Stealing Secrets from Students

by Newt Gingrich: When most Americans think of espionage, we think of debonair foreign spies sneaking around military compounds – or bespectacled hackers hammering away at keyboards to steal top secret information from foreign adversaries.

But there is an entire world of espionage happening right under our noses – at American colleges and universities.

Foreign intelligence services routinely probe computer systems at US higher education institutions – and they also enlist (or implant) students and professors as assets to pass important research and findings to their spy agencies.

The main goal isn’t typically to learn any classified state secrets (not in academic espionage anyway). Foreign actors want to steal the important technological advancements, research, and innovations being created by our nation’s best and brightest researchers and scientists.

Back in 2013, the Commission on the Theft of Intellectual Property said that this academic espionage made up a significant part of the estimated $300 billion of intellectual property theft America endured that year. According to the commission, “American scientific innovations and new technologies are tracked and stolen from American universities, national laboratories, private think tanks, and start-up companies, as well as from the major R&D centers of multinational companies.”

This is a serious problem for the United States. If this level of academic espionage continues, our ability to lead the world in innovation and new technology could be severely hampered – and the future could be defined by the countries who are stealing our ideas.

One of the biggest offenders is China. I detail the many ways in which the Chinese Communist Party is spying on Americans (and the Chinese people) in my new book Trump vs. China: America’s Greatest Challenge, which comes out in October. Former National Counterintelligence Executive Michelle Van Cleave told the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission on June 9, 2016 that “hundreds of thousands of students and academicians” aid China’s spy operations. Many of these students, professors, and researchers (either willingly or through intense pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party) help to “potentially extend the reach of Chinese intelligence into the core structures of our nation’s security,” Van Cleave told the commission.

Of particular concern are China’s Confucius Institutes that have been established on campuses in the US and across the world. At first blush, these institutes appear to be legitimate academic foreign exchange programs promoting Chinese language and cultural studies. However, they are also used to spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda and soft power by promoting the party’s vision of China. Concerns have been raised that they could be used for espionage efforts. On February 13, 2018, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee that China is beginning to pull back on this effort, but the institutes are still “something that we’re watching warily and in certain instances have developed … appropriate investigative steps.”

Luckily, there is an ongoing effort in Congress to curb this activity and protect American colleges and universities from being helpless targets of foreign espionage. The Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft Act of 2019 (or SHEET Act) was introduced in the Senate by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. It is being carried in the US House of Representatives by Florida Representative Francis Rooney.

This bill will create a new way for federal law enforcement to designate an entity suspected of spying in our colleges and universities as a “foreign intelligence threat to higher education.” (The designation will be promptly appealable when warranted.) Colleges and universities that accept gifts from or enter into contracts with designated threats will have more stringent reporting requirements under the Higher Education Act. If evidence of espionage is found, US authorities will be able to quickly remove identified threats.

This is a critically important problem that we must solve. When foreign countries steal our research and ideas, American researchers, innovators, and thinkers lose the ability to lead our country into the future. Ultimately, this costs American jobs – and our security.

Congress should pass the SHEET Act as soon as possible.
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Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer.This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions..

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Tags: Newt Gingrich, commentary, Stealing Secrets, from Students To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Left in a Lurch at Dem Shock-fest

by Tony Perkins: When Democrats were putting together their first two debates, it probably didn't occur to anyone that they could bomb both. But in a span of 24 hours, the party desperate to take down Donald Trump just proved that Democrats can put 20 options on the stage -- and there still isn't a sane one in the bunch.

The analysis from Round Two ranged from "space cadets" to "freak show" -- and that was from the mainstream press! The night was so surreal that the consensus winner, if you asked most talking heads, is a woman who believes prostitution is a worthwhile career, the Boston Bomber should be allowed to vote, and killing newborn children is "a personal choice." Those were tame positions compared to some of the field, Dan Gainor points out, in his column of "what the heck?" moments.

After Wednesday, when the Democrats' highlights included lobbying for taxpayer-funded abortions for men and abolishing private health care, the other 10 candidates had nowhere to go but up. Instead, the conversation was so outlandish that the party is actually losing more voters than it's gained. One Washington Post reporter tweeted that when the Democrats all raised their hand to support free health care for illegal immigrants, a woman next to her said, "I don't think I'm a Democrat anymore."

And she can't be the only one. With the party light years to the Left of any reasonable American, more people are starting to wonder, is 2020 even a contest? "Just twelve years ago, Democratic candidates for president competed with each other on how tough and realistic they could be on illegal immigration. The leading candidates for president advertised not just their opposition to same-sex marriage but also their opposition to drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants. Dennis Kucinich quoted from the Bible," NRO's Michael Dougherty marveled. "Over the last two nights, we saw a completely different Democratic party."

Even Joe Biden, who was supposed to be the grown-up in the room, still hasn't recovered from his 40-plus year reversal on the Hyde Amendment, his sprint to the Left on climate change, and his inability to stand by his "decent guy" assessment of Mike Pence. His night was a disaster, and he seemed to know it -- even imposing his own time limit when he stopped thinking coherently. In one of the funnier moments of the night (not for his campaign manager, I'm sure), the former vice president was asked what "first issue" he would tackle in office. "The first thing I would do is make sure that we defeat Donald Trump, period." "One would presume if he took office," Gainor jabbed, "he would have beaten Trump. But that concept was a fantasy by the end of the debate and I'm betting even Biden knew it. Watching him was like watching the Titanic after it hit the iceberg."

When the candidates weren't lobbying to turn our borders into welcome mats, people like Mayor Pete Buttigieg were busy bashing the faith they claim to espouse: Christianity. "We have got to talk about one other thing because the Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. Now our party doesn't talk about that as much largely for a very good reason which was we are committed to the separation of church... But we should call out hypocrisy when we see it in for a party that associates itself with Christianity..."

If there was a real stand out from Thursday night, it was probably the Democratic platform, which spelled out most of this radicalism in 2016. A lot of Americans make the mistake that those documents hammered out at the party conventions don't mean anything. But the platform is an anchor that helps tether the nominees to the core conservative principles of their party -- in the Democrats' case, things like taxpayer-funded abortion and animosity toward Israel.

Not too long ago, Lee Payne from Stephen Austin University combed through all of the parties' platforms from 1980 until 2004. "He identified every 'direct promise' in those platform -- pledges he thought amounted to concrete policy positions -- and then compared those promises with all of the votes taken on either the House or Senate floor... What Payne found might stun some cynics: In 25 years, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress voted in accordance with their platforms 82 percent of the time."

Platforms matter. That's why the FRC Action team worked so hard three years ago to ensure that the document ratified in Cleveland was just as strong -- if not more so -- than 2012's. Against all odds (and even more Establishment money), a coalition of pro-family groups led by FRC Action beat back the attacks on our values and emerged with a document clearer and more compelling than any in party history on life, marriage, and religious liberty. Because in the end, that's what shapes the legacy. The differences between the two parties' documents couldn't be starker -- just like the choice in 2020 is turning out to be.
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Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . This article was on Tony Perkin's Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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Tags: Tony Perkins, Family Research Center, FRC, Family Research Council, Left in a Lurch, Dem Shock-fest To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Living in La-La Land: Joe Biden’s Alternative Reality

by NRA-ILA: Anti-gun folks typically characterize their gun control restrictions as “common sense” and “responsible,” regardless of how poorly grounded in reality these “solutions” tend to be, or how little their proponents understand what these measures will do (like the gun control supporters at one event who, when asked, were unable to explain what an AR-15 or a bumpstock is).

A related, recurring theme is their claim that the gun community opposes these incredible “gun safety” measures due to blind, reflexive obstructionism, rather than because of any actual concerns about the merits.

Last week, former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden provided a stunning example of this kind of irresponsible rhetoric. According to a newspaper source, Biden outlined his proposals for gun control – should he be elected as president of the United States – to a select group of donors at a posh Upper East Side penthouse in New York City. “[I]f that happens,” he said, “guns, we have the capacity now in a James Bond-style to make sure no one can pull a trigger unless their DNA and fingerprint is on it…We have that capacity to do it now. You know it.” He added, further, that “the gun manufacturers” had pulled the plug on this technology as soon as “two folks started to sell some of those guns to two dealerships,” apparently because of some misplaced apprehension over the Second Amendment.

During Thursday’s debate between the Democratic Party presidential candidates, Biden went even further, claiming that he would impose a ban on the sale of any firearm that wasn’t a so-called smart gun: “No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger. It’s within our right to do that.”

As we’ve pointed out many times before, the “James Bond-style” technology that Biden enthuses over does not actually exist.

There is no gun that incorporates both DNA and fingerprint verification technology. No firearm technology requires a “DNA match” before the gun can fire, and this isn’t a feasible option in any event. DNA extraction and analysis is currently a complex and time-consuming process involving specialized equipment, which means it is completely unworkable as the basis of any design intended to allow immediate access to and use of a gun. A handgun using a biometric fingerprint sensor is reportedly in development, but has some significant flaws (it depends on a rechargeable battery, the sensor can’t recognize a dirty fingerprint or someone wearing gloves, and the prototype only works for right-handed shooters). Like the teleportation transporter in Star Trek, the magic wands in Harry Potter, or the Iron Man’s bodysuit, we do not “have the capacity now.”

It’s no wonder that America’s gun owners continue to reject Biden’s make-believe ideas on gun control.

So, while Joe Biden may be raking in donations from the elites of Tinseltown, it doesn’t mean he should likewise accept whatever “James Bond-style” fantasies Hollywood puts on the big screen as the gospel truth.
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NRA-ILA article.

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Tags: NRA-ILA, Joe Biden, Smart Guns, Election 2020 To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

New Supreme Court Ruling May Start Checking Power of Federal Bureaucrats

by Elizabeth Slattery: On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated ruling in Kisor v. Wilkie, a case challenging judicial deference to administrative agencies’ interpretation of their own regulations.

While all nine members of the court agreed that the lower court was wrong to reflexively defer to the agency in this case, a majority was unwilling to retire a doctrine known as Seminole Rock/Auer deference.

Named for Supreme Court decisions from 1945 and 1997, Seminole Rock/Auer deference instructs judges to defer to an administrative agency’s interpretation of ambiguous regulations as long as that interpretation is not plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.

Many judges and legal scholars have called for the Supreme Court to jettison this doctrine because it turns on its head the foundational declaration in Marbury v. Madison (1803) that it is “emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

Seminole Rock/Auer deference instead ensures that federal bureaucrats, rather than judges, say what the law is.

In this case, James Kisor, a retired Marine who served in the Vietnam War and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, filed a claim for disability benefits with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA denied his claim in 1983, and in June 2006, Kisor sought to have his claim reopened, identifying documents the VA did not consider when it initially reviewed his claim.

The VA granted his claim for benefits but, interpreting an agency regulation, determined that he was not eligible for those benefits to be made retroactive to 1983.

Kisor then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, arguing that under his interpretation of the agency regulation, he was entitled to retroactive benefits.

The court ruled for the agency based on its determination that while both sides offered reasonable interpretations, it must defer to the agency’s interpretation.

The judges’ hands were tied by the Seminole Rock/Auer doctrine. Kisor asked the Supreme Court to review the case and overrule Seminole Rock and Auer.

Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan took the “plainly erroneous or inconsistent” standard of Seminole Rock and Auer and recast it into a multi-step test instructing lower court judges whether and how to grant deference.

First, using “all the ‘traditional tools’ of construction,” a judge must determine if the applicable regulation is “genuinely ambiguous.” If there is genuine ambiguity, then the judge must consider whether the agency’s interpretation is a reasonable one.

If the agency’s interpretation is reasonable, the judge must next conduct an “independent inquiry” into “whether the character and context of the agency interpretation entitles it to controlling weight.”

This inquiry may include, but is not limited to, factors such as whether the interpretation is the official position of the agency or an ad hoc statement; whether it involves the agency’s substantive expertise; and whether it “reflect[s] the ‘fair and considered judgment’” of the agency rather than a “convenient litigation position” or “post hocrationalization.”

This new test may prove to be a higher hurdle for administrative agencies to clear than the old “plainly erroneous or inconsistent” standard. Given this transformation, why not simply retire the old doctrine to make way for a new one?

Kagan noted two reasons for the court’s refusal to overturn Seminole Rock and Auer.

In her view (which only Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor joined), there is a “presumption that Congress would generally want the agency to play the primary role in resolving regulatory ambiguities.”

There’s a certain logic to this argument; the agency made the rule, so it should know how the rule should operate.

But agency regulations have the force of law, and judges—not federal bureaucrats—have the duty to say what the law is. Judges should interpret regulations in the light of what their text says, not by the secret intentions of agency officials who created them.

Kagan’s second reason (joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor) is the principle known as “stare decisis” that the court is hesitant to overturn its prior rulings.

There are a number of factors the justices consider when asked to throw out one of their decisions, and as Kagan put it, “[I]t is good—and important—for our opinions to be right and well-reasoned. But that is not the test for overturning precedent.”

There is no question that stare decisis ensures an effective legal system in which judges, lawyers, government officials, and the public can rely on what the Supreme Court has said. But it should not trump the principle that decisions that fail to comply with the Constitution must be reconsidered.

If it did, dishonorable decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson (“separate but equal”) and Pace v. Alabama (upholding anti-miscegenation laws) would still be on the books today.

Kagan has become one of the leading voices advocating stare decisis. In an opinion just last week dissenting from the court’s decision overruling a 1985 case, Kagan mused, “Now one may wonder yet again” which decision “the Court will overrule next.”

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh indicated they were ready to retire the Seminole Rock and Auer decisions.

They agreed with the result in Kisor—that the lower court was wrong to defer to the agency in Kisor’s case—but took issue with Kagan’s new test.

In a lengthy concurrence, Gorsuch wrote:

The majority proceeds to impose so many new and nebulous qualifications and limitations on Auer that the Chief Justice [who wrote a concurring opinion] claims to see little practical difference between keeping it on life support in this way and overruling it entirely. So the doctrine emerges maimed and enfeebled—in truth, zombified.Gorsuch detailed how Seminole Rock and Auer cannot be reconciled with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (the federal law governing agency rule-making) or the Constitution.

He explained:

Under Auer, judges are forced to subordinate their own views about what the law means to those of a political actor, one who may even be a party to the litigation before the court … the doctrine matters only when a court would conclude that the agency’s interpretation is not the best or fairest reading of the regulation.Gorsuch continued:Kagan paints a very different picture of Auer, asking us to imagine it riding to the rescue only in cases where the scales of justice are evenly balanced between two equally persuasive readings. But that’s a fantasy.Indeed, agencies’ win rate in cases where courts invoke Seminole Rock/Auer deference has been as high as 77% and declined to 74% in recent years, according to a 2018 study published in the Georgetown Law Journal.

Seminole Rock and Auer give the government a benefit that no court would ever afford a private party: the ability to decide what a vague or ambiguous legal rule means. By so doing, “deference” becomes a bias in favor of the most powerful litigant—the federal government.

The time has come for the court to stop “making up excuses for judges to abdicate their job of interpreting the law,” Gorsuch argued, and allow judges to give their “best independent judgment of the law’s meaning.”

Instead, judges must now figure out how to apply Kagan’s new multi-factor test—which Gorsuch predicts will cause “more uncertainty and much litigation.”

Though many hoped the court would retire Seminole Rock and Auer, the ruling in Kisor is not a loss. The majority made clear that this doctrine is “cabined in its scope” and should not be applied to stack the deck in favor of the government.

Time will tell if the new Seminole Rock/Auer doctrine “with teeth” will actually act as a check on agencies, or if business will continue as usual when agencies seek to interpret their own ambiguous regulations to their advantage.
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Elizabeth Slattery (@EHSlattery) writes about the rule of law, the proper role of the courts, civil rights and equal protection, and the scope of constitutional provisions such as the Commerce Clause and the Recess Appointments Clause as a legal fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

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Tags: Elizabeth Slattery, The Daily Signal, New Supreme Court Ruling, May Start, Checking Power, Federal Bureaucrats To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Sorry, Media, Talking to Foreigners Does Not Violate Federal Campaign Laws

President Donald Trump stops to talk to
reporters and members of the media

by Hans von Spakovsky: It was a hypothetical question about getting information on a political opponent from a foreign national. Yet President Donald Trump’s response sparked a furor — one that was long on accusations and short on the actual law governing federal campaigns.

Here’s the bottom line: A federal candidate who is freely given information is not receiving a “contribution” or “thing of value” and is thus not violating federal campaign finance law or the regulations issued by the Federal Election Commission. I know. I served as an FEC commissioner.

If getting dirt on an opponent were a “thing of value,” then any adverse information concerning a candidate—even informed criticism of a rival’s policy proposals—would also have to be considered a “thing of value,” and both would have to listed as a financial “contribution” to a campaign.

Such a broad interpretation of the law would be potentially unconstitutional and impractical to administer or enforce. Moreover, it is not a position that has been taken by the FEC.

Federal law (52 U.S.C. §30121) prohibits a foreign national from contributing or donating money or a “thing of value” to a federal, state, or local candidate or political committee.

Foreigners are also banned from engaging in independent political expenditures.

That means that the Chinese government, for example, can’t give money directly to a candidate, nor can it buy an ad in The New York Times telling Americans they should vote for or against a particular candidate.

This ban doesn’t prevent foreign nationals from volunteering to help a campaign, as long as the foreigner does not “dictate, control, or directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process” of the campaign under a regulation issued by the FEC (11 CFR §110.20).

The federal statute also says that the term “contribution” does not include an “individual who volunteers to behalf of a candidate.”

The FEC specifically notes that a foreign national “may volunteer personal services to a federal candidate or federal political committee without making a contribution.”

According to prior FEC enforcement actions and advisory opinions, this means that a foreign national can, for instance, develop intellectual property such as a website, logos, and trademarks for a campaign as a volunteer (Advisory Opinion 2014-20, Make Your Laws PAC).

Under the FEC’s reasoning, a foreigner who volunteers could also do research and share the results with the campaign.

Furthermore, foreign volunteers can speak at campaign events and even solicit contributions for a federal candidate as long as they solicit only Americans and not other foreigners (Advisory Opinion 2004-26, Weller).

Why, a talented foreign musician can even contribute an uncompensated performance at a candidate’s fundraiser (Matter Under Review 5987)—as Elton John did at a Radio City Music Hall concert that raised $2.5 million for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

A foreign national who simply volunteers to provide information to a campaign would certainly seem to fall within this regulatory exemption.

However, the FEC says that this exemption for a foreign volunteer applies only “as long as the individual performing the service is not compensated by anyone.”

Makes you wonder why the FEC hasn’t investigated a certain presidential campaign in 2016 that allegedly paid a former British intelligence agent (i.e., a foreigner) to do political opposition research, doesn’t it?

Information freely received from a foreigner is not a money contribution or donation. So does it fall within the “thing of value” phrase in the federal statute? It does not.

That phrase has been used by the FEC to go after individuals who make valuable in-kind contributions to campaigns that are the equivalent of direct dollar donations.

For example, if a landlord provides rental space to a campaign free of charge, that would certainly be a “thing of value.”

The candidate would have to report the fair market value of that rental space as a contribution to her campaign and the source of the free rent could not be a corporation—or a foreigner.

Treating information as a financial contribution would bring up constitutional issues.

As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley says, such a “loose interpretation” of the term “thing of value” would “raise serious First Amendment concerns.”

How could anyone provide a campaign with any information or advice without running the danger of it being considered a financial contribution?

Such a view of information as a “thing of value” would be difficult to enforce, too. When the FEC considers whether an in-kind contribution (such as the free rental space mentioned previously) has been made, it must determine the fair market value of the contribution.

That can be difficult even when the in-kind contribution is something tangible like free office space. But how do you determine the fair market value of information?

An individual could spend a million dollars doing opposition research on his own that finds out that a candidate is a perfect angel; if he gives that information to the candidate’s opponent, what is it worth? If there is nothing that can be used against the candidate, does the information have zero value to the campaign?

Or what if potentially damaging information is given to a candidate and then becomes public, but has no discernable effect on the election? Did that information have any value? And how is the FEC to judge the extent—if any—to which specific information affected an election?

As a former commissioner who was faced with making such determinations in enforcement cases, I can assure you that trying to determine the fair market value of information would be very problematic and subject to widely differing views among the six commissioners who govern the FEC.

You can debate the wisdom of any candidate deciding to review information voluntarily provided by a foreign national. But the claim that what the president said he would do is illegal and a violation of federal campaign finance law is highly dubious.

On the other hand, paying for such information—such as hiring a foreign national to gather opposition research on another candidate and using other foreign nationals to infiltrate the campaign—would be a violation of the law under the FEC’s prior precedent.
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Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. More ARRA News Service articles by or about Hans von Spakovsky

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Tags: Sorry, Media, Talking to Foreigners, Does Not Violate Federal Campaign Laws, Hans von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation, The Daily Signal To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The Defining Moment, Other Winners, Democrats In Disarray

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: The Defining Moment
There will be many defining moments in the presidential campaign over the next 17 months, but there was a big one during the second round of Democrat debates last night.

Sen. Kamala Harris turned to Joe Biden and said, "I don't believe you are a racist, but. . ." She then proceeded to slice and dice him.

The issue ironically was busing, one of the most unpopular social engineering solutions of the 1960s and 1970s that tore communities apart. But Sen. Harris was attacking Biden because he was, according to her, against busing in the early 1970s.

To make her point, Harris described a little minority girl waiting to be bused to her school, and added, "That little girl was me." It was a powerful moment.

But it was no spontaneous moment. Within minutes, her campaign blasted out a photo of Harris as a little girl, presumably waiting for her bus. Not long after, her online store was selling T-shirts featuring that photo.

Biden's rebuttal would have gone over well at a Republican debate, but not in today's Democrat Party. He said he wasn't necessarily against busing, but he was against the federal Department of Education imposing it on local school districts.

Well, the first problem for Biden is that his opposition to busing pre-dated the federal Department of Education. It didn't exist until 1979. Second, his response allowed Harris to hit back, saying that it was up to the federal government to safeguard civil rights.

The moment ended badly for Biden when he eagerly noted, "Anyway, my time is up, I'm sorry." Usually, candidates are fighting for time, talking well past their allotted time and even talking over one another. But Biden clearly knew this exchange wasn't going well and just wanted it to be over.

It was a particularly bad sign this morning that Biden campaign staffers are throwing each other under the bus. Operatives say that attendees at watch parties were disappointed with Biden's debate performance. Others have complained in recent days that Biden is stuck in his ways and won't take advice.

There's no question that Kamala Harris gave herself a big boost last night. And there's no question that Joe Biden took a big hit. And you don't have to take my word for it. Even liberal commentators on MSNBC like Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough said that Biden's performance was "a disaster" and were asking if Biden is "finished."

Other Winners
There were two other winners last night, but they weren't on the debate stage.

The first winner from the past two nights is clearly illegal immigrants. The Democrat candidates are clearly all in on open borders and at times seemed more concerned about helping illegal immigrants than American citizens.

The second winner is Donald Trump. Multiple Democrat candidates embraced radical positions over the past 48 hours that will be incredible burdens against Trump in a general election.

Of the multiple issues they embraced, one was particularly striking. Every one of those ten candidates last night endorsed taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants, and the audience cheered. I guarantee you that hard-working middle class Americans watching at home were not cheering.

It wasn't that long ago when Barack Obama stood before members of Congress and declared that Obamacare would not cover illegal aliens. That was when Rep. Joe Wilson yelled out "You lie!" Remember that?

Now all the Democrat candidates, including Obama's vice president, are promising to spend your tax dollars to provide healthcare to illegal immigrants. Only 31% of voters support this radical position.

By the way, we're already paying $18 billion a year to subsidize healthcare for illegal immigrants. That $18 billion would pay for most of the border wall!

President Trump was watching last night's debate and he immediately pounced, tweeting: "How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That's the end of that race!"

And did you notice the one issue that got virtually no attention in the four hours of debate? Impeachment.

Democrats In Disarray
After months of denying the crisis at the southern border, Democrats were scrambling this week to finally address it.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who once called the crisis "fake," was worried enough about getting blamed for it that she felt compelled to cross her own progressive caucus. Yesterday, she brought up for a vote the Republican Senate version of the emergency border funding bill. (The House version of the bill went down in flames 37-to-55 in the Senate.)

But the extra funding and policies in the Senate bill split her caucus, and nearly 100 House Democrats voted against the Senate bill. Thankfully, it easily passed, 305-to-102, as virtually all Republicans supported it.

Progressive Democrats, who want open borders and who want to defund ICE, were furious. Several outlets report there is "open warfare" among the Democrat ranks. Progressive leaders accused the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus of becoming "the Child Abuse Caucus."

The left-wing media does its best to cover-up the deep split that exists within the Democrat Party. But they could not avoid this open food fight.

These tensions did not materialize yesterday. They have been simmering under the surface for some time, and it is likely to get worse as the campaign season heats up.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, The Defining Moment, Other Winners, Democrats In Disarray To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Making America Great — for All Americans

David Limbaugh

by David Limbaugh: I know I’m not the only Trump supporter who is tired of progressives maliciously accusing President Trump and his supporters of racism. They’ve used the slander against conservatives for years, and it has only intensified in the Trump era.

Of all their other nasty smears, they get the most mileage with the race card, so it’s unlikely they’ll do the right thing and abandon it. They probably wouldn’t stand a chance in presidential elections if they were to do so, as they depend on some 90 percent of the African American vote, which they seek to maintain by constantly stirring agitation.

They didn’t need Trump as their ideal bogeyman on race, but caricaturing the GOP’s leader sure doesn’t hurt in perpetuating the fiction. For them Trump is an equal opportunity scoundrel — he’s bad in every category, so it’s not a great leap to tar him as a racial bigot. His signature issue, immigration, just fell into their lap. Why else would he be such a border hawk if not for his racism? Please don’t get me started on this outrage again. Just pray to God that the thrust of their message — that you can’t support American sovereignty unless you’re a racist — doesn’t prevail, or the country truly is finished.

As I’ve noted before, I’m not sure what percentage of progressives actually swallow this bilge versus those who push it for political gain. But they are pushing it, and it has caused great damage. Many rank-and-file leftists claim they feel threatened in the presence of MAGA hat-wearing citizens. Some writers have likened them to an unsophisticated version of Klansmen because Klansmen had the sense to wear hoods to conceal their identity.

Tolerant leftists believe that Trump supporters provoke them simply by evidencing their support for Trump, because they can’t possibly support him without being racists, sexists and homophobes. They wear the hats not to signify their support but as an in-your-face symbol of their unapologetic bigotry.

Can you fathom how sick this is? How out of phase with reality? But it’s apparently real to progressives, or they want you to believe it is.

On Tuesday’s “Morning Joe,” MSNBC’s Joy Reid talked about her new book, “The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story.”

Co-anchor Willie Geist asked her, “As you write about in the book, the people who heard the phrase ‘Make America Great Again,’ it meant to them an America that appeared to be slipping away was going to be reclaimed by this man, and their lives would return to what they were. I’m interested in the other side of it. What do you hear when you hear ‘Make America Great Again’?”

Reid’s response illustrates the extent to which progressives are promoting this delusional malice. “I hear exactly that,” said Reid. “I hear make America a country that, in the 1950s, meant white Christian men had dominion over everyone else. That’s exactly what it means when I hear it. It’s George Wallace. He’s just Republican George Wallace, and that message has been resonant and has actually been potent for a very long time. David Duke used that message when he ran for governor of Louisiana; George Wallace obviously used it and — he had a pretty good chunk of the — at the time, the Democratic Party. Richard Nixon used it. It’s a common message because you just do have a certain quarter, maybe a third of the country, that does not like the idea that we’re becoming a more multiracial society where women have a lot of asserted rights and where they’re not on top.”

There we have it again: If you are bullish on America, you are advertising your bigotry. Under this standard, at least leftists don’t have to fear they’ll be accused of bigotry.

When you couple this nonsense with old white guys like Joe Biden — Democratic presidential front-runner, no less — saying Republicans want to put black people back into chains, and tons of other abominable slanders, what are African Americans supposed to think about us?

Well, many progressives don’t want them to see the truth: that they have been stoking the flames of racial disharmony to obscure the reality that Republicans, conservatives and other Trump supporters believe in the equal dignity of all human beings, and that the Christians among them — probably the vast majority — believe this is true because we are all made in God’s image.

The proof is in the pudding. Trump’s economic policies — lower taxes and regulations — have generated explosive growth benefiting most Americans, including minorities, who are prospering and getting back to work at unprecedented numbers.
I realize that experts say you give credence to false allegations when you dignify them with a response, but I’ll take my chances, because silence can sometimes be the elephant in the room.

So let’s proclaim the message that we do indeed seek to restore and amplify America’s greatness for the benefit of all Americans directly — and the world, derivatively. God bless America.
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David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is "Jesus is Risen: Paul and the Early Church." Follow him on Twitter& @davidlimbaugh and his website at davidlimbaugh.com.

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Bernie's #CancelStudentDebt Is a Dangerous Scam

David Harsanyi

by David Harsanyi: This week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed that it was “literally easier” for her to win the congressional election than pay off her student loan debt — which says something unfortunate about both the cost of college and the electorate’s choices.

Ocasio-Cortez was commenting on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ new plan to eliminate $1.6 trillion in student debt and transform higher education into a “free” and “fundamental right.” “This proposal will make it possible for every person in America to get a college education no matter what their financial situation,” Sanders explained.

This might surprise some people, but every person in America can already get a college education, no matter his financial situation. Most poor Americans, in fact, can attend college for a relatively reasonable price tag. Sanders’ socialization of the university system would be far more helpful for high-earning individuals. One Georgetown University study, for example, finds that a bachelor’s degree is worth $2.8 million on average over a lifetime, which tells us that college is often a pretty good investment.

Then again, around two-thirds of people in the American workforce have no college degree. Some Americans have no interest in higher education. Many don’t need university degrees for the vocations they pursue. They can, I suppose, go to college and earn a useless degree in journalism or comparative literature for kicks. Or, maybe, they could enter the workforce and start subsidizing people like Heather Gautney.

“I am $180k in debt. I have a PHD and am a tenured professor — my students are in the same boat, sinking in debt,” Gautney, a senior policy advisor for Sanders, tweeted. “I pay $1100/month in student loan debt, half of my rent. We MUST #CancelStudentDebt.”

This tweet, more than perhaps any political argument made about “free” college, encapsulates the fundamental injustice of student loan cancellation. Because above all else, Sanders’ plan rewards people who overpaid for degrees or made bad fiscal choices.

Why should those who’ve worked to pay off their loans — and perhaps even their children’s loans — subsidize Gautney’s doctorate in sociology? Why should Americans who skipped college and went straight to work to start businesses and families help pay the $2,200 rent of tenured professors who live in expensive areas like New York (where Gautney teaches)? Why should conscientious kids who weighed the economic tradeoffs of the situation, and went to reasonably priced colleges, or community colleges, bankroll the careers of socialists who do not?

If Ocasio-Cortez feels underpaid at $170,000 — approximately $110,000 above the average American’s salary — she is free to go out into the meritocratic world and find a vocation where her talents will be more fairly remunerated.

Sanders’ plan will ostensibly be made “free” by taxing all trades, and putting fees on bonds and derivatives from the universally reviled institution of Wall Street. For one thing, the cost of all of this will be passed through to investors and businesses, not CEOs, who, I assure you, will continue to send their kids to the very best schools.

Of course, the idea that Sanders (or Elizabeth Warren) is accurately calculating the price of a government entitlement is, to be charitable, highly unlikely. History tells us the cost is sure to skyrocket. The Government Accountability Office reported that loan-forgiveness programs will already cost taxpayers $108 billion over the next 10 years. And Sanders has already underestimated his “Medicare for All” idea by tens of trillions of dollars. There’s nothing more expensive than “free.”

None of this is even accounting for the moral hazard caused by “free college” — or “free” anything, for that matter. We’ve seen some of this in play since the Obama administration took over responsibility for college loans. Progressives want to create a system without risk, where students aren’t responsible for their debt and schools aren’t responsible for their costs. Once colleges know that prospective students can get any loan for any major they desire, incurring no risk whatsoever, what motivation do these institutions have to offer degrees of value?

And, in the end, forgiveness does nothing to lower costs. Then again, when the state takes control of private institutions, it inevitably turns to price controls and all the usual tools that destroy industries.

Then there is the ethical matter. In her speech, Ocasio-Cortez shared the story of a young woman she mentored who would have needed $250,000 in debt in order to attend her dream college. “She got into her dream college but her dream college offered her no scholarships, just loans,” claimed AOC.

The world doesn’t owe you a dream college or a dream house or a dream job. You have no right to someone else’s labor and time. If you want to attend free college, ask professors to offer you their lectures gratis or ask school administrators who run massive endowments to open their doors to everyone.

Or, maybe, ask them to bring down their tuition prices.
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David Harsanyi @davidharsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of “The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong): The Case Against Democracy.” This article was shared by The Patriot Post.

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The Lemon Is Squeezed Dry

by Michael Barone: There's something attractive in the party names in the Supreme Court's decision on the relationship between government and religion: American Legion v. American Humanist Association. Both organizations, the veterans group formed after World War I and the secular humanist group founded the year this nation entered World War II, want to tell you how American they are.

And they are locked in the longstanding debate over the meaning of the first clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," it reads, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Note that this is not, as many Americans think, a command that there be a solid wall between church and state. That metaphor was advanced by Thomas Jefferson, who neither attended the Constitutional Convention nor voted for the First Amendment.

Rather, the amendment barred Congress from creating an established church supported by taxation, like the Church of England, and from messing with the established church in any state (those in Connecticut and Massachusetts continued to exist until 1818 and 1833, respectively).

This made sense in a new nation uniting what had long been culturally and religiously diverse colonies. As Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his concurring opinion in the American Legion case, it also means that this portion of the First Amendment cannot logically be applied to limit the states. States can't be barred from banning "exactly what the text of the Clause seeks to protect: state establishments of religion."

The Bladensburg Cross was erected by citizens in 1925 to memorialize 49 men of Prince George's County, Maryland, who were killed in World War I and has been maintained since in a traffic circle by a state-government agency. The issue before the court was whether the cross was an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

No, said the court, by a 7-2 margin. Justice Samuel Alito's plurality opinion stressed that the cross was old (the American Humanist Association sued in 2012, 87 years after it was dedicated in a multi-faith ceremony), that its message was not solely religious (Americans were much taken with the rows of crosses in World War I military cemeteries) and became even less so over time. Its removal would be seen by many "not as a neutral act but as the manifestation of a 'hostility toward religion.'"

What Justice Alito did not do was decide the case under the three-part test set forth in what was long taken as the leading Establishment Clause case, Lemon v. Kurtzman of 1971. In that case, the court overturned by an 8-1 margin Pennsylvania and Rhode Island laws providing state funding of nonreligious programs provided by religious -- almost all Catholic -- schools.

Lemon, he argued, has not proved to be a "framework" for deciding First Amendment cases, has frequently been sidestepped by the court and has not provided consistent guidance for trial judges. Its supposedly rigorous tests, especially its ban on "an excessive government entanglement with religion," are in practice impressionistic. The same facts strike one judge as forbidden entanglement and another as peaceful co-existence. Such multipart tests, common in midcentury jurisprudence, were a tool for legal elites to foist their values on the public.

Concurring justices were even harsher. Justice Kavanaugh notes, "this Court no longer applies to old test articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman." For Justice Gorsuch, Lemon was "a misadventure" that "sought a 'grand unifying theory' of the Establishment Clause but left us only a mess." Justice Thomas wrote, "I would take the logical next step and overrule the Lemon test in all contexts."

It seems that all the juice has been squeezed from this citrus, with just the rind left rotting in the garbage can.

Lemon and American Legion were decided in culturally different Americas. Lemon's postwar America was a time of increasing religious allegiance and attendance, of significant cultural conformity. It was a time when judges and legal scholars were quick to detect and eager to prevent what they considered undue pressure on nonconformists and unbelievers.

Today's America is one of declining religious allegiance and attendance, one in which media, university, corporate elites and government elites stigmatize religious belief and expression. It's an America where justices seek to prevent undue pressure on believers.

Lemon lawsuits are used to stifle First Amendment free exercise of religion just as university speech codes are used to stifle First Amendment freedom of speech, at the behest of those claiming to be "offended." But as Justice Gorsuch noted, the court's standing doctrine lets only those with concrete interests bring lawsuits. Feeling offended by an 87-year-old monument is not enough.
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Michael Barone is a Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel  and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics Shared by Rasmussen Reports.

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Memo to Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi

by Patrick Buchanan: “If she makes it into the second round, Gabbard could become the catalyst for the kind of globalist vs. nationalist debate that broke out between Trump and Bush Republicans in 2016, a debate that contributed to Trump’s victory…”

“For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end.”

Donald Trump, circa 2016?

Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii during Wednesday night’s Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on stage.

Gabbard proceeded to rip both the “president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us to the brink of war with Iran.”

In a fiery exchange, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio countered that America cannot disengage from Afghanistan: “When we weren’t in there they started flying planes into our buildings.”

“The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11,” Gabbard replied, “Al-Qaida attacked us on 9/11. That’s why I and so many other people joined the military, to go after al-Qaida, not the Taliban.”

When Ryan insisted we must stay engaged, Gabbard shot back:

“Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? ‘Well, we just have to be engaged.’ As a solider, I will tell you, that answer is unacceptable. … We are no better off in Afghanistan that we were when this war began.”

By debate’s end, Gabbard was the runaway winner in both the Drudge Report and Washington Examiner polls and was far in front among all the Democratic candidates whose names were being searched on Google.

Though given less than seven minutes of speaking time in a two-hour debate, she could not have used that time more effectively. And her performance may shake up the Democratic race.

If she can rise a few points above her 1-2% in the polls, she could be assured a spot in the second round of debates.

If she is, moderators will now go to her with questions of foreign policy issues that would not have been raised without her presence, and these questions will expose the hidden divisions in the Democratic Party.

Leading Democratic candidates could be asked to declare what U.S. policy should be — not only toward Afghanistan but Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jared Kushner’s “Deal of the Century,” and Trump’s seeming rejection of the two-state solution.

If she makes it into the second round, Gabbard could become the catalyst for the kind of globalist vs. nationalist debate that broke out between Trump and Bush Republicans in 2016, a debate that contributed to Trump’s victory at the Cleveland convention and in November.

The problem Gabbard presents for Democrats is that, as was shown in the joust with Ryan, she takes positions that split her party, while her rivals prefer to talk about what unites the party, like the terribleness of Trump, free college tuition and soaking the rich.

Given more airtime, she will present problems for the GOP as well. For the foreign policy Tulsi Gabbard is calling for is not far off from the foreign policy Donald Trump promised in 2016 but has since failed to deliver.

We still have 2,000 troops in Syria, 5,000 in Iraq, 14,000 in Afghanistan. We just moved an aircraft carrier task force, B-52s and 1,000 troops to the Persian Gulf to confront Iran. We are about to impose sanctions on the Iranian foreign minister with whom we would need to negotiate to avoid a war.

Jared Kushner is talking up a U.S.-led consortium to raise $50 billion for the Palestinians in return for their forfeiture of sovereignty and an end to their dream of a nation-state on the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital.

John Bolton is talking of regime change in Caracas and confronting the “troika of tyranny” in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Rather than engaging Russia as Trump promised, we have been sanctioning Russia, arming Ukraine, sending warships into the Black Sea, beefing up NATO in the Baltic and trashing arms control treaties Ronald Reagan and other presidents negotiated in the Cold War

U.S. policy has managed to push our great adversaries, Russia and China, together as they have not been since the first Stalin-Mao decade of the Cold War.

This June, Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing where he and Xi Jinping met in the Great Hall of the People to warn that in this time of “growing global instability and uncertainty,” Russia and China will “deepen their consultations on strategic stability issues.”

Xi presented Putin with China’s new Friendship Medal. Putin responded: “Cooperation with China is one of Russia’s top priorities and it has reached an unprecedented level.”

At the end of the Cold War, we were the lone superpower. Who forfeited our preeminence? Who bled us of 7,000 U.S. lives and $6 trillion in endless Middle East wars? Who got us into this Cold War II?

Was all this the doing of those damnable isolationists again?
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Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.

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Tech Threat . . .

. . . The liberal elites want you looking at the phony Russia Collusion hoax while hoping you ignore the real “collusion” of high tech and the left.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Two Faced . . .

. . . No one recalls Shepard Smith of Fox News shedding a single tear over illegal immigrants dying during the Obama Administration, but a different story with Trump in office.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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The Fake Democratic Health Care Debate

Phil Kerpen

by Phil Kerpen, Contributing Author: Just a decade after Democrats steamrolled Republicans and public opposition to upend the American health care system, they are ready to move on to the next phase on their plan to force every American into a government-run health care plan.

Some of them, led by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris (about half the time—she flops like a fish), openly advocate banning private health insurance (except for "supplemental coverage," meaning cosmetic surgery) and immediately forcing everyone into a government plan.

That's what the "Medicare for All" bill in Congress would do. Others, led by Joe Biden, adopt a more subtle path to destroying private insurance developed by Yale professor Jacob Hacker called the "public option" – alternately called a "Medicare buy-in" or "Medicare X."

The "public option" strategy for ending private insurance is to set it up in a rigged competition with a government-run plan that can absorb losses indefinitely and can use the power of government to dictate below market prices to doctors and hospitals. Simultaneously, private plans would be subject to regulations by the same government that is competing with them.

Americans would have the illusion of choosing to keep their private insurance for a while, but would all eventually end up in the single payer government plan.

Some have said that makes the public option a Trojan Horse for single payer, but Professor Hacker, the inventor of the plan, disputed that characterization to a 2008 audience at the liberal Tides Foundation: "Someone once said to me, 'Well, this is a Trojan horse for single payer.' I said, 'Well, it's not a Trojan horse, right? It's just right there! I'm telling you!'"

Hacker tried strenuously to walk those comments back ever since.

But third-tier presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand said it again at the Democratic debate: "We put into the transition period for our Medicare for All Plan. I believe we need to get to universal healthcare as a right, not a privilege to single payer. The quickest way you get there is you create competition with the insurers... So, what will happen is people will choose Medicare. You will transition. We would get to Medicare for All. And then your step to single payer is so short."

Pete Buttigieg agreed with her, adding: "Now here’s how I would do it. It’s very similar... People can buy in, and then if people like us are right that that will be not only a more inclusive plan, but a more efficient plan than any of the corporate answers out there, then it will be a very natural glide path to the single payer environment."

Biden reiterated his support for the "public option" at the debate when he called it adding a "Medicare like plan" to the Obamacare exchanges – as his campaign had tweeted the night before during the undercard debate: "The Biden Administration will give every American the right to choose a public option."

Notably, unlike his opponents who endorse the identical policy, Biden is less forthright that a rigged competition between a government plan and private insurance will get us to single payer. He wants to appear less radical with an eye toward the general election. But it is a disagreement only on means, not ends. Biden, like Sanders, eventually wants every American locked into a government-run health plan.

Democrats want a "Medicare for all" system where costs run into the tens of trillions – doubling the size of the federal government – and are borne by taxpayers, and the only cost containment mechanism is delaying and denying care.

They want the power of life and death, what treatment is approved and what is denied, to be trusted to politicians and bureaucrats.

They want a system that disincentivizes research and development and the discovery of new cures.

And, as we saw so vividly in a show of hands, they want this taxpayer-funded health care system to be open to anyone anywhere in the world who chooses to come to the United States – legally or illegally.

There is nothing moderate about tricking the American people into swallowing single payer through a "public option" transition. And there is absolutely no reason to trust the same Democrats who gave us Obamacare with another, even more extreme version of government-run health care.
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Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment. Follow him at (@kerpen) and on Facebook. He is a contributing author at the ARRA News Service.

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Gender Identity

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Could it be that nearly everything we have been told about sexual orientation and gender identity is wrong? A report published in the journal, The New Atlantis, seems to challenge conventional secular perspectives on these issues. The paper by Dr. Lawrence Mayer and Dr. Paul McHugh surveys over 200 peer-reviewed studies done in various social science disciplines.

Ryan Anderson, of the Heritage Foundation, summarizes the paper’s results. He says the major takeaway is that “some of the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence.” Here are four of the most important conclusions from the paper.

First, the “belief that sexual orientation is an innate, biologically fixed human property” is not supported. In other words, people are not “born that way.”

Second, the “belief that gender identity is an innate, fixed human property independent of biological sex—so that a person might be a man trapped in a woman’s body or a woman trapped in a man’s body—is not supported by scientific evidence.”

Third, “only a minority of children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behavior will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.” It goes on to say that children should not be encouraged to become transgender. They also should not be subjected to hormone treatments or surgery.

Fourth, people who are homosexual or transgender “have higher rates of mental problems (anxiety, depression, suicide), as well as behavioral and social problems (substance abuse, intimate partner violence), than the general population.”

The paper only focuses on the scientific research, but it obviously has implications for public policy. Incorrect scientific claims have been used to justify court rulings, government policies, and medical practices concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. They have not been based on sound science.
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Kerby Anderson (@kerbyanderson) is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network (@PointofViewRTS) and is endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service.

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Who'll Stop the Wars?

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: "Why were you the lone voice out there going after the neo-cons, going after the people who took us into these wars?" Chris Mathews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, asked presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) after Wednesday night's debate.

Pro-peace candidates do well with voters, but still most politicians and the media remain hawkish. The only time "the mainstream media fawned" over President Trump was after airstrikes against Syria.

"I deployed to Iraq in 2005 during the height of that war," she told Mathews. "I served in a medical unit where every single day I saw that terribly high human cost."

Contrasted with former Vice-President Joe Biden, who voted for the Iraq War as senator, Gabbard pledged not to "bend to the whims of the military-industrial complex or the foreign policy establishment."

"Today the Taliban claimed responsibility for killing two American service members in Afghanistan," MSNBC's Rachel Maddow had posed during the debate. Noting that "leaders as disparate as President Obama and President Trump" have wanted "to end US involvement," Maddow inquired of Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), how he might get us out?

Instead, he argued: "We must be engaged in this." That led Gabbard to cut in, calling Ryan's answer "unacceptable."

"We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan," she declared. "We are no better off in Afghanistan today than we were when this war began [nearly 18 years ago]."

Offered the opportunity, not one of the other eight candidates on the stage addressed the country's longest war.

This is a problem, since, as I've repeatedly posited in this space, there is no plan to defeat the Taliban, only to negotiate power-sharing with them.

Ceaseless intervention.

This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob..
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Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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