Trump’s Inauguration Speech: Two Feet Firmly Planted on Our Fallen Earth

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Donald Trump has provoked more outright panic among people with advanced degrees than any politician in recent history. It would be easy for the unwary to draw the darkest conclusions. The desperate urgency of his enemies, from panicked globalists penning incendiary columns to social justice warriors literally torching limos, suggests that his rise represents some new force of extremism, or dark, regressive forces that threaten our very Republic.

Surely (onlookers could reason) Trump holds to some radical, dangerous creed, or else why are all these smart people engaged in such a nationwide public meltdown? If you’re sitting in a crowded theater, and not just one person but dozens are shouting, “Fire!”, you are likely to head for the exit.

But sometimes where there’s smoke, there really isn’t any fire, but instead a smoke machine planted in Lady Liberty’s skirt. Today we saw the peaceful transfer of power in our Republic, and the American experiment in ordered liberty is as safe as it ever was. In fact, in key ways it is safer.

Donald Trump: Inclusive Patriot

To those listening honestly with even a modicum of charity, Trump’s speech should have helped to disarm most of the genuine causes for worry that his critics have raised over many months. Trump firmly rebuked the small, vociferous cult of online Caucasoid tribalists whom some have tried to smear him as championing. Trump used these ringing words, which clearly came from the heart:

A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights and heal our divisions.

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: That whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.

President Trump made it starkly clear that his vision of national solidarity, of “loyalty to each other” has everything to do with citizenship, and nothing to do with race. His is the healthy, Jacksonian nationalism of a Truman or a Reagan — and not the narrow, crabbed and envy-ridden sentiment of racial separatists or supremacists of any color.

A Foreign Policy for a Fallen World

Trump’s foreign policy principles are clearly drawn from that same Jacksonian heritage, which does not use lofty promises of global transformation that are sometimes hard to distinguish from Jacobin or Leninist rhetoric. Instead, Trump speaks plainly of defending our national interest in a fallen and perilous world. How often over the past 16 years have our decisions on crucial questions, from Iraq to the “Arab Spring,” been distorted and rendered delusional by universalist abstractions, which ignore the stubborn facts on the ground in Fallujah or Benghazi.

Too many “forgotten Americans” from coal mining country or struggling farms have bled out and died on alien sand, as our nation’s debts piled still higher, in pursuit of fantastical projects that seemed uplifting to some speechwriting civilian over on M Street.

Making Citizenship Great Again

Those who are tempted to panic over Trump’s pledges to enforce our duly enacted immigration laws should know that his promises, just like those laws, grow out of a deep respect for citizenship as a concept with texture and meaning, carrying both rights and duties — not some blank PDF which anyone on earth may download and print out at Kinkos.

While we recognize the equal humanity, under God, of foreign nationals, for Trump it is unpatriotic to treat them as indistinguishable from our fellow Americans — whose ancestors worked, fought, may even have slaved for the weal of this nation in particular, not for humanity as a category.

In fact, Trump’s vision of citizenship goes a good deal further than many libertarians and classical liberals think fitting: He sees the United States as one vast extended family, to the point that we should be willing to sacrifice economic efficiency for the sake of looking out for the least among us. Sound economists have warned us of the Rube Goldberg absurdities that come along with protectionism, and it’s not at all clear that less fortunate Americans would benefit from a trade war that we provoked.

Helping the Forgotten American

So when it comes time to implement Trump’s agenda in nitty-gritty policies, we must insist that measures meant to help Americans whose livelihoods are challenged by foreign competition be as small-scale and short-term as possible. Just as Trump rightly sees that the U.S. government cannot create democracy where the seeds for it always shrivel, he must realize that the same government cannot save entire industries whose economic foundations in reality are crumbling.

Americans have traditionally been a flexible, adaptable, “can-do” people, who picked up and moved from New England to flee its stony soil for the vast fields of the West, and left unprofitable farms to staff the vast factories of Chicago and Detroit. What Trump sees, as most other Republicans didn’t, is that the transitions which economic reality has imposed on many less-connected Americans have been bumpy, painful, and sometimes destructive.

Wall Street gamblers were able to threaten an economic meltdown in 2008, to gain a golden parachute from the government. The election of Donald Trump is a fitting rebuke to elites in both parties who allowed that injustice to happen.

Trump tapped into the populist current that now runs through most Western countries, a wholesome rebellion against the cozy backroom deals and policy tweaks customized to serve the self-styled “cognitive elite,” the people who sail from elite colleges to corner offices, who use the rhetoric of “justice” and “inclusion” to rise to unaccountable power in U.S. federal agencies and European Union commissions. He spoke in brash and divisive terms of an open split between the interests of these elites and the people they claim to represent. It was bracing to hear him state matters so bluntly.

Restoring the Balance in American Politics

No, Donald Trump will not create a Peronist regime, which wrecks the U.S. economy in pursuit of some ill-conceived “social justice.” He will not embark us on wars of naked aggression and foreign conquest. He will not seed our cities with racial hatred, nor blacklist Hollywood actors.

What he will do is repair the grave imbalances in our politics that has emerged in recent decades. For too long we have allowed those who can master phrases and administer people to thrive, while those who work with their hands are shunted aside — and often replaced by compliant foreigners. Too many policy debates are dominated by a battle of empty abstractions, as taxes rise, budgets burst and real-world communities wither.

In an age when European governments react to the crime waves inflicted by a massive influx of Muslims with Third World skill sets and a 7th century worldview by censoring the news so citizens won’t rebel, it is more than simply refreshing to have a president like Trump, who is impervious to happy talk and in touch with ordinary people. It might even prove redemptive. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Inauguration Speech: Two Feet Firmly Planted on Our Fallen Earth” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Dear CNN, I Am Applying for Your Fake News Expert Position

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Dear CNN,

I am applying for your new position for a reporter who will expose fake news. I’m definitely the person you want. Why, just last month, I wrote an article on how your own Brian Stelter is a purveyor of fake news himself.

In fact, you’ve helped make me the journalist I am. Even if you don’t hire me, I’ll always be grateful to CNN for all the practice. I’ve made a career from pointing out many fake news stories at CNN. With all the experience you’ve given me, I feel I am overqualified for this position!

Since CNN churns out so much fake news, we’d be a great fit. I have a large social media following, and already share with them all the fake news stories I find on CNN. You can’t beat that kind of publicity. You publish fake news and get all the readers, then you publish my exposure of the fake news and get all those readers and more. It’s a win-win!

I could spend all my time debunking your own fake news. I wouldn’t even need to look at other news sites. We’d keep the readers to ourselves. If you keep Stelter on, I could just focus on exposing his fake news.

This part of the job description describes me well: “They should get angry every time they see any inaccuracy in any story, whether large or small, and whether published by a fake news site or a real one.” I was snowbound in a motel a couple of weeks ago, and watched CNN (there was no Fox News) for several days in a row, and I felt myself get angrier and angrier.

You know what made me angry? Watching your incessant coverage of the unproven accusations that the Russians hacked the Democrats’ emails and gave them to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, you didn’t even mention the possibility that a disgruntled Democratic insider could have leaked the emails, which is what Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has said. If you hire me, you can bet I’ll be angry all the time! At you!

I know you’ll be impressed with my work. Here are some CNN headlines with fake news from the last couple of days with a sample of my analyses:

Trump puts GOP in awkward spot on ObamacareThis is a great example. You took simple business as usual and turned it into a problem. Trump says his plan to replace Obamacare is ready, whereas Republicans in Congress don’t have a plan ready yet. This isn’t “awkward.” It just means the two need to agree on how they want to fix healthcare. That’s how Congress and the president do things.

The article also said Sen. Orrin Hatch “bristled” at Trump’s promise to provide healthcare coverage for all. He said we need to be careful about over-promising. That sounds more “cautionary” than “bristling.”

Obama approval hits 60% as end of term approachesHere’s another good one. You say Obama is still popular. How’d you do that? You sampled a lot more Democrats than Republicans. The same with your polling about President Trump. Your recent poll on his approval rating sampled 31 percent Democrats and only 23 percent Republicans, despite the fact those percentages are not reflective of the general population.

Nancy Sinatra not happy Trump using father’s song at inauguration In response to a question about her father’s song being used at the inauguration, Nancy Sinatra jokingly tweeted back, “Just remember the first line of the song.” The first line is, “And now, the end is near.” You ran the headline above about her tweet.

Sinatra angrily tweeted in response, “That’s not true. I never said that. Why do you lie, CNN?” She went on, “What a rotten spin to put on a harmless joke,” and had only good things to say about Trump. While it is true she recently praised Meryl Streep for her criticism of Trump at the Golden Globes, she is not the angry firebrand the article portrayed her as.

Since Sinatra called you out on this fake news, you changed the title to “Sinatra on Trump picking ‘My Way’: Remember the first line” and corrected the article, adding Sinatra’s response. Unfortunately, it took a celebrity to convince you to correct your fake news.

Finally, you’re looking for someone of impeccable character. As many who know me can attest to, I’d turn in my own mother if she were guilty of fake news.

I look forward to hearing from you. We’ll make a great team, I promise!

Sincerely,

Rachel Alexander

P.S. Here’s an idea if you’re feeling really radical. Rename CNN to FNN, for Fake News Network. You’d take all the traffic away from the conspiracy sites that dominate the fake news market. Together, we can take fake news to a new level.

(For more from the author of “Dear CNN, I Am Applying for Your Fake News Expert Position” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

More Misappropriated Womanhood: Manning, Marching and Madness

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Obama made history this week. He became the first President in history to commute the prison sentence of a fictitious person who was never convicted of a crime. PFC Bradley Manning sits in a cell at Leavenworth, convicted of espionage. But according to all the news reports on the story, Obama has decided to let Chelsea Manning out of prison in May. Neat trick, eh?

Our compliant, brainless media churns out the loony propaganda all day long. Manning is consistently referred to as “she” in media reports. They call him Chelsea now, and talk about “her,” and how this will certainly save “her life.” Take this, for example, from Fox News: “Manning was known as Bradley Manning at the time of her 2010 arrest, but revealed after being convicted of espionage that she identifies as a woman.”

“Her arrest”? “She” was never arrested. Chelsea Manning was never convicted of a crime, because Chelsea Manning was never a soldier in the U.S. Army. Chelsea Manning is not serving a sentence for espionage. Bradley Manning is. Can we all come back to the real world now? Bradley Manning is the man who betrayed his country and broke the law and now sits in prison where he belongs. Bradley Manning is not a woman. He is not a “she.” I couldn’t care less if he “identifies” as a radish or a seahorse or a comic book character. He’s still a man. Stop insulting the female sex by referring to him as a woman and calling him “her” and “she.”

Fools and Tyrants

Stop with the insanity. It is every bit as absurd to call him a woman as it would be to call him a radish. Enough already with this obsession with delusion and this infatuation with the magical power of a person’s claimed “identity,” no matter how objectively false.

The polite word for someone who is willingly hoodwinked into believing and then preaching absolute nonsense is fool. A better word is sucker. Moron. Bonehead.

The word for people who spread the absolute nonsense under threat and penalty, who mandate the acceptance of the absolute nonsense and punish any resistance is tyrant.

American society is officially captive to fools and tyrants. If you bristle at that assessment, if you find it harsh or intolerant, then I’d say your froggy self doesn’t realize the nice warm water you’re floating in will soon be boiling. There is no making friends with insanity. There’s no sunny middle ground where rationality and madness can picnic together.

People will either live and act and speak rationally, honestly and plainly, or they will surrender to lies and madness and chaos. It doesn’t matter if the present palate spits out objective truth in favor of popular delusions. Truth is still truth, and it will never peacefully coexist with deceit.

The (Some) Women’s March

Then there’s the Women’s March on Washington. The reports this week confirmed what we already knew, which is that this Women’s March is only for liberal, secular, progressive, Left-loyal, pro-abortion women. Women like me are not welcome. (“Women” like Bradly Manning, however, would be greeted with open arms and cheers.)

This march has taken the official position that feminism means the “right” of a woman to kill the child in her womb if she so desires. The women behind this march insist that the very essence of feminism is and must be bloodlust for our own babies.

Well, listen up, girls.

Your version of feminism is twisted and thoroughly demonic, and like all things demonic, it holds no affection for you, no regard for your happiness, and will show no restraint in consuming you after you’ve fed it your children. Sow death and you’ll reap death.

The time is over when we teach our daughters that being a free woman means our babies must die at our hands. No longer will we accept the lie that we have absolute authority over another human being’s life, merely because we are women. We will not raise another generation to turn their wombs into places of execution, and sell their bodies and souls to a greedy, self-serving industry built around violence.

The minds of young women have been poisoned for too long with the lie that the child in their womb is the enemy of their future, the thief of their own happiness, and a jailer to imprison them. Motherhood has been disfigured into a tiresome, lonely, hopeless thing that provokes fear, dread and pity.

And let’s not forget the damage done to men and fatherhood. Modern women are unquestionably a stupid lot. Liberal feminists have complained about men, belittled, and insulted men for decades, then have the nerve to whine when men turn around and fulfill all of women’s worst expectations. They lost all respect for men, and unsurprisingly, men began walking away.

Modern “feminism” is an unappealing, self-defeating exercise. It resembles nothing feminine; nothing womanly; nothing healthy, whole or loving at all. In my lifetime, I’ve seen it become a man-hating, child-fearing, marriage-killing, motherhood-denigrating, Pill-popping, abortion-worshiping cult of fools and tyrants. No thanks. I’m happy to sit this march out.

In fact, forget feminism. It’s time for a bigger vision. We need an authentic humanism. The human person is created male and female, in the image and likeness of God. Different by design. Equal in dignity. Divine in union. There is nothing in all creation more amazing, more beautiful, more powerful than the complementarity of a man and a woman.

That needs to be the next American revolution. Let men be men, and women be women, without requiring one to do all the same things the other does. (Exhale, everyone. It’s okay.)

Nobody knows what “zir” or “genderqueer” even means because the words are gibberish. Stop speaking gibberish. A male is a male is a male, and never a female shall he be. Call the madness what it is.

Finally, let’s call the “choice” what it is. Our age in history is distinguished by our zeal for the legal right to kill our own children. To h*** with that! The child in the womb demands our protection, and women deserve far, far better than abortion. God bless the tireless souls who are marching for that.

#MarchForLife2017

(For more from the author of “More Misappropriated Womanhood: Manning, Marching and Madness” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Supporters in Their Own Words

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Thousands of voters traveled to the nation’s capital Friday to witness the inauguration of President Donald Trump. But have their voices been accurately reflected over the past few months? The Daily Signal spoke with Trump supporters about who they are, why they came out to support the nation’s 45th president, and whether they think the media’s narrative is fair. Watch the video to hear their responses.

(For more from the author of “Trump Supporters in Their Own Words” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Signs Executive Order Curbing Obamacare

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Hours after taking the oath of office, President Donald Trump followed up on his campaign pledge to try to start chipping away at Obamacare, and curb federal regulations.

Trump signed an executive order on Friday evening from the Oval Office “to ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition to repeal and replace,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Friday.

The new president’s goal is to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, which will require congressional actions.

“Potentially the biggest effect of this order could be widespread waivers from the individual mandate,” Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told The Washington Post. Currently, individuals who do not have health insurance and do not qualify for an exemption must pay a $695 annual fee or up to 2.5 percent of annual household income.

“They’re very aware of the fact that the first job is to prevent the Affordable Care Act from doing more damage than it’s already done,” says Ed Haislmaier, a senior research fellow in health care policy at The Heritage Foundation. “As we saw with the premium increases in the fall, people who are buying individual or small employer coverage without a subsidy are getting hammered.”

Haislmaier cautioned, however, that the executive order is “the beginning of the process.” The order states that it’s the goal of the administration to repeal the law, but:

In the meantime, pending such repeal, it is imperative for the executive branch to ensure that the law is being efficiently implemented, take all actions consistent with law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the act, and prepare to afford the States more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market.

The order mentions several times, “To the maximum extent permitted by law,” and continues:

[T]he heads of all other executive departments and agencies … with authorities and responsibilities under the act shall exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the act that would impose a fiscal burden on any state or a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden on individuals, families, healthcare providers, health insurers, patients, recipients of healthcare services, purchasers of health insurance, or makers of medical devices, products, or medications.

Democrats have argued that gutting the law that mandates individuals buy health insurance and employers provide it would leave millions uninsured. Republicans say the mandate has been overly burdensome.

Obamacare has seen an increase of about 14 million insured, based largely on Medicaid expansion. The law requires individuals to buy insurance and employers to provide it.

However, the Obama administration admitted that health care premiums increased by an average of 25 percent across 39 states in October. Further, 33 states have fewer insurers offering coverage on Obamacare in 2017 than in 2016. Only one state, Virginia, gained insurers. Five states have one insurer, while 13 have just two. One-third of all U.S. counties will have just one insurer.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus sent a memo titled “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” to block all pending regulations under review but not yet in the Federal Register. (For more from the author of “Trump Signs Executive Order Curbing Obamacare” please click HERE)

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Veterans Explain Why They Came to Trump’s Inauguration

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Thousands of people gathered in the District of Columbia to watch the inauguration of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump was sworn into office Friday at noon, where he marked the event as a time of change for the American people.

“Today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another,” the president said, “but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the American people.”

And for those who served—traveling from near and far to watch the peaceful transition of power—it was exactly what they wanted to hear.

“Trump’s the man to bring the country back together again through a united front,” David Barrow, a U.S. Army veteran, told The Daily Signal.

“We support Donald Trump,” he continued. “We believe that he is the man to make America great again. I think he has the fortitude, the willpower, the determination, and the people surrounding him to make good decisions.”

Barrow, who served in the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, or the Old Guard, traveled to the District from Goose Creek, South Carolina, with his wife and daughter to watch Trump take the oath of office.

The 70-year-old said he supported Trump because he expressed a sense of urgency for the economy and has a “desire to re-establish the United States as a world power, both militarily and economically.”

“We believe God has a purpose in placing Trump where he is,” Barrow said.

Wearing a Clemson University cap and a jacket bearing the logo of the Old Guard Association, Barrow said he is looking for Trump to re-establish ties with allies of the United States and “make the military strong again.”

Like Barrow, Mike Costello, 54, of Melbourne, Florida, is looking to Trump to rebuild the military during his time in office.

Costello, his wife, and daughter made the decision to travel to the District for the inauguration just two days before Trump took the oath of office—a decision Costello attributed to his “relentless” wife.

An Army veteran, Costello and his family run a communications business, and he said the last eight years have been especially difficult for his small business.

“It’s been tough,” he told The Daily Signal. “It’s hell.”

The 54-year-old said he’s seen his taxes and the cost of health insurance—Costello provides coverage to his employees—increase over the span of President Barack Obama’s presidency.

Costello supported Trump from Day One, and said the president separated himself from the pack of more than a dozen other Republicans vying for the GOP’s nomination early on.

“He’s not a politician,” he said. “He spoke his mind. You didn’t have to worry about what he was thinking or if he was lying to you.”

Unlike Costello, Scott Mason didn’t support Trump early on.

Mason, of Hilton Head, South Carolina, initially backed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in the primaries and “Texas candidates,” like Sen. Ted Cruz, he said.

But after the Republican primaries ended, Mason, 50, decided to support Trump.

“It’s the direction that he wanted to take the party and wanted to bring it back to the American public, or at least his intention was to give it back to America,” Mason told The Daily Signal. “We’ve heard that from other candidates before, but it’s never been a believable thing, and obviously he came to a position where he had everybody and they believed what he said.”

Mason served in the U.S. Navy but now works for fire rescue in South Carolina.

During a campaign stop in the Palmetto State, Mason—who was working at the event—said Trump stopped him and his colleagues for a “grip and grin,” and to thank them for their work.

Over the last eight years, Mason said he feels like America has “taken the blame for a lot of things that have gone on globally.”

He specifically pointed to the Iran nuclear deal and the Obama administration’s handling of the January 2016 detention of 10 Navy sailors by Iran.

“There’s a lot of things that left a bad taste, and hopefully we’ll go in a new direction, a better direction, one that directs the general public’s agenda,” Mason said.

The Navy veteran traveled to the District with his son and wife. The trip to the nation’s capital was a Christmas gift to his 14-year-old son, who was gifted a Trump/Pence poster along with the weather forecast for Jan. 20—Inauguration Day.

Over the course of Trump’s presidency, Mason said he hopes to see Trump enact “American-centric type of policies.” But he also wants the country to unite around the new president.

“When it’s all said and done after the election, America needs to come together and do what’s best for America and go forward,” Mason said. “I don’t believe that if you go back to this day four years ago, eight years ago, that there were protests against President Obama, so that just goes to show you how slanted the two parties are and their reactions to results.”

Already, Trump has the support of at least one man who opposed him during the election.

George Davis, a 66-year-old from Muskogee, Oklahoma, came to the inauguration not to see the new president, but to raise money to fix up a Vietnam War memorial in his town.

Standing on the route inauguration attendees walked to the Make America Great Again welcome concert, Davis sold Trump banners to “raise as much money as I can.”

An Army veteran who served in Vietnam and Panama—and received two Purple Hearts during his time in the military, he said—Davis said it was Trump’s campaign promises that he disagreed with, particularly his commitment to build a wall along the country’s southern border with Mexico, and his economic policies.

“He was in areas like Pittsburgh and places like that that I’ve visited, and there’s no way he can refit the factories to open them back up again without spending billions of taxpayer money,” Davis said, “and I just don’t agree with that.”

He also said he disagreed with his rhetoric toward the country’s allies, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and referenced the petition members of the British Parliament debated in June calling for Trump to be banned from entering the country.

“They’re some of our strongest allies, and he weakens us by talking that trash and getting them mad at us,” Davis said.

Still, the 66-year-old said he hopes Trump fixes the issues at the Department of Veterans Affairs and strengthens the military, which Davis said has been weakened over the last eight years.

And now that Trump is sworn in, Davis said he stands behind the new president.

“He’s our new commander in chief,” he said, “so yes, I do support him.” (For more from the author of “Veterans Explain Why They Came to Trump’s Inauguration” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Over 100 Al Qaeda Fighters Killed in ‘Major’ US Air Strike in Syria, Defense Official Says

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The U.S. Air Force conducted a second “major strike” in consecutive days killing over 100 Al Qaeda fighters at a training camp in northern Syria, a defense official with knowledge of the strike told a handful of reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.

A single U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber and an undisclosed number of drones dropped 14 precision-guided bombs at noon eastern time Thursday on an Al Qaeda “basic training” camp in Syria west of the city of Aleppo near the border with Turkey, according to the official.

The official described the fighters as “core Al Qaeda.” A Petagon statement said the camp had been operational since at least 2013. It was not immediately clear why the camp had not been targeted earlier.

The latest strike, likely President Barack Obama’s last as commander-in-chief, comes a day after the Pentagon said two Air Force B-2 nuclear-capable bombers dropped 108 precision-guided bombs on two ISIS training camps in Libya killing 85 fighters, according to officials.

The round-the-world strike took roughly 30 hours Wednesday, as both B-2 bombers refueled five times in mid-air flying from their base in Missouri. Fifteen U.S. Air Force tankers from five bases on three continents assisted in the refueling. (Read more from “Over 100 Al Qaeda Fighters Killed in ‘Major’ US Air Strike in Syria, Defense Official Says” HERE)

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Declassified Docs: CIA Spent Decades Studying Psychic Powers

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The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released 13 million pages of declassified documents detailing the agency’s 1,864 investigations into the use of psychic powers.

The data dump contains 1,864 instances in which the CIA seriously investigated psychic phenomena, including the use of psychics by law enforcement, research with the Pentagon, using psychics to spy on the Soviet Union and attempts to debunk scientists skeptical of psychic powers.

CIA scientists even tested celebrity psychic Uri Geller in 1973. They found he “demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner.” The documents indicate Geller partly replicated images drawn in another room with relative accuracy.

The CIA’s research into psychic powers does a lot more to prove the agency’s shoddy research methods than it does to demonstrate the actual existence of psychic phenomena. Most mainstream scientists suspect that psychic phenomena do not exist, but investigators often produce experimental statistical evidence for alleged occurrences of potentially psychic events.

The CIA’s scientific investigation of psychic power likely indicates that any science which heavily relies on statistics may have a powerful “placebo effect.” Researchers are able to “remember the hits and forget the misses” simply by repeating testing until it produces “experimental evidence” that meets typical scientific standards for statistics purely by chance. (Read more from “Declassified Docs: CIA Spent Decades Studying Psychic Powers” HERE)

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Trump Inauguration Protesters Dishonor Long-Held Principle

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More than any other political act, the orderly transfer of power from one administration to another at a presidential inauguration demonstrates convincingly that we are a nation of laws and not of men.

Even with the closest of outcomes and the losing side’s understandable disappointment — and even anger — victor and vanquished normally pledge to work together for the common good.

Unfortunately, a coalition of left-wing radicals has now pledged to do all that it can to disrupt Donald Trump’s inauguration, including blocking streets and perhaps bridges, preventing people from assembling along the parade route, spreading false “news” about the ceremony’s participants and their remarks, and pledging a “permanent opposition” to the Trump presidency.

One newspaper referred to the left’s “post-election frenzy of fundraising, war rooms, protests and social media hysteria.”

This radical left has ignored the example set by past presidential losers such as former Vice President Al Gore and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who after suffering defeat demonstrated their respect for the Constitution and the rule of law.

In 2000, George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Gore by a little more than half a million votes (out of 101.4 million cast) but won the electoral vote by the slimmest of margins — 271 to 266, one vote more than the 270 needed.

Gore could have refused to accept the Supreme Court’s decision putting a stop to ballot counting in Florida, but instead, he said that “for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.”

Gore quoted Stephen Douglas’ comments to Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency: “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.” With his concession remarks, Gore provided an example of high statesmanship rather than low partisanship.

A little more than two months ago, Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 3 million votes out of 129 million cast, but won the electoral vote decisively by 306 to 232 votes.

Many Clinton supporters remain in deep denial, lending their support to the disaffected and the disgruntled who have promised to protest at the inauguration of Trump.

To her credit, Clinton has not encouraged the protests, but has rather stood by what she said at her concession speech on election night: “I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.”

Endeavoring to put politics behind her, Clinton said that “we owe [Trump] an open mind and a chance to lead” and acknowledged the importance of “the peaceful transfer of power.”

We do not know what Trump, ever unpredictable, will say in his speech after he has taken the oath of office to become our 45th president. But we have reason to believe that his inaugural address will be, at least in part, Reaganesque — optimistic and confident.

Speaking of Ronald Reagan, I think (as I wrote in National Affairs) that 2017 resembles 1981 in several significant ways.

Republicans have accumulated a vast backlog of conservative ideas over the past eight years that were blocked by President Barack Obama and are now available to Trump.

Similarly, The Heritage Foundation’s 1980 Mandate for Leadership contained a mountain of conservative policy reforms going back decades that helped Reagan move the federal government in a conservative direction.

Even so, Heritage has now offered the Trump administration a similarly comprehensive blueprint for conservative policies in every federal department and agency.

These include repeal of Obamacare and the creation of a free-market health care program; the repeal of Dodd-Frank and the shutting down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; restoration of the work requirements for federal welfare; a flat tax rate on personal income; a commitment to traditional marriage; and the strengthening of our armed forces so that they are second to none.

The 2016 election returns have given conservatives a golden opportunity. The conservative agenda has proven solutions to many of the problems that led so many Americans — more than 61 million — to vote for the change that Trump promised.

It is now up to conservatives to convince policymakers from the White House to the statehouses to pursue the right path, to preserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ourselves and those we love. (For more from the author of “Trump Inauguration Protesters Dishonor Long-Held Principle” please click HERE)

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Trump Keeping 50 Obama Administration Officials

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President-elect Donald Trump has asked roughly 50 senior Obama administration officials to remain in their roles in order to “ensure the continuity of government,” spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday.

The decision comes as Trump is reportedly struggling to fill important posts in his new administration.

Among the Obama holdovers are key national security officials, including Brett McGurk, special envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The move is somewhat surprising, given Trump’s repeated criticism of Obama’s effort to combat the terrorist group. He called the president “the founder of ISIS” during a campaign event last April.

McGurk, however, does have bipartisan credentials. He served as an adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan under President George W. Bush. (Read more from “Trump Keeping 50 Obama Administration Officials” HERE)

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