By Peter Roff • Newsweek
Have you heard the one about the entire GOP thinking that “women dancing are scandalous”? If you haven’t then you’re not following newly-elected Queens, N.Y. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter.
It seems Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who is rapidly becoming the public face, if not de-facto leader of the national Democratic Party, wasn’t too pleased with a comment someone made about a video released through social media that she made while in college, showing her and several others dancing, 90’s Hollywood style.
Now, to me and to the other people on the right with whom I discussed this, the video was no big deal. To others in the media, it was. The New York Times and the left-leaning Huffington Post both called it an attempted smear that backfired. To MSNBC, it was “Right Attempts to Discredit AOC.” And to Newsweek it was “Conservatives Mock Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for College Dancing Video, Everyone Else Thinks It’s Adorable.” Continue reading
By Peter Roff • Newsweek
Most Americans are at least “somewhat confident” the recent national election was well administered, and that their vote was counted properly. According to the Pew Center, more than 80 percent of U.S. adults surveyed had a high degree of confidence this had occurred. Yet the post-election coverage and blogging gave the impression that people in different parts of the country felt there was a lot of cheating.
The Pew inquiry presumes all the votes that were counted legitimate. This may be a specious assumption. “Count every ballot because every ballot counts” is a nice slogan that hits at core democratic sentiments, but ignores the reality that election fraud exists.
There’s little use denying it. Journalist John Fund, whose book on the subject, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, may be the most accessible available on the subject, has documented how it’s done. Continue reading
Americans now rank “gridlock” as their top concern when it comes to the economy. We are reluctant to disparage the wisdom of the masses, but in this case they’re wrong. Gridlock, for lack of a better word, is good.
The new IBD/TIPP Poll asked “Which of the following poses the greatest risk to the current U.S. economy?”
At the top of the list was “gridlock in Washington” which 41% named as the greatest risk. Coming in second a good distance back was “trade disputes” at 26%. “Higher interest rates” came next at 12%, followed by “rising prices,” 9%, and “Special Counsel investigation” at 8%.
“Gridlock” came in first place among Democrats, Republicans and independents. Among the young and old. Men and women. North, South, East and West. Rural and urban. Wealthy and working class. Investors and non-investors. Continue reading
The media and the left are playing up the economic damage from the shutdown. No doubt, there will be some disruption. But it won’t be economic armageddon, not by a long shot.
Fears of shutdowns at airports and national parks have been prominent in media coverage. No doubt, some will be inconvenienced.
But will it lead to an economic meltdown, as some have suggested? Not likely.
Let’s start with a few facts. Shutdowns have occurred before, most recently in 1995 and 1996, and in 2013. In each case, these relatively short shutdowns had minimal economic impacts. Continue reading
By Kyle Smith • National Review
The First Amendment has never been stronger. Yet freedom of speech is under dire threat. Both of these things can be true, and both are.
The kinds of corporations that frequently proclaim their dedication to the First Amendment — and are quick to denounce President Trump’s taunts of the media — are doing something Trump has not done and will not do: muzzling writers. Publishers are presenting authors with contracts containing clauses that essentially say, “We will cut you loose should a Twitter mob come after you.” It’s a revolting, shameful trend.
As Judith Shulevitz writes in the New York Times, Condé Nast, publisher of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and many other magazines, recently started burying in its standard writers’ contracts a landmine. If the company should unilaterally rule that the writer has become “the subject of public disrepute, contempt, complaints or scandals,” the publisher can void the contract. Shulevitz mislabels such stipulations “morality clauses.” To paraphrase Mae West, morality has nothing to do with it. “Cowardice clauses” would be nearer the mark. Continue reading
By Alex Griswold • Washington Free Beacon
In a rare move, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard rebuked Democrats–including a fellow Hawaii Democrat, Sen. Mazie Hirono–for questioning a judicial nominee about his membership in Catholic organizations.
Nebraska attorney and former attorney general candidate Brian Buescher was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve on the state’s U.S. District Court. In written questions, Hirono questioned the Catholic lawyer about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization with over two million members that upholds Church teachings on social issues.
“I do not recall if I was aware whether the Knights of Columbus had taken a position on the abortion issue when I joined at the age of eighteen,” Buescher answered at one point. Continue reading
Twelve conservative leaders, including former Attorney General Ed Meese, CHQ Editor George Rasley, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, former Ohio Representative Bob McEwen and Tea Party Patriots Action Honorary Chairman Jenny Beth Martin are in favor of Congress passing the MERIT Act during the lame duck session.
The group, led by Americans for Limited Government, issued the following statement urging the GOP not to Drain the swampwaste their final weeks in the majority:
“The December spending bill is the last chance for the 115th Congress to do something to limit the size and scope of government. After disappointing decisions to significantly increase government spending levels over the past two years, it is imperative that Congress pass language which expedites the prompt and appropriate firing of federal employees who are either incompetent or don’t perform their assigned duties. Continue reading
Radicalism: Some prominent Democrats are warning their party about its drift toward socialist policies and its endless attacks on President Trump. Is there anyone left in the Democratic Party who will listen?
A few weeks ago, former California Gov. Jerry Brown said that his party is out of touch with the mainstream, even in liberal California.
On Thursday, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe blasted members of his own party for making “unrealistic ideological promises.”
Lack of Realism
“Ideological populism or relentless negativity are playing on Trump’s turf,” McAuliffe writes in an Op-Ed published by the Washington Post. “Resisting dishonest populism is not just a policy imperative for serious Democrats but also a political imperative for 2020.”
In particular, McAuliffe attacked two of the current fixations of a growing swath of the party: a “federal jobs guarantee” and “universal free college.”
About the former, McAuliffe says it’s “not a realistic policy.” He doesn’t explain why, but anyone who’s studied the idea realizes that the cost of this jobs guarantee to taxpayers and the economy would be enormous. Nevertheless, presidential hopefuls including Sens. Cory Booker, Kristen Gillibrand, and Bernie Sanders all support the proposal.
He also blasts calls for “universal free college.”
“Spending limited taxpayer money on a free college education for the children of rich parents badly misses the mark for most families,” he writes.
McAuliffe doesn’t bother to mention the even more radical and wildly unrealistic proposals now catching on with congressional Democrats.
That list includes the “Green New Deal” pushed by socialist celebrity Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Among its proposals is that the nation’s power grid be 100% renewable in a decade, which would amount to a horrifically large tax hike on the middle class. Even so, dozens of Democrats have endorsed the plan. And the Washington Post reports that support for it “is showing signs of becoming a liberal litmus test among Democrats.”
Nor does McAuliffe mention Democrats’ “Medicare For All” push. As we’ve pointed out, this $33 trillion government takeover of health care is to the left of even communist China. Yet it, too, is fast becoming a litmus test for Democrats. McAuliffe himself has endorsed the idea.
Will Dems Listen?
To be clear, McAuliffe — like Jerry Brown — is far from a centrist Democrat. In that same Op-Ed, he announces his own support for “comprehensive climate change legislation,” minimum wage hikes, tax increases and drug price controls.
But even he realizes that pushing truly pie-in-the-sky socialist policies won’t help the party win working class voters in 2020.
Will anyone in the party take heed of McAuliffe’s and Brown’s entreaties? Unlikely.
All the pressure on the Democratic leadership today is coming from the far left of the party, with the enthusiastic support of the mainstream media. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already proved unwilling to rein them in. The moderates who helped the party take control of the House won’t have a chance against the pressure tactics of the far left.
For our part, we hope McAuliffe is right. We hope that his party’s turn toward radicalism and “relentless negativity” backfires big time on Democrats in 2020.
By Elizabeth Harrington • Washington Free Beacon
The special counsel investigation into the 2016 election has cost taxpayers over $25 million and counting.
Robert Mueller’s office released its latest expenditures spanning from April 1, 2018, through Sept. 30, 2018, finding the special counsel racked up over $8.4 million in five months.
The statement of expenditures reveals Mueller and his team of lawyers cost over $4.5 million for salaries and rent, and an additional $3.9 million in resources from the Department of Justice.
Personnel compensation and benefits cost taxpayers $2,886,270, including $1 million for special counsel office employees, and $1.9 million for Department of Justice employees who have been detailed to the investigation. Continue reading
The history of the 20th and 21st centuries’ Syria has provided the most convincing proof that the intellectual maturity of a state’s alternating leaderships as well as its people depends to an overwhelming degree on their understanding of the inherent incompatibility of excepted societal morality based on customs and traditions, and of political immorality maintained by gross despotism.
The roots of the current civil war that started in the beginning of 2011, go way back to the mid-9th century when a man by the name Ibn Nusayr declared himself the “BAB” – the “gateway to truth.” Proclaiming his teachings to be the only true religion, Ibn Nusayr preached a Muslim Holy Trinity of the Prophet Muhammad, his cousin and son in law Husayn Ibn Ali, and Salman al-Farisi, a freed Persian slave of Muhammad’s. In addition, he elevated Ali to a Jesus-like incarnation of divinity. Moreover, borrowing further from Christianity, he made the symbolic presentation of bread and wine an integral part of religious services, in which the wine represents Allah himself. To add more heretic insult to multiple Muslim religious injuries, the Nusayris, also called Alawis or Ansaris, celebrate almost all Christian festivals and holidays by worshiping most of the Christian saints. Finally and most egregiously for all faithful Muslims, Ibn Nusayr denied the five pillars of Islam listed in the famous Hadith of the angel Gabriel, and rejected the Shari’a in its entirety.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made history as the youngest woman ever to be elected to the House of Representatives at 29, and she’s being hailed by the media as the de facto leader of the incoming House Democrat Freshman class. While her fans are excited at the prospect of a millennial socialist promising free stuff, what has gone glaringly overlooked is her striking lack of understanding of how the government, where she’s been elected to serve, actually works.
Someone get this woman a civics book.
In a painful-to-watch video Ocasio-Cortez called the three branches of government the three “chambers,” not the first time she’s been confused. In her world the three chambers of government are the House, Senate, and the Presidency.
I decided to ask my fifth grader if she knew what the three “chambers” of government were. Her response: “Do you mean branches?” Why yes, yes I do. And then she proceeded to name the legislative, executive and judicial branches. Continue reading
By Jeremy Carl • The Federalist
Less than two weeks ago, President Trump signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement intended to be the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has attacked for decades. The White House says the agreement will “better serve the interests of American workers and businesses” and “includes the strongest digital trade … provisions of any United States trade agreement.”
Unfortunately, an obscure article in one provision of the agreement only serves the interests of the largest tech monopolies by granting them special privilege to censor conservatives. Congress should demand the removal or amendment of this article before giving consent to confirm section 230.
How did this happen? Big Tech lobbyists orchestrated the quiet insertion of a seemingly innocuous provision (Article 19.17) into the deal that is based on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Continue reading
The mainstream liberal press may have had a “slobbering love affair” with President Obama (as CBS News veteran Bernard Goldberg once aptly put it). But they’re absolutely obsessed with President Trump. Data compiled by Real Clear Politics shows just how bad this Trump obsession is.
A fascinating article, “Measuring the Media’s Obsession With Trump,” looked at the percentage of airtime the three main cable networks — CNN, MSNBC and Fox News — devoted each day to stories about Trump.
The author, Kalev Leetaru, then compared that to the share devoted to Obama over the past nine years. Continue reading
In that strange ancient land called Hungary, the past has never died. It just has retreated from time to time into hibernation. The reason for this state of affairs has always been that Hungarians of successive generations have failed to learn from the past. More recently, the Trianon Peace Treaty of June 4, 1920, reduced to territory of the Hungarian Kingdom by 67% and its population by 57%. In addition to being bad students of history, Hungarians have become paranoid and their society schizophrenic. Then, the seventy years history of maladministration by the Horthy administration as well as the Communists, combined to lay the foundation for a politically idiotic and geopolitically dangerous revanchism.
When national independence finally came in the spring of 1990, Hungarians again failed to realize that freedom can be a very dangerous commodity. As so often in history, national liberation in Hungary has been followed by long periods of political and economic instability.
The first free government of Jozsef Antall, a highschool teacher, was a collection of hapless amateurs. After four years of nostalgia and attempts to restore the pre-World War II Hungary, they were booted out of power. The former Communists who were voted in with absolute majority, were afraid of decisive governance. Four years later, Hungarians voted for a coalition of the untested Alliance of Young Democrats and the Smallholders’ Party, both led by incompetent megalomaniacs. What followed was a rapid centralization of power in the hands of the Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, and the rise of limitless as well as arrogant corruption.
By Elad Hakim • The Federalist
If they charge President Trump for paying women to not publish scandalous claims, would prosecutors then be compelled to pursue members of Congress who have also made such payoffs?
Michael Cohen was sentenced to 36 months in prison on Wednesday for various crimes the Robert Mueller investigation found he had committed. As CNN recently reported, prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office alleged he admitted to paying off two women (hush money) and that he did so in coordination with and at the direction of President Trump, thereby violating one or more campaign finance laws.
On the day of Cohen’s sentencing, the Gateway Pundit reported that prosecutors for the Southern District of New York announced that they had reached a non-prosecution agreement with American Media, Inc., the company that paid $150,000 to one of the women. Continue reading
