Americans Deserve a Better Debate

by Newt Gingrich: Last night’s first presidential debate was a major disappointment – no matter who you are for.

The number of people who told me today they turned off the debate after 15 or 20 minutes was sobering.

This debate was so bad it justifies asking if we can’t really approach the next three debates from a totally different perspective.

The anecdotal unhappiness and dissatisfaction I have been picking up from a wide range of people was capture by Ben Domenech, who wrote in The Transom: “America Got What It Wanted and It Was Terrible:

“For all the people who are upset about last night’s horrible debate, they should pause and ask themselves: wasn’t that just an accurate reflection of where we are as a nation? Two septuagenarians bashing each other with bursts of bombastic bullshittery and competing whatabouts is the content you will find on Facebook and cable news every single day. To the extent people are disappointed, remind yourself: these men both have nearly 90 percent ratings with the two largest political parties in America. They both bested huge fields of candidates to get their respective roles. This is the show you asked for, and you got it.”

To quantify Ben’s complaint, note that Chris Wallace, the moderator, interrupted the President of the United States 76 times and only interrupted joe Biden only 15 times, by Charlie Kirk’s count. Note that the BBC found Trump cut in on Biden a total of 73 times.

To be fair to President Trump, the one-sidedness of Wallace’s moderating did not give him much choice. Again, to cite Domenech, Wallace’s “choice to engage repeatedly just didn’t work. It resulted in repeated instances of Biden talking for two minutes in which he’d throw out multiple claims about Trump, Trump would interrupt with a rejoinder, Wallace would tell Trump to stop talking, and then at the end of the two minutes Wallace would move on to the next question. Trump, infuriated, would bulldoze him and respond anyway. Biden would interrupt with his denial. And on and on.”

If Trump had to choose between passivity and being a bulldozer, he made the right choice. It may have cost Mitt Romney the presidency when he allowed then-CNN reporter Candy Crowley to assert a controversial rebuttal of Romney’s point on President Barack Obama being slow to recognize the killing of our ambassador in Benghazi as an act of terror. In effect, Romney was being double-teamed by Crowley and Obama almost as if they were a tag team in a wrestling match.

Faced with that kind of moderating, Trump simply blew through it and insisted on making his points. He looked aggressive and contentious doing it, but passivity would have been even worse. As the president said to Wallace, “I guess I’m debating you, not him.”

It is simply a fact that a conservative candidate in a presidential debate must assume he or she will be double-teamed, and the deck will be stacked.

That double-teaming was obvious last night.

However, the nature of the modern news media and the political press – combined with the intensity of the social media – cheats the American people of the kind of serious debate they deserve.

The Commission on Presidential Debates is a big part of the problem. It is a fossilized institution dating back to 1987 and run by politicians a generation or more out of their time.

The most famous debates in American political history were the Abraham Lincoln-Stephen Douglas debates of 1858. They were intelligent, serious, and focused on the great issue of slavery, which was beginning to tear the country apart and leading toward a civil war.

These seven debates were each three hours long. There was a timekeeper, but no moderator.

America is on the verge of, or in the middle of, a series of crises which may determine the survival of our country.

We face a Chinese competitor that will force dramatic changes on us if we are to match and overmatch its capabilities. For example, our infrastructure must be massively rebuilt if we are going to compete with China and other countries which are modernizing.

Our education system is a disaster and needs to be thoroughly overhauled – in k-12, college, and adult education.

We must defeat the anti-American movement which is dominating too many schools and seeking to dominate too many streets and cities.

This year’s disaster with COVID-19 is proof we need a profound overhaul of our public health service.

We must rebuild our cities in an inclusive model that eliminates the sense of racial conflict and provides every American of every background a real opportunity to learn, work, live safely, and give our children and grandchildren an even better future.

We must get back to the tempo of economic growth, which in February had given us the lowest African American and Latino unemployment rates in history and had begun to raise the income for the poor at a faster rate than for the wealthy.

Finally, once we have defeated COVID-19, we must develop a fiscal plan to move us back to the balanced budgets we achieved in the late 1990s.

With all these vast challenges, surely it should be possible to invent a dialogue, discussion, or debate between the adults who are seeking to be lent power by their fellow citizens.

Let’s see if we can start this theme with next week’s vice-presidential debate.
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Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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Tags: Newt Gingrich, commentary, Americans Deserve, a Better Debate To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

6 Highlights From Trump-Biden Debate

by Fred Lucas : President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden squared off for the first of three debates Tuesday night.

Here’s six matters the two discussed in the debate, which was moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.

1. Election Integrity With COVID-19 prompting significant mail-in or absentee voting, election integrity has become a major topic of discussion.

Biden suggested it’s not a concern.

“There are going to be millions of people, because of COVID, that are going to be voting by mail-in ballots,” Biden said. “We’re going to make sure the people who want to vote in person are able to do that because enough poll watchers are there to make sure they can socially distance.”

He added, referring to Trump, “This is all about trying to dissuade people from voting because he’s trying to scare people into thinking that it’s not going to be legitimate.”

The former vice president stressed that he would accept the results either way.

“If I win, that will be accepted. If I lose, that will be accepted,” Biden said. “By the way, if he says he’s not sure what he’s going to accept, let me tell you something, it doesn’t matter. If we get the votes, it’s going to be all over, He’s going to go.”

Trump warned of fraud, bringing up numerous examples of primaries earlier this year where mail-in balloting was a problem. Trump made a distinction between absentee ballots—or what he called solicited ballots—and mass mail-in ballots.

“As far as the ballots are concerned, it’s a disaster. A solicited ballot is OK. You’re asking. They send it, you send it back. I did that,” Trump said. “They are sending millions of unsolicited ballots across the country. There is fraud. They found them in creeks. They found some with the name Trump in a wastepaper basket. They are being sent all over the place. They sent two in a Democrat area. This is going to be fraud like you’ve never seen.”

Trump later added, “We might not know for months because these ballots are going to be all over. Take a look at what happened in Manhattan. Take a look at what happened in New Jersey. Take a look at what happened in Virginia and other places. They’re not losing 2% or 1%. They are losing 30% and 40%. It’s a fraud and a shame.”

As for the final results, Trump said, “I am urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully.” He said if it’s a fair election, “I am 100% on board.”

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden squared off for the first of three debates Tuesday night.

Here’s six matters the two discussed in the debate, which was moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.

1. Election Integrity
With COVID-19 prompting significant mail-in or absentee voting, election integrity has become a major topic of discussion.

Biden suggested it’s not a concern.

The left is actively working to undermine the integrity of our elections. Read the plan to stop them now. Learn more now >>

“There are going to be millions of people, because of COVID, that are going to be voting by mail-in ballots,” Biden said. “We’re going to make sure the people who want to vote in person are able to do that because enough poll watchers are there to make sure they can socially distance.”

He added, referring to Trump, “This is all about trying to dissuade people from voting because he’s trying to scare people into thinking that it’s not going to be legitimate.”

The former vice president stressed that he would accept the results either way.

“If I win, that will be accepted. If I lose, that will be accepted,” Biden said. “By the way, if he says he’s not sure what he’s going to accept, let me tell you something, it doesn’t matter. If we get the votes, it’s going to be all over, He’s going to go.”

Trump warned of fraud, bringing up numerous examples of primaries earlier this year where mail-in balloting was a problem. Trump made a distinction between absentee ballots—or what he called solicited ballots—and mass mail-in ballots.

“As far as the ballots are concerned, it’s a disaster. A solicited ballot is OK. You’re asking. They send it, you send it back. I did that,” Trump said. “They are sending millions of unsolicited ballots across the country. There is fraud. They found them in creeks. They found some with the name Trump in a wastepaper basket. They are being sent all over the place. They sent two in a Democrat area. This is going to be fraud like you’ve never seen.”

Trump later added, “We might not know for months because these ballots are going to be all over. Take a look at what happened in Manhattan. Take a look at what happened in New Jersey. Take a look at what happened in Virginia and other places. They’re not losing 2% or 1%. They are losing 30% and 40%. It’s a fraud and a shame.”

As for the final results, Trump said, “I am urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully.” He said if it’s a fair election, “I am 100% on board.”

2. Forest Fires and Green New Deal
Trump argued that “forest management” was key to preventing the wildfires scouring California.

“You need forest management … the forest floors are loaded up with trees, dead trees that are years old and they’re like tinder, and leaves and everything else—you drop a cigarette in there, and the whole forest burns down. You’ve got to have forest management,” Trump said.

Later he added, “Every year, I get the call, California’s burning, California’s burning … if you had forest management, good forest management, you wouldn’t be getting those calls.”

Asked by Wallace if human pollution and greenhouse gas emissions were contributing to global warming, Trump said, “To an extent, yes.”

Biden spoke of weatherizing buildings, and increased use of electric-powered vehicles. “We can get to net zero in terms of energy production by 2035,” the former vice president said, adding that millions of jobs would be created.

He also attributed the dramatic weather in recent years to climate change, saying:We spend billions of dollars now … on floods, hurricanes, rising seas. We’re in real trouble. Look what’s happened just in the Midwest with these storms that come through and wipe out entire sections and counties in Iowa. They didn’t happen before. They’re because of global warming. We make up 15% of the world’s problem … but the rest of the world, we got to get them to come along. That’s why we have to get back into … the Paris accord.If the United States had stayed in the Paris Agreement, an international treaty, the nation would have had to make significant strides in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

After Trump brought up the Green New Deal, an environmental plan released by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Biden said, “I don’t support the Green New Deal.”

3. Health Care
Trump asserted that Biden would back socialized medicine.

“Your party wants to go socialist medicine,” the president said.

Biden responded that his Democratic primary opponents attacked him for not supporting a “Medicare for All” plan.

“The platform of the Democratic Party is what I, in fact, approved of,” Biden said.

Wallace suggested Trump had no plan to replace Obamacare.

“Of course I have,” Trump responded. “We got rid of the individual mandate.”

4. Confirming Barrett and Court Packing
Biden said that voters should “have a right” to determine who fills the Supreme Court seat vacated after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“We should wait and see what the outcome of this election is,” the former vice president said, adding, “It’s just not appropriate to do this before the election.”

He did make it clear that it wasn’t personal.

“She seems like a very fine person, but she has written before she went on the bench that she thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional,” Biden said, referring to Amy Coney Barrett, who currently serves as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.

When asked about the appropriateness of appointing Barrett to serve on the Supreme Court before the election, Trump stated, “Elections have consequences.”

“A president is elected for four years,” Trump said. “We are not elected for three years. I’m not elected for three years.”

Trump also said of Barrett, “She is going to be as good as anybody that has served on that court.”

Some Democrats have called for ending the filibuster and filling the Supreme Court with additional liberal justices, if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate.

Wallace asked Biden, “Are you willing to tell the American people tonight whether or not you will support ending the filibuster or packing the court?”

Biden said he wasn’t going to answer the question.

“Whatever position I take on that, that will become the issue,” Biden said. “The American people should speak. You should go out and vote. … Vote and let your senators know how you feel about this. I’m not going to answer the question because the question is … ”

Trump kept interrupting before Biden finished his point about why he wouldn’t answer.

5. Racism and Critical Race Theory
Wallace asked the two candidates to address race, and asked Trump about his executive order to stop training in critical race theory in the federal government. The theory promotes the belief that a person is automatically advantaged or disadvantaged based on race.

“I ended it because it’s racist. I ended it because a lot of people were being asked to do things that were absolutely insane,” Trump said, adding, “It was a radical revolution taking place in our military, in our schools, all over the place. You know it and so does everybody else.”

The president continued:If you were a certain person, you had no status in life. We were paying people hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach really bad ideas and really very sick ideas. Really, they were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, it’s a racist place, and they were teaching people to hate our country and I’m not going to allow that to happen.Biden claimed Trump has walked away from the goal of equity.

“He’s the racist,” Biden said of Trump. “The fact is there is racial insensitivity. People need to be made aware of what other people feel like, what insults them, what is demeaning to them. It’s important to them to know. Many people don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings. It makes a gigantic difference in how a child is able to grow up and have a sense of self-esteem.”

6. Law and Order Trump talked about the riots in numerous cities across the country.

“The people of this country want and demand law and order, and you’re afraid to even say it,” Trump said.

When Trump pressed him, Biden said he was for law and order.

However, later Biden said, “Antifa is an idea, not an organization.”
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Fred Lucas  (@FredLucasWH)  is chief national affairs correspondent for The Daily Signal.

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Who's Funding Shady Ballot Harvesting Schemes?

by Michelle Malkin: Last week, while on a business trip in Wisconsin, I learned about an insane ballot harvesting scheme that appears to be tied to a deep-pocketed liberal advocacy group subsidized by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and eBay former chairman Pierre Omidyar's Democracy Fund.

Conservative talk radio host and grassroots activist Vicki McKenna blew the whistle after hearing ads played during her daily show on 1310 WIBA.

"Last week on my radio program, we played Biden campaign ads," she told me. "They were all about something called 'Democracy in the Park.' It was an advertisement about how Madison, Wisconsin, would have 200 parks hosting ballot harvesting events." The ads were punctuated by a disclosure that they were "paid for by Joe Biden for President."

On Saturday, Sept. 26, as advertised by the Biden campaign, Madison poll workers turned out across the city to register voters and collect absentee ballots, even though in-person absentee ballot collection is not supposed to start until two weeks before Election Day, according to Wisconsin state election law. Several of McKenna's listeners showed up to photograph the city government workers' activities promoted by the Biden for President campaign. The poll workers stuffed ballots into "red zipper bags with no security whatsoever. The poll workers witnessed people's (blank) ballots, just like you would if you did an in-person absentee ballot, threw them in the red zipper bags, and we don't know what's become of these ballots since," McKenna told me.

Imagine sheaves of ballots carelessly stuffed into cheap, canvas, pizza delivery-style totes. Then imagine them being carted away by unknown drivers to unknown locations for unknown reasons. Observers captured photos of several stuffed red bags being loaded into an unmarked white van parked outside Madison's municipal government building.

"It's clear from legal analysis: this is not legal and does not comport with Wisconsin election law," McKenna argues. "There's some serious questions about (Democratic) campaign coordination with the city of Madison."

Now, enter a shady entity called the "Center for Tech and Civic Life." It just so happens that this nonprofit "election reform advocacy group," based in Chicago and founded in 2012, has showered more than $6 million in the five largest cities in the crucial swing state of Wisconsin. In July, using COVID-19 as a pretext to boost mail-in and absentee voting, the center released the following amounts to governmental grantees:

--City of Milwaukee: $2,154,500. --City of Madison: $1,271,788. --City of Green Bay: $1,093,400. --City of Kenosha: $862,779. --City of Racine: $942,100.

According to the Center for Tech and Civic Life's website, they fielded over 1,100 applications from across the country for their purported "COVID-19 Response Grant Program" to "provide funding to U.S. local election offices to help ensure they have the critical resources they need to safely serve every voter in 2020." Grants are to be used to encourage alternatives to in-person voting, "voter education and outreach efforts," "early in-person voting" and vote by mail -- all tactics being deployed by anti-Trump, "color revolutionary" forces to drag out the election long past Election Day.

There is nothing "nonpartisan" about this enterprise. The Center's top staff (many of them Barack Obama campaign tech gurus) come from a now-defunct liberal nonprofit called the New Organizing Institute, whose far-left donors include George Soros's Open Society Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Atlantic Philanthropies. CTCL director Tiana Epps-Johnson is a former Obama Foundation fellow. The center received $250 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. Trump-bashing Google is a top corporate partner. Other donors include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Democracy Fund (founded by "Never Trumper" billionaire and eBay former chairman Pierre Omidyar).

Chicago political activist Jay Stone has filed a legal complaint against CTCL, alleging that its grant scheme "artificially inflates Democrat Joe Biden's statewide Wisconsin vote total and enhances Joe Biden's chances of winning Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes" by targeting private funds to Democratic-run cities under the guise of enhancing pandemic safety and election integrity. In addition to Wisconsin, Democratic-run jurisdictions in battleground state Pennsylvania that have received CTCL infusions include Delaware County ($2.2 million) and Philadelphia (a whopping $10 million).

McKenna warns that the alarm-raising "Democracy in the Park" scheme in CTCL-subsidized Madison, Wisconsin, will be back in action on Oct. 3. I reached out Monday to CTCL to confirm whether its grants are being used for the tote bag ballot-harvesting program touted by the Biden campaign. No reply. Maybe I'll get a reply to these questions:

If, as it plainly appears, private big tech and left-wing philanthropic funding are being used to rig the election process in the most important battlegrounds of our country, where the heck are the Justice Department and Attorney General Bill Barr?

Why haven't these dubiously collected ballots already been tracked down, segregated and secured?

And finally: Is this what the "peaceful transfer of power" is supposed to look like in America?
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Michelle Malkin article shared by Rasmussen Reports.

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Tags: Michelle Malkin, Rasmussen Reports, Who's Funding, Shady, Ballot Harvesting, Schemes? To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Biased Media

by John Stossel: "A pioneer devoted to equality."

That was The Washington Post's headline about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But when Justice Antonin Scalia died, the headline was, "Supreme Court conservative dismayed liberals."

When the founder of ISIS was killed, the headline was: "Austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies."

But when President Donald Trump's brother died, the headline was, "younger brother of President Trump who filed lawsuit against niece, dies."

At news conferences, Vice President Biden gets softball questions. After an article in The Atlantic claimed Trump called fallen military members "losers," one reporter asked Biden, "What does it tell you about President Trump's soul?"

"It's not even softball!" complains The Hill's media reporter, Joe Concha. "It's T-ball, except when you put a beach ball on the tee!"

Trump does get nastier questions.

What we used to call "mainstream media" is now "woke" media. Many don't even try to be objective. That's the topic of my new video this week.

Watching CNN during this summer's protests, I noticed that reporters kept calling protests "mostly peaceful," even when reporting violence. CNN posted the words, "Mostly peaceful protests" on the screen when flaming cars were on the street behind their reporter.

CNN defended itself, citing a study that said "93% of protests were... peaceful."

But that's silly. When planes crash, we don't put "99% landed safely" on the screen. As Concha puts it, "When people start dying and losing their businesses, that's your story!"

I push back: "Most people who work there consider themselves journalists. They try to get it right."

"I don't know if I agree with that, John," Concha replies. "More and more are playing to a crowd."

CNN once tried to look like a neutral news network. No more. Now it does whatever it can to scare people or make Trump look bad.

In March, CNN sneered at the president for misleading people by claiming the U.S. did more COVID-19 tests than any other country. They, correctly, pointed out that per capita, "South Korea and Italy tested many times more."

CNN was right to adjust for population. But then, to make Trump look worse, CNN suddenly stopped adjusting for population.

They scolded the president, saying, "The U.S. had more coronavirus cases than any country in the world!"

But that's just wrong! Adjusted for population, 28 countries, including France, England, Ireland and Norway had more cases.

CNN sneers at Trump all day.

I asked their spokesperson if CNN considers its reporting objective. No response.

During the Democratic National Convention, CNN didn't bother fact-checking Democrats' speeches. But during Trump's speech at the Republican Convention, CNN suddenly put up a black ticker tape "fact-check" across the screen.

Why not fact-check the DNC, too? "There's a reason we didn't fact-check Democrats!" said CNN's Chris Cuomo. "They are not lying the way Trump does."

But they lie, too.

Democrats were deceitful enough that the AP and BBC found a need to fact-check.

For example, Michelle Obama complained that under Trump, "children are torn from their families and thrown into cages!" But that border-control policy began under her husband's administration.

CNN's Van Jones admits that CNN overtly favors Biden, saying after Biden's acceptance speech, "As long as he didn't embarrass himself, we were going to come out here and praise it."

"Maybe CNN's just being honest," I say to Concha. When I was at ABC, everyone pretended to be apolitical (but nearly all were on the left).

Concha replies, "CNN's prime-time lineup, Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, have the title of anchor, not opinion maker."

Fox at least calls its prime-time anchors "opinion" hosts. News hosts like Chris Wallace and Bret Baier play it pretty straight.

It's clear that most reporters don't like Trump -- or even Republicans. Last election, 96% of journalists' political donations went to Hillary Clinton.

Why?

"Our national media are in two cities, New York and Washington," says Concha. "When you're surrounded by everybody else in a city and newsroom that goes the other way, it's almost impossible not to start to conform."
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John Stossel is author of "Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media." Article shared by Rasmussen Reports

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CAGW Names NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio September 2020 Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named New York City (NYC) Mayor Bill De Blasio (D) our September 2020 Porker of the Month for demanding $5 billion from taxpayers while refusing to make any commonsense cuts in spending.

Mayor De Blasio has been called the worst mayor ever in New York City. While reasons appear plentiful both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic began earlier in 2020, his most recent actions will do nothing to change anyone’s mind about his abject incompetence. His request for $5 billion from the state has offended members of his own party and angered both the New York State and New York City comptrollers, especially since he refuses to cut the city’s budget. If he slashed just 2 percent, he would save $1 billion. There are other reasonable and easy solutions to resolve NYC’s budget crisis like having city workers pay insurance premiums, since 90 percent of them currently get free healthcare. City employees make 75 percent more than the median wages for private sector workers, making it sensible to freeze their paychecks for two years. Instead, Mayor De Blasio is ignoring practical cuts, begging for more money, and driving New York City residents out in droves.

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Mayor De Blasio continues to show the nation why he has earned the title of the New York City’s worst mayor. He consistently fails to put the best interests of the taxpayers first and does nothing to stop the city from turning into a fiscal disaster. His disdain for hard-working NYC residents was made clear when he defied his own coronavirus rules and went to his gym. His response has been unfocused, confusing, and sometimes downright wrong. It is hard to think of anything good to say, other than he cannot run for mayor again in 2021, giving New York City taxpayers some hope for the future. For refusing to reform the city’s budget while begging for more money, Bill De Blasio can put his award for “Porker of the Month” right next to the plaque for “New York City’s Worst Mayor.”
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Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. For more than two decades, Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers and government officials who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

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We Have an Income Tax, Not a Wealth Tax

by Nate Jackson: We wondered Monday if Joe Biden’s campaign hadn’t colluded with The New York Times in the latter’s reporting on information ostensibly pertaining to President Donald Trump’s tax returns. Biden’s campaign released an ad about the story mere hours after it came out … on a Sunday. Then came Biden’s pre-debate release of his own tax returns. We can’t prove it, of course, but Biden and the Times sure seem to be working together.

And as night follows day, the subject came up in the debate.

“Mr. President, as you well know, there’s a new report that in 2016, the year you were elected president, and 2017, your first year as president, that you paid $750 a year in federal income tax each of those years,” said moderator/Biden spokesperson Chris Wallace. “I know that you pay a lot of other taxes, but I’m asking you this specific question: Is it true that you paid $750 in federal income taxes each of those two years?”

“I paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax,” Trump responded.

After a lot of crosstalk (yeah, there was some of that last night), Biden finally made his point: “The tax code that put him in a position that he pays less tax than on the money a school teacher makes is because of him. He says he’s smart because he can take advantage of the tax code. And he does take advantage of the tax code. That’s why I’m going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts.”

Where to begin? How about with the 16th Amendment, which established that “Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes.” Incomes, not wealth. If Trump — or anyone else in this country — has no taxable income in any particular year, he won’t pay an income tax. The Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 didn’t change that, and neither did any legislation governing the income tax since the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

But the Left’s narrative is that Trump is wealthy and therefore should be paying his “fair share.” Not only is he not doing that, leftists allege, he’s rigging the game for the wealthy and then cheating, though apparently by using legal deductions.

Biden hoped to drive this point home by releasing his own 2019 returns, which show that he paid nearly $300,000 in federal taxes on a little less than $1 million in adjusted gross income. That 29.5% tax rate, by the way, is far below what Democrats insist it should be for millionaires. Why didn’t Biden voluntarily pay more? He never says, though his returns show that he too “took advantage of the tax code” in claiming deductions to reduce his bill.

Indeed, since leaving the White House in 2017, the Bidens have earned more than $16 million from speeches and book sales, most of which they funneled through two S corporations. That helped them save $500,000 in taxes by avoiding the Obama-Biden 3.8% ObamaCare tax on the “rich.” It’s perfectly legal, but it sure smacks of hypocrisy from a man whose campaign insisted the released returns prove Biden “will look out for [the American people] and not [his] own bottom line.”

But never mind all that. The real story here is that Democrats are once again busy weaving a narrative that deliberately conflates income with wealth because their entire tax policy is built on fomenting and exploiting envy.
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Nate Jackson writes for Patriot Post.

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The Culture of Genocide

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: “Let’s be careful with our language,” advises Stapleton Roy, former U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China.

Very careful. Totally careful. Totalitarian-ly careful.

Speaking to students earlier this month in a Zoom meeting as part of Pomona University’s Model United Nations, Roy took issue with Hong Kong students and protesters for “provoking mainland intervention,” arguing the millions who marched for basic democracy “went too far” and should have used more “self-restraint.”

The U.S. foreign affairs veteran even decries the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which he also concludes “set back the cause of reform in China for decades.”

And here I was thinking that the massacre of an estimated 3,000 to 10,000 unarmed Chinese civilians by the People’s Liberation Army is what detoured that noble cause.

“China has come under criticism from U.S. officials following revelations of mass forced sterilization of Uyghur women, as well as the internment of over one million Uyghurs in camps where detainees are forced to learn Communist Party ideology. Reports of torture, rape, and other abuses have emerged from these camps,” writes National Review’s Zachary Evans.

“Genocide is generally used to refer to the extermination of a people or nation,” Ambassador Roy explains. “Genocide is not taking place in Xinjiang.”

Yet according to the United Nations, the Chinese Communist Party’s manner of oppression does constitute “genocide.”

“More accurately,” even Roy acknowledges, “there is what can be called ‘cultural genocide.’”*

That is merely the extermination of a people’s customs, religion, ethnicity and, imperatively, their freedom . . . but kindheartedly not murdering all of them.

Okay, Mr. Ambassador, let’s choose our terms precisely. Protesters in Hong Kong have a word for the Beijing government: “ChiNazis.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* What a coincidence! “China seized control over Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a ‘peaceful liberation’ that helped the remote Himalayan region throw off its ‘feudalist’ past,” notes a recent Al Jazeera report. “But critics, led by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, say Beijing’s rule amounts to ‘cultural genocide.’”
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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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Rock the Vote

. . . The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), Once known as leaning politically conservative, has sold the country out to China endorsing Biden.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Americans Don’t Care About Biden’s Tax Returns, They Care About Their Own

by Rick Manning: This is nothing more than a debate diversion. Joe Biden doesn’t want to talk about the real issue, how his failed policies have hurt the tax returns of hard-working Americans in the past and will hurt them again if he’s elected president.

Biden desperately wants to avoid talking about his almost half-century in American politics. He has a spent his career in Washington outsourcing American jobs abroad and hollowing out our nation’s manufacturing base. Joe doesn’t want to talk about his vote for the disastrous NAFTA trade deal that set off the giant sucking sound of U.S. manufacturing jobs leaving our country.

Biden doesn’t want to talk about his vote to give China ‘most favored nation’ trade status twenty years ago. This gave China the lowest tariff rate on the card and encouraged U.S. manufacturers to relocate to China. He certainly doesn’t want to talk about how he negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding that allowed Chinese companies to be part of the U.S. stock exchanges without meeting basic transparency and open books standards that U.S. companies must meet. This single decision created billions of dollars in capital for China while putting U.S. investors at extraordinary risk.

Instead, Biden wants to talk about tax returns. One thing we know about President Trump’s tax return is that it won’t show a penny earned from the U.S. taxpayer. Trump has chosen to donate his salary to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for farmer outreach programs in the first quarter, and health related federal programs in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2019.

Meanwhile 2019 is only the third year in almost half a century that Biden has not received a salary from the taxpayers, setting aside his very generous federal government retirement pension.

No one cares about Joe Biden or Donald Trump’s tax returns. They care about their own tax returns. Under a Biden administration one thing is certain, more than 60% of Americans will see their taxes go up if he keeps his promise to repeal the Trump tax cuts.

Americans will see their job prospects plummet as Biden puts the federal government boot on our energy and manufacturing sectors. His energy policies will end the energy production jobs that have revitalized Pennsylvania and Ohio among other states. Biden’s energy schemes make us dependent on middle eastern oil producers who don’t like us very much.

When Biden talks about his tax returns, ask yourself what his green new deal, Paris Climate Accord, increased income taxes, and increased regulatory agenda will do to yours?
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Rick Manning is president of Americans for Limited Government.

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Trump-Biden I: Reality Is Reality

by Bob Maistros: One can already hear the punditry repeating the most ridiculous and annoying of all public relations and political nostrums.

“Perception is reality.”

And when it comes to the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, “perception” favors the former veep.

He stayed on his feet. He was lucid. He had good prepared lines on his sons and other matters. He talked into the camera effectively.

Meanwhile, Trump was a bully. Interrupting and talking over Biden and moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News. Out-of-bounds in his attacks on Biden’s son and his drug addiction. Turning the event what one CNN commentator surprisingly called a “s—. show.”

Winner: Not-As-Sleepy-as-Usual Joe.

Well, here’s one long-time communications practitioner’s response to that whole line of argument.

To put it politely, bullcrap.

Perception is not reality. Reality is reality. You just have to make sure people know about it.

And the reality is that Donald Trump wiped the debate floor with Biden and his plugged pate.

The president was admittedly not at his best. He too often failed to accomplish his most important job for the evening: underscore his many accomplishments as chief executive and paint a visionary picture of the next four years, while contrasting Biden’s wild and expensive schemes.

When Wallace gave him a shot to explain why he should get four more years in the job rather than turn it over to his opponent (the basic question Teddy Kennedy flubbed in his famous interview with Roger Mudd), Trump once again missed the opportunity to point to his slam-bang second-term agenda and repeat his pronouncement that the “best is yet to come.”

But the president clearly did have a strategy, one that recalls the famed statement first attributed to Finley Peter Dunne’s wise-cracking Irishman, Mr. Dooley, “politics ain’t beanbag.”

His obvious plan: rattle Biden into making mistakes. Trump forced the Delawarean into a number of indefensible and outright untrue statements (that will never be reviewed by the “fact-checkers” who once again dug into the president).

The prez got onto the record, and the public consciousness, questions about Biden that would not normally get picked up in mainstream media coverage. In particular, issues relating to the former vice president’s son Hunter and his cash-raking from a rogue’s gallery of American enemies. And his kowtowing to Sanders and his party’s radical left wing. The president pushed the longtime senator into exaggerations about the extent of lost health coverage in the event of Obamacare repeal and COVID-19. Trump brought out the VP’s weaselly positions on opposing violence in the streets.

But Barack Obama’s wingman’s biggest mistake, under pressure from Trump, was losing his cool and failing to adhere to the political “norms” to which he and his party so frequently appeal.

Get this: in a single debate, the Democratic candidate told the president of the United States, on national television, to “shut up, man.” Called him a clown and a racist. And termed him the worst president in history (an especially ludicrous statement given that Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama held the office in this commentator’s lifetime).

The moderator’s response to such extraordinary breaks in decorum? Calling the president out for breaking debate rules, when both men were guilty at various times.

Wallace let Biden get away not only with disrespect for the office of president and the conventions of political debate, but also with an approach of slipping, sliding, prevaricating and outright running from his record and his party’s positions – for example, repeatedly and simply responding “that isn’t true” to charges that were in fact well-grounded.

To charges that he gave in to the Sanders/AOC wing on health care and climate policy. (In particular, Trump had Biden against the ropes and pummeled him on the Green New Deal.) And to charges relating to specific payments Hunter had received.

To Trump’s contrast of the candidates’ records on criminal justice reform and the economy.

And even in defending the indefensible behavior of educators who truly are teaching the younger generation, as POTUS rightly pointed out, to hate America.

Like a referee covering up a weaker fighter and sending an aggressive opponent back to his corner, Wallace repeatedly enabled Biden to slip away just as Trump was landing roundhouses and body blows.

The most outrageous part of Wallace’s Candy Crowley-like disgraceful performance was failing to pin Biden down on whether he would acquiesce to Democratic suggestions of court-packing, opposed by more than 60% of independent voters.

The job ahead for the president and his partisans: finish the job Trump started. First, by countering Sleepy Joe’s “nice guy” image with reminders of “shut up” and insults slung at the office of president.

More important, by hammering at the former vice president’s outright lies and other wedges the president started on corruptocracy, law and order, health care and most important, the Green New Deal. President Trump flushed Joe Biden out and exposed his weaknesses on any number of subjects.

That’s the reality of Tuesday’s debate, and the president and his team need to get to work getting public “perception” aligned with it.
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Bob Maistros (@BobMaistros) contributes to Issues & Insights (@InsightsIssues) - a new site launched by the seasoned journalists behind the legendary IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to use our decades of experience to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day. We’re doing this on a voluntary basis because we think our approach to commentary is sorely lacking both in today’s mainstream media and on the internet. Bob Maistros, a messaging and communications strategist and crisis specialist, is of counsel with Strategic Action Public Affairs, and was chief writer for the Reagan-Bush ’84 campaign, three U.S. Senators, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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Obama Admin Briefed on Claims Hillary Clinton Drummed up Russia Controversy to Vilify Trump, Distract From Emails

by Sam Dorman: The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) declassified information indicating that former President Obama's administration knew of allegations that former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was attempting to tie Trump to the Russia and distract from her email scandal before the 2016 presidential election.

DNI John Ratcliffe informed the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that the prior administration obtained Russian intelligence in July of 2016 with allegations against Clinton, but cautioned that the intelligence community (IC) "does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication."

Ratcliffe's letter doesn't offer specifics on the intelligence but does reveal that former CIA Director John Brennan's handwritten notes show that he briefed Obama on the information. According to his letter, the intelligence included the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services."

In a statement on the letter, Ratcliffe pushed back on the idea he was advancing "Russian disinformation." "To be clear, this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the Intelligence Community. I’ll be briefing Congress on the sensitive sources and methods by which it was obtained in the coming days.”

Politico reported that Nick Merrill, Clinton's spokesperson, called the allegations "baseless b------t."

"This is Russian disinformation," tweeted Rachel Cohen, spokeswoman for Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va. She added that it was "laundered by the Director Of National Intelligence and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is extraordinary."

This is Russian disinformation.

Laundered by the Director Of National Intelligence and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This is extraordinary. https://t.co/vP1kAgfIYq

— rachel cohen (@rcohen) September 29, 2020

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he would review the information, noting that Ratcliffe would make it available in a classified setting.

“This latest information provided by DNI Ratcliffe shows there may have been a double standard by the FBI regarding allegations against the Clinton campaign and Russia," Graham said.

"Whether these allegations are accurate is not the question. The question is did the FBI investigate the allegations against Clinton like they did Trump? If not, why not? If so, what was the scope of the investigation? If none, why was that?"

In September of 2016, U.S. intelligence officials also forwarded an investigative referral on Clinton purportedly approving "a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections" in order to distract the public from her email scandal. That referral went to former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.

Tuesday's letter will likely add to mounting scrutiny of the DOJ's initial investigation into Trump's campaign and Democrats' influence on foundational information like the Steele Dossier. That probe eventually evolved into a multi-year, special counsel investigation that cost American taxpayers more than $30 milion.

Under Attorney General William Barr, the Justice Department has been reviewing the process Obama's DOJ undertook in order to probe the origins of the Russia investigation.

Last week, Barr penned a letter to Graham stating that the source of the infamous Steele dossier -- which informed a the FBI's surveillance of the Trump campaign -- was under investigation for suspected contact with Russian intelligence officers.
----------------------
Sam Dorman @DormanInDC is a reporter with Fox News.

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6 Charts Show America’s Big Debt Problem

by David Ditch: It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt the nation’s finances. Congress responded to the crisis with trillions in relief spending, causing a massive surge in debt.

That debt increase does not mean we face a crisis tomorrow. However, we now have a clear picture of what is coming our way, and it isn’t pretty.

The Congressional Budget Office updated its long-term budget forecast on Sept. 21. The following charts, based on the budget forecast’s data, illustrate just how bad the numbers are.


This year, the federal government will spend over twice as much money as it raised in tax revenue. That is far from ideal, but it almost certainly will improve next year.

Yet, the real problem is the amount of debt we have already accumulated. Any household with finances that look like this would receive plenty of scrutiny from a responsible bank when asking for more loans.

We cannot expect the global financial system to keep providing the federal government with cheap credit forever if sky-high deficits continue. The consequences of even moderately higher interest rates would be severe.

Currently, the cost of paying interest on the debt is not a huge portion of federal spending. However, if we look at it relative to the size of the annual deficit, we see how much closer we would be to balancing the budget without the burden of debt.

The Congressional Budget Office report anticipates that interest rates on federal debt will increase, although only by a few basis points. Yet even a modest rate increase on such a large public debt—currently $20.9 trillion—will cause interest payments to explode.

By 2050, paying interest on the federal debt will consume 8.1% of the nation’s output, roughly an entire month’s productivity. That would be a tremendous drag on economic growth, choking the prosperity and opportunity that are at the heart of the American Dream.

In 2019, the amount of public debt per person was approaching $50,000. Just a year later, we have added nearly $10,000 in debt for every person, from children to retirees.

Things get worse the further out we go. Today’s newborns will face a debt of over $107,000 by the time they turn 18, and a staggering $180,000 by age 30, even after adjusting for inflation.

This extra debt would not be used to pay for extravagant new benefit programs, infrastructure improvements, or a stronger national defense. In fact, that debt comes as a result of simply allowing spending on today’s programs to grow unchecked.

As the chart makes clear, the federal government has a spending problem. Spending was already above the historical average in 2019, and it will grow relative to the size of the economy every year from 2021 on.

In contrast, tax revenue soon will return to average levels, even if Congress makes the entire Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent.

The cause of the spending spike is unsustainable growth in a few programs, most notably Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Reforming these programs is the single most important thing Congress can do to put America on a better financial path.

If Congress keeps waiting, only drastic measures will be strong enough to correct the imbalance.

America ran up a massive debt to fund the vital work of winning World War II. The postwar economic boom helped bring that debt down quickly.

Unfortunately, the federal debt increased relative to the economy even during the years of strong growth prior to COVID-19.

Only a combination of pro-growth economic policy and spending restraint can prevent the unprecedented levels of debt that we see on the horizon.

To focus on the nub of the spending problem, this chart provides a helpful thought exercise. Due to the rapid increase in projected spending on interest, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, just those spending categories would consume all tax revenues by 2036.

This leaves out spending on national defense, operational costs for all federal agencies, veterans’ benefits, most welfare programs, natural disasters, infrastructure, and more.

Further, this projection assumes that Congress allows much of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to expire, meaning that even a tax hike wouldn’t solve the problem.

While the problems highlighted in the Congressional Budget Office report and these charts are serious, America has overcome greater challenges in the past.

The Heritage Foundation’s “Blueprint for Balance” plan provides policymakers with ideas that can put us on the path to a responsible federal budget. A combination of sustained leadership and greater public awareness can turn the ship of state in the right direction. The sooner the work begins, the better.
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David Ditch (@davidditch) is a research associate specializing in budget and transportation policy in the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation H/T The Daily Signal.

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Tags: David Ditch, The Daily Signal, 6 Charts, Show America’s, Big Debt Problem, -------------------------
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Will You Stand with Trump?

by Clinton S. Thomas: In 35 days, we will know the name of the President for the next four years. The President will either be Donald Trump or Joe Biden - it's a simple choice. Americans are going to elect a President, and regardless of how we feel at the end of the election- America will live with the choice for four more years.

As you read this article, men, women, teenagers, college students, and even children are at work to ensure the next four years is met by the man who has stood up for you, stood up for me, and in fact, stood up for all of us against government overreach, government flaws, and government failures. Donald J. Trump brought something unique to the Presidency. Perhaps for the first time in history, he brought a leader to the White House who could not be bought, pushed, or "negotiated" into compromising you and your values. The number one reason the media, elites, Hollywood, and Democrats do not like Trump is their lack of control. In politics, you always trace the money, and you'll find who pulls strings. With Donald J. Trump, nobody except Trump and his supporters pull the strings. He pulls those strings for you.

As stated, children, teenagers, men, women, and college students across America have been hard at work. They have been working, not for pay, riches, or even political favors or rewards...they have been working to push Trump over the top for another four years. They have been standing up when threatened, they have been raising their voices when told to shut up, and they have lined yards with signs, worn hats, and publically endorsed Trump. They have taken these actions at a time in our history when your support for a candidate could cost you your life...in fact, it did cost at least one man his life. These...heroes, if you will...continue in the face of COVID-19 to operate headquarters, put up the signs, and share the information. Maybe you are one of them wearing a Trump hat, bearing a sticker on your car, or a flag in your yard. Maybe you are doing your part. Or, maybe you're one of the silent majority standing in the back afraid of what will happen, afraid of voicing your opinion or even putting a yard sign out... You're what I call the "Adrians" of the fight for Trump.

You may remember a now-classic moved called Rocky II. In the movie Rocky, the underdog, and one that everyone expected to lose, is fighting for himself and Adrian, his wife. When Adrian is in the hospital, Rocky will not leave her side. He won't train for the fight, he won't work, he won't do anything except stay with Adrian - it's simple - Adrain, or you the silent majority for Trump - is the only reason he will or will not fight. Trump is very much like Rocky at this point. Trump cares about the American people. He has the trainers, the supporters like those already working headquarters, but he is concerned about the silent majority as they are his "Adrain." If you remember the rest of the movie, Adrian wakes up, and Rocky tells her that if she doesn't want him to fight, he won't. In other words, if he doesn't hear it from her, all the other support means nothing. Her response is powerful. She simply says, "I want you to win," to which the rest of Rocky's supporters say, "What are we waiting for? Let's go."

Do you want Trump to win?  Is it important for you to have another four years of economic, global, and American success?  Do you believe Trump has your interest at heart?  If so, he needs to hear from you now.  With 35 days to go, Trump needs to hear your "Adrain" voice saying, "I want you to win."  He needs to hear it at the rallies, in the streets, on signs, in donations, on bumper stickers, and on flags.  He needs to hear the exit polls that say, "I voted for Trump."  He needs the workers going to the public.  He needs your support now whether it if financial or you find a headquarters and group to donate your valuable time toward victory.

As you likely know, Rocky went on to win as the underdog.  Trump is that underdog now.  The polls show Biden leading; the Democrats are hovering and waiting to take the White House.  Your time to say, "I support Trump" and show that support is not yet gone...it is now.  To you, it is simple - There stands the President...will you stand with him?  You must stand with Trump or in January, you may just wonder what happened to your country.
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Clinton S. Thomas, Th.D. blogs at Texarkana GOP.

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Sailor Behind Pearl Harbor Shooting Was ‘Insider Threat' with Underdiagnosed Mental Issues

by Gina Harkins: A sailor's mental health problems were underdiagnosed and not properly communicated to his command in the months leading up to last year's fatal shooting at a Hawaii shipyard, a newly released investigation into the attack found.

Navy officials say they still haven't pinpointed exactly what drove Machinist's Mate Auxiliary Fireman Gabriel Antonio Romero, a 22-year-old assigned to the fast-attack submarine Columbia, to shoot three civilians at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard Dec. 4, 2019.

Romero killed two Defense Department employees that day -- Vincent J. Kapoi, a metals inspector apprentice, and Roldan A. Agustin, a shop planner -- and injured another using his M4 service rifle. As law enforcement personnel responded within seconds, Romero shot and killed himself using a Navy-issued M9 pistol.

A 190-page investigation into the murder-suicide found no explanation for why Romero targeted the three people who were shot that day. The report stated, though, that the sailor "had long-developing problems that in aggregate should have raised concerns about his mental condition, and his maturity, stability, and dependability."

"He constituted an insider threat," investigators found. "... If these risk factors would have been shared among medical providers and the USS COLUMBIA chain of command before December 4, 2019, the Navy may have interrupted the chain of events that led to this tragedy."

The shooting was one of two fatal attacks at Navy facilities that week. Two days later, a Saudi officer opened fire in a classroom building at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, killing three and injuring several others. The two incidents prompted the Navy's No. 2 officer to direct separate investigations into the attacks; those reports provided detailed recommendations for the service and other lead agencies.

Now, officials say the service has stood up a special working group, organized by the Navy's Security Coordination Board, to help prevent similar attacks from happening again. The group, the service said in a Tuesday news release about the investigation, will implement findings and recommendations after the attacks that will "make the Navy safer and more secure."

"The safety and livelihood of our Sailors is dependent on this effort," former Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Robert Burke wrote in a May endorsement letter.

An Ordinary Day
Romero reported for roving patrol duty just after 2 p.m. on Dec. 4. He'd qualified for the watch duty, which required him to rove the area around the submarine, within months of reporting to the Columbia.

The sub to which he was assigned was in Dry Dock 2, inside the controlled industrial area at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. The sailor Romero replaced that day told investigators the watch turnover was ordinary.

"Romero took possession of the M4 rifle with 90 rounds of ammunition and M9 pistol with 45 rounds of ammunition and made required entries in the duty logbook," the investigation states.

The investigation also details how, on the day of the shooting, Romero missed duty muster because he was attending a semi-annual training requirement. Romero was supposed to check in with the duty section leader before reporting to his watch station, but he didn't do so.

While he was found not to have drugs or alcohol in his system, the missed security and safety brief, the report states, "demonstrates a lack of procedural compliance and was a missed opportunity for duty section leadership to assess Romero's suitability for watch before he was issued a firearm."

Before Romero began his first roving patrol, he told the petty officer of the deck -- the other armed topside watch stander for the Columbia, "I'll be back." What happened next occurred within seconds, the report states.

Romero began walking around Dry Dock 2 from port to starboard around the same time three civilian employees who had been working on the sub earlier that day left their workstations in a trailer. Romero turned, approaching the three from behind.

"The Petty Officer of the Deck observed Romero chamber a round, raise his M4 rifle, and begin firing at the civilians," the report states.

The three fell to the ground about 15 feet from Romero's position. As first responders rushed to the scene, Romero turned the pistol on himself. He died at the scene.

Kapoi and Agustin were pronounced dead at local hospitals, while the third victim was treated and later released.
Investigators were not able to establish a motive for Romero targeting the three victims, but did point to stressors leading up to the shooting that "likely led him to choose violence."

"If shipmates would have reported potential risk indicators to supervisors, the chain of command may have aggregated them with other known risk factors to recognize that circumstances warranted his rescreening for armed watch standing," the report states.

Troubling Signs
The Navy determined Romero acted alone and that no one could have reasonably predicted that he would carry out the murder and suicide.
But investigators were tasked with identifying any actions the Navy could have taken to recognize early warning signs and to reduce risks associated with personal stress and mental health to prevent similar incidents from happening again, officials said in a statement Tuesday.

"This tragic event was heartbreaking to our community and our valued shipyard workforce, and we must work hard to restore confidence in the Navy's ability to protect our most valuable assets -- our people," Adm. John Aquilino, U.S. Pacific Fleet's commander, said in the statement.

After qualifying to be a watchstander soon after being assigned to the Columbia, Romero's performance in other areas began to slip, the investigation found.

"Romero quickly fell behind in his other qualifications, and the chain of command took administrative action to address exceeding the qualification deadline of 12 months, poor performance, and continued tardiness," the investigation states. "He received written counseling or extra military instruction on ten separate occasions in the months before the shooting, beginning in June 2019, and he had to attend after-work study periods for his qualification delinquency."

Less than three months before the shooting, Romero was counseled for sitting down while on watch, which led to a remedial review of watch standing principles. Then, when on temporary duty to another sub to earn qualifications for a submarine warfare pin, Romero didn't interact with other sailors and displayed a low level of knowledge, giving the impression he didn't want to be there.

He was sent back to the Columbia before his temporary duty was complete to build up more knowledge for his qualifications, the report states.

When counseled for poor performance, Romero often cried, according to the investigation. A little more than a week before the shooting, Romero was informed he didn't pass the Naval Advancement Exam and wouldn't be promoted to E-4. 

The day before the shooting, Romero faced an executive officer inquiry following a November disciplinary review board for repeated tardiness and qualification delinquency. The executive officer asked Romero whether his mother would be happy if she knew he was squandering the opportunity the Navy gave him, according to the report.

Romero, the investigation states, again became emotional and began to cry, expressing his desire to stay in the Navy.

The XO issued a Page 13, a form of formal written counseling, stating that if Romero was late to work again, he'd face nonjudicial punishment from the commanding officer. Romero didn't sign it, claiming, according to the report, that the XO told him he didn't need to do so until the end of the week.

The XO was planning to clarify the matter by personally delivering the Page 13 the next day, Dec. 4.

"The Page 13 was not signed or delivered before the shooting incident," the investigation states.

As Romero faced professional challenges while assigned to the Columbia, he began seeking mental health treatment. It started in March 2019, when Romero went to the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu to report that he had had a hard time focusing at a traffic court hearing earlier that day.

"Romero denied any suicidal or homicidal ideations," the report states. "TAMC staff called a Tripler Police Department Officer to conduct a contraband search as a precautionary measure and contacted the command to provide support. Romero's division chief went to the emergency room, where TAMC staff told him that Romero was not a risk to harm others or himself."

The center noted in Romero's electronic medical record that the sailor had a possible diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder, the report adds.

He was then referred to the Naval Submarine Support Command's embedded mental health program clinic in Pearl Harbor for further evaluation and treatment. But that clinic can't receive outpatient referrals through the electronic medical record system, according to the investigation.

The TAMC staff, according to the report, "did not inform the division chief, the eMHP staff, or USS COLUMBIA's medical department representative (MDR) by telephone, email, or other means."

Romero didn't go to the embedded mental health program clinic until September, after telling his division chief he'd been having difficulty sleeping and was worried about his health, the report adds. 

During a 90-minute clinical interview, the force psychologist described Romero as "odd, awkward, guarded, and confused," according to the report. In his intake questionnaire, Romero said he was having problems "with mood stress," the investigation states, adding that he wanted to call his father more, think about the future and take time to relax.

When describing how frequently he felt certain problem areas, Romero reportedly answered that he frequently felt no interest in things, almost always had difficulty concentrating, frequently felt there was something wrong with his mind, sometimes felt hopeless about the future, and sometimes had disturbing thoughts that he couldn't get rid of.

He went to the clinic eight times over three months and, according to the report, was not diagnosed with a mental disorder. That left him qualified for continued submarine duty without any limitations, the investigation states.

"Romero never expressed suicidal ideations or threats of violence toward others during his eMHP Clinic visits," the report adds.

Shortfalls Identified A forensic psychologist who was assigned to the investigation took issue with Romero's mental health assessment.

Though the psychologist did not treat Romero and acknowledged the staff who did "could not have reasonably predicted his violent behavior," he found the force psychologist "under-diagnosed and inadequately managed Romero's mental condition."

"An accurate diagnosis likely would have disqualified Romero from submarine duty," the psychologist wrote. "... The prioritized likelihood of diagnosis (beginning with most likely) were the following: Autistic Spectrum Disorder; Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder; Social Anxiety Disorder; Personality Disorder (Avoidant and Borderline features); Anxiety Disorder; Depressive Disorder; and Adjustment Disorder."

In his endorsement letter of the investigation, Aquilino stated that, while the Submarine Force embedded mental health program is valuable, he's concerned the clinic "failed to strike the balance between supporting the submarine community readiness and providing necessary mental health resources to submarine Sailors, to include diagnosing Sailors when necessary so they can receive further treatment."

Navy officials, in the Tuesday statement on the probe's findings, also said the investigation uncovered communication barriers between health care professionals and leaders, which place "undue emphasis on patient confidentiality, particularly where Sailors may have access to weapons.

Aquilino made several recommendations on that front in his endorsement letter, including reviewing whether underdiagnosis is a pattern within the embedded mental health program, and reviewing processes for sharing records between military treatment facilities, like the one Romero visited in Honolulu, and command-level clinics.

"The service member's right to confidentiality must be balanced against evaluating what information is necessary to relay to the chain of command," the admiral wrote. "This not only ensures our Sailors are receiving the best care, but also garners crucial support from the chain of command necessary for a successful resiliency approach.

"The overly-conservative stance on patient confidentiality served neither the patient nor the command well in this situation," Aquilino added.
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Gina Harkins (@ginaaharkins) writes for Military.com.

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