Debate Boredom and the Disconnected Democrats

by Newt Gingrich: Remember the exciting, unpredictable, entertaining quality of the 2015-2016 Republican presidential debates?

Who would candidate Donald Trump take down this week?

How would Trump dominate the media questioners yet again?

Whether you were for Trump, appalled by him, or just curious, each debate was worth watching.

Trump was so different – and so cheerfully direct and aggressive – that people began to see the debates as a sort of reality TV (which is what they should be). Our country is better when more people actually want to watch debates and participate in elections.

By contrast, Thursday’s boring, old-time politician tone was painful to sit through.

At one point, Senator Kamala Harris acknowledged the bizarre, boring nature of the debate. After 30 minutes of policy wonk jargon about incomprehensible details of health policy, Harris remarked, “this discussion has given the American people a headache.”

You could like or dislike Trump, but you can’t imagine a participant in a Trump-energized debate saying – as Mayor Pete Buttigieg did – that the presidential debates “are becoming unwatchable.”

The most revealing moment of the entire debate may have been Vice President Joe Biden’s comment that to help poor children learn more words, parents should “make sure you have the record player on at night.”

It may be tricky for the Democrats if they nominate someone in 2020 who is mentally in a world of record players. It will be quite difficult to try to be the party of the future when you have a candidate of the past.

Similarly, the more radical candidates – virtually everyone other than the two semi-moderates Biden and Senator Amy Klobuchar – seemed to be in a contest to alienate the most Americans.

Just in case the talk about Medicare for all, getting rid of private insurance, defunding charter schools, and the usual left-wing radicalism wasn’t enough, Beto O’Rourke set the classic example of driving away voters and alienating entire regions of the country.

When debate moderator David Muir questioned O’Rourke about his recent comments about firearm bans and confiscations, Muir asked bluntly: “Are you proposing taking away their guns?”

Apparently, O’Rourke wanted to make absolutely certain that the millions of law-abiding American households that own guns would understand that his candidacy was a mortal threat to their freedom and 2nd Amendment rights.

“Hell, yes, we’re going to take away your AR-15, your AK-47,” O’Rourke said.

Senator Elizabeth Warren also reminded millions of Americans about her elitist isolation from most people when she said, “I’ve actually never met anybody who likes their health insurance company.”

Warren’s comment is quite revealing since the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 58 percent of the American people oppose a health care policy plan that would force them to give up the private insurance option. Only 37 percent favored getting rid of all private health insurance. The support continues to drop when so-called Medicare for All raises most Americans’ taxes (37 percent), threatens the current Medicare program (32 percent), and causes delays in treatment (26 percent).

Senator Warren of course represents the 37 percent. President Trump would (and will) be happy to defend the 58 percent.

Every time there is another boring, wonkish, disconnected Democratic debate like this, the 2020 Trump victory will become bigger and bigger.
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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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152 Ways Trump Is Changing America

by Tony Perkins: They call the Senate the "deliberative body" -- and it's been deliberate all right. This week, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had the honor of presiding over President Trump's 150th (and 151st and 152nd) judicial confirmation hitting the milestone at record speed -- and cementing this administration's place as one of the most influential court-shapers in history.

It's not a story the media will want to tell, but the impact that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell have had on the courts is one of the greatest stories of the 45th presidency. The mark, which puts this administration ahead of Obama's by more than 50 at this point, is astounding. It means, experts say, that by the end of his term, President Trump may have shaped as much as 30 percent of the bench -- a historic legacy that will reverberate through America for generations to come.

McConnell, who has quietly plowed through the nominations at break-neck speed, is most proud of the kind of people Republicans have played a part in elevating. "[The judges] we've been nominating believe in the simple, quaint notion that maybe the judges ought to follow the law. I'm amazed that that's controversial..." he said on Fox News. "We are making an important difference for the country that will last for a very long time and my motto for this Congress is: 'leave no vacancy behind.'"

Thursday, on "Washington Watch," Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) had nothing but praise for the president -- not just for keeping his promise on the courts, but well surpassing it.
"It's an amazing number. One hundred and fifty judges in just three years -- less than three years. It's really, really extraordinary. It's a testament to this administration. President Trump took a pledge. He said, 'I'm going to nominate conservative, pro-Constitution, pro-life judges to the bench. And he's done exactly that... And given the history of what the courts have been used for by the Left... this is so significant. And it has generational impact."Still, Hawley said, there's no reason to stop now. "There's still a lot of work to do. There are still almost 100 open seats on the federal courts at all levels. That's a bunch of seats. That's a bunch of judges. We need to fill those with pro-Constitution men and women." He believes, and we agree, that this is something that will matter for America and for our country -- not just for the next two or three years, "but for the next 30 and 40 and 50." President Trump is going to have the chance to appoint something like a quarter or a third of the entire federal judiciary.

"And... look, [the] judges in our country are extremely powerful. I mean, if you look around the world, we're kind of an anomaly. Judges in the country have more power for better or for worse than in a lot of other places. So who sits on the bench for those lifetime appointments? Who makes decisions about what our Constitution means and how to interpret it?"

Someday, very soon, Americans will find out for themselves just how significant the president's investment in the courts has been. Until then, we agree with Senator Hawley: keep it up!

[Begin listening at the 10:53 mark.]
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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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EPA Repeals ‘Power Grab’ Water Rule It Says Stifled Innovation, Economic Development

by Kevin Mooney: Help is on the way for homeowners and landowners, businesses, developers, and farmers who have been victimized by “regulatory uncertainty” and federal “overreach,” Trump administration officials told business leaders Thursday.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and R.D. James, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, joined members of Congress and leaders of trade associations to announce the completed repeal of the Obama administration’s so-called Clean Water Rule of 2015.

The much-criticized rule had expanded the definition of “waters of the United States”—or WOTUS—under the Clean Water Act.

The Trump administration’s announcement, which drew criticism from environmental groups, was made before an audience at the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group based in Washington.

“When President Trump took office, he set in motion a process to remove and replace regulatory burdens that were stifling American innovation and economic development,” Wheeler said, adding:
The Obama administration’s Waters of the United States definition was at the top of the list.

We are gathered here today because EPA and the Army [Corps of Engineers] are officially repealing the 2015 definition. Today’s final rule puts an end to an egregious power grab, eliminates an ongoing patchwork of Clean Water Act regulations, and restores a long-standing and familiar regulatory framework while we consider public comments on our proposed revised definition of waters of the United States.

We are delivering on the president’s regulatory-reform agenda.Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research, told The Daily Signal in an email that the Obama administration had overstepped its authority with its version of the WOTUS rule.

“Under the guise of ‘clarifying’ two ambiguous Supreme Court rulings from the early 2000s, the Obama administration concocted an elaborate scheme that would have subjected millions of acres of private land to federal zoning,” he said, adding:
Two federal court decisions in the last three months—one in Texas, the other in Georgia—found that the Obama plan to regulate wetlands went far beyond what the Clean Water Act allows.

The confusion over what qualifies as ‘waters of the United States’ under the [Clean Water Act] has bedeviled farmers, ranchers, homebuilders, and others involved in natural resources-related businesses for years.

While the Obama plan empowered unaccountable federal bureaucrats, the Trump initiative strikes a blow to the administrative regulatory state and lifts a huge burden from rural communities all across the country.Daren Bakst, a senior fellow with The Heritage Foundation, said in a written statement that the Trump administration’s rule change will help to restore the rule of law in an area where it had gone missing.

“The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers protect our nation’s waters best when they define what waters are regulated under the Clean Water Act in a manner consistent with the law itself, the U.S. Constitution, and a recognition that clear and objective definitions achieve positive environmental outcomes,” Bakst said, adding:
The Obama Clean Water Rule—notorious for garnering widespread opposition—failed on all counts.

In an unprecedented power grab, this rule handed federal bureaucrats authority to regulate almost any water imaginable—creating unnecessary regulatory obstacles for everyone from farmers plowing their land to local governments building ditches for public safety to families building their homes.

By repealing this rule, the Trump administration has rightfully put an end to this definition of ‘waters of the United States’ that made the EPA and [Army Corps of Engineers] more similar to local zoning boards than federal regulators.

As the administration formulates its own, more appropriate definition of ‘waters of the United States,’ it should respect the rule of law and provide much-needed clarity to ensure an ordinary person would understand what waters are regulated.More background on the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal the 2015 WOTUS rule and restore prior regulatory language is available here.

Mike Howell, a senior adviser for executive branch relations with The Heritage Foundation, attended Wheeler’s announcement Thursday. He credited Trump for delivering on his pledge to provide the American people with regulatory relief.

“File this under promises kept,” Howell said. “The Trump administration today provided regulatory certainty to landowners across the country and undid one of the most egregious power grabs of the Obama administration.”

Not everyone was pleased with the Trump administration’s actions, however. The Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York City-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group, had issued a press release in anticipation of Thursday’s announcement.

Jon Devine, director of federal water policy at the council, said that the rule change would lead to environmental degradation.

“The Clean Water Rule represented solid science and smart public policy. Where it has been enforced, it has protected important waterways and wetlands, providing certainty to all stakeholders,” he said, adding:
The Trump administration’s wild-eyed attempts to reward polluters, however, knows no bounds, so it is repealing these important protections without regard for the law or sound science.

This unsubstantiated action is illegal and will certainly be challenged in court.But David Fisher, president of the New York Farm Bureau, supports the rule change. He credits the Trump administration for striking a balance between environmental protection and economic opportunity.

“Farmers share the goal of protecting the nation’s water, but the 2015 Waters of the United States rule was unreasonable and unworkable,” he said at Thursday’s press event in Washington, adding:
It made protecting water quality and conservation efforts more difficult and created huge liabilities for farmers, especially when what waters would be regulated under the old rule could not be clearly defined.

This turned farming into a guessing game on which land use required federal permits and what did not.

New York Farm Bureau appreciates the EPA’s diligent effort to repeal and clarify the WOTUS rule to ensure a fair and reasonable substitute that protects our water and our ability to work and care for the land.-----------------------
Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is an investigative reporter for Heritage Foundation's The Daily Signal

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Extremism On Full Display, Is This Biden's Best, Values Voter Summit

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer: Extremism On Full Display

"I'm not here to repeal the Second Amendment. I'm not here to take away your guns."

That was Hillary Clinton during her acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention just a little over three years ago. Clinton wanted to make it absolutely clear that neither she nor anyone else in the Democratic Party wanted to take your guns away. Democrats dismissed such concerns as "a fear tactic of the right meant to scare people."

Fast forward to last night's Democrat debate.

"Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15!"

That was Beto O'Rourke during last night's debate boldly going where Hillary dared not. As one commentator put it, "A Democrat candidate is promising to rob you of your Second Amendment rights."

Extreme forms of gun confiscation now appear to be the default position of the Democrat Party. In addition to O'Rourke's plans, Cory Booker wants registration for gun owners.

This isn't surprising. The socialist left is attacking the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

There are at least 15 million AR-15s in the United States. Anyone evil enough to go into a shopping center to kill dozens of people is not going to give Beto their gun. Anyone willing to give up their gun because the law requires it is not going to commit a mass shooting.

All the left's gun-grabbing will accomplish is the disarming of law-abiding Americans.

Other ideas expressed last night were just as unrealistic. There were numerous proposals offered that would cost massive amounts of money and result in complete government control of your life.

I'm glad the Trump campaign flew a banner over the debate hall warning that socialism would kill the economy. Too bad they couldn't post the banner inside the hall so the socialist audience could see it.

For three long hours, I heard almost nothing about job creation and economic growth. But I heard plenty of attacks against industries that employ millions of American workers.

Is This Biden's Best?
What about Joe Biden?

He began the debate as the frontrunner for the nomination, and I believe he held his own. His energy level was up last night. Surprisingly, I don't believe any of the other candidates succeeded in landing a serious blow against him.

Polls suggest he's the strongest candidate to take on Trump. But in trying to win the nomination of a party that has embraced socialism, he has said many things that will make him a weaker candidate next year.

Julian Castro zeroed in on what will be an ongoing issue for Biden -- his age and mental faculties. Bernie Sanders didn't do it himself, but his surrogate Linda Sarsour has questioned Biden's mental health. This issue won't go away anytime soon.

He recently got all his facts wrong about a heroic soldier.

He claimed to oppose the Iraq war "as soon as it began."

He said last night that the Obama Administration "didn't lock [illegal immigrants] up in cages." He's either lying or he doesn't remember.

But that's not all.

He also said during last night's debate, "Nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime."

Really, Joe? Not Bernie Madoff? Not any of those Wall Street bankers that the left believes should be in jail for tanking the economy? Maybe this was Biden's way of signaling to Brennan, Comey and McCabe that they will have nothing to worry about if he's elected.

And in response to a question about his sensitivity to racial issues, Biden rambled on and on, eventually suggesting to parents, "Make sure you have the record player on at night."

Thanks for the advice, Uncle Joe. Sure you don't want to crank up the phonograph while you're at it?

The so-called "party of youth" has three front runners who if elected would be 79 (Warren), 85 (Biden) and 87 (Sanders) after two terms in office.

Values Voter Summit
Join me in our nation's capital, October 11th - 13th, for the 2019 Values Voter Summit.

Vice President Mike Pence said, "The Values Voter Summit [is] the greatest gathering of conservative pro-family Americans in the nation." And he is absolutely right!

That's why American Values, my non-profit public policy organization, has been a proud sponsor of the Summit every year.

This year's Summit will feature an incredible lineup of top government officials, opinion makers and faith leaders, such as:

• Dr. Bill Bennett
• Ken Blackwell
• Brigitte Gabriel
• Dana Loesch
• Rep. Mark Meadows
• Lt. Col. Oliver North
• Todd Starnes
• And many, many more!

There will be educational and informative breakout sessions on a range of topics, including:

• Why Christians Should Support Israel
• Engaging Millennials On Socialism, The Sanctity of Life And Gun Control
• The Progressive Assault On Freedom Of Conscience
• The Darkening Landscape Of American Education

In addition, there will be a gala celebration honoring Pastor Andrew Brunson.

American Values is hosting a special luncheon Saturday, October 12th.

Seats are going fast, so be certain to reserve yours now at valuesvotersummit.org.

I look forward to seeing you there!
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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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Entitlements In the Neighborhood

by Tom Balek, Contributing Author: So I’m surfing through the neighborhood social media, and yet another thread is filling up about a locally owned bar/restaurant that has failed shortly after opening.

It saddened me for a number of reasons. I have been a small business owner, and I know the financial risk and hard work that a family takes on when opening a new venture, and how heartbreaking it must be to fail. This club was one that employed local musicians, which also hits home with me. A small business closure impacts many people – employees, vendors, neighbors and customers.

The bar/restaurant business is a tough gig. If the owner (or an extraordinary manager) is not on the premises at all times, profit seems to bleed out of the windows and doors. Bartenders “take care” of their friends, or pocket cash before it gets to the till. Finding and training good servers and cooks takes a lot of time and effort. The bad ones either don’t show up or kill your business when they do, and too often the good ones are lured away by a competitor for a few more bucks.

Stick with me, I’ll get to the entitlement part in a minute.

Some business owners shouldn’t be. While they may have a great talent and passion for a particular product or service, if they don’t understand the important basics of business – accounting, cash flow, managing employees, marketing and market differentiation, inventory control – they are unlikely to survive. Making the best cheesesteak sandwich in the world is one thing; making a profit is another.

Every day in the neighborhood social media, which is a pretty good indicator of the attitudes of the proletariat, I see a lot of whining about businesses, especially restaurants. “Why doesn’t somebody open a [insert name] restaurant here?” “I went to the new local bar but I didn’t like their nachos.” “The new sushi place is too expensive.” “I have to drive to the city to get a gourmet dinner.” Many of the folks in my neighborhood seem to think life owes them a world-class restaurant, on the corner of their block, that charges McDonald’s prices, pays its employees $50 an hour, and contributes to their favorite local charity.

The ability for customers to review businesses online is empowering. And dangerous. It feeds the expanding sense of entitlement that we see every day, fueled by the “free everything” political platform of the Democrats.

It’s getting harder every day to operate a small business. It’s do-able, but not for the faint-of-heart or one lacking serious business chops. Because of social media, all it takes is a couple of one-time correctable flubs, a dishonest customer or competitor, or a disgruntled employee to do serious damage to a business. Add to that high taxes and insensitive government decisions such as lengthy street closings for repairs and arbitrary zoning decisions. As a result, locally-owned businesses disappear as we see signs for the same national brands popping up in every neighborhood.

All we Americans are entitled to is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Despite the empty promises of Democrats, we are not entitled to total happiness and security. We are not entitled to free health care, free college, forgiveness of debt or guaranteed wages.

Supply and demand works. Many of my neighbors are all about demand, and never stop to consider how supply happens.

Stop whining, people.
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Tom Balek is a fellow conservative activist, blogger, musician and contributes to the ARRA News Service. Tom resides in South Carolina and seeks to educate those too busy with their work and families to notice how close to the precipice our economy has come. He blogs at Rockin' On the Right Side

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All Aboard Trump Train 2020!

Lloyd Marcus

by Lloyd Marcus: Hello, America. The recording session for my “Trump Train 2020” song could not have gone better. If you remember, my music producer is based in Baltimore. I asked him to gather singers to form a choir for the recording of the song. He reported back to me that all the singers he knows do not support Trump or are passionately against him. This prompted me to launch a clarion call for pro-America/pro-Trump singers. The response was tremendous.

Saturday, September 7, 2019, singers from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, and Florida trekked to Blue House Productions recording studio in Silver Spring, Maryland to record the “Trump Train 2020” song by Lloyd Marcus.

The singers were an enthusiastic, racially diverse choir ranging from age 14 to the mid-70s. It was thrilling to have teenagers who have not drunk fake news media’s anti-Trump Kool-Aid performing on the recording. Everyone was happy, upbeat, and excited about contributing to the re-election of our president, keeping America great!

Despite the singers being strangers meeting for the first time, the recording session felt like a family reunion. Everyone was of one accord.

Jerry Marcus

My brother Jerry Marcus arrived for the recording session, wearing his Rush Limbaugh “Stand Up for Betsy Ross” t-shirt. Before we began recording, I asked everyone to join hands as Jerry led us in a prayer for the recording session, our country, and our president. Jerry’s prayer set the perfect tone.

The recording session was fantastic! I shared the finished mix of the song with a promoter. She said you can feel the joy and unity in the singer’s voices. I can hardly wait for y’all to hear it. You will hear the “Trump Train 2020” song in the soon-to-be-released music video.

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said he is seeing signs of some on our side becoming weary of fake news media’s relentless negative reporting about Trump. They foolishly believe that Trump should be less confrontational in hope that the media will be fair to him.

Some on our side still do not understand that progressives are repulsed by Trump’s mission to make America great again. Thank God Trump is in the ring punching it out with Democrats, fake news media, Hollywood, and RINOs to achieve what is best for America.

After our awesome recording session, my wife Mary and I arrived back to our hotel room, extremely grateful and exhausted. I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. MSNBC and CNN were engaged in their 24/7 hateful lie-filled reporting about Trump. Unbelievable.

This confirmed the importance of my “Trump Train 2020” song, spreading the truth about our courageous president. God turned the negative circumstances of not being able to find local singers supportive of Trump into an opportunity for true patriots to lend their voices for the good of our country.

I wish to publicly thank all my “Trump Train 2020” singers who came from far and wide. I love you guys!
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Lloyd Marcus (@LloydMarcus) is an "Unhyphenated American" and an internationally renowned conservative columnist, singer/songwriter and author. He is Chairman of the Conservative Campaign Committee Political Action Committee. He is a prominent voice of the American Tea Party movement and the singer/songwriter of the ”American Tea Party Anthem.” Marcus has been on Fox News, CNN, PJTV and more.

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Debating A Murderer President, A Racist USA, A Dying Planet

by Thomas McArdle, I & I Editorial Board: Much of the mainstream media coverage of Thursday night’s ABC debate between a narrowed-down field of 10 Democratic presidential candidates is focusing on who scored enough points to increase their poll numbers. Did Andrew Yang help himself by announcing his campaign is about to give “$1,000 a month for an entire year to 10 American families” who compellingly describe how they’ll use the cash? Did Julián Castro succeed in making Joe Biden look senile? And so on.

But what actually stood out, for all the claims that “the American people are so much better than this,” as Sen. Kamala Harris said, and promises to “trust the American people,” as Mayor Pete Buttigieg put it, is the contempt shown on that stage in Houston for the people’s judgment – and their character.

Who would trust a people who elected a murderer as their president? According to Castro, referring to the El Paso shooter, “a few weeks ago, a shooter drove 10 miles inspired by this president to kill people who look like me and people who look like my family. White supremacy is a growing threat to this country, and we have to root it out.”

Harris added: “Obviously he didn’t pull the trigger but he’s certainly been tweeting out the ammunition.”

Adolf Hitler may not have had his hand on the valve that released the Zyklon B gas, but motivating others to commit the actual slaughter obviously makes no one guiltier in the Nazis’ mass murders. To these assembled Democrats, President Donald Trump’s tweets are identical to the Führer’s Nuremberg Rallies.

Sen. Cory Booker, echoing Castro, said, “we know Donald Trump’s a racist.” Buttigieg, asked if “people who support President Trump and his immigration policies are racist” replied, “anyone who supports this is supporting racism.”

“A racism and violence that had long been a part of America was welcomed out into the open” was Beto O’Rourke’s description of the El Paso Walmart shooting that left 22 dead. He added: “We have a white supremacist in the White House and he poses a mortal threat to people of color all across this country.”

Presumably, Trump would like to kill the people who enjoy record high employment under his policies. Apparently, white supremacist presidents giveth and taketh away.

O’Rourke went further. “Racism in America is endemic. It is foundational. We can mark the creation of this country not at the Fourth of July, 1776, but August 20, 1619, when the first kidnapped African was brought to this country against his will and in bondage and as a slave built the greatness and the success and the wealth that neither he nor his descendants would ever be able to fully participate in and enjoy.”

So forget the fireworks and cookouts on July Fourth. Under President Beto we’ll be having mass self-flagellations the 20th day of every August.

Seeking To Lead A Country Steeped In Bigotry
Many of the Democrats called for higher pay for teachers – naturally, since the public school teachers’ unions are among the party’s biggest backers. But according to O’Rourke, those same teachers are instruments of our institutionalized racism. He claimed that in his own native state of Texas, “a 5-year-old child in kindergarten is five times as likely to be disciplined or suspended or expelled based on the color of their skin.”

So why exactly would we want to give these supposed distributors of racially motivated punishments more cash? Especially when we’ll be needing so much lucre for Beto’s plan to “sign into law a reparations bill that will allow us to address this at its foundation.”

Booker said America’s institutional racism even extends to “environmental injustice,” and of course all the candidates were outdoing each other on saving the planet from the humans who infest it. Warren promised she would “by 2028 cut all carbon emissions from new buildings. By 2030, carbon emissions from cars. And by 2035, all carbon emissions from the manufacture of electricity.”

The way to save our dying planet is apparently by killing our racist country’s economy.

There was a lot more. Harris, who can’t make up her mind on her health reform proposal, claimed: “Under my Medicare For All plan, people have the choice of a private plan or a public plan.” Maybe “Medicare For Some” would be a better name for that.

Warren seems to think she can increase China’s minimum wage, not just ours: “You want to come sell goods to American consumers? Then you’ve got to raise your standards. You’ve got to raise your labor standards.”

Buttigieg as commander in chief would telegraph to our enemies at the outset of war the date of an American surrender courtesy of a “built-in three-year sunset.”

And the education policy of Biden, the supposed moderate, sounds Orwellian: “We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want help. They don’t know quite what to do.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar happily declared of herself and her fellow presidential hopefuls that “what unites us is so much bigger than what divides us.” She’s quite right. So far to the left has this party moved that all these candidates apparently believe we have a society steeped in centuries-strong racism, that its bigoted populace elected a white supremacist as president who uses social media to engineer racially motivated mass shootings. And it all happens in a world that has just a few more years before its doom at the hands of that same society of bigots.

Self-loathing is a strange, new strategy for winning the White House, but next year will reveal whether it can work.
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Issues & Insights (@InsightsIssues) is a new site formed by the seasoned I & I Editorial Board journalists behind the legendary IBD Editorials page. We’re doing this on a voluntary basis because we believe the nation needs the kind of cogent, rational, data-driven, fact-based commentary that we can provide. Article by Thomas McArdle.

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Buttigieg Distorts Logic and Scripture on Abortion

David Limbaugh

by David Limbaugh: Perhaps Mayor Pete Buttigieg would have a better shot at appealing to Christian voters if he would not go to such extreme lengths to contort Scripture to rationalize his party’s abominable stance on abortion.

The Democratic presidential candidate openly expresses his Christian faith and was the first candidate to hire a national faith outreach director. He believes political conservatism is less compatible with Christianity than political liberalism.

Buttigieg says the GOP likes “to cloak itself in their language of religion” and accuses Republicans of hypocrisy for their alleged callousness about family separations at the border.

“For the party and the movement known for beating other people on the head with their faith, or their interpretation of faith, it makes no sense to — we’ll literally vote to take away food from the hungry, to essentially be practicing the very thing that not just the Christian scriptural tradition but so many others tell us we’re not supposed to do in terms of harming other people,” said Buttigieg in an interview with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. “I do think there’s going to be a reckoning over that because there are a lot of people I think sitting in the pews hearing political conservatism all around them, wondering whether that really matches what we’re being told to do, not to mention how we’re supposed to do it.”

It is undeniable that Jesus repeatedly and emphatically commands us to care for the poor, and Christians take these directives lightly at their own peril. But these commands are directed at individuals, not governments. They are anything but a mandate for socialism.

Progressives, especially those contemptuous of biblical Christianity, have long claimed a monopoly on compassion for the poor and insisted conservatives are greedy and indifferent. Their support for an ever-growing welfare state has seductive appeal to those who equate government-coerced redistributions of wealth with personal charity. It is attractive to those who don’t understand or who willfully ignore socialism’s historical record of impoverishing and enslaving people.

Conservatives don’t believe you show your compassion through virtue-signaling advocacy of large wealth transfers when those transfers reduce individual liberties and suppress economic growth and prosperity for all — not just the wealthy. There is nothing noble in using government force to equalize incomes, and nothing about it is consistent with the American idea.

It may be counterintuitive to contend that capitalism is more compassionate to the poor, but it makes sense if your yardstick is results and not supposedly good intentions. It makes sense if you understand that free markets have played a central role in making America the most prosperous nation in history.

Few conservatives oppose a reasonable safety net, but most resist open-ended programs that disincentivize work for able-bodied people, thereby perpetuating the dependency cycle, which is detrimental to people’s financial well-being and dignity.

It’s one thing to argue that the Bible endorses a mammoth welfare state but entirely another to suggest that it remotely supports the pro-choice position, much less abortion on demand up to the point of birth and after (infanticide), as many prominent Democrats now do. Their willingness to twist Scripture to justify their radical position is instructive.
During a recent radio interview, Buttigieg attacked Republicans for their stance on abortion and defended, on biblical grounds, abortion throughout the term of pregnancy. “Right now, they hold everybody in line with this one … piece of doctrine about abortion,” he said. “Then again, there’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath. And so, even that is something that we can interpret differently.”

There are plenty of verses to contradict Buttigieg’s sophistry here, and he knows better than to make these arguments. Advancements in science and technology have made it almost impossible to deny that an unborn baby is a human life. This is why most leftists have abandoned the absurd claim that the unborn child is merely a clump of cells and have instead turned to the more brazen argument that the mother has a right to kill a human being in the womb. It is hard to believe, but that’s where the left is today.

Buttigieg himself effectively admits that when life begins is not the deciding factor for him on abortion. “I might draw the line here. You might draw the line there. But the most important thing is the person who should be drawing the line is the woman making the decision,” he declares.
Thank you for your momentary honesty, Mayor. The woman’s sovereign choice prevails over the innocent baby’s life — and God’s Word, which you cynically invoke.

Buttigieg’s brother-in-law is having none of it. Pastor Rhyan Glezman has strongly rebuked Buttigieg and called him to repent for distorting the words of the Bible. “I feel a sense of responsibility and stewardship of my faith to stand up and say something, to say, ‘No, that’s not true,'” he explained. “‘God places a very high value on all human life. Everyone is created fearfully and wonderfully in the image of God with intrinsic value. That doesn’t start at the first breath, it starts when we enter our mother’s womb.'”

Buttigieg is free to argue whatever he wants, but he is doing himself no favors by lying to himself and to us about his (and the Bible’s) position on abortion.
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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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Tags: David Limbaugh, Buttigieg, Distorts Logic, Scripture, Abortion To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

After Bolton, Trump Goals Remain Unrealized

by Patrick Buchanan: It is only among foreign policy elites in Beltway think tanks, the generals who ran the national security state, liberal interventionists in the media and the hierarchy of the GOP that we find echoes of Bolton. The rest of the country has moved on. They want an end to the endless wars and to put America first again.

The sudden and bitter departure of John Bolton from the White House was baked in the cake from the day he arrived there.

For Bolton’s worldview, formed and fixed in a Cold War that ended in 1991, was irreconcilable with the policies Donald Trump promised in his 2016 campaign. Indeed, Trump was elected because he offered a foreign policy that represented a repudiation of what John Bolton had advocated since the end of the Cold War.

Trump wanted to call off Cold War II with Russia, to engage with Vladimir Putin, and to extricate us from the Middle East wars into which Bolton and the neocons did so much to plunge the United States.

Where Trump demanded that NATO nations and allies like South Korea and Japan start paying the cost of their own defense, Bolton is an empire man who relishes the global role and responsibilities of America as the last superpower and custodian of the New World Order.

Trump saw in the hermit kingdom of North Korea an opportunity to end its isolation and bring Kim Jong Un into talks to persuade him to give up his nuclear weapons, in return for a full readmission and welcome into the world that Pyongyang turned its back on after World War II.

In Trump’s passive acceptance of Kim’s resumption of short-range missile tests last August, Bolton surely saw signs of appeasement.

To Bolton, Trump’s trashing of Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal was the first step toward a confrontation and clash to smash the Tehran regime. To Trump, it was a first step to a Trump-negotiated better bargain with Iran.

Bolton’s hawkish stance of confrontation, and conflict if necessary to impose our will, from the Eastern Baltic, to Ukraine and the Black Sea, to the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, the Korean Peninsula, today finds almost no broad support among the American electorate.

It is only among foreign policy elites in Beltway think tanks, the generals who ran the national security state, liberal interventionists in the media and the hierarchy of the GOP that we find echoes of Bolton.

The rest of the country has moved on. They want an end to the endless wars and to put America first again.

In the Democratic debates, climate change — the melting ice caps of the Arctic and Greenland — represents the real “existential threat.”

Only Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has made foreign policy her focus. But she is the antithesis of Bolton, an anti-interventionist who wants to end the wars and bring the troops home.

Yet, after Bolton’s departure, Trump’s problem is this: What he promised in 2016 he has been unable to deliver.

Rather than summits with Putin, the U.S. and NATO under Trump have sent additional forces to the eastern Baltic. We have let the U.S.-Russian strategic arms agreements lapse. We have sent lethal military aid to Ukraine to fight pro-Russian rebels in the Donbass.

Bibi Netanyahu, not Trump, holds the meetings with the Russian president, is in Moscow again this week, and has plastered a huge poster of himself and Putin at his Likud Party’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.

We blacklist Putin, while Bibi relies on Vlad to help bring home the Russian-Jewish vote in Israel’s election next week.

We still have troops in Syria and Iraq and are closer to war with Iran than the day Trump took office. Such a war would become the defining event of Trump’s presidency and leave this country tied down in virtual perpetuity in the Middle East.

Trump’s hopes for a negotiated withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of his first term has been dealt a crippling blow with the cancellation of his Camp David summit with the Taliban.

Indeed, ex-Defense Secretary James Mattis threw cold water this week on the very idea of bringing our troops home. We must keep “boots on the ground” in Afghanistan, said Mattis, we cannot leave the Afghan forces alone to fight the terrorists and hold the country together:

“We’re going to have to stick with those countries that are not yet ready to do it on their own and keep … enough boots on the ground not to … turn the ground back over to the very enemy that attacked us before.”

What Mattis is saying is that Trump’s goal of extracting us from the “forever war” entails too great a risk, and U.S. troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan will have to soldier on, indefinitely.

North Korea continues to test missiles that may not be able to hit the U.S. homeland, but they could hit U.S. troops and bases in South Korea and Japan.

If, by 2020, Kim Jong Un still refuses to give up his nuclear weapons, Iran is back to enriching uranium, the Taliban atrocities continue unabated, and U.S. troops remain in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan in the same numbers they are today, what does Trump do? What does Trump say?
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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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Trump Era Not as Extraordinary as Never-Trumpers Think

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: Around Washington, in sundry upscale locales, in large quadrants of the internet, you still encounter lamentations about Donald Trump's takeover of the Republican Party and prophecies of the party's approaching doom. Never-Trumpers are less thick on the ground than among ordinary voters, but they have an echo in affluent southern and southwest suburbs that have switched from Republicans to anti-Trump Democrats. And they're eager to tell you that nothing like this has ever happened before.

Well, not so fast. I've got a book coming out in October called "How America's Political Parties Change (and How They Don't)," on the history of our 185- and 167-year-old political parties, and I can report that things like this have happened before. One example of many: Franklin D. Roosevelt, undeniably a great president, especially as a war leader, but one whose policies also drove some prominent members of his own party to the opposition and some of whose actions seemed, well, eccentric. Like his sitting in bed in mornings in 1933 and setting a new price of gold -- up 21 cents one day because, as Amity Shlaes recalls in "The Forgotten Man," "it's a lucky number, because it's three times seven." Sounds sort of like setting tariffs in tweets. Or setting up a ramshackle National Recovery Administration charged with setting prices and wages for 700 industries, a law ruled unconstitutional by a 9-0 Supreme Court.

Roosevelt supported Democrats' traditional policy of low tariffs but left implementation to subordinates like Secretary of State Cordell Hull -- which looks something like Trump's desultory support of Republican tax cuts.

On other issues, FDR abandoned Democrats' traditional support for laissez faire economics and its aversion to national uniformity and local options. That earned him bitter opposition from the two preceding Democratic presidential nominees, Al Smith and John W. Davis, much as Trump was opposed by the two George Bushes and John McCain.

Other conservative-minded Democrats swallowed the New Deal with reservations and stuck around to serve the country constructively in Roosevelt's and Harry Truman's administrations. Examples include Texas cotton brokers Jesse Jones, whose Reconstruction Finance Corporation bankrolled defense industries, and Will Clayton, who helped set up the Marshall Plan.

Roosevelt was not above some really divisive partisan rhetoric. Campaigning for reelection in 1936, he attacked "the old enemies of peace," rich men. "They are unanimous in their hatred for me -- and I welcome their hatred," he said. He went on in words that made even New Deal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wince: "I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master."

As Schlesinger understood, there were nasty echoes in those words of what was going on across the Atlantic at the time. But while Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court, he mostly obeyed court orders, and while he flouted tradition by seeking a third term, the voters, in a time of international peril, unambiguously granted it to him.

Roosevelt, though not a scholar like his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, was obviously a far more learned man than Donald Trump, although his aide Raymond Moley complained after he was fired that he "never knew him to read a serious book." And Roosevelt had an uncanny knack for picking the right person for jobs he considered important, particularly his superb choices as military commanders in World War II.

But for other posts he appointed many duds and often left them in place to conduct turf wars with other duds, which sounds sort of familiar. And he gave the fact-checkers of his time plenty of raw material, though surely not as much as his current successor.

Of course all historical analogies break down at some point, and there is obviously an enormous difference between Roosevelt's times and ours. Roosevelt came to the presidency in times of economic collapse and won his third term when Hitler and Stalin were allies who seemed poised to seize control of the landmass of Eurasia. America faces no threat of remotely similar magnitude today.

Similarly, the actions and policies of Franklin Roosevelt and his like-minded successors shifted very large segments of the American electorate both toward and, in time, away from his party. Those changes were orders of magnitude larger than the small percentages of voters Trump has shifted toward and away from the Republican Party.

My point is that the current ructions in our politics are not out of the ordinary and are less disruptive than many others in the past. Time to get off Twitter and calm down, America.
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Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. Shared by Rasmussen Reports.

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Don’t Fence Me In . . .

. . . We need to understand that there are millions of people in the world that hate the USA so much they wouldn’t hesitate to set off a nuclear weapon in a major city if they could.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, Don’t Fence Me In, millions of people, in the world, that hate the USA, they wouldn’t hesitate to set off a nuclear weapon ,in a major city, if they could To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

US Evangelicals Visit Saudi Arabia on Eve of 9/11

by Chris Mitchell: JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia - A high profile group of US Christian leaders visited Saudi Arabia on the eve of 9/11. During their visit, the delegation issued a statement including why their visit coincided with the 9/11 tragedy.

“While it may surprise some that we would choose the week of ‪September 11 to visit the Kingdom, we actually feel there is no more appropriate time to focus on where the Kingdom must go, can go, and where we believe it is going. In fact, our visit here on this profoundly important week is in defiance of those that aim to derail reform in the Kingdom through an embrace of hate and fear rather than courage and moderation.”

The delegation of prominent Evangelical leaders met with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Tuesday in the Red Sea port of Jeddah. This is the second visit by the evangelical delegation to meet with the Crown Prince within a year. New York Times bestselling author Joel Rosenberg led the delegation that included Rev. Johnnie Moore, a co-chairman of President Donald Trump's Evangelical Advisory Council; Larry Ross, longtime spokesman for Billy Graham; Ambassador Ken Blackwell who served as US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council; Michael Little, former president of CBN; Pastor Skip Heitzeg, senior pastor of Calvary Albuquerque with more than 15,000 in attendance; and Wayne Pederson, a member of the board of directors of the National Religious Broadcasters.

Rosenberg said the group discussed a wide range of issues with the Crown Prince including societal reforms Bin Salman is implementing. They include its battle against terrorism; steps toward religious freedom and human rights, taking on Iran while making inroads toward a relationship with Israel and the peace process and the upcoming peace plan by the Trump Administration. A number of the delegation members told CBN News they were surprised at the transformation they witnessed in the country reflected in their joint statement:

“Frankly, we’re delighted at the scope of the developments even as we look with expectation for more change. We are also patient friends with realistic expectations that it will take time to reform what took years to create.”

The first visit of the delegation took place in November 2018 just weeks after the firestorm of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While the Crown Prince denies any involvement in the killing, he continues to face strong criticism by Congressional leaders on Capitol Hill.

Joel C. Rosenberg addressed what he calls a lack of Congressional involvement with Saudi Arabia:

“We were encouraged to see that two US Senators visited the Kingdom this week and met with the Crown Prince. But we were stunned to learn that these were the only two Senators who have come to visit all year. Saudi Arabia is one of America’s most important strategic allies in the war against radical Islamist terrorism and in countering the rising Iranian threat. Yes, there are significant challenges in the US-Saudi relationship. But we urge more Senators to come here, see the sweeping and positive reforms that the Crown Prince is making, and ask him candid questions directly rather than sniping at him from Washington.”

The delegation also met with US Ambassador John Abizaid, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Yemen, and Sheikh Mohammed al-Issa who is Secretary of the Muslim World League. They also flew to the ancient Nabatean city of Al-Ula for a tour and received a briefing from Eitidal, Saudi Arabia’s center for countering extremist ideology.
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Chris Mitchell is CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief.

Ken Blackwell (@kenblackwell) was one of the Christian leaders who visited Saudi Arabia. Blackwell is a former ambassador to the U.N., Ohio Secretary of State and mayor of Cincinnati. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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Beto And Friends Elevate The Culture War To Literal War

by Washington Examiner: A party that opened its debate promising to unite the country took less than an hour to show its true colors.

“Hell yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15,” Beto O’Rourke declared to great applause during Thursday night’s Democratic debate. While every other policy sparked robust debate and legitimate disagreement among Democrats, he got not a word of blowback for his plan to steal about 5 to 10 million guns from millions of Americans.

Amy Klobuchar offered the closest thing to disagreement when she said she would “begin with” voluntary gun buybacks. But even that implies a threatened second step that goes beyond “voluntary.” When you offer voluntary buybacks followed by mandatory buybacks, the "voluntary" part is a bit less voluntary. So the gun “buybacks” at play here are simply compensated confiscation. This is a terrifying premise.

Millions and millions of Americans own AR-15s and other rifles to which Democrats arbitrarily apply the nontechnical term “assault weapons.” AR-15s are the most popular firearm in America. Rifles of all kinds are used in a mere handful of killings each year according to FBI statistics: 300 to 400, depending on the year. But these rifles are a powerful culture war totem for Democrats, who see gun owners as toothless rural barbarians whom it is fun to poke.

“Some of the southern areas have cultures that we have to overcome,” former Democratic congressman Charlie Rangel said a few years back. President Barack Obama told his wealthy donors in 2008 that folks in Middle America "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them ... "

For Democrats, gun control is just one more front in the culture war.

But O'Rourke, with the tacit approval of all the Democratic candidates, would shift this fight from culture war to literal war.

Government is, at bottom, force. It operates through the threat of force. When the federal government says it will seize weapons from armed Americans, who are guaranteed by the Constitution the right to keep and bear those weapons, the threat of force becomes more acute.

Yes, the federal government could obviously overpower any given AR-15 owner. But is this something we want to test on a door-to-door basis?

We don’t think an O’Rourke administration would actually follow through and wage war on its citizens as he implies. Still, we’re perturbed that this seems like a winning message, even with a small part of the Democratic base.

There is a palpable bloodthirst, a desire to punish political opponents, on the American Left these days. Kamala Harris has had the most success when she has been most explicit about her prosecutorial career. Pete Buttigieg, amid his cute nerdiness and calls for reconciliation, is largely running on a platform of establishing elite supremacy over the backwards Religious Right — just watch his lip snarl whenever he mentions Mike Pence.

It's not the majority of Democrats. Harris and O'Rourke have small combined followings. Yet it's still unnerving to see that a sizable minority of the Democratic Party is ready for civil war.
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Washington Examiner article!

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Kamala Harris’ Lust For Abortion

Sen. Kamala Harris

by Bill Donohue: Following last night’s Democratic debate, Sen. Kamala Harris criticized ABC panelists for not asking about abortion. The debate, she said, “was three hours long and not one question about abortion or reproductive rights.”

Maybe that’s because no one on the stage was pro-life. Indeed, what separates one Democratic presidential candidate from the other on abortion is miniscule. But if there were a first prize for lusting over abortion, Harris would surely be the winner.

In 2016, when Harris was California’s Attorney General, she bludgeoned pro-life activist David Daleiden. It is not abortion that appalls her—it is people like Daleiden who use undercover videos to expose how abortion operatives harvest and sell aborted fetal organs. Harris authorized her office to raid his home: they seized his camera equipment and copies of revealing videos that implicated many of those who work in the abortion industry.

Earlier this year, Harris defended abortion at any time during pregnancy, right up until birth. She also rolled out her plan to stop states from restricting abortions: she wants abortion laws that are struck down by the states to obtain federal approval from the Department of Justice before implementing such measures.

There is something else going on here that we need to know more about. Quite frankly, it is not normal for anyone to have such an extreme fixation on aborting babies. That Harris touts herself as a champion of social justice makes her obsession with abortion all the more sickening.
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Bill Donohue (@CatholicLeague) is a sociologist and president of the Catholic League.

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Gun Violence Statistics

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: While reading yet another article about gun violence and mass shootings, I came to the conclusion that most of us aren’t sure what is true and what is false. For the next few months, we will be talking about and debating policies. It’s worth getting the right facts on the table.

First, violent crime has been decreasing for decades. Although I read this in many places and even say it on the radio with some regularity, many people wonder if it is true. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, the homicide rate is about half what it was twenty years ago, and the gun-related death rate is also half.

Second, a large percentage of gun deaths in America are due to suicide. In previous commentaries, I have cited statistics from the Centers for Disease Control. Look at any year, and you will find that gun suicides outnumber gun homicides often by as much as two to one.

Third, you are unlikely to be a victim of a gun-related homicide unless you live in a dangerous area or are engaged in dangerous activity. John Malcolm describes four factors correlated with gun homicides. First is location. As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, over half of all murders occur in 2 percent of the nation’s 3,142 counties. Second, those murders are often associated with gang activity and drug activity. Third, most of these victims are males between the ages of 15 and 34. And a fourth factor is a dangerous partner. One law journal found that people recently or currently involved with abusive partners were more likely to be victims of gun-related homicides.

These statistics, along with these four factors, remind us that gun violence is not uniform throughout the country nor is it likely to surface in safer neighborhoods or around safe, law-abiding people. That is why any solution to gun violence needs to focus on those areas and people who are indeed dangerous.
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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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An Opportunity to Forgo

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: “We just marked the anniversary of 9/11.”

That’s what Democratic presidential aspirant and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg reminded last night’s debate audience. “All day today, I’ve been thinking about September 12th, the way it felt when for a moment we came together as a country.”

The terrorist attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon, and the attempt foiled by brave citizens who were killed in the crash of their airliner in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, did indeed result in a wonderful bond of unity throughout our country.

Having lost more than 3,000 citizens, we came together.

“Imagine,” instructs Buttigieg, “if we had been able to sustain that unity.”

Before we all sing along with John Lennon, though, consider: (1) It is not so easy for government to re-create the sort of public horror, fear, grief, etc., necessary to ensure maximum national unity, and (2) please don’t try.

The purpose of government is not to produce a pressure-cooker society where we forever exist on a wartime footing.

Do you miss the good old days of World War II? Totalitarianism threatened much of the globe; 70 million people died in the war. But it unified our country, which defeated Nazism, fascism, and a murderous empire.

We must memorialize the victory, not repeat it . . . just for unity’s sake.

Yet the Green New Deal resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocosio-Cortez (D-NY) states that “the House of Representatives recognizes that a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal is a historic opportunity. . . .”

Opportunity?

Our motto should be ‘Liberty’ — not ‘never let a crisis go to waste.’

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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Media Bad-Mouths the Economy Like It Did in 1992

by Larry Elder: As it did in 1992, the anti-Republican media is covering Trump’s economy as negatively as possible while keeping a straight face. After all, unemployment is at historical lows, most Americans feel optimistic about their own economic future, and most credit Trump with the growing economy. Trump’s predecessor was the first president since 1949 to preside over an economic recovery without a single year averaging at least 3% gross domestic product growth.

But Democrats, the media and Trump-hating pundits seem almost giddy at the prospect of a recession.

Last year, multimillionaire comedian and HBO talk show host Bill Maher openly rooted for it: “Can I ask about the economy? Because this economy is going pretty well. … I feel like the bottom has to fall out at some point. And by the way, I’m hoping for it. Because I think one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy. So, please, bring on the recession. Sorry if that hurts people, but it’s either root for a recession or you lose your democracy.” In August, Maher doubled down: “I’m just saying we can survive a recession. We’ve had 47 of them. We’ve had one every time there’s a Republican president!” said Maher. “They don’t last forever. You know what lasts forever? Wiping out species! … Yes, a recession would be very worth getting rid of Donald Trump and these kinds of policies.”

After a less-than-expected number of jobs were created in August, many in the media spoke enthusiastically at the notion of a recession. Newsweek, for example, wrote, “The U.S. added just 130,000 jobs in August, falling short of economists’ expectations and stoking more fears of an impending recession.”

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the government’s official keeper of the business cycle, defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” Others, like economist Lee Ohanian of the University of California, Los Angeles, define a recession as at least two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. By either definition, the economy is not close to a recession.

But recently, The Washington Post eagerly noted: “Only one president since the Civil War has been reelected with a recession taking place in the two calendar years before facing voters a second time … William McKinley in 1900. Since then, all four presidents running for reelection who had such a recession lost: William Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.” Similarly, CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer wrote, “A recession is what could keep Trump off the list of two-term presidents and relegate him to the one inhabited by Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.”

One slight problem: By election day in November 1992, George H.W. Bush’s economy was on its 19th consecutive month of positive economic growth. The economy was nowhere near a recession. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession began in July 1990 and ended eight months later, in March 1991 — a full 19 months before Clinton’s election. Yet, as Investor’s Business Daily pointed out, in October 1992, over 90% of the economic news in newspapers was negative. The next month, Clinton won the election. And that month, only 14% of the newspapers’ economic news was negative. A 1992 Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans thought we were in a recession.

How big a role did the media play in this misperception?

In the 1997 book “Lessons From the Recession: A Management and Communication Perspective,” the authors write, “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the highly negative view of economy in 1992 was due in large part to widespread misperceptions about its performance and prospects, and that unduly negative coverage on network television played some major role in forming those misperceptions.” In short, the media’s bad-mouthing of Bush 41’s economy shaped Americans’ perception of it.

How strong was the economy Bill Clinton inherited? On Jan. 29, 1993, seven days after Clinton took office, a New York Times article headlined “U.S. Says Economy Grew at Fast Pace in Fourth Quarter” said, “The economy grew at a faster-than-expected annual rate of 3.8 percent in the final quarter of 1992, the strongest performance in four years, the Commerce Department reported today.” Three-point-eight percent! Not bad for a “recession.”

Had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election and presided over an economy performing this well, the media would call her an economic maestro who “jumpstarted the economy” and whose reelection was all but a foregone conclusion.
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Larry Elder (@larryelder) is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host, an American lawyer, writer and radio and television personality who is also known as the "Sage From South Central." To find out more about Larry Elder. Visit his website at LarryElder.com for list of other articles.

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