No wonder Obama won`t let us read TPP

Transcription

At Issue this week...
June 24, 2015
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Trade Deal by Phyllis Schlafly
No wonder Obama won’t let us read TPP
O
n Friday, Congress disrupted President Obama’s plan for a sweeping transfer of U.S. sovereignty to
an unaccountable group of foreign busybodies. Hurray for the stalwart Americans who
resisted the demands of Obama, the Republican leadership and the big-donor claque,
but Speaker Boehner plans to give Congress
another chance this week to make this dangerous mistake.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
would turn over to globalists the power to
issue regulations about U.S. trade, immigration, the environment, labor and commerce.
It’s called a “living agreement,” which means
the globalists can amend and change the text
of the so-called agreement after it has gone
into effect.
THAT REMINDS me of our supremacist judges who invented the term of a “living” Constitution, which they can rewrite to
comport with their own updated ideology.
The globalists claim this “living” document
(TPP), now called Obamatrade, has all the
powers of a treaty to commit the U.S. to new
foreign obligations, although it certainly did
not comply with any U.S. constitutional provisions for treaty ratification.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has frankly
warned about this giveaway of U.S. sovereignty. Not only would Congress give up its
powers to negotiate and write the terms of a
treaty, but Congress also gives up its powers to debate and amend the deal, to apply
a cloture vote in the Senate, and to require a
two-thirds vote in the Senate.
The secrecy wrapped around TPP is appallingly un-American. Whatever happened
to Obama’s promise of “transparency?” TPP
was negotiated and agreed to by Obama’s
trade representative and a bunch of foreigners in a secret room, and the American people
are not allowed to know the details until after
it’s a done deal.
TPP puts us in a new political and economic union before a single private citizen
is told about it and with public opinion running five to one against it. Remember when
Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass Obamacare
in order to find out what is in it?
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., warns,
“TPP calls for the formation of a permanent political and economic union known as
the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission,
which will have power to issue regulations
impacting not only trade, but immigration,
the environment, labor and commerce. He
added, Congress “will have surrendered its
legislative prerogatives. Before a word, line,
paragraph or page of this plan is made public, Congress will have even agreed to give
up its treaty powers.”
Sessions made it even more emphatic,
saying that Fast Track “authorizes the president to form a new transnational governance
structure. ... It confers the power to both
compel and restrict changes to U.S. policy, to
commit the U.S. to international obligations,
and to cede sovereign authority to a foreign
body.” This new global body could even add
new member countries (such as China).
Phyllis
Schlafly
(c) 2015, Creators Syndicate
SESSIONS CONTINUED: “Congress
would be pre-clearing a political and economic union before a word of that arrangement has been made available to a single
private citizen. This has the earmarks of a
nascent European Union,” and Americans
certainly don’t want to belong to a European
union (that’s why we fought the American
Revolution).
Hunter also warns that the new global
governance institution would be “authorized
to issue policies and regulations affecting our
economy, our manufacturers, our workers,
our immigration procedures, as well as current labor and environmental practices.”
TPP is separating us from the U.S. Constitution and from national sovereignty and
replacing both with a global governance superstructure. TPP has wrapped its audacious
global governance plan in the mantle called
“free trade,” which is a misnomer if there
ever was one.
“Free trade” means Americans must obey
a bunch of rules written by foreigners (which
we can’t veto), but China can ignore those
rules. TPP didn’t even touch the subject of
currency manipulation against us by Asian
countries.
While the American people are denied
the right to read TPP, thanks to leaks from
WikiLeaks we have learned that Obamatrade
includes 10 pages to unilaterally alter our
current U.S. immigration law. Sessions says
TPP will give Obama a backdoor to increase
immigration, and the same lobbyists who are
pushing for Obamatrade are demanding open
borders.
REPUBLICANS NEED a bold program
to bring back jobs that have been lost to Asian
countries. Michele Bachmann summed up a
pro-American verdict on TPP: “I hate it. It
would empower the president, cut out congressional influence, and lead to American
jobs leaving the U.S.”
June 16, 2015
2
Conservative Chronicle
TRADE DEAL: June 16, 2015
Obama fails to pass trade bill backed by both majorities
L
yndon Johnson used to say
that some of his colleagues
were so politically inept they
couldn’t find their posteriors — actually, he used a coarser word — with
both hands. Last week Barack Obama
showed that, as a legislative strategist,
he belongs in that category.
It’s a given that he can’t achieve
most of his legislative goals with Republican majorities in both houses of
Congress. But on trade promotion authority — legislation to require up-ordown approval without amendments
of trade agreements — he has fumbled
even though, as demonstrated on roll
calls, his position is supported by a supermajority in the Senate and a majority in the House.
TPA IS necessary for successful
completion of Obama’s Trans-Pacific
Partnership and Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership negotiations now skillfully conducted by U.S.
Trade Representative Michael Froman.
Other nations won’t reach agreement if
Congress can pass amendments requiring further concessions.
Obama has made forthright statements in support of TPA. But he failed
to rally his fellow Democrats in the
House to stop them from trying to kill
it.
Democratic support for free trade
One curious thing about trade issues is that historically, from the time continued to slide. In 2003, when the
of Andrew Jackson to John Kennedy, House approved TPA 217-212, only 25
the Democrats were the free trade par- Democrats voted for it, while 27 Rety. The Republicans from their begin- publicans voted against it.
It should have been obvious to
nings to the 1960s were more protecObama, months before Friday’s TPA
tionist.
that he needed to
Free trade legislation was Ken- v o t e ,
get some signifinedy’s No. 1 docant number of
mestic priority in
Democratic votes
his first two years
to get the meaas president. It
sure through the
was passed with
House. Too many
the support of
most Democrats over the opposition of recently elected Republicans had eimost Republicans. Disabling amend- ther taken protectionist stands or
ments were offered by Sen. Prescott didn’t trust the president to carry on
negotiations.
Bush of Connecticut.
Even more important, he needed to
But starting in the 1970s, labor
unions, hoping to prevent auto and persuade House Democratic leaders
steel job losses, have pushed for more not to sabotage his effort. He needed
trade protections. They continue to op- to spend time with them, listen to their
pose freer trade even though half of concerns and foster a team spirit. But
union members today are public em- Obama, by all accounts, has had as
little time for congressional Demoployees.
crats as he has had for congressional
WHEN BILL Clinton sought ap- Republicans. Lyndon Johnson-style
proval of the NAFTA agreement with schmoozing is not his thing.
The result was apparent Friday.
Mexico in 1993, the party balance
had shifted. The Senate approved it In May, the Senate voted 62-37 for a
61-38, with Democrats evenly split. TPA-TAA package. TAA is Trade AdIn the Democratic-majority House, it justment Assistance, a program intendwon 234-200, with yea votes from 102 ed to aid workers displaced by foreign
imports. Policy analysts say it’s not
Democrats and 132 Republicans.
Michael
Barone
very effective, but pro-TPA Democrats
can cite it in defense against attacks
from unions and primary opponents.
Friday the House took up TAA before TPA — and voted TAA down
302-126. It was supported by 86 Republicans (many of whom dislike it)
and only 38 Democrats (almost all
of whom support it). House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi led the charge
against the president’s policy.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy didn’t flinch but immediately
called for a vote on TPA. It passed by
a 219-211 margin, with 28 Democratic
votes — a margin eerily similar to the
TPA vote 13 years ago.
But since the Senate bill tied TPA
and TAA together, there is no bill for
the president to sign. Senate Finance
Democrat Ron Wyden, a key TPA supporter, has made it plain the Senate
will not pass TPA as stand-alone legislation.
TPA is not necessarily dead. Speaker John Boehner has held open the possibility of a vote to reconsider the TAA
portion of the Senate bill in the coming
week. Probably some significant number of Republicans who back TPA but
voted against TAA can be persuaded to
switch their votes.
BUT THAT’S not likely to be
enough to reverse an overwhelming
margin without a change of course by
House Democrats. Which puts the ball
squarely in Obama’s court. One’s ears
burn as one thinks of what Lyndon
Johnson would say of his predicament.
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3
June 24, 2015
Why America hates the GOP-Obamatrade deal
C
onstitutional conservatives
don’t like it. Trade unions
abhor it. Obama critics hate
it. Environmentalists despise it.
Outside the Beltway bubble, a broad
coalition of voters from the left, right
and center opposes the mega-trade deal
getting rammed through Congress this
week by the Republican establishment
on behalf of the White House. Here’s
why.
THE OBAMA administration,
House GOP leader John Boehner and
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out American sovereignty. Their so-called Trans-Pacific
Partnership Commission will have
sweeping authority over trade, immigration, environmental, labor and
commerce regulations.
As alert watchdogs U.S. Sen. Jeff
Sessions, R-Ala., chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest and U.S. Rep Duncan
Hunter, R-Calif., warn: “By adopting Under the Boehner/Obama plan, Confast-track, Congress would be formal- gress gives up its ability to amend any
ly authorizing the President to final- trade deals under fast track, severely
ize the creation of this Pacific Union limits the ability to debate and lowers
and will have surrendered its legisla- the vote threshold in the Senate from
tive prerogatives. Before a word, line, 61 to 51. The 11 international parties
ing with Obama on
paragraph, or page of this plan is made negotiatTPP refuse to sign
public, Congress
their dotted lines
will have agreed
until
Congress
to give up its
agrees to pretreaty powers. ...
agree to behemoth
In effect, one of
global trade pacts
the most sweep— sight unseen.
ing international
As Obamatrade cheerleader and
agreements seen in years will be given
less legislative scrutiny and process Big Business crony Sen. Orrin Hack,
I mean Hatch, admitted, “I don’t know
than a Post Office reform bill.”
The Obama administration, House fully what’s in TPP myself.”
GOP leader John Boehner and SenTHE SECRETIVE wheeling and
ate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
have sold out legislative transparency. dealing on the massive 29-chapter
Boehner smugly asserts that so-called draft (kept under classified lock-andTrade Promotion Authority puts Con- key and only a tiny portion of which
gress in charge and promotes “more have been publicly disclosed through
openness” on trade talks. Nonsense. WikiLeaks) make the backroom
Michelle
Malkin
TSA means open borders
T
hough the Trans-Pacific Partnership is supposed to be the
trade deal that needs fast track
to get approved by Congress, the real
worry is the Trade In Services Agreement being negotiated in secret.
Until now, the details of TiSA have
been hidden carefully, but a draft treaty
and notes about the negotiations now
in progress were leaked and posted last
week on the WikiLeaks website. It is
now clear that even as Republicans like
Speaker John Boehner and Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., have been assuring us that the free flow of labor is
not covered in the TPP, it is the point of
much of the TiSA.
vice suppliers and independent professionals.” It then goes on to require signatories to “allow entry and temporary
stay of contractual service suppliers and
independent professionals” in a list of
specific fields.
The covered occupations include:
“landscape architectural services, medical services, midwives, nurses, maintenance and repair of equipment, general
construction, assembly work,
refuse disposal, sanitation,
AN ARTICLE by Daniel Costa and
Ron Hira of the Economic Policy Institute wades through the pages of the
TiSA documents posted on WikiLeaks
to find the open immigration provisions.
Article 4, concerning “Entry and Temporary Stay of Natural Persons,” stops
signatories from “maintaining or adopting Economic Needs Tests, including
labor market tests as a requirement for
a visa or work permit.” Costa and Hira
explain “In other words, U.S. laws or
regulations limiting guestworkers only
to jobs where no U.S. workers were
available would violate the terms of the
treaty.”
Article 5 goes further and requires
the member nations “shall take market
access and national treatment commitments for intra-corporate transferees,
business visitors, and ... contractual ser-
hotels and restaurants, transport services,” among others — precisely the fields
that use huge numbers of legal and illegal foreign workers.
Dick
Morris
COSTA AND Hira point out that
“foreign firms would not be required
to advertise jobs to U.S. workers, or to
hire U.S. workers if they were equally
or better qualified for job openings in
their own country.” They note that the
treaty means that “potentially hundreds
of thousands of workers could enter the
U.S. every year ... importing cheaper labor to supplant American workers.”
Why would a hotel chain hire American workers when it could transfer unlimited numbers of foreign employees
to the U.S. to do the jobs. Anyone who
has visited Western Europe is usually
amazed at the number of Polish, Hun-
garian, Czech and Romanian kids waiting tables in Paris, Rome, Dublin and
London — all courtesy of the EU requirement for free flow of labor. Meanwhile unemployment in Western Europe frequently runs into double digits.
Under TiSA, the same thing will happen
here, and American workers will find
fewer and fewer job openings.
The Treaty is often billed as impacting high-tech Silicon Valley jobs only.
But its provisions make it obvious that it
will be a bonanza for multinational corporations of all sorts. Nothing could be
more calculated to depress wage levels
in the service sector that provides seven
of 10 American jobs.
Employment in manufacturing has
already been truncated in the U.S. because of competition from foreign, offshore workers. But the service sector
has seen less foreign competition because, by definition, most services cannot be outsourced offshore. But under
TiSA they can.
In general, Democrats want immigrants to vote but, because of union
pressure, not to work. Republicans want
them to work (to pad corporate profits)
but not to vote. TiSA lets them work
without getting on a citizenship track. It
puts corporate profits ahead of American employment and wages.
TPP DOESN’T really need fast track
to get approved. But TiSA does. Anyone
who backs fast track should forfeit the
right to complain about income stagnation and inequality in America.
Obamacare negotiations look like a gigantic solar flare of openness and public deliberation. Fast-track Republicans, who rightfully made a stink when
Nancy Pelosi declared that “we have to
pass the [Obamacare] bill so that you
can find out what is in it,” now have no
transparency legs to stand on.
The Obama administration, House
GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
have sold out our immigration priorities. Both parties have put cheap labor
from illegal immigrants before American workers. Both parties support
massive increases in foreign temporary worker programs that favor cheap
tech workers from India and China
over highly educated, highly skilled
American workers who are forced to
train their replacements. Both parties
back fraud-plagued green card giveaway programs for wealthy immigrant
investors that amount to a crony “economic development” racket. More
Obamatrade documents disclosed by
WikiLeaks indicate that negotiators
have discussed unilateral changes to
U.S. worker protections in visa law,
processing times and temporary visa
expiration dates.
Supporting free enterprise in America does not mean supporting a global
free-for-all for every last $2.00/hour
entry-level foreign tech journeyman.
Past free-trade pacts have failed to live
up to their overhyped promises. University of Maryland economist Peter
Morici notes that under Obama’s free
trade pact with South Korea, imports
with that country “are up 3.6 billion”
while “U.S. exports are down marginally and the U.S. trade deficit with the
Asian nation has swelled to five billion.”
Meanwhile, he reports, our wagesuppressing $350 billion bilateral
trade deficit with China “costs American workers at least three million jobs”
and several Asian countries now negotiating TPP “have violated WTO and
International Monetary Fund rules by
purposefully undervaluing their currencies to subsidize exports and raise
prices for otherwise competitive U.S.
products in their markets.”
Here is what those of us against the
GOP-Obamatrade bills can all agree
on: Both political parties in Washington are screwing over our country.
American citizens are sick and tired of
the permanent ruling class subverting
the will of the people in the name of
“bipartisanship.” We’ve had enough of
Big Business betrayals and Big Government collusion.
WHAT PART of “Stop selling out
America!” does D.C. not understand?
4
LETTER TO VP BIDEN: June 11, 2015
A conservative father’s condolences ... and outrage
V
ice President Biden, I am ways what Americans crave today is
considered a conservative an honest Mack or a plainspoken Joe
columnist, and to most of in politics.
While your plainspoken nature
your admirers I am thus “the enemy.”
have brought you a
I ask my loyal readers to indulge me m a y
derogative nudge or
in hopes that these
two, this conservawords speak for
tive writer not only
many of you who
appreciates it but
may not apprecirespects it. You
ate all of the vice
see, a world in
president’s poliwhich people can’t
tics, but who share
be funny — can’t be human — is a
in mourning his recent personal loss.
mixed-up one.
And a world in which good men,
AS A FATHER, I don’t have adequate words to comfort a man whose such as your late son Beau, are vilison has passed away. Particularly a fied for having served their country in
man who lost his first wife and daugh- dangerous lands and dangerous times,
ter to tragedy at early ages. But I know is even more distressing. Have we no
the sadness that I and many others felt dignity, honor or respect left in this nafor you as you painfully bade your son tion? To travel many miles, as this “refarewell. He was an American hero, ligious group” did, to line hometown
and I, we — those with both mind and streets of a hometown hero during his
heart — grieve with you for your loss. funeral, in order to jeer his service to
I remember you from years ago, our nation, reaches the lowest levels
Mr. Vice President. I watched as you any of us could imagine.
would enter the floor of the U.S. SenWE HAVE little in common, Mr.
ate in the early 1980s as I served as a
lowly aide to a then-new Republican Vice President. I’m a Southerner, and
you are a “Yankee.” I was a RepubliSen. Mack Mattingly.
Mattingly was a fresh-faced new can, and you are a Democrat. You’re
generation man of his party, as were
you. You had such a vibrant, youthVOTING: June 11, 2015
ful and oh-so-hard-charging look.
You gave all of us political wannabes
something to shoot for, regardless of
party.
And your son was a hero who had
the guts to go to Iraq even as you were
illary Clinton has a new crurunning for, and were sworn into, the
sade. The Democrats’ only
vice presidency. And because he had
name female candidate for
the courage to serve our nation, sever- president sees “a sweeping effort to
al malcontents from a so-called church disempower and disenfranchise people
decided to protest outside his funeral. of color, poor people and young people
They like to protest anyone’s sacred from one end of our country to the othburial if the deceased ever served our er.”
nation in conflict.
Shame on them. Disgraceful shame
IN A SPEECH at Texas Southern
on them.
University, Clinton also charged, “ReI don’t care if you are as liberal as publicans are systematically and delibthe day is long, as we say in the South. erately trying to stop millions of AmeriYour politics means nothing to me can citizens from voting.” She called
right now.
on “Republicans at all levels of govWhat I do care about is that you ernment with all manner of ambition
raised two boys, who could have been to stop fearmongering about a phantom
shattered from being part of a tragic epidemic of election fraud and start excar accident that robbed them of their plaining why they’re so scared of letting
mother and sister. The fact that you citizens have their say.”
were a fine father while serving our
Fearmongering? To listen to Clinnation is a credit to you that goes far ton’s remarks, you would think that
past politics of partisanship.
power-drunk authorities are turning
I have often heard from several of away millions of citizens at the voting
your former colleagues in the U.S. Sen- booth. She even called out GOP presiate how funny, kind and down to earth dential hopefuls by name. When Rick
you were. And yes, my GOP friends Perry was governor of Texas, Clinton
would usually add how devoted you charged, he enacted a law “that a fedwere to a more liberal agenda. But not eral court said was actually written with
in some mean or disdainful way. To the purpose of discriminating against
them you were just being “Joe.”
minority voters.” It was a law requiring
And I mean no disrespect by call- photo IDs, struck down by one federal
ing you by your first name. In so many judge but stayed by two higher courts.
Matt
Towery
a vice president, and I am ... nowhere
near that. But I’ll be damned if I’ll stand
by and watch a family that served this
nation, overcame tragedy and served it
in the next generation be denigrated by
misguided souls who protest service to
our nation even as the brave are being
mourned.
I am outraged by their behavior. But
so proud of what your son stood for.
YOUR SON Beau has now been
laid to rest, and life moves forward.
But for me, politics be damned, I’ll fly
a flag this Flag Day in Beau Biden’s
honor.
Hillary Clinton’s phantom menace
H
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, quoth
Clinton, “cut back early voting and
signed legislation that would make it
harder for college students to vote.”
Mostly true, PolitiFact rated the claim,
if students “don’t have a Wisconsin
drivers license, or moved to Wisconsin
less than 28 days before an election.”
That sounds to me like: If students are
not residents, Wisconsin doesn’t make it
easy for them to vote.
Debra J.
Saunders
NEW JERSEY Gov. Chris Christie,
Clinton charged, “vetoed legislation to
extend early voting.” Christie vetoed a
2012 bill to extend early in-person voting, as he believed that absentee voting
met the need.
“I don’t want to expand it and increase the opportunities for fraud. Maybe that’s what Mrs. Clinton wants to do.
I don’t know,” Christie fired back on
CBS’ Face the Nation. Christie added
that if Clinton “took some questions
some places and learned some things,
maybe she wouldn’t make such ridiculous statements.”
Republican National Committee
spokesman Orlando Watson told the
New York Times it was odd Clinton
faulted GOP states when many accommodate early voting and “her Democrat-led home state of New York does
not allowing early voting.”
Now, I happen to agree with Clinton
that reports of voter fraud in America
are greatly exaggerated. But as I ponder
her suggested nationwide model that includes a minimum of 20 days of early
voting, I have to ask: Is early voting really a great thing?
The earlier citizens vote the likelier
they are to change their minds before
Election Day.
CLINTON ALSO whacked former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for “a deeply
flawed purge” of voters before the 2000
presidential election. She then argued,
“We should do everything we can to
make it easier for every citizen to vote.”
OK, but making it easy doesn’t mean
more people will vote. Blue California
has easy registration, handy voting by
mail and early in-person voting — yet
a sorry 42 percent of registered voters
participated in last November’s election, 25 percent in the June primary.
The truly “phantom epidemic” is voter
suppression.
5
June 24, 2015
MARCO RUBIO: June 12, 2015
Marco Rubio — the average American
M
arco Rubio bought a bunch
of stuff he probably couldn’t
afford. Welcome to America.
So the New York Times has pulled together another hit piece — this one insinuating that Rubio, who the newspaper
evidently believes is the GOP frontrunner, is both a reckless spendthrift and a
financial failure.
THE STORY — either clumsily or,
more likely, deliberately — confuses offshore fishing boats with “luxury speedboats” and pickup trucks with SUVs to
render a distasteful account of Rubio’s
financial life. But what we really learned
is that though Rubio is not great with
money, the senator from Florida has relatively modest desires, considering his
fame. And his story features the kinds of
struggles that middle-class voters often
face when juggling bills, family and their — a “handsome” brick driveway, “meticulously manicured shrubs” and “overinvestments.
Rubio, the Times tells us, made a se- size windows.” At the same time, Rubio
ries of decisions over the past 15 years — one of the poorest senators, accord“that experts called imprudent.” Rubio ing to the Center for Responsive Politics
carried a “strikingly
stacked up “significant” debts before his — also
low” savings rate,
big payday. And
the newspaper points
he “splurged” on
out. And his inatten“extravagant” purtive
accounting
chases after securmethods lost him
ing his $800,000
more money.
advance in a book
As far as the poldeal. He has a
“penchant” for spending heavily on “lux- itics go, the New York Times could not
ury items,” such as a boat in Florida, and have done Rubio a bigger favor. Conhe also leased a 2015 Audi Q7 — after vincing voters that you’re one of them
typically takes millions, a fabulist tale
receiving that sizable advance.
about your upbringing and maybe a ChiIT DIDN’T END there. The Rubios potle stop or two. Convincing them that
went nuts with an “in-ground pool” — you have empathy for their situation is an
instead of a cheaper aboveground model even more formidable task. But Rubio is
David
Harsanyi
LIBERALS: June 11, 2015
Hillary’s new constituency
F
or a generation — perhaps
longer — the liberals have
been segregating Americans
into smaller and smaller groups. Then
they claim to be each group’s unique
champion. First they fragmentize
America. Then they step forward and
represent themselves as fragmented
America’s noblest defenders.
LAST WEEK, Hillary Clinton
identified yet another of these fragmentized groups, and she promised to
take up their cause in time for the 2016
election. Her cause is the voter who
oversleeps, particularly the voter who
oversleeps on Election Day. Hillary
is coming to the aid of these drowsy
voters by demanding at least a 20-day
period for them to vote. Even a chronic
oversleeper ought to be able to awaken
at least one morning in 20. Hillary assures us that the 20-day period will include evenings and weekends and perhaps mood music. Possibly the Federal
Election Commission will throw in an
alarm clock and a cup of coffee. Voting
rights advocates claim that as many as
one-third of our fellow citizens suffer
from this disability.
One would think that the Founding Fathers would have written into
the Constitution an article ensuring
that the citizenry had sufficient time
to vote, certainly in national elections.
During the New Deal could not some
visionary speak out on behalf of this
somnolent constituency? Had they all
cast their vote, even in their pajamas,
my guess is that the New Deal would
have been even stronger. Possibly we
would have had socialism by the mid1930s and not have had to wait all
these years for the candidacy of Bernie
Sanders.
Now Hillary and presumably Bernie are going to extend the presidential
election for 20 days, maybe more. Why
not the entire election year? There are
an awful lot of distractions that keep
people from voting, but it is a sacred
right ... whenever they get around to exercising it. I admired Hillary’s stridency
in speaking out about this.
While we are on the sub-
R. Emmett
Tyrrell
ject, think of how the Democrats have
broken down America into contending
groups. On the Republicans’ side there
are the tycoons, followed by the white
voters, mostly male and decidedly overweight. On the Democrats’ side there
are the women voters bravely casting
their vote against the Republicans’ grisly “War on Women.” Next there are the
African-Americans who thus far have
resisted the temptations of the faux African-Americans such as Justice Clarence Thomas, South Carolina Senator
Tim Scott, Utah Congresswoman Mia
Love, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Janice
Rogers Brown, and now candidate Ben
Carson. There are also Latinos, NativeAmericans, the gays, the gender metamorphosing, and so on.
AMERICA WAS not always like
this. Back in the 1960s, when I was in
college, I hardly knew what a Latino
was. Nonetheless I went to school with
plenty of Americans with Spanish sur-
names all of whom would now qualify
as Latinos. I recall two fellow students
who had very similar names. Their surname was Alvarez. They were middle
class, possibly upper middle class. They
were members of very good fraternities.
They were both B-plus students. There
was not a hint of ethnic chauvinism to
them. About 10 years ago I came across
one of them again. He had changed.
Now he was a self-identified Latino.
There was an unfamiliar edge to him.
Somehow this son of the American middle class had “dis-assimilated” himself
and become a Latino. How many middle-class women have “dis-assimilated” themselves and become feminists?
How many other so-called minorities
are spurning the vast American middle
class and joining liberalism’s clientele?
LATE Kenneth Minogue of the London School of Economics wrote about
liberalism’s “suffering situations” years
ago. He noted that the liberals look out
across a relatively comfortable and
prospering country, and they alight on
“suffering.” The liberals have no sound
idea of how to relieve the suffering, but
they are quick to realize how to put the
suffering to their uses. The result today
is the feminists, the African-Americans,
the Latinos, the gays, and the LGBTs,
and now the VWOSOEDs. You have not
heard of the VWOSOEDs? That is the
acronym for the “voter who oversleeps
on Election Day.” Hillary is going to
make these poor souls a dynamic force
in the 2016 election. Billionaire George
Soros is going to fund their cause. They
will hold rallies, presumably nighttime
rallies. Then once the election is over
we can all get a good night’s rest.
now you. As Christopher Hayes tweeted,
“starting to think Rubio has some plant
in the NYT and these supposed ‘hit-jobs’
on him are false flags made to make him
look sympathetic.”
The question is: Does any of this really matter to voters?
I’m typically uninspired by candidates who pretend to be like me or, even
worse, are anything like me. I’m terrible.
I wouldn’t trust me with anything too serious, and I probably wouldn’t trust you,
either. So when I do vote, my decision
is driven by the ideological outlook of
a candidate or, as is far more often the
case, how much I detest the ideological
outlook of the rival candidate. Whether
that candidate is a billionaire or spends
spare time helping orphans with autism
in inner cities or shovels his own snow
does not matter. People with compelling
ideas and the right temperament for the
job can emerge from any facet of society.
But I realize many Americans disagree. They distrust elites. They desire
candidates who understand them. Rubio certainly has something that neither
Mitt Romney nor George W. Bush could
muster: a non-theoretical grasp of how a
child of working-class parents can find
success in America.
So there really is nothing inherently
inappropriate about the media’s scrutinizing the fiscal lives of candidates. If
you’re going to run for president, there’s
no reason voters shouldn’t be curious
about your past conduct and choices —
especially in an age when politicians
have few qualms about involving themselves in your personal choices. The
problem with the New York Times investigation is not so much that it’s a transparent attempt to paint Rubio as an unfit
candidate but that the paper exhibits an
ugly double standard in coverage.
Listen, some folks make $100,000
trading cattle futures their first time out
of the gate, and others have to take on
mortgages and wait years for any profit.
WHICH REMINDS me. Watching
fans of Hillary Clinton’s attacking Rubio
for his fiscal failings should be a comic
experience. That’s not because Clinton
is preposterously wealthy for someone
who has accomplished so little. It’s because Clinton got her hands on gobs of
cash in a truly detestable manner. Not
only has she peddled her influence but
also that influence was bought with the
success of someone else’s name. If 2016
pits Rubio against Clinton, it won’t pit a
guy who has trouble balancing a checkbook against a prosperous and talented
woman. It’ll be a race that pits a person
whose greed and corruption go back
decades against a guy whose dream, according to the New York Times, is a fishing boat and a nice car — the kind of
items that even average Americans regularly covet.
6
OBAMACARE: June 14, 2015
Sacramento’s idea of health: Undocumented welcome
“There are also those who claim
that our reform effort will insure illegal
immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I’m proposing would not apply to
those who are here illegally,” President
Barack Obama proclaimed in a 2009
speech to Congress. It was a memorable
event, in part because Rep. Joe Wilson,
R-S.C., shouted, “You lie.” Editorial
page umbrage followed.
THIS MONTH, the California Senate proved that, though Wilson was
wrong to heckle the president, he had
reason to challenge the sincerity of
Obama’s pledge. By a 28-11 vote, the
Democratic-controlled state Senate
became the first U.S. legislative body
to vote to expand health care to immigrants who are here illegally. Senate Bill
4, by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, would allow Californians without documentation to buy Affordable Care Act policies
(assuming the feds grant a waiver), authorize residents up to age 19 to enroll
in Medi-Cal regardless of immigration
status and allow some people 19 or older to enroll in Medi-Cal regardless of
immigration status.
This is how change happens. Last
year, Lara’s first “Health for All” bill
promised health care to all California
residents regardless of immigration
status. The tab was $1.3 billion. It was
too pricey, so he peeled it back, and
back some more — to a projected $135
million. How? The bill that passed the
state Senate would provide Medi-Cal to
minors regardless of immigration status but no subsidy for undocumented
residents who want to purchase private
plans through Covered California, absent a federal subsidy. Also, SB 4 would
put a cap on unauthorized adults applying for Medi-Cal. When it looks as if the
funding will run out, the state probably
will not accept new enrollees.
What is the cap on undocumented
enrollees? Don’t know. “The cap would
depend on budget allocations to be decided next year,” answered Lara spokesman Jesse Melgar.
In a way, it doesn’t matter. If SB 4
becomes law, the camel’s nose will have
penetrated the tent. Within six years
of the president’s promising that immigrants in the country would not be
eligible for Obamacare — presumably
because that would be wrong — the first
state will have bypassed that promise.
You just know that Sacramento will
continue to push to expand the number
of immigrants eligible for benefits. No
one ever told the Democratic Legislature that you cannot say “yes” to everyone.
Sure, Sacto solons look generous
waving Medi-Cal before some one million immigrants who came here illegally.
But with Medi-Cal paying doctors as little as $16 for a patient visit, many physi-
cians are refusing to take more Medi-Cal so dominant that the other party finally
patients. Pols don’t care if already there stops fighting,” Fleischman observed.
are not enough doctors to pay for the And really, why speak against the bill?
program’s existing 12 million recipients. To point out any negative consequences
is to invite the left to brand you as heartThey look good; the docs look greedy.
racist. A California
As it is, Medi-Cal provided “limited less and
Senate
analysis
scope” benefits — pregnancy care,
lists more than 70
emergency care
groups that supand
long-term
port SB 4 but not
care — to 786,600
one opponent.
unauthorized im(c) 2015, Creators Syndicate
One of the
migrants last year.
GOP yes votes,
If you want more
of something, reward it. If California state Sen. Anthony Cannella, told me
offers “full scope” coverage to people he sees the measure as a “moral isif they come here illegally, opined Jon sue.” Undocumented immigrants work
Fleischman, publisher of the conserva- hard, he said, but have “no rights,” even
tive FlashReport, “there is no amount of though they have been “contributing to
border security that you can erect that our way of life.” When immigrants try
will come between smart people and to cross the border, they see two signs,
he added. “One says, ‘Do not enter.’ The
(this) free stuff.”
other says, ‘Help wanted.’”
Cannella said the answer is better enTHOUGH THEIR GOP caucus
opposed the bill, two Republican state forcement of the border.
Though 11 Republican state senators
senators voted for it. “There is a cycle
that occurs when one party becomes voted against SB 4, they were low-key
Debra J.
Saunders
in their opposition. When a bill is going
to pass anyway, why throw out red-meat
quotes that would be used against you
in the next election? State Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff called the bill’s
intent “admirable. But without money
from Congress and President Obama, it
will be very difficult and costly for California taxpayers to fund all of these bill
proposals.” Smart, earnest, boring tone.
This is one Republican who knows better than to point out that Democrats lied
when they promised Obamacare would
not apply to immigrants who came here
illegally.
ASKED WHETHER he’ll sign
or veto SB 4, Gov. Jerry Brown told
a reporter that “there’s not a lot more
money to be spent” on top of what he
allocated in his revised May budget. In
this one-party state, only Democratic
Gov. Brown can save Californians from
a Legislature that can’t say “no” to a
chance to spend other people’s money.
JEB BUSH: June 15, 2015
The frontrunner in name only
T
he last time Jeb Bush ran for
office, it was 13 years ago.
Barack Obama was serving
in the Illinois state Senate. No one had
heard of Obamacare or the tea party,
and wouldn’t for years. It was before
the invasion of Iraq, before Hurricane
Katrina, before the financial meltdown.
We had just invaded Afghanistan, and
Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq. It was
a political epoch ago.
IF TIMING is everything in politics,
Bush has, among other things, a timing
problem. He had an exemplary record
as a conservative reformer in Florida
almost a decade ago, but the achievements and fights of the other Republican governors running for president
have been the stuff of contemporary
headlines. He is a gifted politician, but
his father and brother preceded him to
the presidency, giving his campaign an
inevitable dynastic air as the vehicle of
“the third Bush.”
The phrase “shock and awe,” associated with the Bush campaign at its
inception, is now exclusively used to
discuss the gap between its expectations
and performance. The fundraising, even
if it falls short of the widely cited $100
million mark, has been prodigious. But
there has been a stark enthusiasm gap
between donors and actual voters. If the
Republican nomination were going to
be fought out exclusively in fundraisers
held in corporate conference rooms and
fancy homes, Bush would be winning
in a rout. Instead, he is clustered with a
few other top contenders, a frontrunner
in name only.
His freshly unveiled “Jeb!” logo
might be more appropriately punctuated
with a question mark, about whether he
can excite Republican voters in a field
that is as large and talented as any in
memory.
The Mitt Romney path to the nomination is not available to him. Bush can’t
show up with a fundraising
Rich
Lowry
(c) 2015, King Features Syndicate
advantage, a professional operation
and a resume, then expect to inexorably grind down all the other candidates.
Romney could do that in 2012 against
an unprepared Rick Perry, an undisciplined Newt Gingrich and an unfunded
Rick Santorum. Bush is running against
a field that has about a half-dozen candidates who would have been in the top
tier last time around.
ROMNEY WON the nomination despite his Massachusetts health-care plan
that was anathema to much of the party.
It’s one thing to have a few heterodoxies, though; it’s another to be defined by them. What most conservatives
heard from Bush during the Obama
years was his plaints about the GOP’s
tone, and his support for comprehensive
immigration reform and Common Core.
Those two issues have come up over
and over again during the early phase
of the campaign, and while Bush has
adjusted his positions a little, he hasn’t
changed them.
When he said at the outset of his run
that he’d be willing to lose the primary
to win the general, it seemed a poetic
(not to mention nonsensical) exaggeration, but occasionally it’s appeared to
be his actual plan. He can come off as a
scold. When he says how optimistic and
inclusive he will be, it sounds like he
thinks most everyone else in the GOP is
pessimistic and exclusionary. The party
won’t naturally warm to someone who
seems to think it has to be saved from
itself.
And there will, of course, be no winning the general without winning the
primary. Bush gave a spirited announcement speech to a boisterous crowd in
Miami, the best public moment of his
campaign so far. The party will need to
know he’s a fighter, and chiefly of the
left and the media, not his own side. It
will need to know that he has an agenda
new and different from his brother, and
much broader and more conservative
than his famous stances on immigration
and Common Core.
BUSH IS A genuinely accomplished
executive and a creative policy wonk,
with a natural sense of authority. He is
a talented man, in the political fight of
his life.
7
June 24, 2015
IMMIGRATION: June 10, 2015
Immigration — hey! A cop yelling at a black girl in a bikini!
I
’m impressed by the coolness
and steadiness of our media in
suppressing any news about
immigration. It’s as if they’ve built a
triple-layer fence with border guards
around immigration topics. And guess
what? Their fence is working!
How many thousands of news stories have there been on Ferguson, ISIS,
Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate” or men
becoming women?
But the media will never tell you
about Mexicans gang-raping a lesbian
in Richmond, California, an Indian
immigrant in San Francisco importing
12-year-old girls he bought from their
parents for sex, or three children being
beheaded by Mexicans in Baltimore.
DON’T AMERICANS have a right
to know about the cultures flooding
into our country?
This isn’t a natural transformation.
It is purely the result of government
policy. But our media don’t care to
discuss the issue. In fact, they get mad
whenever Americans find out what
they’re doing with immigration.
When Americans do think about immigration, they’re against it. In polls
earlier this year, more Americans had a
favorable opinion of North Korea than
wanted to increase immigration. That’s
why the media’s approach to immigration is to never talk about it.
Three times in the last decade, Democrats and Republicans conspired to
grant illegal aliens amnesty. All three opinion about who gets to live, collect
times, the American people rose up in government benefits and vote in this
blind rage and shut it down. The only country.
way they were tipped off to the proWhatever issue you think is more
posed amnesties was through the hard important than immigration, you’re
work of about three bloggers, four w r o n g .
Without our post-1965
talk-radio
hosts
immigration policy,
and the Drudge
Obama would never
Report.
have been elected
What
will
president.
That
happen if Matt
means no Obam(c) 2015, Ann Coulter
Drudge ever goes
acare, no withon vacation? (Andrawal of every
swer: You’ll be living in Mexico.)
last troop from Iraq, no playing footsie
The media will make absolutely with the Iranians, no Eric Holder, no
sure we know about every immigrant Fast and Furious, no IRS harassment
who wins a spelling bee. It’s either of tea party groups, no Benghazi masimportant to know about who’s im- sacre — and on and on and on.
migrating to this country or it’s not. If
Democrats haven’t been able to perit’s important, then we have a right to suade a majority of white people to
be told not only about the spelling bee vote for them in any presidential elecchampions, but also about the child tion since 1948, except the aberrational
rapes, genital mutilations, welfare use Democratic landslide in 1964. That’s
and Medicaid scams of our recent im- why they had to bring in ringers.
migrants.
But the media’s position is: If
IN ADDITION to giving the Demowe don’t talk about immigration, it crats tens of millions of new voters, our
doesn’t exist.
immigration policies have also brought
Unfortunately, they’re right. Most in people who engage in charming trapeople think about only what the me- ditional practices such as genital mutidia want them to think about. Everyone lations.
has developed a position on Ferguson,
In 2006, an Ethiopian immigrant
ISIS and gay marriage. This week, ev- living in Lawrenceville, Georgia, tried
eryone has a position on a policeman’s to cut off his two-year-old daughter’s
confrontation with a black girl in a bi- clitoris with a pair of scissors. The New
kini at a pool party in Texas.
York Times ran one tiny AP item on his
But no one is supposed to have an conviction — on Page 19 — titled,
Ann
Coulter
“Man Convicted in Daughter’s Mutilation.” (Always look for “Man” in the
headline to find the most appalling stories about immigrants.)
Thanks to decades of mass immigration from Africa and the Middle East, it
is estimated that at least half a million
girls living in the United States have
been subjected to genital mutilation.
And that’s just one of the many ways
immigrants are making our country
more vibrant!
One white male, Bruce Jenner,
merely contemplates voluntary genital
mutilation and gets 10,000 times more
media attention than the hundreds of
thousands of “American” girls being
involuntarily subjected to this practice.
When it comes to immigration, you’ll only hear “Diversity is a
strength,” “Immigration is fantastic
for the economy,” “Polls show Americans overwhelmingly support a ‘path
to legalization’” — pay no attention to
the outpouring of hostility every time
an amnesty bill comes up — and “Oh,
look! An immigrant valedictorian!”
The media don’t need to run this
scam forever. Democrats only need to
keep it going until they have California-style majorities in every state, and
then they’ll say, “Screw you, America. We did this deliberately, and now
there’s nothing you can do about it.”
That’s exactly what the Labour government of Tony Blair did — as we
found out in 2009. In public, Blair’s
government claimed that the mass immigration of the Third World to Britain
was absolutely crucial to the economy!
Once they were out of office, Blair
adviser Andrew Neather admitted that
their real objective had been “to rub
the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date,” as the
London Telegraph reported in 2009.
That’s one way of winning elections.
It’s cheating, but it works!
Here in the U.S., Republicans aren’t
even fighting back. First of all, the
GOP’s big donors want the cheap labor. True, the country will be ruined,
but business owners will be able to
make a pile first — and then retire.
Evidently, elected Republicans ran
the numbers and realized that the GOP
won’t be completely wiped out for a
few more years, and by then, they’ll all
be retired.
Apres moi, le deluge.
(Noticeably, the younger, smarter
Republicans are all on America’s side
on immigration: Sens. Tom Cotton and
Ben Sasse, and Rep. Dave Brat.)
IF NECESSARY, political and media elites will call you a “racist” for
opposing their mass immigration policies. But they’d really rather that you
just not find out what they’re doing to
the country.
8
IMMIGRATION: June 16, 2015
Is a third world America inevitable?
T
housands of U.S. troops safe- ing a new invasion, we should ask ourguard the border of South Ko- selves:
What problem do we Americans conrea. U.S. warships patrol the
South China Sea to stand witness to the front that will be more easily solved
territorial claims of Asian allies against with millions more immigrants?
Between 80 and 90 percent of those
China.
U.S. troops move in and out of the coming are from Third World nations.
Baltic States to signal our willingness to On average, they have higher illegitirates than nativedefend the frontiers of these tiny NATO m a c y
born Americans,
allies.
higher drug use
Yet nothing that
rates, higher rates
happens on these
of obesity, spouborders imperils
sal abuse and
America so much
child abuse, highas what is happening on our own bleeding border with er rates of disease, lower test scores and
higher dropout rates, and higher crime
Mexico.
and incarceration rates.
Children of immigrants are more
OVER THREE decades, that border
has been a causeway into the USA for gang-oriented. And Third World immillions of illegal immigrants who are migrants consume more per capita in
changing the face of America — to the social services than they pay in taxes.
delight of those who think the country Hence they contribute to fiscal deficits
at every level of government.
we grew up in was ugly.
Will millions more immigrants help
All sides of this quarrel have been using the figure of 11 million people here solve our infrastructure crisis?
Undeniably, poor immigrants proillegally. In her new best-seller, Adios,
America!, Ann Coulter makes a com- vide cheap labor for businesses and the
pelling case that the real figure is close rich. But their working- and middleclass American neighbors bear the soto 30 million.
If that is true, and if the next presi- cial costs that they inflict upon commudent embraces amnesty and a path to nities.
Politically, immigrants from Third
citizenship for illegal immigrants, that
will mean the end to America as the World countries, as they rely upon govWestern nation we have been, and the ernment for food, housing assistance,
beginning of America’s life as what Ann health care and the education of their
calls, unapologetically, a “Third World children, support the Party of Government.
hellhole.”
Mitt Romney lost the two fastestIndeed, when we consider the certain
consequences of a failure to secure the growing major minorities, Hispanics
border for six more years, and amnesty and Asians, who now account for more
for people already here illegally, ignit- than a fifth of our population and a sev-
Pat
Buchanan
enth of our voters, by 40 points. And as
their numbers and voting percentages
rise, the GOP will find that reaching 270
electoral votes is not only more difficult
than in Reagan’s day, it has become impossible.
Among the myths or lies drummed
into the heads of Americans is that
we have always been a “nation of immigrants,” and “diversity,” i.e., racial,
ethnic and religious diversity, “is a
strength.”
BUT AMERICA in 1970 was a white
nation with a black minority of about 10
percent. And, as Coulter writes, “Nearly
the entire white population of America
from 1600 to 1970 came from a geographic area of the world about twice
the size of Texas. The entire black population came from an area of West Africa
about the size of Florida.”
Is ethnic, racial and religious diversity truly a “strength?”
Why then has the most diverse region
of Europe, the Balkans — with its Serb,
Croat, Albanian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Turkic peoples, and Catholic, Orthodox and Islamic religions — had the
bloodiest history?
Was it not racial and ethnic diversity
that tore the Soviet Union into 15 nations and half a dozen subnations, and is
tearing at it still in the Caucasus?
If diversity is a strength, why is Beijing, which worships strength, moving
millions of Han Chinese into Tibet and
western China to swamp the Tibetan
and Uighur peoples, as they have done
to the Mongolian and Manchu peoples?
How did diversity work out for Rwanda
and Burundi?
If diversity is a strength, then why
are Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen falling apart? Why are Sunni and Shiite,
Palestinian and Israeli fighting? Why
are Scots, Basques, Catalans, Venetians
and Flemish agitating for secession and
independence?
Has the addition of tens of millions
of Asian and African Muslims strengthened the Old Continent that ruled the
world? Or do they imperil its security
and survival as the cradle and heartland
of the West?
As racial, ethic and religious hatreds
pull people apart and create terrorists
all over our disintegrating world, why
would we make ourselves ever more diverse?
Writes Coulter, “Roe v. Wade can be
overturned. Obamacare can be repealed.
Amnesty is forever.”
ANYONE CONCERNED for the
future of this country as one nation
and one people should find a candidate
who will commit to secure the border,
enforce immigration laws against businesses that hire illegal immigrants, and
pledge no amnesty for the duration of
their presidency.
9
June 24, 2015
2016 ELECTION: June 12, 2015
Clinton deploys ‘They Hate You’ strategy
H
illary Clinton had one of the
worst campaign rollouts in
living memory. Her low-key
(to the point of inaudibility) announcement video came in the midst of a
months-long period of deeply damaging stories about her mania for secrecy
(the private email server), which she
indulged even at the expense of the law
and national security, and her cavalier
acceptance of favors in the form of donations to the Clinton Foundation.
AS THESE stories mounted, Clinton seemed oddly disengaged. She neither answered questions nor attempted
to change the subject. Some Republicans began to get smug. “She’s a terrible candidate,” they said (your humble columnist may even have let these
words slip herself). “She doesn’t have
the skills of her husband,” they said,
even predicting that, “This woman
will never be president of the United into languages other than English. She
implied that the decision, along with
States.”
This week, Mrs. Clinton demon- voter ID laws passed by a number of
strated that Republicans should wipe states, are intended to suppress voting
rican Americans and
the smiles off their faces. On Saturday, by Afother minorities.
June 13, she’ll deHans Von Spakliver a do-over of
ovsky, writing in
the announcement
National Review
speech, and if it’s
Online, points out
anything like the
that minority vottalk she delivered
ing is up even in
at Texas Southern
University, it will be fierce and effec- states with voter ID laws — and why
shouldn’t it be? Voter ID laws prevent
tive.
The Texas speech, tartly described only non-citizens from voting.
by Democratic strategist Doug Schoen
CLINTON’S TASK is to solidify the
as a “clean hit” on her Republican opponents (meaning all upside and no down- base that elected Obama twice. She has
side for the candidate), was dishonest the woman angle, and for some identity
and divisive. She denounced the Su- politics fans, that’s a big advantage. As
preme Court’s Voting Rights Act deci- for the rest of the Democratic electorsion, falsely claiming that it invalidated ate — Hispanics, other minorities, the
laws permitting ballots to be translated young, the single, government employ-
Mona
Charen
CURRENT ISSUES: June 17, 2015
What this country needs
“The time is out of joint: O cursed
spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!”
— Hamlet, Act I, Sc.5
The Amazing Media Machine, dripping oil and self-satisfaction, roared to
new life with Jeb Bush’s declaration of
his presidential candidacy. At last —
something to talk about. We have Jeb
— “Jeb!” as the campaign button puts
it — “stronger than you think” and “doing almost everything to de-emphasize
his inheritance,” tossed again by waves
of controversy over immigration and
the core curriculum and, to get down to
it, running for president.
ALWAYS WITH the candidate
analysis! As with Bush, so with Hillary
Clinton: the questions repeated ceaselessly. Can they? Can’t they? Why and
wherefore? As with these chosen two,
so with everybody else: Old Man Sanders and his fuzz-cheeked fans; Marco
Rubio and his speed boat; Scott Walker
vs. the unions.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the issues and
perils confronting, prospectively, the
people who want to be president got
half the attention that funding sources
and New Hampshire polls receive? The
horserace, the horserace — is that all
any one cares about? What happens after the leader crosses the finish line?
I ask this rude question for a reason.
Things are in a mess right now — a
fact that doesn’t find much affirmation
in the media. Not that the candidates
don’t point to their righteous intentions
respecting the issues of the day: mainly
so as to make this part of “the base” or
that one take notice. No coherent account of the country’s problems gets
heard.
So enough of that. Here’s what we
need to talk about.
1. The parlous condition of the Middle East. President Obama acknowledges we have no strategy for countering ISIS. American leadership, as
distinguished from overlordship, needs
restoration — boots on the ground or
not, though how you do it without boots
I can’t imagine.
William
Murchison
2. Recent reshufflings of alliances
and friendship aren’t working. We need
to acknowledge as of old the consonance of U.S.-Israeli interests and the
non-consonance, for most purposes, of
American-Iranian interests. Put it this
way: The Israelis are the good guys of
the Middle East; the Iranians —well,
pffffft!
3. Czar Vladimir Putin seems to
have in mind the re-yoking of Russia’s
neighbors to the Russian ox cart. What
does it take to show us that Putin can
be trusted as far as anyone can throw a
grand piano? American-European unity
with the Ukraine and the Baltic countries against Putin’s disgraceful designs
is of the essence.
4. At home, the biggest problem isn’t
political; it’s moral, conjoined to politics. There isn’t much comity among
Americans — less so now than maybe
since the pre-1861 period, due to our
current gift for using politics as a blunt
instrument against the differently minded. We’re engaged, whether we know
it or not, in extinguishing freedom
of thought and speech. The Supreme
Court is about to tell us what marriage
really “means.” Universities put out a
crabbed narrative about American guilt
for every defect in the modern world:
“racism,” “sexism,” “environmental
depredation.” America can’t catch a
break from the hoity-toity thinkers of
academe (and the media), who know
what a bunch of bums Americans were
for most of their history.
5. Naturally this doesn’t do a lot for
education and intellectual inquiry. Personal identity appears to count more
than knowledge or accomplishment.
6. Family — one of the great
“schools” of civilization — is in disorder as many shun the old structures that
supposedly compromise “freedom.”
7. The economy! What’s all this to do
with jobs and pay?! Only everything. A
people characterized by decency and
common sense can do anything, including make a living. Otherwise, forget it.
Me, oh, my, why does anyone want
to be president? But someone’s going
to get the job and thereupon find, as
did Hamlet, following his chat with the
ghost, that making things as they deserve to be made is a hard uphill push.
THE MEDIA from time to time
might remind us of this truth and necessity. You know — in between reporting
poll results.
ees, union members and African Americans — it’s less clear that her XX chromosomes can do the trick, particularly
after eight years of a Democratic president. Even some African Americans,
the Washington Post reports, are feeling
disillusioned. A 23-year-old Jacksonville, Florida, grocery clerk, noting the
economic torpor of her neighborhood,
told the paper, “What was the point? We
made history, but I don’t see change.”
Clinton is deploying the “They Hate
You” strategy that has worked well for
Democrats for decades. Policy is almost
irrelevant; the point is to convince key
groups to turn out in large numbers for
Democrats because they’ve been persuaded that Republicans are haters.
Quoting the late Barbara Jordan,
Clinton told the black audience, “She
famously reminded us that when the
constitution was written it left most of
us here out. But generations of Americans fought, marched, organized and
prayed to expand the circle of freedom
and opportunity. We should be clearing
the way for more people to vote, not
putting up every roadblock anyone can
imagine.” Note the word “us.” Multimillionaire, international celebrity Hillary Clinton claims membership in an
oppressed class due to her sex.
Republicans often let this sort of
thing go, scarcely bothering to contest
the libels because they figure the black
vote is lost anyway. Rand Paul and a few
others have broken this mold, though in
Paul’s case, only to pander.
Republicans can deny that voter ID
laws are about voter suppression till
they bore everyone into a coma. It won’t
have an impact. But that doesn’t mean
they should surrender. What they should
be concerned about is not any particular
issue but rather their image as the party
of haters.
I would love to see all of the Republican candidates staging multiple
events in places like Detroit, Baltimore
and Cleveland. They should be asking
what Hillary Clinton proposes to do
about improving the climate for small
business. They should demand to know
what Democrats have done to improve
the schools — or rather, draw attention
to the fact that Democrats stand in the
way of improving education for poor
kids. They should demand accountability for the millions of taxpayer dollars
intended for poor families that wind up
in the pockets of the well-connected and
the well-heeled, while praising the work
of churches and other private groups.
The shame of the cities belongs squarely in the Democrats’ laps.
EVEN IF IT doesn’t yield a single
new African American voter, it’s worth
doing for two reasons: 1) because it will
improve the image of the Republican
Party, and 2) because it’s right.
10
OBAMA PRESIDENCY: June 12, 2015
Existential threats to the United States
I
t’s to be expected that I hardly
agree with President Obama on
any political issues, as we have
radically different worldviews, but
what I don’t understand is why there
isn’t more alarm from all quarters
about the potentially existential threats
to this nation posed by his policies.
Obama’s ideas, policies and actions
in office are often so outrageous that
when you describe them or the threat
they represent, people discount your
comments as extreme on their face. The
trouble is it’s hard not to sound extreme
when what he’s doing is extreme.
I PROBABLY disagreed with Bill
Clinton 80 percent of the time, but I
never feared that the country was in
serious jeopardy under him. As bad as
I believed Obama would be in 2008,
I never thought those in the political
establishment (sympathetic Democratic politicians in Washington and
too many ineffective or gun-shy Republican ones) would either join him
or abdicate their responsibility and let
him accelerate the demise of the nation
as rapidly as he has. It would be impossible for one man to do this much
damage alone.
Matt Drudge recently tweeted:
“Next 18 months going to be EVERYTHING. Bigger than campaign news:
Obama’s scorched Earth exit. You’ve
been warned...” This makes me nervous. How could he get any worse?
Obama has already made serious
headway in “fundamentally transforming” this nation for the worse. He so obviously rejects the American idea that
I don’t believe I should waste words
proving it here. He is bitter about our
founding and bitter about our current
state — even though he’s been radically changing it for six years. There’s
no satisfying a revenge appetite.
I am quite serious: On any one of a
number of fronts, this country, without
a dramatic course change, could be in
dire trouble.
Let’s look at the war on terror.
Obama has been in such denial about
radical Islam that he refuses to recognize even undeniable acts of terrorism
for what they are — here and around
the world. He holds to the painfully
warped idea that Islamist terrorism and
the violence that intrinsically springs
from it are rooted in poverty, empirical
evidence to the contrary be damned. If
you don’t recognize and identify your
enemy or if you unilaterally declare a
truce, you can’t effectively fight it. But
declaring a war over when your sworn
enemies have told you they are committed to your utter destruction and are
becoming even more aggressive is objectively insane — and suicidal.
Then there are Obama’s negotiations with Iran. Even many Democrats
controvertible fact that we are fiscally
done if we don’t get our entitlements
under control, yesterday. But Obama
is determined not to let anyone touch
them and has even added another egregious offender — Obamacare — and
don’t even get me started on the fiscal
and health care dangers it poses.
Next, our deliberately porous borders. I don’t care if the perennially
citable tell you that
OUR FISCAL condition? Actuaries u n e x our rate of immiand other experts
gration has slowed
uniformly predict
or if certain monothat entitlements
maniacal
liberwill swallow our
t
a
r
i
a
n
o
r
i
e
nted
entire
budget
people tell you
— 100 percent
of our federal revenues — within a we need more people for more jobs.
generation or so, and when it comes Far too many people (just one is too
to budget projections, the gloom-and- many) who hate America and want to
doom predictions are always under- destroy it are streaming over the borstated. Democratic politicians will not der. Forget assimilation or acculturaeven acknowledge we have a problem tion. To leftists, you’re a hero if you
with our discretionary budget, so the agree with them that America stinks.
entitlement budget is beyond off-lim- The more the better — because they’ll
its to them. All the noisemakers are vote Democratic.
On to racial, gender and class tentalking about the mythical threats of
global warming and completely ignor- sions. This administration is delibering — suppressing, actually — the in- ately fanning the flames of division in
admit that his actions make no sense
and are dangerous. You can’t possibly
trust this radical, Islamo-fascist regime to honor its agreements when it
has already broken promises it made to
us on the very issue we’re discussing
— not to mention that this regime also
is committed to our destruction and the
destruction of Israel.
David
Limbaugh
this nation, and this distrust is tearing
away at the fabric of our society. But if
you support proven conservative policies, you’re a racist, sexist, bigoted homophobe. If you call for tax fairness,
you hate the poor. If you promote the
free market as the best method to produce the most prosperity across the
board, you are unspeakably reactionary, evil and bereft of compassion.
Our Constitution? Obama is making a mockery of its limitations on
his power, the most recent example of
which is the Obamacare subsidies. So
little has been done to check Obama’s
power that some political analysts reasonably believe that future presidents
— Hillary Clinton has been named,
God forbid she wins — will trample
even more heavily on the Constitution.
I TALK TO far too many people
to believe I’m alone in my concerns.
But the wrecking ball that is Barack
Obama and his army of enablers in his
party and the media proceed unabated
in their destructive march.
God help us, and God save the republic.
JEB BUSH: June 12, 2015
The Jeb Bush problem
F
ormer Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
had a bad week last week,
according to the Washington
Press corps. They saw Bush installing
Republican operative Danny Diaz as
his campaign manager as a sign that
Bush is struggling. Actually, Diaz is a
great pick and a sign that Bush is about
to formally announce his presidential
bid. But the reality is that Jeb Bush has
made a number of miscalculations as
he heads to a formal announcement this
week.
First, he presumed his entry would
keep others out. It may have kept out
Romney v.5.0, but that was all. Bush
team members were rather public that
they hoped his early announcement
would keep Rubio out. It did not.
WHEN RUBIO got in, they presumed they could lock down Florida
donors. They did not. They then presumed they could snag the national
mega-donors. They could not.
In fact, three of the mega-donors, in
separate conversations with me, tell me
that Jeb hit them in the same sweet spot
Romney did and, given Romney’s campaign, they are less likely to support Jeb
because they feel as comfortable with
him as they did Romney. Romney’s
shadow hurts Jeb.
Another problem Jeb has is that he
snapped up way more consultants than
he needed in order to keep them from
helping other candidates. The only
thing these consultants are good for is
bleeding a candidate dry, which is what
they are doing to Bush.
Bush may have kept people off the
field, but he has a massively high burn
rate between his campaign and super
PAC. That is forcing him to fundraise
more than campaign. He has a higher
burn rate than a lot of the other candidates, and that is going to bite
him in the rear.
Erick
Erickson
Let’s also be honest on one point.
Bush’s position on immigration is not
the deal breaker many of the most vocal
elements of the right seem to think it is.
See e.g. Republican nominees George
W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney — all mostly to the left of where
Jeb is on the issue.
BUT THERE are some real problems for Jeb. First, there are too many
cooks in the kitchen, who profit even if
he loses. Second, his last name is an anchor. Third, his post-gubernatorial rhetoric seemingly deviates from his gubernatorial record, which is objectively
solid and probably more conservative
than George W. Bush’s record in Texas.
Fourth, he has so many staffers and consultants to pay. Fifth, his Common Core
position is going to hurt him more than
his immigration position because the
majority of Republican primary voters
will be moms who are pissed off. Sixth,
as the Washington Post mentions, he is
having a hard time separating himself
from the policies of his brother.
Jeb Bush is going to have to run as
Jeb Bush, not as George Bush’s heir.
That, in and of itself, presents a problem. Historically, New Hampshire is a
disaster for anyone named Bush. If he
can’t win Iowa and he can’t win New
Hampshire, there is no way he is going to win South Carolina. Ask Rudy
Giuliani how a Florida firewall works.
And Giuliani didn’t have to fight for
Florida against Marco Rubio.
THE JEB BUSH candidacy stands
and falls on its own. It has some serious structural problems right now.
But those problems are fixable. Danny
Diaz is not the problem. Unfortunately
for Jeb Bush, his talking points over
the last few years and not his record
as Florida’s governor will get the focus. That, plus too many cooks in the
kitchen, may sink his candidacy even as
he heads to the stage this week to announce he really is running.
11
June 24, 2015
REPUBLICAN FIELD: June 12, 2015
The Racing Form — second edition
T
the margin of error, the important question is less “Who do you support?” than
“Who could you support?” (measuring
general acceptability). Rubio leads all
with 74 percent. The New York Times’
comical attempts to nail him on driving
(four citations in 18 years — “Arrest
that man!”) and financial profligacy (a
small family fishing boat characterized
(A) TOP TIER:
a
“luxury speedboat”)
1. Jeb Bush. Solid, no sizzle. Sizzle as
only confirm how
may be in less demuch the Democrats
mand than eight
fear his prospects.
years ago, but his
Chances:
35
inability to sepapercent.
rate from the pack,
(c) 2015, Washington Post Writers Group
his recent cam(B) POLLS WELL, BUT CAN’T
paign shakeup and his four-day stumble
over Megyn Kelly’s “knowing what we WIN.
4. Rand Paul. Fought a principled,
know now” Iraq question have given
even his supporters pause. Nonetheless, if hyperbolic, fight on metadata colleca bulging war chest, a fine gubernato- tion and privacy rights, but his ambivarial record and a wide knowledge of do- lent national-security posture alienates
mestic issues guarantee top-tier staying many in the GOP base. Consistently
ranks among the leaders in the polls and
power.
is the most successful libertarian ever,
Chances: 25 percent.
2. Scott Walker. Maintains a signifi- but libertarianism is still far from becant lead in Iowa and it’s more than just coming a governing or majority persuaa Wisconsinite’s favorite-son advan- sion. High floor, low ceiling.
5. Ben Carson. Ditto. Broadly poputage. He’s got a solid governing record,
has raised respectable money and has lar, but major rookie problems. His nagone almost errorless for more than a tional finance chairman, deputy cammonth. One caveat: His major wobble paign manager and general counsel
on immigration threatens his straight- have all resigned within the past month.
And while Obama showed that rookies
shooter persona.
can win, we haven’t elected a nonpoliChances: 25 percent.
3. Marco Rubio. Good launch, steady tician since 1952 — and that guy won
follow-up. With his fluency in foreign af- World War II.
fairs, has benefited the most from Presi(C) SECOND TIER, WITH A
dent Obama’s imploding foreign policy.
Polls well, but with seven or so within CHANCE TO JUMP.
he Republican nominating
race is a mess: a strong field,
but with 10 declared candidates and a half-dozen more to come,
we need a bouncer to keep order.
I’ve given myself the job. Rope lines
separate the four categories.
Charles
Krauthammer
6. Ted Cruz. Candidate on the cusp.
Has the best chance to join the leaders.
Only 16 percent “would never vote for.”
His claimed $40 million raised (campaign plus super PACs) suggests a serious presence throughout the early contests at least.
Chances: 5 percent.
7. John Kasich. My personal longshot wild card. Jack Kemp on steroids,
a bleeding-heart conservative, articulate
and voluble, but somewhat less disciplined than Kemp. Which can be a problem. It’s entertaining when he says, “I’m
not going to have Bush money; Wells
Fargo doesn’t have Bush money,” but
not when implying that if your policies
don’t match his on the Kasich compassion index, you have no heart.
Chances: 3 percent.
8. Carly Fiorina. Has proved strong
and steady on the campaign trail. The
question is: Can you reach enough of
Iowa and New Hampshire with just a car
and a clipboard? To jump, she needs to
get into the debates. But to get into the
debates, she needs to jump (to the top 10
in the polls). Catch-22.
Chances: 2 percent.
(D) SECOND TIER, IN NEED OF
A MIRACLE.
9. Rick Perry. Energetic launch.
Spoke well, looked good. He’s learned
that you don’t run for president right
after back surgery and that you need an
answer to “Why are you running?” His
2011 statement that his wife said to him
“get out of your comfort zone” (as governor) was the worst since Teddy Kennedy had none at all in 1979. After four
years of studying and prepping, Perry
looks ready. Achilles’ heel: After his
2011 “oops” moment, he is on 24-hour
gaffe watch.
10. Chris Christie. Damaged by
Bridgegate, boxed out (ideologically)
by Bush. Shows guts in openly advocating entitlement reform. It’s a gamble because that’s what voters say they want,
but rarely vote for.
11. Mike Huckabee. A dead-setagainst-entitlement-reform populist. Major social conservative appeal, but given
the leftward ratcheting of the nation’s
cultural center, it may be less of an asset,
even in the GOP primaries, than in 2008.
I’VE DONE NO justice to Lindsey
Graham, Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum, all eminently likable and highly
qualified, but yet to make their move. If
they do, the Racing Form will be there.
12
R. RANDOLPH RICHARDSON: June 16, 2015
R. Randolph Richardson: Conservatism’s banker
J
ust as the great William F. Buck- Institute, the Federalist Society, the
ley Jr. laid the intellectual foun- Foreign Policy Research Institute, the
dation for the rise of modern Law and Economics Center, the Insticonservatism, philanthropist R. Ran- tute for Educational Affairs, the Comdolph Richardson set down the finan- mittee for the Free World, the Center
cial foundation of the new conserva- for Individual Rights, the National HuCenter, the Consertive movement. But Randy Richardson, manities
vative Book Club,
who died May 25
the Public Interat the age of 89,
est, The American
is not a household
Spectator, and the
name. He was a
New Criterion.
low-key guy who
SRF also supstayed out of the
ported Freedom
limelight, and he
made a habit of giving credit to others. House, helped fund Radio Free Europe
But like Buckley, he was a firm believ- and Radio Liberty and founded Radio
er in a free society, free markets and a Mart and the Atlas Economic Research
strong defense to defeat communism. Foundation.
Randy Richardson also made imporAnd the mark he made on the conservatant contributions to supply-side ecotive movement is deep and lasting.
nomics, again going under the radar.
FOR TWO DECADES he was pres- He put up seed money for Jude Wanident of the Smith Richardson Founda- niski and his path-breaking book, The
tion, which funded an incredible array Way the World Works. He assisted supof conservative institutions and people. ply-side economists Lew Lehrman and
SRF literally changed the U.S. political George Gilder and a congressional supmap such that the principles of conser- ply-side workshop directed by Bruce
vatism came to completely dominate Bartlett. He funded Michael Novak’s
liberalism and expose all its flaws and “The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism”
and Jean Kirkpatrick’s research on dicfailures.
To understand the incredible scope tatorships. He put money into Milton
and power of SRF from the early 1970s Friedman’s Free to Choose television
to the early 1990s, you need only look at production and Harvard programs from
the list of institutions financed by Ran- Chris DeMuth (regulatory policy) and
dy Richardson: the Heritage Founda- Sam Huntington (foreign policy).
tion, the Hoover Institution, the AmeriON JUNE 11, at the Fifth Avenue
can Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan
Institute, the Intercollegiate Studies Presbyterian Church in New York City,
Larry
Kudlow
in front of hundreds of friends and supporters, Heather Richardson Higgins
said in her tribute to her father that his
was “a life that made a difference.”
Heather, by the way, is keeping up the
family’s conservative philanthropic
flame as president of the Randolph
Foundation. And she pointed out that a
full 66 people who had been SRF grantees went on to significant positions in
the Ronald Reagan administration.
And Leslie Lenkowsi, a key figure as
director of research at SRF and now a
professor at Indiana University, added
“No other conservative foundation had
more bang for the buck.” In today’s dollars, SRF put out about $10 million a
year from a modest $200 million asset
base. But look at its extraordinary accomplishments.
There’s one more important piece to
the Randy Richardson story. Though he
rarely talked about it, Richardson served
in World War II under General George
Patton, and saw action in the brutal
Battle of the Bulge, which really put the
final nail into Hitler’s coffin. Why is it
that so many World War II vets — including my own father, who died last
January and who served as an Army
Air Corps navigator dropping bombs
over Germany and Italy — never talked
about their military service? That heroic
service delivered the freedom we know
today. It was a monumental achievement. It defeated Nazism, fascism and
ultimately communism. It changed the
tide and hinge of history.
Simply put, our freedom came from
the bravery and character of men like
Randy Richardson. And from that freedom comes the godly virtues, values and
responsibilities that preserve the conservative Western traditions that make life
worth living today.
Knowing Randy as I did, I have come
to believe those godly virtues and values were deeply embedded in his soul.
And so it should not be surprising that
he undertook so many noble causes during his life.
AS A REAGAN supply-sider who
believes fervently in free markets, free
societies and the founding virtues of
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
I want to thank Randy Richardson. All
Americans are indebted to him — to his
character, his knowledge and his unshakable beliefs.
May he rest in peace.
13
June 24, 2015
2016 ELECTION: June 11, 2015
Unlikable, untrustworthy, unappealing to the center
T
his week in 1976, Jimmy
Carter, then-governor of
Georgia, locked up the democratic nomination for president when
George Wallace, Henry Jackson and
Richard Daley released their delegates
and endorsed him. Carter was a fresh,
smiling face. He had worked hard for
the nomination, deciding early in the
process that he would compete everywhere, for every vote. He was a
relentless campaigner and had scores
of volunteers (the Peanut Brigade),
who would travel to states, walk door
to door, talk about their candidate and
follow up with hand-written notes at
night.
ARKANSAS GOV. Bill Clinton,
who ran 16 years later, was also a fresh
face on the national stage. Seen as affable, charismatic and friendly, Clinton ran a campaign that focused on
The core belief underlying their
moving voters in the middle over to
strategy: “Energizing core supporters
his side of the ballot. It worked.
A recent New York Times article by is more important in presidential conJonathan Martin and Maggie Haber- tests than persuading those still undeman, “Hillary Clinton Traces Friend- cided.” Instead of focusing on a grand
ly Path, Troubling Party,” reveals a vision for the country, the goal is to
small visions for spedifferent path being taken by Hill- c r e a t e
cific subsets of votary Clinton. The
ers that will galstrategy: Focus
Jackie
vanize them into
on turning out the
action for their
base rather than
particular cause.
winning over the
This is opposite
swing voters.
of what political
“Mrs. Clinton’s
aides say it is the only way to win in an consultant James Carville did for thenera of heightened polarization, when candidate Bill Clinton when he coined
a declining pool of voters is truly up the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
for grabs. Her liberal policy positions, Carville refocused the campaign on a
they say, will fire up Democrats, a less core statement that appealed to voters
difficult task than trying to win over regardless of their party affiliation. In
independents in more hostile territo- doing so, enough of the country was
ry — even though a broader strategy united and galvanized into action to
elect Bill Clinton president.
could help lift the party with her.”
Gingrich
Cushman
FEDERAL RESERVE: June 10, 2015
The Fed in Wonderland
I
t’s simple enough to understand
the latest pronouncements from
the Federal Reserve System and
what they portend for future economic
policy. Indeed, not since Alan Greenspan was heading the Fed and handing
out his Delphic words of wisdom and
obfuscation has the Fed’s policy been
so clear, or opaque, or neither, depending on how you’d like to interpret, misinterpret or just ignore them. The last is
always a temptation when encountering
Fedfog, a lingo that would make Vedic
Sanskrit a breeze.
CONSIDER THIS typical helping
of reservations and qualifications, Ifs
and Buts and Then Agains, from William Dudley, president of the Federal
Reserve Banks of New York:
“If the labor market continues to improve and inflation expectations remain
well-anchored, then I would expect
— in the absence of some dark cloud
gathering over the growth outlook — to
support a decision to begin normalizing
monetary policy later this year. ...”
On the other hand, “I can’t be completely confident about this forecast.
After all, several times during this expansion, we have been fooled by sharp
rises in the growth rate that appeared
to presage a sustained pick-up, but that
subsequently proved fleeting.”
But on the third hand. ...
It’s all enough to bring back Harry
Truman’s wish that for once he’d like to
meet a one-handed economist.
It helps to understand Fedspeak if
you’ve read the works of that noted
economist Lewis Carroll and his clas-
sic guides to the economy, Through the
Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found
There (1871), as well as his other
groundbreaking study in modern economics, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). There you’ll find the Duchess’ to-the-point summary of the proper
way to approach economic policy:
“Be what you would seem to be” —
or if you’d like it put more simply —
“Never imagine yourself not to be
otherwise than what it might
Paul
Greenberg
(c) 2015, Tribune Media Services
appear to others that what you were
or might have been was not otherwise
than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”
BUT WHAT does all that mean, if
anything? Beats me. There are lots of
words, words, words and more words
there, but do they add up to anything but
gibberish? What’s more, their meaning
keeps changing, just as economic forecasts from the Fed do, but that never
seems to bother its prognosticators. Any
more than it bothered Humpty Dumpty,
who took it upon himself to straighten
out poor confused Alice:
“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty
Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone,
‘it means just what I choose it to mean—
neither more nor less.’
“‘The question is,’ said Alice,
‘whether you can make words mean so
many different things.’
“‘The question is,’ said Humpty
Dumpty, ‘which is to be master —
that’s all.’ “
There you have it in an impossibleto-crack nutshell. Any questions? If so,
consult Professor Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark,” which should clear
up any remaining doubts — or aggravate them. As with Fedfog, the reader
cannot be sure where the professor’s
policy recommendations begin, end,
are to be continued or exist at all. It’s
all jabberwocky to me.
It’s not easy — it can be impossible — to nail down the meaning of the
Fed’s ever-elastic words. Especially
if they keep changing to fit the latest
data. For its numbers can be tricky,
too. (“Figures don’t lie but liars figure.”)
Nothing stays the same in this
world, and it’s quite a job adjusting all
those predictions and explanations to
fit always changing reality. The Fed
has earned our sympathy, but not our
trust.
Don’t bother to thank me for this
handy-dandy clarification/mystification in the guise of a newspaper column. If the fog ever lifts, which it
won’t where economic policy is concerned, we’ll know all about it someday. Or nothing at all.
IT WAS Friedrich August von
Hayek, a real-life economist with a real-life perspective on economics who
explained: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how
little they really know about what they
imagine they can design.” Q.E.D.
According to Carville, the voter focus has changed. “The highest-premium voter in ‘92 was a voter who would
vote for one party some and for another
party some. Now the highest-premium
voter is somebody with a high probability to vote for you and low probability to turn out. ... That’s a humongous
change in basic strategic doctrine.”
THIS STRATEGY to turn out the
base rather than win over votes in the
middle requires a very different focus
on issues and messaging. “By emphatically staking out liberal positions on
gay rights, immigration, criminal justice, voting rights and pay equity for
women, Mrs. Clinton is showing core
Democratic constituencies that she intends to give them a reason to support
her,” wrote Martin and Haberman.
President Obama also followed this
strategy in his elections, and it paid off.
But for a candidate that is running for
the job or running the country — why
wouldn’t they attempt to unite a majority of voters to provide them with momentum to actually govern once they
were voted into office (think Contract
with America in 1994).
A CNN/ ORC poll released June 2
provides insight on why Clinton might
be focusing on the base rather than
swing voters. Her dropping favorably
ratings and untrustworthiness might
make it hard for her to appeal to swing
voters.
Clinton’s favorability rating stands
at 46 percent, with 50 percent unfavorable. When asked about the qualities
Clinton possesses, 49 percent said she
inspires confidence, 47 percent said
she cares about people like me and 42
percent believe that she is honest and
trustworthy. Clinton’ s handling of
Bengazi is deemed unsatisfactory by
58 percent of those polled.
Among men, it’s even more dismal. Only 38 percent have a favorable
impression of Clinton. She inspires
confidence in 41 percent, and only 36
percent believe that she cares about
people like me. The real break comes
when asked if Clinton is honest and
trustworthy. Only a third of men believe she is honest and trustworthy.
With low marks on trustworthiness,
and with half the country viewing her
unfavorably, Clinton has little choice
but to run to the edge and hope that the
issues rather than her candidacy, will
take her over the finish line.
THIS LEAVES an opportunity for
the Republican nominee to focus on a
grand vision for the country that will
unite voters and galvanize them into
action for the country at large.
14
ECONOMY: June 11, 2015
We’re still imprisoned in the weak Obama economy
A
ll of the euphoric stories terest rates until mid-2016 because of
you’ve read lately about the the economy’s subpar performance.
U.S. business executives are just as
surging job market should
include one of these cautionary notes: pessimistic about the economy’s future,
“This report omits all negative data,” or according to a survey of 128 CEOs for
“Read down to the very bottom where the Business Roundtable’s Economic
Outlook report.
we’ve buried the bad stuff.”
Its findings: The country’s CEOs say
Consider the Washington Post’s frontintend to hire and inpage headline last week that gushingly t h e y
vest at a significantly
characterized the
lower rate over the
Labor
Departnext six months.
ment’s minimal
Equally
worrimonthly employsome,
they’re
ment numbers as a
(c) 2015, United Media Services
forecasting that
“jobs boom.”
the
Obama
economy
will expand at a
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says
that the economy produced 280,000 tepid 2.5 percent this year.
“These results are consistent with an
new jobs in May. But this isn’t anywhere near a hiring boom, especially in economy that operates below its potena country of nearly 160 million workers, tial capacity,” said Randall Stephenson,
many of whom still can’t find a good chairman and CEO of AT&T, in a conference call with reporters.
full-time job.
“Industrial production is down ... and
IN 1983, after a severe recession we view that as a concern,” he said.
Driving the CEOs’ pessimism is their
when unemployment climbed to more
than 10 percent at one point, the Reagan fear that Obama will not get his trade
economy created 1.1 million jobs just in negotiating authority, known as “fast
track,” through Congress, or compreSeptember. That’s a jobs boom.
But this isn’t. Not when “there are hensive tax reform to bring down corstill more than 8.6 million workers porate tax rates.
A majority of the nation’s top exwithout jobs who want them,” says the
ecutives
said approval of a major trade
Business Insider website.
To be fair, the Post admitted that not agreement that opens broader access to
everything was coming up roses, and global markets would result in a burst of
that “there is room for improvement” on hiring this year.
“There are a number of facets forethe jobs front. But it buried those negative figures at the end of a very long casting lower (capital expenditures by
businesses), but none are surprising,”
story. Among them:
“About 2.5 million people have been Stephenson said.
“Oil and gas are big influences. But
out of work for six months or longer,
while nearly seven million are in part- investments on everything from equiptime jobs even though they would like ment to structures to intellectual property are running down ... and there is some
(and need) full-time positions ...”
“You’ve got a lot of people who are aggressive regulatory oversight that is
trading one struggle, which is unem- causing businesses to slow down,” he
ployment, for another struggle, which is said.
But it isn’t just big business that’s
underemployment,” Jason Richardson,
worried
about a lack of capital investresearch director at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, told the ment, the mother’s milk of job creation.
So are the vast majority of Americans
Post.
This is still a weak economy that whose jobs are on the line.
can’t seem to get its economic growth
A RECENT Washington Post/ABC
rate above the two to low-three percent
range — where the really big employ- News poll found that more than seven
out of 10 Americans were worried about
ment numbers come from.
But with the Obama economy’s the declining economy.
The Federal Reserve’s own economgrowth rate plunging to minus 0.7 percent in the first quarter, economists ic survey, known as the Beige Book, rearen’t looking for a strong job surge vealed some of the reasons why:
— Almost half of those who were
anytime soon.
Global forecasters look at President surveyed (47 percent) said they did not
Obama’s dismal record and wonder why have enough money set aside to cover
the largest economy in the world cannot an unexpected emergency costing $400
or more.
break out of its economic lethargy.
— Nearly a third said they had to
The International Monetary Fund
said last week that it doesn’t see the U.S. forgo needed medical care because they
economy doing any better than, at best, could not afford it.
— More than one-third of all workers
a pathetic 2.5 percent growth rate this
year. In fact, the IMF’s forecast for the and 49 percent of part-time employees
United States was so dour that it urged said they needed and would prefer to
the Federal Reserve to delay raising in- work more hours at their present wage.
Donald
Lambro
Seven years into Obama’s presidency, the recession of 2008 still troubles
millions of Americans who continue to
struggle to find work and to earn enough
money to pay their bills and feed their
family.
“Even among college graduates, the
jobless rate is significantly higher than it
was during the boom years,” writes the
Post’s economics reporter, Ylan Q. Mui.
Daily, the Gallup Poll tracks how
Americans are doing in this economy
in terms of jobs, incomes and survival.
Its findings tell a tragic story of how our
government leaders and their impotent
and often harmful policies have hurt our
country and its people.
Gallup reported Wednesday that
nearly 15 percent of Americans they
surveyed were underemployed and that
36 percent were worried about money
and making ends meet.
THIS IS THE economy Obama
has imprisoned us in, and it won’t get
any better until this administration is
replaced by a leader who knows how
stimulate business investment and economic growth to put us back on the road
to a full employment recovery.
TRIVIA BITS: June 15, 2015
Trivia Bits
1. In 2004, Kathy Kriger opened
Rick’s Cafe, based on the actual cafe in
a famous movie. Where was Rick’s?
A) Casablanca
B) Harlem
C) Hong Kong
D) Paris
2. What city named its airport for
bossa nova legend Antonio Carlos Jobim?
A) Buenos Aires
B) Havana
C) Mexico City
D) Rio de Janeiro
3. John Updike won the Lifetime
Achievement Award, not that he wanted
it. This was a category of what award,
given Britain’s Literary Review?
A) Bad Sex in Fiction Award
B) Bulwer Lytton Award
C) Ig Noble Prize
D) Razzie
4. Known for their cameo on Game
of Thrones, what Icelandic band sang in
a made-up language called Vonlenska?
A) Gogol Bordello
B) Sigur Ros
Paul
Paquet
C) Stovokor
D) Sugar Cubes
5. Start with opening day and end
with the final playoff game. What is the
only major league sport in which a full
season takes place within a single calendar year?
A) Baseball
B) Basketball
C) Football
D) Hockey
6. Doctor Sivana actually said,
“Curses, foiled again,” usually to what
superhero, whom he called the Big Red
Cheese?
A) Captain America
B) Captain Marvel
C) Red Tornado
D) Tom Terrific
(answers on page 19)
15
June 24, 2015
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: June 10, 2015
Freedom of expression slipping away
W
hat do the Confederate
flag, the words “Respect
Choice” and the message
“Choose Life” have in common? DMVs
in many states are arbitrarily banning
them from license plates. Texas officials
nixed after an African-American pastor labeled it a symbol of oppression at
a public hearing, even while nine other
states allow it. New York officials sell
specialized license plates that promote
union membership but not adoption.
New York claims any message linked to
a pro-life cause is “patently offensive.”
North Carolina tried the opposite, authorizing pro-life plates but not pro-choice.
THESE OFFICIALS are claiming to be peacekeepers, cracking down
to keep anyone from getting insulted
by an unpopular idea. Sorry, but that’s
un-American. The exchange of ideas,
however controversial, has always been Texas, and the state celebrates its Conthe bedrock of our democracy. Dictator- federate past with an annual holiday.
ships and Muslim theocracies silence Yet state officials told the Sons of Concontroversial ideas by jailing dissidents federate Veterans they can’t have a liand imposing blasphemy laws. Our U.S. cense plate with their logo, the ConfedConstitution bars government from do- erate flag, because someone might take
ing that. The First Amendment says offense.
government “shall
The stakes are far
make no law ...
higher than whethabridging the freeer Texans can disdom of speech.”
play the ConfedIt’s alarming to
erate flag on their
see government
plates.
Lower
officials chipping
courts in many
away at that right, censoring at a whim states, including New York and North
what can be advertised on buses and Carolina, are waiting for guidance on
subways or displayed on license plates. how far government officials can go to
Within a few days, the United States scrub our highways, mass transit and
Supreme Court will rule in a case pitting other public places of political and culTexas DMV officials against the Sons tural controversy.
of Confederate Veterans. Monuments
This government censorship is pushto the Confederacy dot public parks in ing us toward what George Orwell de-
Betsy
McCaughey
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: June 11, 2015
No more green and white
M
y high school colors were
green and white. At graduation the boys wore green
robes and the girls wore white. No one
considered the girls inferior because of
the color of their robes.
Today, we live in different times.
My alma mater, Walter Johnson High
School in Montgomery County, Md., is
one of several schools to have decided
that their commencement ceremony this
year will feature single-color robes to
respect transgender students and those
who do not identify as either male or female. In the age of Caitlyn Jenner, any
effort to classify the sexes is becoming
increasingly difficult, if not downright
impossible.
The Washington Post reports “student advocates” have been campaigning
for this, claiming the use of one color
for boys and another for girls does not
allow for the full panoply of “gender
identity” increasingly on display in the
marketplace of the bizarre.
FACEBOOK’S ATTEMPT to accommodate gender self-identifiers by
publishing 58 “gender options” met
with complaints that 58 options were
not enough. Unwilling to cross the PC
police, the social media site now allows
you to decide what you wish to call
yourself.
Something very strange, if not bordering on insidious, is happening to this
country. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld tells
a story about his 14-year-old daughter. “My wife says to her ‘...in the next
couple of years, I think maybe you’re
going to want to hang around the city
more on the weekends so you can see
boys.’” Seinfeld says she responded to
her mother, “That’s sexist.”
“They just want to use these words,”
says Seinfeld: ‘That’s racist. That’s sexist. That’s prejudice.’ They don’t even
know what they’re talking about.”
Entertainment Weekly writes, “Seinfeld avoids doing shows on college
campuses. And while talking with ESPN’s Colin Cowherd..., the comedian
revealed why: College kids today are
too politically correct.”
Cal
Thomas
I’m no comedian, but I would imagine it’s nearly impossible to make jokes
about anybody or anything these days
without incurring the wrath of the easily
offended.
WASHINGTON, D.C., radio talk
show host Chris Plante spoke about this
on his program recently. Callers told
stories of what their children have experienced in Montgomery County public schools. One man said his eighthgrader was shocked to hear from a male
classmate that he is now identifying as
a female. His son didn’t know how to
respond. The caller said he didn’t know
what to do.
Plante, who is from a Catholic background, said, “Send him to Catholic
school if you can afford it.” How can
anyone not afford it when the secular
authorities appear to be brainwashing
the next generation into believing that
any choice is valid and should be universally accepted, and that anything one
might say in opposition to these new
sensibilities is labeled sexist or racist?
Catholic, evangelical and other private schools — even home-schooling
— are the best educational options for
families who adhere to traditional values. If there were an exodus from public
schools by people who are sick of political correctness, not to mention the
government school system’s inability to
bring students up to the levels of other nations, perhaps the politicians and
those responsible for these propaganda
camps might wake up and offer parents
school choice.
As long as parents willingly put their
children in a school system that not only
undermines their values, but in many
cases openly opposes them, and then
makes children who hold to a different
worldview feel odd, even bigoted and
behind the times, public schools will
continue to do so.
This is what happens when standards
are abandoned and truth becomes subjective.
My senior yearbook at Walter Johnson High School speaks of its goal to
produce “well-rounded individuals”
and “competent young adults.” Today,
these schools — with some exceptions
— are producing the opposite. Graduation robes of a single color will not reverse this trend.
BETTER GET your children out
now before it’s too late and you and the
nation have lost them to an alien intellectual philosophy and a hostile moral
power.
scribed in his famous novel, 1984. In it,
the public is bombarded with government messages from loudspeakers and
billboards everywhere, with no competing voice.
That’s how New York sells its specialized license plates, giving the DMV
commissioner full control of the messages. State regulations say “no plate
shall be issued that is ... in the discretion
of the commissioner, obscene, lewd,
lascivious, derogatory to a particular
ethnic or other group, or patently offensive.” The Children’s First Foundation
requested plates picturing two smiling
toddlers with the words “Choose Life.”
The DMV refused, saying the issue was
“politically sensitive,” and “a significant segment of the population” would
find it offensive. A DMV official even
speculated that the words could be construed to be anti-abortion and provoke
“road rage.”
Astoundingly, on May 22, a federal
appeals court upheld the New York
DMV’s power to pick and choose ads
by a 2-1 vote. The lone dissenting judge,
Debra Ann Livingston, ridiculed the
ruling, and with good reason. Quoting
former Chief Justice William Brennan,
she explained that the Constitution is
shredded “when the determination of
who may speak and who may not is left
to the unbridled discretion of a government official.” Livingston mocked the
DMV’s pretense that specialty plates
promoting union membership are politically neutral. Ever heard of the right
to work movement and charter schools,
she asked.
The good news is that the appeals
court’s flawed decision is provisional,
pending whatever the Supreme Court
rules in the Texas case.
That ruling’s reach will go well beyond license plates. It will also determine how public transit agencies handle
controversial ads on trains and busses.
Just weeks ago, Philadelphia, Seattle,
New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston tried to ban Pamela Geller’s denouncing radical Islam. Should transit
officials be able to pick and choose who
advertises? No, says the American Civil
Liberties Union, which also weighed in
on license plates. The ACLU repeated
Justice Louis Brandeis’s famous observation that the answer to offensive
speech is “more speech, not enforced
silence.”
THE JUSTICES will decide whether or not to continue this nation’s long
commitment to maximizing freedom of
expression, even when it means tolerating messages we don’t like. Or whether
we have to live in an Orwellian world
where government does our thinking for
us.
16
June 24, 2015
For leftists, it’s open season on Christians
I
f you doubt that Christians are ‘God’) directs the course of human and
fair game for ridicule by the cul- natural events, is vulnerable to propititural left, take a look at the hit ation and blandishments, and monitors
piece on Supreme Court Justice Anto- individual human behavior, including
nin Scalia by Jeffrey Tayler for Salon. thought processes, with an especially
interest in sexual activI can’t decide which is worse, the p r u r i e n t
title or the subtitle. The title: “Anto- ity.”
Tayler is parnin Scalia is unfit
ticularly exercised
to serve: A justice
by his assumption
who rejects scithat Scalia rejects
ence and the law
Tayler’s sainted
for religion is of
opinions on both
unsound mind.”
The subtitle: “The justice claims to be “anthropogenic global warming” and
an originalist, but his real loyalty is to “the fact of evolution — the foundation of modern biology — in favor of
religion and a phony man in the sky.”
the opening chapter of a compendium
THE WRITER is trying to be of cockamamie fables concocted by
cute, but don’t conclude that any part obscure humans in a particularly dark
of his thesis is intended to be tongue- age, evidence that his faculty of reain-cheek. He opens by telling us that son has suffered the debilitating im“faith-derangement syndrome” has pairment associated with acute FDS.”
now infected the Supreme Court as it Tayler continues, “He therefore cannot
be relied upon to adjudicate without
has the executive branch.
He writes: “Sufferers of faith-de- prejudice and should be removed from
rangement syndrome (FDS) exhibit the the bench henceforth.”
Sorry for the extensive quotes, but
following symptoms: unshakable belief in the veracity of manifest absurdi- I have to assume you’d think I were
ties detailed in ancient texts regarding exaggerating if I paraphrased this hathe origins of the cosmos and life on rangue.
What apparently got Tayler’s attenearth; a determination to disseminate
said absurdities in educational institution was an interview of Scalia a few
tions and via the media; a propensity to years ago by Jennifer Senior, a conenjoin and even enforce (at times us- tributing editor for New York magaing violence) obedience to regulations zine. Tayler was disgusted that Scalia
stipulated in ancient texts, regardless accepts the Catholic teaching about
of their suitability for contemporary homosexuality and incredulous at his
circumstances; the conviction that an admission that he believes in heaven
invisible, omnipresent, omniscient and hell and that the devil is “a real
authority (commonly referred to as person.”
David
Limbaugh
Senior asked Scalia, “Have you seen
evidence of the devil lately?” I wish
Scalia had cited the left’s glorification
of abortion as Exhibit A, but he chose
instead to point to the devil’s wiliness
in getting people not to believe in him
or God.
Scalia’s confessions of faith, by
Tayler’s lights, constitute an “outrage
against reason,” calling the devil “a
comic-book bugaboo the pedophile
pulpiteers of (Christianity) have developed to warp the minds of their credulous ‘flocks’ for two millennia.” He
condemns Scalia as a self-confessed
“biblical literalist,” which means Scalia is “an enemy of historical fact.”
I WROTE A book last year presenting evidence and arguments supporting
Christianity’s truth claims, so I won’t
re-litigate that case here except to say
that in my humble view, many who espouse Darwinian evolution as if it were
gospel despite the gaping holes in the
theory or man-made global warming as
an unchallengeable fact that represents
an existential threat to humankind often are arrogant, curiously incurious
and close-minded and don’t know a
fraction of what they think they know.
Further, the aggressive anti-theists
who mock Christians for believing in
the God of the Bible and his Word believe at least one thing that requires far
more faith: that something arose from
nothing without a Creator. Oh, sure,
some of them tell you they don’t believe that, saying that they believe in
multiverses, that we are the spawn of
aliens or that the universe has always
existed, even though science, which
they tend to deify when it is convenient, points to a definite beginning to
the universe. Even if it didn’t and even
if there were no such thing as entropy,
it would still take a formidable suspension of disbelief to believe in an eternal
universe.
I am not nearly so troubled by Tayler’s beliefs or non-beliefs as I am by
his derisive, contemptuous and tyrannical attitude toward believers. You
should know that he acknowledges that
six in 10 Americans believe in the devil yet still implies the belief is insane.
Christians, in his view, are “devotees of
an invisible celestial tyrant.”
What I suspect animates Tayler’s
angst regarding Scalia (and other
Christians) is Scalia’s faith-based view
against same-sex marriage. Why else
would Tayler single out a justice of the
Supreme Court poised to rule on a case
involving this issue? Why else would
he sneer at God’s “especially prurient
interest in sexual activity,” which, by
the way, is a perverse mischaracterization of the God of the Bible? Why else
would he allude to “the many Religious
Freedom Restoration Acts disgracing
legal codes of far too many states?”
IN THE END, however, Tayler’s
motives are beside the point, which is
that he feels not only free to unleash
this kind of slander against the belief
system of the majority of Americans
but also that there is no risk that he
will be considered, much less called, a
bigot or intolerant for doing so. That’s
because in the leftist-dominated media
culture, you can, with limitless vile,
insult individuals and groups outside
those protected by political correctness
with impunity and often with confidence that you’ll be praised.
June 16, 2015
This Week’s Conservative Focus
17
Leftists
What has gone wrong with academia?
O
ver the past few years, we’ve
more frequently seen articles
and editorials about the increasingly hostile climate at our colleges
and universities, with a new one appearing almost every week.
Student concerns — particularly regarding sexual assault — have been
front-and-center. Victims (real and selfproclaimed) of sexual assault grab headlines. Meanwhile, there has also been a
spate of lawsuits filed — and often won
— by young men falsely accused of sexual assault and deprived of due process.
BUT CONCERNS being raised by
faculty are increasing in number as well.
Last year, Professor Laurie Essig from
Middlebury College wrote a widely circulated essay, “Trigger warnings trigger
me.” Essig was aghast at students’ distorted sense of personal distress and the
curricular accommodations they were deKipnis was brave and defiant. Case
manding as a result. She admonished her Western law professor Jonathan Adler
readers that, “Trigger warnings are a very wrote this week that the action filed
dangerous form of censorship because against her was absurd. But many facthey’re done in the name of civility.”
ulty have neither the intestinal fortitude
Northwestern professor Laura Kipnis nor the resources to face such an inquisicaptured people’s
tion. Pseudonymous
attention in Febauthor and college
ruary with a witty
professor Edward
but scathing inSchlosser describes
dictment of what
common fears in
she called “sexual
his column for Vox
paranoia” on collast week. Titled,
lege campuses; she suddenly found “I’m a liberal professor, and my liberal
herself the subject of indignant student students terrify me,” Schlosser’s essay
protests over her “terrifying” views and points to a shift in emphasis from quality
slapped with a Title IX lawsuit. She was of teaching to sensitivity to student feelcleared after an investigation lasting sev- ings, and the professional consequences
eral months, but her recent description of for teachers. He writes: “Instead of fothe vague charges and amorphous, im- cusing on the rightness or wrongness (or
penetrable Title IX procedures serves as even acceptability) of the materials we
a cautionary tale.
reviewed in class, (today’s) complaint
The political left has come up with a
new buzzword: “micro-aggression.”
Professors at the University of California at Berkeley have been officially
warned against saying such things as
“America is the land of opportunity.”
Why? Because this is considered to be
an act of “micro-aggression” against minorities and women. Supposedly it shows
that you don’t take their grievances seriously and are therefore guilty of being
aggressive toward them, even if only on
a micro scale.
YOU MIGHT think that this is just
another crazy idea from Berkeley. But
the same concept appears in a report
from the flagship campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana. If you just
sit in a room where all the people are
white, you are considered to be guilty of
“micro-aggression” against people who
are not white, who will supposedly feel
uncomfortable when they enter such a
room.
At UCLA, a professor who changed
the capitalization of the word “indigenous” to lower case in a student’s dissertation was accused of “micro-aggression,” apparently because he preferred to
follow the University of Chicago Manual
of Style, rather than the student’s attempt
to enhance the importance of being indigenous.
When a group of UCLA law students
came to class wearing T-shirts with a picture of one of their professors who had
organized an intramural softball game,
those T-shirts were protested as a manifestation of “white privilege.”
Why? Because that professor had written a book critical of affirmative action.
of silencing politically incorrect ideas,
instead of debating them. Demands that
various conservative organizations be
forced to reveal the names of their donors are another way of silencing ideas
by intimidating people who facilitate the
spread of those ideas. Whatever the rationale for wanting those names, the implicit
threat is retaliation.
This same tactic was used, decades
ago, by Southern segregationists who
tried to force black civil rights organizations to reveal the names of their donors,
in a situation where retaliation might
have included violence as well as economic losses.
In a sense, the political left’s attempts
to silence ideas they cannot, or will not,
debate are a confession of intellectual
bankruptcy. But this is just one of the
left’s ever-increasing restrictions on other people’s freedom to live their lives as
they see fit, rather than as their betters tell
them.
Current attempts by the Obama administration to force low-income housing to
be built in middle class and upscale communities are on a par with forcing people
to buy the kind of health insurance the
government wants them to buy — Obamacare — rather than leaving them free to
buy whatever suits their own situation
and preferences.
IN THE COMMENTS that follow
these articles, many readers observe (often gleefully) that liberals/progressives
have dominated academia for decades,
and their pet theories are now coming
back to bite them.
This ill-placed schadenfreude nevertheless raises a valid point with some historical precedent. Academic movements
seem to share a common trajectory with
leftist political revolutions: They have
their origins among intellectuals. They
purport to remedy some grave wrong.
They sound reasonable — even desirable
— initially. And yet they tend to spin out
of control, devolve into reductio ad absurdum and “eat their own.” Communists
had their “thought crimes” and purges.
Today’s insufficiently radical traitors to
the academic cause get skewered on social media.
Except that the revolution isn’t just
virtual. As the authors cited above observed, “sensitivity” and “civility” have
become euphemisms for a very real, pervasive intolerance that has long-term implications for students and faculty. And
to that disreputable lexicon, we can now
add “privilege” — the latest ingredient
in a fetid stew of resentment mongering
and helplessness training. America has a
fully mature grievance industry, and academia is its largest manufacturer.
There is a reason that leftist revolutions took root outside of the United
States but have failed to get traction here.
Identity politics is ultimately antithetical
to the American philosophy, not because
America has never had discrimination
on the basis of racial or ethnic identities
(please!), but because the underpinning
of the American idea is that anyone can
do anything, not that most people can do
nothing.
As educators, we are at our best when
we teach people how to overcome adversity, not wallow in it or use it to excuse our own shortcomings. We do our
students a grave disservice when we undermine others’ success instead of inspiring those who have not yet enjoyed it to
achieve it.
And the race to be the angriest is a
dangerous one, as academics are now
discovering to their chagrin.
THE LEFT IS not necessarily aiming
at totalitarianism. But their know-it-all
mindset leads repeatedly and pervasively
in that direction, even if by small steps,
each of which might be called “micrototalitarianism.”
THERE IS a saying attributed to Karl
Marx: “The last capitalist we hang will
be the one who sold us the rope.” A contemporary version of that might be, “The
last intellectual we persecute will be the
one who taught us to do it.”
Laura
Hollis
Micro-totalitarianism
“Micro-aggression” protests have
spread to campuses from coast to coast
— that is, from California’s Berkeley and
UCLA to Harvard and Fordham on the
east coast, and including Oberlin and Illinois in the midwest.
Academic administrators have all too
often taken the well-worn path of least
resistance, by regarding the most trivial,
or even silly, claims of victimhood with
great seriousness, even when that involved undermining faculty members
held in high esteem by most of their students and by their professional colleagues
on campus and beyond.
Thomas
Sowell
THE CONCEPT of “micro-aggression” is just one of many tactics used to
stifle differences of opinion by declaring some opinions to be “hate speech,”
instead of debating those differences in
a marketplace of ideas. To accuse people
of aggression for not marching in lockstep with political correctness is to set
the stage for justifying real aggression
against them.
This tactic reaches far beyond academia and far beyond the United States.
France’s Jean-Paul Sartre has been credited — if that is the word — with calling social conditions he didn’t like “violence,”
as a prelude to justifying real violence as
a response to those conditions. Sartre’s
American imitators have used the same
verbal tactic to justify ghetto riots.
Word games are just one of the ways
would center solely on how my teaching
affected the student’s emotional state. ...
And if I responded in any way other than
apologizing and changing the materials
we reviewed in class, professional consequences would likely follow.”
June 10, 2015
June 11, 2015
18
CHINA: June 17, 2015
Imperialism with Chinese characteristics
T
he U.S. is betting that the
global trading system’s economic rewards ultimately
will convince China’s leaders to curb
their “imperialism with Chinese characteristics.”
That’s the phrase U.S. defense analyst Dr. Michael Metcalf used in 2011
to describe what he saw as a disturbing
shift in Chinese strategy, from one of
“survival” to one of “development.”
However, the U.S. bet on wealth is
no sure thing. Metcalf posed this question: Does identifying development as
China’s determinative defense interest
“raise the prospect that certain military
activities overseas might be initiated
by China that China might characterize
as purely ‘defensive’ because an overseas event was having an unsettling effect on China’s domestic stability and
security?”
As a word, “development” sounds
innocuous, but then so does “cabbage.” In May 2013, a Chinese general said China would secure its South
China Sea territorial claims by wrapping them with ships, air patrols and
garrisons, the military “layers” akin to
protective cabbage leaves.
Destroyers and strike aircraft, however, are not groceries. Vietnamese,
Filipinos and Malaysians see them for
what they are: weapons operating from
Chinese military bases on manmade
islands.
DEVELOPMENT IN Chinese
strategic argot is a broad concept. This
means it is squishy and therefore subject to transitory political interpretation.
How convenient. China can exploit
opportunities. Defending development
might include probing U.S. weakness.
The “cabbage” general told media that
the “right timing” had helped China
successfully “recover ... contested areas” like the Spratly Islands.
Recover sounds innocuous, until
we peruse the legal documentation.
Scarborough Shoal in the Spratlys is
about 250 kilometers from the large
inhabited Filipino island of Palawan.
It is 1,200 kilometers from China, but
China claims it. In the mid-1990s, China built several mini-bases in the area
and got little reaction from the U.S.
The big claim came in July 2012, when
China declared most of the 3.5 million
square-kilometer South China Sea to
be Chinese territory.
Chinese companies are now constructing more “territorial facts” by
turning what geographers call “features” (rocks, shoals, etc.) into islands
with bases. China has indicated that it
will soon require foreign ships to get
permission to pass through this newly
created territory.
The U.S. objects to that demand.
Washington says freedom of naviga- and Vietnam’s Maritime Territorial
tion (air and sea right of passage) is a and Exclusive Economic Zones is not
peaceful economic development. It is
vital global interest.
This May, China issued a security a slow war of territorial robbery.
This May, U.S.
white paper that says, “China’s destiny
Defense
Secretary
is vitally interAshton Carter delivrelated with that
ered a tough speech
of the world as
at
Singapore’s
a whole. A prosShangri-La Asian
perous and stable
defense conferworld would proence.
Slapping
vide China with
opportunities, while China’s peaceful Beijing, he said nations “should be
development also offers an opportu- able to make their own security and
economic choices free from coercion.”
nity for the whole world.”
The U.S. would “protect freedom of
THE U.S. WOULD love to see navigation and overflight principles.”
China focus on making money. How- Carter then visited the Philippines and
ever, Chinese bases in what a decade Vietnam and signed new defense coopago virtually every nation on the eration agreements with both of them.
Though the U.S. and Philippines
planet recognized as the Philippines’
Austin
Bay
have had a bilateral defense pact since
1951, it appears the U.S. reaction surprised China. Perhaps Beijing thought
it could confine its maritime territorial grab to one-on-one fights with the
Philippines and Vietnam, at least until
it built a string of fortified, populated
islands.
TOUGHER TALK is one thing;
backing it up is another. The U.S. has
reduced its military forces, and budget woes limit expanding U.S. air and
naval power. However, to comprehensively curb “imperialism with Chinese
characteristics,” the U.S. will need
those assets — lots of ships and lots
of planes.
DATA BREACH: June 16, 2015
China’s big hack attack
U
pon hearing of the massive
data breach of employee information from the Office
of Personnel Management (OPM) —
allegedly by hackers working for the
Chinese government — Kay Coles
James, the former director of OPM under George W. Bush, told me she was
“aghast,” adding, “I can’t think about
the national security implications of
a foreign government knowing every
single federal employee, where they
work, where they live, all of their significant data. Think about what that
information can do in the hands of
people who want to do us harm.”
JOEL BRENNER, a former top
counterintelligence official for the U.S.
government, has thought about it. He
called the hack attack “potentially devastating.” Brenner told the Washington
Post that personnel files “contain decades of personal information about
people with (security) clearances ...
which makes them easier to recruit for
foreign espionage on behalf of a foreign country.”
The Associated Press reported “two
people briefed on the investigation disclosed Friday that as many as 14 million current and former civilian U.S.
government employees have had their
information exposed to hackers, a far
higher figure than the four million the
Obama administration initially disclosed.”
While the U.S. government should
have seen this coming, clearly it was
unprepared for such an invasion of
privacy. By some estimates there are
thousands of Chinese cyber-warriors
specifically trained to carry out elec-
tronic espionage against the U.S. and
other nations with information the Chinese believe they can use for business,
military and political purposes. Why
do we always seem to be fighting the
last war (which we are not winning either) instead of the one we’re in?
Under a worst-case scenario outlined by Theweek.com, the information obtained by hackers could be used
to derail trains (although they seem to
be derailing just fine all by
Cal
Thomas
themselves without outside help), disrupt air traffic control systems, explode
chemical plants and gas pipelines and
compromise electric grids causing
large-scale blackouts across the country. Who needs missiles when a laptop
and the right software can be just as effective?
IT DOESN’T take a spy novelist
to come up with a scenario in which a
Chinese government agent approaches
someone with a top security clearance
and threatens to expose a dark secret
in his or her past, possibly destroying
family and career, unless he or she cooperates and hands over information to
Beijing. The Chinese agent would likely have details about medications his
target is taking to ward off depression,
or some other malady, possibly making
him more vulnerable to pressure.
The former chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers,
says another possible use of the hacked
information could be to shape fake
emails crafted to look legitimate while
injecting spyware and other viruses on
the networks of government agencies
or businesses the Chinese wish to penetrate.
The two major political parties
aren’t helping. Last week, Democrats
blocked a Republican attempt to add
a cybersecurity bill to a sweeping defense measure. The vote was 56-40,
four short of the required number.
Democrats have warned about cyberspying, but voted against moving forward with legislation because Republicans sought to merge the two bills,
which included budget changes Democrats and President Obama oppose.
As usual in Washington, playing the
blame game is more important to politicians than accomplishing something
that promotes the general welfare.
If any humor can come from a serious situation, it was in a statement by
OPM spokesman, Samuel Schumach.
When asked to provide more details
on the damage caused by the hacking,
Schumach said: “For security reasons,
we will not discuss specifics of the information that might have been compromised.”
WHAT POSSIBLE “security” reasons could there be when clearly there
was insufficient security at OPM? Perhaps reporters should ask this of the
Chinese, since they now appear to be
in possession of all the pertinent information.
19
June 24, 2015
DEAR MARK: June 12, 2015
Republican secrecy, Rubio and Bernie Sanders
Dear Mark:
I’m mad as he-- at the Republican Party. The trade agreement that Congress is
secretly negotiating makes Republicans
no better than the Democrats when they
crammed Obamacare down our throats. I
am finally convinced that ALL politicians
are corrupt and only care about reelection. Where is Ross Perot when we need
him? — Not Gonna Take It
Dear Not Gonna:
I completely agree with you. Since the
election of Barack Obama, Republicans
have gained majorities in the House and
Senate precisely due to the underhanded
legislative activities of Obama, Pelosi,
and Reid. What a wonderful civics lesson America received when Democrats
fast-tracked Obamacare, the stimulus,
and Dodd-Frank down the backside of
taxpayers’ pocketbooks.
Republicans promised a new atmosphere in Washington if elected but with
the secrecy of this trade deal it appears
we have the same old song and dance
only the names have changed. As far as
I’m concerned nothing in our legislation
should be this secretive unless it involves
national security, covert operations or
war plans.
According to a Breitbart News story
“What Paul Ryan is trying to convince
House Republicans to do is vote for Trade
Promotion Authority (TPA) which would
fast-track at least three highly secretive
trade deals — the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) and the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership. (T-TIP)”
Any legislation with this many acronyms definitely requires the utmost in
public scrutiny and transparency before a
single vote is cast.
DEAR MARK:
The liberal media is at it again with
the New York Times bashing Marco Rubio for a few speeding tickets and buying a nice boat. It’s disgusting how deep
the media will dig to bash a Republican.
Who hasn’t had a speeding ticket or two
and owning a boat is hardly extravagant.
When will media bias end? — Straight
Shooter in Kansas
Dear Straight:
The media bias will probably never
end as long as journalism schools pop out
“journalists” who attempt to manage the
news instead of report it. The
Mark
Levy
(c) 2015, Mark Levy
story in the Times reads like a political
hit job, even talking about the number
of speeding tickets Rubio’s wife has received. Can anyone say relevance check?
To paraphrase Joe Biden, Marco Rubio is “articulate and bright and clean
and a nice looking guy.” He is also extremely intelligent with a compelling
immigrant family success story to share.
This has Team Hillary rattled and therefore I believe she ordered this story as
a shot across Rubio’s bow. Don’t forget
this same New York Times originally endorsed Hillary over Barack Obama in
2008. Coincidence?
DEAR MARK:
I just saw Bernie Sanders on television
for the first time. He’s running against
Hillary and looks like a nut job campaigning on his socialist beliefs. Surely
this guy isn’t for real but will this drive
Hillary farther to the left in the Democratic primary? — Already Tired of the
Campaign
Dear Already:
Bernie Sanders is the junior senator from Vermont who calls himself a
democratic socialist but caucuses with
the Democrats in the Senate. As far as
driving Hillary farther to the left, are you
kidding me? The only difference between
the politics of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is that at least Sanders has the
man parts to unabashedly brag that he’s
a socialist.
Although I completely disagree with
Sanders politically, I respect that he admits he’s a big government socialist unlike Democrats such as President Obama,
Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, who
all prefer the moniker “progressive” to
hide their true colors. Sanders also isn’t
afraid to take a stand on issues such as
the current trade deal or answer questions
from reporters unlike Hillary who hides
in a dark van and plays “Where’s Waldo”
with the media.
Don’t be fooled by the quirkiness of
Senator Sanders as he is making inroads
into Hillary’s supposed presidential inevitability. During a recent Wisconsin
Democrat straw poll Sanders garnered
42 percent of the vote to Hillary’s 49%.
Granted 42% is not a win but Hillary
might be forced to spend a little more
Clinton Foundation money, uh, I mean
campaign money to ensure her nomination. She might also have to go to the sale
rack for her next pant suit.
E-mail your questions to marklevy92@aol.com. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkPLevy
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MEDIA BIAS: June 12, 2015
Black vs. Blue in the United States of America
H
alf a century ago this sum- ago, the Times went into loving detail
mer, the Voting Rights Act again on how Tamir died. It then rewas passed, propelled by gurgitated the deaths, also last year, of
Bloody Sunday at Selma Bridge. The Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric
previous summer, the Civil Rights Act Garner on Staten Island.
On page A11 was a story with three
became law on July 2.
photos,
covering
We are in the 7th year of the presi- c o l o r
almost the whole
dency of a black
page, about a cop
American who has
who, called to a
named the first two
raucous pool parblack U.S. attorty in McKinney,
neys general.
Texas, drew his
Yet race relagun and wrestled
tions seem more
poisonous now than then, when the to the ground a 14-year-old black girl in
good will of America’s majority was a bathing suit.
“A Party at a Pool, a Jarring Image of
driving legislation.
Police Force” was the banner over the
TODAY’S ISSUE, however, is not Times’ tale of “powerful and disturbvoting rights, open housing or school ing” images, from video showing “a
busing. It is black vs. blue: African- police officer pointing a gun at teenagAmericans inflamed at what they see ers in bathing suits and shoving a young
as chronic police brutality and police black girl’s face into the ground.”
Had the girl been white, would the
forces feeling besieged in a demagogic
Times have splashed it?
“war on cops.”
Page A12 was given over entirely to
And the media are obsessed with it,
cops vs. blacks, with two fresh stories,
and determined to make us equally so.
Consider. On June 9, America’s plus continuations of the Tamir Rice
“newspaper of record” ran four stories and pool stories.
The story across the top of A12 told
in the first section about police violence
of how a North Charleston, South Caragainst blacks.
Page one of the New York Times told olina, cop, held since April on murder
of black leaders in Cleveland, “distrust- charges, has now been indicted by a
ful of the criminal justice system,” in- grand jury for murder.
Officer Michael Slager shot fleeing
voking a “seldom-used Ohio law,” by
going “directly to a judge to request suspect Walter Scott in the back repeatmurder charges” against the cops in- edly, a killing caught on video, apparently after a fight over Slager’s Taser.
volved in the death of Tamir Rice.
There was also a fresh story on terResponding to reports of a man with
a gun, a cop, two seconds out of his car, rorism suspect Usaamah Rahim, shot
dead after being confronted by FBI
shot Tamir, 12. The gun was a toy.
Yet, though this happened six months and a Boston cop. Rahim was alleged-
Pat
Buchanan
ly wielding a large knife. Blurry video
from a Burger King camera shows the
cops backing away from Rahim, but not
the knife.
Seven Times reporters got bylines for
these four stories.
WHAT DOES the Times’ investment of all this journalistic talent and
news space tell us? The Times does not
want this issue to die.
The Times editors and writers see
“blacks being victimized by white racist cops” as a representative truth about
America 2015 that we all must address.
But what is the larger reality? First,
the vast majority of black males killed
violently are killed by black males, and
interracial crime in America is overwhelmingly black-on-white, not the reverse.
While not the media truth, that is the
statistical truth.
This is reality. Indeed, if the ugliest expressions of racism are interracial assaults, rapes and murders, the
heaviest concentrations of racism in
America are in the black communities
themselves.
But the preferred story of the Times
and mainstream media, of most cable
channels and social media, is white
cops victimizing black folks.
Thus we have all heard about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, but
few know even the number of black
folks gunned down annually in their
own black communities.
The press is not interested in ferreting out those statistics.
Why? Such stats would muddy the
message the media seek to send and
reinforce: I.e., America must confront
the crisis of rogue cops.
What is coming is not difficult to
predict.
As, invariably, white cops clash with
black suspects, the media will seize
upon and pump up every episode that
fits and advances their scripted narrative. Angry and violent protests will
occur. There will be judicial proceedings and trials, like that of the West
Baltimore cops coming up.
America will divide and take sides.
And the rival “war on cops” and “Black
lives matter!” claims will be adjudicated in the election of 2016.
In 1968, Richard Nixon rode the
law-and-order issue into the White
House. Hillary Clinton seems to be
moving to capture the “Black-LivesMatter!” constituencies.
AS FOR THE Republicans, they
seem to be acting more like the John
Lindsays and Bill Scrantons of yesteryear than the Nixons and Ronald Reagans. But someone is going to pick up
this issue.
21
June 24, 2015
SUPREME COURT: June 15, 2015
75: Average age of current justices in 2021
A
ccording to the birthdates justice, was born on August 15, 1938.
listed on the Supreme Court He is now 76. When the next presidenwebsite, the court’s nine tial term ends, he will be 82 years and
current justices will have an average five months — or 82.4 years old.
Clarence Thomas, the fifth oldest
age of 75 by the time the next presijustice,
was born on June 23,
dential term ends on Jan. 20, 2021.
1948. He is now 66
Ruth
Bader
— and will turn 67
Ginsburg, the oldnext week. When
est justice, was
the next presidential
born on March
term ends, he will
15, 1933. She is
be 72 years and
now 82. When
six months — or
the next presidential term ends she will be 87 years and 72.5 years old.
Samuel Alito, the sixth oldest jus10 months old — or 87.8 years old.
tice, was born on April 1, 1950. He is
ANTONIN SCALIA, the second now 65. When the next presidential
oldest justice, was born on March 11, term ends, he will be 70 years and nine
1936. He is now 79. When the next months — or 70.8 years old.
Sonia Sotomayor, the seventh oldpresidential term ends, he will be 84
years and 10 months — or 84.8 years est justice, was born on June 25, 1954.
She is now 60 — and will turn 61
old.
Anthony Kennedy, the third oldest next week. When the next presidential
justice, was born on July 23, 1936. He term ends, she will be 66 years and 6
is now 78. When the next presidential months — or 66.5 years old.
Chief Justice John Roberts, the
term ends, he will be 84 years and five
eighth oldest, was born on January 27,
months — or 84.4 years old.
Stephen Breyer, the fourth oldest 1955. He is now 60. When the next
Terry
Jeffrey
presidential term ends, he will be 65
years and 11 months — or 65.9 years
old.
ooze: “An authentic American athlete
has a fresh blotch on her bio, so it might
help that she also has uncommonly sturdy innards.”
Then the saga continued. On June 4,
Johnson announced on Instagram that
she was pregnant (with no mention of
whether she was pregnant during the
violence). Two days later, Griner announced she was seeking an annulment
of their marriage after 28 days.
The networks have offered nothing on these developments, broadcast
news or cable news. The Post and the
New York Times offered a modicum of
coverage. But USA Today was a complete joke. They could only rehash one
Twitter message. Last August, they
published a whole story headlined “For
Griner, best still to come; Mercury star
prolific on court, happy off it,” discussing Griner’s lesbian relationship and
wedding plans.
On the top of the front a page of USA
Today’s Sports section on June 4 was a
story headlined “Locker rooms full of
gay slurs.” A survey by gay activists to
protest “homophobia in sports” drew
more than 1,500 words and large color
photos with the story continuing to take
up an entire inside page.
ON JAN. 20, 2021, when the next
president either takes the oath for a
second term or relinquishes his or her
office to a successor, the collective age
of the nine current Supreme Court justices will be 675.8 years.
Their average age will be 75 years.
If these nine current justices were
to retain their seats through the next
two presidential terms — whether
those terms were held by one president
who was re-elected or by two different
presidents — their average age at the
end of that second term would be 79
years.
The four oldest justices — Ginsburg,
Scalia, Kennedy and Breyer — would
be a collective 339.4 years when the
next presidential term ends. Their average age would be almost 85 (84.85).
If they stuck it out for two more terms,
their average age would by almost 89.
The six oldest justices — Ginsburg,
Scalia, Kennedy, Breyer, Thomas and
Alito — would be a collective 482.7
years by the end of the next presidential term. Their average age by then
would be 80.45. By the end of the next
two terms, in January 2025, their average age would be 84.45.
Many of the names on the court may
change by the time the next two or
three presidents have served out their
terms. But will America be the same
country?
THE GRINER story underlines one
lesson. What serves the gay narrative is
news. What hurts the gay narrative gets
buried.
IF THE HISTORY of recent decades is any indicator, that still may be
decided by five elderly lawyers given
lifelong tenure in a government job.
Domestic violence in sports
B
rittney Griner was a huge
college star in women’s basketball two years ago. Her
dominance of the sport at 6-foot-8 was
unquestioned — she could dunk with
ease, and she blocked more shots than
anyone else in college basketball history, men or women. Her Baylor squad
was the first team in college basketball
history, men’s or women’s, to win 40
games in a single year.
GRINER WAS drafted first overall
in the WNBA. She also made headlines
later in 2013 for coming out as a lesbian. Along with other athletes, like Jason
Collins in the NBA, she was lauded by
the press for being an “inspiration” to
the gay community. Griner and Johnson announced their engagement last
August and made an appearance on the
TLC wedding-reality program Say Yes
to the Dress.
But what happens when the “inspiration” is arrested for domestic violence?
The same news media that love the libertine narrative get very quiet.
On April 22, Griner and her girlfriend Glory Johnson (also a WNBA
player) were arrested after police came
to their new home after someone called
and said they were throwing things at
each other, and then could not be pulled
apart. The first press reports said Griner
had tooth marks in one hand; Johnson
had a lacerated lip. Johnson’s lawyer
later gave records to Sports Illustrated
claiming Johnson suffered from head
trauma, a concussion and spinal trauma
after being hit “on the back of her head
by a hard carrying case.”
The day after the arrest, the Washington Post published a blog — not in
the newspaper — headlined “Brittney
Griner, Glory Johnson and the WNBA’s
domestic violence problem; ‘Intimate
partner violence among LGBT couples
is also a huge problem that gets considerably less attention,’ according to a
WNBA-watcher.”
Brent
Bozell
DESPITE THE incident, Griner
and Johnson were married on May 9.
They were each suspended seven games
by the WNBA. Obviously, the media
didn’t find this to be a small fraction
as newsworthy as NFL star Ray Rice’s
domestic-violence incident. The NFL is
a much larger business than the WNBA.
Rice knocked his now-wife unconscious on video ... and Rice was male
and heterosexual.
The closest the Griner fight came to
prominence was a May 31 Washington
Post story on the front of their sports
section strangely headlined “Tough, But
No Fighter.” The Post story began with
Elena Kagan, the youngest justice,
was born on April 28, 1960. She is now
55. When the next presidential term
ends, she will be 60 years and eight
months — or 60.7 years old.
22
BILL CLINTON: June 17, 2015
Jake Tapper vs. sputtering Bill Clinton
CNN’s Jake Tapper kicked off his erate development opportunities and
new hosting gig on the Sunday news jobs near where these young people
show State of the Union featuring an live.”
But Tapper wasn’t done with the
interview with Bill Clinton, arranged
through his Clinton Global Initiative. hardballs. He shifted to veterans, and
It’s a big name, but a tough start for a implied in passing that the Democrats
been doing much
serious journalist. With the exception h a v e n ’ t
for veterans lateof his infamous
ly. “Today, it’s
snorting,
kneea different kind
jabbing
perforof tragedy. It’s
mance with Chris
veterans commitWallace in 2006,
ting suicide. It’s
the former presiveterans suffering
dent has negotiated a succession of journalistic foot- in silence. It’s the VA scandal. You’re
rubs surrounding his tightly scripted somebody who has actually sent men
into battle, some of whom didn’t make
Global shindigs.
On that sycophantic curve, Tapper it back. What can be done to help these
did well. He never prompted Clin- people who have given so much and
ton into a squinting, pointing rage, have such a tough time and don’t seem
but make no mistake: He asked some to know what to do after they leave the
military?”
tough questions.
Brent
Bozell
REGARDING THE Clinton foundation, Tapper channeled “a lot of people,” who suggest it’s not realistic to
say “these companies, these wealthy
individuals, these governments, none
of them sought anything? I mean,
some of them did have business before
the State Department.”
Clinton tried to change the subject
to Haiti, but Tapper stayed focused.
His follow up — “you say you don’t
know if anybody sought any favor?”
— prompted Clinton to answer, “No,
and I don’t think Hillary would know
either ... she was pretty busy those
years. ... I never saw her study a list
of my contributors or — and I had no
idea who was doing business before
the State Department.”
These smartest people in the world
turn into incurious morons at the most
convenient moments.
Then Tapper turned to the inner city.
Weeks back, Tapper asked former Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley why, if
Democrats had all the answers for the
poor, is Baltimore in such sad shape?
He repeated the challenge to Clinton,
noting the unemployment rate for
young black men there is 37 percent.
Baltimore is the postcard for liberal
incompetence, and Tapper could have
— should have — aimed for the jugular. He did just the opposite, offering
the former president every opportunity
to spin his way out of it. “There have
been a lot of Democrats and Democratic rules trying to improve the lot of
people in Baltimore, where they spend
a great deal per pupil. You can’t look at
that city and say nobody’s been trying.
What are some of the things that can
be done that haven’t been tried?”
That, folks, qualifies as a “hardball”
question with today’s media. Still, you
could tell Clinton wasn’t ready. He
paused, and then stammered, “Well,
first, I believe we ought to try to accel-
THE FORMER president wouldn’t
touch the VA scandal. He just changed
the subject again, remarking on how
veterans with traumatic brain injuries
now survive when they used to die on
the battlefield.
Tapper could have responded by
pointing out that this man really
shouldn’t be commenting on the military at all. “Mr. President, do you regret
shirking your responsibilities when
you were drafted into the military?”
That’s the sort of question this former
president will never need to field.
Oddly enough, even after Clinton’s
fumbles, the new CNN host still went
to the ad break oozing, “Whatever you
think of Bill Clinton, he is pretty universally regarded as one of the keenest
political minds in the biz.”
IT DIDN’T require smash-mouth
Mike Wallace-style hammering. Tapper had just demonstrated how this
“keenest political mind” could sputter under some simple but surprisingly
serious inquiries. Why can’t the others
put this “genius” through the paces?
Time for Diane Rehm to hang it up
W
know, my dad came to this country
from Poland at the age of 17 without
a nickel in his pocket, loved this country. ... I got offended a little bit by that
comment, and I know it’s been on the
Internet. I am obviously an American
citizen, and I do not have any dual citizenship.
Wow! What the heck is going on
here?
It boggles the mind that such a statement could be uttered on National Public Radio, given all of the resources it
SHE DIDN’T ask him a question. has at its disposal. Rehm found
She stated it as fact and awaited a re- a list somewhere and desponse. It was fast in coming.
Here’s a transcript of the relevant
part of this media debacle:
Diane Rehm: Senator, you have dual
citizenship with Israel.
Bernie Sanders: Well, no, I do not
have dual citizenship with Israel. I’m cided it must be accurate. Is that what
an American. I don’t know where that media that get public funding do?
Did she assume that because the
question came from. I am an American
citizen, and I have visited Israel on a presidential candidate is Jewish, he has
couple of occasions. No, I’m an Ameri- dual citizenship with Israel? Doesn’t
that smack of anti-Semitism?
can citizen, period.
Rehm: I understand from a list we
AND WHAT would it matter to
have gotten that you were on that list.
Rehm and NPR if it were true? I myself
Sanders: No.
recall being interviewed on this very
Rehm: Forgive me if that is—
Sanders: That’s some of the non- same network a few years ago and besense that goes on in the Internet. But ing accused of racism for questioning
Barack Obama’s still very questionable
that is absolutely not true.
Rehm: Interesting. Are there mem- status as a “natural born Citizen.” Yet
bers of Congress who do have dual citi- here was Rehm, the grand doyenne of
NPR, making a flat-out wrong accusazenship, or is that part of the fable?
Sanders: I honestly don’t know, but tion about Sanders — perhaps hinting
I have read that on the Internet. You at a disqualification of his challenge
ith all the government
money NPR gets, you’d
think the radio network
could afford fact checkers and producers for its big shows.
Apparently, NPR is stashing that
taxpayer money elsewhere.
In an astonishing interview by NPR
talk star Diane Rehm last week, Sen.
Bernie Sanders was accused of holding
dual citizenship with the United States
and Israel.
Joseph
Farah
to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
Ironically, Sanders is not even a
strong supporter of Israel.
Yes, Rehm apologized on-air and in
writing for this faux pas — but is that
enough?
I want to know how my money is
being misspent at NPR to support such
shoddy journalism. I want to know
what kind of latent anti-Semitism is behind this media circus. In fact, I want
my money back.
Also ironic is the way NPR and
other state-funded and state-enamored
media outlets love to point out the hazards of believing unsubstantiated Internet posts — but then do exactly that
themselves.
I’m sorry, but a mistake such as this
requires more explanation than has
been offered. It could only happen to a
host and producer team that is, shall I
say, less than professional.
What is going on here? Has the antiIsrael bigotry in state-funded media
gotten so intense that it is now baring
its ugly teeth openly?
Does Sanders represent such a threat
to their establishment view of the world
that he’s fair game for a smear?
IS THIS A hint that we will be seeing the drive-by media suddenly become interested in the constitutional
requirements for eligibility to become
president in 2016?
Stay tuned. But not to NPR.
23
June 24, 2015
HILLARY CLINTON: June 16, 2015
Clinton’s political platitudes aren’t winning her many fans
S
truggling to come up with a on Saturday that would have made the
strategy to put her in the Oval late “share the wealth” Louisiana goverOffice, Hillary Clinton has de- nor Huey Long proud.
“Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs
clared war on billionaires, big business,
hedge-fund managers, Wall Street and and hedge-fund managers,” she deat an outdoor rally on
anyone else who has become successful c l a r e d
New York’s Roosin the American
evelt Island, with
economy.
the Wall Street skyThat’s
what
line behind her.
turns on Demo“Democracy can’t
cratic voters, and
(c) 2015, United Media Services
be just for billionat her first big poaires and corporalitical rally Saturday on New York’s Roosevelt Island, tions. Prosperity and democracy are part
she decided that class warfare was the of your basic bargain, too. You brought
only possible route to the Oval Office, our country back. Now it’s time — your
and that she is willing to play that game time — to secure the gains and move
ahead,” she said.
with a vengeance.
If that sounds like she is taking a swing
ABANDONING THE low-key at the sluggish Obama economy in which
campaign she began in April when she working-class wages have been virtually
announced her candidacy, Clinton con- flat for years, and millions of Americans
cluded that a strategy of political plati- are forced to take part-time jobs when
tudes and dodging the hard issues wasn’t they need full-time work, well, that’s
what it sounded like.
working.
But if you’re looking for any specifHer favorability polls have sunk into
the 40s, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self- ics about how she would accelerate and
declared socialist, is suddenly drawing sustain stronger economic growth, your
enthusiastic crowds with fiery attacks search will be in vain. Her advisers are
against Wall Street and big banks — still trying to figure that out.
So the question remains: What does
and attacking Clinton for refusing to
say what she really thinks of President she really want to accomplish if she sucObama’s wounded Trans-Pacific trade ceeds in her second bid for the presidency?
legislation.
The science of economics is foreign
On the campaign trail, Sanders is delivering the kind of political red meat territory for Clinton, and thus far she’s
leftist Democrats eat up. Like this line: made no effort to champion any macro,
“Continuing greed is destroying this pro-growth proposals. Certainly not the
economic reforms her husband embraced
country, and it has got to stop.”
So in an attempt to get her campaign as president, from the North American
on track, Clinton let loose with a speech Free Trade Agreement to capital gains
Donald
Lambro
tax cuts that led to a soaring, investmentled economy in his second term.
Early in Obama’s first term, when he
was bashing big corporations, Wall Street
bankers and anyone of wealth, Bill Clinton remarked in an interview, “I never
criticized people for their success.”
THEN THERE are Hillary Clinton’s
multiple disabilities as a campaigner that
no one seems to be focusing on at the moment. One of them is her annoying habit
of using remedial rhetoric that’s either
politically irrelevant or simply dodges
the hard issues.
She talked Saturday about President
Franklin Roosevelt who, in the depths of
the Great Depression, “called on every
American to do his or her part, and every
American answered,” she said.
“It’s America’s basic bargain: If you
do your part, you ought to be able to get
ahead. And when everybody does their
part, America gets ahead,” she added.
What’s her point? Millions are still
underemployed in the Obama economy,
though they want and need full-time
work and are struggling to get ahead.
Millions of long-term jobless Americans
have stopping looking for a job, but are
hoping they will become plentiful again.
Good luck.
The problem in the Obama economy
isn’t that people aren’t doing their part.
The problem is that the president’s antigrowth, anti-job and anti-income policies
are holding our underperforming economy back.
I have yet to hear or read about a Clinton speech that bemoans the problems
that have plagued our economy in the
last six and a half years. Not one.
What is the rationale for her presidential candidacy if it isn’t to strengthen
economic growth and boost incomes,
and, as JFK said, “get America moving
again”?
She gave us one clue in her Sunday
speech in Iowa: “I may not be the youngest candidate in this race, but with your
help, I will be the youngest woman president.”
Many voters no doubt are supporting her for that reason alone, but for the
majority of voters who disapprove of the
dismal direction our country is headed,
that will not be the salient reason.
Indeed, there is growing evidence that
the more voters get to know Clinton and
listen to her political platitudes, the less
they like her and what she stands for.
Particularly in the media.
The liberal Washington Post’s Ruth
Marcus, admitted in a stinging column
Tuesday to a loss of confidence in the
former secretary of state in recent weeks.
Saturday’s policy rollout was “two
months too late,” she wrote. “Clinton’s
soft, substance-free launch created a
vacuum. That space was filled by damaging reports on her family’s lucrative
speechifying and foundation-building.”
What really got Marcus’ goat was
Clinton’s attempt to duck a definitive
position on Obama’s trade bill that she
called the “gold standard” in free trade
agreements before it was shot down
in the House by Nancy Pelosi and the
Democrats.
“How can we have confidence that
Clinton will stand up for what she believes in when that happens to conflict
with her party’s base and the political
dictates of the moment?” Marcus wrote.
WITH 57 PERCENT of Americans
saying in a recent CNN-ORC poll that
Clinton is neither honest nor trustworthy, she is sinking fast into deep political
trouble.
24
HUD: June 17, 2015
Inequality warriors: HUD war against the suburbs
A
n African-American millionaire can buy a home in any
expensive suburb. Color is
no longer a barrier. Despite this progress, President Obama’s Department
of Housing and Urban Development is
accusing expensive towns of racism,
simply because most minorities can’t
afford to live there.
Westchester County, New York, has
struggled under a federal monitor since
2009 to compel the county to comply
with HUD’s demands for multiunit affordable housing in expensive areas.
Hillary Clinton claims to be a warrior
against inequality. But her adopted
hometown of Chappaqua, an upscale
Westchester village that one resident
describes as “a little piece of heaven,”
is battling HUD’s demands.
THE LEGAL war in Hillary’s
backyard is a preview. The Obama administration is pulling out all the stops
to launch a legal and regulatory assault
on suburbs nationwide. HUD’s soonto-be-released regulation, in the works
since 2013, will compel affluent suburbs to build more high-density, lowincome housing, plus, of course, sewers, water lines, bus routes and other
changes needed to support it. All in the
name of housing “fairness.”
Obama’s social engineers will eliminate local zoning, such as one-acre
minimum lots, to achieve what the
HUD rule calls “inclusive communities.” Property values be damned.
If you’ve worked hard to afford a
home in an affluent neighborhood of
single-family houses, you have a lot to
lose under this HUD plan.
The HUD rule twists the original
and laudable intent of the Fair Housing
Act of 1968, which is to bar discrimination in renting, selling or financing
housing. The new rule states that towns
must “affirmatively further” diversity.
If low-income minorities want to move
to a town but can’t afford it, the town
must “provide adequate support to
make their choices viable.”
WHETHER THE HUD plan goes
forward will depend largely on how the
Supreme Court rules in Texas Dept. of
Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, a lawsuit
brought to demand that public housing
be located in wealthy Dallas suburbs.
Before the end of June, the Justices
will decide whether Texas is guilty of
racism simply for locating public housing in lower-income areas of Dallas,
close to existing public transportation,
rather than in costly areas. Activists
claim that even without intent to discriminate, the state is depriving poor
minorities of the advantages of living
in affluent neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are trying to halt HUD’s new plan
by depriving it of funding. To do that, will charge racism and demand more
the House passed the Gosar amend- public housing. Race is being cynically
ment, sponsored by Arizona Rep. Paul exploited here as a pretext to accomGosar, last Thursday but its success in plish something different — economic
tion.
the Senate is uncertain. Democratic integraThe HUD plan
members of Conis a power grab.
gress whose conNothing in the
stituents live in
U.S. Constitution
some of the most
empowers the fedexpensive
sub(c) 2015, Creators Syndicate
eral government
urbs in the nation
to do this. Zoning
are nevertheless
toeing the party line and supporting is a local government power.
HUD makes the silly argument that
HUD.
transplanting low-income minorities
HUD’S PLAN is frightening. Phase into suburbs will solve the causes of
one will collect data on poverty, school their poverty and “improve an inditesting scores and public transit sites vidual or family’s life trajectory.” That
from every census division to spot ignores the factors stacked against
towns that have too few poor residents. poor kids. A family headed by a single
If your town is guilty, HUD regulators mother is nearly five times as likely to
Betsy
McCaughey
live in poverty as a family headed by
two parents, no matter where they live.
Building wedding parlors on inner city
street corners and promoting two parent families would do more to break
the cycle of poverty than redesigning
suburban America.
IF THE JUSTICES and Congress fail to stop HUD’s scheme, expect Hillary “Rodham Hood” Clinton
to champion it (with a carve-out for
Chappaqua, of course). HUD Secretary
Julian Castro is even being mentioned
as Clinton’s running mate. Short of taxing the rich to death, these inequality
warriors would like nothing better than
to prevent the rich from enjoying the
suburbs, far from urban woes.
MORAL VALUES: June 17, 2015
Culture and social pathology
A
civilized society’s first line of
defense is not the law, police
and courts but customs, traditions, rules of etiquette and moral values. These behavioral norms — mostly
transmitted by example, word of mouth
and religious teachings — represent a
body of wisdom distilled over the ages
through experience and trial and error.
They include important thou-shalt-nots,
such as thou shalt not murder, thou shalt
not steal and thou shalt not cheat. They
also include all those courtesies that
have traditionally been associated with
ladylike and gentlemanly conduct.
THE FAILURE to fully transmit
these values and traditions to subsequent generations represents one of the
failings of what journalist Tom Brokaw called “The Greatest Generation.”
People in this so-called great generation, who lived during the trauma of
the Great Depression and fought World
War II, not only failed to transmit the
moral values of their parents but also
are responsible for government programs that will deliver economic chaos.
Behavior accepted as the norm today would have been seen as despicable yesteryear. There are television
debt relief commercials that promise to
help debtors pay back only half of what
they owe. Foul language is spoken by
children in front of and sometimes to
teachers and other adults. When I was
a youngster, it was unthinkable to use
foul language to any adult. It would
have meant risking a smack across the
face. But years ago, parents and teachers didn’t have “experts” on child rearing to tell them that corporal punish-
ment was wrong and ineffective and
“timeouts” would be a superior form
of discipline. One result of our tolerance for aberrant behavior was that,
according to the National Center for
Education Statistics, during the 201112 academic year, 209,000 primaryand secondary-school teachers were
physically assaulted and 353,000 were
threatened with injury. As a result of
this and other forms of school violence,
many school districts employ hundreds
of police officers.
Walter
Williams
NOWADAYS BABY showers are
often held for unwed mothers. Yesteryear such an acceptance of illegitimacy
would have been unthinkable. Today
there is little or no social sanction or
shame for illegitimate births. There
are no “shotgun” weddings to make
the man live up to his responsibilities.
But not to worry. Taxpayers bear the
financial burden of illegitimacy. Any
economist worth his salt will tell you
that if something is taxed, expect less
of it. If something is subsidized, expect
more of it. Taxpayers have been forced
to subsidize slovenly behavior. The statistical evidence proves it. According to
the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social
Sciences, that year 11 percent of black
children and three percent of white
children were born to unwed mothers.
Today 72 percent of black children and
30 percent of white children are born to
unwed mothers.
For nearly three-quarters of a century, the nation’s liberals have waged
war on traditional values, customs and
morality. Our youths have been counseled that there are no moral absolutes.
Instead, what’s moral or immoral is a
matter of personal opinion. During the
1960s, the education establishment began to challenge and undermine lessons
children learned from their parents and
Sunday school with fads such as “values
clarification.” So-called sex education
classes are simply indoctrination that
undermines family and church strictures against premarital sex. Lessons of
abstinence were considered passe and
replaced with lessons about condoms,
birth control pills and abortions. Further
undermining of parental authority came
with legal and extralegal measures to
assist teenage abortions with neither parental knowledge nor parental consent.
You say, “OK, Williams, the Greatest Generation is responsible for our
moral decline, but what about our economic decline?” Ask yourself: What
are the massive government spending
programs that threaten to bankrupt our
nation in the future? The answer would
have to be Social Security, Medicare
and Medicaid. Over 50 percent of today’s federal budget is spent on these
programs. Around the time when many
in the so-called Greatest Generation
were born (1920), there were no such
programs, and federal spending was
$53 billion. In 2014, federal spending
was $3.5 trillion.
IF IT WERE only the economic decline threatening our future, there might
be hope. It’s the moral decline that
spells our doom.
25
June 24, 2015
FATHERS: June 5, 2015
Making babies doesn’t make you a father
R
ecently, a friend shared re- are dead at the hands of other blacks or
garding a documentary he in prison. Making babies out of wedhad seen. The documen- lock with any female (hopefully) not
tary addressed the devastation young suffering from a transmittable disease,
male elephants were causing within is their validation of manhood — ergo
their herds. It explained that the young the cycle of illegitimate births, death,
truancy, wasted lives,
males are causing unparalleled harm d r u g ,
ad nauseam is repliand disruption in
cated countless times
the herds because
every day.
there are an everMoney
candecreasing numnot
break
this
ber of fully-grown
(c) 2015, Mychal Massie
cycle. We see the
bull elephants. He explained that the young males, wealthiest athletes with several children
fueled by raging hormones and no out of wedlock from several different
male guidance, (which included a good females. Taxpayer dollars won’t correct
stomping when the situation called for this pandemic either as evidenced by
the $22 trillion dollars wasted on the soit), would literally terrorize the herd.
called war on poverty that has experi MY FRIEND and I discussed the enced less success than Obama has with
correlation between the similarities of his laughable Iran treaty. Telling these young men to use conthe socially undeveloped elephants and
the human landscape, specifically in doms and telling the girls to go on birth
predominantly black urban areas. Not control or just have them murder their
only do the male children not have fa- unborn child as 17.3 million other black
thers to teach and guide them, many of women have done is not the answer eithem have multiple male siblings from ther.
multiple men. This is a particularly
THE ANSWER is to teach personal
volatile situation because you have the
normal different personalities within a responsibility and personal accountabilfamily matrix, but you also have the po- ity. The answer is to stop handicapping
tential exacerbation of same due to the young blacks by inculcating them with
added influence of multiple emotion- a message of acrimony and immiseration. The answer is to teach them from
ally/psychologically immature fathers.
When you factor in the generational birth that they are more than a color
dysfunction, poverty, disrespect, emo- — they are Americans. The answer is
tional neglect, and inculcated inferior- teach them that the revisionist lies being
ity, one need not strain themself search- taught under the guise of Afri-centric
ing for reasons reasons so many blacks curriculums are damnable heterodoxies
Mychal
Massie
designed to emotionally segregate, not
impart marketable skills. The answer
is for them to learn trades and to stop
buying into the belief that if they do not
go to college they won’t be able to get
a job.
College for most people today, and
specifically blacks assures them of nothing more than a huge debt and a Pygmalion, i.e., self-fulfilling prophesy that
they cannot function outside the “hood.”
Opening basketball courts at night so
they can play ball as a means of staying
out of trouble is like opening a dog kennel at night to stop dogs from barking.
The message that must be taught in
the home is that respect begins with self.
Men and women who respect themselves typically respect the welfare of
their children. But there is still more to
being a father.
My son was planned for and prepared
for. Being part of my son’s life has been
an experience I wouldn’t trade for love
or money. Raising him in a Bible-believing Christian church has been the
paramount component in his life. Raising children means investing
ourself in them. Unlike animals, our
child leaving the nest doesn’t mean that
they are no longer in need of our watchful eyes and concern.
My son can make travel arrangements and find his way around airports
more efficiently than I can tie my shoes. I call him to ask how to use a remote
control. I ask him how to use certain
features on my computer, etc. My son is mature and erudite. But
when it comes to life experiences he
cannot hold a candle to me because he
hasn’t lived as long enough to deal with
the array of life’s realities that I have. I
am dad and I will be there until the Lord
calls me home.
Father’s Day isn’t a day to celebrate
baby-making or sperm dumps. Father’s
Day is about being a Father. And tragically as my friend and I both acknowledged there aren’t enough fathers today. Getting drunk with your son, telling off-color jokes and making untoward remarks about women isn’t being a
father. Working all of those extra hours
so you can take a two-week vacation
or buy HD TV’s for each room of the
house isn’t being a father either.
BEING A FATHER means investing ourselves into our children. It means
showing them the love that God our Father has shown us. It means being a living example, the very best that we can
be, even when we drop the ball.
26
EDUCATION: June 11, 2015
Obama hearts private school — for himself and family
Barack Obama, for his own educa- school politician would attend public
schools as a seal of approval. On the contion, never set foot in a public school.
When he was 10 years of age, his trary, the children of then-Sen. Obama
mother shipped him back from Indo- attended a private school operated by the
nesia to his grandparents in Hawaii so University of Chicago, where Obama
that young Barack could get a first- had taught as an instructor in the law
This job enabled the
class American education. He entered school.
Obama girls to go at
Punahou, the exlittle or no cost to
pensive and most
Obama.
prestigious prep
After Obama
school in the iswas elected presilands. From there,
dent and preparing
despite his admitto move to Washtedly
indifferent
grades, Obama was admitted to Occi- ington, D.C., Michelle Obama engaged
dental, an elite private college in Los in a public search for an appropriate
Angeles. He spent two years there, after school for their children. Michelle conwhich he transferred to Columbia Uni- sidered public schools in D.C. “There
versity, one of the private Ivy League are some terrific individual schools in
schools. After Columbia, Obama at- the D.C. system,” her husband said later.
But, come time for enrollment, the
tended Harvard Law, another private Ivy
Obamas chose Sidwell Friends, a priLeague school.
vate Quaker school whose most famous
WHAT ABOUT Michelle, then Mi- recent grad is Chelsea Clinton. Annual
chelle Robinson? Doesn’t she often brag tuition? Almost $40,000 a year, and this
that she attended public schools? But her excludes books and other material.
Democrats, of course, argue that we
public school cheerleading requires an
asterisk. True, Michelle attended a pub- need to “invest” more in education. We
lic high school. But it was Chicago’s first already spend more on education, K-12,
magnet school, and admission was a se- than any other country with the exceplective and highly competitive process. tion of Switzerland, Norway and LuxMichelle spent close to three hours each embourg.
Back in 1985, a federal judge decided
day on a bus to escape her subpar local
public school. So Michelle, in essence, to take a different approach, instead of
attended an exclusive high school, an mandating cross-town busing in Kanoption available to her because of her sas City. Why not make urban schools
proactive, pro-education parents and her so attractive that all students, no matwillingness to sacrifice the time to go to ter their race, would want to go there?
He ordered the school district to build
and from this superior school.
What about the Obama’s own chil- what many called “world-class public
dren? Surely the children of a pro-public schools.”
Larry
Elder
And spend they did.
The district built 15 new schools.
Then it equipped dozens of magnet
schools with equipment and personnel
for state-of-the-art academic, athletic and
arts programs. One elementary school
offered private Suzuki violin lessons
for every student. A middle school hired
10 “resource teachers” to develop projects in specialty subjects. Kansas City
added a Montessori kindergarten and a
first-grade Spanish immersion program.
Some teachers got raises, while others
received reduced workloads.
AT A TIME when most Americans
didn’t have a PC or an Apple Macintosh,
one Kansas City high school boasted 900
top-of-the-line computers. Others had an
Olympic-sized swimming pool complete
with six diving boards, a padded wres-
tling room, a classical Greek theater, an
eight-lane indoor track and a professionally equipped gymnastics center. Some
of the renovations included a robotics
lab, TV studios, a zoo, a planetarium
and a wildlife sanctuary. Instead of using
buses to bring white kids to the inner-city
schools, the district hired 120 taxis.
After 15 years and $2 billion dollars,
the Kansas City school district failed all
of Missouri’s 11 academic performance
standards and became the first big-city
school district to lose its academic accreditation. All that spending managed
to attract several hundred white suburban
students in the early 1990s, but many
later left.
This brings us to vouchers, where the
money follows the student — rather than
the other way around.
Urban parents want the option to remove their kid from an underperforming local government school to a better
school. Polls show 80 percent of innercity parents want vouchers. In Philadelphia, 44 percent of public-school teachers with school-age children send their
kids to a private school. In Chicago, it’s
39 percent. Nationwide, about 11 percent
of all parents enroll their children in private schools; only six percent of black
parents do so.
A year and a half after the Obama
girls had settled into their new school,
Obama was asked whether any D.C.
public schools offered his daughters the
same quality of education as a private
school. “I’ll be blunt with you,” said
Obama. “The answer is ‘no’ right now.”
But then he added, “Given my position,
if I wanted to find a great public school
for Malia and Sasha to be in, we could
probably maneuver to do it. But the
broader problem is for a mom or a dad
who are working hard but don’t have a
bunch of connections.” So it’s who you
know, how much clout you have.
OBAMA DOES not realize it, but he
made an open-and-shut case for vouchers.
27
June 24, 2015
LEFTISTS: June 16, 2015
Differences between left and right: Part IV
H
ere’s a difference between
left and right that is rarely
noted despite the fact that it
is at least as important as any other and
even explains many of the other differences.
At the core of left-wing thought is a
rejection of painful realities, the rejection of what the French call les faits de
la vie: the facts of life. Conservatives,
on the other hand, are all too aware of
these painful realities of life and base
many of their positions on them.
ONE SUCH example was the subject of my first column on left-right
differences: whether people are basically good. When liberals blame violent
crime in America on poverty, one reason
they do is that liberal beliefs since the
Enlightenment have posited that human
nature is good. Therefore, when people
do truly bad things to other people, liberals believe that some outside force —
usually poverty, racism and/or unem- more it confirms important built-in difployment — must be responsible, not ferences between the sexes.
human nature.
WHY THEN would people actually
Liberals find it too painful to look
reality in the eye and acknowledge that believe that girls are as happy to play
human nature is deeply flawed. This is with trucks as are boys, and boys are as
especially so because left-wing thought happy to play with dolls and tea sets as
is rooted in secularism, and if you don’t are girls?
Because acknowledging many of
believe in God, you had better believe
those differences is painful.
in humanity — or you will despair.
For example, femiAnother fact
nists and others on
of life that the left
the left do not want
finds too painful
to acknowledge
to acknowledge
that sex between
is the existence of
two people who
profound differences between men and women. There are not committed to each other usuis no other explanation for the rejection ally means much more to women than
of what has been obvious to essentially to men. It is too painful to acknowledge
every man and woman in history. It is that men are far more capable of havcertainly not the result of scientific ining anonymous, emotionally meaningquiry. The more science knows about less sex than women. Therefore, femithe male and female brain, not to men- nism has now taught two generations
tion male and female hormones, the of women that they are just as capable
Dennis
Prager
Living it up with the Rubios
T
he candidate treated most unfairly by the New York Times
is a coveted slot in the Republican presidential field, and it is owned,
at least for the time being, by Marco
Rubio.
The self-styled newspaper of record
ran two stories about Rubio and his wife
that were so laughably tendentious and
unfair that they earned mockery and
eye-rolling across the political spectrum.
According to the Times, Marco Rubio is basically a scofflaw who has tottered on the brink of financial ruin, and
his wife is his partner in crime.
THE PERSONAL finances of a
presidential candidate are fair game, but
the Times fashions as hostile a narrative
as possible, and treats life as lived by
most Americans as alien and even suspect.
We often say that we want politicians
who aren’t self-funded or otherwise
rich, but then when someone like Marco
Rubio comes along, who started with almost nothing, the reaction of the Times
is “Eek, a mouse.”
The Times led off its vetting of the
Rubios with an expose of their traffic
tickets, perhaps because it couldn’t get
access to their cable bill or recycling
bins. The newspaper had to investigate
both Marco and his wife to boost the
overall ticket count into something approaching minimal newsworthiness.
Marco has accumulated four tickets
in 18 years. Yes, four, a pace of one
ticket every four or so years that won’t
exactly shock the conscience in parts of
the country where people drive all the
time. It is the 13 tickets of Jeanette that
gets the number up to a combined 17 citations, which might be a concern if first
ladies were expected to do their own
driving and rigorously honor the speed
limit.
The story on the Rubios’ finances
was headlined “Marco Rubio’s Career
Bedeviled by Financial Struggles,”
although the report doesn’t mention
any bankruptcies, defaults or
liens. It says that Marco be-
Rich
Lowry
(c) 2015, King Features Syndicate
gan his public career “in a deep financial hole of his own making,” by which
it means he had a student-loan debt of
about $150,000.
ANOTHER CENTRAL element
of the story is Rubio’s alleged “luxury
speedboat,” an $80,000 purchase that’s
supposed to illustrate his extravagance,
even though it amounted to 10 percent
of an $800,000 advance for his memoir.
When a photo of the actual boat
emerged, an unassuming fishing vessel,
it came as a shock to landlubbers expecting to see something like the swank
speedboat Notorious B.I.G used in the
video “Hypnotize” to outrun pursuing
helicopters.
A video review of the EdgeWater 245CC Deep-V Center Console in
question by the former editor of Boating magazine notes some of the luxurious qualities and features: It is “safe,
durable and light;” it has “comfortable
seating;” and it has “storage behind the
seats.”
Another extravagance, the story suggests, is the Rubios’ 2005 purchase of
a home twice the size of their previous
one. The Times fails to note that the Rubio family was growing at the time —
they have four kids — but does stipulate that the house is more expensive
and newer than other homes in West
Miami, featuring an in-ground pool and
big windows.
What of this manse? Well, it’s one
thing to have one of the nicest homes
in, say, Coral Gables; it’s another to
have one of the priciest in West Miami,
a largely Latino working-class community.
All that said, Rubio clearly got overextended 10 years ago when he owned
three houses, including one he recently
sold at an $18,000 loss. And he will always be on the defensive about how his
personal and party expenses got mingled in Florida, but this appears to have
been sloppiness, not corruption.
STUDENT-LOAN DEBT, a house
underwater, a splurge on a boat — none
of this will be unfamiliar to most Americans. If the choice is between Mitt Romney, who made a fortune in a business
that is difficult to understand and easy to
malign, and Marco Rubio, whose financial lapses are fairly ordinary, it’s not
even a close call.
of enjoying emotionless sex with many
partners as are men.
That the great majority of women
yearn to bond with a man — more than
they yearn for professional success — is
another fact of life that the left wishes
not to acknowledge. Thus, feminism
posited the silly false motto, “A woman
without a man is like a fish without a
bicycle” — because the reality is that
most women without a man feel a deep
hole in their soul. And that is too painful
to acknowledge. (This hole also exists
in men, but most men have no trouble
acknowledging it.)
The entire concept of “political correctness” emanates from the left’s incapacity to acknowledge painful truths.
The very definition of “politically incorrect” is an idea or truth that people on
the left find too painful to acknowledge
and therefore do not want expressed.
Why are so many young black males
in prison? The reason is politically incorrect, meaning too painful for the left
to acknowledge: Black males commit a
highly disproportionate amount of violent crime.
Why are there speech codes on virtually all college campuses? Because leftists — who control most campuses —
do not wish to hear discomforting facts
or opinions with which they differ. That
causes them pain.
That is the left’s own language. Leftists constantly speak about people being
made “uncomfortable” and about feeling “offended” (conservatives almost
never react to an idea with which they
differ by saying, “I’m offended”). If a
man has a “cheesecake” calendar hanging in his car repair shop, theleft regards
him as having created a “hostile work
environment” — meaning some women
might find it painful to see a woman presented as a sexual object.
Avoiding pain at almost all costs is
at the heart of left-wing ideas and policies. That’s why kids can no longer run
around during recess at so many American schools. They may get hurt. That’s
why child protective services take children away from parents who allow their
children to walk home alone or even
play alone in the family backyard for 90
minutes without a parent at home.
Or take the left-wing bumper sticker idea: “War Is Not the Answer.” Of
course, war is often the answer to great
evil. Nazi death camps were liberated
by soldiers fighting a war, not peace activists. But having to acknowledge the
moral necessity of war is too painful a
truth for many on theleft.
ONE MIGHT say leftism appeals to
those who wish to remain innocent children. Growing up and facing the fact
that life is messy, difficult and painful
is increasingly a conservative point of
view.
28
IRAN: June 12, 2015
Time to recognize the Iranian resistance
W
ith the June 30 deadline for plete strategy” to deal with the growing
a deal with Iran on halt- threat of the Islamic State in Iraq or
ing its nuclear weapons elsewhere in the region. With the Islamprogram fast approaching, the Obama ic State in
control of Ramadi and
administration is playing its usual bait- m u c h
of Anbar province
and-switch game.
in Iraq and atWhen talks first
tacks this week on
began, the ada city less than 40
ministration said
miles southwest
its goal was to
of Baghdad, the
dismantle Iran’s
administration is
nuclear infrastructure. Now the admin- desperate for help.
istration seems willing to accept any
deal the Iranians are willing to agree to
BUT IRAN IS not the answer. Inthat might slow Iran’s race, even mar- deed, it is part of a much bigger probginally, to build a bomb. In return, U.N. lem. For more than 35 years, Iran has
economic sanctions that have crippled been the chief state-sponsored terrorist
the Iranian economy would be lifted. nation in the world, responsible for the
But those sanctions are the one point deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of
of leverage we have against one of the Americans and other Westerners. While
most brutal regimes in the world and the U.S. has dithered in talks with Iran
one that poses a direct threat to neigh- on containing its nuclear threat, Iran has
boring countries, as well as to the U.S. taken a firm foothold in Iraq, continues one group that gets the cold shoulder
and our allies.
to prop up the Assad regime in Syria from this administration is the orgaand has engineered a coup in Yemen — nized Iranian opposition. Tehran faces
AGAINST THIS backdrop, a huge a country that President Obama pointed growing internal opposition, which it
gathering of Iranian expatriates from to less than a year ago as a success in has answered by engaging in more rearound the world will take place June 13 our counterterrorism strategy of “taking pression of its own people. Since Hasan
in Villepinte, France. Organized by the out terrorists who threaten us while sup- Rouhani became president in 2013, Iran
has executed more than 1,700 people,
National Council of Resistance of Iran, porting partners on the front lines.”
the gathering will draw tens of thouBut when it comes to supporting a higher total than at a similar point in
sands of participants who oppose the re- our “partners on the front lines,” the former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahgime in Tehran, including thousands of
American citizens. As I have at similar
STUDENT LOAN DEBT: June 16, 2015
gatherings in the past, I will be there to
lend my support to the efforts of those
who want to give voice to the Iranian
people and the organized resistance to
the Iranian regime, along with some 600
political dignitaries, including former
“You’d have to be made of stone Corinthian debt. Federal law affords
Democratic and Republican administra- not to feel for these students,” Educa- students a shot at debt relief if their
tion officials and 120 parliamentarians tion Secretary Arne Duncan said as he school shutters. Last week, the Obama
from more than 60 countries.
announced an Obama administration administration expanded forgiveness
In an interview this week, Maryam decision to forgive as many as 350,000 eligibility to former Corinthian students
Rajavi, president-elect of the NCRI, loans taken out by students of the now- who took certain programs from 2010
told me, “We have to tell the U.S. gov- defunct Corinthian Colleges. “Some of to 2014 and can show that their former
ernment that if you do not want to see these schools have brought the ethics of schools defrauded them under state law.
the clerical regime equipped with a nu- payday lending into higher education.” There is a fast track for those who atclear bomb, stop appeasing it.”
I do feel for any adults who took out tended a Heald College in California.
Rajavi warned: “Today the clerical loans to pay for college courses that
regime, through its growing expansion they expected to help land them jobs —
in the region, has entered a lethal crisis. but didn’t. If the government forgives
In Syria, the Assad dictatorship is on its their debts, then they still never will get
last leg. In Iraq, the clerical regime lost back their time or restore their hopes.
its hand-picked government, headed by
Nouri al-Maliki. This has marked the
BUT ALSO, I feel for taxpayers,
start of the demise of the clerical regime for whom the Corinthian forgiveness
Heald graduates who have outstandnot only in Iraq but also throughout tab could reach as high as $3.5 billion. ing loans aren’t people who went to Cal
the region, because if the mullahs lose David A. Bergeron of the Center for State and weren’t “super-thrilled about
Baghdad, their rule in Tehran will be American Progress told the New York their education. These are people who
jeopardized.”
Times he expects the tab to be less than were lied to,” said Ben Miller, also of
Ironically, it is precisely because $1 billion, but I wonder whether it could the Center for American Progress. Forof Iran’s involvement in Iraq that the grow, given the administration’s deci- giving these loans is the government’s
Obama administration seems so willing sion to expand the new debt forgiveness responsibility as an act of “cleanup
to accept a nuclear deal on Iran’s terms. terms to debtors from other schools. for 15 years of inattention” that shovThe administration’s reluctance to com- Question: If Washington can forgive eled $3.5 billion into Corinthian’s maw.
mit U.S. troops to fighting the Islamic loans for bad schools, why leave out And: “Students should have been proState group in Iraq has de facto made students who went to good schools?
tected and were not.”
Iran our proxy there.
Supporters note that the federal stuPresident Barack Obama admitted dent loan program does turn a profit —
BUT TAXPAYERS deserve protecthis week that “we don’t yet have a com- enough to absorb the cost of forgiving tion, too. As Sen. Lamar Alexander,
Linda
Chavez
madinejad’s tenure. These executions
signal that the Iranian regime is growing
weaker, not stronger.
NOW IS THE time for the U.S. to
abandon its policy of appeasement and
engage with the democratic resistance
movement. The only hope for a peaceful, nuclear-free Iran is for there to be a
free Iran.
Student debt: To forgive and forget
Debra J.
Saunders
R-Tenn., told the New York Times, “if
your car is a lemon, you don’t sue the
bank that made the auto loan; you sue
the car company.” (Here, Miller would
point out that there is no money left to
squeeze from Corinthian Colleges Inc.)
Richard Vedder of Ohio University’s Center for College Affordability
believes federal loans have created an
incentive for students to borrow more
money than is prudent — a bad incentive that is compounded when “the consequences of making a mistake are less
than they otherwise would be.” Federal
aid also entices students into college
when it may not be their best course.
Ask any underemployed college graduate.
Vedder sees this loan forgiveness as
“the first step toward moving toward
free college for all.” It follows other administration actions to cap student-loan
payments as a percentage of income and
forgive unpaid balances after 20 years
or less. Tell students they may not have
to pay back the full freight and they may
feel free to borrow more. All hail “affordable” higher education.
OUTSTANDING STUDENT debt
stands at $1.2 trillion — so spare me the
lecture on the ethics of payday lending.
29
June 24, 2015
MARBURY V. MADISON: June 14, 2015
Our long path to limited government
A
mericans should light 800 posed “countermajoritarian dilemma”
candles for the birthday of the when courts invalidate laws passed by
document that began paving elected representatives: Does the demothe meandering path to limited govern- cratic ethic require vast judicial deferment. Magna Carta laid down the law ence to legislative acts?
The first memorial at Runnymede
about “fish weirs” on English rivers,
in 1957 by, appropri“assizes of darrein presentment,” people was built
ately, the American
being “distrained
Bar Association. It
to make bridges,”
is what America did
and other “liberwith what Magna
ties ... to hold in
Carta started that
our realm of Eng(c) 2015, Washington Post Writers Group
substantially adland in perpetuvanced the cause
ity.” But what King
John accepted at Runnymede meadow of limited government.
The rule of law — as opposed to rule
on June 15, 1215, matters to Americans
because of something that happened 588 by the untrammeled will of the strong —
years later in the living room of Stelle’s requires effective checks on the strong.
Hotel in Washington, where the Library In a democracy, the strongest force is the
majority, whose power will be unlimited
of Congress now sits.
unless an independent judiciary enforces
ALTHOUGH THE “great charter” written restraints, such as those stipulatpurported to establish certain rights in ed in the Constitution. It is “the supreme
“perpetuity,” almost everything in it has law” because it is superior to what mabeen repealed or otherwise superseded. jorities produce in statutes.
Magna Carta acknowledged no new
Magna Carta led to parliamentary supremacy (over the sovereign — the king individual rights. Instead, it insisted,
or queen) but not to effective limits on mistakenly, that it could guarantee that
government. The importance of the doc- certain existing rights would survive “in
ument was its assertion that the sover- perpetuity.” British rights exist, however,
at the sufferance of Parliament. In Amereign’s will could be constrained.
In America, where “we the people” ica, rights are protected by the governare sovereign and majority rule is cel- ment’s constitutional architecture — the
ebrated, constraining the sovereign is separation of powers and by the judicial
frequently, but incorrectly, considered power to stymie legislative and executive
morally ambiguous, even disreputable. power.
Early 1801, as John Adams’ presidenHence the heated debate among conservatives about the role of courts in a de- cy was ending, a lame-duck Congress
mocracy. The argument is about the sup- controlled by his Federalists created
George
Will
many judicial positions to be filled by him
before Thomas Jefferson took office. In
the rush, the “midnight commission” for
William Marbury did not get delivered
before Jefferson’s inauguration. The new
president refused to have it delivered, so
Marbury sued, asking the Supreme Court
to compel Jefferson’s secretary of state,
James Madison, to deliver it.
CHIEF JUSTICE John Marshall,
writing for the court, held that the law
authorizing the court to compel government officials to make such deliveries
exceeded Congress’ enumerated powers and hence was unconstitutional. Jefferson, who detested his distant cousin
Marshall, was surely less pleased by
the result than he was dismayed by the
much more important means by which
Marshall produced it. Marshall had accomplished the new government’s first
exercise of judicial review — the power
to declare a congressional act null and
void.
Although the Constitution does not
mention judicial review, the Framers
explicitly anticipated the exercise of this
power. Some progressives and populist
conservatives dispute the legitimacy of
judicial review. They say fidelity to the
Framers requires vast deference to elected legislators because Marshall invented
judicial review ex nihilo. Randy Barnett
of Georgetown University’s law school
supplies refuting evidence:
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Madison acknowledged that states
would “accomplish their injurious objects” but they could be “set aside by
the national tribunals.” A law violating
any constitution “would be considered
by the judges as null and void.” In Virginia’s ratification convention, Marshall
said that if the government “were to
make a law not warranted by any of the
[congressional] powers enumerated, it
would be considered by the judges as an
infringement of the Constitution which
they are to guard. ... They would declare
it void.”
With the composition of the Supreme
Court likely to change substantially during the next president’s tenure, conservatives must decide: Is majority rule or
liberty — these are not synonyms, and
the former can menace the latter —
America’s fundamental purpose?
BECAUSE ONE ailing justice was
confined to Stelle’s Hotel, it was there
that Marshall read aloud Marbury v.
Madison. This made Feb. 24, 1803, an
even more important date in the history
of limited government, and hence of liberty, than June 15, 1215.
30
NSA: June 11, 2015
Lies the U.S. government is telling you
L
grant those search warrants permitting need” standard. This is, of course, no
the downloading. And the NSA will con- standard at all, as the NSA has claimed
tinue to take both metadata and content. under the Patriot Act — and the FISA
The Supreme Court has ruled consis- court bought the argument — that it
tently that the government must obtain a needs all telephone calls, all emails and
search warrant in order to intercept any all text messages of all people in Amerinonpublic communication. The Con- ca. Today it may legally obtain them by
the same claim under
stitution requires probable cause as a making
the USA Freedom
precondition for
Act.
a judge to issue a
When politicians
search warrant for
tell you that the
any purpose, and
NSA needs a court
the warrant must
order in order to
UNDER THE Patriot Act, the NSA “particularly (delisten to your phone
had access to and possessed digital ver- scribe) the place to
calls
or
read
your
emails,
they are talking
be
searched,
and
the
persons
or
things
to
sions of the content of all telephone conversations, emails and text messages sent be seized.” Because this is expressly set about a FISA court order that is based on
between and among all people in Amer- forth in the Constitution itself, Congress government need — not a constitutional
ica since 2009. Under the USA Freedom and the president are bound by it. They court order, which can only be based on
Act, it has the same. The USA Freedom cannot change it. They cannot avoid or probable cause. This is an insidious and
unconstitutional bait and switch.
Act changes slightly the mechanisms for evade it.
All this may start with the NSA, but
acquiring this bulk data, but it does not
PROBABLE CAUSE is evidence it does not end there. Last week, we
change the amount or nature of the data
about a person or place sufficient to per- learned that the FBI is operating lowthe NSA acquires.
Under the Patriot Act, the NSA in- mit a judge to conclude that evidence of flying planes over 100 American cities
stalled its computers in every main a crime will probably be found. Both the to monitor folks on the streets and inswitching station of every telecom car- Patriot Act and the USA Freedom Act tercept their cellphone use — without
rier and Internet service provider in the disregard the “probable cause” standard any search warrants. Earlier this week,
U.S. It did this by getting Congress to and substitute instead a “government we learned that the Drug Enforcement
immunize the carriers and providers
from liability for permitting the feds to
TURKEY: June 9, 2015
snoop on their customers and by getting
the Department of Justice to prosecute
the only CEO of a carrier who had the
courage to send the feds packing.
In order to operate its computers at
these facilities, the NSA placed its own
“My people are going to learn the position in parliament or join a coalition
computer analysts physically at those principles of democracy, the dictates of government with the would-be dictacomputers 24/7. It then went to the U.S. truth and the teachings of science. Su- tor’s still dominant party, but the immeForeign Intelligence Surveillance Court perstition must go. Let them worship diate threat of a dictatorship has been
and asked for search warrants directing as they will, every man can follow his averted.
the telecoms and Internet service provid- own conscience provided it does not inFor some 13 years, since his first vicers to make available to it all the iden- terfere with sane reason or bid him act tory in the country’s parliamentary electifying metadata — the times, locations, against the liberty of his fellow men.”
tions, Turkey’s increasingly autocratic
durations, email addresses used and teleruler has pulled every underhanded trick
— Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
phone numbers used — for all callers and
he could to subvert his country’s once
email users in a given ZIP code or area
What great news out of Istanbul over strong alliance with the United States,
code or on a customer list.
the weekend — democracy still lives our NATO allies and the West
The first document revealed by Ed- in old Turkey, which is new again af- in general. And to undermine
ward Snowden two years ago was a ter Sunday’s election returns. Not only
FISA court search warrant directed to does democracy still live in those anVerizon ordering it to make available to cient precincts, but it has taken on new
NSA agents the metadata of all its cus- life, strength, confidence, hope and detomers — more than 113 million at the termination after more than a decade of
time. Once the court granted that search gathering darkness under the aegis of
warrant and others like it, the NSA com- Recep Tayyip Erdogan, old-style Pasha the civil rights of its people by oppressputers simply downloaded all that meta- and new-style totalitarian.
ing any group that stood in the way of
data and the digital recordings of content.
Let the bells ring out from every his ambitions, and now ... this. The sun
Because the FISA court renewed every tower, or rather the word be proclaimed of freedom shines bright again.
order it issued, this arrangement became from every minaret: This would-be dicpermanent.
LET US NOT just bemoan the detator’s best-laid plans to remake Turkey
Under the USA Freedom Act, the NSA in his own image have come to naught cay of liberty in that part of the world
computers remain at the carriers’ and ser- — less than naught. For all the oppo- as America retreats and resets under this
vice providers’ switching offices, but the sition parties, or what was left of them indecisive administration, but rejoice
NSA computer analysts return to theirs; after his machinations, unexpectedly that an increasingly captive people has
and from there they operate remotely the united and rose up to defy the regime arisen to throw off the chains that a tysame computers they were operating di- and set their country free again. And rant was busy forging for it. Sic semrectly in the Patriot Act days. The NSA proclaim liberty throughout the land.
per tyrannis. Freedom-loving minorities
will continue to ask the FISA court for
Once again, Turkey has a real oppo- like the Kurds have won a great victory.
search warrants permitting the down- sition again — unintimidated and effec- Along with all those citizens who beload of metadata, and that court will still tive. They will now have to jockey for lieve in not only upholding their own
ast week, Republicans and
Democrats in Congress joined
President Barack Obama in
congratulating themselves for taming the
National Security Agency’s voracious
appetite for spying. By permitting one
section of the Patriot Act to expire and by
replacing it with the USA Freedom Act,
the federal government is taking credit
for taming beasts of its own creation.
In reality, nothing substantial has
changed.
Andrew
Napolitano
Administration has intercepted the telephone calls of more than 11,000 people
in three years — without any search warrants. We already know that local police
have been using government surplus cell
towers to intercept the cellphone signals
of innocent automobile drivers for about
a year — without search warrants.
How dangerous this is. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It
applies in good times and in bad, in war
and in peace. It regulates the governed
and the governors. Yet if the government
that it regulates can change it by ordinary
legislation, then it is not a constitution
but a charade.
Suppose the Congress wants to redefine the freedom of speech or the free
exercise of religion or the right to keep
and bear arms, just as it did the standards
for issuing search warrants. What is the
value of a constitutional guarantee if the
people into whose hands we repose the
Constitution for safe keeping can change
it as they see fit and negate the guarantee?
WHAT DO you call a negated constitutional guarantee? Government need.
Turkey turns to the West
Paul
Greenberg
rights but the rights of others.
Let’s put it this way: Kemal Ataturk,
founder of modern, secular, forwardlooking and groundbreaking Turkey,
is no longer just a dusty portrait on the
wall of every government office. He’s a
living presence again, a guiding spirit.
Hope doesn’t just spring eternal; sometimes it is fulfilled — as in Turkey’s
elections last Sunday.
Let it be noted that the Turks did all
this themselves, redeeming their past
and enhancing their future, not with bullets but ballots. And the West, with all
its values and hopes, has been vindicated peacefully by voters who had finally
had it with this rising tyrant who is no
longer rising but falling.
To quote a 50-year-old doctor in Istanbul who had consistently supported
Erdogan Pasha till now, but has finally
seen the light of the Western sun: “My
expectation now is to have a more livable country, under more humane conditions, where people understand and
tolerate each other.”
ATATURK LIVES again in the
country he ushered into modernity. May
this be only the beginning of another
new age for his country and its brave
people. Pass the stuffed eggplant, and
I’ll take a glass of Okuzgozu with it.
This latest news is enough to revive the
appetite, especially for freedom.
31
June 24, 2015
TURKEY: June 12, 2015
Voters try to strengthen electoral democracy
A
nother election, another sur- today, of an Islamic regime with which
prise. Actually, two elections, the West could live comfortably.
But since 2007, Erdogan has pursued
in two countries last weekend, with surprisingly pleasant surpris- an ominous course. His regime prosees. And in two very large countries: Tur- cuted political enemies, jailed journalkey (population 82 million) and Mexico ists (at one point more were imprisoned
any other country)
(119 million), both very important to than in
and denounced Jews
the United States.
and Israel. Turkey,
In the runup to
a NATO member
the Turkish elecwith one of the
tion, speculation
alliance’s
largin English-speak(c) 2015, Creators Syndicate
est militaries, ining publications
centered on whether President Recep creasingly pursued Middle East policies
Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party would get out of line with the United States.
Moving from the office of prime
a large enough majority in the parliament to amend the constitution without minister to the presidency in 2011, Erdogan made no secret that he wanted
a popular referendum.
to expand the powers of that office in
THE AKP, usually described as a way that reminded many of Russia’s
mildly Islamist, has been in power since Vladimir Putin.
AKP won a parliamentary majority
2002. In some respects it has compiled
a record that compares favorably with in 2002 with 34 percent of the popular
those of the secularist party coalitions vote, because only two other parties
that came before. The AKP liberalized met the 10 percent threshold for legisthe economy, to the point that its vig- lative seats. In 2007, its popular vote
orous economic growth made Turkey’s share was 47 percent and its majority
bid for membership in the European increased. But this year that fell to 41
Union seem plausible. Erdogan also percent, and a third opposition party, the
pursued rapprochement with the na- Kurdish-based HDP, qualified for seats
with 13 percent.
tion’s Kurdish minority.
For years, many Westerners were
TURKEY MAY be in for some
disappointed that Turkey’s brand of
secularism, instituted by the republic’s messy politics. If the AKP minority
founder Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s can’t form a government, there could be
and 1930s, did not inspire others in the another election soon. The move to auMuslim world. Erdogan for a moment thoritarian government seems to be styseemed to provide another alternative, mied, but the risk of government with
potentially more attractive to Muslims no authority remains.
Michael
Barone
Nevertheless, it’s clear that some substantial number of Turkish voters were
moved to oppose what seemed to be Erdogan’s increasingly dictatorial tendencies. That’s a hopeful sign when many
believe electoral democracy is in worldwide decline.
Something roughly similar seemed
to happen the same Sunday in Mexico’s
congressional and state elections. For 70
years, from 1929 to the 1990s, Mexico
had one-party government. PRI, the Party of the Institutional Revolution, won
all presidential and almost all local elections.
That changed when the center-right
PAN party started winning governorships in the 1990s and won the presidency in 2000 and 2006. And the current
PRI president, Enrique Pena Nieto, has
proven to be an effective reformer in
many ways.
But corruption, police killings and
narcotrafficking continues, and Mexican voters have responded with votes
for various alternatives. An independent
candidate was overwhelmingly elected
governor of Nuevo Leon, site of Mexico’s third largest city, Monterrey. In
Guadalajara, an independent leftist was
elected mayor. A soccer star was elected
mayor of Cuernavaca as a minor party
candidate.
In Mexico City, former mayor Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador’s new Morena
Party won council seats — a result that
owes something to his leftist politics but
also to his competence as mayor.
Overall, there was a major swing
away from the three major parties —
PRI, PAN and the leftist PRD. In 2009,
the last off-year elections, those parties won a combined 77 percent of total
votes for the lower house of Congress.
This year they were down to 61 percent.
As in Turkey, the resulting politics
could be messy. There is no runoff in the
elections to Mexico’s powerful presidency, so the proliferation of parties increases the possibility of a 2018 victory
for a candidate profoundly unacceptable
to most voters. That’s what resulted in
the suspension of electoral democracy
for 15 years in Chile in the 1970s and
1980s.
SO THERE ARE risks as well as rewards in these results. But it’s heartening
that at a time when many analysts see
authoritarianism rising and democracy
ebbing, voters in Turkey and Mexico are
resisting movement in that direction.
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Read David Limbaugh, Laura Hollis & Thomas Sowell on Pages 16-17
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Sweeping Transfer of U.S. Sovereignty
Obamatrade
Wednesday, June 24, 2015 • Volume 30, Number 25 • Hampton, Iowa

No wonder Obama won`t let us read TPP

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