Democrats Don’t Care About American Lives

Lloyd Marcus

by Lloyd Marcus: My article about Pop Kern, an 89-year-old kind white gentleman and how Democrats seek to punish him for bogus “white privilege” received a tremendous amount of positive response. A young relative of Pop Kern wrote informing me that Pop Kern is a loyal Democrat. This is not surprising. My black dad who passed away at age 90 was also a lifelong Democrat. Dad drilled into my head that Democrats are for the working man and Republicans are for the rich.

Respectfully, I tried to gently convince an elderly family member that her Democratic Party has dramatically changed. It is now the party of all things amoral, anti-Christian, anti-freedom, and anti-American. Looking me firmly in the eye, she stubbornly spouted, “I’m votin’ for Biden!”

The singular intention of the Democratic Party is to obtain power to control every aspect of our lives. ObamaCare gave them godlike power to decide who lives and who dies. If you refuse to give up your Second Amendment right to own a gun, no healthcare for you. If you hold firm to your biblical convictions, no healthcare for you.

Fake news media allowed Obama to lie to the American people 29 times that ObamaCare would allow them to keep health-care plans that they liked. This huge lie won Obama the Politifact “Lie of the Year” award. ObamaCare became law against the will of the American people and cancer patients lost their life saving doctors. ObamaCare was a major step in Democrats’ mission to transform America into a totally government-controlled nation. The lives of cancer patients did not matter.

American lives do not matter either regarding the invasion of illegal aliens. In defiance of federal law, Democrats host sanctuary cities which protect illegal alien rapists, murders, drug dealers, and career criminals. Outrageously, illegals are gifted driver’s licenses, healthcare, attorneys, allowed to vote and numerous handouts unavailable to U.S. citizens.

Democrats deem coddling illegals more important than American lives. Kate Steinle was shot and killed by an illegal alien while strolling with her dad on a lazy Sunday afternoon in San Francisco. Kate’s murderer had been deported numerous times and repeatedly welcomed back to the sanctuary city. Democrats acquitted Kate’s murderer and even voted down a law to punish deported illegals who keep coming back.

Democrats’ vision for the perfect America includes transforming her into a wild, wild west of sex, a society in which every perversion is legalized and citizens are forced to celebrate. A memo exposed Obama’s DOJ plan to legalize 12 perversions including pedophilia and bestiality. Colleges are laying the groundwork by scolding us about our bigoted intolerance of pedophiles.

Democrats are sexualizing children beginning in pre-k with a mandatory LGBTQ curriculum. I Am Jazz, a book about a boy whose parents began his so-called sex change at age three, is required reading.

Once you realize that Democrats only care about furthering their agenda and American lives do-not- matter, you understand their behavior. U.S. students are sick with strange diseases due to untested illegal alien children being sent to public schools.

Transsexuals who regret having sex change surgery are blocked from media.

Pediatricians whose research confirms that transgender ideology is child abuse are persecuted, fired, and blocked from media. Women who regret aborting their babies are blocked from media. Women and little girls assaulted by men posing as women in transgender-friendly restrooms are hidden from the public. Feminists who fight transgenders destroying women’s sports are blocked from media. Every truth that undercuts Democrats’ lies and evil agenda is blocked by fake news media.

President Donald J. Trump is our only protection against Democrats and fake news media implementing their vision of a new America, removed from her position as leader of the free world. This is why they are repulsed by Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

Their only hope is to separate Trump from his supporters via a thousand cuts; lying about him 24/7; spinning everything good he does into a negative; a reason to impeach him.

By reducing many of Obama’s over-reaching regulations, Trump has our economy at its strongest in 50 years. Black unemployment is at its lowest in U.S. history. Democrats hate that blacks are doing so well under Trump. Clearly, black lives matter to Trump, but not to their so-called advocates in the Democratic Party and fake news media.

Iranian terrorist Soleimani murdered and severely wounded hundreds of U.S troops using roadside bombs. Soleimani planned attacks on U.S. Embassies to murder thousands more Americans. Trump killed Soleimani. Remarkably, Democrats sought to spin Trump acting to save American lives into a crime, a reason to impeach him. The Democratic Party has become the home of pure hate and evil, obsessed with gaining power.

Elderly lifelong Democrats are unaware that their “working man” party has become an anti-American and anti-Christian mob of hate-filled activists at war with everyday Americans.

Straight white men like elderly Pop Kern are number one on Democrats’ hit list, targeted for destruction.

I ran into Pop Kern at the post office. With his great smile, he said, “I want to thank you for what you wrote on that internet.” I asked, “Did you read it?” He replied, “No, but I heard about it from Florida to Pittsburgh. Thanks for what you wrote. I really appreciate it.”
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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.”

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Scott County Arkansas Passes Ordinance Declaring a “Bill of Rights Sanctuary”

by Mike Maharrey|: The Scott County, Arkansas County Quorum Court unanimously passed an ordinance making the county a “Bill of Rights sanctuary.”

All nine members of the Quorum Court sponsored the ordinance and passed it unanimously. The bill declares Scott County a Bill of Rights Sanctuary County. Practically speaking the legally binding ordinance prohibits any agent, department, employee or official of Scott County, while acting in their official capacity, from knowingly and willingly participating in any way in the enforcement of any unlawful or unconstitutional act regarding the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the people to peaceably assemble, freedom of the press, freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances, or the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The ordinance lists specific acts defined as unlawful or unconstitutional, primarily relating to firearms.

1. Any tax, levy, fee, or stamp imposed on firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition not common to all other goods and services on the purchase or ownership of those items by citizens;
2. Any registration or tracking of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition;
3. Any registration or tracking of the owners of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition;
4. Any act forbidding the possession, manner of carry, ownership, or use or transfer of any type of firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition by citizens of the legal age;
5. Any act ordering the confiscation of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition from citizens; Any prohibition, regulation, and or use restriction related to ownership or the constitutionally guaranteed lawful use or carry of firearms;
6. Any use of County funds or funds given to the County by any entity, to participate in a “gun buyback” program or event is hereby illegal;
7. Any use of County Funds, or funds given to the county by any entity to any other government official or entity that violates or has violated any individual’s rights as outlined in the Bill of Rights

The provisions of the ordinance will be attached to the county’s personnel policy, and all new and renewed county employees must read and sign that they understand the law. Employees found in violation of the ordinance are subject to termination and/or a fine of up to $500.

The Scott County ordinance applies to both state and federal laws that qualify as unconstitutional acts.

Unlike many of Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions passed in Virginia and other states, the Scott County ordinance carries the force of law.

EFFECTIVE
The federal government relies heavily on state cooperation to implement and enforce almost all of its laws, regulations and acts. By simply withdrawing this necessary cooperation, states and localities can nullify many federal actions in effect. As noted by the National Governors’ Association during the partial government shutdown of 2013, “states are partners with the federal government on most federal programs.”

Based on James Madison’s advice for states and individuals in Federalist #46, a “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” represents an extremely effective method to bring down federal gun control measures because most enforcement actions rely on help, support and leadership from state and local governments.

Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano agreed. In a televised discussion on the issue, he noted that a single state taking similar steps would make federal gun laws “nearly impossible” to enforce.

“Partnerships don’t work too well when half the team quits,” said Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center. “By withdrawing all resources and participation in federal regulatory enforcement, states and even local governments can help bring these unconstitutional acts to their much-needed end.”

LEGALITY
The county could face legal repercussions from the state if it refuses to enforce state law. Counties are political subdivisions of the state and state governments can exercise almost complete control over counties. In practice, the state could remove county officials from office, fire employees who refuse to enforce state law, and cut county funding. Whether the state would have the political will to take those actions is another question.

Although the state can punish counties that refuse to enforce state law, the federal government has no such legal authority. Scott County can unquestioningly refuse to enforce federal law. Refusal to cooperate with federal enforcement rests on a well-established legal principle known as the anti-commandeering doctrine.

Simply put, the federal government cannot force states to help implement or enforce any federal act or program. The anti-commandeering doctrine is based primarily on five Supreme Court cases dating back to 1842. Printz v. U.S. serves as the cornerstone.
“We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. Today we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the States’ officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. It matters not whether policy making is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty” -----------------------

Michael Maharrey is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center.

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Deal of the Century . . .

. . . Trump offers Israel and Palestinians a “Deal of the Century” but have the Palestinians ever said yes to peace.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Leftist Values Are Causing Young Americans to Be Miserable

by Dennis Prager: I began part one of “Why Are So Many Young People Unhappy?” with data showing the apparently unprecedentedly high rate of unhappiness among young people in America (and elsewhere, but I am focusing on America).

The rates of suicide, self-injury, depression, mass shootings, and loneliness (at all ages) are higher than ever recorded.

It seems that Americans may have been happier, and certainly less lonely, during the Great Depression and World War II than today, even with today’s unprecedentedly high levels of health, longevity, education, and material well-being.

There is, of course, no single explanation, and I listed a number of possible explanations:Increased use of illicit drugs and prescription drug abuse, and less human interaction because of constant cellphone use are two widely offered, valid explanations. Less valid explanations include competition, grades anxiety, capitalism, and income inequality. And then there are young people’s fears that because of global warming, they have a bleak, and perhaps no, future.But I do believe that a loss of values and meaning are the two greatest sources of unhappiness.

Among the values lost are those of communal associations. As the great foreign observer of early American life Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1831, Americans’ unique strength derived largely from their participation in innumerable nongovernmental associations—professional, social, civil, political, artistic, philanthropic, and, of course, religious.

But these have all dwindled as government has become ever larger. Whereas Americans got together and formed bonds of friendship through nongovernmental associations, through what organizations will Americans form friendships today?

In a video presentation at its 2012 national convention, the Democratic Party offered its answer: “Government’s the only thing that we all belong to,” the narrator said.

Then there are traditional middle-class values, like getting married first and then having children.

Today, a greater percentage of Americans are born to unwed mothers than ever before, and fewer people are marrying than ever before. There are, for the first time in our history, more single Americans than married Americans.

While it is certainly possible to feel lonely in a marriage, people are far more likely to feel lonely without a spouse, and increasingly without children, than with a spouse and children.

And now we come to the biggest problem of all: the lack of meaning.

Aside from food, the greatest human need is meaning. I owe this insight to Viktor Frankl and his classic work “Man’s Search for Meaning,” which I first read in high school and which influenced me more than any book other than the Bible.

Karl Marx saw man as primarily motivated by economics; Sigmund Freud saw man as primarily driven by the sexual drive; Charles Darwin, or at least his followers, sees us as primarily driven by biology.

But Frankl was right.

As regards economics, poor people who have meaning can be happy, but wealthy people who lack meaning cannot be.

As regards sex, people who do not have a sexual life (such as priests, who keep their vow of chastity; many widowed and divorced older people; and others) but have meaning can be happy. Sexually active people who do not have meaning cannot be.

As regards biology, there is no evolutionary explanation for the need for meaning. Every creature except the human being does fine without meaning.

And nothing has given Americans—or any other people, for that matter—as much meaning as religion. But since World War II, God and religion have been relegated to the dustbin of history.

The result?

More than a third of Americans born after 1980 affiliate with no religion. This is unprecedented in American history; until this generation, the vast majority of Americans have been religious.

Maybe, just maybe, the death of religion—the greatest provider of meaning, while certainly not the only—is the single biggest factor in the increasing sadness and loneliness among Americans (and so many others).

A 2016 study published in the American Medical Association JAMA Psychiatry journal found that American women who attended a religious service at least once a week were five times less likely to commit suicide. Common sense suggests the same is true of men.

The bottom line: The reason so many young people are depressed, unhappy, and angry is the left has told them that God and Judeo-Christian religions are nonsense; their country is largely evil; their past is deplorable; and their future is hopeless.

That seems to be a major reason, if not the reason, for so much unhappiness: not capitalism, not inequality, not patriarchy, sexism, racism, homophobia, or xenophobia but rather having no religion, no God, no spouse, no community, no country to believe in, and, ultimately, no meaning. That explains much of the unprecedented unhappiness.

And it explains the widespread adoption of that secular substitute for traditional religion: leftism. But unlike Judaism and Christianity, leftism does not bring its adherents happiness.
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Dennis Prager @DennisPrager is a columnist for The Daily Signal, nationally syndicated radio host, and creator of PragerU.

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Nancy's Nonsense, The End Game, Antifa's Threats, Still Winning

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Nancy's Nonsense
Someone could easily write a book about all the outrageous things said by the left during this impeachment sham. If they did, a chapter should be devoted to what Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference yesterday.

Commenting on the impeachment trial, Pelosi suggested the president could not be acquitted by the Senate unless it follows her rules and allows her witnesses. That's absurd!

Then she blasted the president's legal team, saying they were "there to dismantle the Constitution," that "they disgraced themselves terribly" and she added, "I don't know how they can retain their lawyer status in the comments that they are making."

Don't laugh. Speaker Pelosi is third in line to the presidency. If anything, God forbid, should happen to President Trump and Vice President Pence, we'd be dealing with President Pelosi! And her remarks show you the mindset of the left.

In this country, an accused thief, drug dealer, rapist, even a murderer, all have the right to legal representation. It is one of the hallmarks of our legal system. Liberals in the past, to their credit, pushed to make sure everyone had that right. Even the poor who can't afford an attorney are assigned one at taxpayer expense.

But today's so-called "progressives" are not traditional liberals. They are increasingly authoritarians who will stop at nothing to gain power. And they are signaling in various ways that if they gain power, they intend to deprive those they disagree with of their constitutional rights. That's the danger here.

And in some ways, it's even worse than that. You wouldn't invite a wifebeater to be the keynote speaker at a feminist convention. There would be outrage for obvious reasons. And relying on Nancy Pelosi to lecture us about threats to the Constitution should engender outrage too.

Pelosi and her minions have aggressively attacked the First Amendment freedom of religion. They empower leftists on university campuses to aggressively attack the freedom of speech and assembly. They are aggressively campaigning on a promise to erase the Second Amendment.

And she says the president's lawyers should be disbarred for defending the president in this sham impeachment? She should be expelled from Congress!

One final point. There are quite a few attorneys at the finest law firms in Washington, D.C., who routinely virtue signal. How do they do that?

Each firm encourages its attorneys to do pro bono work to help those who can't afford it. Do any of these up and coming legal eagles provide help to the family whose son or daughter was killed by a drunk illegal immigrant? No. Do they help defend a child harassed at school for praying? No.

When these attorneys want to virtue signal, they represent radical Islamic terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, and they are praised for their efforts by people like Nancy Pelosi.

To Pelosi, Gitmo inmates deserve legal representation but President Trump does not.

The End Game
By all accounts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has the votes to block additional witnesses in the impeachment trial. Once the House managers and the president's legal team finish their closing arguments, the Senate will vote on the issue of witnesses.

After that, Republicans want to move quickly to dismiss the articles of impeachment. But Democrats are vowing to throw up as many roadblocks as possible. "We're thinking about those options . . . what kind of motions we're going to make," one Democrat senator said. "We're not going quietly into that good night."

Whether the Senate stays in session over the weekend or it drags on into next week remains to be seen. Regardless of when the impeachment trial concludes, that won't be the end of it. The radical left's resistance will go on day after day after day.

The only thing that offers any hope of breaking the fever that now grips the left is a crushing defeat on Tuesday, November 3rd.

Antifa's Threats
The left-wing thugs of Antifa are threatening to cause chaos today with mass demonstrations throughout New York City's subway system. Antifa is encouraging its supporters to "link up with your friends . . . and f--- s--- up on [January 31st] all day long."

Antifa is demanding the right to free public transportation and wants all law enforcement officers banned from policing the subway system.

The Police Benevolent Association of New York City is fighting back. It posted a statement warning, "This is [the] true endgame of the anti-police movement, an end of all policing & destruction of public order. . . We can't go backwards."

Whatever happens in New York City today, I hope the Justice Department and the FBI are devoting additional resources to monitoring Antifa and taking down this extremist group. The upcoming election season will be contentious enough without these fascist/communist thugs attacking innocent people for simply exercising their free speech rights.

"Created Equal"
As many of you know, Justice Clarence Thomas is a personal friend of mine. I have known him for many, many years, and was proud to lead the Citizens Committee to Confirm Clarence Thomas when he was nominated for the Supreme Court.

In addition to his solid constitutional opinions, he's known for listening intently and rarely speaking on the high court. Well, now you have a unique opportunity to hear directly from Justice Thomas himself in a new film called "Created Equal." Watch the trailer:

The movie premiers tonight in select locations around the country. If "Created Equal" is showing in a theater near you, I strongly encourage you to go see it this weekend. You won't be disappointed!

Still Winning

• President Trump won a big victory this week when the Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 to allow the administration to enforce its "public charge" rule with respect to immigration while the case is argued in the federal courts. Justices Gorsuch and Thomas also used the opportunity to issue a scathing rebuke of left-wing judges who are constantly blocking Trump's legitimate exercise of presidential powers with nationwide injunctions.
• Earlier this month, a caravan of approximately 4,000 migrants began marching north from Central America to the U.S. border. In another victory for the president's immigration reform agenda, Mexico intercepted the caravan and deported more than half the marchers.
• The Trump Administration is joining local efforts to overturn some of New Jersey's recently enacted "sanctuary policies" that shield illegal immigrants from federal law enforcement.

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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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US Households Moving to Freer, Lower-Tax Places

by Bill Bergman:  U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis coined the phrase “laboratories of democracy” when describing states. In more than a few states, some of the lab rats appear to have had enough.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) “Statistics of Income” division produces an annual report with valuable information for understanding interstate migration trends. The latest report was issued in early 2020, covering the latest available tax year (2018).

The IRS migration data program collects individual income tax filings and allocates them into “same state,” “outflow” and “inflow” return categories, which are then organized by age group and income level. “Same state” returns are the returns where a household filed in the same state as the previous year. “Outflow” returns are returns for households that moved out of that state from the previous year, and “inflow” returns are for households that moved into the state.

Net migration statistics can be calculated for every state, for example, by subtracting the number of outflow returns from inflow returns, and calculating net migration by dividing the difference by the total number of returns. This works to common-size the states.

• The 15 states with the highest net in-migration in 2018, on this measure, were (in order) Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, South Carolina, Colorado, Delaware, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Tennessee, Maine, Georgia, Montana, and New Hampshire.
• The 15 states with the highest net out-migration in 2018, on this measure, were (in order) New York, Illinois, Connecticut, North Dakota, Louisiana, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Kansas, West Virginia, California, Mississippi, Wyoming, Maryland, Nebraska, and Rhode Island.
  

Four of the 15 states with high net out-migration in 2018 were states impacted significantly by energy market developments, following on the heels of a significant drop in oil prices. So, for the purposes of comparing these two groups of states, Wyoming, Louisiana, North Dakota and West Virginia are considered special cases and excluded from the “high out migration” states.

What characterizes the high in-migration states? How do they differ from the high outmigration states?

In a review of a variety of economic, demographic and financial factors for these 26 states, five factors stand out for how different immigration states are from out-migration states.

WalletHub’s Tax Burden
Cato Institute Freedom Ranking
Balanced Budget Frequency
Lawyers per 10,000 Residents
Truth in Accounting’s Taxpayer Burden

One other factor also stands out, but the inmigration states don’t differ much from the outmigration states on this score. That is the Winter Average Temperature for the states, as calculated by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA). You can’t blame bad winters alone for outmigration, it looks like, at least for 2018.

Let’s look at the tendencies for those five significant factors identified in the table above.

WalletHub Tax Burden. WalletHub ranks the states on their estimate of total annual taxes paid for sales, property, and income taxes, expressing the result as a share of total state personal income. High IRS outflow states tend to rank lower (have higher tax burdens) than high IRS inflow states.

Cato Institute Freedom Ranking. Cato Institute ranks the states on “freedom” using an index based on a variety of metrics relating to fiscal policy, regulatory policy, economic factors, legal environment, education policy, health insurance and other factors. Higher inflow states rank higher on Cato’s freedom ranking than the high outmigration state.

Balanced Budget Frequency. 49 of the 50 states have some form of balanced budget requirement, but they vary significantly in how legally compelling there are. There are words and there are deeds, and the proof is in the pudding not in the budgets, but in the audited results released after the end of the year. As a general rule, states that report accrual expenses below accrual revenue tend to be in much better shape, financially. And the high inflow states tend to have significantly higher frequencies of truly “balancing the budget.”

Lawyers per 10,000 Residents. This ranking is done using data reported by the American Bar Association (ABA). The ABA reports the number of lawyers “active and resident” in the state, and reports that number per 10,000 residents. Higher inflow states on IRS migration tend to have fewer lawyers per capita.

TIA Taxpayer Burden. Truth in Accounting calculates a different measure of Taxpayer Burden, which is the per-taxpayer share of unfunded state government debt. Higher outflow states tend to rank lower (and have higher) Taxpayer Burdens.

Bottom line, in 2018, states attracting greater in-migration tend to be freer, lower-tax jurisdictions with governments that do a better job of responsibly managing their finances.
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Bill Bergman writed for Truth in Accounting on Bill's Blog.

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A Sanders Sweep?

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: The old becomes the new. It's less than a week from of the Iowa caucuses, and Bernie Sanders, born in September 1941, three months before Pearl Harbor, leads the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls by 4 points in Iowa, 10 points in New Hampshire and 5 points in the biggest delegate prize, the Super Tuesday-voting California.

One hastens to add: The Sanders surge, like the Elizabeth Warren warming period from mid-September to mid-November and the Pete Buttigieg bump in December, may not last.

Old-timers may remember when Sanders' fellow Vermonter Howard Dean, fierce critic of the Iraq war, was leading the field going into Iowa and New Hampshire in 2004 -- and came out of the Iowa contest far behind front-runners John Kerry and John Edwards, and out of New Hampshire far behind Kerry.

That year, Democrats decided Kerry's military record made him more electable against George W. Bush. This month, multiple polls suggest Democrats are moving away from electability and toward candidates who express their own views. That's especially true of young Democrats, who are heavily for Sanders, who leads Joe Biden among voters under 35 53% to 3% in the latest Quinnipiac poll.

The old becomes the new. It's less than a week from of the Iowa caucuses, and Bernie Sanders, born in September 1941, three months before Pearl Harbor, leads the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls by 4 points in Iowa, 10 points in New Hampshire and 5 points in the biggest delegate prize, the Super Tuesday-voting California.

One hastens to add: The Sanders surge, like the Elizabeth Warren warming period from mid-September to mid-November and the Pete Buttigieg bump in December, may not last.

Old-timers may remember when Sanders' fellow Vermonter Howard Dean, fierce critic of the Iraq war, was leading the field going into Iowa and New Hampshire in 2004 -- and came out of the Iowa contest far behind front-runners John Kerry and John Edwards, and out of New Hampshire far behind Kerry.

That year, Democrats decided Kerry's military record made him more electable against George W. Bush. This month, multiple polls suggest Democrats are moving away from electability and toward candidates who express their own views. That's especially true of young Democrats, who are heavily for Sanders, who leads Joe Biden among voters under 35 53% to 3% in the latest Quinnipiac poll.

The Democratic Party, the oldest political party in the world, has always been a coalition of out-groups, people who are somehow not considered typical Americans but together can form a majority. This is true even in Iowa, where the generational divide is vivid: An Emerson College/7 News poll, for example, shows Biden with 32% of voters over 50 and Sanders with 44% of those below 50.

White college grads, here as elsewhere, have been shopping around. Upscale Democrats in October and early November seemed inclined toward Warren's "I have a plan for that." Then, perhaps proud of Americans' widening acceptance of LGBT equality, from mid-November to year-end, they put Buttigieg in the lead. Perhaps they'll switch again.

Iowa's caucus rules tend to overreward the two or three candidates leading in polls and ruthlessly underreward those with less backing. In each of the 1,678 caucus sites in the state's 99 counties, plus the 99 satellite sites in other states, Scotland, France and (for reasons unclear to me) Tblisi, Georgia, caucusgoers must declare their choice after listening to pitches for candidates. But if their candidate doesn't get 15%, they are declared "unviable," and their supporters can join with others to augment their support or make them viable.

The theory is that conscientious Iowans, after months of retail politics, will make well-informed judgments of character. Maybe so, but in 2004 and 2008, Iowa Democrats gave strong second-place finishes to the political fraudster John Edwards. Sanders finished an even closer second in 2016, when he may have actually had more voters than Hillary Clinton. Iowa Democrats have always counted the results by state convention delegate equivalent; this year they also promise a headcount of the human beings voting for each candidate.

If current polls are right and opinion doesn't change, Sanders and Biden both seem likely to come out of Iowa with plenty of delegates. Buttigieg, Warren and Minnesota neighbor Amy Klobuchar are at risk of running well behind if they don't make the 15% threshold and are, therefore, ruled unviable in hundreds of caucus precincts.

New Hampshire seems easier to predict, unless Sanders goes out of the running in Iowa. Its population is relatively upscale, and the creeping Vermontification of at least its Democrats, spreading east from the Connecticut River and west from woke Portsmouth, is almost complete. New Hampshire's once-stout resistance to tax increases has weakened among Democrats, and voters here generally in the 20th-century birthplace of the state lottery take a laissez faire view on cultural issues.

So it's not surprising that in 2016, Sanders carried every city, town, township, grant, gore, purchase and location except three lightly populated units in the north and -- presumably, in response to his support of high tax rates -- the state's three highest-income suburbs, Bedford, Windham and New Castle. His increasing lead in New Hampshire polls this month suggest he's on the brink of a similar win in February.

Sanders wins in Iowa and New Hampshire would make him hard to stop. Biden's current national and Nevada poll leads could vanish overnight. His candidacy would depend on heavy support from blacks in the Deep South and industrial north.

Democratic professionals who fear that Sanders' liabilities -- age, socialism -- are too much to overcome may find it as difficult to defeat him as their Republican equivalents found it difficult to stop Donald Trump four years ago. Or as difficult as it was for Britain's New Labour establishment to stop the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn from leading the party to a record defeat last month.
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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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The UK Steps Away

... Brexit is finally happening today, as Great Britain leaves the European Union.

by Michael Swartz : It was a revolution by ballot, not by bullet, but Great Britain’s departure from the European Union (best known by the term “Brexit”) becomes official later today.

 At 11 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, the United Kingdom enters a “transition phase,” in which the UK and European Union begin to unwind their intricately woven economies and governments. It’s an exciting time and it yields an uncertain future, but it’s also what the people of the UK voted for in 2016 and reaffirmed with a smashing victory by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party in national elections this past December.

For Great Britain, it’s been an exhausting affair. Former Prime Minister Theresa May lost her job for failing to deliver Brexit, and Parliament’s week-kneed intransigence gave hope to the “Remain” side as negotiations with the EU dragged on. This stoked fears of a “hard Brexit” as the deadline for withdrawal drew closer. For a time, it appeared that the nation that gave the world Winston Churchill had lost its nerve, but the people prevailed. After two delays pushed the timeline back from last April to the present day, the deal should be completed next January 1.

What will change? For one thing, the British no longer have representation in the European Parliament. Nor will they attend regular EU meetings unless specifically invited. The British and their erstwhile EU partners will need to hammer out a new trade deal, but breaking loose from the EU also allows Great Britain to pursue deals with allies of its choosing, with the United States likely at the head of the line. That prospect worries the diplomatic crowd, which fears that the new order will place France and Germany at odds and make the continent more susceptible to Russian influence.

“What happens now matters far beyond Britain’s shores, or Europe’s,” opines The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “A Brexit that goes badly, with failed reform and stagnation in Britain and trade friction with the EU, would drag down Britain and weigh on continental economies not strong enough to take the strain. The effects would ripple toward America and Asia, and perhaps embolden dangerously disruptive political movements in Europe.”

As the test case for other European countries, the UK is no longer bound by a relatively stagnant economy within which some nations have succeeded while others like Greece and Italy have dragged down the whole. Nor is the UK still subject to the EU’s controversial migration policies or its ridiculous Brussels-based bureaucracy.

Brexit also resonates here in the U.S., as we push back against a bureaucratic swamp that has, at times, put the EU nanny state to shame: regulating mud puddles, anyone? Fortunately, the Obama-era Waters of the United States rules were recently overturned by the Trump administration, which wholeheartedly hailed the results of the UK’s December election. Expect him to be among the first to look for a deal with the newly liberated Brits.
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Michael Swartz is a recovering politician turned writer.

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CAGW Names California Governor Gavin Newsom January 2020 Porker of the Month

Gov. Galvin Newsome
Porker of the Month
Jan. 2019

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named California Governor Gavin Newsom our January 2020 Porker of the Month for wanting a state government takeover of the pharmaceutical industry.

On January 10, 2020, Gov. Newsom proposed a plan to make California the first state to create its own drug label to “control costs.” The proposal would create only one market for drug pricing in California, allowing state programs, health insurers, and private employers to negotiate drug prices together. Drugmakers would have to sell generic drugs at the same price to everyone in the entire state. The governor is ignoring the fact that last year drug prices dropped for the first time in 45 years. Gov. Newsom also wants to create an entirely new, costly, and intrusive department called the Office of Health Care Affordability in order to help implement his unrealistic plan. Instead of allowing California’s state government into the pharmaceutical business, the FDA should speed up the approval of generic drugs.

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Gov. Newsom’s plan to have California create its own drug label is costly and dangerous. His concept shows a lack of basic economic understanding of how generic drug pricing works. If implemented, the proposal would limit patient access to life-saving drugs by causing shortages and destroying innovation. Forcing manufacturers to sell their drugs at the same price to everyone in the state won’t reduce high costs. Gov. Newsom’s drug price control plan is a prescription for disaster. California isn’t Costco, and generic drugs shouldn’t be treated as a Kirkland label.”
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Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

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Is Bernie’s Hour of Power at Hand?

by Patrick Buchanan: What makes Sanders an appealing candidate for the Democratic nomination may prove poisonous to him as a party nominee in the fall… Vulnerable Democrats in moderate and swing districts would have to jump ship, abandoning the ticket to survive the slaughter.

Can a septuagenarian socialist who just survived a heart attack and would be 80 years old in his first year in office be elected president of the United States? It’s hard to believe but not impossible.

As of today, Bernie Sanders looks like one of the better, if not best, bets for the nomination. Polls have him running first or second in the first three contests: Iowa on Monday, and then New Hampshire and Nevada.

If Bernie can best main rival Joe Biden in Iowa, he will likely thump Joe in New Hampshire. Biden’s campaign, built around “electability,” could suffer a credibility collapse before he reaches South Carolina, where Joe is banking on his African American base to rescue him if necessary and give him a send-off victory straight into Super Tuesday.

If Sanders can beat Biden two or three times in the first four primaries in February, the last remaining roadblock on Sanders’ path to the nomination could be Mike Bloomberg’s billions.

Hillary Clinton may sneer, “Nobody likes him,” but Bernie has a large, dedicated, loyal following, especially among millennials, and tens of thousands more small-dollar donors than any other Democratic candidate.

He is flush with cash. He has a radical agenda that appeals to the ideological left and the idealistic young. The rising star of the party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is campaigning alongside him.

And, say what you will, Sanders is no trimmer or time-server. He has consistently voted his values and views. He voted no to Bush 41’s Gulf War, no to Bush 43’s Iraq War, no to NAFTA, no to GATT. In the ’80s, when President Reagan battled the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Sanders was on the other side.

But what makes Sanders an appealing candidate for the Democratic nomination may prove poisonous to him as a party nominee in the fall.

For what does Bernie promise?

Free tuition at public colleges and forgiveness of all student debt. “Medicare for All,” a single-payer government-run health care system that would require a huge hike in middle-class taxes and abolish private health insurance for the 160 million Americans currently enrolled.

He would break up the big banks, go after Wall Street, add $60 trillion of federal spending in the next decade, and raise income, corporate, capital gains, estate and inheritance taxes.

He would expand the government’s share of the U.S. economy to levels rivaling that of France, the highest in the free world.

Bernie was first to back the Green New Deal and pledges to reach carbon neutrality in 10 years in energy and transportation. As for our oil, gas and coal producers, says Sanders, they “have evaded taxes, desecrated tribal lands, exploited workers and poisoned communities.”

How would Sanders deal with the millions of illegal migrants now within the country? He’d welcome them all in.

Bernie has proposed the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection and wants to provide a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million to 22 million illegal migrants already here. He would decriminalize border-jumping and give health and welfare benefits to the invaders.

He would decriminalize the breaching of America’s borders.

“My first executive orders,” tweeted Bernie last week, “will be to reverse every single thing President Trump has done to demonize and harm immigrants, including his racist and disgusting Muslim ban.”

Leaders of the center-left think tank Third Way warn that a Sanders nomination risks a Democratic rout of the magnitude of the 49-state losses of George McGovern in 1972 and of Walter Mondale in 1984.

Vulnerable Democrats in moderate and swing districts would have to jump ship, abandoning the ticket to survive the slaughter.

Fearful of such an outcome to a Sanders-Trump race, super PACs run by moderate Democrats have begun to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into attack ads to blunt his momentum in Iowa.

What Socialist Jeremy Corbyn did to Britain’s Labour party — leading it to the worst defeat since the 1930s — Sanders could do to the Democratic Party, write Jon Cowan and Jim Kessler of Third Way.

In 2016, Sanders ran a surprisingly strong race for the nomination, and it was later learned that a supposedly neutral DNC had been in the tank for Hillary Clinton. The Democratic establishment, the party elite, had collaborated to put the fix in against Bernie.

Yet Sanders supported Clinton that fall. If, however, Bernie’s last chance at the nomination is aborted by an establishment piling on, party super PACs running attack ads against him, and major media taking time out from trashing Trump to break Sanders, the Democratic Party will have the devil’s time of it bringing Bernie’s backers home in the fall.

Bernie’s believers might just conclude that the real obstacle to their dream of remaking America is neither the radical right nor Donald Trump, but the elites within their own party.
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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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Waste Management

. . . House managers are wasting everybody’s time impeaching a president they know is going to be exonerated.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Abortion, Not The Pill, Fires The Left

by Bill Donohue: The birth control pill became commercially available in 1960, and in 1973 abortion was legalized. Those on the left who have been pushing for a libertine culture have won the PR battle on contraception (most Americans are okay with it), but they have lost the PR battle on abortion (most Americans want limits on when and why it should be performed).

The public has been trending pro-life in recent years. Technology is one reason why: baby pictures in the womb are convincing. This has upset the abortion industry, forcing them to develop new strategies. One preferred tactic is to include abortion-inducing drugs in public policies that allow for contraception.

The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate promoted by the Obama administration was designed to force all employers, including Catholic ones, to provide contraceptives in their insurance plans. They did not include abortion. However, they did include abortifacients, or abortion-inducing drugs. Why?

The Obama officials knew that abortion is viewed very differently than contraceptives, so that is why they left it out of the HHS mandate. They could have stopped right there—forcing employers to pay for contraceptives but not abortion. But they did not. They were bent on including abortifacients in their policy. In doing so, they showed their true colors: As I have been saying for years, the HHS mandate was never about contraceptives—it was always about abortion.

The long-term goal of pro-abortion activists is to have nationwide tax-funded abortions without any restrictions whatsoever. But they can’t get that now, which explains why they have settled for public funding of abortifacients.

Regrettably, some on the pro-life side have failed to see what the pro-abortion game plan is. That includes the University of Notre Dame.

In February 2018, Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins announced that the university would start providing coverage for what he called “simple contraceptives.” He said the plan would not cover abortifacients. If he thought this policy would prove to be non-controversial, he was wrong. Not only did some Notre Dame students, faculty, and alumni not agree with funding contraceptives, those on the pro-abortion side were livid. They sued because abortion-inducing drugs were not covered.

They didn’t wait long: their suit was filed in June, just four months later. Their incremental approach—push for abortifacients but not abortion—was exactly what the HHS mandate provided. Recently, on January 16, Notre Dame lost in district court in its bid to have the case dismissed. Jenkins should have known that the Left will never be appeased—they always want more.

Leading the charge for abortifacients in the school’s healthcare policy are Irish 4 Reproductive Health (a far-left student association), Americans United for Separation of Church and State (an anti-Catholic organization), the National Women’s Law Center (a radical feminist entity), and the Center for Reproductive Rights (an extremist pro-abortion institution). The students receive funding from the taxpayer-funded giant, Planned Parenthood, and Catholics for Choice (a Catholic-bashing group).

What unites the four groups suing the University of Notre Dame is their contention that abortifacients are a form of birth control and should therefore not be excluded in a policy that allows for contraceptive coverage.

Irish 4 Reproductive Health calls for a “comprehensive” policy that addresses “reproductive healthcare.” Americans United says Notre Dame is denying “certain forms of birth control.” The National Women’s Law Center says the policy does not fund “birth control guaranteed to them by the Affordable Care Act.” The Center for Reproductive Rights uses the identical language.

Are abortifacients really analogous to the pill as a form of birth control? Or are they really abortion-inducing medications?

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says, “There is no scientific evidence that FDA-approved emergency contraceptives affect an existing pregnancy; no EC is classified as an abortifacient.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops disagrees, saying there is much confusion over what constitutes an abortion. “HHS uses it to describe only the disruption of an already implanted pregnancy. However, because a human life begins when sperm and egg meet to form a new living organism, the moral problem of abortion arises whenever a drug or device destroys the new embryonic human being, for example by preventing his or her implantation in the uterine wall needed to survive.”

Who does the pro-abortion industry agree with? For them, the question is irrelevant. They maintain that abortion, abortifacients, and contraceptives are all the same: they are a form of birth control.

Planned Parenthood says, “The Paragard [copper] IUD is the most effective type of emergency contraception. It works up to 5 days after unprotected sex, and keeps on preventing pregnancy for up to 12 years.” That puts them in partial agreement with the bishops—it is an abortifacient. But, of course, unlike the bishops, they are okay with that.

NARAL Pro-Choice, the other abortion behemoth, says, “Emergency contraception (EC), sometimes called ‘the morning-after pill,’ is birth control that significantly reduces the chances of becoming pregnant if taken soon after sex.” So it agrees with the bishops that EC works as an abortifacient, but it also celebrates its usage as a form of birth control.

The National Women’s Liberation says, “We want free and full access to all forms of birth control, including contraception and abortion.” The linkage is similarly acknowledged.

Interestingly, the idea that abortion is a form of birth control was rejected in 2016 by pro-abortion politician Nancy Pelosi. This earned her the wrath of her fans at NARAL. What gives?

Pelosi, who calls herself a Catholic, is constantly under criticism for her pro-abortion stance, so it behooved her not to be seen as a proponent of the position that “abortion is a form of birth control.” NARAL was free to say what it believes.

Casting abortion as a form of birth control is nothing new. In 1968, five years before Roe v. Wade, the Task Force on Family Law and Policy issued a report to the Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Status of Women (a group established by President John F. Kennedy). It argued in favor of repealing state abortion laws, calling abortion “an alternative to other contraceptive methods” (my italic).

Two years after Roe, in a journal published by an institution affiliated with the Department of Health and Human Services, a study was done on the “effectiveness of abortion as a form of birth control.”

In 1992, Dr. Susan Allen, a physician with the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, and a practicing abortionist, flatly admitted that “Abortion is a form of birth control.”

The pro-abortion students at the University of Notre Dame, and their pro-abortion allies, are ultimately determined to sell the notion that abortion is a form of birth control. But because there are some nervous Nellies out there (e.g., Pelosi), they are now settling for equating abortifacients with contraceptives. It’s time to unmask these activists. It is not the pill that fires them—it’s abortion.
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Bill Donohue (@CatholicLeague) is a sociologist and president of the Catholic League.

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Tags: Bill Donohue, Abortion, not the pill, fires the left, Catholic League To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Phil of It

Elizabeth Warren

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: If Punxsutawney Phil peaks out and sees his shadow, are we doomed to another six weeks of political pall?

And speaking of palls, Senator Elizabeth Warren, slipping in the polls, has unveiled YET ANOTHER PLAN.

Contemplate that very fact for a moment. The Distinguished Pocahontas Professor of Planning proposes to “combat disinformation by holding big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google,” Sunny Kim regales us from CNBC, “responsible for spreading misinformation designed to suppress voters from turning out.”

Warren vows to “push for new laws that impose tough civil and criminal penalties for knowingly disseminating this kind of information, which has the explicit purpose of undermining the basic right to vote.”

Notice her flip of America’s script?

Swapping free speech for policed speech doesn’t upgrade politicians, regulators and judges to philosopher king status, able or justified to distinguish true information from mis– or dis-.

And is our basic right to vote really being undermined by “memes”?

Give me a break.

Confusing rights with influence, or some virginal lack thereof, is pure political poison.

Or it would be if anyone took Warren seriously anymore.

Meanwhile, PETA is horning in on Punxsutawney’s celebrated Groundhog Day.

“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on the keepers of the weather-forecasting groundhog to let him retire,” CNN tells us, “and to be replaced by an animatronic groundhog.”

PETA got what reads like a Babylon Bee article into the news. “By creating an AI Phil,” the group’s letter to the Pennsylvania operation runs, “you could keep Punxsutawney at the center of Groundhog Day but in a much more progressive way.”

Is Elizabeth Warren’s notion also ‘progressive’?

Seems the opposite. But animatronics might be involved.

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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Tags: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Punxsutawney Phil, Phil of It, Warren Speech To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Actual Vs. Counterfeit Intolerance

David Limbaugh

by David Limbaugh: One of the most revealing things about the leftist mindset is the usual leftist’s lack of self-awareness about his own intolerance, hatefulness and inclusiveness — unless you distort all those terms to whitewash the reality.

I will never forget reading (and writing about) the unfortunate experience of Professor Janice Price, an education instructor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The school suspended Price and cut her salary for subjecting her students to a “hostile environment.”

Her sin was placing issues of Teachers in Focus magazine on the table in the back of her classroom that contained articles written from a Christian viewpoint. One of the articles offered suggestions on how teachers should approach the issue of homosexuality in public schools.

Price told the students they could read the magazines if they wanted to but were not required to and would not be given assignments on them. The article on homosexuality offended one student, who filed a complaint with the administration. The vice president of academic affairs sent Price a letter of reprimand, saying her “reprehensible” action of providing students with “intolerant” material “served to create a hostile environment” in violation of school policy. This administrator said that the university “cannot tolerate the intolerable.” Savor that!

Price’s fellow professor and friend Dr. Mary English aptly described the university’s attitude. “We have to be tolerant and politically correct in all other areas except Christianity,” said English. “So it’s okay to be intolerant of Christians as long as Christians are tolerant of everybody else.” Interestingly, DePauw was — and still is — affiliated with the United Methodist Church. And, no, I’m not kidding.

In the nearly 20 years since this unfortunate incident, the double standard and intolerance against Christians has only intensified. Leftists have grown increasingly intolerant of an expanding universe of things they find intolerable. They are just as lacking in self-awareness as they were then, and even less capable of self-reflection. Their intolerance has, in many cases, turned to hostility and, in some cases, hate.

Now turn with me, if you will, to present-day America, where Sen. Elizabeth Warren seeks the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Warren tweeted a link to a HuffPost article about a U.S. Supreme Court case involving a challenge to a Montana law that provides tax credits for donations to school scholarship organizations that use those donations to fund private schools, both religious and secular. A provision of Montana’s constitution (the Blaine Amendment) prohibits the expenditure of public funds for religious purposes, and the Montana Supreme Court struck down the tax credit program, even though the use of these funds isn’t technically an expenditure of public funds and even though secular schools benefit along with religious schools.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether the Montana Supreme Court infringed on the people’s free exercise of religion under the First Amendment by invalidating the program. The court is being asked to follow its precedent that states can’t discriminate against religious organizations by allowing secular organizations to benefit and not religious ones.

Warren, of course, stands with the Montana Supreme Court. She is against school choice programs and doesn’t want any private schools to benefit. But she’s especially against Christian schools benefitting because in her view, they teach hate.

“States should focus on funding public schools, not private ones — especially not ones that maintain anti-LGBTQ+ policies,” Warren tweeted. “We must ensure every kid — especially LGBTQ+ kids — can get a high-quality education.”

How does allowing people tax credits for donations to private Christian and secular schools jeopardize LGBTQ+ kids’ education? Warren knows that’s nonsense. Her complaint is that some of the Christian schools that will benefit from the donations use a Christian-based curriculum. She’s upset that their student handbooks teach that God created each person as male or female, and that He created marriage to be between one man and one woman. She’s distressed that some of the schools require students and visitors to use restrooms and locker rooms that conform to their biological sex.

To have a snowball’s chance at the Democratic presidential nomination today, you have to push all the politically correct buttons and pander to the party’s leftist base. Sometimes this means you at least have to pretend that you believe certain scriptural passages constitute hate speech. It means you shouldn’t tolerate the opinions of those who follow these biblical teachings.

Sadly, there is a growing hostility from the left toward certain biblical teachings and those who subscribe to them — an insistence on demonizing them for their beliefs. Pretending this isn’t true won’t make it go away. Calling your attention to it should not be controversial. Pointing out intolerance and hate is not exhibiting intolerance and hate. Rolling over and surrendering one’s principles to conform to society’s ever-changing norms is not courageous. Pray for wisdom, understanding, peace and harmony.
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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, Actual Vs. Counterfeit, Intolerance To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Trump’s Heroic Truth And Israel’s Historic Opportunity

by Caroline Glick: In Israel’s early years, every time the US ambassador traveled to Jerusalem to meet with government leaders, he would have his chauffeur stop his car at the entrance to the city, and replace its diplomatic license plates with regular civilian plates. The State Department refused to recognize that Jerusalem was part of Israel. The license plates were for Israel. And so, in a show of contempt and rejection of Israel’s right to its capital city, he removed his diplomatic plates before entering Jerusalem, and put them back on when he left.

President Harry Truman was the first world leader to recognize the State of Israel, just moments after David Ben-Gurion declared its independence on May 14, 1948. But his recognition was skin deep. Truman, like all of his successors until Donald Trump, recognized Israel’s existence but didn’t recognize the Jewishness of Israel. He saw Israel as a refuge for Holocaust survivors and other Jews fleeing persecution. But he didn’t accept that the nation of Israel in 1948 was the nation of Israel from the Bible. He didn’t accept that the Jewish refugees in European DP camps were the descendants of the prophets or that the forefathers of the kibbutzniks in the Jezreel Valley were the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Israel, as far as he was concerned, was a new state, a poor state of Jewish refugees. And he treated it accordingly.

Truman’s anti-historical view of the Jewish state produced a two-faced American policy towards Israel. On the one hand, the American officials spoke warmly of the Jewish homeland. On the other hand, they treated Israel like a beggar that should be thankful for scraps and loose change.

This patronizing American approach changed after the 1967 Six-Day War. President Lyndon Johnson realized that a nation capable of triumphing over four enemy armies in six days and tripling its size is a nation worthy of respect and better treatment. Johnson upgraded Israel militarily and supported it diplomatically in the aftermath of the war.

But America’s ambivalence towards Zionism – the liberation movement of the ancient Jewish people – persevered. The US’s adamant refusal to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Washington’s opposition to all Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza attested to this fact.

For America to recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s control and Israel’s sovereign rights to these areas, America’s leaders would need to recognize the simple fact that Israel is not a refuge for a persecuted, pitiable people, but the homeland of the eternal nation of Israel. And all US presidents until Trump preferred to deny this truth. As a matter of US policy, they transferred the Jewish nation’s historical rights to the Palestinians who have no national history.

But then, three years ago, Trump entered the White House. Tuesday, Trump said that Israel is a light to the nations, that the land of Israel is the promised land, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people. He said that Jerusalem cannot be liberated because it’s already been liberated. He said that no one will be removed from their home for peace. Among other things, he conditioned Palestinians statehood on full Palestinian recognition of the Jewish people’s rights to their historic homeland in the land of Israel.

Ahead of Trump’s announcement, Barack Obama’s ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro delivered a not-particularly-veiled threat to Israelis who might be tempted to accept Trump’s framework for peace. Shapiro stunned the diplomatic world when he refused to leave Israel at the end of his term and instead took a position at a left-leaning Israeli think tank. He has used his position to criticize President Trump’s Middle East policies.

In an interview with Army Radio Sunday, Shapiro said, “I think Israeli citizens should take into account that in less than a year there could be a new, Democratic administration – if not in a year then in five years. Trump won’t be president forever. It is important to know that any Democratic candidate will oppose this plan and that no Democratic president will be bound by it.”

Shapiro continued, “If Trump is encouraging Israel to take unilateral steps such as annexing the Jordan Valley and the settlement blocs, that guarantees there will be a clash with a Democratic administration in less than a year. I don’t think this is a positive thing for the relations between the countries and I advise against immediate actions that future administrations will oppose.”

In other words, Shapiro said, if Israel supports Trump’s plan, which supports Israel in ways that no previous president ever did – least of all Shapiro’s boss Obama – the Democrats will punish Israel for doing so. If Israel wants good relations with a Democratic administration in the future, it will need to agree to not secure its interests, not now, and not ever.

It is not at all clear that Blue and White leader Benny Gantz understands the gravity of the moment. Shapiro essentially reinforced the point that Trump is providing Israel with a chance to secure its interests that it isn’t likely to receive again. The fact that Gantz thought it was appropriate to attack Netanyahu from Washington on Monday indicated that he places his personal ambitions above the good of the country.

So too, it is far from clear that the leaders of the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria understand the significance of Trump’s actions. On Tuesday, Trump recognized the truth at the foundation of Zionism and made that truth the foundation of America’s policy regarding the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

Trump is a true friend of the Jewish people. He didn’t offer us a perfect plan. But he offered us a plan that we can live with. That alone sets it apart from all the American plans that preceded it. It would be a sin for us not to support it. Netanyahu pledged to apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria on Sunday. Every Jew in Israel and worldwide should expect that he and his ministers fulfill this pledge. And every Jew in Israel and worldwide should feel thankful to Trump for his friendship and for his courage to embrace the truth.
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Caroline Glick is the Senior Contributing Editor of Israel Hayom and the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

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Tags: Caroline Glick, Israel Hayom, Trump’s Heroic Truth, Israel’s Historic Opportunity To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!