No-Fly for Life: Illinois Rep. Proposes Radical Travel Ban

by Tony Perkins: Apparently, it's not enough that Illinois passed one of the most shocking abortion laws in America. Now, they want to punish states who don't.

State Representative Daniel Didech says it's not a "boycott," per se, but his bill outlawing travel to pro-life states could have fooled us. The idea behind his H.B. 3901 is to put the hurt on places like Alabama, Georgia, and other states where leaders listened to voters and took great strides to protect the unborn. Now, in retribution, Didech thinks Illinois employees should either be outlawed from going to those states on business -- or forced to pay for it out of their own pockets.

"The purpose of the bill is to protect women who may not be able to get the health care they may need when they're traveling on official state business," he argues. "What these other states are doing is, to me, very dangerous. To a large extent, yes, abortion is a big part of it, but it's not entirely about abortion," Didech told reporters. "As a member of the legislature, I have the responsibility to protect our state employees." Protect them how, people want to know? Didech fired back that this wasn't about promoting abortion but protecting women. In one of the most absurd explanations ever for one of these liberal travel bans, the Buffalo Grove politician argues that a pregnant Illinois employee might miscarry in a pro-life state and not have access to health care!

Of course, that's absolutely ridiculous, because unlike Illinois, these states actually ensure that mothers have the cutting-edge care they need -- unlike the Land of Lincoln, where women are subjected to chop-shop abortions because the state doesn't want to regulate them. Still, Didech claimed, a female worker might miscarry during travel and she "could get tangled [in an investigation] that's outside her control."

Since when do pro-life states investigate a woman's miscarriage? Not one of the 12 states on Didech's blacklist even criminalizes a woman for an abortion -- let alone launches formal inquiries after a miscarriage. Yet this is all part of the messaging subterfuge of the Left. If Rep. Didech cares about protecting women, maybe he ought to start in his own backyard, where abortionists like Ulrich Klopfer are roughing up women and then carrying their babies' bodies into Illinois to stack like trophies in his garage. This is a state that just made infanticide legal, and their liberals are complaining about the threat of pro-lifers?

Illinois has a serious human dignity problem. And the only people who are in real danger are the ones traveling to Didech's state, where life is only safe if it's wanted -- and warehoused by a maniac if it's not.
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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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Impeachment Coup Analytics

Victor Davis Hanson

by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson: The Democrats have exhausted every other mechanism for destroying Trump—and they are running out of time before November 2020 election.

Aside from the emotional issue that Democrats, NeverTrumpers, and celebrities loathe Donald Trump, recently Representative Al Green (D-Texas) reminded us why the Democrats are trying to impeach the president rather than just defeat him in the 2020 general election.

“To defeat him at the polls would do history a disservice, would do our nation a disservice,” Green said. “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach the president, he will get re-elected.”

Translated, that means Green accepts either that Trump’s record is too formidable or that the agendas of his own party’s presidential candidates are too frightening for the American people to elect one of them. And that possibility is simply not permissible. Thus, impeachment is the only mechanism left to abort an eight-year Trump presidency—on a purely partisan vote to preclude an election, and thus contrary to the outlines of impeachment as set out by the Constitution.

Consider it another way: Why is it that the House is controlled by Democrats, yet its leadership is not pushing through any of the policy proposals voiced so openly on the Democratic primary stage?

Why aren’t progressive representatives introducing bills to pay reparations to African Americans, to legalize infanticide in some cases of late-term abortion, to offer free medical care to illegal aliens, to confiscate AR-15s, to extend Medicare for all, to impose a wealth tax and raise top rates to between 70 and 90 percent, to abolish student debt and ensure free college for all, or to grant blanket amnesty to those currently living in the country illegally?

Simple answer: none of those issues poll anywhere near 50 percent approval. And no Democratic candidate would expect to beat Trump as the emissary of such an agenda.

If the economy was in a recession, if we were embroiled in another Iraq-like or Vietnam-sort of war, and if Trump’s polls were below 40 percent, then the Democrats would just wait 13 months and defeat him at the polls.

But without a viable agenda and because they doubt they can stop Trump’s reelection bid, they feel they have no recourse but to impeach. If Trump were to be reelected, not a shred of Barack Obama’s “fundamental transformation” would be left, and the strict constructionist Supreme Court would haunt progressives for a quarter-century.

Why Impeachment Now?
The Democrats have exhausted every other mechanism for destroying Trump—and they are running out of time before November 2020 election.

Think of what we have witnessed since the 2016 election. Do we even remember charges that voting machines in the 2016 election were rigged, and the efforts to subvert Electoral College voting, or to invoke the Logan Act, the emoluments clause, and the 25th Amendment?

The “collusion” and “obstruction” fantasies of the Mueller investigation now seem like ancient history. So do the James Comey leaks, the palace coup of Andrew McCabe, the Trump tax records, the celebrity rhetoric about blowing up, shooting, stabbing, burning and variously killing off the president of the United States—along with the satellite frenzies of Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, Charlottesville, Jussie Smollett, the Covington Kids, and the Kavanaugh hearings.

What is left but to try the new “Ukraine collusion”—especially given three other considerations?

First, volatile and always changing polls appearing to favor impeachment roughly reflect Trump’s own popularity (or lack of same). Around 45-46 percent of Americans do not want him impeached and about the same or slightly more say they do.

Second, the hard left-wing of the party might not yet control all the Democrats, but it does not matter because they are clearly younger, more energized, and better organized. And they want something to show for all their social media and photo-op grandstanding, given their socialist agenda is mysteriously moribund.

Third, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is said to oppose impeachment on pragmatic grounds, but I am not sure that is right.
It’s the equivalent of saying Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was opposed to the progressive character assassination of Brett Kavanaugh. Neither is or was true.

A better description would be that Pelosi and Feinstein simply go along with the perceived 51-plus percent surge of their party, and sit back gleefully watching the fireworks happen, willing to jump in or pull back depending on the atmospherics and polling. Impeachment, remember, will make the Kavanaugh hearings look like a seminar on etiquette, and so everything and anything can happen once dozens of unhinged leftists are unbound.

Be prepared for a half-dozen Christine Blasey Ford-type witnesses to pop up, and 20 or so unhinged Cory Booker-esque “I am Spartacus” performance acts, along with a whole slew of new Steele dossiers—all interspersed with breathless CNN bulletins announcing new fake news developments with “the walls are closing in” and “the end is near” prognostications. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is already reading fantasies to the House Intelligence Committee and passing them off as the text of Trump’s phone call to Ukraine’s new president. Only after he was called on such absurdities did he describe his performance as a parody.

Facts Won’t Matter that Much
The Left is hellbent on impeachment and the absence of a case won’t matter. They do not care if they will sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

In the coming days, after all, we will probably learn that the whistleblower’s “Schiff dossier” was prepared by ex-Lawfare-type lawyers in service to House Democrats, who just needed a vessel to pass off the hit as a genuine cry of the heart, rather than a scripted attack with all the Steele dossier/Mueller report/Comey memo fingerprints: classification obfuscations, footnotes to liberal media hit pieces, pseudo-scholarly references to court cases, and lawsuit-avoiding, preemptive disclaimers about not actually possessing firsthand knowledge of any of the evidence, prepped hearsay, supposition, and the subjunctive and optative mood composition.

In a sane world, the impeachers would worry their charges that Trump forced Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to investigate his possible 2020 Democratic opponent Joe Biden might boomerang.

After all, Trump never actually cut off Ukrainian aid. Nor did he outline a quid pro quo deal. Essentially he is accused of unduly asking a foreign president to clamp down on corruption in his midst going back to 2016. So what? Especially if there is something more to the strange antics of Hunter Biden and CrowdStrike.

Biden’s problems are not such thought crimes, but are confirmed by his own boasting: that he used the clout of the United States to help his own family financially, by threatening to cut off U.S. aid unless a Ukrainian state prosecutor looking into his own son’s suspicious lobbying was fired within six hours. And in Biden’s own words, “Son of a bitch,” he was fired.

In contrast, Trump might have been all over the map in his call, but he kept the aid to Ukraine coming without demanding the scalp of any Ukrainian official. In some sense, Trump’s culpability boils down to one issue: progressives believe that in not-too-veiled a manner, he threatened a foreign government to start going after the Biden family without cause, whose patriarch Joe might be Trump’s 2020 election opponent.

The other half of the country believes that what is material is not Biden’s current transient electoral status (he is not now and may not be the Democratic nominee), but the fact that he was vice president of the United States when he used his office to threaten the loss of foreign aid to stop investigations of his son, who was using his father’s position to further his own profiteering.

Given that Trump denies any quid pro quo and his call supports that fact, while Biden, on the other hand, openly brags that he made threats which made the Ukrainian to cave (“in six hours”), one can draw one’s own conclusions.

For now, we await more documents—with caveats that the canny Ukrainians, for their own self-interest, will predicate their release of information on the likelihood of which party will win the 2020 election.

The Left hints it has lots of incriminating documents outlining a quid pro quo threat; conservatives suspect that Ukrainian and legal documents will show the prosecutor was neither unethical nor uninterested in Hunter Biden, but was fired precisely because he was not corrupt and very much concerned with Biden.

As far as precedent, there is a good recent example. Barack Obama got caught promising to consider cuts in Eastern-European-based missile defense if Vladimir Putin would give him some room during his reelection campaign.

Translated into Adam Schiff’s Mafiosi parody lingo: Putin would calm down on the international stage to make the U.S.-Russia “reset” look good, Obama would then get rid of Eastern-European missile defense, and Obama would get reelected in 2012.

And all three of those events transpired as planned—one can surmise whether any of the three would have happened without Obama compliance with Russian conditions. Remember, Obama’s quid pro quo was caught on a hot mic on the premise that what he said to Russian President Medvedev was never supposed to be heard. “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved,” Obama said. “But it’s important for him [Putin] to give me space . . . This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

Once that understanding was excused, and the media was mute about such collusion, can any notion of collusion as a crime still exist?

Conspiracy Theories
Finally, who are the winners in these impeachment psychodramas, both short-term and long-term?

Short-term, Trump may lose traction due to the media frenzy. He lost some of his ongoing momentum that had recently seen his polls steadily creeping up. He gave a fine speech at the United Nations and sounded presidential in his talks with foreign leaders—all overshadowed or now forgotten due to the impeachment psychodrama.

Trump’s critics have become emboldened, Left and Right. The Drudge Report has flip-flopped and is as anti-Trump as Vox or Slate. Many at National Review call for or anticipate impeachment without much regret. Likewise, some at Fox News—Shepard Smith, Andrew Napolitano, and Chris Wallace—are nonstop critics of Trump and hardly disguise their contempt.

The leftist media is on uppers, and completely ecstatic in moth-to-flame fashion, as if it were May 2017 again and Trump’s demise was a day away.

Because Joe Biden faces far more legal exposure than Trump, he is mentioned (if even to contextualize and exonerate him) in every news account of Ukraine. Whether or not Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) or her erstwhile henchwoman, Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), was behind this gambit, does not matter. (Nothing much from either one had worked to slow down Biden in the last six months). Biden is simply not physically or mentally up to a year of cross-examination. And Hunter Biden is more unsteady than Joe and will thus be hard to locate.

We are starting to see the outlines of a progressive fantasy on the horizon: Biden will be sacrificed. The party will unite around Warren. The left-wing media narrative will be, “We took out one of our own, now it is your turn to depose Trump.” Chaos overload for two or three weeks might keep Trump’s polling low.

Long-term, however, Trump wins.

We still have a number of government audits coming from Michael Horowitz, John Durham, and John Huber—and the targets are not Trump. The Senate will not convict the president under any foreseeable circumstances. The full story of the whistleblower has not been told, but there are a lot of narratives to come about the sudden rules allowing hearsay, DNC involvement, and who knew far in advance about the complainant’s writ. Once the Democratic debates continue, the candidates’ screaming and hysterics return, and the impeachment hearings descend into a Kavanaugh-esque farce, the public will begin to get scared again by the Left’s shrieking Jacobins. Schiff’s “parody” is a small foretaste of what’s to come. Voters soon will surmise that the only thing between their 401k plans and socialism is Donald J. Trump.

Warren or her possible facsimile is a weaker candidate than even the enfeebled Biden. Her lack of viability will be of enormous advantage in NeverHillary-fashion to Trump. His fundraising, already ascendant, will hit the stratosphere. The idea that the new and old NeverTrumpers will be on the side of socialism will finally discredit them. Wall Street and Silicon Valley will keep trashing Trump, but privately write checks to stop Warren’s wealth tax that would be only the beginning of her Venezuelization of America.

So if Trump’s health holds out, if we don’t have a recession, if there is not an optional war, and Trump endures the next few weeks of 360-degree, 24/7 targeting, 2020 will be far more favorable than ever imaginable for him.
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Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) is a senior fellow, classicist and historian at the
and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution where many of his articles are found; his focus is classics and military history. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. H/T American Greatness.

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Blumenthal's Bluster, Where We Stand, The Deep State, Keeping Our Streets Safe

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Blumenthal's Bluster
As the impeachment of President Trump begins, the battle lines are hardening. Senator Lindsey Graham dismissed the allegations against the president as "a nothing burger." Senator Richard Blumenthal had a visceral reaction to Graham's quip, saying:

"Donald Trump is going to choke on this supposed nothing burger. He will go down with this supposed nothing burger in his throat because what it shows is repeated, concerted, premeditated criminal conduct."

I found Blumenthal's statement very revealing. Like much of Hollywood's "art," (here and here) it reveals the degree of hatred festering on the left toward Donald Trump.

My old friend Bill Bennett, commenting on this raw hatred, said it reminded him of the animosity Inspector Javert had for Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, which had tragic results.

Sadly, I suspect the left has given little thought as to how it might heal the wounds caused by impeachment or how it might begin to help reunite the country that has been so divided by its extreme policies and growing anti-Americanism.

But let me remind you, my friends, that the left's hatred isn't just about Donald Trump. It's about you. It's about me. It's about all the 63 million "deplorable and irredeemable" people who voted for Donald Trump. They tell us that all the time.

The left's rage didn't begin with Donald Trump. It smeared Ronald Reagan, Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, George W. Bush, John McCain and even Mitt Romney. The left viciously attacked Brett Kavanaugh and it is still attacking him.

Today is the anniversary of Christine Blasey Ford's Senate hearing. And Kamala Harris is still demanding Kavanaugh's impeachment.

Where We Stand
It is hard for anyone to keep up with all the nuances of this dispute, and the developments that have taken place at such a rapid pace. Of course, that's the left's goal -- to confuse and demoralize conservatives. But let me just summarize where we are:

• An anonymous CIA employee, with an identified anti-Trump bias, has filed a complaint about a presidential phone call to another head of state.
• The employee was not on the call.
• His identity, and those of anyone he worked with, is being hidden.
• What he alleged has been shown from the transcript to be false, and there are numerous inconsistencies in the complaint.

On this basis, we're being told by virtually every Democrat and reporter in America that the president must be removed from office.

That's it.

The Deep State
From the time of the campaign all the way until now, the president has been under repeated attacks from elements of America's intelligence agencies, including the CIA and FBI. Many of the people, like Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, and Strzok, have been removed. But there are still many more who have not been identified and "weeded out."

The president has appointed various people he was told would clean house. Former Indiana Senator Dan Coats, an old friend of mine, was named director of national intelligence. But he quickly became a mouthpiece for the agency he was running rather than a reformer of the agency. Thanks for nothing, Dan.

Early in his administration, a CIA official resigned and wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post lambasting the president. He was promptly hired to be a commentator for NBC News. More recently, an intelligence analyst at the State Department used his resignation to make a big splash in the news.

The current controversy reportedly originated with an employee at the CIA. The current head of the CIA is Gina Haspel, a career officer and the first woman to lead the CIA.

The president was told, and we were all told, that she was the ultimate professional who would not tolerate any nonsense. Clearly, she needs to call in all agency supervisors and review the rules regarding their involvement in partisan politics.

It is worth remembering that even before the inauguration, then President-elect Trump was expressing his frustration with the intelligence community. At the time, Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer bragged to Rachel Maddow, "Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community -- they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

If this abuse of our intelligence agencies cannot be ended, then the globalists have won and we have lost the country. I pray and still believe that is not true. But the jury is still out.

Keeping Our Streets Safe
Progressives are all in on open borders, and one of their key demands is abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, ICE. That would be a colossal disaster.

ICE Director Matt Albence held a press conference at the White House yesterday. He told reporters that last year ICE arrested "more than 105,000 criminal aliens" and deported "more than 145,000 criminal aliens." ICE also arrested "nearly 10,000 gang members" and deported 6,000 gang members. So far this year, ICE has filed more than 160,000 detainers with local jails nationwide.

That gives you some idea of the extent of the criminal illegal alien problem we have in this country. And Democrats want to abolish the agency responsible for getting these criminals off our streets.

Albence noted that ICE conducted major operations this week resulting in 1,300 arrests. Of those arrested:

• Three had convictions for manslaughter or murder.
• 100 had convictions for sexual assault, and nearly half of the victims were children.
• 70 had drug convictions.
• And more than 320 had DUI convictions.

Needless to say, Director Albence had tough words for sanctuary cities and the politicians who support them. He said:

"To the public who want to live and raise your families in safe neighborhoods, we ask you to hold your lawmakers accountable before you or someone you love is unnecessarily victimized by a criminal that ICE could have removed from your community."

L'Shanah Tovah
To all of our Jewish friends and supporters, Carol and I wish you a happy Rosh Hashanah!
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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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46 Illegal Immigrants from 10 Countries Arrested in Ohio, Michigan ICE Operation

by Bob Price: Immigration officers arrested 46 illegal immigrants from 10 countries during a five-day enforcement action in Ohio and Michigan. The operation, which ended on September 25, led to the arrest of mostly criminal aliens with charges or convictions for sex crimes, driving under the influence, and other serious offenses.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers in Michigan and Ohio carried out a five-day targeted enforcement action which ended on September 25. During the operation, ERO officers arrested 46 individuals, mostly criminals, from 10 different countries, according to information obtained from ICE officials.

Officers arrested mostly criminals with either charges or convictions for serious crimes after illegally entering the United States. Some also had charges for immigration violations and final orders of removal.

Samples of the offenses committed or alleged to have been committed include gross sexual imposition, attempted felonious sexual penetration, importuning, attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, criminal sexual conduct – second degree, driving under the influence of liquor, operating while intoxicated, operating a vehicle while impaired, child endangerment, burglary, controlled substance – delivery / manufacture of marijuana, controlled substance – delivery / manufacture of marijuana (conspiracy), marijuana possession, possession of drugs, negligent assault, illegal entry, aggravated burglary, receiving burglary tools, attempted receiving and concealing stolen property, criminal mischief, retail fraud, disorderly conduct, solicit prostitution, obstruct official business, reckless operation of a vehicle, operating a vehicle without a license, and driving while license suspended.

As examples, ICE officials disclosed the following:

• On Sept. 22, a previously-deported 40-year-old citizen of Mexico in Saginaw, Michigan. The subject has an arrest for criminal sexual conduct – 2nd degree, which remains pending. He will remain detained in ICE custody pending his removal from the United States.
• On Sept. 23, a 62-year-old citizen of the United Kingdom in Hudson, Ohio. The subject has convictions including burglary, gross sexual imposition, and attempted felonious sexual penetration. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.
• On Sept. 24, a 40-year-old citizen of Iraq in Detroit. The subject has convictions including possession of marijuana, attempted receiving and concealing stolen property, controlled substance – delivery/manufacture marijuana, and controlled substance – delivery/manufacture marijuana (conspiracy). He will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.

Officials reported the arrested individuals, all men, came to the U.S. from Mexico, Senegal, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cameroon, Iraq, United Kingdom, South Korea, Tanzania, and Honduras.

“ICE focuses its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety, and border security. However, ICE does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement,” officials stated. “All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and if found removable by final order, removal from the United States. ICE does not conduct sweeps.”

“Upholding public safety by focusing on removing criminal aliens is at the heart of what ERO officers do every day,” Detroit ERO Field Office Director Rebecca Adducci said in a written statement. “These targeted enforcement actions highlight ICE’s vital role in keeping our communities safe.” The Detroit Area of Responsibility includes Michigan and Ohio.

At the same time as this operation, ERO officers in Texas and Oklahoma arrested an additional 94, Breitbart Texas reported. ERO officers carried out other operations in multiple jurisdictions during this same time period.

Some of the migrants arrested may face federal prosecution for illegal entry after removal. If charged and convicted, the migrant could face up to 2o years in federal prison prior to being removed from the U.S.
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Bob Price (@BobPriceBBTX) serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Border team.

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Despite Liberal Media’s Narrative, His Community Is ‘Very Conservative,’ Black Strategist Says

by Rob Bluey: Raynard Jackson is fed up with how conservatives approach black Americans. The political strategist, columnist, and president and CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates says conservatives need to try something new, because while there’s a lot of shared values between conservatives and African Americans, that’s getting lost right now.

“Until Republicans … and the conservative movement deal with this issue of race, they will never ever get a massive amount of black support, period,” Jackson says. Read the lightly edited transcript, posted below, or listen on the podcast.

Rob Bluey: I’m joined by Raynard Jackson. He’s the president and CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, a great political strategist in Washington, D.C., and a longtime friend of our president, Kay Coles James, and The Heritage Foundation.

Raynard Jackson: Thank you, Rob. Thanks for inviting me.

Bluey: You and I got to know each other at a meeting that we both attended on Capitol Hill and the thing that I loved about you is you are always bringing new ideas to the table, particularly about how conservatives can do a better job of communicating and taking their ideas into the black community.

You’ve written a piece for The Daily Signal about this. You recently had a meeting at the White House about this. So I’m hoping that we can spend some time here in this interview hearing some of your ideas and how conservatives can do a better job.

Jackson: I look forward to it. Thank you.

Bluey: So you write for The Daily Signal. Your first column that you’ve written for us says that the black community is naturally conservative. What do you mean by that?

Jackson: Within the black community, despite what the liberal media projects us to be, we are very conservative, very church-going. And I’m telling you even today, Rob, there is a strict sense of discipline in the black household, whether it’s a traditional family or a single parent. Black women, they don’t play with their kids. If you get out of line, you’re going to get spanked, period. And the black family is the key to the strength in the black community.

I remember when growing up as a kid, I would be sitting on my grandmother’s lap and she would sit up there and talk about what’s right, what’s wrong, what to do, what not to do, family history. And so when I was in college, I would come home on a weekend and my parents were fine with me going out with my fellows, hanging out at the club and all that stuff. But come Sunday morning, eight o’clock is like, “Boy, or are you ready for church?” Not, “Boy, are you going to church?” There was no option. So yeah, I could hang out all night, seven, eight in the morning if I want to, but come eight o’clock we going to church, period.

Bluey: I think those values that you get from having that belief in faith and going to a religious organization like a church [are] definitely in alignment with the traditional American values that conservatives seem to embrace.

Where do you see the challenge then that conservatives face in terms of breaking through and communicating to members of that community?

Jackson: Well, it’s very simple. When you say “conservative” to black folks, what we hear is “Strom Thurmond,” “Jesse Helms” back in the day. And for [the] audience who may not be familiar, … Strom Thurmond ran on a states rights, on the Dixiecrat ticket in 1948 for president. Jesse Helms was a senator of North Carolina. Strom Thurmond’s a senator from South Carolina, segregationist, racist, but both of them over a period of years, they kind of left that legacy and they became very supportive, for example, of historically black colleges, which you have several of them in South [Carolina] and North Carolina. But that’s what we hear.

So what I tell conservatives [is], as opposed to using the word “conservative,” a better term in a black community is “traditional values.” Because again, that transports you back when you were a little kid sitting on grandma’s lap. And that’s kind of a verbal nuance that conservatives need to understand.

Bluey: That’s a great point. Thank you for sharing that. But I want to ask you, because, historically, going back to Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party for its at least early history, was associated in many ways with the abolitionist movement and helping, obviously, to fight the Civil War and to give blacks and African Americans those rights. And then all of the sudden, today it’s the complete opposite.

So where did the Republican Party now, I’d separate that from conservative specifically, go wrong?

Jackson: No. 1, they decided to throw away the black vote in 1968 with the adoption by President [Richard] Nixon of the Southern strategy, which meant they decided that it was worth more for them to go after white Southern Democrats, the old Dixiecrat in the South, at the expense of the black community who had been the most loyal voting block up until that time for the Republican Party.

How blacks are today for the Democrats, we were that same type of loyalty to the Republicans back in the day. And even with that, Nixon got a third of the black vote. So until Republicans, Rob, and the conservative movement deal with this issue of race, they will never ever get a massive amount of black support, period.

Bluey: But you’re taking it head-on. You went to Florida. You worked for Gov. Ron DeSantis, then-candidate Ron DeSantis, and you made significant inroads, and really in that close election were able to, I think, make up the difference. So tell us what happened in Florida and how you were able to do that.

Jackson: Yeah. Gov. DeSantis is the good friend and when he was in congress last September, a year ago this month matter of fact, he called me after he became the nominee and asked me to come down and serve as one of his senior advisers, and of course I agreed to it.

He said, “hey, I want you to go and just do what you do. I know the kind of work you can do. And you let me know what you need from the campaign and we’re going to make sure we get it to you.”

We were polling at 2% of the black vote then. We ended up getting 17% of the black vote.

Bluey: Wow.

Jackson: The two issues that resonated were entrepreneurship and school choice and vouchers. And then our opponent, Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee at the time, two of his campaign platforms were to raise taxes on small minority businesses and to get rid of the school choice voucher program in Florida. And … DeSantis said, “No, those are the two of my strongest points.” As a result of that, we got just enough black support that that was his margin of victory.

If we can replicate that across the country and within the conservative movement, blacks will support a conservative candidate, but no one goes into the community and asks for their support.

Bluey: More recently you were at the White House with a number of other black Americans who went to the press secretary, went to the vice president’s communications director and others and talked about the importance of making sure that the message is getting out.

I want to ask you two parts. I want to hear more about the meeting and why it was so significant. I understand that a meeting like this didn’t take place when President [Barack] Obama was in the White House. And secondly, I want to hear your assessment of President [Donald] Trump and his policies and how they have impacted the black community.

Jackson: Well, two interesting questions. The National Newspaper Publishers Association, [the] NNPA—that’s a consortium of the over 200 black newspapers in the country—their executive board was in town two weeks ago for some other meetings.

So, they have been complaining to me because they syndicate my weekly column to over these 200 newspapers about access to the administration. When their reporters are trying to do stories, they can’t get calls returned because no one knows who they are. And a lot of time, let’s face it, Rob, conservatives and Republicans, when they get a call from a black media outlet, their default position is going to be a hit piece. So, therefore, we don’t return their call, and that’s garbage.

I called the White House and me and Pastor Mark Burns, a close supporter of the president’s, and the White House, Stephanie Grisham, Hogan Gidley and Darin Miller from the vice president’s press office, they were so excited. They said, “Can we get a meeting with them this week while in town?” And we said, “Yeah.” And they moved heaven and earth on their schedule to sit and spend an hour with us to talk about what these newspaper publishers’ issues were, and we got a lot of work done. And that issue of access, they committed then that that would no longer be an issue.

Bluey: Let me make sure our listeners know you wrote about this meeting directly in LifeZette. I encourage our our listeners to check out a your piece. It’s called “Trump’s White House Does More for Black Media Members than Liberal Press Will Ever Tell You.” Also, Fred Lucas, our White House correspondent at The Daily Signal, covered the story as well. Its headline is, “ .” So we encourage our listeners to check out both of those stories to learn more.

Tell me a little bit about the Trump administration and the policies. You and I got to know each other during the tax cut push back in 2017, of course that was a big initiative and the president’s first year. You help take that message to new communities. It’s obviously had a tremendous impact on the economy overall. We also see that black unemployment is at record lows. Is President Trump getting the credit that he deserves for the policies?

Jackson:Bluey: Those sound like great stories that we’d like to tell at The Daily Signal. So let’s keep in touch about that. We’ve done several already about the tax cuts and I think that there are certainly more that have gone untold, so [I] would like to know more about them.

Now, we’ve talked about some of the economic pieces, obviously HBCUs is … another piece that you brought up. What are some of the other policies that you think President Trump might not be getting credit for that have had an impact positively on the black community?

Jackson: Oh, religious freedom. Not only just overseas, because that’s a big issue. Christians are being persecuted, for example, in Northern Nigeria, and no one talks about that. Boko Haram is there, and if they find out you are a Christian, they will put a car tire around your neck, set it on fire, and torture you. And they force little girls who say they’re Christian either to renounce their Christianity, [or] they rape them and then kill them. That’s going on right now.

And then domestically, a lot of black churches are very frustrated until President Trump comes along, because some of these churches are getting federal money, but then being told, “If you take federal money, you cannot talk about Christianity and faith because you took federal money.”

And President Trump has said, “No, we want you to take federal money if you’re impacting your local community. And we know that your success is predicated on your Christian faith and values instilling in those constituents you’re working with. So it’s foolish to deny you opportunity because of faith, because faith is the one that keeps these people off of drugs and out of being homeless. And so the federal government wants you to stop preaching the solution? Really?” And he’s getting a lot of credit for that in a black church. That story has not been told.

Bluey: That’s great to know.

The thing I love about your columns is that you’re very honest. You tell it like it is. You’re not afraid to pull punches and whatnot. And you’ve tackled some tough topics. You’re not afraid to call out people when you think that they’ve done something wrong.

So tell me, how do you approach writing your column and choosing the topics that you do? And what kind of feedback do you get when sometimes, maybe, you touched on a more controversial issue?

Jackson: Well, Rob, thanks a lot for helping me out with this. Good thing you’re not a publicist, man.

You know what’s funny is, and a lot of my clients are in music, because [I’ve] had to work a lot with R&B artists, and we’re in the studio talking and they are amazed that my writing is the same as they’re writing songs. There’s really no difference because a lot of times, I sit down at the keyboard, I may have in my mind I’m going to write about “subject matter A,” but then my fingers just kind of take a life of their own. And what I originally sat down to write about has nothing to do with what I just wrote.

So a lot of time, I just stream of consciousness and I have no idea what I’m going to write until I actually sit at the keyboard and I see the finished product.

And as I go back over some of the columns I’ve written, it’s like, that came out of you? I’m stunned. And so yeah, you’re right, Rob. I’ve been accused of being blunt and very honest, but I’m just at a point in life, Rob, where I just don’t have time to be all touchy-feely. If you ask me a question or if I take a position, everything I’ve ever written in the column, I believe. So it’s not like I’m writing for effect or to cause controversy. If I write it, I believe it, period.

… What’s amazing is I get so many emails saying, “I’m glad you said that.” … And I’ve had some people in the party, to be honest with you, Rob, called me and said, “Hey, if you toned down some of your writings, we can help you with more opportunity within the party.” And my response is, “My integrity is not for sale. My columns are for sale, but not my integrity.”

And yes, I probably have been denied some opportunities because of some of the bluntness in my column. But I challenge anyone who reads my column, Rob, to argue with me about the truthfulness of what I wrote.

Now, you may not like what I wrote, you may not like the verbiage I use, but you’re not going to argue with my facts. Those are true and they’re verifiable, and so, I’m willing to live with the consequences.

Bluey: It takes a lot of courage to have strong opinions, and I certainly appreciate sitting across from somebody who does and has the integrity to do that. So thank you.

I want to ask you about one of the recent ones because I found it so enlightening: “.” Tell me how you came up with that.

Jackson: Wow. It’s funny. MSNBC was doing a slam piece on the president, as they usually do, and something popped on my computer screen about Dennis Rodman. And I like, that’s interesting. Donald Trump is the Dennis Robert of politics, meaning a lot of people think Dennis Rodman was crazy, he was a fool, he was a buffoon. But then when you stop to think about it, he was so good at what he did …

Bluey: Yes.

Jackson: Not one person in the NBA would have turned down the opportunity to have Dennis Rodman on their team. Dennis Rodman played for the Chicago Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs and a few other teams.

… A lot of people had a problem with his antics off the court. Remember when he wore the wedding dress? Most people didn’t realize he got paid $10 million to wear that dress. You offer me that, Rob, I’m in a dress tonight. OK?

But the thing about it is, … he was named seven times in a row NBA player of the year. He was a rebound leader for seven to 10 years in a row. So when he got on the court, he delivered the goods.

So it is with President Trump. You may not like some of his tweets. You may not like how he responds to him being attacked by opponents. But if you go to war, you want him in the foxhole with you, because if you lose, the guy that won is going have blood all over them.

And that’s what conservatives like about this president. He fights for the conservative agenda. And so, with the president comes a lot of theatrics and drama, like Dennis Rodman. But there’s nobody privately who’s going to say, “I wouldn’t want this president on my side.” And that’s how I connected the two.

Bluey: That’s certainly true. … Raynard Jackson, you’re a Pulitzer Award-nominated columnist. You can find your most recent work at DailySignal.com. What haven’t we talked about that you’d like our listeners to know about you?

Jackson: Most people are shocked when they find I went to Oral Roberts University and I’m from St. Louis. … I used to work with Oral for four years, I used to be one of the camera men for the TV show, and he would always tell me, “Go into every man’s world and meet them at the point of their need.” And I’ve never forgotten that.

Any student there remembers that. They may forget their mother’s name, but they’re not going to forget that statement Oral Roberts used to say.

Back in the day, when I moved up here in the early ’90s, Rob, I would be walking down the street like on K Street, like K and 9th and 10th, 11th, 12th Street, which is all upscale now. Back in the day, you used to have prostitution and drug dealers and all that.

So I may be walking down the street with a friend and you would have prostitutes calling me by name. And my buddies would look at me like, “Whoa, these girls actually know your name? Are you patronizing?” I said, “Heck no.” But what I found interesting … go into every man’s world and meet them at the point of their need. I would go into the red light district where the prostitutes were. I just wanted to hear their story.

And you know what, Rob? Most of these women who were on the street corner were not dumb people. A lot of them had college degrees, but they fell on various levels of hard time and they did what they had to do to make it.

… I just found when you make choices, I don’t have to agree with your choice to … just sit down and talk with you, to find out what your story is. And a lot of them I ended up helping out. They transitioned to getting back on their feet.

But people tend to believe that if a person doesn’t agree with you somehow you should have nothing to do with them. And I’m just the opposite. And people are amazed when I walk into a Democrat event, which I go to a lot of them, and they’re like, “Wait a minute, I thought you were Republican?”

“Yeah, I am very Republican, but my buddy’s hosting this event, so I’m coming out to support him. I don’t agree with a doggone thing he’s saying politically, but he’s my buddy.”

Bluey: That is a theme it seems we keep touching on on this show and it’s really important for our listeners to remember, as you said, meet people where they are. You don’t necessarily have to agree with everything that they believe in. But there are a lot of things that we can do, particularly conservatives can do, to make inroads if we show up and engage in conversation.

Jackson: And see, Rob, it’s interesting you said [that.] This is the opportunity, I think, that this president, The Heritage Foundation, and the conservative movement all have in common, that black folks are allies already. But we just never get invited to the party, No. 1.

The other thing, and maybe we can talk about this at a future date, Rob, one thing conservatives really need to understand is, when they talk to the black community, they force us to make a Hobson’s choice. Meaning, they ask us, “Which are you? Are you black or are you Republican? Are you black or are you conservative?” As though you can’t be both.

So a lot of times, and I think you and I talked about this, sometimes Republicans and conservatives do and say things that we in the black community find offensive and we call them out on that. That doesn’t mean we’re not good party people and good conservatives, but we can’t have credibility in our community and try to ignore and justify an indignity done by someone in the movement.

A lot of times when I’ve criticized the party in my columns, like you indicated, I’ll get emails from influential people in the party, in the movement saying, “Well, we thought you were on our side and you criticize.” It’s like I don’t have to give up my blackness to be a part of the movement. I can be both, but wrong is wrong. And that doesn’t mean because I criticize my party that I’m not a good supporter.

The reason I stay in this party, Rob, when part of me tells me to leave this party because of some of the things we go through as blacks, the easy part would be for me to leave the party. The sign of a true leader is one who stands in the middle of difficulty and tries to make it better from within.

That’s why when a lot of my Democratic friends say, “Why do you not leave this party with the racist rhetoric coming out?” It’s like, yeah, that’s easy for me to do. And then what?

But if I stay engaged and keep speaking out using the media platform that I have, Rob, with The Daily Signal and The Heritage Foundation and other outlets, I can make change on the inside and make the movement and the party better for all of America. And that’s what my goal is.

Bluey: As a fellow American, I applaud you for taking the harder course and not the easier path because we really need you out there advocating for these ideas and … using media effectively. I think that that’s so important and that’s one of the reasons we created The Daily Signal and why [we are] so proud to have you as a new contributor to our team.

So, Raynard Jackson, how do our readers go and find more about you if they want to follow you on Twitter or social media or other places?

Jackson: Raynard1223 is my Twitter [handle]. Just Google me, all my social media pops up. Black Americans for a Better Future is my 527 super PAC, BAFBF.

Rob, thank you so much for having me. It’s been fun. And time has gone by too fast, but maybe you’ll have me back again over the next 30 or 40 years.

Bluey: We certainly will. Hopefully a lot sooner than that.

Raynard Jackson has been my guest. Thanks so much.

Jackson: Thanks, Rob.
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Rob Bluey @RobertBluey is executive editor of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.

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Virginia Police Chief Advocates Ban on All Guns at U.S. House “Assault Weapons” Hearing

by NRA-ILA: On Sept. 25, the Democrat-led U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a 3 ½ hour “hearing” entitled “Protecting America From Assault Weapons.” That framing of the issue underscored the erroneous notion that Americans need protection from inanimate objects, rather than from violent criminals who have and always will use any means at their disposal to harm innocent, defenseless people. It also revealed the unfortunate agenda of the proceedings, which was to emphasize politics and finger-pointing over any useful exploration of how Congress might take meaningful steps to improve public safety.

The most startling claim of the proceedings came when Dr. RaShall Brackney, Chief of the Charlottesville Police Department in Virginia responded to a question from Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) about whether she would support a ban on hunting rifles. “I believe any weapon that can be used to hunt individuals should be banned,” Brackney replied.

This admission seemed to indicate that Brackney would be open to the banning of any firearm – or even any weapon – whatsoever, since a criminal bent on “hunt[ing] individuals” could use virtually any firearm for that purpose.

Dr. Brackney was given two opportunities by pro-gun committee members to walk back or provide more context for that statement. Instead, she dug in and reiterated the statement.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) even asked her directly, “Okay, so you then stand for the proposition to ban any type of firearm, because any firearm can be used and misused to kill people.”

Rather than answering the question directly, Dr. Brackney began talking about police and the social contract. Rep. Steube tried asking again, only to be interrupted by an anti-gun committee member who tried to raise a point of order. She claimed that Rep. Steube was “attacking” the witness – when in fact he was merely trying to get a straight answer – and requested that he “tone down his words.” That exchange took up most of Steube’s remaining time for questioning, which was not reinstated.

Again, however, Rep. Steube tried, to clarify, asking, “Any type of weapon … that can be used to kill people should be banned?” “Sir,” Brackney replied, “you’re adding the word ‘type.’ I said ‘any weapons,’ so that’s my answer. Thank you.”

The entire exchange can be seen at this link.

Notably, none of the committee members or witnesses in favor of the ban attempted to distance themselves from Brackney’s push for a complete gun ban.

Unfortunately, Dr. Brackney’s statements may have been one of the only honest claims of the entire hearing by those arguing in favor of the ban.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a Harvard Law School graduate, told a breathtaking whopper about the U.S. Supreme Court’s pivotal Second Amendment decision, District of Columbia v. Heller. He claimed the decision says, “the Second Amendment gives you a right to a handgun for purposes of self-defense and a rifle for purposes of hunting or recreation, but nowhere does it give you a right to weapons of war … .”

The essence of the Heller decision is that Americans have a right to possess the sorts of bearable arms “in common use for lawful purposes,” particularly self-defense, and that handguns qualify because they are overwhelmingly chosen by responsible, law-abiding persons for that purpose. Notably, the decision does not purport to overturn the 1939 Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Miller, which held that the Second Amendment protection extends to arms that are “part of the ordinary military equipment” or the use of which “could contribute to the common defense.” It also notes that while Americans of the founding era might have owned firearms primarily for self-defense and hunting, the founders themselves wanted to ensure the Second Amendment provided an effective check against disarming the people, which in turn was necessary to “be able to resist tyranny.”

Nowhere does either decision suggest that rifles are only protected to the extent they are used for hunting or recreation. Indeed, Heller makes clear that self-defense is the “core lawful purpose” with which the Second Amendment is concerned.

Another theme pushed again and again was that “assault weapons” like the AR-15 are “battlefield weapons” that have no place on “America’s streets.”

Fortunately, as witness Amy Swearer testified, the overwhelmingly majority of the 16 million or so AR and AK pattern rifles in America are not “on the streets” but in the homes of law-abiding owners who never have and never will use them for anything other than lawful purposes. Violent criminals have not embraced semi-automatic rifles as their “weapons of choice.”

Rifles of all types, of which the guns that would be categorized as “assault weapons” are only a subset, are used in only 2% of homicides. In 2018, more than five times as many people were killed with knives than were killed with all rifles. The same year, more than twice as many people were killed with personal weapons like hands, fists, or feet.

When all was said and done, gun owners had no reassurance that there was any limiting principle to the anti-gun committee members’ prohibitive intentions or that they were willing to learn anything that would influence their decision-making. Indeed, one could imagine that long after semi-automatic rifles were banned, the exact same hearing could be held on the next class of firearm law-abiding gun owners would be forced to surrender because the guns were used in crimes they did not commit.
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Article by NRA-ILA.

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Tags: NRA-ILA, Federal Gun Ban, Assault Weapons Ban, Committe of the Judiciary To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

If You Liked the Mueller Investigation, You’ll Love Impeachment

. . . A day after the Mueller hearings, they pulled the same scam again.

by Daniel Greenfield: Stop me if this sounds familiar.

An intelligence operative backed by a Clinton lawyer accuses Trump of an inappropriate relationship with a former Soviet bloc country leading to an investigation and calls for everything from imprisonment to impeachment. The political half of Washington D.C. is muttering quietly, “Didn’t we do this already?”

After spending years accusing Trump of working with the Russians to undermine Hillary, they’re accusing him of working with the Ukrainians to undermine Biden. If Warren pulls far enough ahead, the Democrats will accuse Trump of working with the Poles or the Latvians to undermine her campaign.

The impeachment push is the same discredited scam that the Democrats had pushed on the country at the cost of millions of dollars, years of legislative stalemate, ruined lives and fake news. It’s like getting a scam email from a Nigerian prince, turning him down, and then receiving another email from the same address, except he now claims to be a Zambian prince, but still wants you to cash the same check.

The Democrats could barely be bothered to shake up the scam they’re once again pulling on America.

This time it’s a CIA officer instead of the MI6 guy who put together the Steele Report. And instead of a report authored secretly at the behest of Clinton lawyers, it’s a ‘whistleblower’ complaint defended by a lawyer who had worked for Hillary Clinton and donated to Biden, and comes by way of a whistleblower outfit co-founded by a Hillary Clinton donor who worked for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Yes, we did this already.

In April, the Mueller report was released. And it was a big, giant nothing. Democrats tried to play it for all they could. At the end of May, Mueller officially called it quits. At the end of July, despairing House Dems dragged him in to testify. Mueller had more trouble remembering things than Joe Biden.

The vicious scam that had begun with the Steele Report was finally dead. Time for a new edition.

The day after Mueller killed the Russia smear dead, President Trump spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky of the Ukraine. And the Democrats immediately slotted it in as the new Steele Report. A few weeks into August, the complaint was filed. And by August’s end, it was passed along to Rep. Adam Schiff through the connivance of an intel oversight official who made sure it ended up in Adam’s sweaty hands.

That’s the same scheme which took a product of the Clinton campaign and routed it through the DOJ, FBI and intelligence agencies in order to give the Steele Report a veneer of official legitimacy. This time around the key players fixed the problem that came up when the Steele Report was traced to its source, who turned out to not only be an FBI informant, but was being paid to smear Trump by Hillary Clinton.

Now they did a slightly better job of making their smear look like it originated within the government.

The latest incarnation of the Steele Report, like it, is a tangled mess of hearsay. Its author claims that "more than half a dozen U.S. officials have informed me of various facts". That's a very fancy way of saying that seven dwarves told him where to find their diamond mine.

And of conceding that this isn't a whistleblower, but a gossip.

"I was not a direct witness to most of the events described," he concedes.

Steele was passing along dubious material from sources that may or may not have existed. His new American counterpart is doing the same thing. Whistleblowers are supposed to report on what they actually saw. Not on what they claim somebody told them at the watercooler or the donut counter.

Had the Trump administration and its allies not immediately moved to make all this material public as quickly as possible, Rep. Schiff and the Washington Post could have spent months making things up.

Instead, Rep. Schiff’s efforts to push a false recreation of the phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian leader fell flat because the transcript and the complaint had already been made public.

And that’s the biggest challenge for Democrats.

The Mueller investigation and the media’s conspiracies theories were able to drag out the Russia hoax for years because so much of the information remained under lock and key, classified either by the government, or hidden by the Mueller team which doled out tidbits to favorite reporters. But this time there’s nothing to hide. And that leaves Rep. Schiff inventing his own imaginary transcripts.

And then claiming that it’s satire.

That’s an act of desperation from the Democrat point man on impeachment. And desperation at the very beginning of the process does not bode well for Team Coup. The Russia hoax was a bruising few years for Trump and his people, but they appeared to have learned a few lessons from it. Rep. Schiff and the Democrats are going into impeachment assuming that they can run the same plays all over again.

That’s not going to work anymore.

After their Russian scam fell apart, they decided to pivot to Ukraine a day later. The Russians and the Ukrainians don’t actually get along. But the average Democrat who, unlike the Biden clan, doesn’t have financial interests in the Ukraine, doesn’t know that and doesn’t care. After spending years accusing Trump of being in bed with the Russians, they’re now accusing Trump of misconduct with their worst enemies. And if neither Russia nor Ukraine pan out, they’ll throw another dart at a map of the world.

The third scandal may involve a French Surete agent revealing that someone once told him in a dream that Trump was secretly working with the Hungarians against Cory Booker. Or someone from NZSIS (New Zealand Security Intelligence Service) announcing that a note slipped under his door proves that Trump is trying to undermine Pete Buttigieg on behalf of Burundi. And Rep. Schiff will make up the rest.

The two elements of the story that remain the same, even as the minor details shift, are not accidental.

The Democrats and their media allies are lazy. And the laziness conveys their contempt for the public. But there’s a reason that they maintained the two key elements, the foreign country and the claim of election sabotage, in both their scams. The reason goes to the heart of the real crime committed here.

The foreign country, especially a former Soviet bloc nation, is a crucial element because it allows the Democrats to tap into counterintelligence resources in targeting the political opposition. The Soviets accused political dissidents of working for the CIA or MI6 for the same reason. The goal is to criminalize the political opposition and to unleash the resources of the intelligence agencies in going after them.

The election sabotage is the second crucial element because it undermines the legitimacy of elections.

After Hillary Clinton lost, the Russian scam was used to reject the legitimacy of President Trump. The Ukraine scam will be used to similarly claim that Biden might have won if it wasn’t for the Ukraine.

Impeachment can’t actually succeed. But it’s a preemptive excuse for claiming Trump didn’t really win.

In 2016, the Democrats rejected President Trump’s first term with a Russian conspiracy theory. In 2020, they intend to reject his second term with a Ukraine conspiracy theory. And if the Ukraine doesn’t work out, there’s always Poland, Hungary, Latvia and Estonia. And all the rest of the old Soviet empire.

There were 7 Warsaw Pact countries and 15 countries that were part of the former Soviet Union. There are 20 Democrats still running for the 2020 nomination. Pick a candidate, pick a country and make up your own scandal. Match up Andrew Yang and Estonia. Or Wayne Messam and Kyrgyzstan.

You too can make up your own case for impeachment. Just like Rep. Adam Schiff.
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Daniel Greenfield (@Sultanknish) is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an investigative journalist and writer focusing on radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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Levin Goes White Hot Over Trump Transcript

by Free Press International News Service: Radio and television host Mark Levin clashed with a Fox News host over the media's coverage of President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president and the entire “whistleblower” fiasco.

On the Sept. 29 broadcast of Fox & Friends, Levin was asked by co-host Ed Henry: “I’m asking you are you OK with a president asking his counterpart — this is a simply yes or no — to dig up dirt on former vice president Joe Biden and his son? Are you OK with that?”

Levin, the author of the best-selling Unfreedom of the Press, responded: “First of all, your question is not honest. So I don’t give yes or no.”

Henry interjected, “That’s a quote from the transcript, sir.”

Levis said, “Let me finish. You have all morning. I have two minutes. It’s not an honest question. Show me in the transcript where the president said that … nowhere.”

Levin continued, “The media have taken sides here and what I’m saying is this is an utterly corrupt political, partisan process. And it’s about time we had some real reporters who would try to get to the bottom of this.”

He added, “There’s going to be a huge backlash in this country one way or the other. You can’t disenfranchise 63 million people who are on to this, who have alternative forms of information. Real cover-up here. Gee, we have the letter, and we have the transcripts, and all I get are reporters trying to tell me what the transcript says as opposed to what I read with my own eyes and telling me it’s the offense of the century that the president of the United States dares to mention something that’s in the American newspapers to the Ukrainian president.”

“He doesn’t say get Biden,” Levin continued. “He doesn’t say I’m digging up dirt on Biden. He doesn’t say do me a favor and get Biden. He says, ‘Why don’t you talk to my attorney general, look into this. People have questions.’ Wow. And all the sleazy activity that’s going behind the scenes. I want to know. I want to know if Adam Schiff and his staff, working with this phony whistleblower. I want to know who the lawyers are who helped him write that complaint as I was the first to point out before. I want to know the whole activity that’s taking place in the shadows of this government to try and bring down a president of the United States.”

Levin concluded: “Things are being done to this president that have never been done to prior presidents. Where did they keep the transcript of the phone call? Who gives a damn! The president has a power to issue an executive privilege order. Doesn’t matter if he kept it in his pillow. He can still protect that, but he didn’t. He gave it up.”
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Free Press International News Service @freepressers

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Cardinal Pell And Brett Kavanaugh; Two Defamed Catholics

George Cardinal Pell & Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh

by Bill Donohue: In some quarters, George Cardinal Pell and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh are both seen as sexual predators, deserving of imprisonment and impeachment, respectively. The Catholic League stands behind both the Australian cleric and the American judge: they have been maliciously defamed and are deserving of total exoneration.

Cardinal Pell has appealed his conviction of sexually abusing two choirboys to the Australian High Court. In a 2-1 decision rendered in August, the Court of Appeal in Victoria found Pell guilty as charged of abusing the boys after Sunday Mass while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996 and 1997.

The dissenting judge, Justice Mark Weinberg, blasted the majority opinion in a lengthy statement. He noted that the entire case against Pell came from one person, and that his accusation was contradicted by more than 20 witnesses.

Last February, the Associated Press (AP) commented on the issue raised by Justice Weinberg. “More than 20 witnesses, including clerics, choristers and altar servers, testified during the trial. None recalled ever seeing the complainant and the other victim break from a procession of choristers, altar servers and clerics to go to the back room.”

If not one person saw the boys break away from the procession, wouldn’t this alone be reason to exonerate Pell? The AP story had more to say.

“The complainant testified that he and his friend had run from the procession and back into the cathedral through a side door to, as [Mark] Gibson, the prosecutor, said, ‘have some fun.’ Monsignor Charles Portelli…testified that he was always with Pell after Mass to help him disrobe in the sacristy.” He maintains the charges are totally false.

It needs to be emphasized that the complainant’s friend is dead, having overdosed on drugs. But before he died, he admitted to his mother, on two occasions, that he was never abused by Pell. If he was not abused, then neither was the complainant: they were allegedly abused at the same time and place.

Attempts to destroy Brett Kavanaugh failed last year when no one could corroborate the story of Christine Blasey Ford. She accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was in high school. Others who made similar charges also had their cases fall apart after failing to produce any evidence of wrongdoing.

Recently, the New York Times resurrected the charges when it allowed an opinion piece by two journalists to be published in its Sunday edition: they claimed that Kavanaugh sexually abused Harmon Joyce while at Yale. However, the paper has since apologized for running the story without notifying the reader that the alleged victim says she has no recollection of ever having been assaulted by Kavanaugh. In other words, what the paper left out was evidence that no crime was ever committed.

Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino are the authors of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. Here is some of what they learned about Ford, the alleged victim.

“Classmates were surprised by the media’s portrayal of her as an ingénue, which was very different from how they remembered her in junior high and high school. Female classmates and friends at area schools recalled a heavy drinker who was much more aggressive with boys than they were.” Another one of her friends in college recalled that Ford was a drug user.

Ford said that her friend, Leland Keyser, was with her at the party where Kavanaugh allegedly molested her; Ford said she ran out of the house after the incident happened. Hemingway and Severino spoke to Ford’s friends about this, and what they learned is worth repeating.

“It was inconceivable to them that she would have left Leland Keyser behind and that Keyser would not have found her abandonment to be highly noteworthy. She has always filled a protective role for Ford, so it seemed quite unlikely that she would not have become worried and made sure her friend was well. The story of a fifteen-year-old tenth-grader leaving behind the only other female at a party and then finding her way home, miles away, in pre-cell-phone 1982, with no car, no metro, and no cabs readily available is difficult to believe.”

By the way, Keyser said of the New York Times article by the two journalists, “I don’t have any confidence in the story.” She previously told the press that she doesn’t believe Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh, maintaining she has no recollection of ever being at any such party.

Why are Pell and Kavanaugh being hounded? There are so many vicious hard-left opponents of conservatism these days, many of whom work as activists and reporters, that it is considered perfectly acceptable, when dealing with men of their stature, to dismiss their presumption of innocence and their due process rights. That both Pell and Kavanaugh represent the traditional moral values associated with Catholicism makes them even bigger targets.

The haters are not willing to disagree—their goal is to destroy. Pell and Kavanaugh are hated because of what they stand for. Their enemies will use every tool they have, including malicious lies, to bring them down. We are at a very sick stage in our country’s history when such intellectual barbarism is now commonplace.
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Bill Donohue is is a sociologist and president of the Catholic League.

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Tags: Bill Donohue, Bill Donohue, George Cardinal Pell, Supreme Court Justice. Brett Kavanaugh, Two Defamed Catholics To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Climate Crisis Strategy

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Earlier this month, one of the largest youth-led demonstrations took place around the globe. Those young people in New York then convened a Youth Climate Summit on the weekend preceding the Climate Week that followed at the United Nations.

If you were paying attention, you likely heard what sounded like two different messages. But actually, each one was tailored for the appropriate audience. We used to hear that we only have a few years or a decade before doom and gloom. Now we are hearing many environmentalists talking about what will happen in 50 years or 100 years.

The problem with doom and gloom predictions is they can be tested. A few months ago, I wrote a commentary that listed many of the failed predictions by Paul Ehrlich, George Wald and others. The problem with making a prediction that millions will starve to death by 1980 is you discovered that millions didn’t starve to death. The Competitive Enterprise Institute recently posted dozens and dozens of failed environmental predictions that never occurred. That’s why you are hearing leaders now talking about what will happen 50 to 100 years from now. You can’t disprove that.

Why are we simultaneously hearing young people in the streets (and even in Congress) claiming that we only have 10-12 years left? That is simple. They don’t have any history of failed environmental predictions. And, it is worth adding that they don’t really know much about history. They are less likely to be as skeptical as the adults.

Some of us remember when we were told the greatest threat was global cooling because we were putting particulates in the atmosphere. Then we heard that the threat was global warming because we were putting CO2 in the atmosphere. The current threat has morphed into climate change and now a climate crisis. The policy recommendations for each are the same, even though the strategy and time-line have changed.
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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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Tags: Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Climate, Climate Crisis Strategy To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Tears for Freedom

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: I got my first taste of tear gas yesterday.

Minding my own business — well, maybe not so much . . . except that “mankind is my business” — I joined Hong Kong’s Global Anti-Totalitarianism Rally.

Is there a more important cause than preventing totalitarian regimes from crushing more lives?

Arriving at the city government complex, I discovered that protesters were marching from another location and would not be there for another 30 minutes or so.

“Hey, I have a plane to catch!” I thought to myself.

Protests are not always punctual.

A convoy of police buses left, leaving press people speculating on whether they were headed to block protesters from getting to the government center at all. Thankfully, about an hour later I saw marchers a block away passing city hall and headed . . . well, to be honest, I had no idea where they were headed. But I hustled up to join their ranks, nonetheless.

After walking for more than half an hour to chants of “Fight for freedom/Stand with Hong Kong,” and “Five demands/Not one less,” I realized had I better get back to the hotel, grab my bags and scoot to the airport.

So I turned around and walked past the long line of marchers, finally reaching city hall where police were set up in riot gear. A small number of protesters were there as well. Suddenly, a policeman fired a volley of tear gas. (I guess such things always seem sudden to those in their sights.) It was followed by several more rounds, which hit both in front of me and behind me.

I saw no cause for the escalation.

“Uh-oh, this is a lot of tear gas,” I realized, holding my breath as I attempted to run outside the range of the rapidly spreading gas. No surprise, but tear gas really burns your eyes — and lungs, too, making it difficult to breathe.

Now it really hit home just how right-on my Friday commentary was to laud Alex Ko, the Taiwanese fellow who raised money to send 2,000 gas mask kits to HK protesters.

As I exited the cloud of smoke, a young man wearing a gas mask came up to me and told me, “Breathe.” It was sound advice.

I was carrying a bottle of water and poured it into both eyes soaking my “Got Liberty?” t-shirt. Which helped a great deal. (I mean the water, not the shirt.)

Another protester handed me a pre-packaged vial of sterilized water. Yet another gave me something labeled “Disposable Surgical Earloop Face Mask.” Neither was effective, frankly, but I certainly appreciated their concern. (And I kept the items as souvenirs.)

Getting back to the hotel was not so simple, either. The subway stations in the surrounding area had been closed by police. And there was a dearth of available taxis. After walking for ten minutes or so, I finally found one and left.

I made my flight, barely, jetting to the greater freedom of Taiwan, and to the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy where I’m speaking later this week.

Some wonder why I would take this risk. Well, if these brave young people can continually take much larger risks to fight tyranny, I feel compelled to take much smaller risks to support them. I’m honored to have been with them, to stand with them. Even to cough and gasp and tear up with them.

Those are the tears of future freedom . . . I certainly hope.

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, Hong Kong, Tears for Freedom To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!