These New Yorkers Prefer Martial Law to Trump

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In case you missed it, last week TV comedienne Rosie O’ Donnell called for President Obama to impose martial law and stop the inauguration of Donald Trump:

I FULLY SUPPORT IMPOSING MARTIAL LAW – DELAYING THE INAUGURATION – UNTIL TRUMP IS “CLEARED” OF ALL CHARGES https://t.co/fUn8FZ8RTj

— ROSIE (@Rosie) January 12, 2017

There are no charges pending against the President-Elect, so it is unclear what Ms. O’Donnell means. Perhaps she is referring to the unproven assertions that Russia was involved in leaking authentic, damaging emails from inside the Hillary Clinton campaign. In any case, the impact of those emails on the election themselves is unclear, and there is no Constitutional provision for preventing the inauguration of a president because of alleged foreign influence on public opinion — influence of the kind which the Obama administration apparently tried to exert in Israeli and Ukrainian elections. Meanwhile, Politico has reported that the government of Ukraine leaked documents damaging to the Trump campaign, in an attempt to aid the Clinton campaign.

On Fox News Jeanine Pirro responded to O’Donnell in stinging terms:

How many anti-Trump voters would rather see soldiers patrolling our streets to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, than allow Trump to take power on Friday?

New Yorkers Who Want a Military Coup

Anti-Sharia group the American Freedom Defense Initiative decided to find out. It sent a camera crew on to the streets of New York City, which went heavily for Hillary Clinton, to see what New Yorkers thought of O’Donnell’s proposal.

Let’s tally up the left’s post-election hissy fit:

Anti-democratic calls like O’Donnell’s for a military coup,

frenzied attempts by media elites to delegitimize our country’s political process with baseless reports that Russia “hacked the election,”

browbeating and threats aimed at getting entertainers to boycott the inauguration, including a death threat aimed at blind opera singer (and Trump family friend) Andrea Bocelli,

plans for an acid attack on the inauguration itself.

This was not an election the left was prepared to lose. After eight years of Obama’s executive arrogance, liberals have begun to take power for granted, to treat the presidency as a perk that naturally comes to those with “correct” opinions. The frenzied response of elites to their rejection by the voters vindicates all the more those of us who warned before the election how critical its outcome would be. It points up how foolish were those conservatives who preferred a Hillary victory.

Survey the crassness and recklessness that the left is displaying in defeat. Now imagine how haughty and aggressive it would have proven had it triumphed. (For more from the author of “These New Yorkers Prefer Martial Law to Trump” please click HERE)

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Pro-Life Student Group at Colorado State University Denied Grant for Event, Sues

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A pro-life student group at Colorado State University is suing the school after it allegedly denied funds for an event simply because of the slated speaker’s pro-life views.

Students for Life at CSU is being represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a non-profit law firm based in Arizona. The lawsuit was filed with a U.S. District Court Tuesday.

“A university is supposed to promote free speech,” Emily Faulkner, president of Students for Life at CSU, told CBS Denver Wednesday. She said she was “shocked” and “angered” upon receiving an email from the administration denying the Diversity Grant she requested.

According to CSU’s website, the Diversity Grant provides funding to official student organizations to help “establish a multicultural environment,” “celebrate diversity” and “raise awareness of differing perspectives.”

But when Faulkner requested a $600 grant last September to host pro-life speaker Josh Brahm of the Equal Rights Institute, she was denied.

The university explained in an email to Faulkner that Brahm did not “appear entirely unbiased” and that “folks from varying sides of the issue won’t necessarily feel affirmed in attending the event,” according to CBS Denver’s report and an ADF news release.

Students for Life at CSU raised the money on their own and held the event anyway, but Faulkner enlisted the help of ADF to sue the university.

In the lawsuit, Students for Life at CSU are asking the court to declare that CSU violated their constitutional rights, and that CSU pay the full $600 they were denied, as well as reimburse the mandatory fees they paid to join the organization. Those fees, paid by every official student organization, go toward funding the Diversity Grant program.

The lawsuit claims it is wrong for pro-life students in the group to be forced to help fund events they may disagree with, while being denied funding for events that express their own views.

“Universities should encourage all students to participate in the free exchange of ideas, not play favorites with some while shutting out others,” ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer said in a news release.

Other events listed on CSU’s calendar would seem to indicate some diversity, with a lecture on the intersection of Christian faith and science scheduled for January, and community drag show scheduled for April. According to the calendar, both events will be held in the Lory Center, the campus building where most Diversity Grant events take place.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, believes that “CSU played favorites while stifling free speech, a typical response of abortion advocates who prefer to silence opposition rather than have a free exchange of ideas.”

CSU’s grant denial is the latest among recent examples from around the world of pro-life censorship. In December, The Stream reported that a university in Scotland banned pro-life groups like from becoming official clubs.

Additionally in December, The Stream reported that the lower house of the French parliament passed a bill criminalizing French websites that “deliberately mislead, intimidate and/or exert psychological or moral pressure to discourage recourse to abortion.”

Most recently, the Women’s March on Washington, scheduled to take place this weekend, removed a pro-life feminist organization from its official list of partners, despite the march’s espoused celebration of “intersecting identities.” The Women’s March revoked the pro-life group’s partnership status just two days after granting it, responding to women who tweeted outrage at the idea of pro-life feminism. (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Student Group at Colorado State University Denied Grant for Event, Sues” please click HERE)

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Why CNN Contributor Marc Lamont Hill Was Wrong to Call Trump’s Diversity Council ‘Mediocre Negroes’

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What do NFL stars Jim Brown and Ray Lewis, Family Feud host Steve Harvey, rap great Kanye West, megachurch pastor Darrell Scott, Dr. Ben Carson, and Martin Luther King, III, have in common? They are all black. They have all met with (or worked with) President-elect Trump and spoken of their interaction positively. And they are apparently guilty of being “mediocre Negroes” in the eyes of CNN-contributor and Morehouse College professor Marc Lamont Hill.

Speaking about Trump’s new “diversity coalition,” Hill described them as “a bunch of mediocre Negroes being dragged in front of TV as a photo-op for Donald Trump’s exploitative campaign against black people.”

And speaking of Steve Harvey, who recently met with Trump and said he would be working with Dr. Carson to help the HUD, Hill opined, “My disagreement is the way in which [Steve Harvey is] being used by folk like Donald Trump. Again, his intention is just to have a seat at the table. But when you’re at the table, you should have experts at the table. You should have people who can challenge the president at the table.”

When Hill was castigated for this comment, he quickly claimed he wasn’t talking about Jim Brown, the NFL legend who stood side by side with Muhammad Ali for years, or of Steve Harvey, or even of Ben Caron, whom he described as a “mediocre choice for HUD” but an “extraordinary human.” Instead, he stated that he “referred to the Trump Diversity Council,” of which neither Brown nor Harvey were a part.

I will take Hill at his word, but it’s quite odd, to say the least, to mention Harvey in the very same interview in which he speaks of these “mediocre Negroes,” also stating that “because they keep bringing up comedians and actors and athletes to represent black interests [it’s] demeaning, it’s disrespectful, and it’s condescending. Bring some people up there with some expertise, Donald Trump, don’t just bring up people to entertain.”

So, these “comedians and actors and athletes” — which would certainly include Brown, Lewis, Harvey, and probably West — are not “mediocre Negroes,” simply because they didn’t appear in the photo-op for the president’s diversity council? Really? And he can use the same word, “mediocre,” when speaking of Carson as the presumptive head of HUD but he didn’t mean to say that Carson was a “mediocre Negro.” Seriously?

It’s Ugly & Racist

Either way, whomever he was speaking about, how is it not ugly and racist to call a fellow black person a Negro, let alone a mediocre Negro?

Can you imagine if a conservative white broadcaster like Sean Hannity — or even a conservative black commentator like Larry Elder — said something like that on Fox News? The moral indignation and the calls for that person’s head would be both non-stop and over the top. (Just think of what happened to sports commentator and baseball great Curt Schilling, himself a conservative, fired from ESPN after what was deemed an offensive Facebook meme about bathroom access for transgenders.)

But a black commentator on liberal CNN can use the derogatory term “Negro,” surely pointing back to an earlier period in our history when blacks quietly suffered indignation and segregation, and to date, to my knowledge the network has neither rebuked him nor distanced itself from his comment.

More insultingly, some of those who have been part of Trump’s National Diversity Coalition include Bruce Levell, a prominent Georgia Republican, Alveda King, Dr. King’s niece, Lynne Patton, vice president of the Eric Trump Foundation, Brunell Donald-Kyei, an attorney and former Democratic Lt. Gov. candidate for the state of Illinois, and Dr. N. Denise Mitchem, VP of Corporate Relations and Government Affairs, UST Global — all of them black. Are they part of Hill’s group of “mediocre Negroes”?

As for Hill’s accusation that all these people are being used as tools “for Donald Trump’s exploitative campaign against black people,” does that “exploitative campaign” include things like improving the quality of life in the inner-cities, providing more job opportunities for black Americans, undoing the destructive policies of the left, and appointing people like Carson to head up HUD?

“Blackness” Measured by Ideology

What I find most galling, though, is that, for quite a few years now, “blackness” is measured by one’s ideology rather than by the color of one’s skin (or even by a person’s life experience). Consequently, black friends of mine who are conservative are commonly told by their fellow-blacks that they are “not black enough” or “not black anymore,” as if they have not had the same life experiences or are not subject to the same racial profiling.

Black is now an ideology more than a skin color. (Similarly, “gay” not only describes a sexual orientation but an ideology, and conservative gays are seen as betraying their real identity.)

Not surprisingly, on his Prager U video “The Top 5 Issues Facing Black Americans,” Taleeb Starkes, himself black, listed as problem number 4 “Lack of Diversity,” decrying the virtual absence of “honest dialogue between blacks and blacks.”

Dare to differ with the party line, and you’re a traitor to the cause and a traitor to your people. You’re hardly even black anymore. You’re just a “mediocre Negro.”

In my book, it’s not much better for a black man to refer to a fellow black person as a “mediocre Negro” because of a difference in ideology than for a white man to refer to a black person as a n***** because he hates the color of his skin.

Are they not both blatant examples of racism? And are not Hill’s comments the latest example of divisive and destructive identity politics? If you read this, Mr. Hill, surely you can do better. Surely you can step higher, unless your agenda is to divide and destroy.

Is it? (For more from the author of “Why CNN Contributor Marc Lamont Hill Was Wrong to Call Trump’s Diversity Council ‘Mediocre Negroes'” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Choice for EPA Chief Wants to Partner with, Not Punish, States

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President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency explained how he would make cooperating with the states a priority of the department during a Wednesday hearing on Capitol Hill.

Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, stressed “cooperative federalism” would be his guiding philosophy in running the EPA, meaning he wants the often controversial agency to work with states.

“Cooperative federalism is at the heart of many of the environmental statutes that have been passed by this body,” Pruitt told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. “The reason for that is that it’s the states, many times, that have the resources, the expertise, and understanding what the unique challenges are for the environment in improving our water and our air.”

As his state’s attorney general, Pruitt led more than a dozen lawsuits against the EPA—which he defended as not being opposed to environmental regulations, but opposing legal overreach by the agency.

“We need a partnership, a true partnership, between the EPA performing its role, along with the states in performing theirs,” Pruitt said. “If we had that partnership as opposed to punishment, as opposed to uncertainty and duress that we currently see in the marketplace, I think we’ll have better air, better water quality as a result.”

Democrats on the Senate committee criticized Pruitt for suing to block certain EPA regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rule.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said his state has “bad air days” when people are informed to stay inside because of out-of-state smokestacks that pollute the air.

“Because those smokestacks are out of state we need EPA to protect us and I see nothing in your record that would give a mom taking her child to the hospital for an asthma attack any comfort that you would take the slightest interest in her,” Whitehouse said. “Your passion for devolving power down to states doesn’t help us because our state regulators can’t do anything about any of those problems. They all come from out-of-state sources.”

Pruitt said he wanted the EPA to adhere to its statutory authority from Congress.

I believe there are air quality issues and water quality issues that cross state lines that the jurisdiction of the EPA, its involvement in protecting our air quality and improving our nation’s waters is extremely important. The EPA has served a very valuable role historically. After all, it was Republicans who created the EPA under an executive order in the 1970s and this body has passed many pieces of legislation since the 1970s to focus on improving our air and improving our water quality.

In response to a question from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Pruitt asserted, “I do not believe that climate change is a hoax.”

Pruitt, in his opening remarks, said the debate about the degree of human impact on climate change is open for dialogue.

“We should encourage open and civil discourse. One such issue where discourse is absent involves climate change,” Pruitt said.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., accused Pruitt of only being worried about financial costs of regulations.

“I need you to care about human health and really believe that the cost when people are dying is far higher than it is to the cost of that polluter to clean up the air,” Gillibrand said.

However, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, talked about what a threat the EPA can be to American citizens.

“What I hear without fail at these town halls is that folks are frustrated with the EPA and the gotcha mentality that is stemmed from the agency,” Ernst said. “My constituents tell me that the EPA is out to get them rather than work with them. There is a huge lack of trust between my constituents and the EPA.”

Pruitt responded it does not have to be this way.

“This paradigm that we live within today that if you’re pro-energy, you’re anti-environment or if you’re pro-environment, you’re anti-energy is a false narrative,” Pruitt said. “We can do better than that. In fact, this country has shown for decades that we can grow our economy and be a good steward of our air, land, and water.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s Choice for EPA Chief Wants to Partner with, Not Punish, States” please click HERE)

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Amid Republican Criticism, Obama Defends Chelsea Manning Commutation

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President Barack Obama used his final press conference to defend his decision to commute the sentence of former Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning.

“Chelsea Manning has served a tough prison sentence, so the notion that the average person who was thinking about disclosing vital classified information would think that it goes unpunished—I don’t think [that person] would get that impression from the sentence that Chelsea Manning has served,” Obama said.

In 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking over 700,000 confidential military documents to WikiLeaks.

Republicans in Congress, however, are raising an outcry.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called the decision “outrageous” and said that Obama’s decision could set a pattern for future decisions.

“Chelsea Manning’s treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation’s most sensitive secrets,” Ryan said. “President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won’t be held accountable for their crimes.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in a statement Wednesday that Obama’s action of shortening Manning’s sentence is an “act of disrespect” to the military.

“Manning is a traitor who handed military and state secrets to WikiLeaks, putting our troops in danger,” Tillis said. “President Obama’s commutation of Manning’s sentence is the ultimate act of disrespect to our troops, our intelligence community, and our allies.”

Obama argued that Manning’s sentence was “very disproportional.”

“It has been my view that given she went to trial; that due process was carried out; that she took responsibility for her crime; that the sentence that she received was very disproportional—disproportionate relative to what other leakers had received; and that she had served a significant amount of time, that it made sense to commute and not pardon her sentence,” Obama said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that he is not surprised by Obama’s action on Manning.

“It is a sad, yet perhaps fitting commentary on President Obama’s failed national security policies that he would commute the sentence of an individual that endangered the lives of American troops, diplomats, and intelligence sources by leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive government documents to WikiLeaks, a virulently anti-American organization that was a tool of Russia’s recent interference in our elections,” the Arizona Republican said in a statement Tuesday.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also had harsh words for Obama’s decision.

“It is shameful that President Obama is siding with lawbreakers and the ACLU against the men and women who work every day to defend our nation and safeguard U.S. government secrets,” Rubio said. (For more from the author of “Amid Republican Criticism, Obama Defends Chelsea Manning Commutation” please click HERE)

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Pro-Life Women Explain Why They’re Still Going to the Women’s March

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On Saturday, the day after the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, thousands of women are expected to gather in the nation’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington. The march was founded on principles of diversity, dignity, and inclusion.

But over the course of the past few days, several pro-life groups have been ousted as partners due to their position on abortion. Despite this, pro-life women tell The Daily Signal they’ll still attend the historic march. Watch the video to hear why. (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Women Explain Why They’re Still Going to the Women’s March” please click 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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CIA Unveils New Rules for Collecting Information on Americans

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The Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday unveiled revised rules for collecting, analyzing and storing information on American citizens, updating the rules for the information age and publishing them in full for the first time.

The guidelines are designed “in a manner that protects the privacy and civil rights of the American people,” CIA General Counsel Caroline Krass told a briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The new rules were released amid continued public discomfort over the government’s surveillance powers, an issue that gained prominence following revelations in 2013 by former government contractor Edward Snowden that the National Security Agency (NSA) secretly collected the communications data of millions of ordinary Americans.

The guidelines were published two days before President elect-Donald Trump is sworn into office and may be changed by the new administration. Trump has said he favors stronger government surveillance powers, including the monitoring of “certain” mosques in the United States.

The CIA is largely barred from collecting information inside the United States or on U.S. citizens. But a 1980s presidential order provided for discrete exceptions governed by procedures approved by the CIA director and the attorney general. (Read more from “CIA Unveils New Rules for Collecting Information on Americans” HERE)

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Attacks Planned All over the Country during Trump’s Inauguration

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Earlier this week, Fox News reported a secret meeting of #DisruptJ20, a collection of anarchist groups planning to disrupt the inaugural. Trevor Loudon got into the meeting and recorded it for a while before being discovered and thrown out. The covert recording was a project of Matthew Vadum’s Capital Research Center to expose these leftists:

That story was an intro to a 20 minute video, “America Under Seige”, that CRC will release thursday, available free on YouTube. Here is the trailer to the video. It is part of CRC’s Dangerous Documentaries series.

Project Veritas also came out with covert videos of #DisruptJ20 planning meetings:

Part I. They talk about using butyric acid, which smells like vomit, in the ventilation shafts of buildings and setting off fire alarm sprinkler systems. These people should be arrested in advance for planning these terroristic activities.

Part II. They talk about “throat punching” which can be deadly, and shutting down the Metro. I think the idea is to hook a chain on the Metro train door when it opens and hook the other end to the train so the door can’t close.

Judicial Watch reports that there may be actual terrorist attacks along the border to disrupt the inaugural.

There has been an attack inside Mexico on the building site of a new U.S. Consulate near the border.

You should share all of this information with everyone you know. America spoke this election, but the Left refuses to get the message. They need to get it, loud and clear. In the meantime, we need to be ready for their attacks.

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Netanyahu Could Be Indicted, Removed from Office

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By David Rosenberg. Israeli lawmakers are taking seriously the possibility that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could be indicted in one of the investigations currently underway, a senior MK from the Shas party said.

With a new police investigation into claims the Prime Minister received gifts from media mogul Nuni Mozes joining allegations of possible conflicts of interest in the purchase of ballistic missile submarines from Germany and a series of other police inquiries targeting Netanyahu, political leaders are preparing for a potential resignation by Netanyahu, followed by new elections. (Read more from “Netanyahu Could Be Indicted, Removed from Office” HERE)

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MKs Castigate Netanyahu as New Details Emerge about Alleged Illegal Proposal to Publisher

By Arik Bender and Joy Bernard. Knesset memberss publicly slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday following the revelation of new details regarding the suspicious proposition the premier allegedly made in his secret meetings with media mogul and owner of Yedioth Aharonot, Arnon (Noni) Mozes.

MK Stav Shafir (Zionist Union) took to social media to express her criticism of the prime minister, posting on Facebook that “Netanyahu is holding on to his rule out of a passion for power and [because of] the perks the role brings with it, but not in order to use his power for the benefit of the country.”

In her post Shafir called Netanyahu “the first Israeli prime minister of the mafia” and added that “this is why he has decided to crash and run over all the mechanisms that might rein in his power or expose its injustices to the public.”

The criticism came not only from the direction of opposition members but also from ministers and Knesset members from Netanyahu’s party, the Likud. MK David Bitan, who is considered by many a close confidante of the prime minister and who is mockingly dubbed by the Israeli Left “Netanyahu’s puppet,” said in an interview to Channel 10 that “after the investigation ends, Netanyahu will have to give up his role as Communications Minister.” (Read more from “MKs Castigate Netanyahu as New Details Emerge about Alleged Illegal Proposal to Publisher” HERE)

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