Shariah Court in Indonesia Sentences Gay Couple to Caning

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An Islamic Shariah court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province has sentenced two gay men to public caning for the first time, further undermining the country’s moderate image after a top Christian politician was imprisoned for blasphemy.

The court, whose sentencing Wednesday coincided with International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, said the men, aged 20 and 23, would each be subjected to 85 lashes for having sexual relations. One of the men wept as his sentence was read out and pleaded for leniency.

The chief prosecutor, Gulmaini, who goes by one name, said they will be caned next week, before the holy Muslim month of Ramadan starts about May 25. (Read more from “Shariah Court in Indonesia Sentences Gay Couple to Caning” HERE)

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Repelling an Alien Idea: Marriage, Life and ‘Gender’ Aren’t Really Real

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There’s an old science fiction short story that begins when a human lands on an alien planet and meets an obviously intelligent life form. He points at a rock and says “Rock.” The alien looks at the man, then at the rock; the man points and repeats, “Rock.”

At this point the author tells us what the alien is thinking:

This creature must not be intelligent. He gave it the same name twice. He thinks it’s still the same thing! If he knew anything, he would have recognized how many changes it’s gone through: all its constant subatomic internal changes, and that’s been altered through the heat and chemicals and radiation around it. This stupid creature thinks what was ‘rock’ before is still ‘rock’ now. He’s too dull to notice the differences.

This is an unintelligent life form. Therefore I shall eat it.

Now, I probably got some things wrong in that story. I don’t remember who wrote it, since it’s been at least forty years since I read it. (Maybe someone will recognize it and tell me where to find it again.) It contains a whopper of a logical fallacy,* which might bother you if you caught it, but doesn’t matter. I’m only using it to illustrate a lesson — one that helps explain how a once-familiar world has turned so dramatically alien in the last few decades.

An Alien Idea Taking Root

The fact is we’ve allowed an alien idea to take root among us: that things aren’t what they are; they’re always too busy becoming something else.

For example: marriage isn’t what marriage is. Marriage is one thing today, something different tomorrow and even something else across the state line. Sex isn’t what sex is; it’s “gender,” and gender can be “fluid.” Morality isn’t what it is, it’s whatever people think it should be — which evolves from day to day and is never the same from country to country. Humanness isn’t real, at least as far as the unborn humans are; what matters instead is some abstract idea of “personhood” that magically changes from week to week.

This way of thinking is called “progressive.” Just as the alien thought it was more intelligent than the human, progressives think they’re smarter than conservatives. Here’s the huge problem with that, though: the alien doesn’t know what a rock is. It doesn’t even have a word for it.

Rocks Are Real

That’s a real problem for the alien. Rocks are real. Their reality consists in more than the sum of their protons, neutrons and electrons. Rocks have an enduring, continuing reality of rock-ness to them, despite all the changes going on inside every second. That reality lasts a very long time for rocks, until erosion finally grinds them down to sand.

Granted, there are some philosophers who wonder esoterically if rocks are technically “real.” Even those thinkers’ problems with the reality of rock-ness, though, don’t go so far as denying use the same word for rocks from one moment to the next. And they will agree that rocks are rocks, and that they stay that way (as I’ve already said) for a very long time.

Marriage is Real

Marriage stayed what it was for a very long time, too, until there came a moment in the dark, distant past — almost ten or twenty years ago, if you can imagine that! — when some thought it was time for it to change. Marriage was, well, marriage. Its meaning had been dinged in the late 20th century by the sexual revolution and damaged even more by no-fault divorce, but it still was what it was: the committed union of a man and woman.

Marriage was real. Just as a rock has real rock-ness to it, marriage had a real marriage-ness to it; and any union that didn’t have that marriage-ness couldn’t be called marriage. Now we can call anything marriage. We’re as confused on marriage as the alien was on “rock.”

Human Life Is Real

Human life used to be what human life was, too. To be human is a real thing, or so we once thought. It was easily definable — even for the youngest unborn child — in terms of parental lineage, genetic structure and so on.

But progressives prefer to kick humanness off the table. They want the abortion debate to be about “personhood.” Personhood for them isn’t a matter of being but of somehow becoming. It’s an abstract quality that a fetus gradually acquires along the way — and who knows when it’s really real? Maybe (per Peter Singer) it isn’t even real until sometime after the child is born. So whatever that thing is inside the womb, until some magic event happens to finally make it a “person,” it’s an it, and it’s okay to kill it.

Progressives Have Lost Track of What’s Real

Abortion wouldn’t even be a debate if we could focus on what’s solid and real: the unborn child’s humanness. Obviously, though, progressives have a stake in keeping our eyes on this wispy, changing, indefinable concept of personhood. Just as the alien doesn’t know what a rock is, they’ve lost all knowledge of what a human is. They’ve lost track of what’s real.

I could say similar things about “gender fluidity,” but what I’d have to say about that would be too obvious to spend time on. You can see for yourself how it would go: we know sex well enough when we see it in bonobos and bumblebees, but we don’t even think it’s real in humans. At least that’s the progressive viewpoint; and like the alien, they think they’re more intelligent for thinking that way.

But also like the alien, progressives are confused and stunted in their knowledge. The alien may not know what a rock is, but rocks are still real. (For more from the author of “Repelling an Alien Idea: Marriage, Life and ‘Gender’ Aren’t Really Real” please click HERE)

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Former FBI Director Mueller Named to Lead Trump-Russia Probe

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The Justice Department on Wednesday appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to oversee a federal investigation into potential coordination between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

The appointment gives Mueller, who led the FBI through the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and served under presidential administrations of both parties, sweeping powers to investigate whether Trump campaign associates colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome in his behalf, as well as the authority to prosecute any crimes uncovered during the probe. The broad mandate, beyond any specific Trump-Russia connection, also covers “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, facing scathing criticism for authoring a memo that preceded the firing last week of James Comey as FBI Director, said in a statement that Mueller’s appointment was “necessary in order for the American people to have full confidence in the outcome.” (Read more from “Former FBI Director Mueller Named to Lead Trump-Russia Probe” HERE)

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Trump Impeachment Proceedings Over Obstruction Charge Unlikely to Go Far, Analysts Say

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While Democrats cry for impeachment, legal experts are dubious that President Donald Trump’s reported conversation with FBI Director James Comey about his former national security adviser would be an easy case of obstruction of justice.

“I don’t personally think any prosecutor would bring that case,” Ron Hosko, a former assistant FBI director for the bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division, told The Daily Signal, referring to the report that Trump suggested Comey, whom he later ousted, back off investigating Michael Flynn.

“Any defense attorney could argue the president was wishing out loud,” Hosko said. “There was no killing a witness, no destruction of evidence.”

The New York Times first reported Tuesday on Comey’s purported memo of a February conversation in which Trump told him: “I hope you can let this go … [Flynn] is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Trump fired Flynn after six weeks on the job after concluding the national security adviser misled Vice President Mike Pence regarding the content of his contacts with Russian officials before the president’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

The “big however,” Hosko said, is whether Trump’s May 9 firing of Comey could be connected to an effort to stop an FBI investigation.

“The president can fire an FBI director for any reason or no reason,” said Hosko, now president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund. “But, if evidence emerges that he fired Comey over the Flynn investigation or over the Russia investigation, now it becomes harder to defend.”

The Justice Department on Wednesday named another former FBI director, Robert Mueller, as a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election. The FBI also is investigating Flynn’s contacts with Russia.

Several House Democrats are using Comey’s purported memo on what Trump said to him to demand impeachment of the president—a highly unlikely scenario given Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, delivered a floor speech Wednesday about impeachment, though he didn’t sound convinced the president was guilty. Green noted that it is the Senate’s job to make that determination in a trial after the House adopts articles of impeachment against a president for high crimes and misdemeanors.

“Impeachment does not mean the president will be found guilty,” Green said. “It simply means the House of Representatives will bring charges against the president.”

Democratic leadership in the House and Senate has not taken up the cause of impeachment, although an increasing number of partisan pundits are using the word.

Even if there was a House majority to pass articles of impeachment against Trump, two-thirds of the Senate would have to agree on his removal from office after a trial.

This would be a politically steep hill to climb, one presidential historian notes. Only two presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, have been impeached by the House, and both survived a Senate trial to serve out their terms.

The cases were quite different, but offer context for any such effort against Trump, said Larry Schweikart, a retired history professor at the University of Dayton who is author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents” and co-author of “How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution.”

“Andrew Johnson, for example, was impeached because he was as unpopular in Washington, as Trump is—but Johnson deliberately and blatantly went out of his way to violate a law so as to provoke impeachment as a test case,” Schweikart told The Daily Signal in an email.

He stressed that Johnson had been Abraham Lincoln’s vice president, assuming office only upon Lincoln’s assassination, and “was a Democrat in a Republican administration that hated him.”

The economy shows signs of improving, Schweikart added, which means that even if Democrats gained a congressional majority, impeachment would be politically difficult.

“The GOP actually opposed Clinton, while his own party supported him rabidly. But a similarity with Trump [is] the economy was booming,” Schweikart said. “Trump’s economy isn’t quite there yet, but it’s very, very hard to even undertake impeachment against a president who has a booming economy. Watergate did not turn [public opinion] against Nixon until the economy turned sour. Had Nixon had Clinton’s economy, he likely would have survived.”

Schweikart said perhaps 20 House Republicans are “committed to the swamp” and might be inclined to join Democrats in impeaching Trump, but he doubts they would take the political risk.

Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., in response to a question from a reporter, said that trying to stop an investigation would be an impeachable offense, The Hill reported. But, Amash said, “everybody gets a fair trial.”

The key charge against Johnson was for the controversial firing of War Secretary Edwin Stanton, at the time considered a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The statute, since invalidated by the Supreme Court, disallowed the firing of high-ranking government officials without Senate approval.

One of the two articles of impeachment against Clinton was obstruction of justice.

Matthew Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, has prosecuted obstruction of justice cases, generally in the context of a drug dealer trying to make a witness change his story. Obstruction has a specific definition in the U.S. Code, Whitaker said.

“Obstruction is a very technical crime with important elements to prove,” Whitaker, now executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, told The Daily Signal. “We don’t know enough, based on what we’ve seen of the memo.”

In remarks Wednesday to Coast Guard Academy graduates in New London, Connecticut, Trump didn’t directly talk about the obstruction allegation, but he took shots at his political opponents and the media.

“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly. You can’t let them get you down,” Trump said, getting applause. “You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams. … I guess that’s why we won.”

David McIntosh, a lawyer and former House member from Indiana, argued during remarks at a Federalist Society conference Wednesday that Trump had both the authority to talk to Comey about an ongoing investigation and to fire him. McIntosh said:

President Trump acted appropriately if he gave guidance to Director Comey on an investigation. It is important for us to step back and remember that, under the Constitution, the president has the authority and power to enforce the laws. There’s nothing in the Constitution about an FBI director.

The FBI director reports to the president, and it is the president’s decision to delegate authority on investigations. In delegating that authority, presidents have wisely chosen to insulate the FBI from political interference. But the president still has the power and authority to direct the FBI how to do their job.

Congress, in its critiques of the executive branch, should not overstep and try to direct or limit the president’s legitimate exercise of his Article 2 powers.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, requested that the FBI provide a physical copy of Comey’s memo to congressional investigators. Someone apparently read from the Comey memo to The New York Times reporter.

Democrats likely know this is not a viable obstruction case, said Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice.

Even if The Times story is entirely true, he said, “In the words of James Comey: No prosecutor would bring this case.”

Sekulow added:

“Obstruction of justice is a loaded term. It’s political to create an impeachment scenario. The bar is lower, but we have a Republican Congress. This is just political warfare. It was enough to get the Washington media talking about it. … During the Obama years, when people would talk about impeachment, we’d always discourage that talk as no way to get things done.

(For more from the author of “Trump Impeachment Proceedings Over Obstruction Charge Unlikely to Go Far, Analysts Say” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Expansion of Mexico City Policy Is a Major Victory in Protecting Life

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Someday, future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why such a rich and seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with the capacity to protect and enhance vulnerable human life, could have instead so aggressively promoted death to children by abortion—both here and overseas.

They will note that we prided ourselves on our commitment to human rights, while precluding virtually all protection to the most persecuted minority in the world today—unborn children.

And they will demand to know why dismembering a child with sharp knives, pulverizing an infant with powerful suction devices, or chemically poisoning a baby with any number of toxic chemicals failed to elicit in so many so much as a scintilla of empathy, mercy, or compassion for the victims.

Abortion is violence against children, and hurts women.

This week, the Trump administration announced the implementation of the new Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy—a significant reiteration and expansion of President Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City policy.

Announced by Reagan at the United Nations Conference on Population Control in Mexico City in 1984—hence its name—the policy was and is designed to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money is not funneled to foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning.

Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush embraced the policy, while Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama nullified it.

Thirty-two years ago—in July of 1985—I authored the first of several successful annual amendments on the floor of the House of Representatives to preserve the Mexico City policy.

Significantly, the old Mexico City policy only applied to family planning funds—over half a billion dollars.

The new policy establishes pro-child safeguards—benign, humane conditions—on about $8.8 billion in annual global health assistance funding appropriated to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of State and Defense.

This funding includes not only family planning, but other global health assistance such as maternal and child health, malaria, and HIV/AIDs.

Also of significance, the new pro-child, pro-woman safeguards do not reduce funding for global health assistance by so much as a dollar.

According to State Department guidance, the policy only applies to foreign NGOs as grantees or subgrantees. Other potential recipients of global health assistance grant money—including national and subnational governments—are exempt, as are refugee and migration assistance programs.

President Donald Trump’s Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy includes three abortion exceptions—for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. Nothing in the policy prevents foreign NGOs from treating injuries or illnesses that were caused by any abortion.

For years, pro-abortion organizations have used U.S. taxpayer funds to weaken, undermine, or reverse pro-life laws in other nations and systematically destroy the precious lives of unborn children.

Scores of countries throughout the world have been besieged by aggressive and well-funded campaigns to overturn their pro-life laws and policies.

The Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy will significantly mitigate U.S. taxpayer complicity in global abortion.

U.S. foreign policy—and the foreign entities we fund with billions of dollars in grant money—should consistently affirm, care for, and tangibly assist women and children.

We must increase access to maternal and prenatal care, and ensure access to safe blood and better nutrition.

We must also expand essential obstetrical services, including skilled birth attendants, while improving transportation to emergency care facilities to significantly reduce maternal mortality and morbidity—including from obstetric fistula.

Prioritizing programs that ensure adequate nutrition and supplementation for moms and children during the all-important first 1,000 days of life—from conception to the second birthday—are among the most transformative, life-enhancing commitments that can be made.

Expanding these measures make women and children healthier, stronger, and more resilient to disease and disability while reducing death and injury.

No one is expendable or a throwaway. Every human life has infinite value. Birth is merely an event, not the beginning of the life of a child.

The new Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy is inclusive of all people, regardless of their age, race, sex, disability, or condition of dependency—especially the weakest and most vulnerable. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Expansion of Mexico City Policy Is a Major Victory in Protecting Life” please click HERE)

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Feminism Drives People to Deny Basic Facts

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The number of foolish statements made by men and women who consider themselves feminists is essentially equal to the number of people who strongly identify as feminists.

I write “strongly identify” because if asked, “Are you a feminist?” most women will say yes.

They will do so for two reasons.

One is that there is no social price paid for saying that one is a feminist, while there can be a huge price paid—on a college campus, for example—for saying that one is not a feminist.

The other is that a great number of women define feminism as “belief in women’s equality.” And by that definition, who isn’t a feminist? I certainly am.

Intelligence varies among these women and men as much as it does among members of any group of people; there are both brilliant individuals and dummies who say they are feminists.

But the women today—I am not talking about suffragettes in the early 20th century—whose identities are wrapped up in being a feminist are nearly all dummies.

That doesn’t mean they all lack brainpower. There are many people with a fine brain who are fools. Indeed, such individuals dominate our universities.

This realization occurred to me again when reading a CNN column written last week by Jill Filipovic, one of CNN’s feminist writers. (Does CNN employ a non-feminist female writer?)

The column was about Australian Sen. Larissa Waters, who breast-fed her child in the parliamentary chamber while Parliament was in session. The CNN writer, as would be expected, lauded the parliamentarian: What could be more beautiful or natural than breast-feeding in Parliament?

Among the writer’s arguments defending Waters was one in which she said, “Yes, for many people, breasts are sexually alluring or arousing—but so too are lips and hands, and having those out in Parliament doesn’t bring on sexual chaos.”

This was similar to the argument advanced by the highest court in the state of New York in a 1992 ruling that said women could go topless in public because men can, and there is no difference between a man’s chest and a woman’s.

In the court’s words, the law that prevented them from doing so “discriminates against women by prohibiting them from removing their tops and exposing their bare chests in public as men are routinely permitted to do.”

Now back to our feminist at CNN who compared the sexually alluring and arousing nature of visible lips and hands with visible breasts.

It is difficult to overstate the foolishness of that comment.

For one thing, the only inference to be drawn is that women in parliament and all other public spaces should uncover their breasts just as they do their lips and hands.

But what is truly absurd is the equation of seeing women’s breasts with seeing their lips and hands.

Is the author unaware of the fact that men pay to enter “topless” bars in order to look at women’s breasts wherever on Earth it is permitted?

Now, why is that?

Some will say it’s only because women’s hands and lips are visible, while their breasts are covered. If all women were to wear gloves in public, the argument goes, men would pay to see women’s bare hands.

I trust that most readers find such an argument risible.

Men from Saudi Arabia, where women’s lips are regularly covered, go to the West and pay to see women’s breasts, not their lips.

Why?

Because in virtually every society, heterosexual men have found the female breast a particularly sexually alluring part of a woman’s body.

Evolutionary psychologist Carole Jahme, a science columnist for the left-wing pro-feminist publication the Guardian, summarized a whole host of academic studies. She wrote:

The full, plump bosom seen in the human ape is an anomaly. No other primate has a permanent breast. … The sex appeal of rounded female buttocks and plump breasts is both universal and unique to the human primate.

So, then, the sole purpose of women’s breasts is not for nursing babies. It is also to attract and arouse men.

Yet, whoever argues that women’s breasts are there to arouse men, not just to provide a baby with milk, is dismissed by feminists as a sexist heterosexist patriarchal pig, a product of a sexist culture that renders women and their baby-feeding mammary glands sexual objects.

But it turns out that science, not just common sense, rejects the feminist argument.

So, how does a CNN columnist, along with myriad other feminists, not know this? Why did my grandmother, who never went to high school, know this, while a vast number of graduates of our universities do not?

The answer is that today’s universities—especially women’s studies and gender studies departments—generally make people stupid.

The only remaining question is: Did anyone at CNN find this column absurd? I suspect not.

And that’s more than absurd. That’s frightening. (For more from the author of “Feminism Drives People to Deny Basic Facts” please click HERE)

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Who Wins and Who Loses Under These 8 Big Government Policies

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It’s clear that many big government policies are creating winners and losers in America.

The story has been the same for decades. Government makes friends with a company or an industry, blocks out the competition with regulation, and in some cases gives the company subsidies.

Such cronyism is bad for innovators and for consumers. But fewer people realize that it’s also bad for the poor.

A recent report from The Heritage Foundation detailed 23 of these big government policies that hurt the poor, and provided concrete ways to address them.

Winners and losers from big government policies are not always clear. And yet for some crony policies, the winners and losers are very clear.

The winners are a small group of identifiable government cronies, while the losers include people of little or no influence with the government.

Here is a look at eight big government policies from the report that benefit government cronies at the expense of other groups of people, including the poor.

1. Renewable Fuel Standard

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandated that renewable fuels be mixed into America’s gasoline supply, primarily by using corn-based ethanol. Then, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Acts significantly increased the amount that must be mixed in.

This mandate is known as the Renewable Fuel Standard. It forces the use of higher levels of biofuels than the market would otherwise bear. The result has been higher food and fuel prices.

Who Wins: Corn farmers, soybean farmers, and biofuel companies.

Who Loses: Consumers of gasoline, consumers of food, and farmers that rely on feedstock and restaurants.

2. Federal Sugar Program

The federal government tries to limit the supply of sugar that is sold in the United States.

This federal sugar program uses a combination of price supports, marketing allotments that limit how much sugar processors can sell each year, and import restrictions that reduce the amount of imports.

As a result, the price of American sugar is consistently higher than world prices.

Who Wins: Sugar growers and sugar harvesters.

Who Loses: Workers in sugar-using industries, and consumers of food (including bread) that contains sugar.

3. Catfish Inspection Program

As a result of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s catfish inspection program, the USDA inspects catfish while the Food and Drug Administration inspects all other seafood.

This creates duplication because seafood processing facilities that produce both catfish and any other seafood will have to deal with two different types of seafood regulatory schemes instead of just one.

This program also creates a non-tariff trade barrier that will make it extremely difficult for foreign catfish exporters to export to the U.S., likely reducing competition for the domestic catfish industry.

Who Wins: Domestic catfish producers.

Who Loses: Domestic catfish consumers.

4. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the Jones Act)

The Merchant Marine Act—nicknamed after Sen. Wesley Jones, R-Wash.—requires the use of domestically built ships when transporting goods between U.S. ports. The ships must also be U.S.-owned, and mostly U.S.-crewed.

Who Wins: The U.S. domestic shipping industry.

Who Loses: The U.S. military, automobile drivers, users of propane and heating oil, and anyone benefitting from the trade and transportation of goods between U.S. ports.

5. Occupational Licensure

Licensure laws create government requirements for being allowed to practice a profession. These requirements exist even though the market would produce certification options if consumers desired such information.

Who Wins: Workers who have already obtained licenses.

Who Loses: People wanting to work who can’t because they don’t have a license, and consumers who have to pay higher prices for services.

6. Economic Development Takings

On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Kelo v. City of New London that the government can seize private property and transfer it to another private party for economic development.

This type of taking was deemed to be for “public use” and ruled a proper use of the government’s eminent domain power under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Who Wins: People who successfully lobby the government to seize other people’s property for financial gain.

Who Loses: Property owners who have their property seized.

7. Home-Sharing Regulations

Local governments sometimes ban or excessively regulate home-sharing—that is, renting out one’s home to accommodate travelers, such as through Airbnb.

When this happens, consumers have less choices of where to stay when traveling, hotels can charge higher prices, and homeowners and renters can’t make full use of their legally possessed homes to earn income for themselves.

Who Wins: Hotel employee union lobbies, and the hotel industry.

Who Loses: Homeowners and renters.

8. Ride-Sharing Regulations

In some state and local jurisdictions (such as outside Portland, Oregon; Alaska; and Austin, Texas), the government bans or heavily regulates ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft.

These companies are popping up all over because they meet consumers’ needs, but they are being held down in certain cities where the government backs the establishment industry.

Who Wins: Traditional taxicab companies.

Who Loses: Uber, Lyft, and drivers looking for low barriers to entry; taxicab customers; customers who want to go in or out of certain neighborhoods that traditional taxi drivers avoid; and users of public transportation seeking to complete the “last mile” of their trips.

When industries or groups win special favors from politicians at the expense of ordinary Americans and the poor, it is an affront to freedom—especially to the economic freedom of the poor.

Policies that drive up prices—especially of commodities—are harder to absorb if you are poor.

The policies listed above can block off the only escape route that poor people have from poverty, preventing them from doing what they are good at for a living, for example, or from renting out their home or other property.

All Americans should have the same opportunities open to them. But when government cronyism rears its ugly head, they don’t.

Those who fall on the losing side of cronyism are more likely to agree with President Ronald Reagan when he said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” (For more from the author of “Who Wins and Who Loses Under These 8 Big Government Policies” please click HERE)

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The Establishment’s Jihad Against Trump Intends Impeachment; Don’t Be Surprised if it Results in Civil War

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The Establishment’s war against Trump has reached a fevered state. CNN has been producing stories on an almost daily basis claiming that the President has committed felonious offenses. The disgraced ex-head of the Deep State’s intelligence network, James Clapper, disgustingly claimed the authority of the Founders in attacking Trump for “assaulting” institutions of democracy. Pundits are abandoning him in droves. And Republicans of all stripes are attacking the supposed incompetency of the Trump Administration. Trump isn’t getting relief from any quarter.

It’s a set up for impeachment. And maybe civil war.

An exaggeration, you say? Not even close. The vomitous “fake news” regurgitated daily from the Establishment media – sometimes even Fox – is transparent to everyone. Whether it’s stories about how Trump unfairly got two scoops of ice cream or it’s reports on how the 2016 election was hijacked by the Russians, everyone knows a scam when they see it. And this garbage in the media is nowhere close to the quality of past propaganda like the Kennedy assassination or TWA 800. No, this is overt, over-the-top shysterism. Even a grade-schooler can see the gross bias.

It’s expected that the Deep State bureaucrats will regurgitate this crap. But when politicians of all stripes seem to adopt talking points drawn from this obviously fake narrative, the People start to contemplate that maybe, just maybe, their representatives are no longer working for them. Perhaps they’ve been leveraged by the Deep State like so many others who have abandon the People for the Establishment – like 90% of Republicans who were elected to reverse the size and scope of the federal government but continue to vote to fund it. The People lose faith in this type of “leadership,” especially when it’s tainted by corruption and pedophile scandals.

Why was Trump elected? Try single-digit approval ratings for Congress. Total disgust for the direction of government. A sense that globalists who don’t give a damn for the ‘average Joe’ are directing trade policy. Growing realization that the endless war policies of the neocons kill our best and brightest while transferring hundreds of billions to corrupt crony-capitalists. And increasing understanding that immigration policy is being used to enrich the multinational corporatists while leaving the working class poorer than ever.

Polling shows a nation more divided than any time in prior history, including the Civil War. It’s a struggle between those who value rugged individualism and natural rights versus those who see themselves as part of a globalist, communistic society where the “greater good” justifies all sorts of evil.

Will patriots stay silent in the face of this attempted coup? Many voted for Trump as a last resort, seeing one last effort to rescue the Republic. They’re sick of the perverted elites shoving their immorality down their throats. They’re tired of losing income and assets year after year. They’re done with being totally ignored when policy decisions are made in DC. And they can’t stand the thought of their nation being subverted to an international system that cares nothing for them and their families.

Let’s hope Trump outsmarts everyone and drains the swamp. But we’re sitting on a powder keg, perhaps an intended one that will, once and for all, destroy the nation’s foundation of liberty. Globalists will celebrate as the Great City on the Hill topples into the dustbin of history leaving a void only tyranny will fill. Or maybe – just maybe – the Tree of Liberty will be refreshed, giving our children an opportunity to live in freedom for another generation.

Deep State Cover-Up? DNC Staffer Seth Rich Spoke to WikiLeaks Prior to Murder; Police, Feds Told to Stand Down

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Seth Rich, the Democrat National Committee staffer murdered last summer on Capitol Hill, was speaking with WikiLeaks before he died, according to new reports.

Not satisfied with the pace or direction of the D.C. police investigation, the Rich family hired private detective Rod Wheeler to seek answers. That Rich was in touch with WikiLeaks is just one of the explosive claims Detective Wheeler has made.

The as-yet unsolved murder has been characterized as a botched robbery by D.C. police, even though evidence doesn’t actually point to a robbery. Rich was shot on July 10, 2016 after an apparent struggle, but his wallet, credit cards, cellphone and wristwatch were not taken.

Rich’s mother said, “There had been a struggle. His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything.”

She questions the claim that her son was working with WikiLeaks. “They took his life for literally no reason. They didn’t finish robbing him, they just took his life,” Rich said. “They hurt the community, and they hurt the long-term possibility of what he could have done.”

But Wheeler is standing by his story and he is getting backed up by the feds.

A “federal source” told Fox News Channel that the FBI generated a forensic report regarding Rich’s computer within 96 hours of his death. The report indicated Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks through the late Gavin MacFadyen, an American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and WikiLeaks official who had been living in London at the time.

The Fox report continues:

“I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks,” the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department.

The revelation is consistent with the findings of Wheeler, whose private investigation firm was hired by a third party on behalf of Rich’s family to probe the case.

“My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks,” Wheeler said. “I do believe that the answers to who murdered Seth Rich sits on his computer on a shelf at the D.C. police or FBI headquarters.”

The federal investigator, who requested anonymity, said 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between Democratic National Committee leaders, spanning from January 2015 through late May 2016, were transferred from Rich to MacFadyen before May 21.

On July 22, just 12 days after Rich was killed, WikiLeaks published internal DNC emails that appeared to show top party officials conspired to stop Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont from becoming the party’s presidential nominee. That controversy resulted in Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigning as DNC chairperson.

Meanwhile, police have not revealed if the victim was able to identify his attackers or provide any information before he died in a hospital. A surveillance video shows Rich being followed by two men, but police have not made that video public.

After the shooting, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed he had been working with Rich and implied he was murdered because he was the source of the hacked DNC emails. Assange has offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killers. D.C. police are offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s murderer. Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman is offered a separate $130,000 reward.

Assange’s claims and allegations of a DNC cover-up were widely dismissed as “conspiracy theories.” But Wheeler says FBI sources tell him that Rich was working with WikiLeaks, “absolutely, and that’s been confirmed.” Wheeler’s clear implication is that the DNC or some other political organization or individual could be involved.

“I want to find out who caused that man’s death, so we can put them behind bars. But if there’s somebody in politics, somebody in government – whether it’s the mayor’s office or anywhere else in this city that’s involved, you better believe they’re gonna be dragged in and questioned.”

Wheeler claims something is being deliberately hidden. Local police and the FBI “haven’t been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on [Rich’s laptop] computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both… I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can’t share any information with you.’” Wheeler says.

“I don’t think it comes from the Chief’s [of police] office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the mayor’s office and the DNC, and that’s the information that’s gonna come out tomorrow [i.e. Tuesday],” Wheeler said yesterday. (For more from the author of “Deep State Cover-Up? DNC Staffer Seth Rich Spoke to WikiLeaks Prior to Murder; Police, Feds Told to Stand Down” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

This Latest Trump-Russia Leak Smells Like a Coup Attempt

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There is, indeed, a bombshell of a story coming out of the news that President Donald Trump revealed sensitive information during his White House meeting with Russian officials last week. But it’s not that President Trump committed any crime. The really alarming news is that the duly-elected President of the United States appears to be the target of a political coup.

First, let’s be clear: President Trump has been sloppy, arrogant, and just plain misguided plenty of times during his short tenure in office — including the way he handled the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the hiring and firing of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. And if he did unnecessarily compromise the source of the sensitive information he shared with the Russians, shame on him.

But a president cannot be removed from office for arrogance and sloppiness. The Constitution sets specific grounds for impeachment. They are “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” To be impeached and removed from office, the House and Senate must find that the official committed one of these acts.

Here’s what I think is the bigger scandal: Someone at the highest levels of government has leaked information to the news media about President Trump’s discussions with Russian officials. That’s potentially a serious crime. And, this wasn’t the first time. (Read more from “This Latest Trump-Russia Leak Smells Like a Coup Attempt” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.