Great Vocal Majority Podcast

This is the intro to War Room: Pandemic on Real America's Voice. I want to make a couple of points about this introduction. First, whether you believe the Presidential election was fairly conducted or whether you believe it was stolen, it is simply un-American to not have the conversation allowing both sides of the argument to air their points of view. It seems to me that working to silence dissenting opinions from the official results, constitutes a fascistic oppression of freedom of political speech.  In the interest of free expression, it is hardly relevant which side is speaking the truth because it is only through freedom of expression can we settle the issue.  Suppressing that expression does not settle the issue and only stokes more resentment. As for the media's contention that President Trump incited insurrection, there is simply no evidence of this.  In fact, the evidence points 180 degrees the other way, toward peaceful demonstrations. The media has been totally and utterly irresponsible in the way they have reported during the Trump Presidency right throughout his entire term in office.  They have stoked anger.  They have dismissed that half of the country supporting the President.  They have dismissed their concerns routinely.  And now, they seem to think after four years of self-discrediting coverage, that the public will abandon their support of the only person in our national political experience who listened to and acted on their concerns?  I think not.

The last several years has seen a rise in politically motivated violence.  Who is stoking it?

PRESIDENTS OBAMA AND TRUMP: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES Let's start with Barack Obama. To begin with, he's not really an American. I don't mean to say he was born in Kenya. I don't believe that. I am referring to his life experiences. They are uniquely NON AMERICAN. He's got almost nothing in common with Americans of any stripe. He's biracial, identifies as black, but his life growing up has almost nothing in common with blacks Americans outside of his skin tone. Obama grew up as a "red diaper baby." That is, his parents were either communists or radical socialists. He lived in Hawaii and Indonesia for much of his formative years and when he lived in the continental United States, from age 11 to 18, he was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis. Davis was a man so dangerous, the FBI had him on a roundup list of Soviet sympathizing communist subversives. By contrast, Donald Trump grew up in an upper middle class Queens home of a New York real estate developer. From all accounts, Trump had a more or less typical childhood: brash, a bit rebellious, enough for his parents to place him in a military academy. Unlike Obama, Trump was not surrounded by anti-American radicals into adulthood. Ever since he was a public figure, Trump has always been an outspoken critic of the failures of government to live up to it most basic obligations. Prior to becoming President, Obama was also critical of government, but for other reasons. Obama believed government failed to assume enough obligations and thus spoke out strongly for a more activist government. In other words, Trump believed the government wasn't adequately fulfilling its obligations it has already assumed, whereas Obama wanted government to assume new obligations it has not yet taken. When assessing their capacity for sympathy or empathy, Obama was often far more inclined to display it for people who aren't Americans. He regularly blamed past and current policies of the United States for many of the world's problems. On those occasions when he demonstrated empathy for Americans, it often took on a divisive tone, as in "if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon", or "if you have a business, you didn't build that." Trump was not apologetic to foreign audiences for past or current policies. Rather, if he was apologetic at all, it was to Americans for the failure of political leadership that created those policies. Policies, which often, as in the case of trade agreements, took its toll on working and middle class employment and incomes. When speaking to foreign audiences, rather than apologize for American policy, Trump was bold. He acted as an advocate for America, reminding our allies in no uncertain terms what America was doing for them and whether those allies were living up to their obligations to us. This was such a radical departure from Obama and previous Presidents, it had to be jarring to other national leaders. The media elites are endlessly fascinated by both men in opposite ways. Obama's treatment was so mild, that the one news outlet which covered his Presidency with a note of skepticism, Fox News, was painted by the Obama Administration as "agenda driven" and "anti-Obama." But it's hard to argue that the media didn't have a virtual love affair with Obama and his Presidency. Both Obama's appeared regularly on entertainment programs and had one softball interview after another. Barack Obama was extremely sensitive to media criticism on those rare occasions he got it. Despite boasting of having the most "open and transparent administration in history", Obama hid more from the media than any President since the Founding. More FOIA requests were denied or delayed under Obama. More whistle blowers, leakers and journalists were surveiled or jailed under Obama. Maybe Obama was treated by the media with great deference, but he didn't return the favor. Still, in aggregate, the media adored him. The contrast with the media treatment of Donald Trump is painful. It is 180 degrees opposite of Obama's. Certainly Trump's behavior in office can fairly account for some of the difference. Trump is given to exaggeration, embellishment, misstatements and untruthful comments in the same way as is just about every other politician. For his entire public life, however, Trump has been known to speak in superlatives much in the manner of a pitch man. This is where the news media began to show its open disdain for Trump. When Trump was elected, the economy responded positively almost immediately. Obama and Clinton supporting economists such as Paul Krugman and Steven Rattner had predicted the economy would "crash and NEVER recover." The news media immediately leaped to credit Obama for the economic turnaround, despite failing to point out any policy accounting for it. What should have been obvious to any impartial observer was the country had just elected the most vociferously pro-business President in its history. Obama and his presumed successor, Clinton could never be characterized as pro-business. That anticipated change in direction is what accounts for the immediate turnaround in both markets and economic indicators. The problem was, the news media really took it on the chin with the Trump victory and were staggered by it. They lost face and continue to lose it because the videos of them dismissing Donald Trump as a potential President will live on forever. Since his election, the same media outlets who thought Trump's candidacy was a joke, are now treating his presidency as if it were a crime. Their treatment of Trump is driven as much by an attempt to recover a loss of reputation, as much as it is partisan politics. For, if the situation were reversed and Trump were the heavy favorite and Hillary Clinton won in a surprise, it's hard to imagine the media reacting to the win quite the way they have with Trump. Some in the Washington, D.C. media elites were perpetually perplexed and bewildered by Obama's behavior in office, judging him by a standard of governing set by his predecessors, which Obama clearly rejected. Obama sensed that a vast part of the media was willing to give him broad latitude. This enabled him to exceed his constitutional guardrails without consequence in the Congress and outside of Fox News, scarcely a whisper of protest. Obama overrode his authority with War Powers, bombing more countries than any President since the second world war. He rewrote black letter law on no less than 36 occasions with Obamacare. He exceeded his authority with the DACA EO and on many other occasions. All while doing this, especially during his first term, the media kept waiting for Obama to "track to the middle." He never did because he wasn't a centrist any more than Joe Stalin was a centrist compared to Leon Trotsky. Obama came to office promising change and he did it by growing government, making it more activist, more centralized, far more powerful over the lives of average Americans than ever before. Donald Trump also confounds the Washington elites, but in a different way. Obama was there to drive change by empowering the central planners in Washington. Trump was elected to do precisely the opposite: disrupt their power. From the very start, Trump sought to pull back the reins on the centralized Washington power structure. He sought to accomplish this by eliminating regulations. Regulations are how the permanent government, ie., the federal bureaucracies exert their control over our way of life. This is not to say that all regulations are bad or that we should live in a regulation free environment. To Trump's way of thinking, regulations are a last resort, not the first option. Obama and the central planners suffer from a fatal conceit: that regulations are ALWAYS needed and it's always better to err on the side of having more than less. The Obama approach to regulatory authority has led to bureaucratic abuses resulting in nearly two dozen unanimous Supreme Court decisions against the Obama Administration, striking down such abuses. Barack Obama and Donald Trump may be diametrical opposites on the political spectrum. Their treatment by the media may be as different as black from white. But they are similar in ways, as well. Both are change agents, but for very different visions of America. The Obama vision for America, is one of a very left socialist agenda. His idea of America would demand less individual liberty. Obama's view is that of radical egalitarianism where outcomes are determined by group identity. As a leftist, Obama sees Americans as a collection of tribes: in race: the white tribe, the black tribe, the asian tribe, the latino tribe, the native american tribe and on and on. This tribal view exists in all areas of life: economics, religion, and sexual orientation. Obama sees history as having created a preexisting condition advantaging a minority over a majority, necessitating government prescriptions to correct. The fact these prescriptions have been tried elsewhere and have failed miserably doesn't dissuade the committed leftist at all. That's Obama. The Trump vision for America is quite different. Trump rejects the division of Americans along tribal lines. He believes that most of the problems in the country today have been caused by policies that don't accomplish what they were ostensibly set out to do. In other words, government has made itself the problem. In Trump's view, the best thing government can do is to first get out of the way of the People. This is manifested through reducing taxes and regulations, renegotiating trade agreements, holding allies and foes accountable and securing the border. Trump seems to believe in America to a greater degree than Obama, who has been accused of believing in a managed decline of the United States. Trump believes if America leveraged all of our natural resources in the right way, the United States would remain the world's leading economy, technological and military power well into the forseeable future and beyond. There does seem to be much evidence proving him to be correct. What is the moral of the story here? Well, it's simple. Donald Trump REALLY DOES believe in America. He sees this country as the greatest and most unique country in all of human history. He is an American exceptionalist. Barack Obama, on the other hand, believes more in his ideology than he does in America. He doesn't hate America, but he doesn't love it either. He sees us as having a largely unearned reputation, with power, wealth and influence greater than we ought to have. Obama is a GLOBALIST. So, that is really what all this Trump bashing is all about. Much of the DC establishment is about the international Left pushing for a GLOBALIST agenda, that will look a great deal like the USSR or Communist China to the average person, should it ever happen.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."  Napoleon, the Pig, Animal Farm, by George Orwell Freedom of the press is precious.  It is axiomatic.  It's platitudinous.  We all say we want a free press.  But we must first define what that means. Does a reporter have a 1st Amendment right to ask a politician a question?  If the 1st Amendment carries any meaning at all, it means ANY American may ask questions and demand answers from government officials.  The public has every right to know the answers to questions asked and it is only under very special circumstances that answers to questions may be withheld.  Whether or not a government official provides a satisfactory answer to the question is another matter entirely. The duty of a free and independent press is to ask those questions and report on the answers.  Editors, commentators, and pundits can ruminate the adequacy or inadequacy of the answers, perhaps leading to more probing questions. Are there any obligations requires in order for the 1st Amendment to be honored?  The Constitution doesn't explicitly say, but generally accepted public manners and decorum are widely recognized and understood, even if not explicitly stated. When CNN's Jim Acosta participates in press briefings, he has the right to ask any question he'd like to ask.  He's under no requirement to ask his questions in any particular way.  He is simply free to ask questions.  That is his right. It is the President's right to answer the question however he chooses to answer it.  That's his right. In the case of Jim Acosta, there have been countless instances where he has monopolized the microphone and engaged in arguments, debates and lectures with Trump Administration officials as well as the President himself. The 1st Amendment does not guarantee the right of the free press to disrupt news media briefings.  On numerous occasions, Acosta begins by asking a question and then arguing with the answer.  The briefing room in not a place where arguments are supposed to take place.  That's the function of editorial columns, opinion pages, or commentary programs. When any member of the media disrupts a press briefing, bringing attention to themselves, the public and the 1st Amendment are ill served.  These distractions mean other news agencies will not have the opportunity to ask their questions.  It sensationalizes and controversializes these briefings as footage depicting the "principled journalist holding the powerful accountable to the truth" makes its way into the news cycle.  The media itself should NEVER be the news.  When it becomes the news, as in the case of Jim Acosta, it is shameless, selfish, self-promotion. Does Acosta have a 1st Amendment right to be in the briefing room if he is going to behave in such a disruptive and self-promoting manner?  It would seem not.  He may have a 5th Amendment right to due process before he is booted, as a court appears to have decided, but a 1st Amendment right?  No. And how could it be otherwise?  If the Constitution guaranteed Acosta's right to be a member of the White House Press Corps, that would mean every American shares that same right.  If they don't share it in equal measure, then we truly have reached that moment in Orwell's Animal Farm where some are more equal than others. The Trump Administration suspended Acosta's access to the White House.  In response, CNN filed a lawsuit against the White House on 1st Amendment grounds.  The White House is arguing there is no 1st Amendment right to be in a White House briefing to ask questions.  They are arguing that the President has the right to block or admit any reporter or news agency he wishes.  This is probably true in a strict legal sense, but would be politically unwise to carry out in practice. Having said that, the White House has to make judgments every day with respect to access in the Briefing Room.  While Acosta has no 1st Amendment right to the press briefing personally, and the Constitution does not mandate that the President meet with the press regularly or even at all, there have to be terms and conditions for access to a briefing. There is nothing wrong, in fact it is altogether fitting for the White House to have ground rules for such access, which if they are violated, take reasonable steps to discipline the violators.  This is at the core of Acosta's suspension. When CNN filed for Acosta's reinstatement citing the 1st Amendment, the claim is frivolous, despite being supported by other news organizations, including Fox News. By joining in the lawsuit, Fox News made it very clear that they support disruptive behavior.  Bad idea.  The Fox News decision appears to be due to a group think mentality within the DC press corps.  Fox bowed to peer pressure, circling the wagons around Acosta in an expression of professional solidarity, wrapping themselves in the 1st Amendment of the Constitution, which doesn't even apply to this case. Fox News and the rest of the DC press should be ashamed of themselves.  The President doesn't have to hold daily press briefings.  But when he does hold them, he has a right to include anyone he wants.

PELOSI AND THE CBC   Different polls have shown an unmistakable trend.  Black voters are beginning to show signs of leaving the Democrat Party. During the 2016 campaign, the Quinnipiac Poll showed Trump with just 1% of black voters supporting him.  It was well within the margin of error, so according to Quinnipiac, Trump's support could actually have been zero. Since becoming President, however, Trump's approval among blacks has steadily increased across several different polling organizations.  Recently, the NAACP funded a poll and found 29% of blacks approving of Trump's job performance.  Other polls since then have shown Trump's approval among blacks at 36-38%.  It's been a very long time since a Republican had approval numbers like that among blacks. What could account for this turnaround?  Especially since the media and Democrats have spared Trump little and have accused him of being a racist over and over.  These are tangible reasons why Trump's approval is going up among black voters. THE DECLINE OF BLACK UNEMPLOYMENT When Barack Obama entered office in January 2009, black unemployment stood at 12.7%.  By the time he left office in January 2017, it had fallen to 7.8%.  A 63% decline over 8 years. By October 2018, Trump further reduced black unemployment to 6.2%, an historic low.  Under Obama, the black unemployment rate increased until it peaked in 2011 at 16.5%.  The decline did not get into single digits until 2015, falling to a 7 year low.  Over Trump's first 22 months in office, the black unemployment rate fell 20% from 7.8% to 6.2%. Trump managed to accelerate the reduction in the unemployment rate.  How was this possible?  There are several possible answers, but the most likely one is that Trump's election slowed the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. Illegal immigrants are generally low on skills and education.  When they enter the US looking for employment, they compete with Americans who are also low on skills and education.  The population of unemployed in the US is disproportionately low skilled and low education.  Furthermore, that population is also disproportionately black.  In other words, fewer illegal immigrants competing for jobs meant more opportunities for employment for the unemployed American citizens who were disproportionately black.  Among other factors, this could account for Trump's popularity increase in the black community. While Democrats strenuously deny Trump has any foothold in the black community, their actions reveal how they really think. The Democrats have been playing the race card and a racial agenda very hard under Trump.  It is possibly an indication that they suspect a deterioration in black support and are resorting to their old playbook: playing on fears of the re-emergence of openly hostile white racists.  Democrats do this while pretending two full generations of Americans never grew up in the post Civil Rights era.  They dismiss the impact of their own monumental achievements as having had a negligible impact on the disposition of white people all across America regarding race.  They pretend that left to their own devices, white people in America would reinstate the same racist preferences that were overturned more than half a century ago.  Preferences overturned by the grandparents and great grandparents of those Americans who grew up after the Civil Rights Act was passed into law and only know an America marked by integration and racial reconciliation.  Resorting to the race card in our current day is intended to terrorize black voters away from Republicans as if they are Klansmen without the hoods. When the Democrats play the race card as they are with Trump despite the fact that blacks are doing better under his policies, it is a hint that they believe those polls showing blacks warming up to his presidency. If the Democrat Party were to lose 20-30% of the black vote to Republicans, it would spell catastrophe on a national scale for them at the ballot box.  It would open up districts with heavy black populations all over the country to races that are competitive between Republicans and Democrats, where they aren't today. This is a doomsday scenario for Democrats and it can explain, at least in part, why they are so bullish about illegal immigration:  they realize it will become increasingly difficult to hold on to the black vote and want to import a new underclass that will vote for them. But improving job approval numbers for Trump among blacks doesn't mean it will translate into votes for Trump or other Republicans.  A transformation of the black vote from a solid Democrat block into something more diversified may be underway, but a lot more needs to happen in order for that transformation to be confirmed. It can all be summed up this way: "Something's happening here.  What it is, ain't exactly clear." Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

THE RUSSIAN COLLUSION MYTHOLOGY Believe it or not, there are still people who believe Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the election away from Hillary Clinton. It's astonishing given the growing list of experts and commentators all in agreement that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has both failed to make public any evidence pointing to it, but more importantly, does not seem to be closing in on any kind of a Trump-Russia connection the Democrats and the Left are hoping for. Still, it's not all that surprising when one considers how people get their news and information today. More often than not, people gravitate toward the news outlet that reflects their political sentiments. Conservatives prefer Fox News. Liberals prefer CNN and MSNBC. The programs on these networks is a mix of commentary and straight news, where the line is often blurred between the two. Social media and regular real life day-to-day interactions with people regarding political topics often reveals where they are getting their information. People tend to repeat what they heard if it resonates with them and that's usually the telltale sign of where people are getting their information. That is a fact that can be used as a weapon when media turns from impartiality to partisanship. When news media organizations lose their impartiality, they can weaponize their news coverage toward a specific purpose. Recent media bias studies at Harvard's Shorenstein School of Journalism has shown how organizations like CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post and The New York Times have overwhelmingly negative coverage of President Trump. They can accomplish 90% or more negative coverage several ways: 1. They can ignore positive news altogether. 2. They can cast positive news in a negative light. 3. They can focus on negative news to the exclusion of all other news. Of these three, the most insidius is ignoring positive news. What the news editors decide not to report is bias by omission. News channels are limited to approximately 40 minutes of programming per hour. Controversializing one story could easily take up an entire broadcast hour of news. If the goal is to run negative coverage of President Trump, the task is made easier by stirring controversy. This was made evident very early in President Trump's term in office when he bragged how his inaugural crowd was the "largest ever." It was obvious to everyone that it wasn't true, but the news media fixated on it, controversializing an irrelevancy, ignoring the fact that Trump is a notorious exaggerator. For weeks, left leaning news outlets spent airtime arguing with Administration officials over the President's characterization of the size of his inaugural crowd. An "issue" relevant only to Trump and his detractors. Now, with everyone gathering their news from partisan sources today, it's had a very damaging effect on how well informed the public is. To quote Mark Twain, "If you don't read the news you're uninformed. If you do read the news, you're misinformed." In a previous podcast, I critiqued the case against Trump made by Allen and Vandehae in Politico. Fifteen points made by Allen and Vandehae were refuted point by point. Chief among the flaws in their argument was that none of their 15 "facts" coalesced into a cogent explanation of the supposed collusion. If you're interested in seeing their alleged case of 15 disjointed "facts" check out Volume 58 of the Great Vocal Majority Podcast, "The Case against Donald Trump?" What makes the Russian collusion story so preposterous is how Special Counsel, Robert Mueller has been conducting his investigation for nearly two years and there has never been an allegation of criminal wrongdoing by the President. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any criminality at all relating to the campaign or Trump. In fact, Mueller was never authorized to investigate a crime that had occurred. He was authorized on suspicions alone, assigned with looking for a crime. At this point in the Watergate investigation, Nixon had already resigned and President Ford was in office for three months. But in Watergate, a campaign office was broken in. There was a crime. Investigators unraveled how that crime came about and the investigation led to President Nixon. Mueller's task is to find a crime. After two years, he's pressured and intimidated people by charging them with making false statements. Through it all, it doesn't seem Mueller is getting closer to President Trump. Remember, by this time in the Watergate investigation, Nixon was long gone. Still, once suspicions are aroused and while bitterness lingers from 2016, the American public is being manipulated and encouraged into entertaining these suspicions. Without any evidence for so long, lingering suspicions have no factual basis, but are entirely resulting from suspicions, intuition and guesswork. Those suspicions will rise or fall when Mueller issues his final report. But Mueller has had some pretty dramatic failures. Chief among them, the Anthrax attacks. Is it still possible that Trump colluded with the Russians? Yes, anything is possible, of course, but still, to this day, there is no evidence of anything relating to collusion. All that exists are disjointed exchanges with Russians and their close friends, which doesn't really prove anything. It only arouses more suspicion. All of this makes it extremely unlikely that Robert Mueller will conclude that Donald Trump engaged in a conspiracy with the Russians to overturn the 2016 election.

MEDIA MANIPULATION If you only watched MSNBC or CNN, you would come away believing the worst human being on the planet is Donald J Trump and anyone who voted for him is every bit as bad or worse. Keeping in mind, we are talking about half of the country, you'd have to think are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, bigots. Half of all Americans. In other words, when Hillary Clinton referred to "half of all Trump supporters in a basket of deplorables", if that resonated with you, you're not tethered to reality and here's why. The same country just elected and re-elected America's first non-white President. Millions of people who voted for Obama, also voted for Trump. When did they become racists? Were they racist when they voted for Obama twice? Did they become racist by voting for Trump? How does that math work? Is the country only post-racial only when it elects a non-white Democrat? Is America doomed to never be post-racial? When non-white Democrats lose elections, is the reason always racism by default? Half of America isn't racist. Nor are half of Trump's supporters racist. The LEFT, which tribalizes the country along lines of race, class and gender, is where this bigotry is primarily sourced. They are the ones balkanizing the country. Not conservatives. Not Republicans. Not independents. Trump is not a militant. Demanding stricter border enforcement is not a militant idea. Expecting the media to treat him better is something he has in common with ALL of his predecessors in office, including the most recent one who was beloved by nearly the entire media. Obama never received the kind of criticism Trump gets all the time. Even when Trump exercises his clearly defined Constitutional duties, Trump is criticized, whereas Obama violated those Constitutional guardrails regularly and the media either whitewashed it or ignored it entirely. Presidents should expect to be criticized. Nothing but criticism is nothing but advocacy. What happens to a person who subjects themselves to a constant barrage of media propaganda designed to assassinate the character of President Trump? What happens when you are told every day that the President of your country: is a tyrant a law unto himself a dictator just like a racist a sexist a homophobe a xenophobe a white supremacist a Nazi. What happens to a person when they are CONSTANTLY told, "You must hate this President in order for you to be a good American." What happens when you are told consistently that you must confront people who differ from you politically? Even physically confront them? What is the proper response of people who are convinced they need to fight a President and his followers who are "just like Hitler and the Nazis"? Because that is the message being sent every day, all day on CNN and MSNBC. When you tell people they may only talk a certain way, and then tell them they may only think a certain way, is it any surprise that those people will also be instructed there is only a certain way to behave. It would have to affect your thinking. Constant repetition of the lie is how you grow to believe it. Isn't that what Joseph Goebbels told Hitler? And didn't Saul Alinsky tell all of his followers to accuse the opponent of the very thing you are doing. That's happening here, too. If you really, truly believed the media agiprop that Trump is a maniacal, traitorous, white supremacist dictator with genocidal impulses ala Adolph Hitler, would an extreme response to that be altogether unwarranted? If all you watched was CNN or MSNBC, you might just pick up an SKS rifle, head to a baseball practice and try to murder 20 Republican Congressmen and their staffs as a Rachel Maddow admirer did named James Hodgkinson. Through their own militancy, CNN and MSNBC have demanded and have gotten the most predictable and logical response to their hyperbolic rhetoric: physical assaults against Trump, his family, administration officials, conservative media figures and their families, as well as the President's supporters. CNN and MSNBC have thus far been reflexively protected from the Trump Administration's harsh reaction to the conduct of CNN and MSNBC's "journalists". It's understandable. The press needs to be independent of government influence and control. But the media bears responsibility, too. When impartiality leads to partisanship, then advocacy and ultimately militant opposition and subversion, we are no longer talking about a news media outlet, but a political organization using the patina of a free and independent press to cloak its biases.

DEMOCRATS AND RUSSIANS It's July 2018 and the mainstream media has been on fire for over 18 months with allegations that President Trump "colluded" with the Russians to win the 2016 Presidential election. So far, we have seen very little in the way of evidence that Trump or any member of his campaign had anything more than a conversation with the occaisional Russian. Still, whatever "new information" the media learns, they feverishly connect dots which have no business being connected. As a student of politics and history, I have found the behavior of the media as well as Democrats to be appalling. What I hope to do for you in this podcast is to give you some idea of the history that exists between Democrats and Russians. At the end of this podcast, my hope is you will understand why I am appalled at the current behavior of the Mainstream Media and the Democrat Party. The Russian Hoax by Gregg Jarrett This story begins in Russia, with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Bolshevik takeover of Russia was the first successful Marxist revolution and it sent shock waves around the world, particularly in Western countries. European and American intellectuals were swept up in the excitement of revolutionary change and what it could mean for the future of the world. Violence and Terror in the Russian Revolution Remember, in 1917, Marxism had never been attempted as a governing philosophy. Russia would be its first laboratory. The intelligentsia had a rooting interest, hoping for its success. The early days of the Russian Revolution under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin were bloody in the extreme. Anyone opposing the new Bolshevik government under Lenin was deemed a "counter-revolutionary" and typically met horribly cruel deaths, often by starvation. Although Lenin died in 1924, he was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, who was even worse. Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust by Miron Dolot While this was going on in Russia, in the United States, fear was growing. It was fear of the "Red Menace" or the "Red Scare." Many Americans feared a Marxist revolution would come to America. New immigrants from Europe, particularly Eastern Europe and Italy were often receptive to leftist propaganda. The leftists, however, never really gained a foothold because the rise of organized labor blunted the revolutionary fervor. In short, American businesses adapted. Still, on university campuses around the U.S., the cutting edge of political thought centered on the great collectivist experiment going on in Russia. To bring Americans a bird's eye view of what was happening in Russia, the New York Times assigned a journalist named Walter Duranty to cover the progress of the Russian Revolution. Duranty filed news accounts accentuating the positive and to his everlasting discredit, all but ignoring the negative. The trouble was, the negative Duranty either played down or ignored entirely was so monstrous, it was clear he was acting as a propaganda tool for Stalin. Crimes of the Bolsheviks Duranty ignored the deliberate and intentional starvation of as many as 11 million Kulak peasant farmers, an atrocity rivalling the Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry in its immensity. The New York Times still displays Duranty's Pulitzer Prize in its headquarters offices in New York City. The prize was awarded before it was learned that Duranty was a fraud. Duranty's reports from Russia were followed closely by academics, who were excited to know of the revolutionary progress and successes. Although viewed with hostility in the halls of American government as a subversive ideology, antagonism toward Russian Marxism faded completely when the United States found itself allied with Russia after Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941. Who was Walter Duranty? At that moment, many of those left wing university intellectuals as well as others who were just plain, old, pro-Russian Marxists, found their way into the US government in various roles to help defeat Nazism. Immediately after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the US found itself with tons of pro-Russian Marxists all throughout the institutions of government, placed there by the FDR and Truman Administrations. These were people who were favorably disposed toward Stalinist Russia and many of them were current or former members of the Communist Party of the United States. Others were recruited as spies. But all of them were Democrats. Almost immediately after the war ended, Russia and the United States became Cold War enemies. In 1948, a former American communist and spy for Russia, Whittaker Chambers, revealed that a vast network of Russian spies existed in the United States. Richard Nixon, a California Congressman at the time, listened to what Chambers had to say and what he said was explosive. Chambers accused a Truman Administration official in the State Department, Alger Hiss, of being a Soviet Russian spy. The accusation mattered a great deal because Hiss accompanied FDR to his meeting with Stalin and Churchill at Yalta, where the construct of post-war Europe was being discussed and decided. Truman also appointed Hiss to draft the UN Charter. The accusation that a Soviet Russian spy was that close to the President of the United States caused a political earthquake, resulting in an avalanche of cries of partisanship and character assassination directed at both Chambers and Nixon. Knowing this was political dynamite, Democrats began to line up in defense of Alger Hiss's loyalty to the United States. Among those Democrats attesting to Hiss's loyalty were two sitting Supreme Court Justices, one past Democrat Presidential candidate and one future Presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson. The Democrats went to the mat for Hiss, sealing Nixon's reputation as one of the worst and most cynical villains in US political history for condemning an "innocent man" as a disloyal American. Except, there was one problem. IT WAS ALL TRUE! Hiss was indeed a spy for Russia. Although the question of his guilt remained unsettled and was debated for decades, after the fall of the USSR, old KGB documents revealed Alger Hiss was indeed a spy for Russia. The damage to the Democratic Party did not end there. Subsequent to the Hiss Affair, Senator Joseph McCarthy held hearings in 1954, accusing many dozens of State Department officals along with many prominent people in business and entertainment of being Communists, loyal to Russia. Although McCarthy did accuse many people later shown to be totally innocent of any disloyalty, while holding leftist or even Marxist political views, those same KGB documents, made available in the mid-1990s, also confirmed that dozens and dozens of those he accused, all of whom were Democrats, were indeed spying for Russia. The Venona Secrets US News & World Report: Declassified Docs reveal KGB Spies in US Even to this day, the news media refuses to tell the entire truth about Hiss or McCarthy. To this day, despite the existence of incontrovertible evidence of Hiss's guilt, Democrats playing on the ignorance of Americans, continue to defend Alger Hiss and condemn Whittaker Chambers, Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy, who were guilty of only zealously defending the United States, showing great courage and patriotism. Blacklisted by History by M. Stanton Evans Witness by Whittaker Chambers At this juncture, it is fair to point out that the Democratic Party is not pro-Russian, per se. What I hope I am making clear here is that the Democratic Party has been a home for those harboring pro-Russian sentiments. From the 1920s through the 1950s, those sentiments were clearly ideological. But in 1960, America elected a vehemently anti-communist and therefore, anti-Russian President, John F Kennedy, who was a Democrat. He was a true profile in courage, especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis. So, it's rather ironic that his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine, who turned Communist, defected to Russia, marrying a Russian woman, returning to the United States, where he murdered President Kennedy. It now seems almost like COSMIC KARMA for the Democratic Party. As we moved through the 60s, 70s and 80s, left wing, pro-Russian, pro-Soviet extremism became prevalent on both college campuses and in the media. For example, during the 1960s, much of campus rioting was instigated by pro-Russian groups aligning themselves with the Democratic Party. This also carried on through the 1970s. Political parties in the US, which at least tangentially aligned themselves with the Democratic Party had Russian sponsors and were aligned with the policies of the Soviet Union. One example: The Socialist Workers Party, which got its orders directly from Moscow. Russian involvement with Democrats became more pronounced during the 1980s under President Reagan. While Reagan was President, Russian sponsored movements like "No Nukes" came to fruition. It argued in favor of the Russian position regarding the placement of Pershing II nuclear missiles in Western Europe. Also, the burgeoning environmental movement was secretly funded by Russian interests as a way to keep the US out of the market as a supplier of oil and natural gas, two commodities Russia needs and depends on greatly. Then, of course, there was Ted Kennedy's appeal to Yuri Andropov, the leader of the USSR at the time. Kennedy was hoping to enlist Andropov's cooperation in defeating Reagan in the 1984 election. Kennedy's outreach was an act of treachery, but Reagan won re-election easily, taking 49 of 50 states. All of this was done to undermine the power and influence of the United States and in every case, found its most vocal support in the Democrat Party. Soviet Influence on Peace Movement Newsweek: Putin is Funding Green Groups to discredit natural gas Russian-funded environmental group gave millions to anti-fracking groups   It should disturb every American when a foreign power, be it friend or foe, attempts to insinuate themselves into our electoral process, but it should not be altogether unexpected. The United States is the greatest and most powerful country in the world. We should be prepared for others to interfere in our elections. But before they can interfere in our elections, we should take note of how they are interfering in our political system in other ways as I have outlined here. Russian interference didn't begin in 2016 and it won't end in 2018. Questions regarding Bill and Hillary Clinton's relationship with Russians remain unanswered. The approval of a deal sending 20% of America's uranium ore and the timing of a $150 million "contribution" to the Clinton Foundation, along with vast sums for speeches given in Russia, deserve as much or more attention than the strained effort to find collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians. If links exist, let us see the evidence. But if we are left with only our suspicions in the absence of evidence, then we ought to have the courage to leave those suspicions wanting. The Democratic Party for nearly 100 years has never been so ferociously anti-Russian as they are now. It is obvious that their ferocity is fueled by political expediency more than it is by a search for the truth. Just as it was for Walter Duranty. Just as it was for Alger Hiss. Just as it was for Ted Kennedy.

OBAMA'S GAMBIT IN KENYA During a speech made in Kenya, Barack Obama referred to himself as "the first sitting American President to come from Kenya." This has reignited social media into a storm of controversy about Obama's actual place of birth. The whole thing is ridiculous because the question has been settled: Obama was born in Hawaii. But why would Obama say something like this if it were not true? There are some very clever political reasons why Obama would like to renew the controversy. Let's examine some of them. To do so, it would be best to examine an often overlooked aspect of the controversy. When Obama graduated from Harvard, he planned to write a book. The book itself was never written, but Obama employed a publicist that also worked for other prominent people, like Tip O'Neill, who at the time was Speaker of the House. A pamphlet containing bio sketches of each of her clients was printed and distributed in 1991. Obama's entry noted that he was born in Kenya. It was believed that the pretense of being Kenyan born would make Obama's book more attractive to potential publishers. Snopes Link Obama had to know what his publisher wrote on his behalf. It's hard to imagine a publicist for an young, ambitious and driven Harvard Law grad being able to write a single word about her client without his full knowledge and consent. The pamphlet remained uncorrected and in circulation for 17 years. It was only corrected in early 2008, when it resurfaced as so many things do, in the heat of the Democrat Party's campaign nomination process. But by then, people in the Clinton Campaign had already latched onto the Kenyan birth conspiracy. Politically, claiming Obama was actually Kenyan born and not eligible to become President due to vague and arcane rules existing at the time of his birth about the duration of residency, particularly for his father, seemed petty, even racially motivated. Obama claimed to be born in Hawaii and there seemed to be a preponderance of circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction. Enough at least, to marginalize those still questioning his eligibility to become President. While the controversy settled down on the Democrat side of the aisle, it was only getting started on the Republican side. Obama kept just enough of his personal background out of site and the media was sufficiently incurious about his personal background to perpetuate the controversy. People would ask, "where are his college transcripts?" "Where is his birth certificate?" One Kenyan Aunt claimed to have witnessed his birth in Kenya. The governor of Hawaii had his birth certificate or other related documents in the state archives. It seemed that the controversy could be ended once and for all if Obama, by this time, President, simply released his birth certificate proving the location of his birth. Politically, it made no sense for Obama to do it. By not releasing them, he could marginalize his opponents by conflating them with conspiracy theorists as people on the fringe of reality. That works to empower a politician. Eventually, Obama released his birth certificate, but not before tampering with them, which again was politically brilliant. Why? Because it divided the birther conspiracists into those who would accept his birth certificate and those who still believed it was a fraud. This is what leftists do, folks. They are all about psychological operations using information and disinformation. Obama releases long form birth certificate: CNN Sheriff Joe Arpaio: Obama's birth certificate is a forgery Perpetuating the birther conspiracy was so politically effective for Obama, it appears as though he might be attempting to get it started again. Consider this: How damaging would it be to President Trump's credibility if he were to start tweeting endlessly about Obama's statement in Kenya? Trump was one of those obsessed with Obama's proof of citizenship and natural born qualifications. He gave up the ghost on it very reluctantly. If he were to obsess about it again, it would alienate at least some of his supporters, who are currently as loyal as any politician could ever hope for. So, this podcast is a word of warning to the Commander in Chief, Donald J Trump: Don't fall for Obama's trap. He's attempting to goad you. Taking the bait will not serve America and it will not make us greater or stronger.

TRANSFORMATION: TODAY'S LEFTISTS AND YESTERDAY'S LIBERALS Back in 2007, when I first got wind of Barack Obama, an exciting newcomer to the national political scene, it was immediately recognizable to me, through his rhetoric, that he was NOT a Liberal in the sense of what that term had come to mean from the FDR era forward. Obama used much of the traditional rhetoric of Liberals, but he also expressed a good deal of leftist rhetoric. What's the difference? Liberal rhetoric advocates for a more activist federal government as a COMPLEMENT to certain limitations the private economy (ie., individuals and businesses) has in addressing societal inequities. The role of government for a liberal, is to do what nobody else can to address those problems. Conservatives disagree with this, of course. They place more faith in the free market and insist inequities can be alleviated more efficiently and effectively if government's role was limited to keeping the markets open, free and fair. Leftists have a compeletely different view from Conservatives and even from Liberals. Leftists see government as a competitor to the private economy, and ultimately having total control over it. For Leftists, government has a mostly hostile and predatory position toward businesses. Unlike Liberals, Leftists use the power and authority of government to compel large, leading corporations as administers of government policy. It would be beneficial at this point to use examples as a way to illustrate the differences between Liberals and Leftists. President George H. W. Bush signed legislation that required handicapped access to public accommodations. This was a Liberal intervention. Today, handicapped parking, and wheel chair accessible ramps are a ubiquitous feature of American life. The government set up certain standards and guidelines and businesses followed them. It was designed to address an issue of access for a significant number of Americans. President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare into law. This was a leftist intervention. The guidance in Obamacare was so comprehensive, it thoroughly transformed the health insurance, service and delivery segments of the American economy into tools of government policy. For example, insurance companies had their offerings dictated to them. They were given limitations in terms of administrative costs. Doctors were required to track tens of thousands of additional diagnostic codes, making backoffice administration far more costly. Virtually everything done by insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the like, had their behavior controlled by law or regulations having the force of law. This is not Liberal. It authoritarian control of an entire industry by government, claiming to be acting in the "public good." The problem with government involvement, whether it is by Liberals or Leftists is that it politicizes whatever it touches. Decisions are then made, not on the economic efficacy or the medical efficacy in the case of Obamacare, but on the political efficacy. Political clout often will overrule common sense. Pressure group politics can provide outsized influence into the decisionmaking process, causing the misappropriation of resources. This can lead to disastrous outcomes when a particular group's influence is effective in garnering more resources to their issue than would otherwise be warranted. This occurred even before the adoption of the Affordable Care Act when more research funding was directed at the disease of AIDS than cancer. AIDS affects only a tiny portion of the American population compared to cancer. Yet, activist groups were effective in compelling the Federal government to devote more funding to AIDS. This is what leftism leads to. So, when America elects a Leftist as President, such as Obama, the federal bureaucracy becomes saturated with civil service appointments allied to a leftist government ethos. This becomes highly problematic. All one needs to do to understand just how problematic it becomes, is to look around the world where Leftists have gained a foothold into the national government. In just about every case, almost without any exceptions, once given power, leftists do not relinquish it. Rather, they become more radicalized, encouraged by their earlier successes in acquiring power. The failure of their policies are of little importance to them. They hold a fanatical devotion to acquiring power and an unshakable belief that a powerful central government is the best way to address societal inequities. Failures are never attributed to the shortcomings of their ideas, but rather to the opposition to those ideas. The election of Donald Trump as President caused an earthquake across the American political landscape. It cannot be overstated. Trump represented an incredible and disruptive change to the body politic. Simply by being elected, he exposed how insular the Washington establishment had become. This was true for almost all of the political power structure in Washington which is much more than the politicians and their staff in the House of Representatives and the Senate. It also includes the Federal agencies, lobby groups, registered and unregistered agents of foreign governments, and the national media. Nearly all of them were put on notice with Trump's election. Add into this cocktail, the fact that America had just endured 8 years of a Leftist President appointing bureaucrats throughout the federal bureaucracy, and it should become clear why America seems so divided today. It is a complex issue. The radicals on the Left are making it an incendiary one. While Trump may enjoy devoted supporters across the country in average Americans, where he has between 45%-50% approval, he has no such core of support in Congress reflecting that fact. He is hated, literally, by the entire Democrat Party which is no longer Liberal, but Left, thanks to Obama, nearly all of the news media, and powerful entrenched bureaucrats in the Federal agencies, as well as former agency heads and bureaucrats who are now free to publicly express political leanings we are supposed to believe they never allowed to influence them while they were government employees. Here is the bottom line, folks. Once Leftists have been able to insinuate themselves into the government, you cannot expect them to honor the traditions we have had in America for more than two centuries. The Left is happy and willing to burn the house down and blame it on their political enemies. Compromise with the Left is impossible because they aren't interested in compromising. They are out to destroy. Yet, this is but one part of the challenge to President Trump. He's got more than the Left to contend with. Even Republicans, who for years, tried to negotiate and compromise with the Left, only to get their heads handed to them, continue to believe the political paradigm hasn't changed. This IS the fundamental transformation of America Barack Hussein Obama spoke about, people. This is it. This is who they are. This is what they're about. Even if President Trump left office, everything you hear now, would be said about Mike Pence. And even if there was no President Pence and if it were another Republican, say President John Kasich or President Jeff Flake, or even President Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, the very same attacks would be taking place on that Republican. Don't kid yourself. It would only differ by degree. We have ample evidence to prove this point. Take the example of Bret Kavanaugh. Is there anyone less threatening from all appearances? Anyone who, based on his record, seems more open minded? More family oriented? More civic minded? Yet, even he is castigated and villainized as a threat to freedom. The treatment of Kavanaugh should inform us all of what the Left will do. We have already seen a Leftist and supporter of Bernie Sanders, another Leftist, attempt mass murder of Republicans. We have seen Leftists harrass Cabinet level officials in their homes and in public accommodations like restaurants. We have seen Leftists deny service to people based on their politics. We have seen leftists riot. We have seen leftists physically assault Trump supporters leaving a rally. But that's not all: We have seen a leftist member of Congress demand the President be overthrown in a military coup. We have seen another leftist member of Congress stir up bitter anger and encourage people to confront and harass anyone in President Trump's administration. We have seen members of Congress accuse President Trump of treason over something he said in a press conference. We have seen supposedly apolitical members of government agencies in the Obama administration declare the President a traitor and call for his impeachment. I could make this list a lot longer. But the point should not be lost here. Leftists are not Liberals. Liberals never and would never do what these Leftists are doing. They are the ones doing Vladimir Putin's work for him. They are the ones undermining confidence in our government and especially the President and his administration. If anyone is committing sedition or treachery, it is the LEFT! The sooner Americans wake up to the fact that it is the Left who is poisoning the political dialogue in America, and vigorously and unambiguosly repudiates it, and demands the government be flushed of this kind of subversion, the better off America will be.   https://fundedresearch.cancer.gov/nciportfolio/search/funded;jsessionid=84F8C1410CD3B2037AC131702B7D4E12?action=full&fy=PUB2016&type=site    

WHERE WE'VE BEEN, ARE AND GOING In every election since Barack Obama won the Presidency in 2008, the Democrat Party has lost ground. By 2010, the Democrats lost a total of 70 seats in the House and Senate, along with control of a majority of state legislative chambers and governorships. Even at the local level, Democrats saw their hold on elected offices slip to a low not seen in nearly a century. What was the cause of this? Democrats believed it was personal animus against America's first Halfrican American President. In other words, racism. But was it? Liberal pundits and politicians pointed to the overwhelmingly white opposition to Obama. But did that necessarily mean the opposition was based on race? Among blacks, Obama enjoyed almost unanimous support. It stood to reason that any opposition to Obama would lack much, if any, black support. Rather than Obama's opposition being based in race, it appeared that his support, at least among blacks was certainly based in it. The Democrats made an almost unprecedented gross miscalculation assuming opposition to Obama was primarily racial and not policy driven. Now surely, there were people who opposed Obama's policies purely on racial grounds and there should be no misunderstanding about that. But the problem came in assuming the vast majority of his opposition was based in anything but policy. After all, nearly half of all white voters cast their vote for Obama in 2008. The reversal from support to opposition cannot be explained by racism, but rather by policy. Democrats miscalculated by not understanding this and paid a heavy price in 2010. The Democrats also made up other excuses for their losses in 2010: gerrymandering and voter turnout. Both had some element of truth, but were they the primary cause of their losses? Here again, as with the racial excuse, Democrats miscalculated the anger of the electorate at what they interpreted as a betrayal by Obama and the Democrats in terms of policy versus promises made. Had the 2010 losses resulted from low turnout in an off-year election, then 2012 should have delivered a different result. But instead of clawing back any significant portion of their 2010 losses, Democrats won back only a handful of seats. Furthermore, had the 2010 losses been the result of gerrymandering, it didn't explain why Republicans continued to gain ground in statewide elections for Senator, governor and other statewide offices. Democrats continued to make gerrymandering and turnout their arguments heading into the 2014 election and again, lost big. This time, yielding control of the Senate to the Republicans and even more governorships and state legislative chambers. Heading into the 2016 election, the true Democrat strategy became clear. They were giving up on white middle class voters altogether, in favor of the anticipated demographic shift to Latin-American voters. Democrats, who have always favored granting amnesty to illegal aliens, saw it as a way back to political power, even dominance. They even had a sizable share of Republicans in the House on their side, who represented commercial interests looking for cheap, unskilled labor. Democrat policies of government safety nets and dependency programs would be enough to lure the desperately destitute in Latin America. In fact, 70% of all illegal aliens already in the United States receive some form of government assistance. Hundreds of cities around the country enacted "sanctuary laws" which limited or even in some cases, forbade cooperation with Federal immigration authorities, even if they were seeking out violent criminal suspects or drug gang members. Again, the Democrats appeared to be miscalculating, but it appeared very little could be done about it because the election of Hillary Clinton seemed inevitable. At this point, it would be useful to stop and remind everyone that the issue of immigration has always inflamed passions in the American people. And it is no different today. The passion today, however, is not directed at the illegal immigrants themselves. Most are decent, religious, industrious and hard working family people. Rather, the passion and even anger is being directed at the politicians who are clearly intent upon placing the interests of those illegally in the country on a par with American citizens and sometimes, even ahead of the interest on American citizens. It appeared to a great many Americans in 2016 and even more today, in 2018, that the Democrats in Congress and even some Republicans want to nullify the political voice of American citizens when it comes to the issue of immigration, by granting amnesty, citizenship and voting rights to people who have illegally entered the United States. This was the predicate for the candidacy of Donald Trump. Make no mistake about it. Donald Trump knew tens of millions of Americans were feeling ignored by their elected leadership in Washington. The issue is so much more serious than the entrenched power structure inside the Washington Beltway could even fathom. The American economy had been in a slow growth slog since the end of the 2008 recession. Millions of unskilled and less educated people remained unemployed, while millions of high skilled, high wage jobs could not be filled. A policy granting amnesty to millions of unskilled people, would only encourage more to come, creating a wider gap in the skills of the unemployed versus the skills needed to fill well paying jobs open and available. If America elected Hillary Clinton, it was heading in that direction on the immigration issue. The wrong direction. Almost miraculously, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton and immediately went to work on the immigration issue. The United States is more than $20 Trillion in debt and so far under President Trump, that situation is not improving. Bringing more illegal aliens into the US, would only make the problem worse. President Trump is attempting to stop the flow by adopting a policy of strict enforcement that looks to discourage people from illegally entering the US or overstaying visas. He has also proposed other measures, which look like common sense to most people, but to Democrats who have lost their grip on power, sound more like existential threats to their party. Ending Chain Migration, Merit Based immigration, A well policied and maintained border wall with Mexico, are all considered threats to Democrat desires to ascend back into power. It is in this vein, that Democrats and their allies in the media have amped up the rhetoric against this President. But the rhetoric against Trump and the Republicans didn't need any amping up. The inflammatory rhetoric has already led to the attempted assassination of more than a dozen Republicans and their staff in a shooting that nearly killed House Majority Whip, Steve Scalise. Now, with increasing frequency, the leftists in the media are drawing comparisons to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. It's wrong. It's beyond the pale. It's as if the Democrats have learned nothing from their electoral losses over the last 9 years and are continuing to place all of their bets on race and hate. President Trump has not broken any law. He is following the law. In the most recent situation, where he had the border agents separate children from people claiming to be parents or relatives, but could not prove it, the President was protecting children from human traffickers, which had been a problem under Obama. It is understandable why many Americans dislike President Trump. There is much not to like about him on a personal level. But we are not supposed to select or support our leaders on their personalities alone. That leads to a cult of personality where the importance of policy is diminished and the force of personal charisma is magnified. We need to support leaders with the policies we favor and the ability to get those policies instituted. Judge politicians on their results, not their intentions or their likability. President Trump has kept faith with his promises, delivered on them where possible and the country is doing better because of it. Is he squeaky clean? No. Does he exaggerate, embellish, say untrue things? Yes. Does he exaggerate, embellish, or say untrue things about topics that actually affect people's lives? No. Usually, when he does these things, it's a face saving mechanism. But can any of us say that President Trump has been treated fairly by many of his critics? Can anyone say honestly that President Trump hasn't been made the object of the most hate filled and vile comments ever made against a President? Ladies and gentlement, respectfully, I don't believe there is any doubt about that. Can you think of any Presidential Administration who had Cabinet level officials harassed in public places and even in their own homes? I can't. Can you think of any First Family that had to endure threats of physical violence from people in the news media and entertainment industry? Threats to children as young as 4 years old, as in the case of Don Jr's daughter, Chloe? Again, I cannot. Democrats will do what they do. They have never known moderation in tone, despite virtue signaling and morally preening whenever it suits them politically. I address this to rank and file Democrats. Neighbors, friends and family. Americans on the left and the right, who think it is their moral duty to hate everyting about this President and his family. I am profoundly saddened and disappointed in you. Criticize his policies if you disagree with them. Have a field day doing it. But enough with the personality nonsense. And enough with threats to Cabinet officials and families. For the Great Vocal Majority, I am Tony Codispoti.

I woke up this morning and came across an article by Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei on the Axios website called, "The Public Case against Trump." I figured I had better read it because if there is a public case against this President, I'd like to know what it is. I was immediately disappointed. The very first sentence in the article makes a false claim. It says, "One thing is true of all major political scandals: What we know in the moment is but a tiny, obscured, partial view of the full story later revealed by investigators." I thought to myself, "is there even one case where that was true?" The authors claim it has been true "of all major political scandals." Yet, when I think back to the mother of all political scandals, Watergate, the American public knew pretty early on that President Nixon was involved. And unlike Watergate, where an office was burglarized and people were arrested, the investigators of Trump and Russia aren't even investigating a crime. They are investigating hoping to find one. There is nothing to compare that to in previous political scandals. So, right from the jump, Allen and Vandehei want their readers to think all political scandals end in a crescendo of unanticipated revelations. To me, it sounds like the boys have watched way too many movies. But I digress. I soldiered on to the meat and potatoes of their "case". Allen and Vandehei go through a list of "knowns" they believe should have already ended the Trump Presidency. It's worth addressing each one, because it reveals something really disturbing: Allen and Vandehei are desperately attempting to keep the Russian collusion fantasy alive when they know there's nothing there. The only other alternative is even more disturbing: that both men believe this set of "knowns" are sufficient grounds upon which to end a Presidency and reverse the results of an election. 1ST KNOWN: "We know Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chair, has been indicted on 32 counts, including conspiracy and money laundering. We know he made millions off shady Russians and changed the Republican platform to the benefit of Russia." Allen and Vandehei fail to point out that the charges against Manafort had nothing at all to do with Russian collusion. They are related to bank and tax fraud charges two year before Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign. Incidentally, Manafort was only involved with the Trump campaign from June to August of 2016 and the NY Times admitted that the charges against Manafort were simply an effort by the Mueller team to pressure him. In fact, the Mueller team has been reprimanded by the trial judge publicly for using strong armed tactics. 2ND KNOWN: "We know that the U.S. intelligence community concluded, in a report released in January 2017, that Russian President Vladimir Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election,” to “denigrate” Hillary Clinton and with “a clear preference for ... Trump.”" Allen and Vandehei fail to point out key facts here, as well. For months, Democrats and their allies in the media like Allen and Vandehei, were declaring "all 17 intel agencies agreed about Russian interference." This was an intentional falsehood designed to give the public the impression that the full weight of the US intelligence establishment agreed, when 13 agencies rendered no opinion and had no interest in weighing in. It was simply a way to make the case sound more overwhelming than it was. Furthermore, while it was true that Putin and Russia worked to denigrate Clinton, it was not necessarily to benefit Trump. That canard was perpetrated by James Comey in Congressional testimony who said he saw no other motivation. But simple logic would tell you that the Russians, like everyone else, expected Clinton to win the election and their only motivation was to de-legitimize her. We have evidence this is true, because immediately after Trump won the election, the Russians organized a protest against his victory in New York City. So, the preference for Trump by Putin is belied by the fact that his people organized that protest. 3RD KNOWN: "We know that in May 2016, Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat Russia had political dirt on Hillary. "About three weeks earlier," according to the N.Y. Times, "Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton."" These were barroom conversations, not evidence of collusion. It would be wise at this point to remember that Hillary Clinton operated a mail server that was so lacking in security, it wasn't even up to date with the regular security patches issued by Microsoft. And while official Washington has denied there being any evidence her email server was hacked by a foreign power, a number of former government officials have come forward, on the record to state that it is virtually impossible to think Clinton's server wasn't hacked because foreign intel agencies continuously attempt to hack the communications of our top officials. Having an unsecured server isn't even a challenge for government grade hackers. In other words, whatever was said betwee Papadopoulos and a Russian professor in London, is really almost meaningless because anyone who wanted Clinton's emails, had them. 4TH & 5TH KNOWN: "We know that in June 2016, Trump’s closest aides and family members met at Trump Tower with a shady group of Russians who claimed to have dirt on Hillary. The meeting was billed as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."" "We know the Russian lawyer who helped set it up concealed her close ties to Putin government." This meeting was a big nothing. Rather than being evidence of collusion, it's actually evidence that there was no collusion. Because if there was collusion, the meeting would not have been abruptly ended. The Russian attorney with ties to Putin would have come with information on Clinton pointing to collusion. Yet, she didn't. Some will say that Trump's son and son in law attended hoping to get information on Clinton, but even if that is true, nobody at the time knew whether she was tied to Putin. 6TH KNOWN: "We know that in July 2016, Trump said: "“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary] emails that are missing,” and urged their publication." Of all these so called "knowns", I find this one to be an embarassment for Allen and Vandehei. Why? Because if a Presidential candidate is going to collude with a hostile foreign power in order to win an election, it would seem that the best way to do that would probably not include a public campaign speech. Anyone who's seen the video of Trump making this speech knows he was needling the Democrat media as Trump often does to the delight of his supporters. 7TH KNOWN: "We know that on Air Force One a year later, Trump helped his son, Don Jr., prepare a misleading statement about the meeting. We know top aides freaked out about this." This is water over the dam, too. Donald Trump and his son are both political novices. Whatever they crafted is of no consequence because Donald Trump Junior's emails leading up to the meeting with the Russian lawyer have been released to the Special Counsel and made public. 8TH KNOWN: "We know Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting." Actually, we don't know this for a fact. All we know is that an anonymous source to the NY Times revealed this. Even if it occurred, it is neither illegal or an indicator of collusion. The President has the authority by virtue of his office to declassify anything he wishes. Trump's conversation with Lavrov are not evidence of anything resembling collusion. 9TH KNOWN: "We know Michael Flynn, former national security adviser and close campaign aide, lied to Vice President Pence and FBI about his Russia-related chats. We know he’s now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. We know Trump initially tried to protect Flynn with loyalty and fervency rarely shown by Trump to others." What the authors are not telling you here is how those "chats" Flynn had were of no consequence because they didn't involve collusion of any kind. Furthermore, people associated with the Flynn case within the FBI have asserted he did not lie to them as Allen and Vandehei suggest here. Only James Comey continues to insist he lied to FBI investigators. Even Andrew McCabe, the disgraced 2nd in command at the FBI has said Flynn did not lie to his investigators. Additionally, Flynn is being prosecuted and having his life and reputation destroyed over lies he never told, while Hillary Clinton and her entire team were exonerated and given immunity from prosecution while actually lying to investigators. 10TH KNOWN: "We know that during the transition, Jared Kushner spoke with the Russian ambassador "about establishing a secret communications channel between the Trump transition team and Moscow." We know Kushner omitted previous contacts with Russians on his disclosure forms." The key phrase here is "during the transition." There is nothing extraordinary about a newly elected President having his team of advisers establishing lines of communication with other governments. To cast suspicion on something as routine for an incoming administration as this, is nothing short of staggering. 11TH KNOWN: We know Trump initially lied about why he fired James Comey, later admitting he was canned because of the “Russia thing.” Article 2 of the Constitution gives the President broad authority to fire or hire Federal agency officials. In the exercise of those duties under Article 2, the President is not required to justify any firing he makes. He can fire James Comey because he's too tall or has bags under his eyes. He can fire him for ANY REASON or NO REASON. Therefore, it really doesn't matter why Trump fired him or what he ever said about it, one way of the other. 12TH KNOWN: We know Michael Cohen was a close adviser and lawyer, the fixer and secret-keeper. We know Trump seethed when the FBI raided Cohen's office. The authors here are being blatantly dishonest by not revealing all the facts. We also know that President Trump was not the only person "seething" from the raid on Cohen's office. The raid was a unnecessarily heavy handed move, rarely used, especially on a cooperating witness as Cohen was, and even more especially on the President's attorney. Former Federal prosecutors and DOJ officials were highly critical of this action. It's hardly used even on organized criminals, much less Presidents of the United States. The question readers of Allen and Vandehei need to ask is, why are these authors not giving the entire story? 13TH KNOWN: "We know that in January 2016, just before Republicans began voting, Michael Cohen tried to restart a Trump Tower project in Moscow." This is an incredible overstatement of what actually occurred. Donald Trump had only a non-binding letter of intent that was signed in 2015, regarding real estate development in Russia. Felix Sater, a Russian business associate wrote Michael Cohen about getting the project underway, but there is no evidence Cohen ever responded to those emails. So, how Allen and Vandehei could conclude that Cohen tried to restart the project is simply baffling. In addition to that, there is also no evidence that Sater ever delivered on any of his promises, according to the New York Times. So, what the hell are Allen and Vandehei even talking about? 14TH & 15TH KNOWN: "We know Mueller questioned a Russian oligarch who made payments to Cohen who used the money to pay off a porn star who allegedly had an affair with Trump." "We know that oligarch was a bad enough dude that the Trump administration sanctioned him." This is pure speculation. The Russian oligarch being referred to is, Viktor Vekselberg. He was in attendence at the same dinner in which Michael Flynn and others were seated with Vladimir Putin. Also in attendance at that dinner, was Jill Stein, who remarked that Putin sat down for a photo op and was not even introduced to the people sitting at the table. If Vekselberg is such an ally of Trump, it's difficult to explain why Trump sanctioned him in April of 2018 along with about a dozen other Russian oligarchs. It should be clear from this incredibly slanted article, that Allen and Vandehei have staked their reputations on the Russian collusion story and are desperately grasping at straws, using selected facts, speculation, mischaracterizations to mislead the public. This is not to say there was no Russian collusion. Here are a few facts we actually do know. 1. We know that within 24 hours of the election, the Hillary Clinton campaign team talked about floating the idea that Russian interference was responsible for her defeat. This was mentioned in a book memorializing the Clinton Campaign, written by two liberal reporters, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign." 2. We know that the Clinton Campaign shelled out millions of dollars to acquire what has come to be known as the "Russian Dossier", generally regarded as a fraudulent document. It was relied upon to acquire a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump Campaign and transition. The FBI never interviewed the sources of the claims in the dossier, a violation of their standards and practices. 3. We know that Hillary Clinton maintained an email server that was unsecured in direct violation of her duties as Secretary of State and for which she suffered no legal penalty. 4. We know that former Deputy Director of the CIA, Mike Morell, Michael Hayden, former Director of the NSA, and a number of others have said it is virtually impossible to believe Clinton's mail server wasn't breached by a multitude of hostile governments. 5. We know that John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman and his brother in the Podesta Group, lobbied on behalf of Russia. 6. We know that Clinton destroyed numerous electronic devices, which could have been mined for evidence against her. 7. We know that the people leading the FBI investigation of Clinton were anti-Trump, pro-Clinton partisans. 8. We know the FBI investigators broke with their standards and practices by permitting all of Clinton's staff to be represented by a single attorney, which gave them the opportunity to coordinate their testimony. This violates protocol because in an investigation, the FBI looks for inconsistencies in testimony. 9. We know that Russian entities donated in excess of $150 million dollars to the Clinton Family Foundation during the same timeframe that Hillary Clinton's State Department approved the Uranium One deal, which ultimately resulted in Russian control of 20% of American Uranium ore resources. 10. We know that since the Uranium One deal, Russian entities have not given any noteworthy donations to the Clinton Foundation. 11. We know that James Comey wrote the exoneration letter for Clinton, months before she and her team were actually inteviewed. I could go on, but the point has been more than sufficiently made: Hillary Clinton not only colluded with Russians against Trump, she also was a key player in policy decisions that allowed Russia to have access to strategic nuclear materials and benefited financially, even if only by coincidence, but certainly warranting as deep an investigation as anything Trump is alleged to have done. To make matters even worse, it appears that high ranking officials in the Obama Administration, DOJ and FBI conspired to exonerate Clinton of any wrongdoing, even though it was clear she had broken the law. People like Allen and Vandehei don't even see this as an issue anymore. But their attitude is prevalent throughout the media and it is precisely why growing numbers of people just don't believe them anymore and have stopped taking them seriously as impartial reporters. For the Great Vocal Majority, I'm Tony Codispoti. Thanks for listening.      

I don’t watch much television, but when I do, old movies have always fascinated me.  It’s a window into a previous period and its popular culture.  It’s interesting because it enriches one’s perspective as to the generational shifts that take place.  We can learn a great deal about ourselves today by examining what we were like in the past.   Something I never knew was that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was not as widely recognized in the first half of the 20th century as it has been since.  Interestingly, one reason why we appreciate the Gettysburg Address so much today is due to the efforts of an Englishman, not an American.   The great actor, Charles Laughton held such a deep and almost reverential appreciation for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, he would often recite it for people, sometimes holding back tears.  So powerful were Lincoln’s words on Mr. Laughton.  Charles Laughton raised the awareness of the American public to what many today recognize as the greatest utterances of President Lincoln.   In the 1935 film, “Ruggles of Red Gap”, Charles Laughton plays a British manservant whose master lost his services in a card game to wealthy, but unsophisticated American from Washington state.  Laughton leaves a class based and hamstrung society in Great Britain, to come to America to work for the American.  In America, Laughton sees how some Americans still want the trappings of class distinctions, but he also sees the principle of equality and opportunity.  Gradually, he falls in love with the promise of America.   In this clip, the question of “What did Lincoln say at Gettysburg?” is asked at the local saloon in Red Gap.  Nobody seems to know.  But Mr. Ruggles (Laughton) has been reading about America and he knows what Lincoln said.  What follows is one of the most stirring renditions of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address you may ever hear.  Somewhere along the line, Hollywood lost this kind of unapologetic expression of patriotism.  But every once in a while, it’s refreshing to see that is was there once and could one day, be there again.  

SOURCES THE UK DAILY MAIL Crash that killed lesbian couple and their six adopted children appears INTENTIONAL   CBS NEWS Youth from famed photo believed among dead as SUV flies off cliff   THE OREGONIAN Hart children immediately pulled from public schools after mother's abuse conviction Former Hart family friend: "Current system failed to protect these children from their abusers."   NEWS ONE Devonte Hart and his siblings removed from public school the day after mother's child abuse conviction Troubling questions surround the Texas adoption of Devonte Hart and his five siblings

In a NY Times Op-ed, retired Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens reminds us our precious inalienable rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are under attack by the likes of him and those of similar mind.

In 1951, Democrats of conscience mistakenly defended a Soviet spy, Alger Hiss. In 2018, Democrats with a history of lying and without a conscience are attacking the President for colluding with Russia without any evidence.

Despite the lack of evidence and an investigation that has lasted over a year, leftists continue to believe Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to win the election. While there is little doubt that the Russians stepped up their interference to unprecedented levels of intensity, certain members of the media as well as government officials hostile to President Trump, have treated Russian Election interference and the alleged collusion by the Trump campaign interchangeably.  This is terribly misleading to the average American.  The former is a fact supported with evidence, but the latter is little more than suspicion based on mistrust born out of Trump’s shocking upset of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential race. The Democrat Party rank and file are being misled here.  But their disappointment and dislike of Trump has fueled belief in conspiracies.  It’s a self-destructive trap not unlike lemmings running off a cliff.

Sources used for this podcast:   The other side of the Enron story:  https://ungagged.net    Senator Ted Stevens dies in plane crash: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38637072/ns/us_news-life/t/former-sen-ted-stevens-dies-alaska-plane-crash/   Steven's conviction to be reversed:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7977960.stm   Some Convictions of 4 Merrill Execs Reversed: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/aug/03/business/fi-enron3   Former DOJ Prosecutor "Poster Boy for Misconduct" http://iotwreport.com/former-doj-prosecutor-andrew-weissmann-is-the-poster-boy-for-misconduct/   Lawyer Sidney Powell: Prosecutor's Record Destroys Credibility of Mueller Probe https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/robert-mueller-andrew-weissmann/2017/06/07/id/794685/ Former Federal Prosecutor Says Mueller’s Team Are “Creeps on a Mission” to Destroy the President http://www.independentsentinel.com/former-federal-prosecutor-says-muellers-team-are-creeps-on-a-mission-to-destroy-the-president/ John Stossel: Bully prosecutors ruin lives, get big promotions http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/10/25/columns-stossel-proecutors-abuse/17917401/   Anderson conviction overturned http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/31/news/midcaps/scandal_andersen_scotus/

Deconstructing the premise behind the NFL player protests

 Let me begin with my conclusion: politicians do not solve problems. They live off them. They may careers off them. They enrich themselves by perpetuating these problems. Often, they will make a problem worse, which will compel greater demand for their intervention and resolution. But can you think of any social problem that was ever solved through the intervention of politicians and government? Some my counter that the issue of slavery  was resolved through government and politicians. While it is true that the institution of slavery in America was "solved" by the Civil War, it was not the wars original purpose, even though it might have been its most proximate cause. Slavery was ended by Lincoln to give the north a moral justification for the horrendous waste of life with such a bloody war. Still, it required force of arms and many elements of American society today live with the aftereffects of this solution to the problem. Social ills of less fundamental importance than slavery  have found no solution among political leaders and government. During the Great Depression, FDR discovered that the failure of his employment programs to solve the unemployment problem paradoxically empowered him to attend more of those programs. FDR learned how to turn policy failures into personal political gain.  Government activism to address problems of almost any kind like poverty, unemployment, discrimination, immigration for crime and punishment, invariably result in a political class  in whose interest it is to see these problems continue. This class is comprised of bureaucrats in government organizations ostensibly designed to address the problems and those elected officials who championed government as the solution. Consider for a moment what might happen to the career of a politician who champions immigration reform if the immigration laws were actually reformed.  Once reformed there is a little left upon which a politician can capitalize. It serves the politicians selfish purposes far better to keep the issue unresolved. Maintaining it as an area of conflict and a rallying point against political opponents. Once politicians, bureaucrats, and interest groups  have sipped from the cup of perpetual grievance, they will turn that sip into a gulp, and the gulp into a guzzle. Until, what began as a legitimate grievance seeking resolution, transforms itself into a racket serving the politicians, bureaucrats and interest groups, but not those they pretend to represent. Those with the actual grievance are never fully served. The politicians, bureaucrats, and interest groups first and primarily nourish themselves and subordinate the aggrieved. It is not lost on the politicians, bureaucrats and interest groups that if the issue that gave rise to them were to ever be resolved they would be forced either out of existence or two remission to a new cause . What is the point? There are several.   First, politicians, interest groups and bureaucrats are motivated by self interest no differently than everyone else. It is naïve to think they will act out in any other way without some form of compulsion. It is also naïve to believe they are motivated to solve problems which have led to their political empowerment when solving those problems  will lead, potentially at least, to their political disempowerment.  Second, attempting to solve social problems through government intervention leads to the institutionalization of those problems through the creation of more government structures devoted to them. Here, I would like to provide an example.  The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends half of its budget administering the food stamp program. No matter how you feel about hunger and poverty in America, the food stamp program is there with the stated intention of providing sufficient financial resources of which Americans can avail themselves in order to avoid hunger and malnutrition. That is a noble goal.  But how should the USDA measure the success of that program? Should they measure success by the number of people actually on the program? Should they measure success by the number of people who know longer need the program? Should they measure success by aggressively marketing it to people who may be eligible? Should they try to convince  eligible but unwilling participants to be dependent on the program?    Most Americans would probably say that if a person qualifies for the program, it should be up to them whether or not to participate in it. But that's not how the USDA looked at it. During the Obama administration, the USDA expanded the program and doubled enrollment, even actively trying to dissuade eligible people from denying it. Was the USDA solving a problem, or expanding itself where it wasn't really addressing a need of the people but rather expanding the federal bureaucracy put in place to address the problem. This is the danger posed by government solutions to social problems. They redefine the problem to expand their power.  Completely lost in all of it, is the measure of success that says: the fewer people who actually need this assistance is the key indicator of the programs success. Instead, they broaden its application to ensure the program and bureaucracy there grow to administer it and profit from it. Government agencies need to be limited in their missions, lest we have an administrative state without any limiting principal whatsoever. Government is therefore never going to solve the social problems we ask them to address. The problems which might be economic or cultural are first politicized and then bureaucratized, at which point they are perpetuated without resolution into the body politic, complete with a constituency in the legislature, the permanent government  and interest groups, all prepared to act parasitically but keeping the issue alive in perpetuity. 

The effect of Obama's transformational change in the Trump Era

THE "BATTLE OF IDEAS":  FROM FDR TO LBJ TO REAGAN The debate between the left and the right has often been called, "The Battle of Ideas."  For Progressives, the pinnacle of their power was reached when President Lyndon Johnson enacted the Great Society and War on Poverty programs of the early 1960s.  Johnson saw himself as a Progressive in the mold of FDR, who guided the United States through the deprivations of the Great Depression through a series of interventionist policies, most of which proved to be largely ineffective, but were great public relations for activist and interventionist government.  It gave the public the impression that their elected leaders were making every effort to alleviate their suffering.  How well the programs were working was almost besides the point and without having a better idea, the Republicans were seen as anachronistic, almost brutish. The Left rejoiced when Johnson declared War on Poverty.  Their ideas would finally be put to the test and all the world would be able to witness the results.  This form of activism had many political advantages, not the least of which was one the Founders warned as a signal of the end of the Republic itself.  Benjamin Franklin is thought to have said, "When the people find they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic."  The political advantage to this is that it allows politicians to demonize anyone opposing these policies. During the intervening half century, politicians did just that.  Faced with program cost overruns, corruption and abuses of all kinds, the Progressives defended against any attempt at reform and improvement of these programs.  Nevertheless, the programs were failing to achieve the desired results.  Even the dire predictions of the inevitable moral hazards posed by these programs from Progressives were shouted down. Perhaps the most famous of these were the warnings of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who saw liberalization of welfare assistance as deleterious to the health of the nuclear family.  Moynihan reasoned that if welfare allowances were increased with the number of children in a home without a male, father figure or breadwinner, then the family unit would be destabilized.  Financial benefits would be greater to a home without a father present and fathers would be driven out of the home in order to gain a greater benefit.  This is what is meant by a moral hazard. A moral hazard is when a law creates a perverse incentive.  Obviously, creating financial incentives which unintentionally drive fathers out of the home is not what the creators of these welfare programs wanted, but that is what they got.  Moynihan was ridiculed for predicting this result, which he believed would affect the black family to a much greater degree simply because blacks were disproportionately poorer than whites and therefore more likely to be eligible for the program benefits. The last half century of experience has proven Moynihan correct.  Certainly there are many factors affecting fatherlessness, but the impact of perverse incentives on low income and poor black families cannot be overstated. This is just one example, but there are many others which reflect how the ideas of the Left have failed with disastrous consequences for the country.  By the end of the 1970s, America was ready for a change and they got it with the election of Ronald Reagan. President Reagan was the most conservative President since Calvin Coolidge.  He entered office after a period marked by generations of Progressive Presidents.  Hoover, FDR, 1Truman, JFK, LBJ and Nixon would all identify as either left or right Progressives.  Harding, Coolidge and Eisenhower were not Progressives.  Reagan entered office standing against decades of  Progressive history, with the task of undoing its damage.  Considering the daunting task it was, Reagan put a significant dent into the Progressives momentum.  The fantastic success of his economic policies was astonishing.  Though today's Progressives do level criticism at Reagan's economic performance, it's hard to argue with the results:  almost 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth and near full employment. The success of the Reagan Presidency marked the first time Progressive policies suffered a major repudiation through the successful implementation of conservative public policy.  At its core, Reagan's economic policy employed so called "supply side economic theory."  At the risk of oversimplification, the theory treated the macroeconomic inputs of labor and capital as responsive to the change in their prices.  Therefore, as the theory goes, if policy could lower the price of both labor and capital, we should witness greater demand for both.  Through lowering marginal tax rates on labor and capital, coupled with regulatory reform, the cost of both could be reduced.  Increased demand for labor means jobs.  Increased demand for capital means investment.  The two combined together equals growth.  Supply side economics worked. Progressives have been touting the Keynsian model for economic growth since the Great Depression.  The efficacy of the Keynsian model was doubted even by FDR's Treasury Secretary, Henry Morganthau.  The Keynsian model targets demand for goods and services in the aggregate.  It relies on government spending in deficit.  Essentially, the theory states that a dollar spent by the government trickles its way down through the economy in such a manner that it generates more than a dollar of economic activity.  The difference over the amount originally spent by the government is called, "the multiplier effect."  The only trouble is, Keynsianism does not appear to work, or at best is of very limited utility. In 1939, the aforementioned Henry Morganthau, in the company of Democrats from the House Ways and Means Committee, made the following statement: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.  I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot!" More than anyone else, Henry Morganthau, Jr., was the man most responsible for the Keynsian policies that funded the New Deal. Despite all of its shortcomings, politicians on both sides of the aisle embraced Keynsian economics.  Keynsianism, involves Congress appropriating and spending money targeted toward programs designed to address problems.  Often, even when the efficacy of a government program is dubious, spending has a greater political benefit than not spending.  When progress toward solving problems is not likely to be had, politicians will settle for the optics of appearing to be doing something constructive.  It is in this way that government spending becomes a crutch or an addiction for both the politician and the constituent.  In the absence of a better answer, spending on poorly designed and ineffective government programs became deeply entrenched into our government structure and body politic.  With Reagan, there seemed to finally be an answer coming from the right.  An answer that not only worked, but seemed popular.  In his bid for re-election in 1984, Ronald Reagan won a 49 state landslide.  But Reagan's success was limited to macroeconomic policy.  He did little to reform the Progressive welfare state and its mentality of government dependency.  That would come six years after Reagan left office. 1994:  THE REAGAN VICTORY IN THE 'BATTLE OF IDEAS' In 1994, with a newly minted Democrat President in the White House, Bill Clinton, the mid-term elections witnessed an historic event.  The Republican Party won a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.  Led by Newt Gingrich, a Republican Progressive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, Gingrich proposed a "Contract with America."  This was the conservatives response to those many consecutive decades of dysfunctional left progressive programs that were rotting due to poor design and moral hazard. After several attempts, the Contract with America was signed into law by Bill Clinton.  Welfare rolls and government dependency was cut in half.  People formerly on the government dole were employed and self sufficient.  Not everyone celebrated the success of the Contract with America.  Its success revealed just how deeply entrenched welfare statists had become. When governments establish bureaucracies and programs, those bureaucracies and programs develop constituents.  When those bureaucracies and programs are aimed at solving a social ill, like poverty, a counter-intuitive dynamic can result:  if the problem were solved, there would be no need for the program or bureau.  This runs counter to the way people think and behave.  A bureau created to address poverty will cultivate a constituency comprised of the poor.  How would such a bureau measure its success?  Would it measure it by the number of people it could find who are eligible for their program?  Or would it measure success by how many people it lifted out of poverty, away from government dependency and toward self sufficiency?Experience has shown us that bureaucracies behave much like people do and strive for self-preservation at a minimum.  This is not surprising since bureaucracies are comprised of people. This presents us with a gigantic problem.  From the early 20th century until the present day, the Federal government has been shaped by a permanent bureaucracy, largely put in place by Left Progressives to address certain domestic social problems.  Over several generations, those programs and bureaus have created an entrenched constituency invested in the perpetuation of the social problems as much or more than their resolution.  This contradiction and its side effects are exacerbated by poorly designed programs which fail to achieve their goals and often create permanent dependent constituents. If this were the only problem, Americans would still have their hands full.  Ronald Reagan's Presidency and the later Contract with America, have clearly cut a pathway toward correcting this problem.  The challenge is not only in government itself.  Tens of millions of Americans have been raised on the notion that government will be their caretaker and they have been taught to feel entitled to it.  The Contract with America began to reverse that thinking until 2006, when the Democrats retook the House and Senate and worked quickly to undo all those reforms. The "Battle of Ideas" ended with the consecutive successes of the Reagan economic policy and the Contract with America.  From that moment in the late 1990s forward, the political atmosphere in America turned toxic.  Americans noticed its toxicity, but seemed less observant as to its proximate cause.  Focusing on personalities of political leaders and less on policy, most of the public failed to notice something a few political observers couldn't miss:  Conservative solutions worked far better than Progressive ones.  As the 20th century came to a close, the Progressive Left hardly felt the need to panic.  Clinton was a successful two-term President, even though his administration was plagued with scandal.  The economy prospered greatly while he was President, owing to much good fortune:  the continuation of Reagan era economic policy, the "Peace Dividend" resulting from the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist bloc, and the advent of the internet.  With the 2000 Presidential election just over the horizon and Vice President Al Gore, the heir apparent to Clinton, the Progressive Left was unconcerned their dominance on the American political landscape would be challenged.  It didn't work out that way. THE GREAT DIVIDE AND RE-EMERGENCE OF LEFT PROGRESSIVES The 2000 Presidential race will go down in history as the closest race ever.  George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by acquiring just one more electoral vote than needed to win, 271.  The controversy was made even greater by the fact that Bush's brother was governor of the State of Florida, where a recount dragged on for weeks until the Supreme Court decided that the race was over and Bush won Florida by just over 500 votes and with it, the Presidency.  It was a very bitter pill to swallow for the Democrats. In politics, grudges can last a very long time and the 2000 race was no exception.  Today, 17 years later, many Democrats still believe Bush was not legitimately elected President.  The division resulting from the 2000 race had a wider impact than it would ordinarily have for reasons soon to be described.  Inasmuch as Bush was thought to have been fraudulently elected, everything Bush did while President was also thought to be fraudulent as well.  Eight months into his Presidency, the 9/11 attacks and the national response to it, brought Americans together briefly.  That unity was shattered after the United States failed to find an active WMD program in Iraq.  Democrats sensing weakness, accused the President of lying in order to draw the country into a war in Iraq, an extremely serious charge.  Such a thing, if true, is traitorous.  Although this charge whipped up many Democrat supporters into a frothy frenzy, they weren't serious.  In 2006, after the Democrats took back control of both the House and Senate from the Republicans, they never took any steps toward impeaching President Bush.  It's difficult to imagine why they wouldn't after accusing the President of being a traitor. The issue of the Iraq WMDs served to radicalize the Democrat Party from a left leaning party comprised of a mix of moderate so called "blue dog" Democrats, Liberals and Left Progressives.  By the 2006 mid-term elections, the party was firmly in control of the most extreme elements of the Left Progressives.  Even the Democrats' 2000 Vice Presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman,  was considered "too conservative" for their party and banished from it.  Less than a handful of years earlier, Democrats thought Lieberman was good enough to be President, if anything untoward were to happen to Al Gore. When the 2008 election cycle was in full swing, Americans wanted change.  More than change of party, Americans were restless and wanted more drastic change.  The Democrats were primed to nominate a full blown Leftist Progressive.  Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met that requirement, but Obama was a fresh face, whereas Clinton was a well known quantity.  Obama defeated Clinton and won the Presidency easily over a sclerotic John McCain. When Obama assumed the Presidency in 2009, the economy was hemorrhaging jobs and the contraction of GDP in the most recent quarter was greater than had been seen in decades.  In that crisis, the President was given great leeway to boost the economy.  But Obama was hardly an experienced veteran in national politics or macroeconomic theory.  If anything, Obama was a street organizing academic from Chicago.  That's where he had the most experience and that's the experience and background he relied on.  The key members of Obama's cabinet and the plethora of other economic advisers were all out of the academic world with few, if any, having any business experience upon which to rely.  It was a recipe waiting to become an unmitigated disaster.  All the components for a catastrophic policy failure were present: An inexperienced leftist ideologue in the Presidency A team of advisers who were mostly inexperienced leftist ideologues, as well. All of them wedded to the failed notion of Keynsian solutions All of them true believers in the cause of Left Progressivism A country deep in crisis Within the first month of being in office, President Obama passed a Stimulus Package without a single Republican vote.  He could do that because the Democrats controlled the House with a comfortable margin and the Democrats held a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.  The Stimulus package cost more in a single year than either war in Iraq and Afghanistan had cost from the day those two conflicts began until that time.  This enormous expenditure was supposed to stimulate the economy to robust growth and regenerate millions of jobs.  Of course, it didn't. Compounding injury upon insult, a large portion of the Stimulus Package's appropriations became part of the baseline budget for the agencies receiving the funding.  This meant that a large share of the Stimulus Money would be spent out of federal agencies year after year until the Congress passed a new budget.  This was Keynsianism on a scale we have never witnessed.  By the time Obama left office in 2017, he had doubled the national debt, adding nearly $10 trillion dollars to the total without much to show for it.  The economy had not grown.  Low wage private sector jobs were created, but not the kind of jobs needed to sustain a growing economy.  This grand experiment in Leftist Progressive economics was a catastrophic failure. Obama's Left Progressive experimentation was only just beginning.  The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, was supposed to insure all Americans without disrupting those who already had insurance and doctors and preferred what they had.  That promise turned out to be a fraud. PROGRESSIVISM'S SECOND AMERICAN FAILURE By the 2010 mid-term elections, the Democrats lost in historic landslides at every level of government.  State legislative chambers switch control, Republicans were back in control in the House and many governorships were lost to the Republicans.  Despite admitting his party was "shellacked", Obama never moderated; a sign of a true believing ideologue.  Conventional wisdom blamed anger over the passage of Obama's health care overhaul, The Affordable Care Act(ACA), or Obamacare, as the reason for such a sweeping loss of seats.  But voter anger over the ACA hardly explains losses at the state legislative level.  The reasons lay deeper.  Voters were losing confidence in the elected political leadership's ability to effectively address issues of concern.  The 2010 mid-term elections was a statement to the Left Progressives of the Democrat party that voters didn't like the direction the country was heading.  Those kinds of messages, however, are lost on elitist ideologues like Barack Obama who zealously believe in their ideological prescriptions.  It would be one thing if those prescriptions had never been attempted, but they had been tried previously in the US and elsewhere, and simply didn't work. Herein lies the problem with true believing ideologues:  No amount of failure deters them.  They pursue their ideological agenda with a religious fervor.  Their failures are inevitably accompanied by alibis.  One excellent example are the true believers in Marxism.  Even through the fall of the USSR and the rest of the Eastern European Marxist states, true believers today claim those nations weren't truly Marxist at all.  In fact, they believe they never were Marxist.  This is denial because for the seven decades the USSR was in existence, no Marxist ideologues anywhere were making such claims.  Only when the USSR collapsed and more liberal, capitalistic and open societies took their place, did the ideologues make their dishonest claim. The Progressive Left in the United States is every bit as wedded to their ideas as those heartbroken European Marxists trying to make sense out of a failed and corrupt ideology.  The danger comes when those true believers have access to the levers of power.   WHAT CAUSES AN IDEOLOGY TO SUCCEED OR FAIL Ideologies when used as organizing principles for societies, succeed or fail to the extent they are successful interpreting basic human nature.  Karl Marx failed to properly interpret the basic human condition. Marx's ambition was to explain all of reality with what he called scientific socialism.  If correct,  his theories of Nature could apply to human society, too.  His theories were provably false, however. Essentially, Marx believed all of Nature, including human society, was governed by three laws.  These were the Laws of Opposites, Negation and Transformation.  Without getting too buried in the weeds, these laws were supposed to explain motion, life cycles, proliferation and change.  Marx believed his laws could be observed and applied to the behavior of atoms as well as humans in society.  Rather than explain Nature's laws, Marx's Laws only presumed much of what it supposedly claimed to explain.  Furthermore, Marx's theories of motion, proliferation and change were repudiated by observations to the contrary.  In other words, science itself proved "scientific socialism" to be false. Perhaps Marx's biggest mistake was believing human nature, if it evolves at all, can evolve quickly and sufficiently enough to be noticeable.  Adherents to Marx's philosophy have gone even one step further and believed human nature itself could be engineered.  The attempts to do so in the 20th century led to the death of over 100 million people. Progressivism suffers from the same malady as Marxism, but is decidedly less virulent.  Progressives believe in progress, naturally.  But Progressives never define progress.  They only tell us it's inevitable, but they can't tell us the direction we are going.  Progressives also seem to have internal contradictions in their ideology.  For example, if humans are progressing, then we should expect social ills like racism to eventually wither away.  If such were the case then laws protecting certain racial minorities could one day be repealed.  Progressives find this idea repellent and argue that we must always have anti-racial discrimination laws because they say we will always have racial discrimination.  But if humanity is truly progressing, racial discrimination must eventually come to an end.  If Progressives assume that racial discrimination will always be with us, then what is Progressiveism really all about?  Progressivism seems to be rather subjective and political in this regard. Also, it is not quite true that human society is always progressing.  During the Roman Empire, Roman homes had running water and indoor plumbing.  After the Roman Empire fell in the late 5th Century, Europe was without indoor plumbing for a thousand years.  That advance in technology was lost for an entire millenium.  So, it can hardly be said that human society makes continual forward progress.  Like Marxism, Progressive ideology also has a fatal flaw. Conservatism works because it's not an ideology in the truest sense of the word and it comes closest to the pin in its interpretation of basic human nature.  How does it do this?  Well, first of all, Conservatism doesn't have a view of how the world ought to be.  It understands the world as it is.  This is very different from both Marxism and Progressivism, which have a very specific view of what society should look like.  Secondly, Conservatism acknowledges that human beings will always act in their own self interest, at least as a primary impulse.  Our first impulse as human beings is not to act for the collective, as the Utopian Socialist or Marxist might say,  but for the individual self.  Finally, unlike Marxism and Progressivism, Conservatism does not hold that human nature is changeable.  You could say that Conservatives find that human nature today is not very different from those of our ancestors who wrote on cave walls 10,000 years ago. Conservatism, though not perfect, works best because it interprets the world it sees rather than to change the world.  It organizes societies around Man's basic nature to act in his self interest, rather than endeavor to change Man's nature into something else.  Economic and social relationships are organized around this reality.  The results are largely harmonious, prosperous and successful societies.  Conservatism has its imperfections, but when compared to the problems in Marxist or Progressive societies, they are minor. WHERE WE ARE TODAY Everything I have pointed out here is known to the Left Progressives, Marxists, Communists and others on the Left.  They know their ideas have failed, but they have not accepted failure.  At the same time, they are well aware of the success of Conservatism.  But remember, to an ideologue, their ideology is like a religion.  They aren't going to abandon it.  Instead of retreating into a period of introspection and reflection, they are doing all they can to seize as much power through indoctrination and propaganda as possible.  Their efforts become for hysterical and radical and in some cases even violent because their only weapon against ideas that actually work for the betterment of society is fear and intimidation whose direct object is to silence the opposition. The great social experiment into Left Progressivist government has gone on for almost 100 years.  Along the way, there have been some good ideas like weekends, and  paid vacation time for employees, but many bad ideas too, like Prohibition.  It is time for the Progressives to move aside and let Conservatism work instead of impeding it.  They aren't likely to do so because they have learned from the success of the Ronald Reagan Presidency and the later Reagan Revolution in Congress that Conservative solutions work and they represent an existential threat to the Progressive Left agenda which has been a dismal failure for many decades.  So, in some sense, their fanatical hysteria understandable.  They know that Conservative policy implementation would be very likely to be successful and gain broad popular support.  Their opposition to Conservatism has a great deal to do with preserving their power and less with the good of society.  Progressives are in both political parties.  It's part of the reason so little ever seems to change in our national politics. The principles of the Progressive Left amounts to a counter-revolution to our Founding.  They seek to fundamentally transform the United States into a centrally planned authoritarian state controlled by one political party.

THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY: FROM WILSON TO MARX By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American society was undergoing transformational change, ushered in by the Industrial Revolution. The changes were profoundly affecting the way ordinary people lived and worked. Industrialization, the growth of cities, European immigration the emergence of captains of industry and monopolistic corporate power demanded a reaction. Whenever profound changes occur such as those experienced at the turn of the 20th century, it isn't altogether surprising that those with unchecked power will tend to act in their own interest at the expense of others. In America, the unchecked power of business over labor led to labor organizing as a countervailing check on that power. This was a natural consequence of the rapid development experienced at the time, but it was not painless. By 1900, and for about the previous 50 years, new political and economic philosophies were becoming popularized. Two of the most prominent were Progressivism and Marxism, which is often called "scientific socialism" because it is presumably based on the scientific method and observation. Both ideologies saw themselves as new thinking, but they really were not new at all. It was the same old form of historical despotism, just cloaked in the phony and discredited "science" of "scientific socialism" or "progress." Progressives generally share the desire for the central government to be more activist. That is, the default position was 180 degrees out of phase with the position of the Founders and Framers who believed that the Federal government's default position was to not intervene in social and commercial affairs, except under unusual circumstances. Whether they were Marxist adherents to the philosophy of scientific socialism, or they were Progressives, both of these veins of thought were counter-revolutionary ideas to the American revolution. The danger in them was their capitulation to the ancient fear the Framers labored so long to avoid: an all powerful central government. While some right Progressives settled in the Republican Party, Marxists and Left Progressives found their home in the Democratic Party. After the success of the Russian Revolution and the rise of a government based on the principles of scientific socialism, the western democracies, including the United States experienced a "Red Scare". The threat of international communism, however, was blunted at the time because it was recognized as atheistic and antithetical to any of our founding American principles. For that part of the 20th century between the Russian Revolution and the outbreak of the Second World War, Russian Communism was only a curiosity to some Americans on the political left in that Soviet experiment. Left Progressives, however, were entirely another matter. The election of Woodrow Wilson became a watershed moment in the counter-revolution against the principles of the American founding. Wilson thought the Constitution was deficient for modern day 20th century America and proposed a new set of rights. The Constitution has often been referred to as a charter of "negative rights." The word "negative" here is not used to connote something bad. Rather, the Constitution sets out to limit government because the Framers of the Constitution believed the enemy of Liberty and human freedom was a government without any limiting principle. The rights outlined in the Constitution set forth those limitations on government that our Framers believed were essential for the continuation of our republic. Wilson believed the Constitution should also contain a charter of "positive rights." That is, rights you are entitled to and provided to you by the government. Wilson believed this necessary to perfect the American experiment. But Wilson was grievously in error. One problem with positively stated rights is that they are a zero sum game in rights overall. For example, a positively stated right might be expressed as follows: "every American has the right to health care." But in order for this right to be delivered to every American, the government must acquire property (ie., money) from someone who has it. In other words, the government must somehow deprive someone of their rights in order to fund the right to health care. Nothing can be a right if it requires some to lose their rights in order for the right to be provided. Another problem with positively stated rights is that they are subjected to the discretion and definition of those in government holding the power to define what those rights mean in real terms. If the government determines an 80 year old man diagnosed with cancer should not be treated for the disease because resources are limited and needed to treat others who are younger, haven't the health care rights of the 80 year old been violated simply because a faceless government bureaucrat has decided resources cannot be provided? This becomes an exercise in dehumanizing people. This is what the Framers feared. The bastardization of their ideas and hopes for America. The greater the power and scope of the central government, there is an associated diminishing of importance of the individual and individual freedom. Moreover, a nation also experiencing robust growth in its population either through immigration or birthrates will also experience a dilution of representation. In current day America, each member of the House of Representatives has approximately 725,000 constituents in their district. In 1967, 50 years ago, the average was 460,000. This makes the case of the Framers even more powerful that the best government is that which is closest to the people.

FBI Director James Comey was fired for all the right reasons, but the reaction of Democrats has been irrational and incoherent.

How did America today become so divided?  This is first in a series explaining the origins of our current day divisions by looking at the historical roots. THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN COUNTER-REVOLUTION FROM THE FOUNDING TO THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." Speaking for the Continental Congress, Jefferson was making the point that the American Revolution was not the spontaneous uprising of a mob, but the result of a long series of events, culminating in the Declaration he largely authored. The result of our American Revolution was the establishment of the first new form of government in 5,000 years of human history. The United States of America was the first country established on the basis of an idea. It was the first time any country or any government anywhere or at any time gave recognition to the dignity and sovereignty of the individual. In monarchies rights flowed from the monarch who was the sole sovereign. In many cases, the monarch as sovereign was designated as such by God. In some cases, monarchs themselves were thought to be dieties. The American Revolution became the culmination of a movement away from monarchy and toward a new, more stable form of democracy. Democracy by itself is perhaps the worst form of government because it quickly descends into chaos and mob rule. Historically, attempts at democracy have disintegrated. One reason the American Revolution succeeded was that it borrowed elements of democracy without adopting it wholesale, thereby sidestepping most of its pitfalls. The American Founders also wanted a republic of laws. Here too, they sought to avoid the shortcomings of a purely republican form of government. The genius of the Founders was their ability to blend the legal framework of a republic with the the most cherished principles of a democracy, while at the same time maintaining the rights of those in the minority. The Founders saw individuals as sovereign and the rights to each as inalienable. That is, a birthright, not a grant of government or kings. These are our God given rights. They require no funding from governments to secure. They are the most critical and essential rights of all. The Declaration of Independence was something totally new. A statement that human beings, as individuals, have sovereignty of their own and rights that come along with that sovereignty which no one can grant or arbitrarily take away. This revolutionary idea in the Declaration of Independence enabled sovereign individuals to associate and organize their collective interests into a government of the people, comprised by the people and not a class of aristocrats or an ancient line of royalty, in order to act in the interests of the people, deriving their authority to act on the people's behalf through the consent of the people themselves. The Declaration of Independence and American Revolution makes every American faithful to those founding principles, partners in the Revolution and in the advance of the whole of humanity away from despotism and toward human liberty and freedom. Those principles which are embodied in the Constitution are the most unique and truly revolutionary statements ever made. The long train of history makes it quite evident that governments were almost exclusively a succession of powerful men or groups of men, imposing their will on all of society. The rule of men, not the rule of law. The newly formed United States of America stood as the sole departure from that historical trend. It alone was the light in the darkness. For the first time in all of human history, a country and government was organized around the principle of Individual Liberty. Since the Founding, enemies of the American Revolution and what it stood for, have sought to erode this Constitutional Republic. This was not altogether unforeseen by the Founders and the Framers. Indeed, one of their primary concerns was how previous governments of all varieties, tended to centralize power and authority into fewer and fewer hands over time. Among the countless challenges in fashioning a workable form of government, the power and scope of the central Federal authority was most concerning to them. If they were to be successful, they needed a design that would combat the trend toward centralization. Their very first attempt, The Articles of Confederation, failed because this concern over Federal power led to an unworkable design. The Constitution that was eventually passed empowered the Federal government just enough to hold the Union together. All questions of Federal authority were not settled. The divisive and controversial issue regarding the continuation of the slave trade and practice of slavery were not ripened enough to be tackled in the 1780s. Still, the original Constitution did contain a sunset provision for a large part of the slave trade. Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution banned the importation of slaves 20 years after the Constitution was adopted. It is an often overlooked provision in the Constitution, but it makes clear that the Framers were not silent on the issue of Slavery at all. In fact, it underscores their acknowledgment that the institution of Slavery was abhorrent to a majority of them. The tragedy was that too much of the economy in the South was dependent on slave labor. This was a problem all over the Western world at the time. The abolitionist movement in Great Britain at the same time was grappling with the same questions: how to eliminate the institution of slavery without completely disrupting the economy? Abolitionists in America and Britain both believed a two step process was needed. First, to ban the importation and trading of slaves. Second, to ban the practice of slavery. Clearly, Article 1 Section 9 was a step toward the former. Though it had no effect of trading slaves inside the United States, it banned further importation of slaves. Settling the question of the trade and practice of slavery implied the imposition of a Federal solution at a time when Federal authority was at its low point. Notwithstanding the issue of slavery, there was proper cause to keep Federal authority as weak as it was. But the issue needed to be resolved one way or the other for the entire country. In the 1780s, there was no way to solve this dilemma and still have a united country. The Civil War, which broke out just 85 years after the Declaration was a test of Federal authority made necessary by what the Framers left unfinished. The Civil War was not only about the institution of Slavery. Ultimately, it was about who gets to decide momentous questions such as: is a negro a human being or property? The Southern slave states believed they had the right to determine whether slavery was appropriate for themselves. Abraham Lincoln had a different view. In 1854, Mr. Lincoln in response to Stephen Douglas said this: "The doctrine of self government is right, absolutely and internally right; but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has any application here depends on whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just what he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he, too, shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and governs another man, that is more than self-government, that is despotism." Lincoln understood that states do have the right to govern themselves. When it came to the question of slavery, however, faith and allegiance to the Declaration of Independence and our Constitutional principles demanded that we confront the obvious reality that black people are human beings entitled to all the same rights as white people or human beings of any other race. A few years later in 1858, upon being nominated to the United States Senate, Abraham Lincoln made another speech about the impending crisis: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of Slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South." For Lincoln, the question of Slavery was more than a moral question. It challenged the limitations of state's rights under the 10th Amendment as well as the central government's authority to impose adherence to the larger Constitutional protections for people. The divisions over Slavery that led to the Civil War centered on the question of who gets to decide whether there is or is not slavery in a state. It took a bloody war to settle the question. The principle established, resulting from the war, was the Federal government has a duty to ensure that the Constitutional rights of Americans are protected and that no state can enact laws which are determined to violate those rights. It seems like a simple and obvious answer today, but it wasn't in the mid-19th century. The Civil War resulted in a necessary extension of Federal authority over the states. In effect, it was the footnote to the Constitution missing at the Founding, written in blood. Over the past 230 years, the power of the Federal government has grown well past anything the Framers would have been comfortable with. Nevertheless, the Civil War was not an overreach of Federal authority, but rather the completion of the unfinished business left by the Framers of the Constitution. It established the conditions under which the Federal government was justified imposing on and overruling state authority.

The March for Science is supposed to be about science. It's about politics.

Fox News's firing of Bill O'Reilly was a victory for the crusading fascist left that seeks to silence all conservative voices in the media. The left poses a grave threat to freedom of political expression and that threat is growing.

The Washington Post Opinion Page The College Fix   The NYC Commission on Human Rights has issued legal guidance regarding how to address transgenders, lest one become exposed to serious major legal liabilities, amounting to fines as much as $250,000. What is the proper way to address a transgender individual?  The answer is, what ever way they demand you address them.  These new rules, however, are not restricted to transgenders and can be equally applied along lines of race and religion, as well. The result of these new rules will be chaos because there is no objective determining factor deciding how a person is to be addressed.  A white, male, heterosexual, Catholic, could demand to be addressed as Miss Polly Prissypants because that person identifies himself as such. There is no limitation in this ruling by the NYC Commission on Human Rights because it's all determined by the individual themselves. If this sounds insane.  Good.  You're of those folks who still has both feet on the ground, because this is outrageous. While people can demand to be addressed however they wish to be addressed, it should not be within the power and scope of government to compel people to address others in such a way.  That is a clear violation of freedom of speech, which cannot be countenanced. It is time for the LGBT movement to step back and reassess.  Despite great national controversy, that movement has made some substantial gains even in the face of great national division on their issues. Not unlike the Prohibitionists of the 1920s, the LGBT movement is refusing to moderate their tone.  They are now pursuing ends that are so radical and repellent to people, they will place their entire movement in jeopardy.  The reason Prohibition failed was because it was unyielding in its extremism.  Like the Prohibition movement, the LGBT movement has the support of moderates.  But during the Prohibition, rather than consolidate their gains, and moderate their stand against alcohol, they remained steadfast and unyielding.  That turned the country against them.  And that is what will happen with the LGBT movement, too.  For, there is no indication whatsoever that they plan to moderate themselves in the least. Frankly, that turnaround in public opinion cannot happen soon enough.

THE ATTACK FROM THE LEFT This is how the left engages in its assault on the fabric of the civil society.  They look for the "soft spots" and then pick a fight.  Men have been dressing as women and passing for them since dirt was new.  It's hardly an issue for a male passing himself off as a woman in dress and demeanor, to use a woman's rest room.  Who would even notice? In their effort to undermine the civil society, the Left chooses its targets wisely.  The question is first posed to the public narrowly: Should transgender people be permitted to use public restroom facilities they identify with, rather than be limited to the restroom of the gender they were born to?   THE TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY It seems almost ridiculous to be having the conversation for a number of reasons.  To begin with, what is the legal definition of transgender?  Is the controlling factor in this definition, the gender the individual identifies with or the one they were born to?  Is no consideration to be given to their anatomical and genetic circumstance?  Is transgender, at least for some, really more of a behavioral, rather than a physical condition?  Moreover, how many people are we really talking about here?  This is an important consideration, given the fact that 99.7% of all Americans who don't identify as transgender will be compelled to accommodate 3 out of every 1,000 people who at least call themselves, "transgender." The most recent data from surveys including the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the 2009 California Health Interview Survey and federal data such as the Decennial Census or the American Community Survey were analyzed by Gary Gates, a distinguished scholar at the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law.  Those surveys state that about 0.3% of the American population "identifies as transgender".  Here's the problem with that:  it's a subjective determination and the number of people who truly are transgender is likely to be much lower. Without a clear, legal definition of what is transgender, how could we possibly know who is transgender?  In its efforts to dictate federal policy to the states regarding so called transgender people, the Obama Administration has not only politicized the use of bathrooms, but they have issued rules that will now place school children at risk.  The risk is not necessarily with a person who is genuinely transgender.  Rather, the risk derives from the consequence of not having an objective definition of what a transgender person actually is.  Until now, all the discussions have centered on how the individual identifies themselves, leaving that definition entirely in their hands. SEXUALIZING SCHOOLCHILDREN As a practical matter, public school officials will have no way to prevent a male high school senior from showering with a 14 year old freshman female, provided the male declares himself as "identifying as a female."  On what basis could that ever be challenged?  It also creates conditions where rape and statutory rape are more likely.  How will school administrators and faculty police the school showers when they know the blunt instrumentalities of the federal government are arrayed against them?  The likely outcome is that school officials will not risk a legal battle that results in the draining of resources from the school system.  This will create even more chaos in the school system than already exists. HOMOSEXUALIZING SCHOOLCHILDREN The current controversy over rest rooms and showers in public facilities and schools should come as no surprise.  Since he was first elected in 2008, Barack Obama has unleashed the most militant and radical pro-homosexual agenda on Americans.  It began surreptitiously in the school system. Early in his first administration, Barack Obama appointed a "Safe Schools Czar" named Kevin Jennings.  The title "Safe Schools Czar" is very misleading.  Most would look at the term and feel comforted that the President cares about making schools safe for children.  But that isn't what the Safe Schools Czar was tasked to do.  His job was to make schools safe for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenders.  It was part of Obama's pro-homosexual agenda that was hiding in plain sight and ignored by the mainstream media. Kevin Jennings himself has quite an "interesting" background.  A transcript from a 1997 speech shows Office of Safe Schools chief Kevin Jennings in the U.S. Department of Education expressed his admiration for Harry Hay, one of the nation’s first homosexual activists who launched the Mattachine Society in 1948, founded the Radical Faeries and was a longtime advocate for the North American Man-Boy Love Association, NAMBLA. Obama appointed the most radical person anyone could have ever imagined into a position, the Congress wasn't required to approve.  Kevin Jennings had a past that was so completely off the charts radical, it's almost impossible to overstate.  Kevin Jennings was outspoken in his support of NAMBLA and the repeal of laws governing the age of sexual consent. In 2002, after the death of Harry Hay, Jennings said, "NAMBLA’s record as a responsible gay organization is well known. NAMBLA was spawned by the gay community and has been in every major gay and lesbian march. … NAMBLA’s call for the abolition of age of consent is not the issue. NAMBLA is a bona fide participant in the gay and lesbian movement. NAMBLA deserves strong support in its rights of free speech and association and its members’ protection from discrimination and bashing,” he said. Remember, this was Obama's first appointee for "Safe Schools Czar." Kevin Jennings was the founder of  the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) organization of Massachusetts.  GLSEN held its 10 Year Anniversary conference at Tufts University in 2000. This conference was fully supported by the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Safe Schools Program, the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, and some of the presenters even received federal money. During the 2000 conference, workshop leaders led a “youth only, ages 14-21” session that offered lessons in “fisting” a dangerous sexual practice, where the hand is forced into another person's anus.  Fisting kits were distributed to children by Planned Parenthood, another participant in the event (pictured here). There was a heightened sense of security with many Tufts campus police being highly visible in order to stop parents from seeing what occurred at the conference.   All  of this was the handiwork of Kevin Jennings, the man Barack Obama appointed.  Fury erupted in Congress and eventually Jennings was forced to resign his position, but today's actions by the Obama Justice Department and Department of Education are clear indications that Obama's agenda to promote homosexuality in American society has not abated. OBAMA'S RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA   The Obama administration will send a letter to every public school district in the country telling them to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity as opposed to their birth certificate. The letter, first obtained by The New York Times, is signed by officials at the Justice Department and Department of Education. It will be sent out to the districts on Friday. While the letter does not have the force of law, it does warn that schools that do not abide by the administration’s interpretation of civil rights law may face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid, The Times reported. "There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement. “No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus,” Education Secretary John B. King Jr., said in his own statement. “We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence.” Under the guidance, schools are told that they must treat transgender students according to their chosen gender identity as soon as a parent or guardian notifies the district that that identity "differs from previous representations or records." There is no obligation for a student to present a specific medical diagnosis or identification documents that reflect his or her gender identity, and equal access must be given to transgender students even in instances when it makes others uncomfortable, according to the directive. Status of "Bathroom Bill" Legislation | InsideGov "As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others' discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students," the guidance says. The administration is also releasing a separate 25-page document of questions and answers about best practices, including ways schools can make transgender students comfortable in the classroom and protect the privacy rights of all students in restrooms or locker rooms. The move was cheered by Human Rights Campaign, a gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights organization, which called the guidelines "groundbreaking." "This is a truly significant moment not only for transgender young people but for all young people, sending a message that every student deserves to be treated fairly and supported by their teachers and schools," HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement. Earlier this week, the Justice Department and the state of North Carolina filed dueling lawsuits over the state’s controversial “bathroom” law, with the Obama administration answering an early-morning lawsuit filed by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory with legal action of its own. In their suit, the DOJ alleged a “pattern or practice of employment discrimination on the basis of sex” against the state over the law requiring transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificate. McCrory, in his lawsuit, accused the administration of a “baseless and blatant overreach” in trying to get the policy scrapped. "This is an attempt to unilaterally rewrite long-established federal civil rights laws in a manner that is wholly inconsistent with the intent of Congress and disregards decades of statutory interpretation by the Courts," the state’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of North Carolina, said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Where Did the Democratic Party Go? What happened to the Democratic Party?  Today, much of the media focuses its attention on the turmoil in the GOP, but the Republicans haven't gone through the ideological transformation the Democrats have.  For the GOP, their rancor is largely centered over whether the party leadership has remained true to its ideals of lower taxes, smaller government, law and order and a muscular national defense.  On the Democratic side, the Van Jones, Communist ideological premise of the Democratic Party has shifted.  The shift has been unmistakably left.  So far left in fact, Democrats Bernie Sanders, Socialist can now with almost cavalier indifference claim avowed socialists like Bernie Sanders and even communists, like Van Jones as part of their family.  It wasn't very long ago, making such an accusation was fighting words.  So, what happened to the Democratic Party?  When did this shift occur? The transformation of the Democratic Party didn't happen overnight.  It happened over decades.  During those years, there were a number of events, marking turning points along the way.  The purpose here will be to point to the most important milestones in the intellectual and ideological changes that laid the foundations for the radicalism we see today in the Democratic Party. 1:  THE MOVE TOWARD PROGRESSIVISM Many Democrats today call themselves "Progressives."  To the uninformed ear, the term itself connotes movement in a direction that would at first glance seem positive.  After all, who is against progress?  It was precisely for this reason the early 20th century progressives adopted the term to describe themselves.  What role did Progressives play in party politics in the early 20th century and how does that relate to today? Progressivism was a reactionary response to the rapid social changes brought about by modernization and the Industrial Revolution.  Early 20th Theodore Roosevelt Woodrow Wilson century Progressives were reformers.  They hailed from both political parties.  Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican and Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, were both Progressives.  At their core, Progressives believed in activist government and had little use for strict constitutional interpretations with respect to limiting government's power and role in people's lives.  They believed a powerful national government was necessary as a countervailing force against the rise of monopolistic corporate power in both industry and finance.  Further, they saw national government as a vehicle to enact positive social change. During the second decade of the 20th century, Progressives accomplished a number of changes.  Ending the practice of child labor, organized labor, the enactment of an income tax, enfranchising women with the right to vote and the prohibition of alcohol throughout the United States, were all efforts, spearheaded by Progressives.  Although the results of these efforts were not all met with universal approval, Progressivism as a political movement became embedded as a permanent feature in the American body politic. 2.  THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION Toward the end of World War I, there was a civil war in Russia.  Revolutionary Marxists calling themselves Bolsheviks (translated to mean , "The Majority"), overthrew the Tsar, murdering him and the entire royal family.  The Russian Revolution marked the first time any country was founded based on the Marxist theories of socialism.  The Russian Revolution created a wave of excitement in the west, including the United States.  In Russia, Karl Marx Vladimir Lenin they were beginning an entirely different form of government based on the working classes of people, using the writings of Karl Marx and their practical application by Vladimir Lenin.  To call the new Soviet state a bold experiment is an understatement. The excitement on the Progressive Left in America could hardly have been greater.  Revolutionary communists and socialists grew in popularity in the United States, particularly among the academic classes, but also in organized labor, a Democratic Party progressive stronghold.  Soviet style communism in the United States stopped short of being widely accepted, but the seeds of subversion were planted in a number of key institutions:  namely, academia and organized labor. 3.  THE ALGER HISS AFFAIR Alger Hiss was a top level State Department adviser to President Truman and was appointed by him to represent the United States in drafting the U.N. Charter.  Hiss was highly respected by leading Democrats all throughout the Washington, D.C. establishment.  In 1948, a Congressman from California, named Richard Nixon accused Hiss of being a Soviet spy based on evidence and testimony of a former communist spy, Whittaker Chambers.    The Democrats erupted with outrage against Nixon and Chambers.  Leading Democrats rushed to the defense of Hiss, vouching for his Alger Hiss loyalties to the United States in sworn Congressional testimony.  Rarely has a defense team ever assembled so impressive a Whittaker Chambers batch of character witnesses as appeared on behalf of Alger Hiss. The list included two U. S. Supreme Court justices, a former Solicitor General, and both former (John W. Davis) and future (Adlai Stevenson) Democratic presidential nominees. Justice Felix Frankfurter described Hiss's reputation as "excellent." Justice Stanley Reed said of Hiss's reputation, "I have never heard it questioned until these matters came up." Ultimately, Hiss could not be charged with espionage since the statute of limitations had expired, but was convicted on two counts of perjury connected to investigation about the alleged espionage.  It remained a stain on the reputation of the Democratic Party lasting for many years.  Not merely because someone so close to the President was an agent of the Soviet Union, but because he was so prominent, well respected and so many equally prominent Democrats stood up to defend a guilty man. For Nixon, it both catapulted him into the Vice Presidency and made him the most reviled Republican among Democrats.  The Hiss Affair made it possible for the people to question the loyalties of Democrats.  After all, what does it say of a Democratic Party when Soviet spies, socialists, Richard Nixon communists and other disloyal Americans can find comfort there?  Much of Nixon's later troubles with the media and Democrats were the residual effects of bitterness over the Alger Hiss affair.  Surely, nobody would suggest that all or even most Democrats at the time were less than patriotic.  But it did suggest that in at least some precincts of the Democratic Party, subversive thinking was tolerated.  The Hiss Affair exposed that dirty little secret and as a result, the nation was shocked.  The Alger Hiss controversy occurred in the early part of the Cold War era, when suspicions ran high and often turned into paranoia. For years after the Hiss's conviction, the debates over his innocence or guilt raged.  It wasn't until the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the declassification of KGB documents, which clearly showed that Hiss was indeed a Soviet spy, was the matter settled.  Hiss was a traitor. It should be remembered that Alger Hiss, like many Soviet sympathizing communists, spent their formative years in the first two decades of the 20th century, which were so consequential in the development of the Progressive left and the effect on it from the Russian Revolution. The Hiss controversy is important because it is illustrative of how leftist extremists were able to hide amongst rank and file Democrats, gain their trust and avoid detection.  Over the decades, as the power of the extreme left of the Democratic party grew, it would  become less and less necessary to hide their loyalties, or lack thereof. 4.  THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND THE RISE OF THE WELFARE STATE The seminal event that marked the change in the Democratic Party was the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the ascension of Lyndon Johnson to the Presidency.  Johnson, a Texan and former majority leader of the Senate, blocked or watered down every attempt by the Eisenhower Administration at Civil Rights legislation.  With the death of Kennedy, however, Johnson, ever the opportunist, was able to forge a new alliance between southern blacks and the Democratic Party with the promise of a War on Poverty, new Civil Rights legislation and  laws ensuring voting rights.  Ironically, it was Republican support that helped pass those measures. Kennedy & Johnson Johnson,  knew he needed to disassociate the Democratic Party from the harsh images of Southern white supremacy, which was entirely owned by the Democrats.  He saw his opportunity with the War on Poverty.  Johnson was an FDR New Deal Democrat and he took his lessons from the New Deal which secured wide Democratic majorities in Congress.  Those majorities were won with high cost government programs which were supposed to address a social ill.  In the New Deal, the problem was mass unemployment.  Although the New Deal failed to correct the Depression era problems of unemployment, politically, even in failure, they provided the Democrats with Congressional majorities lasting decades.  Johnson was a witness to this. Johnson merely employed the New Deal model.  Even if it were possible for a government program to end poverty, that was not his political goal.  Rather, Johnson's political goal with the War on Poverty was to secure voting majorities for Democrats, particularly from Southern blacks, who for more than a century were reliable Republican voters.  Secondarily, he could change the image of the Democratic Party in the Civil Rights protester attacked by police dogs. South from one of intolerant white supremacists, important in an age where images on broadcast television shaped public opinion. Prior to the adoption of all of LBJ's poverty programs, leading Democrats, like Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that they would create a crippling dependency on government.  Moynihan believed these programs could cause the family unit to disintegrate since benefits were distributed based on need only.  Without proper administration, Moynihan said, breadwinner males would have a perverse incentive to be out of the home.  In other words, fatherlessness would be rewarded.  This is called a "moral hazard."  A moral hazard happens when a public policy encourages morally destructive behavior.  Those LBJ era programs did just that and people like Moynihan warned about it at the time and were dismissed or ignored. At the time, the rate of black illegitimacy was at or below the white rate, about 20%.  In the half century since the advent of the War on Poverty, black illegitimacy is 73% and showing no signs whatsoever of being reversed.  All of this leads to a predisposition on the part of the dependent class to demand more from government.  And government is what the extreme left is all about. While Johnson's programs had their greatest and most deleterious impact on the population of poor blacks, it was not limited to blacks at all.  The majority of Americans affected by these programs were white.  What Johnson achieved for the Democratic Party, however, was to change its image.  His diabolical gambit was to ensure a permanent voter base of people dependent on government.  He targeted blacks because he knew it would be difficult to oppose government programs for the poor without appearing cold blooded or even racist.  Everyone wants to help the poor, but not everyone believes it's government's role to actually help with financial support for the very reason that it could create the same crippling dependency Moynihan warned about and ultimately do more harm than good.   Over the half century since LBJ's programs, the black family has virtually dissolved, young black men between 15 and 30 are responsible for at least half of all violent crime, poor blacks are deprived of school choice because of the power of teachers unions, the ever increasing minimum wage promoted by leftists puts more and more unskilled and inexperienced young people out of work, abortion on demand causes more babies to be aborted than born in some major cities like New York, and the sense of hopelessness keeps increasing, placing ever greater demands on government for solutions.  But the solutions over the past half century have failed and suggesting a change in direction is often labeled as "racist."  As the demands grow louder, they also become more radical out of a sense of unfairness and disenfranchisement. With a population of people dependent on the government, the left extremists in the Democratic Party now had a constituency they could nurture and grow with the promise of greater benefits in the name of vaguely defined principles like "fairness."  By 1966, Columbia University professors, Richard Cloward & Piven Cloward and Frances Fox Piven devised a strategy to end poverty by  "overloading" the US welfare system to force its collapse in the hopes that it would be replaced by "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty".  Whether this is full blown socialism or not isn't the point.  It is yet another inroad into the mainstream of the American body politic.  It is a rallying point, around which truly extreme socialists and communists could organize and subvert the current system of free market capitalism and constitutional government. Inside the dependent class, leftists have ferreted their way in to promote all manner and form of grievances.  The proliferation of a grievance culture is now at epidemic levels.  Progressives have teamed with militant radicals to demand fundamental changes to basic institutions.  In some cities and states, birth certificates no longer carry "mother" and "father", but "Parent A" and Parent B".  Marriage no longer means what it always meant for centuries.  Government is in your life in every way imaginable and imagining new ways every day. The people now in control of policy in the Democratic Party are not in the mainstream.  They have more in common with Alger Hiss than John F Kennedy or even Lyndon Johnson.  These are leftist radicals.  What we label them is less important than recognizing what they are and how it got this way.