Buchanan (31) Cartel War Bay (30) Dear Mark Levy (19) Democrats Greenberg (4, 22) Harsanyi (3) Lowry (5, 10) Disarmament Sowell (30) Diversity Sowell (9) Williams (20) Drug Addict Mothers Coulter (7) Electoral System Will (9) Expectations Cushman (28) Export-Import Bank de Rugy (14) Fake News Goldberg (16) Massie (15) Thomas (17) Tyrrell (17) Foreign Policy Charen (20) HHS Parker (25) Hope Thomas (6) Infrastructure Moore (11) Left, The Saunders (26) Leslie’s Trivia Bits Elman (14) News Hollis 22 Obama, Michelle Malkin (25) Obama Presidency Bozell (28) Schlafly (24) Shapiro (29) Politics Barone (5) Positional Economy Will (13) Power Murchison (3) President-Elect Trump Barone (23) Fields (10) Lambro (6) Rangel, Charlie Elder (8) Russian Interference Buchanan (21) Napolitano (18) Secularism Prager (27) Trump’s Cabinet Chavez (2) Krauthammer (1) Stossel (29) U.S. Mortality Rate Charen (26) U.S. Treasury Kudlow (12)

Trump’s Cabinet by Charles Krauthammer

Trump Cabinet: Bonfire of the agencies

emocrats spent the first two decades of the post-Cold War era rather relaxed about Russian provocations and revanchism. President Obama famously mocked Mitt Romney in 2012 for suggesting that Russia was our principal geopolitical adversary. Yet today the Dems are in high dudgeon over the closeness of secretary of state nominee, Rex Tillerson, to Vladimir Putin. Hypocrisy aside, it is true that, as head of Exxon Mobil, Tillerson made major deals with Russia, received Russia’s Order of Friendship and opposed U.S. sanctions. That’s troubling but not necessarily disqualifying. At the time, after all, Tillerson was acting as an agent of Exxon Mobil, whose interest it is to extract oil and make money. THESE INTERESTS do not necessarily overlap with those of the United States. The relevant question is whether and how Tillerson distinguishes between the two and whether as agent of the United States he would adopt a tougher Russia policy than he did as agent of Exxon Mobil. We don’t know. We shall soon find out. That’s what confirmation hearings are for. The left has been in equally high dudgeon that other Cabinet picks appear not to share the mission of the agency which they have been nominated to head. The horror! As if these agency missions are somehow divinely ordained. Why, they aren’t even constitutionally ordained. The Department of Education, for example, was created by President Carter in 1979 as a payoff to the teachers’ unions for their political support. Now, teachers are wonderful. But teachers’ unions are there to protect benefits and privileges, not necessarily to improve schooling. Which is why they zealously defend tenure, protect their public-school monopoly and reflexively oppose school choice. Conservatives have the odd view that the purpose of schooling — and therefore of the Department of Education — is to provide students with the best possible education. Hence Trump’s nominee, Betsy DeVos, a longtime and passionate proponent of school choice, under whom the department will no longer be an arm of the teachers’ unions. She is also less likely to allow the department’s Office for Civil Rights to continue appropriating to itself the role of arbiter of social justice, micromanaging everything from campus sexual mores to the proper

bathroom assignment for transgender students. If the mission of this department has been to dictate policy best left to the states and localities, it’s about time the mission was changed. The most incendiary nomination by far, however, is Scott Pruitt to

Charles

head the Environmental Protection Agency. As attorney general of Oklahoma, he has joined or led a series of lawsuits to curtail EPA power. And has been upheld more than once by the courts. PRUITT HAS been deemed unfit to serve because he fails liberalism’s modernday religious test: Belief in anthropogenic climate change. They would love to turn his confirmation hearing into a Scopes monkey trial. Republicans should decline the invitation. It doesn’t matter whether the man believes the moon is made of green cheese. The challenges to EPA actions are based not on meteorology or theology, but on the Constitution. The issue is that the EPA has egregiously exceeded its authority and acted as a rogue agency unilaterally creating rules unmoored from legislation. Pruitt’s is the most important nomination because it is a direct attack on the insidious

growth of the administrative state. We have reached the point where EPA bureaucrats interpret the Waters of the United States rule — meant to protect American waterways — to mean that when a hard rain leaves behind a pond on your property, the feds may take over and tell you what you can and cannot do with it. (The final rule excluded puddles — magnanimity from the Leviathan.) On a larger scale, Obama’s Clean Power Plan essentially federalizes power generation and regulation, not coincidentally killing coal along the way. This is the administration’s end run around Congress’ rejection of Obama’s proposed 2009-2010 cap-andtrade legislation. And that was a Democratic Congress, mind you. Pruitt’s nomination is a dramatic test of the proposition that agencies administer the law, they don’t create it. That the legislative power resides exclusively with Congress and not with a metastasizing administrative bureaucracy. FOR SOME, this reassertion of basic constitutionalism seems extreme. If so, the Obama administration has only itself to blame. Such are the wages of eight years of liberal overreach. Some legislation, like Obamacare, will be repealed. Some executive orders will be canceled. But most important will be the bonfire of the agencies. We may soon be secure not just in our puddles but our ponds. December 16, 2016

Conservative Chronicle

TRUMP’S CABINET: December 16, 2016

Cabinet nominees are in for a rude awakening

resident-elect Donald Trump is filling his Cabinet with lions of industry and finance, not surprising for a businessman, and the left has predictably focused on the various conflicts of interest that might arise for his nominees. But the likelihood is that most will make it through confirmation, perhaps with a few bumps — and that is where the real challenge lies. The problems won’t end even if each of these men (and his business picks are mostly men, an exception being Linda McMahon, who received a sub-Cabinet nomination) is willing to be scrupulous in avoiding conflicts of interest. They still face enormous challenges once they take office because they have never worked in government. AS SOMEONE who has spent most of her career outside government but has also headed a small federal agency and had two stints working in the White House, I can tell you that the federal government is a world unto itself. The normal relationships between employer and employees don’t exist. As the head of a department or agency, you pick very few of your own employees, and you have little or no authority to get rid of those employees you inherit. Worst of all, you can’t reward outstanding service (except with very modest bonuses, which pale in comparison with those in the business world). There is no such

A COMPANY sets its budget for the thing as pay for performance, which is the rule in business. Nor is it even pos- year and then evaluates whether the emsible to promote the best hires, except ployee met his or her target. Even those within the constraints of federal civil whose jobs don’t directly affect revservice rules, and you can’t move em- enues or profits, say the general counsel ployees around easily from one job to or the head of human resources, usually receive a portion of their bonus based another. The word bureaucracy became a syn- on overall company performance. If the onym for inefficiency and burdensome company does well, makes more money public companies, rules for a reason. Working within the and, in sees its stock price bureaucracy rego up, executives quires a talent and receive rewards. In patience that few government, ConCEOs, in my exgress appropriperience, possess. (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate ates the money to I have served on corporate boards for more than 25 years fund departments and agencies, and the and worked closely with CEOs and oth- Office of Personnel Management sets ers in the executive suite. What I’ve wages on a set scale that evaluates job seen tells me that the businesspeople in titles and responsibilities. There is very the Cabinet are in for a rude awakening. limited flexibility within the governIn the business world, competition is ment system. One of the biggest difficulties the stiff. There’s no such thing as lifetime employment for the top jobs. If you do new Cabinet members will encounter your job well, you can expect to ad- is in picking their own team. Traditionvance, and you can expect to be reward- ally, the president appoints sub-Cabinet ed handsomely. Employees receive a officials, sometimes with little input base salary and, in many cases, bonuses from the department secretary. And so and stock or stock options — but all are it goes, down the line, with assistant tied to performance. Companies estab- secretaries unable to choose their direct lish compensation programs that look reports, which is the prerogative of the at both individual and company perfor- transition office in the early days and mance. Though various administrations of White House presidential personnel have tried to mimic private-sector prac- later on. Cabinet officials in the Trump tices by setting up performance reviews, administration may have more latitude than previous agency heads did because the processes bear little in common.

Linda

Chavez

the campaign did not have the legions of volunteers and donors expecting political appointments. But even if the new secretaries can pick more of their own people, the total number of political appointments throughout government is tiny — some 4,000 jobs out of a civilian federal workforce of 1.4 million. The greatest culture shock for these new Cabinet members who’ve never worked in government, however, will be how little authority they have to make major changes in their departments. Divisions within agencies often operate as fiefdoms, with their own ties to Congress and appropriations staffers who fund their work. Reorganizing is difficult and painful. Worst of all, firing anyone in the federal government, even for cause, is a tedious process for which few have the stomach. And forget about getting rid of someone without an ironclad show of gross incompetence or malfeasance. Donald Trump’s famous “you’re fired” won’t be heard often after he takes over in January. SO MY ADVICE to incoming appointees: If you want to accomplish something, you’ll have to rely as much on persuasion as you will on coercion. It’s possible to bring about change, but not nearly so much as you’re used to. You’ll find few allies in government and an even more hostile environment in the power corridors outside, the media and the special interests. Being a Cabinet secretary or agency head may sound like a powerful job, but it’s a lot less powerful than those eager to occupy such a position may envision.

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December 28, 2016 DEMOCRATS: December 16, 2016

The five stages of losing an election to Trump

hough many things have changed in American political life over the past couple of years, one aspect remains a comforting constant: Democrats never lose an election. Not really. Not fairly. Elections can be stolen. Americans can be misled. Big Oil or big business can buy elections, because these institutions possess the preternatural ability to control human actions. Whatever the case, something fishy and nefarious must also be going on, because there’s absolutely no way voters could reject Democrats. FROM THE night of Nov. 8 onward, the political coverage has been dominated by a series of conspiracies to explain the election of Donald Trump. Never acceptance. Always denial. FBI Director James Comey: Weeks after the election, conventional wisdom

Voting machines: Conspiracy theohad coalesced around the idea that his letter informing Congress that the bureau ries over rigged elections are nothing had found new evidence relating to the new. We saw them in 2000 and 2004. criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton Trump had also peddled the riggedconspiracy before Elechad irreversibly changed the election. e l e c t i o n Day. I remember this After hammering Trump with one ac- t i o n because I was told cusation after the that the Republican next — some of nominee was irrepthem legitimate arably underminand some of them ing public trust in completely un(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate our institutions. proven — Democrats seemed to believe their candidate By devoting so much time to stories should be immune from news of her own that aren’t newsworthy, our media does doing. But it was Clinton who used a the same. One instance is giving widesecret email server to circumvent trans- spread attention to partisan “experts” parency. She was the one who sent un- who claim that Clinton “may have been secured classified documents. She was denied” as many as 30,000 votes in the one who attempted to destroy the Wisconsin. evidence. She was the one who lied to THE CONSTITUTION gets it the American people. And she was nominated by Democrats who never seriously wrong again: We are now in the midst of widespread anguish over the imagientertained any another candidate.

David

Harsanyi

POWER: December 20, 2016

Two kinds of power

f we could just, at last, finally get the right government in! Then we’ll get things fixed. What kind of things? All kinds of things: so that they can be — it always seems to work this way — un-fixed by the next succession of leaders, with their own notions as to how things should work. Because, look, notions of governmental success are as varied as the voters who want them.

AND WHAT am I getting at? Aren’t we glad some big changes are in the offing once a new administration takes over in Washington? Considering certain, shall we say, defects in current leadership styles and governing philosophy, the answer is: Yes! Yes, we’re glad. But what then? Can we lock down the improvements, make sure that we don’t have to do this routine again — organizing, agitating, spending millions of dollars, dividing American against American? Evidence regarding that question isn’t encouraging. The present season — once called Christmas, now semi-officially “the holidays”— affords scope for meditation on stuff quite a bit bigger than Electoral College voting, hacked emails, accusations of foreign interference, prospects for Cabinet and Supreme Court confirmations, that sort of thing. The first Christmas came amidst distress over — just imagine! — government and governmental questions. The rule of the Romans and their Jewish allies would have been blown away by a good election. But of course there weren’t any elections back then, just no-

tifications of who was the new emperor or king or prefect. The perpetrators (from the imperial standpoint) of the first Christmas worked around the realities of power and force. These they did not seek to do away with. In their stead they erected something higher: The love of God. THE LOVE of God reframed the human problem. Governments, strong and weak, endured. But government was no longer No. 1. It was an instrument, not an end in itself; a name for human devices of one kind or another, none of them permanent.

William

Life — the real life — was to be lived elsewhere than in the corridors of power, with their halberds and maces and rifles and bombs. The real life consisted in relationships supervised by the altogether greater power of God: In the practice, that was to say, of duties balanced by freedoms, according to the great plan of God made clear in the accommodation, whatever its form, that drew worshipers to the birthplace of God’s Son. The heart, under this dispensation, was a greater force for good than was the fist, or that which the fist held and wielded. Obedience was not a thing to be enforced; it was the consequence of a love no sword could compel. The lesson was passed along in succeeding centuries: You could have your

government, yes, but what counted was who you were. Were you merely ambitious, or did you have a care for the right things in life? Did you build up or tear down? Did you — for starters — honor things honorable in themselves, such as truth and justice? Or did you throw such stuff to the winds as you sought power and control over others? Did you model for others — most especially those of your own family — the habits of behavior long-dead generations had commended as the virtues: Faith, hope, charity, fortitude, prudence and so on? Or did you model pride and greed and lust and sloth? It mattered. The kind of government you enjoyed — or despised — was likely to reflect your, and your culture’s, appraisal of the human duties prescribed by what was once proudly known as Christian civilization: An entity far removed from debates over hacking and confirmation. IF MEN were angels, James Madison observed, who’d need government? But clearly they aren’t, and the disputes men — and women — carry on have little about them of angelic character. Which puts one in mind, or it should, of an angelic visitation more inspiring than any gathering of electors or summoning of committees-on-this-and-that. They sang something, did they not, about glory to God in the very, very, very highest: where we might do worse than fix our gaze with increasing attention. If, that is, we manage to raise our noses from the latest poll results, the newest congressional inquiry.

nary popular vote. Not only is the system we’ve used to elect presidents since the founding of the republic “unfair” and “undemocratic,” critics say, but like anything else progressives dislike these days, it’s also tool of white supremacy and sexism. One could argue that Democrats oppose dispersing political power and states’ rights and one of the core ideas of the Founding Fathers, but that would be giving them far too much credit. They only seem to oppose those things when they’re losing elections. Fake news: After some ginned-up alarm over the proliferation of “fake news,” Clinton recently joined the chorus by claiming it is “an epidemic” in America. The fake-news panic of 2016 is a variation on a long-held liberal notion that people are too easily manipulated by conservatives. This is one of the reasons Democrats are interested in empowering the state to ban political speech by overturning Citizens United, passing a Fairness Doctrine or handing control of the internet to the government. It’s difficult to dispute that voters are often susceptible to believing stories that reinforce their pre-existing views about the world. But no one is innocent. Surveys say that at one point, more than half of Democrats believed that President George W. Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened. But since most of the media treated Trump as if he had absolutely no chance of winning the election, the unfathomable turn of events has to be explained by something. The Russians are coming: Now, we’re shifting into our Russia Panic phase. The CIA claims that the Russians attempted to interfere in the election to assist Trump. This seems wholly plausible, considering Trump’s favorable view of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it should be fully investigated. There’s still debate among U.S. intelligence services about the Russian hacks, but that hasn’t stopped some Democrats from questioning the patriotism of those who refuse to accept the hysterical version of events. Well, unless the Russians transformed Hillary Clinton into an unlikable, ideologically malleable, corrupt, inveterate fabricator over the past 30 years, the claims that the Russians stole an election should, like all other panics this season, be received with a giant dose of skepticism. OF COURSE, there will always be overarching theories about why Republicans win elections — like assuming half the country is racist. The left is so enveloped by its identity politics that it may not understand that the other half of the country is sick of it. While I’m no fan of Trump, Democrats have been demanding that I panic over every Cabinet pick, every statement and every event. It’s not normal.

Conservative Chronicle

DEMOCRATS: December 16, 2016

Pelosi clings to power, to her party’s detriment

fter the Republican avalanche saying as if to convince herself if no one of a victory in last month’s else. Those defectors no more existed elections, there was still more than did her alleged leadership. And good news for the Grand Old Brand they were proving remarkably vocal for defectors that didn’t exist. Their leader New Party courtesy of Nancy Pelosi. It seems she’s eked out a narrow was a courageous congressman from victory over a Democratic insurgency Ohio named Tim Ryan who was saying against her stultified leadership of the that Pelosi & Co. were not being reto the country’s party in the House, a leadership that has sponsive economic needs. been rusting for The minority the past 14 years. leader’s excuse? If everything isn’t “I think we’re at a coming up roses time that is well for the GOP, at (c) 2016, Tribune Media Services beyond politics. least there are tulips covering the horizon the way daffo- It’s about the character of America.” But when have American elections not been? dils do Wye Mountain every spring. Beyond the various voting blocs that AND ALL Nancy Pelosi could say exist mainly in pollsters’ post hoc ergo about her aforementioned “leadership” propter hoc analysis, whether the farm was the same thing she’s been saying vote, urban vote or young or old vote, year after year, repeating used-up slo- there has always been an all-American, gans that would do Hillary Clinton cred- red-white-and-blue vote. For all his boorishness, Donald Trump it, or rather discredit, after that worthy’s understood as much and kept appealing latest defeat. Innocent Reader needn’t listen too to that vote even as the politically soclosely to hear the false cheer resound- phisticated were writing him off month ing: “I have a special spring in my step after month, surprising primary after today,” said once and future Minority surprising primary. A then young senaLeader Pelosi, “because this opportunity tor from Illinois named Barack Obama is a special one, to lead the House Dem- once understood all this, which is why ocrats, bring everyone together as we he put an old warhorse like Hillary Clingo forward.” Alas, defeat has no more ton in the shade when they battled it out improved her credibility than it has her for their party’s presidential nomination syntax, beginning with that gratuitous in 2008. The conclusion is inescapable for “as we go forward.” As if there were anyone who’s been listening, not just some other way to get to the future. Defections from her leadership? talking: Political novices of the world, “They weren’t defections, I had two- unite! You have nothing to lose but thirds of the vote,” Nancy Pelosi kept your delusions! One version or more of

Paul

Greenberg

that sound counsel was repeated again and again by wiser heads. Congressman Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat from Texas, noted that Nancy Pelosi had been obliged to take all the opposition against her so-called leadership seriously by strewing olive branches all around to calm those nonexistent defectors. The defectors were particularly riled by her management or lack of it at the Democratic National Campaign Committee, which took sides in the party’s primaries early and often. WHY DID Nancy Pelosi throw her critics a bone or two when she had to? “That’s partly a response to the competi-

tion in the caucus for votes,” says Beto O’Rourke, “and that’s a healthy thing.” If the party still doesn’t believe in wideopen economic competition under the rule of law, it may finally have seen the light where political competition is concerned, for it had little choice after the result of last month’s elections. Nancy Pelosi had foreseen a gain of more than 20 seats for her party instead of the six it had to settle for, small potatoes indeed. To quote Congressman Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona: “We should have been recruiting earlier, we should have better targeting. I think our messaging was off. I think we are focused so much still on TV instead of looking at new methods of communications and/ or even old methods of communication — canvassing and digital buys.” Even while criticizing the campaign bureaucracy, he can’t seem to help sounding like a bureaucrat, God bless him. A corporal in the ever-faithful Marines (Semper Fi!), he was critical of DNCC staffers who thought only of pleasing Ms. Pelosi instead of challenging her to do better than just serving herself, calling the staffers’ work “bureaucratic in nature.” Far-seeing Democrats with their party’s future at stake would have liked to see her position and positions challenged rather than just rubberstamped. Their motto could have been Barry Goldwater’s in 1964: A choice, not an echo. He may have lost the election that year even while winning the nation’s heart. As did Ronald Reagan, who was just setting the stage for his grand comeback of comebacks. “I’M VERY concerned that we just signed the Democratic Party’s death certificate,” says Congressman Kurt Schrader of Oregon. The ink hasn’t dried yet, but the many lessons of this campaign, great and small, may prove indelible.

December 28, 2016 POLITICS: December 20, 2016

How the political rules changed in 2016

nearly a third more electoral votes. And almost no one could avoid seeing. So that’s not counting the spending of su- many gross rating points produced so many votes. per PACs supporting the Democrat. Sure, after 13 years of The ApTODAY OLD-LINE network audiprentice, Trump had the advantage of celebrity, which helped him get the ences are a fraction of what they used lion’s share of cable coverage during to be, and technology allows people TV ads altogether. A the primary season. But he used the to skip zero-cost tweet can spotlight to make get more attention arguments and than a $10 million advance policies TV ad barrage, that won votes. and a YouTube Clinton spent (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate video can earn a most of August fundraising in rich people’s homes. But candidate more votes than a TV ad. A corollary is that the Democrats’ what she did with her record one-month haul of $143 million didn’t swing many obsession with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which alvotes. 2) TV spots don’t matter so much lowed corporate political communicaanymore, either. In the 1970s, cam- tions, is utterly beside the point. Visible paigns ran television ads because it corporations don’t want to take partisan THE TRUMP campaign spent only was the best way to reach voters. There sides — or if they do, their public relaslightly more than half as much as the were only three networks, and you tions departments opt for political corHillary Clinton campaign but won could “roadblock” them with spots that rectness. ver the 40-some years that I have been working or closely observing the political campaign business, the rules of the game haven’t changed much. Technology has changed the business somewhat, but the people who ran campaigns in the 1970s could have (and in some cases actually have) run them four decades later. But suddenly this year, the rules seemed to change. Let me try to count the ways. 1) Money doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore. “Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” the legendary California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh said a half-century ago. But some winning campaigns this year operated on what Unruh might have regarded as low-lactose diets, notably Donald Trump’s.

Michael

Barone

DEMOCRATS: December 19, 2016

Only Hillary is to blame for her loss it.

he Democrats have a simple explanation for Hillary Clinton’s loss — the Russians did

The party that has had a decadeslong soft spot toward Moscow and been reluctant to believe that the Kremlin might have aggressive intentions or, say, cheat on an arms-control agreement is in a frenzy over Russian hacking that supposedly denied Hillary the victory that was rightfully hers. John Podesta, the chairman of a Hillary campaign that considered accepting the results of an election part of American writ as of about two months ago, refused several times on Meet the Press Sunday to say the presidential election was “free and fair.” IN A CONTEST this narrow, anything might have been decisive. But the monocausal Russian explanation for Hillary’s defeat ignores her myriad political and ethical vulnerabilities that the Democrats were determined to disregard, despite the obvious evidence of them for years. Vladimir Putin couldn’t have handpicked a worse champion for them this year. There was no reason to believe that Hillary Clinton was a good politician who could deliver a compelling message, since she had never done it before. What she lacked in raw political skill, she made up for with dubious practices. She and her husband hadn’t anticipated her second run for the presidency by staying squeaky-clean, but by buck-

raking from every corporate or foreign interest possible on the promise of a return to power. They were happy to, at the very least, skirt the rules, with Hillary’s homebrew email arrangement — concocted to hide her correspondence from legitimate media and congressional inquiries — exemplifying the MO. In other words, the Democratic establishment rushed into the arms of a candidate who, it was clear from the beginning, could well lose to Donald Trump, especially if a few things bounced the wrong way — and is now shocked and outraged that she indeed lost when a few things bounced the wrong way.

Rich

YES, THE Russian interference was among those things. But some perspective: The hack of the Democratic National Committee disrupted the early going of the Democratic convention, but the convention was still a wild political success that gave Hillary a big bounce. The subsequent WikiLeaks release of John Podesta’s emails constituted a steady drip-drip of discomfiting information, yet most of it didn’t break through in the media. Certainly none of it had the effect of the James Comey letter 11 days before the voting, which dominated the coverage for days and led to an immediate slide in Hillary’s poll numbers.

This is why Democrats tend to lump in James Comey with the Russians when arguing that the election was hacked, even though he’s the director of the FBI, not the FSB. Comey is a public servant who had to grapple with the unprecedented circumstance of a major political party knowingly nominating a presidential candidate under FBI investigation. Who thought this was a good idea? Democrats just assumed that everything related to the investigation would go Hillary’s way, in an act of sheer wishfulness (and denial about the seriousness of the matter). Hillary escaped indictment, but two of the worst moments of her campaign came courtesy of Comey, whose public explanation of her handling of her emails wounded her in the summer. It is true that late-deciding voters broke against Hillary, although it’s impossible to disentangle the effect of WikiLeaks, the Comey letter and natural factors, i.e., she was the known quantity running as the quasi-incumbent at a time of great voter discontent, setting her up for a fall at the end. DEMOCRATS ARE calling for an investigation to get to the bottom of the Russian interference in the election. This is entirely appropriate. But everything points to the Democrats not being able to handle the fundamental truth of what happened on Nov. 8 — they took a flier on a historically weak candidate out of a misbegotten attachment to the Clinton dynasty, and paid a grave price for their foolish mistake.

3) Celebrities don’t count. Did anyone vote for Clinton because Beyonce and Lady Gaga did concerts for her? Bruce Springsteen’s Monmouth County, New Jersey, voted for Trump. The money ferrying such celebs to Clinton event venues was totally wasted. 4) Outrageous statements aren’t disqualifying. The Clinton campaign spent the bulk of its ad budget on spots about decrying Trump’s character, and this bombardment was augmented by mainstream media talking heads expressing horror about his latest outrage. But voters seeking change didn’t much mind. As Salena Zito, the reporter most alert to Trump’s appeal, wrote, “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Many voters are tired of being told they can’t say things that are politically incorrect — for example, noting that many terrorists are Islamists. They don’t mind — in fact, they rather like it — when candidates do. 5) Polling and big data don’t automatically generate the right moves. Campaign strategists have used polls to shape messages since the 1960s, often shrewdly. But poll interpretation is not a science but an art. The Clinton campaign didn’t notice its candidate’s weakness in the outstate (counties outside metropolitan areas with a millionplus people) Midwest, because those areas are just one subgroup in statewide polls — though Iowa polls were a clue. That weakness swung electoral votes that President Barack Obama had won in 2012 to Trump. Big data interpretation must be combined with what German military thinkers called Fingerspitzengefuhl, or fingertip feeling. The Clinton campaign had scads of big data in its Brooklyn, New York, headquarters but was so rigid in its application that it ran more late-campaign TV ads in Omaha (for Nebraska’s 2nd District’s one electoral vote) than in Wisconsin and Michigan (26 electoral votes). 6) Not being able to understand how the opposition thinks is huuuugely dangerous. This is actually an old rule, but one in particular need of reiteration in a year when most of the old rules no longer apply. The Trump campaign seems to have had a pretty good idea of what its Republican opponents and the Clinton campaign were up to, but the reverse was clearly not true. In post-election interviews, Clinton campaign operatives were blaming their defeat on racism, the FBI director and the Russians. MATURE ADULTS would be seeking to understand how they failed to see how the rules were changing.

Conservative Chronicle

PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP: December 15, 2016

Trump’s views on intelligence bring plenty of criticism

resident-elect Donald Trump doesn’t seem to like doing some of the work that is a critical part of the most powerful government job in the free world. The former television star, who has made billions in the real estate business and has sat through many business meetings over his career, has made it abundantly clear he doesn’t think sitting through daily intelligence briefings is a good use of his time, no matter what his top national security advisers tell him. Presidents routinely receive five to six briefings a week, which Vice President-elect Mike Pence is dutifully doing, but not Trump, who says he wants only one briefing a week, or possibly one or two more if necessary.

THE MAN who built a business empire by wheeling and dealing on a global scale is said to abhor reading briefing papers, and often told his former campaign advisers to boil down anything he needs to read to a single page. He’s not known for reading books, either, which is why his campaign speeches lacked depth, detail or analysis. Every target he went after was always a “disaster,” but he rarely provided a reasoned explanation of how he would fix it. Well, sometimes certain national security issues require a fuller, deeper presentation, especially if they threaten our national security — Russia’s cyberwar on the integrity of our elections, for instance. A number of former high-ranking defense officials are taking Trump to task for his resistance to the tedious but necessary work that comes with the job. One of his chief critics is Leon Panetta, the former head of the CIA and secretary of defense in the Obama administration. “I have seen presidents who have asked questions about whether the intelligence is verifiable, what are the sources of that intelligence, but I have never seen a president who said, ‘I don’t want that stuff,’” Panetta said this week at a national security conference in Dubai. Trump, who thinks he knows everything, told Fox News Sunday that he often found the briefings repetitive, and that he already knew about the threats the U.S. faces from its adversaries. “I get it when I need it,” he said. “I’m like a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.” He not only doesn’t think he needs daily intelligence briefings, he also doesn’t think the CIA or the larger intelligence community can be trusted.

role was, we ought to investigate it and ensure that it never happens again.” But Trump flatly rejects the findings in the intelligence reports. “I think it’s ridiculous,” he said Sunday. “I think PUTTING DOWN the nation’s it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe intelligence services before you are it. ... No, I don’t believe it at all.” Why doesn’t Trump believe what sworn into office — many members of which have given their lives for their intelligence investigations have unabout Russia’s role in country — is no way to start a presi- c o v e r e d t h e cyber break-in at the dency. Democratic NaTrump doesn’t tional Committee want his inteland other chaosligence advisers producing activitelling him things ties aimed at last that he dismisses (c) 2016, United Media Services month’s elecout of hand, especially about the kind of cyber-warfare tion? Because Putin is his friend, and skullduggery that Russia’s Vladimir he willingly swallows all his denials, Putin, a former KGB agent, is conniv- hook, line and sinker. Throughout this election, Trump has ing to use against our country and its repeatedly stated his unreserved adelections. “When it comes to Russian inter- miration for Putin. “The man has very ference in our last campaign, 17 intel- strong control over a country,” he has ligence agencies agree that Russia is said. He has been a leader “far more involved in that effort,” Panetta said, than our president has been a leader.” It is also common knowledge that according to the Reuters news agency. “I think the president would do well to Trump has done a lot of business in say we ought to find out what Russia’s Russia and enriched Trump Inc. His “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” he said in a statement put out by his transition team.

Donald

Lambro

son, Donald Trump Jr., said in 2008 that the “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” One can also see why Trump has picked Rex Tillerson, the ExxonMobil CEO, to be his secretary of state — a man the Wall Street Journal has said is close to Putin, who awarded him Russia’s Order of Friendship. But is Putin the kind of world leader America wants to embrace, as Trump seems so willing to do? This is the guy who invaded the Crimean Peninsula in the Ukraine and annexed it, then sent Russian troops into Eastern Ukraine, where they threaten to seize control of that sovereign country. But Trump has not uttered a word of complaint about any of this. Indeed, earlier this year on ABC’s This Week he insisted, falsely, that Russian troops were not in the Ukraine and were not going to be there in the future. CLEARLY, NO amount of intelligence briefings is going to disabuse Trump of that ludicrous notion.

HOPE: December 20, 2016

Hope and humility

ormer Sen. Alan Simpson (RWY) once said that, “Those who travel the high road of humility will not be troubled by heavy traffic.” That descriptive and funny line came to mind after I heard what first lady Michelle Obama told Oprah Winfrey last week in a TV interview. Because of Donald Trump’s election, she told the former talk show host, “We are feeling what not having hope feels like.”

SHE COULDN’T prove that by the polls. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 59 percent of voters are “optimistic about the next four years with Donald Trump as president.” Sixty-six percent of respondents said they believed he would create jobs, 52 percent said they believe Trump’s policies will help the economy, 53 percent expressed confidence he will take the country in the right direction, and 49 percent think Trump will be either a “great” president or a “good” president. Michelle Obama’s hubris that only her husband could provide hope, despite the unpopularity of his policies (his personal popularity remains high), may be why St. Paul cautioned: “Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought.” (Romans 12:3). Pride is the first sin, which leads to all others.

Anyone who puts faith in a politician to make his or her life better is worshipping a false god. Politicians can make your life worse by overtaxing your income, overregulating your business and conducting foreign policy in ways that put America’s security at risk, but the qualities that improve any life — a good education, strong work ethic, selfcontrol, taking personal responsibility for one’s actions, obeying the law, developing good character — these are virtues over which government has little influence.

Cal

POLITICIANS PROMOTE faith in themselves because it helps their careers and feeds their egos. When was the last time you heard a politician say only you can make your life better by the choices you make? Have you ever heard a politician say, “We are clearing the field of liberty as much as we can so that you have the best opportunity to succeed at whatever you believe your gifts qualify you for?” If politicians started talking like that people might have more faith in themselves and politicians would see their influence and power decline significantly.

People hope for many things. Some people hope to win the lottery; others choose to hope in someone, or something, that can actually deliver. Hoping to win the lottery, or hoping a politician can improve your life, is a vain hope that can lead to disappointment, even cynicism. A friend of mine once observed that humility is so light a grace that once you think you have attained it, you’ve lost it. Humility is the polar opposite of what Michelle Obama displayed to Oprah and what the president has mirrored during his eight years in office. Throughout his presidency, you might have thought the pronoun “I” was his first initial for all the times he referred to himself. THE OBAMAS could have offered real hope, especially in the hearts of African-American children, by leading the poor among them out of failing inner-city schools and giving their parents a choice of where to send them for a better education, which would have led to a better life. They rightly sent their daughters to elite private schools, rather than bad D.C. public schools, but denied that choice to those less affluent, thus perpetuating a spirit of hopelessness in those voters who had hoped for something beyond a “let’s move” exercise program and a vegetable garden on the White House lawn.

December 28, 2016 DRUG ADDICT MOTHERS: December 14, 2016

Throwing the baby out with the bongwater

isters cute baby faces “as irresistible, kicking in our instinct to care for them” didn’t light up in people dependent on opioids, as it does in normal brains. But forget that the mothers are heroin addicts — as Haven Hill does. Just consider the lottery tickets these kids have won by being born to single mothers. As recounted in gory detail in “Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America,” study after study has shown that children brought up by single mothWHY WOULD anyone do this? ers are doomed. Regardless of socioeconomic status, And why is the U.S. government giving or residence, they are many, these lunatics a half-million dollar grant race many multiple times more to help them do it? likely than children As the Times raised in two-parent explains, “Haven families to: Commit Hill’s philososuicide, get pregphy” is that babies nant, abuse drugs, should stay with (c) 2016, Ann Coulter run away, drop out their drug addict, single mothers, “alleviating the wide- of high school and go to prison. In fact, spread fear among pregnant drug users the single strongest predictor of whether that if they seek help, their children will a person will end up in prison is being raised by a single mother. be taken away.” We can’t do much about single mothEven accepting that, in modern America, single mothers and drug ad- ers who aren’t drug addicts (except dicts are People Who May Not Be Criti- maybe ease up on the endless paeans to cized, this is insane. It ought to be in- them), but here’s a golden opportunity sane even to readers of the Times, who to rescue children from lives of mismight have noticed, next to the perky ery and place them with loving adoparticle on Haven Hill, the headline for tive families. In this case, on top of the a related article in the Times: “Opioids daunting odds facing any child raised May Interfere With Parenting Instincts, by a single mother: Mommy’s a heroin addict. Study Finds.” So far, the short life of one baby at As the article explains, scientists found that the part of the brain that reg- Haven Hill has entailed the following:

he New York Times posted a glowing article about a group home in New Hampshire, Hope on Haven Hill, founded with the express mission of keeping babies united with mothers who: “... had used opioids, mostly heroin and fentanyl. Many had been incarcerated. Few had families they could turn to for help, and the fathers of their babies were out of the picture.”

Ann

Coulter

“Emma Lee, a tiny infant born with neonatal abstinence syndrome ... had spent all 32 days of her life in a neonatal intensive care unit because her mother, Amanda, 31, who was homeless for the first six months of her pregnancy, had used heroin for most of that time and then went on methadone.” EMMA LEE was born addicted to heroin. “‘Her withdrawals were pretty severe,’ said Amanda, who did not want her last name used, as she cradled Emma Lee in their sunny bedroom at Hope on Haven Hill. While in the hospital, the baby had difficulty eating. Her hands and legs shook with tremors.” Could any of the compassion being lavished on drug addicts be extended to their helpless children? No. Poor little Emma Lee must stay with Amanda, so that we can really drive home the point that unmarried women CANNOT be held responsible for getting pregnant and drug addicts

CANNOT be held responsible for their addictions. Innocent children are pawns in America’s endless project of promoting women’s self-esteem. The politician’s constant refrain is that drug addiction “is not a moral failing, this is a disease” — as Gov. Chris Christie puts it. Let’s say it is. First of all, I would argue that it was at least partially Amanda’s fault, and not the disease’s fault, that she decided to take heroin in the first place. Unless she’s Cary Grant in North by Northwest, and the drugs were forcibly rammed down her throat, she chose to gamble with heroin. Nancy Reagan’s much-maligned “Just Say No” campaign is a lot more compassionate than the parades and sky-writing campaigns announcing: DRUG ADDICTS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE! Most compassionate of all is Trump’s policy to build a wall and deport Mexican drug dealers, so that Americans with this “disease” won’t be able to catch it in the first place. Second, so what? Let’s say drug addiction is a disease. Lots of behavior has genetic roots. Studies show that wife-beating has an underlying genetic component. Why don’t politicians weep about the “illness” of spousal abuse? How about a bucolic New Hampshire home to unite wifebeaters with their spouses, alleviating the widespread fear among violent men that their wives will leave them? At least they can leave. Only defenseless little babies are being forced to stay with manifestly unfit mothers — in order to burnish the drug addict’s self-esteem. Ruining a child’s life is part of the addict’s recovery plan. Suppose Amanda were an unfit mother for reasons entirely out of her control — she was a ray of sunshine, a straight-A student, with a bright future, who was raped and left in a coma by illegal aliens. Would do-gooders and government agencies adopt the “philosophy” that Emma Lee had to be raised by her comatose mother? NO, OF COURSE not. The whole purpose of this senseless child abuse is to proclaim for the millionth time: WOMEN ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE! DRUG ADDICTS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE!

Conservative Chronicle

CHARLIE RANGEL: December 15, 2016

Even ‘Race Card’ Rangel doesn’t blame ‘whitelash’

onald Trump once called states — they had the Confederate flag. the Rev. Al Sharpton “a con They became Dixiecrats — they had the man,” meaning that Sharpton Confederate flag. They’re now the tea plays the race card less out of sincerity party.” And: “(The tea party) is the same and more as a method to make demands group we faced in the South with those and extract concessions. But has there ever been a bigger leg- white crackers and the dogs and the They didn’t care about islative con man than the soon-to-be-re- police. how they looked. It tired Rep. Charlie was just fierce indifRangel, D-N.Y., ference to human currently the seclife that caused ond-longest servAmerica to say ing member of the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate enough is enough. House? His glossary of race-baiting is exhaustive. Just ‘I don’t want to see it and I am not a part of it.’ What the he--?! If you have a few examples: In criticizing the Republican-run to bomb little kids and send dogs out house, Rangel said, “It’s not ‘spic’ or ‘n- against human beings, give me a break.” Yet now as the clock winds down on ----’ anymore. (Instead) they say, ‘Let’s his career, Rangel is free — free to tell cut taxes.’” the truth about “race.” Rangel, in assessIN ACCUSING the then-President ing why Hillary Clinton lost the race to of racism, Rangel said “George (W.) Donald Trump, rejects the analysis adBush is our Bull Connor” (referring to vanced by the losing Clinton camp. At the racist Southern lawman who sicced the Harvard post-election symposium, dogs and turned water hoses on civil top Clinton aides accused Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway of rights marchers). In accusing the Republican Party in blatantly courting America’s white racgeneral of racism, Rangel said, “Every- ists. But Rangel argues that root cause is thing we believe in, everything we be- middle-class economic anxiety. His takeaway? It’s the economy, stulieve in, (Republicans) hate. They don’t disagree — they hate. ... Some of them pid. In an interview with Roll Call, Ranbelieve that slavery isn’t over and that gel said, “Hard workers, for a variety of they won the Civil War.” On the tea party, Rangel said: reasons, have seen economic and social “(Obama) really thought — and maybe advancement ceilings put on their ambiit was the water they drink at Harvard tions.” He continued: “The old thing, if — that he could deal with the tea par- you work hard in this country, you can ty. They are mean, racist people. Now get ahead. Well, the misconduct of Wall why do I say that? Because in those red Street, the recession, globalization, instates, they’re the same slaveholding ventions, science, technology, have re-

Larry

Elder

ally put a damper on middle-class peo- rant about how Trump pitched his mesple to advance as rapidly as they have in sage as an attaboy to rednecks, Klansthe past.” men and the Aryan Brotherhood. Years ago, Rep. David Dreier, R-CaRANGEL ADDED: “It’s the middle lif., invited me for lunch in the House class that the jobs come from. If people cafeteria at the U.S. Capitol. Shortly after don’t have disposable income, if they’re we sat down, Rangel, with his trademark not able to purchase the basics, if small flashy pocket square, came in. Dreier businesses can’t hire people, then you leaped up and walked over to him, and have a problem. And we did have a prob- the two greeted each other like fraternity lem during the election, and we still have brothers who had taken a blood oath. it.” I asked Dreier to explain the affection, What?! Even “race card” Rangel given the race-card rhetoric Rangel uses sized up his party’s election loss as one against Republicans. I gave examples. in which the middle class felt economi- Dreier rolled his eyes and said: “Oh, cally beleaguered? He didn’t say “whi- that’s just Charlie being Charlie. Notelash,” as CNN’s Van Jones did. He body takes that stuff seriously.” “Yeah,” didn’t blame it on adverse reactions to “a I said, “nobody except the voters in his black president” as Jones did. He didn’t district.” As to Clinton vs. Trump, Rangel, at one time, would have whipped out the race card and, with a straight face, shouted, “White supremacy!” He would have pounced on Trump’s comment that Mexicans are “rapists;” that he called an Indiana-born federal judge of Mexican descent “a Mexican;” that Trump allegedly “mocked” a handicapped reporter; and on and on. No matter that such a characterization of Trump’s statements would have been either the worst possible interpretation, taken out of context or flat-out untrue. That’s how Rangel rolled. But free from the pressures of getting re-elected, Rangel told the truth. The charge that Trump is racist, sexist, homophobic and Islamophobic is bogus — and the voters saw through it. Rangel knows this and said so. His implicit message: Race is no longer a major factor in America. Now we know. Rangel, throughout his career, cynically played the race card to stoke anger to retain his Harlem seat. IT IS THE very definition of a con man. The real question is why it worked for so long.

December 28, 2016 DIVERSITY: December 20, 2016

The ‘diversity’ fraud: Politically correct gullibility

othing so epitomizes the politically correct gullibility of our times as the magic word “diversity.” The wonders of diversity are proclaimed from the media, extolled in the academy and confirmed in the august chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States. But have you ever seen one speck of hard evidence to support the lofty claims?

ALTHOUGH DIVERSITY has become one of the leading buzzwords of our time, it has a history that goes back several generations. In the early twentieth century, the principle of geographic diversity was used to conceal bias against Jews in the admission of students to Harvard and other leading academic institutions.

Because the Jewish population was undergraduate at Harvard, and worked concentrated in New York and other as a photographer for the university east coast communities at that time, news office, in order to help pay the quota limits on how many Jewish stu- bills. The instructions I was given were to dents would be admitted were concealed by saying that Harvard wanted a concentrate on taking photos of students other parts of the diverse student body, consisting of stu- f r o m country, rather than dents from around from the east coast, the country. from which Harvard Therefore some already received highly qualified more than enough Jewish applicants (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate applicants. The could be passed over, in favor of less qualified appli- idea was to encourage applications from cants from the midwest or other regions places that would produce a geographically diverse student body. of the country. It struck me as an odd idea at the time, My own first encounter with the idea of geographic diversity occurred more but I was being paid to take pictures, not than half a century ago, when I was an make university policy. Moreover, I had

Thomas

Sowell

ELECTORAL SYSTEM: December 18, 2016

Our excellent electoral vote system

olitical mildness is scarce nowadays, so it has been pleasantly surprising that post-election denunciations of the Electoral College have been tepid. This, even though the winner of the presidential election lost the popular vote by perhaps 2.8 million votes, more than five times the 537,179 votes by which Al Gore outpolled George W. Bush in 2000. IN CALIFORNIA, where Democrats effortlessly harvest 55 electoral votes (more than one-fifth of 270), this year’s presidential winner was never in doubt. There was no gubernatorial election to excite voters. And thanks to a “reform,” whereby the top two finishers in a multi-party primary face off in the general election, the contest for the U.S. Senate seat was between two Democrats representing faintly variant flavors of liberalism. These factors depressed turnout in the state with one-eighth of the nation’s population. If there had been more excitement, increased turnout in this heavily Democratic state might have pushed Hillary Clinton’s nationwide popular vote margin over three million. And this still would not really matter. Political hypochondriacs say, with more indignation than precision, that the nation’s 58th presidential election was the fifth in which the winner lost the popular vote. In 1824, however, before the emergence of the party system, none of the four candidates received a majority of the electoral votes, and the House of Representatives chose John Quincy Adams even though Andrew Jackson won more popular votes — 38,149 more, although only about 350,000 of the approximately four million white males eligible to vote did so.

All four candidates had been together on the ballots in only six of the 24 states, and another six states, including the most populous, New York, had no elections — their legislatures picked the presidential electors. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote even though Samuel J. Tilden won 254,694 more of the 8,411,618 popular votes cast. (With 51 percent, Tilden is the only presidential loser to win a majority of the popular vote.) In 1888, Benjamin Harrison won the electoral vote 233-168 even though President Grover Cleveland won the popular vote by 89,293 out of 11,395,083 votes cast. In both years, however, exuberant fraud on both sides probably involved more votes than the victory margins.

George

Will

SO, TWO OF the five 21st-century elections (2000 and 2016) are the only clear and pertinent instances, since the emergence of the party system in 1828, of the winner of the popular vote losing the presidency. Two is 40 percent of five elections, which scandalizes only those who make a fetish of simpleminded majoritarianism. Those who demand direct popular election of the president should be advised that this is what we have — in 51 jurisdictions (the states and the District of Columbia). And the electoral vote system quarantines electoral disputes. Imagine the 1960 election under direct popular election: John Kennedy’s popular vote margin over Richard Nixon was just 118,574. If all 68,838,219 popular

votes had been poured into a single national bucket, there would have been powerful incentives to challenge the results in many of the nation’s 170,000 precincts. Far from being an unchanged anachronism, frozen like a fly in 18th-century amber, the Electoral College has evolved, shaping and shaped by the party system. American majorities are not spontaneous growths, like dandelions. They are built by a two-party system that assembles them in accordance with the Electoral College’s distribution incentive for geographical breadth in a coalition of states. So, the Electoral College shapes the character of majorities by helping to generate those that are neither geographically nor ideologically narrow, and that depict, more than the popular vote does, national decisiveness. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson won just 41.8 percent of the popular vote but conducted a strong presidency based on 81.9 percent of the electoral votes. Eighty years later, Bill Clinton won 43 percent of the popular vote but 68.8 percent of the electoral votes. In 2008, Barack Obama won 52.9 percent of the popular vote but 67.8 percent of the electoral vote. THE 48 elections since 1824 have produced 18 presidents that received less than 50 percent of the popular vote. The greatest of them, Abraham Lincoln, received 39.9 percent in 1860. So, on Dec. 19, when the electors cast their votes in their respective states, actually making Donald Trump the president-elect, remember: Do not blame the excellent electoral vote system for the 2016 choice that was the result of other, and seriously defective, aspects of America’s political process.

no idea how such a policy had originated and, by the 1950s, it might have been continued from inertia, for all I know. Meanwhile, I could enjoy seeing publicity photos I took appearing in newspapers in Chicago and elsewhere beyond the east coast. FAST FORWARD to today. It is common, at colleges and universities across the country, for the test scores of Asian American students who have been admitted to a given college to be higher than the test scores of whites or of blacks or Hispanics. That may not seem strange, since that is true of test scores in general. But, at any given institution, applying the same standards to all, the test scores of students at a particular institution would tend to be similar. More Asian Americans would be admitted to higher ranked colleges and universities, however, if the same standards were applied to all. In short, something very much like the quota limits that were applied to Jews in the past are now being applied to Asian Americans — and, once again, are being justified by diversity. But what justifies diversity? Nothing but unsupported assertions, repeated endlessly, piously and loudly. Today, as in the past, diversity is essentially a fancy word for group quotas. It is one of a number of wholly subjective criteria — such as “leadership” — used to admit students to colleges and universities according to their group membership, rather than according to their individual qualifications. This is not something new. Nor is it something confined to the United States. Very similar patterns were found more than a decade ago, when doing research for my book Affirmative Action Around the World. In India, the courts’ attempts to rein in some academic quotas were met by a proliferation of new, and wholly subjective, admissions criteria. Individuals from groups that were not as qualified by objective criteria were simply ranked higher on subjective criteria and admitted. In the United States, the Supreme Court itself has long been part of such game-playing when it comes to affirmative action. Back in 1978, an opinion by Justice Lewis F. Powell banned racial quotas with one hand and created “diversity” as a criterion with the other. In other words, colleges were told in effect that they can have racial quotas, but they just can’t call them racial quotas. ACCORDING TO the Constitution, “We the People” are supposed to decide what laws and policies we live under. But not if we can be so easily fooled by courts using slippery words like “diversity.”

Conservative Chronicle

PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP: December 16, 2016

‘You’re fired!’ becomes ‘You’re hired!’

n his television reality show, The Apprentice, viewers could see that Donald Trump took a certain pleasure in saying “You’re fired!” Those are the two saddest words any employee can hear. But that’s the way high-stakes business is played, and every CEO knows the importance of keeping the best performers in the company and getting rid of the chaff. The president-elect is taking obvious delight now at Trump Tower, telling successful applicants for important jobs in his administration “You’re hired!” It’s a different kind of reality show.

THE LOBBY of the building is the green room for candidates who have been granted an audience upstairs. We watch it as live theater, where many characters — as in Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet — are called on to swell a scene from which a few are called and fewer still are chosen. Trump is no Hamlet (dawdling over decisions), but he’s taking his time, and he’s ahead of the pace of predecessors. What’s extraordinary about this interim before the inauguration is that the entire country is paying attention to television scenes of people going in and out of the tower elevator, providing a glimpse of the way the man we’ve elected to run the country conducts his business. The Donald has engaged a fascinating cast of characters. Some are there to decorate the set. Kanye West, so far as we know, was not there to apply for secretary of state, though he may play a gig at an inaugural ball. Former Vice President Al Gore may not be a fan, but he wants his point of view heard in the place where Trump meets, greets and tweets. The president-elect could be a merciless director bent on humiliating actors like former Gov. Mitt Romney, who came in second for the most coveted role of secretary of state, or former Republican candidate Carly Fiorina, whom the Donald ruthlessly denigrated in the debates. But both emerged from their interviews with appreciative words. The disappointed do not sound bitter, and most appear to be genuinely impressed with the smarts and savvy Trump brought to their conversation, appreciative of his questions and eager to put campaign rhetoric behind. Are the unchosen merely posing, offering flattery to allay the anger of the famous counterpuncher? Or are they actually discovering impressive qualities? Trump is sui generis, the original in a new time in which anyone with a smartphone or laptop has something to say about what’s going on. The noise

of social media is deafening and defi- D.C. When she left the White House ant, often in the form of unedited sen- after her tenure as first lady, she packed tences of 140 characters (exclamation up some of the furniture that didn’t bepoints included). The mainstream me- long to her, which she was shamed into dia hasn’t recovered from its disastrous returning. She was beginning to prize coverage of the campaign, and the ink- wealth and what money could buy but stained wretches and talking heads are was not yet at home with it. Trump’s bad taste, by contrast, still licking wounds in anger. For the rest of us, this is great theater. knows no bounds. There’s no guilt a gilt edge. It seems to The Trump penthouse is a stage that with suit him, as GatsCroesus or Gatsby’s suited him, by could have in the background designed. “What rather than the foreamazes a lot of ground. The “forpeople is that I’m (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate gotten man” of sitting in an apartment the likes of which nobody’s ever the campaign voted for Trump because seen,” the Donald tells Time magazine, he spoke his language. Great wealth which elected him Person of the Year. didn’t stigmatize Trump; it actually “And yet I represent the workers of the seemed to have been earned by the sweat of his brain. The forgotten man world.” could reasonably hope the creator of MONEY WAS new to Hillary Clin- deals would create a job for him. When Trump the candidate traveled ton when she first came to Washington,

Suzanne

Fields

into decaying towns in the Rust Belt, he saw the empty storefronts, the peeling paint on the homes of the unemployed and the underemployed, the depressing signs of decline in the quality of life. He said he could help the forgotten men and women do better. In those last days of the campaign, as he crisscrossed into Mich., Wis. and Pa., Hillary Clinton wasted valuable time at extravagant fundraising dinners, ignoring Wisconsin. Voters were listening to what the Donald had to say over the din of his detractors. THE LOSERS, now desperately trying to stop the Electoral College from going about its business, clearly want Trump to fail. That’s too bad. Whether they like it or not, he won. Now it’s time to see what he can deliver, and the early signs — optimism with big steel and IBM — reflect hope and change.

DEMOCRATS: December 15, 2016

Against the Electoral coup

urely there were alarmists who thought 2016 might end in an undemocratic coup. But who predicted Democratic opinion leaders would be the ones agitating for it? For fear that Donald Trump will violate democratic norms, liberals want to have the Electoral College throw out the results of a presidential election and impose their choice on the nation for the first time in our history.

THE HYPOCRISY is rather astonishing. A major theme of the Democrats and the press during the election was the absolute imperative of accepting the results. This lasted as a bedrock principle of democratic governance all the way until roughly 4 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, when it became clear that Trump had won, and angry protests in the streets, pointless, harassing recounts and calls for an Electoral College coup became the order of the day. In theory, 37 electors could flip against Trump on Dec. 19, deny him the 270 electoral votes needed to win and precipitate one of the gravest constitutional crises in the history of the republic. If you spin out the scenarios, it’s hard to see how Trump would actually be denied the presidency (if no one gets 270 electoral votes, the contest is thrown into the Republican House). So the point of the exercise would simply be to disrupt as much as possible the heretofore sacrosanct peaceful transfer of power. More than anything else, the calls for an Electoral College coup expose a stan-

dardless will to power of a left that professes to value democratic procedure. What else to make of opponents of the Electoral College urging the Electoral College to overthrow an election? The University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson has called the Electoral College a “menace to the American polity.” Yet he is now a signer of a public letter urging members of this menace to re-engineer the November election to his liking.

Rich

THE ELECTORS do have the power to act as a last check on a presidential tyrant. But the norm of electors rubberstamping the election’s winner is so ingrained in our system that any deviation from it would constitute a revolutionary act. The rationales advanced for a radical departure from the practice as established over a couple of centuries are tinny and unconvincing at best. Literally the first reason Peter Beinart of the Atlantic offers for electors potentially blocking Trump is the president-elect’s position on climate change. In other words, Beinart is open to overturning the election to impose his own favored view on a highly contested policy question. And yes, he says he wants to do this in the name of liberty. Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig wants the electors to award Hillary

Clinton the presidency on the basis of her victory on the after-the-fact metric of the popular vote that no one — not the Hillary campaign, the Trump campaign, the press or the voters — focused on during the election. This is inherently arbitrary. Then, there’s Russia. John Podesta wants electors to get an intelligence briefing on Russia’s hacking during the campaign, which is a way of insinuating that Trump’s victory was illegitimate. This, too, was argued about for months prior to the election. Voters had the option of discounting the WikiLeaks revelations given their provenance. It’s not that there aren’t legitimate concerns about Trump’s temperament and cavalier attitude toward executive power. But these were hashed out during the election as well; in fact, Hillary Clinton campaigned on little else. And she lost, narrowly, but decisively. Once they put away childish things, perhaps Democrats can rethink their posture more fundamentally. They can revisit all their mindless and shortsighted arguments against obstructionism as such; reacquaint themselves with the separation of powers and especially the role of Congress in our system; learn to appreciate federalism and the limits it puts on the federal government; and conduct themselves as an opposition party that is worthy of a democratic republic. THE FIRST step, though, is simply to get a grip.

December 28, 2016 INFRASTRUCTURE: December 20, 2016

The right way to do infrastructure

Now multiply this story by at least ack in early 2015, oil and gas company ConocoPhil- several hundred. The radical green agenlips requested a permit from da of the Obama regime has, for eight the Obama administration to launch an years, canceled, delayed, denounced oil-drilling project in Alaska. The en- and disrupted these types of smart energy project, called the Greater Mooses ergy, mineral and transportation projall over the country. Tooth development, is located within e c t s The value of these the National Pefinancially lucrative troleum Reserve and job-creating iniand would create tiatives — such as thousands of jobs the Keystone XL in an economi(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate pipeline — is in cally depressed area of the state. The project has the full the hundreds of billions of dollars. Think about that in connection with approval of the local community and poses little threat to the environment in Donald Trump’s promise of as much as $1 trillion for new infrastructure spenda sparsely populated region. ing. I am always asked, “Where will IT IS A multibillion-dollar jobs-and- the money come from to pay for these infrastructure project with roads and projects, given that the government is housing and pipelines. It won’t cost the already running near-trillion-dollar anfederal taxpayers a penny to build. In nual deficits?” We’ve all been looking at this the fact, the royalties from the project will likely raise hundreds of millions of tax wrong way. Smart infrastructure investdollars for the federal government and ment in America doesn’t require one penny of new federal spending. In fact, the state. A no-brainer, right? Not exactly. For these projects can substantially reduce years, the Obama administration has government borrowing and increase tangled up the project in regulatory red revenue inflows. All President-elect Trump must do to tape. “We are ready to break ground on day one after we get the permit,” a frus- unleash the mighty spending of private, trated ConocoPhillips Vice President for-profit enterprise is to give the comJohn Dabbar told me. “We’re going to panies and the localities the green light employ nearly everyone up there,” he to build, to drill, to mine, to invest. A new study by the Committee to adds. It still hasn’t been approved, beUnleash Prosperity, written by former cause Obama hates fossil fuels. If Donald Trump is smart, he will Interior Department energy expert Jackgreenlight the drilling project the day he son Coleman, finds that the value of energy resources on federal lands could enters office.

Stephen

Moore

exceed $50 trillion. The federal leasing Then there are coal plants necesrevenues and income tax receipts from sary to secure our electric power supdeveloping these resources could reach ply. America desperately needs to build $3 trillion. clean-coal-fired plants to ensure reliable electricity for our homes and businessTHE OBAMA administration has es. Obama has shut them down while held up at least five transnational pipe- bankrupting the industry. We also need lines that could create tens of thousands refineries and liquefied natural gas terof high-paying union jobs. minals to allow America to export more In the mountain states such as Mont., of our abundant shale oil and gas. Since Idaho and Wyo., dozens of major min- we have the cleanest oil, gas and coal ing projects for urgently needed rare in the world, developing U.S. energy is minerals have been bottled up by the positive for the global environment and federal regulators. Apparently, Obama reducing greenhouse gases. would rather import these from resourcThere is one key distinction between es from China. private and public infrastructure spending. For-profit projects, by definition, must have a positive return on investment. Public infrastructure projects often have negative returns, because they generate so little revenue. Think of the $70 billion bullet train in California that will carry very few passengers. Would any private company in its right mind ever build this rolling white elephant? Or recall the “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska or the Obama “investments” in green energy projects that have gone belly up. Sure, we need road and bridge and airport improvements. But that isn’t what is holding back growth. FOR SEVEN years now the economy has severely underperformed because business capital investment — in factories, equipment, computers, tractors, warehouses and laboratories — has dried up. That’s the real infrastructure crisis in America. Trump can fix that capital infrastructure deficit by simply giving permits to the myriad brick-andmortar projects that will be privately financed, including the Greater Mooses Tooth development. In other words, we can solve the infrastructure problem and lower the budget deficit at the same time.

Conservative Chronicle

U.S. TREASURY: December 15, 2016

Why not 100-year U.S. Treasury Bonds?

interest rates. It’s hard to figure. Treasuries held in public hands have moved up from 32 percent of gross domestic product back in 2008 to nearly 77 percent today. Interest expense for the 2016 fiscal year is nearly $250 billion. So if Treasury debt managers had significantly lengthened their bond maturities, they would have saved taxpayers a bundle. Now, with new economic growth policies poised to drive up average Treasury rates to, perhaps, six percent, the Treasury folks better get moving fast to capture today’s historically low yields. Up till now they’ve been sleeping at the switch. The key point is to start issuing longer WE’RE ALREADY seeing some of this with the big post-election Trump bond maturities — much longer. If possistock rally occurring alongside a large- ble, the U.S. should experiment with 50year debt issuance, and maybe as ly real-interest-rate increase in bonds. a 100-year issuance. However, looking ahead, four per- long as And this better cent real growth happen fast. plus two percent According to inflation could economist Conimply six percent rad Dequadros, bond yields in (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate other countries the coming years. That’s a big jump from the two percent have been smarter than us. Ireland and Belgium issued 100-year debt. Austria average of most of the past 10 years. And what that says is, the time to act issued 70-year debt. Italy, France and Spain issued 50-year debt. Japan pushed is now. The average duration of marketable out a 40-year maturity, and there are ruTreasury bonds held by the public has mors that it’s considering 50 years. And Mexico, incredibly enough, has been five years for quite some time. Almost incredibly, Treasury Department done three 100-year issues since 2010. debt managers have not substantially The sizes were small, and the bonds were lengthened the duration of bonds to sold in foreign currencies. But it can be take advantage of generationally low done. f President-elect Donald Trump’s economic growth plan — slashing business and personal marginal tax rates, and rolling back costly business regulations — is achieved next year, the economy could break out with four to five percent growth. And that means much higher interest rates. This rate rise will be growth-induced — a good thing. Higher real capital returns will drive up real interest rates. And inflation will likely remain minimal, around two percent, with more money chasing even more goods alongside a reliably stable dollar exchange rate.

Larry

Kudlow

Britain is probably the best benchmark. HM Treasury has issued 40- to 50-year bonds seven times. The latest auction occurred in Oct. 2015, with the issuance of 50-year debt with a coupon of 2.5 percent. DEQUADROS SAYS the Congressional Budget Office estimates that interest costs over the next 10 years will total $4.8 trillion, and the debt will rise from the current $14 trillion to $23.1 trillion by 2026. Additionally, it expects the 10-year Treasury rate to average 3.3 percent and the rate on all debt to average 2.6 percent.

Now, with some very rough backof-the-envelope calculations, under Trump’s growth program, suppose 10year Treasury rates rise to average five percent over the next 10 years, rather than the CBO’s 3.3 percent guess. The average interest rate for all debt would increase to four percent over that period, rather than CBO’s estimated 2.6 percent. The total interest rate expense would be around $7 trillion, rather than the CBO’s $5 trillion baseline. However, if the U.S. issued 50-year debt with the same rate as Britain’s 2.5 percent, by front-loading some longerterm issuance to hold the average interest rate to 3.5 percent, there would be a $1 trillion savings on budget-interest expense over the 10-year horizon. That’s not chump change. Skeptics will ask who would buy 50year U.S. paper. It’s a good question. But remember, insurance companies and pension funds need long-dated liabilities to match long-duration assets. And foreign institutions might also be interested in ultralong U.S. Treasuries, provided the U.S. dollar is reliably stable. This is entirely new ground for U.S. debt management. But since a lot of foreign countries have successfully sold 50year paper, we know it can be done. And for the U.S. it must be done. If we sell out a bunch of 50-year offerings, why not try a 100-year paper? The budget savings would be incalculable. And under new policies, if the U.S. returns to its long-term annual growth trend of 3.5 percent, which prevailed in the prior century, America’s debtto-GDP ratio could plunge to 30 or 40 percent, instead of skyrocketing to 150 percent or more. STRONGER GROWTH and much longer bond-maturity issuance will snatch fiscal victory from the jaws of defeat.

December 28, 2016 POSITIONAL ECONOMY: December 15, 2016

Starbucks and our pursuit of snobbery

Many existing Starbucks are locatndiana’s Thomas R. Marshall, who was America’s vice presi- ed to capture foot traffic in malls and dent 100 years ago, voiced — he shopping centers, which have been plucked it from a Hoosier humorist — losing customers to online shopping. one of the few long-remembered utter- The original 30 Roasteries — Reuters ances to issue from that office: “What says they will be “ultra-premium,” not this country needs is a good five-cent mere tacky premium — will be descigar,” which would be $1.11 in to- tinations where people will go to linby 2021, when there day’s currency. A century later, what the ger. So, will be more normal country needs is a Starbucks than Mc$12 twelve-ounce Donald’s, the few cup of coffee. Starbucks RoastOr so Howard eries scattered Schultz thinks. (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group from New York Betting against to Shanghai will the man who built Starbucks to a market capitalization of be Starbucks’ entry into the positional economy. $86 billion is imprudent. Very pricey coffee is just a freshTODAY, YOU cannot swing a dead brewed variation on the familiar phecat without hitting a Starbucks store. nomenon of positional goods. They are There are 25,000 in 75 countries, with necessarily, inherently enjoyments for another 12,000 due by 2021, so Star- the few. They exist because, particubucks is not an elusive or exclusive ex- larly in the upper reaches of affluent perience. This poses a problem peculiar societies, it is not love that makes the to affluent societies, and an opportunity. world go ‘round, it is a compound of Seattle, where the original Starbucks envy and pretentiousness. Four decades ago, the economist was opened in 1971, now has a Starbucks Roastery where customers can Fred Hirsch distinguished between the turn a cup of “small-batch” coffee into material economy and the positional an experience — Starbucks sells experi- economy. Once a society has satisfied ences as much as coffee — of both con- basic material needs (food, shelter, spicuous consumption and conspicuous clothing), it turns yesterday’s luxuries connoisseurship. Bloomberg reports (cars, air conditioning, college educathat for a pittance, aka $10, skinflints tions) into necessities. Because these will be able to buy a cold-brew coffee, are mass-market commodities, such which presumably is an excellent thing, material prosperity is a leveling, egaliinfused with nitrogen gas, which sounds tarian force. Positional competition is emphatically not. like an acquired taste.

George

Will

IN THE COMPETITION for an “elite” education or an “exclusive” vacation spot, one person’s success is necessarily a loss for many other persons because positional goods cannot be expanded indefinitely. Of course, Starbucks Roasteries could be expanded by the thousands, but this would make the “experience” banal and drain the stores of their positional power. After elementary needs — food, shelter, clothing — are satisfied, consumption nevertheless continues, indeed it intensifies because desires are potentially infinite. People compare themselves to their neighbors, envy their neighbors’

advantages, and strive to vault ahead in the envy-ostentation sweepstakes. The political equality of democratic societies leaves ample room for, and incites, social inequalities, which are coveted because they counter the leveling forces of mass affluence. Furthermore, as inherited privilege has been replaced by social rationality — Napoleon’s “careers open to talents,” a meritocracy based on skills and education — there is a residual human urge for irrational distinction. Such as savoring a $12 cup not just for the — let us stipulate — divine flavor but for the sheer fun of showing that you can and that your palate is so refined that merely very good coffee would be excruciating. In any American city large enough to sustain a social ecosystem of snobbery, there is a magazine to guide fastidious consumers to “the five best craft breweries” or “the five best artisanal cheese shops.” Heaven forefend that anyone should have to settle for the sixth best. For discerning tipplers, there are artisanal ice cubes. In San Francisco, The Mill, a cafe and bakery, offers artisanal toast for $4 a slice. It is to die for, say the cognoscenti. WHERE WILL the positional economy end? It won’t. Stanford professor Francis Fukuyama notes that it is a peculiarity of human beings that they desire some things “not for themselves but because they are desired by other human beings.” Hamsters have more sense. This characteristic of our species — the quest for recognition by distinguishing oneself from others — provides limitless marketing possibilities because for many wealthy people, “the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.” So wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, published in the resonant year of 1776.

Conservative Chronicle

EXPORT-IMPORT BANK: December 15, 2016

Will the Ex-Im enable Boeing’s deal with Iran?

fter months of negotiations and political maneuvering, Boeing finally sealed a $17 billion deal with Iran. The cash will buy 80 aircraft to replace some of the 400 outdated state-owned Iran Air planes. The sale to the Iranian carrier is a direct result of a nuclear accord that removed sanctions on Tehran.

THERE IS no doubt that this is a great deal for Boeing’s bottom line because the company will be able to expand its reach and profits to a new and lucrative market. Also, though commerce doesn’t end wars, we know from history that trading countries have stronger incentives to stay as far away from conflict with each other as possible and that protectionism tends to induce conflicts. As 19th-century economist Frederic Bastiat said, “when goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will.” In other words, selling aircraft to Iran won’t fundamentally change the Iranian leaders’ despicable behavior, but it may make them think twice before they act up. That being said, there are two things I know for sure: First, the Boeing deal makes President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to tear up the Iranian deal much harder. As the Cato Institute’s Chris Preble told me, if Trump were to tear up the nuclear deal, he would be “taking money out of Boeing’s coffers,” and you can be sure the company will put up a terrible fight by claiming that workers would be hurt. Preble summed it up nicely: “This sale adds to the political costs of reimposing sanctions.” Second, we must make sure that no taxpayer money will be involved in the process — and unfortunately, that’s not out of the question. Boeing is the No. 1 beneficiary of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, an agency that issues taxpayer-backed loans and insurance products to foreign consumers to buy U.S. goods. Its critics even call it the “Bank of Boeing.” EX-IM BANK supporters claim that these fears are unfounded because the Foreign Assistance Act makes it illegal for the bank to do business with state sponsors of terrorism. But that can be changed. After all, as we saw with the Carrier debacle, many Republicans, led by Trump, seem friendly to the idea that it’s the role of the federal government to actively create or retain jobs in America through aggressive intervention and targeted government-granted privileges. As such, we can expect that they will fall prey to the illusion that Ex-Im loans for Iran to buy Boeing planes could boost jobs and help workers in America, making a change to the law justifiable.

Do you think this would never hap- echoing a sentiment at other European pen because Iran is a terrorist state? government lending institutions.” With Then explain why, when Rep. Ed Airbus having a similar deal for jet Royce, R-Calif., offered an amendment sales to Iran pending, it won’t be long in 2015 that would have prohibited the until Boeing comes crying to Congress that it’s unfair Ex-Im Bank from for Airbus to be doing business subsidized when it with any country isn’t. on the State DeThese subsidies partment’s list of (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate will be good for state sponsors of Airbus and Boeterrorism, 63 Republicans joined with almost all Dem- ing, but they’ll be a net negative for the overall economy. (I assume there will ocrats to defeat it. Another argument for allowing Ex- be plenty of lawmakers willing to lift Im to back Boeing sales to Iran is that the restriction for such heavyweight European governments are doing it. political contributors as Boeing, the The Wall Street Journal already re- Chamber of Commerce and the Naported that “the British export-credit tional Association of Manufacturers. In agency in January said the organiza- 2015, they spent roughly $40 million tion was ‘open for business’ in Iran, lobbying on Ex-Im-related issues.)

Veronique

de Rugy

Finally, even if the restriction on subsidizing deals with Iran were not to be lifted, we wouldn’t be able to verify that the bank is actually following the law. The data made available by ExIm to the public and to lawmakers are incredibly bad. Many of the foreign buyers’ countries aren’t listed, except as “multiple countries.” A third of the foreign buyers are labeled “unnamed.” And many of the U.S. beneficiaries aren’t listed, either. It’s hard to trust when you can’t actually verify. OF COURSE, there is a way out of all these questions: President-elect Trump could kill the Ex-Im Bank, causing all these concerns to immediately go away.

LESLIE’S TRIVIA BITS: December 19, 2016

Leslie’s Trivia Bits

n Chile, there are no paid firefighters. Every fire department is 100 percent volunteer, from the smallest towns to major cities such as Santiago and Valparaiso. It’s been that way since the first corps of “bomberos” was organized in Valparaiso in 1851, making Chile possibly the only nation in the world with an entirely volunteer fire service. Today, it has more than 300 departments with about 40,000 members. By comparison, 69 percent of the 1.13 million firefighters in the United States are volunteers. In Germany, 96 percent of the country’s 1.3 million firefighters are volunteers.

THE WORLD’S oldest known rose tree is a “dog rose” (Rosa canina) that grows beside the Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany. Legend says the tree was there when the diocese was founded in A.D. 815, which means it’s been blooming for 1,201 years. Whether that’s true or not, the tree certainly is hardy. On March 22, 1945, the cathedral was destroyed by Allied bombs and the rose tree was burned. Yet, despite the damage, it sent up new shoots and continues to thrive today. Rovaniemi is the capital of Finnish Lapland, literally walking distance to the Arctic Circle. Local lore says it’s also where Santa Claus lives. So in 1993, when two of the city’s soccer teams, Rovaniemen Reipas and Rovaniemen Lappi, decided to merge they gave the new franchise a name with local significance. Now the squad from Rovaniemi, Finland, is known as FC Santa Claus. Six people who have served as U.S. secretary of state have gone on to win election as president of the United

States. Thomas Jefferson was the country’s first secretary of state and later its third president. James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan also served as secretary of state before becoming president. Jefferson and Van Buren are the only two people who have served as secretary of state, vice president and president. Founding a company that specialized in beauty and hair care products for black women made “Madam” C.J. Walker America’s first female selfmade millionaire. Born in 1867, the child of former slaves, she dedicated herself to fostering the success of other African-Americans. By the time of her death in 1919, her company had trained some 23,000 saleswomen and beauty technicians in the United States, Central America and the Caribbean. (Thank you to the Madam C.J. Walker website by A’Lelia Bundles for background information.)

Leslie

REINDEER AND caribou are the only members of the deer family in which both males and females grow antlers. The two animals are closely related, but they’re not identical and they’re classified as separate subspecies. While neither caribou nor reindeer have been known to fly — except in Christmas stories — they both happen to be excellent swimmers. TRIVIA 1. Firefighter Red Adair (1915-2004)

was especially known for his work in what type of location? A) Battleships B) Forests C) Oil fields D) Skyscrapers 2. During World War II, rose hips from Rosa canina, aka dog rose, were used as a source of ascorbic acid, better known as what? A) Calcium B) Iron C) Vitamin A D) Vitamin C 3. The annual Toys for Tots drive is most closely associated with what branch of service? A) U.S. Air Force B) U.S. Army C) U.S. Coast Guard D) U.S. Marine Corps 4. Which first lady inspired the Highway Beautification Act with the motto “Where flowers bloom so does hope?” A) Laura Bush B) Mamie Eisenhower C) Lady Bird Johnson D) Pat Nixon 5. Which corporation was founded in 1886 as the California Perfume Company? A) Avon Products B) Coca-Cola C) Maybelline D) Tupperware 6. What name is given to the protective skin that covers deer antlers while they grow? A) Chamois B) Moss C) Parchment D) Velvet (answers on page 19)

December 28, 2016 FAKE NEWS: December 18, 2016

Mainstream media are merchants of fake news

he latest grave concern for the ship program, NewsStand, when they mainstream media, Democrats, claimed that the Untied States had used and Republicans who side with sarin nerve gas to murder [our own] both has become “fake news.” Depend- soldiers — as well as women and chiling upon with whom you speak, “fake dren — and Arnett’s introductory manews” is of greater concern than the Rus- nipulation provided the political means sians hacking Hillary Clinton and helping for Saddam to oust the United Nations’ Donald Trump win the election (sarcasm weapons inspectors. CNN’s own military intended). If these intellectually dishon- advisor retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. est drama queens want to focus on “fake Perry Smith resigned in protest after his attempts to show the literal truth to CEO news” let’s have at it. In January 2005, I wrote that Eason Tom Johnson were flatly rejected out of Jordan, the then executive vice-president hand. In the same column I also wrote: On and chief news executive of CNN, chairthe editorial page of the Wall man of CNN’s Editorial Board and memJournal, a fellow jourber of CNN’s executive committee, S t r e e t nalist bemoan[ed] the had by his own adfact that he was asmission kept secret sured by Jordan that that Saddam HusCNN published sein’s son Uday (c) 2016, Mychal Massie “the whole truth planned to murder and nothing but the two brothers-inlaw. And Jordan, while keeping Uday’s truth,” to his face. I also reported in the piece that CNN’s intentions secret, then engaged in a massive disinformation campaign to the pub- Eason Jordan: “brazenly and habitually lic under the guise of CNN News. (See: lied to fellow journalists about the integThrowing Stones From Inside Glass rity of his network’s reporting.” The truth as Jordan would later admit was quite Houses; 1/18/2005; WND.com) different. Jordan admitted that CNN FAKE NEWS is something that CNN, under his watch, “rarely publish[ed] the et al, have long indulged in. In 1998 Jo- truth, preferring to parrot the party line seph Farah, the publisher and founder of of [Saddam] who they personally knew WorldNetDaily exposed the fake news was a bloody maniac with terrible weapcooked up and reported as gospel truth by ons and plans.” Jordan would later admit Peter Arnett, April Oliver, and Jack Smith CNN misreported the news in Iraq so (aided and abetted by CNN’s CEO, presi- as to retain a news desk there and also dent and Eason Jordan). (See: Jordan and retain a favorable relationship with Sadthe Real CNN Story; Mychal Massie; dam Hussein. Another example of “fake news” by 4/15/2003; WND.com) I wrote at that time: This internation- those supposedly concerned about same ally pimped fiction launched (and sunk) was revealed by Michael Martinez. In the new CNN-Time venture and its flag- 2012 he reported that: “George Zim-

Mychal

Massie

merman … is suing NBC Universal for using ‘the oldest form of yellow journalism’ by editing an audio tape of his 911 call to make him sound racist, the lawsuit says. (See: George Zimmerman Sues NBC Universal Over Edited 911 Call; 12/7/2012) Martinez reported that the suit stated: “Because of NBC’s deceptive and exploitative manipulations, the public wrongly believes that Zimmerman ‘use(d) a racial epithet’ while describing Martin during the call to the dispatcher on that fateful night.” NBC CLAIMED, “There was no intent to portray Mr. Zimmerman unfairly.” The problem with their claims of innocence is that “NBC aired various edited versions of the 911 call on March 19, 20, 22, and 27,” the suit said.

Dan Rather, in an epic example of “fake news,” forever destroyed his own credibility and exposed how far Network news programs would go to report lies as fact. In 2004, Rather, on the news program 60 Minutes, did a segment that he reported proved then President Bush had received preferential treatment to enter the National Guard in 1968 so as to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Rather had documents that were presented as irrefutable proof that political pressure had been exerted to shield Bush from the draft. But almost immediately after the airing of the segment, the documents were exposed as crude forgeries. Alternative conservative news blogs revealed that the typeface and spacing on the documents were inconsistent with any known typewriter of the early 1970s. When Rather was forced to acknowledge his sin, his producer Mary Mapes and three other producers were fired. NBC News suspended their Nightly News managing editor and anchor Brian Williams for six months, without pay, after he was exposed making false statements about his experiences during the Iraq war. Another example of “fake news” is Dateline, the NBC so-called investigative news program. They staged the explosion of a General Motors pickup truck in a designed effort to discredit General Motors in an attempt to validate a knowingly false narrative. General Motors, who also removed all advertising from the network, sued NBC. Then, in a face saving strategy they had Jane Pauley, who had no connection with the false story, read a scripted mea culpa. THAT THE mainstream media has made an agency of disinformation is irrefutable. That these same purveyors of lies marketed as news are now attacking those of us who in fact are accurately reporting is morally opprobrious and disingenuous, but obviously in keeping with their character.

December 28, 2016

Fake news — the mainstream media version

ong before fake news became a hot topic, liberals in the mainstream media were practicing their own special brand of fake news. They weren’t misleading the public for malicious reasons; it was quite the opposite. They were simply showing off their humanity. The best examples of this fake newsfor-a-good-cause go back to the 1980s, when two of the biggest stories in America involved the rise in homelessness (in the age of Reagan) and the national scare over a new disease called AIDS. I was a correspondent at CBS News at the time and I witnessed firsthand how — and why — the media got both those stories monumentally wrong. Let’s start with the homeless.

THE NETWORKS were doing lots of homeless stories back then, and the homeless we put on TV almost always looked just like you and your next-door neighbors. Except the homeless I saw on the streets of New York didn’t look anything like that. Most of them were either alcoholics, or drug addicts, or were talking to spaceships in the sky. But reporters felt they needed to portray the homeless as people just like you and me. In fact, Tom Brokaw actually said that the homeless are “people you know.” How could serious reporters really think the homeless by and large were people we knew in our everyday lives? They saw the homeless on the streets. They saw what I saw. It didn’t take an investigative reporter to figure out that the homeless living in cardboard boxes in the freezing cold were nothing like the Americans

who were watching Tom Brokaw on TV. But the homeless lobby had an agenda and they needed their liberal friends in the media to help them pursue it. They needed to drum up compassion for the homeless — and one way to do it was to convince reporters that the homeless were just regular folks brought down by a bad break. And journalists, who pride themselves on their compassion, gladly went along. After all, if the homeless were mainly a bunch of winos and junkies the public might not want to fund government welfare programs to help them. But if they were “people you know” we’d all be more sympathetic. (Besides, putting homeless folks on TV who look just like the audience helps boost ratings.) So liberal reporters became cheerleaders for a liberal cause they believed in. And something similar happened with AIDS. In the 1980s, journalists were spreading an epidemic — of fear. And that too was based on fake news. A headline in U.S. News & World Report said, “The disease of them is suddenly the disease of us.” The Atlantic Monthly headlined a cover story with this: “Heterosexuals and AIDS: The Second State of the Epidemic.” The Ladies Home Journal ran a story with this tease on the cover: “AIDS & Marriage: What Every Wife Must Know.” Life magazine ran a cover with this scary headline: “Now No One Is Safe from AIDS.” And in 1987, one of the most famous and beloved Americans weighed in with a dire warning. “AIDS has both sexes running scared. Research studies now project that one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next

three years. That’s by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.” Who wouldn’t believe Oprah Winfrey? Except she was dead wrong and so was just about everybody in the mainstream media. There was nothing resembling a heterosexual epidemic. ACCORDING TO the Centers for Disease Control, by the end of 1999, about 50 percent of those who had come down with AIDS were men who had sex with other men; 28 percent were IV drug users; six percent were men who had sex with men and injected drugs. There were also some cases tied to blood transfusions that were infected with HIV, the AIDS virus. Journalists should have wondered: If AIDS is breaking out into heterosexual America, why haven’t I witnessed entire

neighborhoods wiped out by the disease? That’s what was happening in gay neighborhoods in San Francisco, so why wasn’t it happening in suburban towns across the rest of the country? They didn’t ask those questions because they didn’t want to know the answers. So again, journalists misled the American people — and again, for a “good cause.” Just as the homeless had to be our friends and neighbors — or else we might not spend enough on them — people with AIDS also had to be just like us — or else the public might not care enough to spend federal tax dollars to find a cure for a disease that mainly hit gays and junkies. Let’s be clear: If even one person has AIDS it is a terrible tragedy. And the government had a moral responsibility to help find a cure for a disease that was killing so many people. But journalists can’t become cheerleaders — no matter how worthy the cause. And in many ways the mainstream journalism version of fake news is worse than what the social media version, where jerks put out ridiculous stories about nonexistent underage sex rings run by Hillary Clinton out of a pizza parlor. Unlike the social media clowns, mainstream journalists have legitimacy. They help set the national agenda. They influence legislation. And it’s not just about fake homeless and AIDS stories. They’re still putting out fake news — about the supposed sexist wage gap between men and women doing the same job with the same experience, about the “epidemic” of rape on college campuses, about the 99 percent of scientists who supposedly believe Al Gore’s version of global warming and think everyone else is an ignorant science “denier.” BUT HEY, they’re faking the news for good causes, right? This column is by Bernard Goldberg. December 20, 2016

This Week’s Conservative Focus

Fake News

The mad search for pro-Trump columnists

ver the weekend some pathetic wretch — obviously a casualty of the Nov. 8 election — writing under the pen name Paul Farhi filed a column in the Washington Post lamenting that after an extensive search of the newspapers of this great country, he could hardly find any proTrump columnists. Actually, he could not find any, not even among the altright, the Ku Klux Klan or the NeoNazis with whom the Post has become so familiar during this election year. Apparently the pro-Trumpers are nowhere to be found. FARHI WENT on to confect a comic want ad for the missing pro-Trumpers. Then he devoted roughly a thousand anguished words to his thesis, which said, “Major newspapers, from the Washington Post to the New York Times, have struggled to find and publish pro-Trump columns for months.” Yes, he actually

Now, allow me to submit Farhi’s idiwrote “for months.” He quoted editors from newspapers around the country, otic labors as still more evidence of an such as the Times’ James Bennet and establishment in its terminal stages of the Post’s Fred Hiatt, insisting that they decay. Thirty or more years ago, a simihad struggled to find a pro-Trump col- larly out-of-touch establishment derided of us who disagreed umnist. He even quoted the head of the t h o s e them on, say, supporteditorial department of the Republican- w i t h ing Ronald Reagan’s leaning Arizona candidacy or favorRepublic, Phil ing peace through Boas, who said strength. But the that many of the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate present establish“traditional voicment goes beyond es on the right” were not pro-Trump. The newspaper deriding us. It ignores us. It claims to be defied a 126-year record of endorsing looking for pro-Trump columnists but Republican candidates to endorse Hill- can come up with not a single one. As ary Clinton. It could have done worse. F.H. Buckley, who actually writes a proThe Chicago Tribune endorsed Gary Trump column for the apparently invisJohnson, who when asked about Aleppo ible New York Post, says, “The establishsaid, “What is Aleppo?” Conservative ment still can’t figure out what happened columnists were cited, among them on Election Day.” It got clobbered in Ross Douthat and David Brooks. But 2010, 2014 and 2016, but it only rememthere were no pro-Trump columnists bers 2012, the year Americans could not turn their back on President Barack anywhere.

R. Emmett

Tyrrell

Faking the news or balanced reporting?

ainstream media are suddenly concerned about “fake news.” It used to be that phony stories were easy to spot. They usually focused on space aliens or mysterious creatures found wandering deep in the woods. My personal favorite in this genre was a 1992 “story” in the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News that claimed the bones of Adam and Eve had been discovered in Colorado. A “leading archaeologist” was quoted, presumably to add credence to the fake story.

IN THE internet age, things once thought incredible have taken on credibility. From spam email that claims someone in Nigeria wants to send you money, if you send them some first, to politicians engaging in behavior that only sounds true if you happen to hate the politician and believe he (or she) is capable of anything. It has become a lot easier to fool some of the people all of the time. A recent fake news story claimed Hillary Clinton was involved in a child sex ring run out of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant. It prompted a deranged man with a gun to fire shots inside the place in hopes of liberating the “enslaved” children. A definition might help sort out what is fake and what is real. Fake is “anything made to appear otherwise than it actually is.” If that is the standard by which falsehoods are discerned, the mainstream media have been faking news for decades. Recall the reporting on Obamacare and claims by the president that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doc-

tor,” and if you like your health insurance plan you can keep that, too. Obamacare will save money, the president said. The media reported it all as fact and blamed him not at all when his misstatements proved untrue. Now there’s the story that the Russians interfered with the presidential election, something FBI Director James Comey refused to say in an October press appearance. Considering the media’s history of anti-Republican biases, does this sound fake to you? Space does not allow a chronicling of the numerous examples of false, misleading and biased

Cal

stories favoring liberal Democrats and their preferred issues. A Google search will reveal many more. IN A post-election column, New York Times’ public editor, Liz Spayd, referred to a memo from the newspaper’s executive editor and publisher promising to “rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences...” What were they doing pre-election? As Spayd noted, “they also used the occasion to congratulate themselves on their swift, agile and creative coverage on election night, and they praised their

journalism as fair to both candidates and unflinching in its scrutiny.” Never mind that so much of their coverage — and the TV stories that follow the Times’ lead on what’s news — labeled supporters of Donald Trump as uneducated, racist, sexist and homophobic, among other smears. There was no apology for any of this. Praising itself for journalistic integrity is like an administration investigating itself for wrongdoing. The Times would never approve of that, nor should it. Picking up on this self-congratulatory theme, the co-editor-in-chief of Variety, Claudia Eller, wrote that the show business publication, which leaned heavily in favor of Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy and regularly trashed Donald Trump, pledged to “(continue) our tradition of presenting balanced reporting that reflects multiple points of view...” If only. In the end, it matters less what the mainstream media think of themselves than what news consumers think. A September 2016 Gallup poll found that public trust in journalists had hit a new low. In other industries, that would prompt serious self-examination and conversations with people who aren’t buying what the company is selling. Only journalists sit on such a high mountain of self-regard that any challenge to their honesty and fairness is dismissed as the public’s problem. SUCH AN attitude can only produce more fake news that serves neither journalism, nor the public. December 15, 2016

Obama’s legacy — though in 2016 they did. CURIOUSLY, BUCKLEY and the New York Post were undetectable by Farhi and his editors. They also didn’t detect the Washington Times or the Wall Street Journal pro-Trumpers who have existed online. That Farhi and his editors cannot locate the pro-Trumpers even for a horselaugh is symptomatic of a serious psychological condition called denial. They need help. If Farhi had taken the time to read these highly readable commentators, he would have come up with plenty of writers who were favorable, or at least serene, toward President-elect Trump. For instance, he would have come across Seth Lipsky at the New York Post, and William McGurn and the inimitable James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal. At the Good Times he would have met Wesley Pruden, Monica Crowley and — dare I mention him — me. As a matter of fact, about the time Farhi was preparing his fantasy I was rereading my columns from the last few months, which were heroically published in the Washington Times, the American Spectator and various other places. Not only have I been writing a pro-Trump column but I also predicted Trump’s ultimate victory in at least a half a dozen of them — the last time one week before Black Tuesday, Nov. 8. Why doesn’t Farhi have a good laugh at my expense? In these columns I wrote about flying with Trump on his campaign plane and covering the campaign a la Teddy White. I weighed the numbers in the forthcoming race. I compared Trump’s robust response to Clinton’s feeble thrusts. In he American Spectator I also published writers who boldly spoke up for Trump, including Esther Goldberg, Jeffrey Lord, George Neumayr and, of course, Buckley. I even published anti-Trump pieces by such columnists as David Catron, Ross Kaminsky and William Murchison. Our readers can make up their own minds. If Farhi’s editors wanted pro-Trump writers, they could have called me. IN HIS COLUMN, Farhi blubbers on about what he calls “fake” news, picking up a theme that has become all the rage with the establishment. Supposedly the lunatic fringe is spreading news of conspiracies in the press, and the right is especially susceptible. Well, I do not know about the right, but I have just written a column about the fake news that Farhi and his kind spread. We shall see what the journalism community does with it. I say they will ignore my claim that the New York Post and the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal exist. December 15, 2016

Conservative Chronicle

RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE: December 15, 2016

Did the Russians hack Hillary Clinton?

arlier this week, leaders of the know from Snowden that the NSA can Democratic National Com- monitor and identify all digital commumittee and former officials of nications within the United States, comHillary Clinton’s presidential campaign ing into the United States and leaving made the startling allegation that the the United States. Hence, it would be Russian government hacked into Clin- foolhardy and wasteful to duplicate that ton’s colleagues’ email accounts to tilt work. There is quite simply no fiber-opthe presidential election toward Donald tic cable anywhere in the country transTrump. They even pointed to statements mitting digital data to which the NSA have full-time and unmade by CIA officials backing their al- does not fettered access. legations. I have often arPresident-elect gued that this is proTrump has charfoundly unconstituacterized these tional because the claims as “ridicu(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate Fourth Amendlous” and just an ment requires a “excuse” to justify the Clinton defeat, saying they’re also judicially issued search warrant specifiintended to undermine the legitimacy cally describing the place to be searched of his election. He pointed to FBI con- or the thing to be seized before the govclusions that the CIA is wrong. Who’s ernment may lawfully invade privacy, and these warrants must be based on right? probable cause of criminal behavior on Here is the back story. the part of the person whose privacy the THE AMERICAN intelligence government seeks to invade. Instead of these probable causecommunity rarely speaks with one voice. The members of its 17 publicly based, judicially issued search warrants, known intelligence agencies — God the government obtains what the Fourth only knows the number of secret agen- Amendment was written to prohibit — cies — have the same biases, prejudic- general warrants. General warrants are es, jealousies, intellectual shortcomings not based on evidence of probable cause and ideological underpinnings as the of criminal behavior; rather, they are based on government “need.” This is public at large. The raw data these agencies examine an unconstitutional and absurd standard is the same. Today America’s spies rare- because the government will always ly do their own spying; rather, they rely claim that what it wants, it needs. General warrants do not specifically on the work done by the National Security Agency. We know that from the describe the place to be searched or the Edward Snowden revelations. We also thing to be seized; rather, they authorize

Andrew

Napolitano

the bearer to search where he wishes and seize whatever he finds. This is the mindset of the NSA — search everyone, all the time, everywhere — whose data forms the basis for analysis by the other agencies in the intelligence community.

election as ridiculous, this is what he meant: There is no evidence of anyone’s altering the contents of operational systems, but there is evidence — plenty of it — of leaking. If hackers wanted to affect the outcome of the election, they would have IN THE CASE at hand, the CIA needed to alter the operational systems and the FBI looked at the same NSA- of those who register voters and count generated raw data and came to oppo- votes, not those who seek votes. site conclusions. Needless to say, I have During the final five weeks of the not seen this data, but I have spoken to presidential campaign, WikiLeaks rethose who have, and they are of the view leased tens of thousands of DNC and that though there is evidence of leak- Clinton campaign emails to the public. ing, there is no evidence whatsoever of WikiLeaks denies that its source was hacking. the Russian government, yet for the purLeaking is the theft of private data poses of the DNC and Clinton campaign and its revelation to those not entitled or claims, that is irrelevant because whointended to see it. Hacking is remotely ever accessed these emails did not alter accessing an operational system and the operational systems of any of the altering its contents — for example, targets; the accessor just exposed what removing money from a bank account was found. or contact information from an address We do not know what data the presbook or vote totals from a candidate’s ident-elect examined. Yet in six weeks, tally. When Trump characterized the he will be the chief intelligence officer CIA claim that the Russians hacked of the U.S., and he’ll be able to assimithe DNC and Clinton campaign emails late data as he wishes and reveal what intending to affect the outcome of the he wants. He should be given the benefit of the doubt because constitutionally, the intelligence community works for him — not for Congress or the American people. Who did the leaking to WikiLeaks? Who had an incentive to defeat Clinton? Whose agents’ safety and lives did she jeopardize when she was extremely careless — as the FBI stated — with many state secrets, including the identity and whereabouts of U.S. intelligence agents and resources? The answer is obvious: It was the same intelligence community that cannot agree on the meaning of the raw data it has analyzed. Someone leaked the Democrats’ and the Clinton campaign’s private work, and the government has a duty to find the person or entity that did so, even if it was one of the government’s own. Though the truthful revelation of private facts may have altered some voters’ attitudes, there is no evidence that it altered ballot totals. The law guarantees fair elections, not perfect ones. DID THE Russians hack Hillary Clinton? No. No one did. But some American intelligence agents helped WikiLeaks to expose much dirty laundry.

December 28, 2016 DEAR MARK: December 16, 2016

Twas the night of Trump Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through this place, Not a creature was stirring, each lib in their safe space. Washington was full of investigations to spare, In hopes crooked Hillary could still make it there. The millennials were nestled in their parents’ basement beds While X-boxes and Starbucks danced in their heads. And mamma in her kerchief and I in my cap Laughing at those who believe the election was a hack. When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window as I grabbed my I-phone, You Tube’s my goal who cares about my home The moon on the breast of global warming snow A bright flaming lustre lit the objects below When what to my wandering eyes should behold But a dark blue jet with Trump’s name in gold Holding the man who just won the election, Defeating an entitled liberal who can’t stand rejection. More rapid than eagles the losers all came, And he tweeted and shouted and called them by name. “Bye Hillary, bye Bernie, bye Marco and Ted

Bye Lindsay, bye Kasich, and that big loser Jeb. The election is mine, the people have spoken, So limp away limp away you’ve all been broken. For all of you whiners crying about the Hillary show She’ll be just fine with her Clinton Foundation dough” The media’s lonely hearts could hardly flitter

Mark

When met with an obstacle the new prez takes to twitter. So up to the housetop our new leader flew With that jet full of promises and Mike Pence too. And then in a twinkling I heard a rooftop fray, The clanking and swooshing like a can of hairspray. As I drew in my head and was turning around Down the chimney he came with a beautiful bound. He wore a dark suit all dapper and clean With a bright red tie, his skin a strange orange sheen. A bundle of plans he had flung on his back, As he promised to bring American jobs back. His eyes how they twinkled when he said build that wall

“We have to protect our borders, this I shall not stall” His mouth was a big weapon when he began to speak, “President Obama is gone he made America weak. Farewell hope and change, action’s what I’ll bring, Barack Obama’s promises just didn’t mean a thing. Obamacare’s a disastah” he said with such zeal, Shouting “We’re going to replace, we’re going to repeal. For the liberal sore losers who can’t get a grip, For the snowflakes and buttercups I don’t give a flip. Puppies and Play Dough for California and New York For the rest of the country I’ll get them a job and put them to work” Mr. Trump gave huge thumbs up and an okay sign, As he boarded his jet and yelled “I don’t have time. Back to Trump Tower I’ve got plenty to do Washington’s a mess, gotta clean up that zoo” But I heard him exclaim “Let’s go back to how we began, Merry Christmas to all — Make America great again” I HAVE been blessed with my loyal readers and even the readers who disagree with me, thank you all. Merry Christmas! E-mail your questions to marklevy92@aol.com. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkPLevy

CONTACT INFORMATION

Individual Contact Information Fields - suzannefields2000@gmail.com Greenberg - pgreenberg@arkansasonline.com Krauthammer - letters@charleskrauthammer.com Levy - marklevy92@aol.com Lowry - comments.lowry@nationalreview.com Malkin - malkinblog@gmail.com Massie - mychalmassie@gmail.com Napolitano - freedomwatch@foxbusiness.com Saunders - dsaunders@sfchronicle.com Thomas - tmseditors@tribune.com Will - georgewill@washpost.com Contact through Creators Syndicate Michael Barone, Austin Bay, Brent Bozell, Pat Buchanan, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, Veronique de Rugy, Larry Elder, Leslie Elman, Bernard Goldberg, David Harsanyi, Laura Hollis, Terry Jeffrey, Larry Kudlow, David Limbaugh, Betsy McCaughey, Stephen Moore, Dick Morris, William Murchison, Star Parker, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, John Stossel, Thomas Sowell Contact - info@creators.com Contact through Universal Press Ann Coulter or Donald Lambro Contact by mail : c/o Universal Press Syndicate 1130 Walnut Street Kansas City, MO 64106 Answers from page 14

TRIVIA ANSWERS T rivia B I T S

ANSWERS 1) Firefighter Red Adair specialized in fighting oil field fires. 2) Ascorbic acid is vitamin C. 3) Toys for Tots is an official activity of the U.S. Marine Corps. 4) Lady Bird Johnson was the inspiration for the Highway Beautification Act, signed into law in 1965. 5) The California Perfume Company (which was headquartered in New York), was renamed Avon in 1939. 6) While deer antlers grow, they’re covered with a protective skin known as velvet.

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Conservative Chronicle

FOREIGN POLICY: December 14, 2016

Questions for Exxon Mobil chief Rex Tillerson

he American appetite for businessmen in government is a hardy perennial. Ross Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992 on the strength of his “get under the hood” appeal. The Republican Party nominated Wendell Willkie in 1940 (though he’d been a Democrat until 1939) because he was perceived as a businessman “with a heart.” Now, the president-elect has chosen Exxon Mobil chief Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. Is a businessman — a great dealmaker, according to the Donald Trump camp — what we need as secretary of state? PROGRESSIVES TEND to respond in Pavlovian fashion to corporate CEOs, especially oil company executives. “Corporate America” is their bête noire — which just demonstrates their tunnel vision. In fact, the leaders of big corporations in the U.S. tend to bend with fashion in political matters. Recall that a number of large companies denounced Indiana when it passed its Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and some even withdrew from the state. Among those bringing pressure to amend or repeal the law were Apple Inc., Angie’s List, Subaru, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Gen Con. Some of the nation’s largest companies are very generous to progressive causes, and when they start foundations, it’s Katie-bar-the-door (yes, that means you, Ford Foundation). In my experience, small-business owners tend to be more conservative than executives of large corporations. Why? 1) Small businesses lack the heft to influence the government; and 2) they lack the manpower/income to comply with costly regulations. Large companies are better positioned to lobby the government for favorable treatment, including policies that will harm their competitors (which often includes the small businesses), and they have the staff to fill out stupid, useless government forms. When I heard that Tillerson was instrumental in getting the Boy Scouts to change its policy on homosexuality, that Exxon Mobil donated to Planned Parenthood on his watch and that he favors a carbon tax, I wasn’t surprised. Thiels, Mackeys and Kochs are thin on the ground. Tillerson’s business experience is impressive, but it tells us nothing important about whether he is a good choice for secretary of state. What is most relevant, and what the senators who question him during his confirmation hearings will want to illuminate, is what his views are on American foreign policy. President George W. Bush intervened aggressively in Afghanistan and Iraq. President Barack Obama withdrew

precipitously from Iraq, dithered about are other options for curtailing Chinese Afghanistan and studiously declined to aggression? Is it ever in the United States’ interest intervene in Syria. What are Tillerson’s views of the wisdom/folly of those poli- to defend human rights or small nations cies? Where does he stand on normal- menaced by bigger neighbors? Then there are the critical issues izing relations with Cuba? The Paris climate accord? The Iran deal? Obama President-elect Trump raised during paign. Does NATO tilted the U.S. toward Iran and sharply the camremain a keystone away from Israel of U.S. defense? and the Sunni Does it serve U.S. powers in the reinterests to see gion. What are South Korea, JaTillerson’s views? (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate pan, Saudi Arabia Does he agree and other nations with John Kerry (and his old friend James A. Baker III) acquire nuclear weapons? Should the that solving the Israel/Palestine dispute United States repeal the sanctions imposed on Russia after its annexation of is the key to peace in the region? What is the major geostrategic threat Crimea (as Tillerson urged when he was pursuing the interests of Exxon Mobil)? to the United States? And while we’re on the subject of IS A TRADE war the way to deal Russia, how many consecutive presiwith China? Who would be hurt by a 35 dencies should begin with a resolution percent tariff on imported goods? What to improve relations with Russia? Why,

Mona

Charen

in light of Putin’s unrelenting hostility, vicious, often-murderous behavior toward critics and rivals at home, Soviet-style anti-American propaganda, possible hacking of our political parties, and unblushing war crimes abroad (especially, lately, in Syria), should we seek better relations? Doesn’t that seem pusillanimous just now? Trump promised to destroy ISIS “very quickly.” How would that be accomplished? The president-elect has said that strongmen are preferable to chaos. Agree? Trump took a congratulatory call from Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who has launched a terror campaign against drug dealers and addicts. Thousands have been killed. What ought the U.S. response be? WHO ARE our most important allies? What, if any, is America’s global role?

DIVERSITY: December 21, 2016

Inclusiveness and diversity

ometimes it seems as if every other word from the mouths of academicians is “inclusiveness” or “diversity.” How sincere and truthful are these people about their “inclusiveness and diversity” religion? Suppose a group of engineering students do not want to include black or Mexican students in their study group. Should they be permitted to have freedom of association or restrained from freely associating? The true test of one’s commitment to freedom of association does not come when he permits people to be free to associate in those voluntary ways he deems appropriate. The true test comes when he permits people to associate in ways he deems offensive. I suspect that most academics believe that people should be permitted to associate only in ways they deem appropriate. This is no less than totalitarianism. WHAT ABOUT inclusiveness in dating? Would academics criticize people who expressed a desire to date only people of their own race? Would they criticize people who openly refused to date someone of the same sex? Would the “inclusiveness and diversity” people condemn or sanction same-race marriages? In other words, what limits would they impose to bring about inclusiveness and diversity? Some might argue that when it comes to marriage, non-inclusiveness and lack of diversity are of little social consequence. That claim is pure nonsense. When there is assortative (non-random) mate selection, it heightens whatever

group differences there are in the population. When high-IQ people marry other high-IQ people and when high-income people marry other high-income people, this non-inclusiveness in mate selection enhances the inequality in the population’s intelligence and income distribution. In other words, there would be greater income equality if high-income people mated with low-income people. And to the extent that there is a racial correlation between these characteristics, there would be greater equality if white people mated with black people. But I imagine that most people, even academics, would be horrified by the suggestion of a mandate to require non-assortative mating.

Walter

WHAT ABOUT diversity in academia? It’s not at all uncommon to watch a college basketball game and see that 90 to 100 percent of the starting five players are black. Most of a team’s white players are sidelined and warming the bench. College basketball — and, for that matter, college football — looks nothing like America. The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport’s “2015 Racial and Gender Report Card: College Sport” gives us the numbers. Blacks make up about 14 percent of the college population, but in Division I, 55.6 percent of basketball players and 43.6 percent of football play-

ers are black. Whites are 27 percent and 43.1 percent, respectively. One can only look upon Asians with profound sadness, for they are only 0.4 percent of college basketball players and two percent of football players. Latinos have been boxed out, as well. The lack of diversity, inclusiveness and proportionality in professional basketball and football is much worse. Blacks are about 74 percent of NBA players and about 69 percent of NFL players. This diversity injustice is aggravated by the fact that among the highest-paid players, blacks represent bigger percentages. ONE CAN understand the lack of concern for diversity in professional sports, where it’s just about money. But one is left flummoxed by the lack of diversity in college sports. After all, you can’t listen to any college president or provost speak for more than a few minutes without hearing the word “diversity” or “inclusiveness” drop from his lips. Colleges spend hundreds of millions of dollars on diversity. MIT has a manager of diversity recruitment; Toledo University has an associate dean of diversity; Harvard, Texas A&M, the University of Virginia, the University of California, Berkeley and many others boast of officers, deans, vice presidents and perhaps ministers of diversity. But in what appears to be the height of deviousness and deceit, these administrators allow sports, the most visible part of most colleges, to be the least diverse and least inclusive. One has to wonder just how serious academicians are about diversity and inclusion.

December 28, 2016 RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE: December 20, 2016

The real saboteurs of a Trump foreign policy

Nor is the War Party disguising its goal. Over the weekend, Sen. John McCain called for a congressional select committee to investigate Russian hacking into the Clinton campaign. The purpose of the investigations, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, “is to put on President Trump’s desk crippling sanctions against Russia.” “They need to pay a price,” Graham chortled on Twitter. “Crippling sanctions” would abort FOR CLINTON and her campaign, it is the only way to explain how they any modus vivendi, any deal with Rusbooted away a presidential election sia, before Trump could negotiate one. even Trump thought he had lost in No- Trump would have to refuse to impose vember. To the mainstream media, this them — and face the firestorm to follow. Party is out to dynamite is the smoking gun in their Acela Corri- The War detente with Russia dor conspiracy to delegitimize Trump’s a n y before it begins. presidency. Among the reaIncoming Sensons Trump won is ate Minority Leadthat he promised er Chuck Schumer to end U.S. insees Russian hack(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate volvement in the ing as a way to put a cloud over the administration before costly, bloody and interminable wars in it begins. But it is the uber-hawks here- the Middle East the Bushites and Presiabouts who are after the really big game. dent Barack Obama brought us — and They seek to demonize Putin as the the neocons relish — and to reach a new saboteur of democracy — someone understanding with Russia and Putin. But to some in Washington, beating who corrupted an American presidential election to bring about victory for a up on Russia is a conditioned reflex dat“useful idiot” whom Clinton called Pu- ing to the Cold War. For others in the media and the front groups called think tin’s “puppet.” If the War Party can convert this tanks, Russophobia is in their DNA. Though Julian Assange says “fake story” into the real story of 2016, then they can scuttle any Trump effort WikiLeaks did not get the emails from to attain the rapprochement with Russia Russia, this has to be investigated. Did Russia hack the DNC’s email system and that Trump promised to try to achieve. If they can stigmatize Trump as “Pu- John Podesta’s email account? Did Putin’s president” and Putin as America’s tin direct that the emails be provided to implacable enemy, then the Russo- WikiLeaks to disrupt democracy or defeat Clinton? phobes are back in business. he never-Trumpers are never going to surrender the myth that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the hacking of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee to defeat Clinton and elect Donald Trump. Their investment in the myth is just too huge.

Pat

Buchanan

Clinton says Putin has had it in for her because he believes she was behind the anti-Putin demonstrations in Moscow in 2011. But if there is to be an investigation of clandestine interference in the politics and elections of foreign nations, let’s get it all out onto the table. THE CIA director and his deputies should be made to testify under oath, not only as to what they know about Russia’s role in the WikiLeaks email dumps but also about who inside the agency is behind the leaks to the Washington Post designed to put a cloud over the Trump presidency before it begins. Agents and operatives of the CIA should be subjected to lie detector tests to learn who is leaking to the anti-Trump press.

Before any congressional investigation, President-elect Trump should call in his new director of the CIA, Rep. Mike Pompeo, and tell him to run down and remove, for criminal misconduct, any CIA agents or operatives leaking secrets to discredit his election. Putin, after all, is not an American. The CIA saboteurs of the Trump presidency are. Will the media investigate the leakers? Not likely, for they are the beneficiaries of the leaks and co-conspirators of the leakers. The top officials of the CIA and Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, should be called to testify under oath. Were they behind anti-Putin demonstrations during the Russian elections of 2011? Did the CIA or NED have a role in the “color-coded” revolutions to dump over pro-Russian governments in Moscow’s “near abroad?” If Russia did intrude in our election, was it payback for our intrusions to bring about regime change in its neighborhood? What role did the CIA, the NED and John McCain play in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014? McCain was seen cheering on the crowds in Independence Square in Kiev. Trump has promised a more hopeful foreign policy than that of the Republicans he denounced and is succeeding. No more wars where vital interests are not imperiled. No more U.S. troops arriving as first responders for freeloading allies. The real saboteurs of his new foreign policy may not be inside the Ring Road in Moscow; rather, they may be inside the Beltway around D.C. THE REAL danger may be that a new Trump foreign policy could be hijacked or scuttled by anti-Trump Republicans, not only on Capitol Hill but inside the executive branch itself.

Conservative Chronicle

NEWS: December 15, 2016

Disrupting the news ... and the gatekeepers of it

usan Glasser published a powerful piece for the Brookings Institution last week. Titled, “Covering politics in a ‘post-truth’ America,” the essay reflects on the changes to journalism over the past 30plus years, and Glasser wonders aloud what the election of Donald Trump says about the state of journalism today. Hers is one of dozens — perhaps hundreds — of recent editorials and articles about the proliferation and impact of “fake news.” The overwhelming tone of these pieces is one of concern, if not outright panic. Everyone needs to calm down. Faux news is good news, at least from one perspective: That of disruptive innovation. WE CAN ALL agree that the internet has been a disruptive innovation. Information that is disseminated via the internet is, therefore, also disruptive. Glasser references disruption throughout her essay, in fact. But, I respectfully submit, she doesn’t seem to see how it’s playing out here. A lot of people think that some whizzy technology is all that’s required for something to be disruptive. But that’s an oversimplification. Truly disruptive innovations happen when a new technology coincides with widespread public dissatisfaction with the old ways of doing things. By way of example, Betamax and VHS recorders transformed the movie industry (dragged kicking and screaming) because the consuming public wanted more control over what they watched and when they watched it. On the music side of the entertainment business, Napster’s peer-to-peer filesharing technology gave the public the choices that the record industry had refused to provide. It’s worth noting two other aspects of disruption. First, the initial iterations of a disruptive innovation are often really poor quality. It takes numerous attempts, fits and starts over years, before the innovation reaches the level of quality that a majority of consumers expect and demand. Second, those who’ve grown fat and happy doing things the “old way” will resist the “new way” with everything they’ve got — even when the “new way” turns out to be better for them. (Disney was one of the plaintiffs who sued Sony to try to stop the sales of Betamax recorders. Thank goodness they lost. Can you imagine Disney today without the obscene revenue streams generated by videocassettes and DVDs?) And the music industry’s reaction to MP3 file sharing is the stuff of legend. Yes, it’s true that Napster infringed copyrights, and that a lot of

artists (Metallica most notably) joined (O)ver the weeks that followed, the with the record companies to fight the internet drove a Washington news stounauthorized and unlicensed copying. ry as it never had before: The Drudge But in general, artists loathed much Report had proved beyond a doubt about the old recording industry: The that the old gatekeepers of journalism oppressive contracts, the deceptive ac- would no longer serve as the final word counting, the glad-handing executives when it came to what the world should and cookie-cutter A&R guys, the radio know.” And that right there was the problem. station payola. For their part, the public hated the inflated prices and the fact The media’s view of itself as “gateof information, coupled that it was impossible to buy one song k e e p e r s ” with an overwhelminstead of an eningly left-wing potire album. Naplitical perspective ster tapped a vein. and a serious lack If the technology of competition, got ahead of the (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate meant that over law and the busithe past few deness model, well, such is the price of progress. As we cades they have moved from news to say in entrepreneurship, sometimes it’s selective reporting, and from selective the second mouse that gets the cheese; reporting to advocacy. The press woriTunes has made everyone happy, and ries about censorship under Trump, but they have censored things that a lot of people rich. they didn’t think “the world should WHY WAS the major media ripe to know” for decades. Half the country was left behind, and they resented it. be disrupted? As Glasser herself said: “... on January 17, 1998, at 9:32 on (If the press marvels that Trump’s sexa Saturday night, Matt Drudge’s web- ual boorishness didn’t do him in, they site first leaked word of the blockbuster need look no further than the “it’s just scandal that was about to engulf Presi- sex” defense they offered President dent Clinton and Monica Lewinsky... Bill Clinton, who was impeached not

Laura

Hollis

for sex in the Oval Office, but for lying about it under oath. That’s called “perjury.”) When the internet and social media mixed with this sentiment, the results were explosive. But as is the case after all such “explosions,” things will calm down and sort themselves out. The world of news and information after disruption will be different and, if past is precedent, better. Widespread dissemination of information via the internet — and particularly social media — is still very much in its infancy. As such, the quality (which in this context means “accuracy”) is, shall we say, inconsistent. Traditional journalists warn that the public will be content to insulate themselves in an echo chamber. But the press frequently underestimates the public. And it was the press, not the public, that was sealed in an echo chamber of its own making. Because the quality of information is ultimately determined by its accuracy, the public will demand accuracy. AND THE NEXT generation of disruptors will provide it.

DEMOCRATS: December 19, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s next phase

hatever the innocent reader might have to say about Hillary Rodham Clinton, if anything by now, she’s certainly adaptable — and has been every stage of the way. From her first appearance at the old Sam Peck hotel in those bottom-ofa-Coke-bottle eyeglasses to her current stage as a butterfly in reverse, she’ll always be news even if she’s reduced to making it herself.

FOR NOW Hillary Clinton is going from full-blown Lepidoptera back to larva. No, she won’t go down in people’s memories, if at all, the way she might have hoped, but who does? She’ll always have, no, not Paris, but Little Rock and Washington and points betwixt and beyond. All of it will continue to be duly recorded and rerun on our speakers and screens and other postmodern inconveniences. And once again Mrs. Clinton will enjoy what passes for success among the unlettered. She’ll surely stay in the limelight as she stars on corporate boards, peddles reverse mortgages and generally oversees the Clinton Foundation’s makeover into some sort of combined philanthropic enterprise and self-serving front. Let us give thanks to real writers like Andrew Stiles of the National Review

for having the patience and fortitude to speculate about what the future now holds for this super-saleswoman in her many guises. Like the late unlamented Fidel Castro, she has played an outsized role in a lot of plain folks’ lives through no choice of their own. She’s more than a little like Richard M. Nixon

Paul

in that regard. For this is still Hillary Clinton’s world and the rest of us, including her secretary/co-president/ celebrity-in-chief, are just living in it. DEMOCRATS IN general took it on the chin in this earthquake of an election. Their only challenge was to explain how all their explanations went awry. And pick out a single villain to blame for their humiliating defeat. Was it Cuban-Americans like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, whose folks left the Castro brothers’ dictatorship in time for them to become just as red, white and blue Americans as those of us lucky enough to be born here? Was it John Boehner, the GOP’s leader who was forced out of office? The name of the

villain in their playbooks keeps changing, but not the essential falsity of their pseudo-explanations. The more inclusive the Democrats’ accusations of racism and sexism, the more Americans disbelieve them, for We the People aren’t about to take the fall for Hillary Clinton Democrats whose numbers grew fewer and fewer even as the number of Trump voters grew more and more numerous. It didn’t help when the Dems wound up identifying the voters in the old Rust Belt as villains themselves. They can’t keep calling us voters names (racist! sexist!) and expect us to support them at the polls. Talk about a strategy that has no chance of winning. IN THE END, there may be only one villain all concerned can agree on: The all-pervasive media-ocracy. Whether changing around the sets like Hollywood or Broadway stage crews or starring in their own mega-productions, the talking heads no longer have much credibility with rank-and-file voters who can see right through them. And what a tasteless spectacle it became. Take your pick of its worst scene: There were so many outrageous moments it won’t be easy to choose just one.

December 28, 2016 PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP: December 16, 2016

What’s Trump up to on foreign policy?

hat is President-elect Donald Trump up to on foreign policy? It’s a question with no clear answer. Some will dismiss his appointments and tweets as expressing no more than the impulses of an ignorant and undisciplined temperament — no more premeditated than the lunges of a rattlesnake.

showing boundless ignorance or mindless delusion about other things. So let’s examine Trump’s actions and comments on foreign policy so far in that light and in light of the speculations of historian and Henry Kissinger biographer Niall Ferguson, who, in an American Interest article last month, sketched out what a “Kissinger-inspired strategy” by Trump might look like. OTHERS MAY recall that simiFerguson argued that Trump is purlar things were said (by me, as well as suing what Kissinger’s most admired many others) about his campaign strat- American statesman, Theodore Roosegy. But examination of the entrails of evelt, also sought: “a world run by rethe election returns suggests that Trump g i o n a l great powers with was following a strong men in comdeliberate strategy mand, all of whom based on shrewd understand that any insight when he lasting internarisked antagoniztional order must (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate ing white collegebe based on the educated voters in the process of ap- balance of power.” pealing to non-college-educated whites. That seems in line with Trump’s Antagonizing college graduates cost moves vis-a-vis China. He ostentahim scads of popular votes — but zero tiously took a congratulatory call from electoral votes — in states such as Ca- Taiwan’s president, and the first foreign lif., Ariz., Texas and Ga. But his ap- leader to make a postelection visit to peal to non-college-educated whites in Trump Tower was Japan’s Shinzo Abe. Fla., Pa., Ohio, Mich., Wis., Iowa and Both are signals that Trump will look Maine’s 2nd Congressional District won askance at China’s moves to establish him just enough popular votes to cap- sovereignty in the first island chain. ture 100 electoral votes that had gone But then he tapped as ambassador for President Barack Obama in 2012. to Beijing Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, So maybe Trump knew what he was whose friendship with Xi Jinping goes doing. It seems to me that like many back to the Chinese leader’s visit to rich men, he has original insights that, Iowa in 1985. Those moves look like a together with hard work and good luck, good cop-bad cop routine. Trump wants have made him successful, even while some changes in trade relations with

Michael

Barone

China and limits on its probes in the South China Sea and will build up U.S. military forces. But there’s room for acceptance of China as a great power. THERE’S ROOM for acceptance of Russia, too, as suggested by the secretary of state nomination of Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, self-proclaimed friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s. He may be opposed by Republican senators who, like Mitt Romney in 2012, see Russia as “our No. 1 geopolitical foe.” But perhaps Trump favors Kissinger’s proposal for a neutral and

decentralized (i.e., dominated and partitioned) Ukraine, with an end to sanctions on Russia. Tillerson would be a good choice if that were your goal. This would make the Baltic States and Poland understandably nervous, but they could take some comfort in Trump’s reaffirmation of our NATO pledge to defend them and in the fact that Pentagon nominee James Mattis has gone out of his way to honor Estonia for its sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan. As for the rest of Europe, Ferguson cited Kissinger’s urging that it move “from bureaucratic introspection back to strategic responsibility.” Finance ministers, stung by Trump’s campaign criticisms, are ponying up more money to meet their NATO defense spending commitments; German Chancellor Angela Merkel is backing down from her disastrous decision to welcome one million “refugees.” Long-standing U.S. cheerleading for the European Union reached a crescendo when President Obama threatened that Britain would go to “the back of the queue” if it voted to leave the EU. Trump supported Brexit and has supported a U.S.-U.K. free trade agreement. He obviously doesn’t have much use for multinational talking shops. In the Middle East, will Trump ditch the Iranian nuclear deal or police it aggressively? Will he bolster the tacit Sunni-Israeli alliance against the expansion of Iranian influence? Unclear, though Mattis and Tillerson could help with both. TRUMP’S MOVES and picks so far are not inconsistent with Ferguson’s supposition that his strategy is to seek accommodations with regional powers led by strongmen, showing even less regard for and paying even less lip service to human rights than Obama. We’ll see.

Conservative Chronicle

OBAMA PRESIDENCY: December 20, 2016

How Barack Obama stole Christmas

he Trump transition team is working on its first package of executive actions, including steps to rescind or revoke numerous improper executive actions by President Obama. Here are two federal regulations and further actions that Trump should take care of in his first day on the job as president. The liberal “war on Christmas” is a recurring feature of the holiday season, but this year a federal regulation is being blamed for continuing that unhappy trend. At a senior living center called Mercy Village in Joplin, Missouri, residents were told they are forbidden to put traditional Christmas decorations in any of the common areas.

MERCY VILLAGE is owned by Denver-based Mercy Housing Inc., which receives federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Mercy’s management claimed that it was merely enforcing a HUD regulation that prohibits “discrimination” by housing providers on the basis of religion. Mercy Village did have a so-called “holiday” tree in the main lobby, but when residents (at their own expense) placed a Nativity scene in the hallway of an upper floor, it was removed by the management. Even though no resident complained, the display could have been seen by other residents who might claim to be offended by the sight of a Nativity scene beneath the Christmas tree. Mr. Dee Wampler, a prominent attorney from nearby Springfield, Missouri,

informed Mercy Village that a 1984 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court found it perfectly constitutional to include a Nativity scene within a publicly funded Christmas display. But the management of Mercy Village was unmoved, insisting that Christmas decorations must remain inside the residents’ individual apartments, and that all common areas must remain “religion neutral.” President-elect Trump was criticized for naming Dr. Ben Carson as the new Secretary of HUD because the eminent Dr. Carson has no experience in “housing policy.” In fact, Dr. Carson’s years of experience battling the forces of political correctness make him perfectly suited for redressing the anti-Christmas regulations of federally subsidized housing. Another regulation due for prompt revocation by the new administration is a last-minute rule to prevent states from defunding Planned Parenthood. This new rule became final on December 19 following an unusually short 30-day comment period, and is set to take effect on January 18, just two days before the President Trump will be inaugurated. Obama’s director of the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) complained that 13 states have restricted “certain types” of providers from participating in the federal program to prevent poor people from having children. Is it really the proper function of the federal government to prevent births to poor people? Yet that is the basic mission of the federal OPA, with the result that this new rule was issued at an especially offensive time, during the season when we

celebrate the miraculous birth of a child could take on his first day of office to a poor family 2,000 years ago. would be simply to withdraw the appeal by the Department of Health & TRUMP WON the pivotal Rust Belt Human Services (HHS) of a splendid states of Wis., Mich., Ohio, and Pa. due decision that declared illegal the taxto their loss in manufacturing jobs and payer subsidies of Obamacare on the due to the large numbers of Catholic health insurance exchanges. If Trump and evangelical voters there who op- merely withdraws the appeal of U.S. pose the pro-abortion positions of Hill- House of Representatives v. Burwell, ary Clinton. In Wisconsin, for example, which is as easy as filing a one-page many Democrats were unwilling to cast document with the court, the subsidies their ballot for Hillary Clinton, after her would cease and the Obamacare health unapologetic support of abortion-on- exchanges would mercifully collapse. demand throughout all nine months of Those taxpayer subsidies are fundpregnancy was exposed during the pres- ing abortion in addition to wasting bilidential debates. lions of dollars in money that could Perhaps the most influential action be better spent on real health care and that the incoming President Trump other good uses. In Alaska, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Mass., Vt., and Wash., it is impossible to buy a health insurance plan on the exchange that does not cover elective abortion. The incoming President Trump could go further and order the Internal Revenue Service not to enforce any fines or penalties for individuals who elect not to purchase Obamacare-compliant insurance, which would allow them to use their own money in ways that best suit their own needs. Nothing is more wasteful and inefficient as a government forcing people to purchase a product they do not want, in this case Obamacare and its funding of abortion. AMID THE holiday merry-making and revelry, which as Shakespeare observed 400 years ago “is a custom more honor’d in the breach than the observance,” we should remember the whole point of Christmas is the birth of a child. 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.

December 28, 2016 MICHELLE OBAMA: December 21, 2016

Michelle Obama’s Christmas lump of coal

For the past eight years, Obama has ust what we all need to ring in the Christmas season: Un-merry mil- traveled to every corner of the planet on lionaire Michelle Obama belly- the taxpayers’ dime. She has splurged in aching about the burdens and sacrifices Spain, traversed the Great Wall of China, of public life with billionaire Oprah Win- tangoed in Buenos Aires, skied in Aspen, lolled in Martha’s Vineyard and feasted frey. rakesh. Thanks to “There’s nowhere in the world I can in Marher public position go and sit and have and celebrity, she a cup of coffee,” has been bestowed Obama lamented. “fashion icon” staIt’s a frequent tus — donning a grievance. In Sep(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate $12,000 customtember, she told made Atelier VerInStyle magazine: “My hopes are to recapture some of the sace gown at her final State Dinner last everydayness, some anonymity. ... (I)t month after enjoying two terms clad in will be nice to open up the paper, look at Givenchy, Gucci, Jason Wu, Vera Wang, the front page, and know that you’re not Caroline Herrera and other haute couture stars whose designs are unattainable to responsible for every headline.” ordinary women in America. Count your blessings much, Mrs. AND BACK in June, again with Oprah, the first lady griped that living in Grinch? Nope. All Barack Obama’s bitter the spotlight was like “living in a cave.” half really wants to do, she told Winfrey, Complain, complain, complain. What is “drop into Target. I want to go to Target a way to make the most of your last six again.” Funny that. The last time Obama months in the grand and glorious White shopped at Target, she turned the outing House.

Michelle

Malkin

into a fake news narrative to stoke racial division in America. It is worth reminding the public about the noxious lie one last time before the grumbling FLOTUS leaves office because I consider her exploitation of the incident a perfect metaphor for the Obama years — faux populism bolstered by elitist Hollywood enablers, and then cynically transformed into a phony social justice crusade for crass political gain. BACK IN 2012, you may remember, Obama sat down with David Letterman in one of her endless, popularity-enhancing pop culture appearances.

HHS: December 21, 2016

Bracing for change at HHS

n a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, more than half of respondents, 52 percent, said that Donald Trump will either not change the way business is done in Washington or will bring the “wrong kind of change.” This may sound negative, but the fact that 48 percent believe positive change will occur points toward a meaningful note of hope and optimism. With the nomination of highly motivated reformers, like Rep. Tom Price to head up the largest department in the federal government, Health and Human Services, we should feel hopeful. But history and experience should also keep us sober. Change in Washington is very hard.

PRESIDENT REAGAN pledged to close down the departments of energy and education. But both departments survived and spending today for both departments is higher today than when Reagan took office When President George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, he placed reform of Social Security front and center in his campaign. He devoted almost one-quarter of his state of the union address in 2005 discussing the importance of reforming Social Security. Yet, despite his Republican Party controlling both houses of congress, President Bush failed in his efforts to reform the Social Security system. The point is not to be cynical but to stay in touch with reality. There is a joke

that government programs are like nails without heads. Once they are put in it’s almost impossible to pull them out. HHS, where Rep. Price is headed, has 72,000 employees and a budget of almost $1.1 trillion — $8,800 per every American household. It consumes one-quarter of the federal budget and is twice the size of the defense department, the second largest department in the federal government. From 1970, HHS has grown by a factor of 10, from $103 billion to $1.1 trillion. The lion’s share of this budget is Medicare and Medicaid, but it also includes the whole array of welfare and anti-poverty programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Head Start and Low Income Energy Assistance Program. These are operated through 19 different offices and 529 different subsidy programs.

ALL OF THESE programs are in great need of reform. Most have been around for years. Medicare and Medicaid go back to the 1960s and still operate basically the same way today as 50 years ago, despite dramatic changes in the country and technology. Projections show spending on these two programs, coupled with Obamacare, doubling over the next 10 years, taking an increasing percentage of our GDP. Who ever heard of a business that doesn’t change how it operates over half

a century? In contrast, American Enterprise Institute economist and blogger Mark Perry reports that only 12 percent of the Fortune 500 firms that are on the list today were on it in 1955. Change and competition wash out the old and bring in the new, including among the biggest corporations in the world. Yet Medicare, which in total spending is about the same size as Wal-Mart, the largest corporation on the Fortune 500 list, is doing business essentially the same way today as it did a half century ago. Rep. Price wants major reform in all these health care and welfare programs. These are badly needed reforms, as our economy is becoming increasingly weighed down by excessive and wasteful government. But there is no internal mechanism in government entities to self-adjust, as there is in business and a free market. The opposite is true. Every program spawns armies of special interests that fight change and mobilize to protect the status quo. It’s why there should be great resistance to starting these programs to begin with. GREAT IDEAS are on the table for how to reform these massive programs. But a very tough fight lies ahead.

She bragged about her ability to shop incognito at Target (does she get a secret commission every time she mentions the store?) and told a warm and fuzzy story about helping a fellow customer who didn’t recognize her. The shopper innocently asked Obama to retrieve laundry detergent from a high shelf. “I reached up, ‘cause she was short, and I reached up, pulled it down,” the first lady recounted, and the shopper joked, “Well, you didn’t have to make it look so easy.” Obama beamed as she told Letterman: “I felt so good” doing an everyday good deed. Letterman’s audience cheered at the “first ladies, they’re just like us!” theater. Just a few years later, however, the encounter morphed into a tall tale of rampant racism, which she cunningly reshaped for People Magazine in 2014 during the aftermath of the Ferguson, Missouri riots and Black Lives Matter protests. “Even as the first lady,” she moaned, “not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me” at a Target store “was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf.” The headline of the article? “The Obamas: How We Deal With Our Own Racist Experiences.” ABC News added that Michelle Obama claimed such “incidents are ‘the regular course of life’ for African Americans and a ‘challenge’ for the country to overcome.” Last year, Obama persisted in plying and fine-tuning her false narrative at Tuskegee University’s commencement ceremony — decrying the “sting” of “daily slights” she blamed on racism, including unnamed “clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores.” Now, as she walks away with skyhigh poll ratings, a glittering Rolodex, and government benefits for life, this incredibly blessed and privileged woman has the audacity to claim that “we” are “feeling what not having hope feels like,” as she whined to her well-heeled gal pal, Oprah Winfrey. So put upon. So downtrodden. So oppressed. To borrow one of Mrs. Woe-IsMe’s own favorite phrases: Bye, Felicia!

YOU AND your manufactured miserStar Parker is an author and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal ies won’t be missed. and Education.

Conservative Chronicle

U.S. MORTALITY RATE: December 9, 2016

Obesity, fatty foods, death and science

omething is killing us — beyond the fact that life itself is a terminal condition. This week brought news that the U.S. mortality rate overall has risen slightly since 2014. “It’s a definite milestone in the wrong direction, and the concern a lot of us have is that it reflects largely the approximately three-decade-long epidemic of obesity,” Stephen Sidney, a California research scientist, told the Wall Street Journal. Death rates rose for eight of the 10 leading causes, including heart disease, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, injuries (including drug overdoses), diabetes, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s disease and suicide. Cancer death rates continue to decline, and influenza deaths were unchanged. The uptick in deaths means that life expectancy rates for babies born today have dropped a bit. FOR SOMETHING as multifactorial as overall death rates, a certain modesty is necessary in interpreting the data and/or offering hypotheses. I have my favorite suspicion, and I freely acknowledge that it’s a hunch. A large number of Americans are living alone (27 percent in 2014, compared with 13 percent in 1960) and becoming alienated from community, church, and neighborhood groups (the so-called mediating institutions of society). A 2010 AARP survey found that one third of adults over 45 years old reported that they were chronically lonely, whereas only 20 percent said the same a decade earlier. Not everyone who lives alone is lonely, and some people who live with others are, but the rise of loneliness is real and has measurable health effects. As Judith Shulevitz explained in the Atlantic: “Psychobiologists can now show that loneliness sends misleading hormonal signals, rejiggers the molecules

on genes that govern behavior, and buffed the efforts of the Center for Sci- the evidence. Meanwhile, assiduously wrenches a slew of other systems out ence in the Public Interest to force the eliminating fat from the diet has caused of whack. They have proved that long- journal to retract an article by Nina Tei- Americans to substitute processed carlasting loneliness not only makes you cholz. She is the author of The Big Fat bohydrates such as grains, which are sick; it can kill you. Emotional isolation Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese less filling than fat and may lead to obeis ranked as high a risk factor for mor- Belong in a Healthy Diet, a great de- sity. It is notable that as Americans have bunking of standard nutritional advice. followed the dietary guidelines, obesity tality as smoking.” has been dubbed “the has skyrocketed. And with obesity come A large retrospective study published In what of butter,” Teicholz the killers — heart disease, cancer and earlier this year found that isolated in- b a t t l e assails the U.S. Di- diabetes. dividuals had a etary Guidelines, 32 percent higher which have (inrisk for stroke and TEICHOLZ’S CAREFUL review formally since the of the origins of the fat/heart-disease a 29 percent high1960s and offi- orthodoxy is a case study in why skeper risk of heart (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate cially since 1980) ticism of experts is, well, healthy. This disease. Many studies have shown that married people urged Americans to eat less fat and more is not to suggest that we abandon the (particularly men) are less likely to die carbohydrates (see: The food pyramid). scientific method or give the rumor from post-surgical complications, can- Teicholz argues, and the British Medi- Uncle Fred sends on Facebook the same cal Journal confirms, that the “strong” weight as an article in Nature. It is an cer, heart disease and other causes. link between consumption of saturated argument for remembering that the term LAST YEAR, the wife/husband team fat and heart disease is not supported by “settled science” is an oxymoron. of Anne Case and Angus Deaton made headlines with a study showing someTHE LEFT: December 18, 2016 thing that had not been seen for many decades in the United States: The death rate for non-Hispanic whites between 45 and 54 years old in the United States was actually ticking up. The mortality rates for African-Americans, Hispanics hen you see videos of Hol- before they vote on Dec. 19. Websites and other age cohorts were continuing lywood celebrities — like have released the emails and addresses a downward trend that had been steady the latest with Martin of GOP electors who have been deland steep for decades (or centuries, by Sheen, Debra Messing and Bob Oden- uged with well-meaning exhortations, some measures). Even more disturbing, kirk — earnestly telling Americans as well as name-calling and lurid death the Case/Deaton study suggested that how to live up to their brand of lib- threats. Michigan GOP elector Michael these white Americans were dying not eral politics by rejecting the GOP, the Banerian told the New York of heart disease or cancer (though some first question you have to ask Post, “Somebody do, of course) but of diseases that imply yourself is: Why? threatened to put a a sickness of spirit as much as of body I still ask myself bullet in the back — suicide, drug overdoses and cirrho- that after watchof my mouth.” sis of the liver. This could be a signal ing the latest pitch While one of the declining economic prospects of under the Or(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate website urged lower-skilled workers, or it could be a wellian hashtags correspondents to symptom of the loneliness and despair #UniteForAmerica (the ad hoc group’s write nice letters on paper to appeal to that the breakdown of families has left disingenuous name) and #Support- electors’ better nature, there is no rein its wake. TheElectors. A montage of stars sotto moving the other message behind the But something else may be at work voce urges “Republican members of letters: We know where you live. as well. This week, the British Medical the Electoral College” to vote their I understand the frustration DemoJournal, after careful consideration, re- conscience — that is, against their own crats must feel in winning the popular fellow citizens’ considered election vote. That said, the Constitution is a set of rules, including the Electoral Colchoice. lege. As so frequently happens, critics AMERICAN HISTORY has seen occasional “faithless” electors turn become what they once opposed. Now against their states’ popular vote, but the Hollywood left wants to trample the “faithless” have never changed an and misrepresent the purpose of the election’s outcome. Unite For America Electoral College. (Note to Sheen and wants to change that by urging “faith- company: The framers were less worless” electors to go blockbuster. If when ried about their fellow white landownthey vote on Dec. 19, 37 Republicans ers electing an “unfit” candidate than were to turn against their own to deny the prospect of high-population states Trump the 270 votes needed to win the imposing their will on small states.) White House, the celebrities apparently ALSO, ANTI-TRUMPERS charged believe the about-face would unite the country. You know, because Trump vot- The Donald cared more about himself than what is good for the country. Yet ers take rejection as gently as lambs. Perhaps the — all bow — acting as Trump has been reaching out to supcommunity really is that clueless. The porters and critics, the Hollywood left actors urge GOP electors to be “brave.” is pushing for an outcome that would It’s a nice good-cop appeal even as other divide America even further. They must Democratic partisans are playing ruth- know it won’t work, but they don’t care, less hardball to intimidate GOP electors because in the end, it’s only preening.

Mona

Charen

Hollywood does Orwell

Debra J.

Saunders

December 28, 2016

SECULARISM: December 16, 2016

Where have all the Christmas decorations gone?

here I live (near Los An- you can literally see it this month. When geles) you can drive for I compare blocks of homes without blocks without seeing a Christmas decorations to blocks filled single home with Christmas lights, let with homes with Christmas decorations, alone a manger scene or some other re- I think of my trips to the Soviet Union ligious decoration. And you can drive and other communist countries. One of the first things that struck any visimiles and see fewer than a dozen. the West was how I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, tor from gray everything in an area where looked. There was most residents essentially no color were either Ital— just as today’s ian or Jewish. So decoration-free many homes had (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate homes appear. Christmas decoSecularism in rations that you could almost be sure that if the home the West has a deadening effect. It tends wasn’t decorated, a Jewish family lived to suck the joy of life out of individuals in it. And while I was — and remain and the larger society. It is particularly — a committed Jew, I loved — and noticeable in young people. Secular kids still love — those decorated homes. It are more likely to be jaded and cynical than kids raised in religious Christian makes December special. and Jewish homes. (Conversely, secularism has an enBUT TODAY, December is not special in large swathes of America. Secu- livening effect in fundamentalist Muslarism has taken its toll. And the lack of lim countries, which tend to suck the color this time of the year compared to joy out of life even more so than secudecades ago perfectly exemplifies some larism does in the West. That’s one reason one can root for secularism in Iran of its consequences. Secularism literally and figuratively and against secularism in the West.) What secular joys can compare to knocks color out of life. Without God and religion there is, of a family putting up Christmas decocourse, much to enjoy in life. You can rations and a Christmas tree, going to enjoy Bach without believing in God church together, singing or listening to (though Bach would not have composed Christmas carols and engaging in the anything if he didn’t believe in God); other rituals surrounding Christmas? you can enjoy sports, books, travel and None. The same question can be posed to so much more. But there is a monochromatic charac- Jews. What secular joys compare to ter to life without God and religion. And having Shabbat meals every week with

Dennis

Prager

family and friends, or building a sukkah ment is good and theocracy is bad, secu(the holiday booth) with your children larism must be good. But it isn’t. for Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles)? Secularism not only knocks out joy None — for adults or children. but also destroys ultimate meaning. Without God and religion, life is ulA CHRISTIAN caller on my radio timately no more than random coincishow told me about his son-in-law who dence. You and I have no more meandoesn’t celebrate Christmas but does ing or purpose than puffs of clouds. The celebrate “the first snow.” With all due only difference is that clouds don’t need respect, celebrating the first snow, or the to believe that they have meaning. winter solstice, does not bring the joy to This lack of meaning in secular socian individual’s life or a family’s life that ety is the reason for the development of celebrating Christmas brings. the post-Christian isms and movements The indoctrinated — better-known as in the West. They give people meaning. the well-educated — have been misled Marxism, communism, fascism and Nato believe that because secular govern- zism — not to mention all the nonviolent but socially destructive left-wing movements of our day — are all secular substitutes for what religion once gave: meaning. Secularism also destroys moral absolutes. Without God and moral revelation, morality is entirely subjective — “What you or your society says is good is good, and what I or my society says is good is good.” Is it any wonder that the most secular institution in the West, the university, is also the place of the greatest amount of moral idiocy? Secularism also destroys art. Contemporary art museums are filled with nihilism and talent-free meaninglessness masquerading as art. And worse, they are increasingly filled with the scatological. One of the Guggenheim Museum’s latest featured works is a solidgold toilet that’s usable by visitors. It’s titled “America” so that one can literally urinate and defecate on America — and feel sophisticated while doing so. AMERICA IS a society in decline because Americans have abandoned the religious foundations of their country. The colorless and joyless Christmas manifested in the increasing number of homes without Christmas decorations is a clear and dispiriting example.

Conservative Chronicle

OBAMA PRESIDENCY: December 16, 2016

Obama underlines failure at the Daily Show

onservative Twitter wit Stephen Miller unleashed his latest “President Ash Carter” joke recently with regard to the lack of seriousness of the outgoing president. He said: “President Ash Carter has made an unannounced visit to troops in Afghanistan. Barack Obama announced he’s going on the Daily Show.”

There’s reason to be intimidated. Liberals have seriously asserted that if Jon Stewart hadn’t selfishly retired from his fake-anchorman gig, Hillary Clinton would be the President-elect. In some quarters, Noah is resented for being too unfunny to help destroy Trump.

CRITICS SHOULD have set their expectations low for a Daily Show interview WHILE LIBERALS complain that with Obama. It’s not like Stewart ever Obama. Genuflection own way,” and for helping the president President-elect Donald Trump will never g r i l l e d was the order of along. “The Daily Show gave President be serious enough the day during the Obama one of his best forums since the to be president, or Stewart era, and it election and Noah wisely sensed that he insist that Trump was only occasionally needed to progress is expected now. must grant a TV critic Dan- the conversation,” he stated, “and let ‘the press conference, (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate iel Fienberg at the soon to be former tenant of the White Obama is keeping Hollywood Report- House’ steer things.” up with his round Obama’s insistent request to appear of adoring interviews with liberal late- er actually praised Noah for barely being night comedians, from Stephen Colbert present, saying that he “stayed out of his and be honored for a half-hour might to Samantha Bee. The show began with host Trevor EXPECTATIONS: December 15, 2016 Noah apologizing profusely for delaying the president’s appearance on his platform. Obama joked: “You guys wouldn’t book us. I kept on calling.” Noah first asked — as surrogate for a gobsmacked liberal audience — about Obama’s rey hometown of Carrollton, and their consequences reach far into action to the CIA declaring that Russia Georgia, a town of 14,000, adulthood,” wrote Vance. These include hacked the election “to sway the election was an hour west of Atlanta. “Being sworn at, insulted, or humiliated for Donald Trump.” We left our door unlocked while away, by parents, being pushed, grabbed, or The softball session wrapped up with life revolved around church and high having something thrown at you, feeling Noah’s tender question on race, since school football, and I wore my sister’s that your family didn’t support each othboth men are biracial. He said: “It is of- hand me downs until I grew taller than er, having parents who were separated or ten difficult to navigate and skirt that line her. We very rarely ate out, and my bed- divorced, living with an alcoholic or drug between speaking your mind and shar- room furniture included a cast off three- user, living with someone who was deing your true opinions on race whilst, at foot-diameter, circular wooden spool that pressed or attempted suicide, and watchthe same time, not being seen to alienate had been used by Southwire Company, ing a loved one being physically some of the people you are talking to. along with cinder blocks and plywood abused.” ... You know, because if you are a white for shelves. person who’s speaking about race, then Jackie you are just a person who’s interested in AFTER MY parents’ divorce, my race. If you are a person of color who’s mother recorded every expense, down speaking about it, it’s like ‘Oh, the black to the penny. There were times when we (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate thing’s starting again.’ So the question barely made it through the month, but I’ve always wanted to know is, how did we always did. Regardless of our circumCONSTANT STRESS experienced you navigate that?” stances, we believed that things could get in childhood can lead to a perpetual fightThat’s a roundabout way of saying: better through education and hard work. or-flight trigger physiologically and can “Talk about race. Go.” change brain chemistry. Once set on a Time magazine’s Daniel D’Addario Hillbilly Elegy, written by JD Vance, course to react to every slight as a fight, actually scorned Noah for going so easy chronicles Vance’s travels from Ken- it’s hard to change that reaction and the on Obama, saying that it was just a series tucky to Ohio through the Marines and negative interaction that often follows. of Obama speeches. Rambling answers on to Yale Law School. Self-described as Vance’s time in the Marines taught him during this pre-taped interview stretched a Scots-Irish hillbilly, he provides insight to believe in himself and in his ability to out to be 500 words, with no effort to edit into the culture, customs and trials of shape his destiny. “I came a little closer for purposes of trying to make it interest- working-class whites in Middle America. to believing in myself,” he wrote. “Psying. Much of what he describes reminds me chologists call it ‘learned helplessness’ of my childhood, as well as that of my when a person believes, as I did during D’ADDARIO REMARKED: “While friends and neighbors. my youth, that the choices I made had no the interview didn’t need to be an interroVance was shaped by a traumatic child- effect on the outcomes in my life ... the gation to be successful, it seemed appar- hood: An absent father, numerous father Marines were teaching me willfulness.” ent that Noah had long since ceded con- figures moving in and out of his life and This change in belief is counter to trol of the proceedings to the President, a mother who was unable to provide him what is often preached politically, acand was serving him nice juicy pitches with stability. Vance’s Mawmaw (grand- cording to Vance. “Instead of encouragover the plate with clear signals that it mother) provided the stability and frame- ing engagement, conservatives increaswasn’t going to get any tougher.” He work that enabled him to work towards ingly foment the kind of detachment that concluded that Noah bungled it, saying, a life that would have seemed unimagi- has sapped the ambition of so many of “It’s a missed opportunity that Noah, as nable to him as a teen. my peers... What separates the successful the audience surrogate, seemed quite so “ACEs (Adverse childhood experi- from the unsuccessful are the expectaintimidated by his job.” ences) are traumatic childhood events, tions that they had for their own lives. Yet

Brent

Bozell

have seemed like a gift to Trevor Noah. But it wasn’t. It was further proof his tenure at Comedy Central is doomed, just as doomed as the cancelled Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. For liberals, Stewart looms over the Daily Show like a legend — the way Obama will loom over the Democratic Party he dismantled.

Why great expectations matter

Gingrich Cushman

the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you are a loser; it’s the government’s fault.” While one might argue that this message comes more from the left than from the right, the fact remains that this belief can lead to its own self-fulfilling prophecy. Pessimism breeds inaction, optimism breeds action. “The profound, deep dissatisfaction of the American people,” helped drive Trump to victory wrote Newt Gingrich in his recent ebook, Electing Trump: Newt Gingrich on the 2016 Election. Trump’s message — that we could do more, could be more as a nation - is one of optimism about the future. A message many were and still are eager to hear. While Vance was able to create a framework for understanding the challenge, that is not a clear answer. “People sometimes ask me whether I think there’s anything we can do to ‘solve’ the problems of my community,” he wrote. “But these problems of family, faith, and culture aren’t like a Rubik’s Cube, and I don’t think that solutions ... really exist.” WHAT DOES make a difference? “They had a family member that they could count on. And they saw — from a family friend, an uncle or a work mentor — what was available and what was possible... The real problem for so many of these kids is what happens (or doesn’t happen) at home,” Vance noted. This also means that government programs can’t provide solutions, but that possibly a more engaged citizenry, who provide examples of what could be, and help the next generation believe that they can make a difference through their actions, might be a great start.

December 28, 2016 OBAMA PRESIDENCY: December 21, 2016

Obama tries to define away reality, but reality wins

ast Friday, President Obama our homeland that was directed from gave his last press conference overseas,” Obama stated. He then conas commander in chief. Un- tinued, saying no attack has been exdeterred by his would-be successor’s ecuted “in a rainstorm with the attacker devastating loss to Donald Trump in driving a tractor with one hand, drinking High Life with the the presidential election, unswayed by a Miller other and wearing a Republicans’ comclown nose.” plete domination To be fair, of Congress, state Obama didn’t add legislatures and those final qualigovernor man(c) 2016, Creators Syndicate fiers. But he might sions, he mainas well have. In ortained his cool and collected self-aggrandizement. Why not? der to define away the problem of terrorAccording to Obama, Obama has been a ism that has grown dramatically worldwide on his watch, he simply spoke of major success. terrorism as a problem of organized PERHAPS THE most hilarious mo- groups within defined territories. That’s ment of delusion came when he talked not how modern terrorism works. Terabout terrorism. “Over the past eight rorist groups can recruit without formal years, no foreign terrorist organization structures and can operate as indepenhas successfully executed an attack on dent cells within various countries.

Ben

Shapiro

JUST THREE days after Obama’s statements, an alleged jihadi plowed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin; the same day, a Turkish terrorist mur-

TRUMP’S CABINET: December 21, 2016

Close them down! Donald Trump is appointing good people — Andy Puzder, for example, Trump’s nominee for labor secretary. When Puzder took over Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants, they were deep in debt. Four years later, they were profitable. I bet his 70,000 workers are happy about that. “What did you do that your predecessor didn’t?” I asked Puzder. His answer sounded a little like Trump. “They were entrenched. ... My second memo as CEO was: Next person that answers a question with ‘because we’ve always done it that way’ will be fired.” SOUNDS RUTHLESS. No wonder he opposes the minimum wage! But wait: He got his start scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. “Minimum wage, dollar an hour ... I learned about customer service, about inventory. That was a good start, a good step on that ladder.” Puzder painted houses and mowed lawns as a teenager, jobs that today’s minimum wage and employment regulations sometimes make illegal. People think those rules are compassionate, but not Puzder. “I have a 16-year-old son, and I really love him,” he told me, but “there’s no way in the world I’d pay that kid $12 an hour to do something. We’re losing a generation of people because we’ve eliminated jobs that those people normally filled. How do you pay somebody $15 an hour to scoop ice cream? How good could you be at scooping ice cream? It’s just not a job where you could compensate somebody like that.”

The media hate businessmen who say things like that. A Washington Post headline: “Ayn Rand acolyte Donald Trump stacks his cabinet with fellow objectivists.” This is absurd. Trump likes capitalism, but he’s no objectivist. Objectivists have firm principles. The Post article smears Puzder as a cruel Ayn Rand fan who “wants to automate fast-food jobs.” But Puzder doesn’t want to automate. He just states an obvious truth: A higher minimum wage leads employers to replace some workers with machines. Fast-food companies were already installing touch screens. A $15 minimum wage speeds that process. IF REPORTERS were actually compassionate, they would oppose the endless regulations they routinely champion. People can’t gain the experience needed to earn higher wages if they aren’t allowed to be hired in the first place. “We have restaurants in 33 countries and 45 states,” says Puzder, describing how hard it is to get permits to open restaurants. “In Texas, it’s 60 days. In LA, it takes 280. I can open a restaurant faster in Siberia than I can in California.” Remember when it was Russia that opposed capitalism? “The permitting is ridiculous,” says Puzder. “They make us put in stoplights and curb cuts and plant trees two blocks away. Everybody on the planet wants input. You’ve got to get approvals from the city, the county, the state, satisfy federal regulatory requirements.” As a result, “You can’t grow, can’t build restaurants, can’t build a new

Wal-Mart, that new office building if you can’t use the land, if you can’t get through the regulatory process.” Trump nominating someone who sees that problem is encouraging. I hope he surrounds himself with other people who love free markets, not just power. Another possibly good Trump appointee is Linda McMahon, his nominee to head the Small Business Administration. McMahon almost defeated Connecticut’s clueless socialist Sen. Richard Blumenthal in the 2010 Senate race. She calls herself a fiscal conservative, so I wish she’d won. But I hesitate to support her, since I once sued her and her husband for allegedly telling one of their giant actors to beat me up because I pointed out that WWF wresting is fake. Really. Google “Stossel wrestler” and you’ll see what I mean. But my main objection to both nominations is that we don’t need either agency! The SBA is wasteful cronyism. Federal bureaucrats have no clue which small businesses deserve funding. Likewise, workers don’t need a Department of Labor to set one-size-fits-all labor policies. Let competition set the rules. Employers and workers will make the choices and contracts that work best for each of them. I HOPE Andy Puzder and Linda McMahon take over the SBA and Labor Department, then immediately shut them down. John Stossel is the author of No They Can’t! Why Government Fails — But Individuals Succeed.

dered the Russian ambassador to Turkey. These latest attacks aren’t outliers. In the past several years, we’ve seen terrorist attacks in Turkey, Germany, Belgium, Great Britain, Canada and Australia. This sort of terrorism isn’t relegated to foreign countries, of course. Here is an incomplete complete list of radical Islam-related terror attacks and attempts on American soil under Obama: Shootings of American military recruiters in Little Rock, Arkansas; the massacre at Fort Hood; the Boston Marathon bombing; an attempted bombing of the airport in Wichita, Kansas; hatchet attacks on New York City police officers; attempted shootings at the “Draw Muhammad” event in Garland, Texas; the attacks on military recruiters in Chattanooga, Tennessee; the massacre at the San Bernardino Inland Regional Center; the Orlando nightclub shooting; the New York and New Jersey bombings; and the Ohio State University car attack. Obama still thinks he can cover his abysmal record with closely drawn definitions of terrorism. It’s the equivalent of President Bill Clinton saying he’s been faithful to his wife except for certain areas, like sex. It’s technically true so far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. Americans know that, and they reacted to Obama’s consistent lying-by-omission by electing Trump, a man who needs little evidence to jump to conclusions. Obama is so careful to avoid spotting fact patterns that he simply omits inconvenient data points. Trump is so eager to spot fact patterns that he simply includes convenient non-data points. But Americans would rather have Trump’s jumpto-conclusions mentality than Obama’s avoid-conclusions-at-all-cost mentality — Trump’s mentality may lead to mistakes, but those mistakes are less likely to cost Western lives. SO OBAMA can hawk his faux sophistication on terrorism as much as he wants. If Democrats want to ensure that Republicans continue to win elections, they ought to follow his lead.

Conservative Chronicle

DISARMAMENT: December 20, 2016

A public service — concealed carry guns

ometimes someone inadvertently performs a public service by bringing an unbelievably stupid and dangerous idea to the surface, where it can be exposed for what it is. The New York Times can be credited — if that is the word — with performing this public service in a recent editorial against proposals to allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns. They refer to what they call the National Rifle Association’s “fantasy that citizens can stand up to gunmen by shooting it out.” NOBODY HAS suggested any such thing. Data collected over many years — but almost never seeing the light of day in the New York Times or the rest of the mainstream media — show many thousands of examples of people defending themselves with a gun each year, without having to pull the trigger. If someone comes at you with a knife and you pull out a gun, chances are they will stop. The only time I ever pointed a gun at a human being, it was when someone was sneaking up toward me from behind a shed in the middle of the night. I never fired a shot. I just pointed the gun at him and told him to stop. He stopped. Actually having to shoot someone is the exception, not the rule. Yet the New York Times conjures up a vision of something like the gunfight at the OK Corral. Concealed guns protect not only those who carry them but also those who do not. If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a car jacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being a mugger or a car jacker a less safe occupation. Gun control laws are in effect occupational safety laws — OSHA for burglars, muggers, car jackers and others. The fatal fallacy of gun control laws in general is the assumption that such laws actually control guns. Criminals who disobey other laws are not likely to be stopped by gun control laws. What such laws actually do is increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims. Mass shootings are often used as examples of a need for gun control. But what puts a stop to mass shootings? Usually the arrival on the scene of somebody else with a gun. Mass shooters are often portrayed as “irrational” people engaged in “senseless” acts. But mass shooters are usually rational enough to attack schools, churches and other places where there is far less likelihood of someone being on the scene who is armed.

“senseless” attacks on meetings of the built up huge war machines, such as in National Rifle Association or a local Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. The net result was that the belliggun show or a National Guard armory. The fallacy of believing that the erent countries had every incentive to way to reduce shootings is to disarm start wars, and that they inflicted devpeaceful people extends from domes- astating losses on the peaceful counhad drastically curtic gun control laws to international tries that their own military disarmament agreements. If disarma- t a i l e d forces. ment agreements Eventually the reduced the danWestern democgers of war, there racies got their would never have act together and been a World War (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate turned things II. The decades leading up to that war around, after they belatedly beefed up were filled with international disarma- their military forces. But thousands of ment agreements. As with domestic lives were lost needlessly before that gun control laws, the agreements were happened. World War II was in its third followed by peaceful countries and year before Western forces won a sinignored by belligerent countries that gle battle.

Thomas

Sowell

Undaunted by history, the same kind of thinking that had cheered international disarmament treaties in the 1920s and 1930s once again cheered Soviet-American disarmament agreements during the Cold War. Conversely, there was hysteria when President Ronald Reagan began building up American military forces in the 1980s. Cries were heard that he was leading us toward nuclear war. In reality, he led us toward an end of the Cold War, without a shot being fired at the Soviet Union. BUT WHO reads history these days, or checks facts before leading the charge to keep law-abiding people disarmed?

CARTEL WAR: December 14, 2016

Mexican Cartel War ten years on

exico was battling wellfinanced criminal organizations long before December 2006. But that’s the month, 10 years ago, when former President Felipe Calderon decided to use military forces to fight the well-armed and well-financed drug cartels that had begun to threaten Mexico’s internal stability. Mexico’s Cartel War (la guerra contra el narcotrafico) began on December 11, 2006, when Calderon ordered the Mexican Army to quell cartel-inspired violence in the western state of Michoacan. Calderon believed the cartels were in the process of creating a “criminal mini-state” in the region.

THE FAMILIA Michoacana drug cartel was an Army target. The Valencia and Gulf cartels were waging a turf war in the Michoacan. The Sinaloa cartel also had a presence in the state. StrategyPage.com’s Mexico update provides a gripping historical window on the turmoil in Michaocan state, Calderon’s decision to intervene with the military and the Mexican Army’s initial Cartel War operations. I’m going to quote from a long post dated December 17, 2006. A decade later the internet post’s details remain instructive and — unfortunately — relevant. “December 17, 2006: The (Mexican) Army announced a major drug bust operation in western Mexico. The army arrested Elias Valencia, head of the Valencia drug cartel... The Army and various police organizations began a large-scale counter-drug operation in Michoacan state on December 11. The operation inSELDOM DO we hear about these cluded a large “sweep” of Michoacan by “irrational” shooters engaging in troops supported by armored vehicles.

Police had been ambushed in southwestern Michoacan and it looks like the armored vehicles were a response to the road ambushes. The state has been the scene of fighting between the Gulf Cartel ... and the Valencia cartel. The two cartels had been shooting at one another and committing “execution style” gangland slayings. The army reported one firefight on December 13 near what was described as a “marihuana plantation.” ... Mexico’s new president,

Austin

Bay

Felipe Calderon, promised he would take action against the drug gangs. It looks like action includes the Mexican Army deployed as a police force but also conducting operations that look more than a bit like counter-insurgency operations.” Calderon decided to use the military as a last resort. Drug gang firepower and cash had overwhelmed local police forces and government institutions. Per StrategyPage’s report, cartel gunmen were ambushing and out-gunning municipal, state and federal police. THE MEXICAN military’s professional reliability and public trust also informed his decision. The Mexican people knew they could rely on their military because it was the one institution the long-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had never completely corrupted. The military remains one of the most highly trusted institutions in Mexican society.

Calderon, however, intended for the military to be part of a security team. Winning the Cartel War demanded systemic modernization in Mexico — meaning political and economic modernization. Endemic political, economic and judicial corruption have gone hand in glove with crime in Mexico. Most Mexicans agreed with Calderon’s assessment, especially with his doubts about the police and judiciary. Contemporary polls indicated the majority of Mexico’s adult population thought civilian police forces were corrupt and unreliable. Unfortunately, polls taken within the last three years reflect the same high levels of public disdain and distrust for civilian police. The Mexican military didn’t want to fight the Cartel War and still doesn’t. In a recent interview, Mexico’s defense secretary, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, provided a blunt assessment of the Cartel War and the military’s central role. “We did not ask to be here, we do not feel comfortable here, we did not train to pursue criminals, our role is another and it has been distorted. We would love the police forces to do their job ... but they don’t.” “Ten years ago it was decided that the police should be rebuilt, and we still haven’t seen that reconstruction ... there is a lack of commitment on the part of a lot of sectors. This isn’t something that can be solved with bullets; it takes other measures and there hasn’t been decisive action on budgets to make that happen.” MEXICO IS losing the war for reform. That’s why The Cartel War continues.

December 28, 2016 ALEPPO: December 16, 2016

Lesson of Aleppo — for Donald Trump

kind that had ousted Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. When the U.S. began to fund and train rebels to overthrow him, Assad rallied his troops and began bringing in allies — Hezbollah, Iran and Russia. It was with their indispensable assistance that he recaptured Aleppo in the decisive battle of the war. And now America has lost credibility all over the Arab and Muslim world. How did this debacle come about? First, in calling for the overthrow of YET, AGAIN, the wrong lessons are Bashar Assad, who had not attacked or being drawn from the disaster. According to the Washington Post, threatened us, we acted not in our nathe bloodbath is a result of a U.S. failure tional interests, but out of democratist Assad is a dictator. to intervene more decisively in Syria’s ideology. Dictators are bad. So civil war: “AlepAssad must go. po represents a Yet we had no meltdown of the idea who would West’s moral and replace him. political will — (c) 2016, Creators Syndicate It soon became and ... a collapse clear that Assad’s of U.S. leadership. “By refusing to intervene against most formidable enemies, and probthe Assad regime’s atrocities, or even able successors, would be the al-Nusra to enforce the ‘red line’ he declared on Front, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda, the use of chemical weapons, President or ISIS, then carrying out grisly execuObama created a vacuum that was filled tions in their base camp in Raqqa. U.S. policy became to back the by Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Revolu“good” rebels in Aleppo, bomb the tionary Guard.” But the blunder was not in staying “bad” rebels in Raqqa and demand that out of Syria’s civil war, but in going in. Assad depart. An absurd policy. Nor had the American people been Aleppo is a bloodbath born of intervenconsulted. tionism. After a decade of wars in Iraq and On Aug. 18, 2011, President Obama said, “For the sake of the Syrian people Afghanistan, they saw no U.S. vital inthe time has come for President Assad terests at risk in who ruled Damascus, to step aside.” Western leaders echoed so long as it was not the terrorists of ISIS or al Qaeda. the Obama — “Assad must go!” Then came Obama’s “red line” warnAssad, however, declined to go, and crushed an Arab Spring uprising of the ing: The U.S. would take military acn this world, it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, said Henry Kissinger in 1968, but to be a friend is fatal. The South Vietnamese would come to appreciate the insight. So it is today with Aleppo, where savage reprisals against U.S.-backed rebels are taking place in that hellhole of human rights.

Pat

Buchanan

tion if chemical weapons were used in Syria’s civil war. What undercut this ultimatum was that Congress had never authorized the president to take military action against Syria, and the American people wanted to stay out of Syria’s civil war. WHEN ASSAD allegedly used chemical weapons and Obama threatened air strikes, the nation rose as one to demand that Congress keep us out of the war. Secretary of State John Kerry was reduced to assuring us that any U.S. strike would be “unbelievably small.” By 2015, as Assad army’s seemed to be breaking, Vladimir Putin boldly stepped in with air power, alongside

Hezbollah and Iran. Why? Because all have vital interests in preserving the Assad regime. Bashar Assad is Russia’s ally and provides Putin with his sole naval base in the Med. Assad’s regime is the source of Hezbollah’s resupply and weapons to deter, and, if necessary, fight Israel. To Iran, Assad is an ally against Saudi Arabia and the Sunni awakening and a crucial link in the Shiite Crescent that extends from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut. All have greater stakes in this civil war than do we, and have been willing to invest more time, blood and treasure. Thus they have, so far, prevailed. The lessons for Trump from the Aleppo disaster? Do not even consider getting into a new Middle East war — unless Congress votes to authorize it, the American people are united behind it, vital U.S. interests are clearly imperiled, and we know how the war ends and when we can come home. For wars have a habit of destroying presidencies. Korea broke Truman. Vietnam broke Lyndon Johnson. Iraq broke the Republican Congress in 2006 and gave us Obama in 2008. And the Iran war now being talked up in the think tanks and on the op-ed pages would be the end of the Trump presidency. BEFORE STARTING such a war, Donald Trump might call in Bob Gates and ask him what he meant at West Point in February 2011 when he told the cadets: “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

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•NEWSPAPER• •DATED MATERIAL•

RUSH!

Fake News

Postmaster: Timely Material Please deliver on or before 12/28/16 Periodicals Postage Paid Mailed 12/22/16

Read Bernard Goldberg, R. Emmett Tyrrell & Cal Thomas on Pages 16-17

This week our CONSERVATIVE FOCUS is on:

Read Charles Krauthammer’s Column on Page 1

Assertion of Basic Constitutionalism

Trump Nominees

Wednesday, December 28, 2016 • Volume 31, Number 52 • Hampton, Iowa