Meryl Streep Slams Trump’s Deplorables: ‘Let Them Eat Wrestling’

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Last night at the Golden Globes in her speech denouncing Donald Trump and his voters, Meryl Streep reminded millions of Americans why we rejected Hillary Clinton, her party, and the media elites that tried to stuff Clinton down our throat. It’s also why Hollywood keeps making expensive politicized failures that choke at the box office, like the sordid anti-gun potboiler Miss Sloane.

We’ve suffered through eight long years of Obama’s preening, class-president speeches and empty, “virtuous” gestures. We have seen him and his designated successor fawned on by tame (debate-question-leaking) Ivy-schooled reporters and gorgeous, empty-headed celebrities. We know perfectly well that America’s media and political elites consider us the great unwashed, which is why they’ve been fire-hosing us for decades with toxic solvents like anti-male feminism, anti-Western multiculturalism, and anti-family hedonism.

And we’ve learned a thing or two. We’ve learned that pretty people who are talented at acting are pretty good at saying things which they know aren’t true — and doing so convincingly. After all, that’s their chosen craft. We’ve also learned how to recognize and dismantle the Elitist Lie 2.0.

That’s a whirring little time-bomb that lefties like to plant in every “narrative” they get their hands on, from Islamic terror attacks (they blame the truck, the bomb, or the gun — whose motives it is “too soon to determine”) to the kidnapping and torture of a handicapped Trump supporter (just kids being kids, where are their parents?).

Streep reached into her goodie bag and produced her own Elitist Lie 2.0, which she tossed out to America like a trinket we should treasure. This device has three active components:

1. A Phony Claim of Victimhood to Seize the Moral High Ground

In Streep’s speech she managed to cast as persecuted victims a roomful of fantastically overpaid actors, and the coddled film critics of Hollywood’s foreign press, who today are still picking through the goodie-bags they got from billion-dollar movie studios. She took up for these hapless victims as “the most vilified segments in American society right now…. Hollywood, foreigners, and the press.” From Streep’s account, you would think that cross-burning Klansmen were attacking movie theaters for showing films where interracial couples kiss, while Inquisitors burned piles of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker in public squares across America. What really happened? The Democrats lost an election. But that’s not supposed to happen.

Did Donald Trump threaten to end all immigration? No, he promised to enforce our democratically enacted laws that regulate the process. Did he campaign against “foreigners”? No, he warned of those criminal aliens who’ve evaded our laws, with the help of “sanctuary” cities and others who help aliens to flout the law. Has he threatened to infringe on the First Amendment, to silence the media which he considers biased? No, he has gone on Twitter to dispute things he disagrees with. Has Trump spoken of jailing those who criticize his position on immigration? Never — unlike Germany’s Angela Merkel, whose government has jailed those who oppose her influx of Islamists.

2. An Unearned Claim of Moral or Intellectual Superiority

Streep listed a number of actors from working class origins or foreign countries, and presented them as moral exemplars because of their “compassionate” performances which taught Americans how to “enter the lives of those who are different from us.”

Let’s try to unpack that. Apart from those who play themselves in cameos, every actor is paid to portray someone “different” from himself. And every movie we watch (apart from home movies) is about people “different” from us. That’s why it’s entertaining. All that Streep has done here is to describe what happens in drama — while trying to spin it as a form of heroic altruism. So the actors in 50 Shades of Grey were improving America’s moral tone by teaching millions of theater-goers about sexual activities that are “different” from what they’re used to — and those who made that movie should not just be highly paid, but considered part of a virtuous elite that is improving America’s ethics. Got it? We actors, by our very profession, are better than the rest of you helots.

Then she went on to peddle the false claim that President-Elect Trump mocked a reporter’s disability. That media myth is debunked in detail here. So Streep uses a false account of what a real politician said in his own defense while fighting for his political life in response to a reporter at America’s top newspaper, to cast Trump as a bully and moral monster, compared to those heroes of empathy (actors) who read the lines they’ve been given in the dozens of crass, trashy, manipulative movies that Hollywood dumps on the public every year.

3. An Implicit or Explicit Threat of Punishment

Standing atop the papier-mâché moral high ground which she claimed, Streep included a nasty, elitist little warning to the rest of America: “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if we kick ‘em all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.” Now, of course this is a jibe at the ignorant rubes which Streep imagines lowing and grazing in vast, lumbering herds between the Hudson River and Hollywood, staring slack-jawed at wrestling matches.

It’s also a threat: You common people need us, and if you keep voting the wrong way, we might just go on strike. We will turn up our noses at the million-dollar paychecks we collect for reading back the words that writers put there for us, and starve America of “the arts.” So watch your step, or we will walk. Seriously, that red carpet leads all the way to Canada. We mean it this time. …

These are people who voted, campaigned, and fund-raised for Hillary Clinton, confident that she could pack the Supreme Court with justices who would pluck every critical issue out of the grubby hands of voters. Meanwhile, our Meryl Streeps would offer cinematic carrots, and our Byerleys wield the stick, until every American learned to be worthy of his masters, or starved in rural obscurity.

Gotta love those Golden Globes! (For more from the author of “Meryl Streep Slams Trump’s Deplorables: ‘Let Them Eat Wrestling'” please click HERE)

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What We Ought to Talk About in 2017

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On the subject of language and speech, I offered an initial list (by no means comprehensive!) of some things I hope we stop saying in 2017 because these words and their meanings have been twisted and malformed so as to make madness seem normal and sanity seem cruel.

It’s good to start by naming the madness and refusing to speak the perverted language, but it’s only a place to start — not a place to live. We have to do more than opt-out of the insanity. We have to intentionally inject sanity into the culture again. We have to purposely re-infuse our society with truth again, and just as corrupting the language reaps destruction, restoring the truth of our words and recovering some lost wisdom will reap healing.

So here’s another list to get us started.

The Language of Virtue

Let’s begin speaking the language of virtue. The cardinal virtues of fortitude, temperance, prudence and justice, as well as the virtues of chastity, fidelity and courage.

1. Chastity is a word we must learn to speak without embarrassment or hesitation, since it is a virtue everyone is called to regardless of their state in life. Chastity is lived differently for a single person than a married person, but the virtue is the same. It is the “integrity of the powers of life and love” in the person, and involves an “apprenticeship of self-mastery which is a training in human freedom.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2338 and 2339)

Simply put, chastity is happiness. Have a look out there — people, relationships, and families are more broken and miserable than ever. That’s because the person dominated by passions is neither free nor happy. Everything most people do nowadays is centered on their feelings, so people are constantly tossed about on the wind of emotions and changing desires. “The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy.” (CCC 2339)

The culture out there is not making people happy. That’s our cue to talk about the means of being happy. Along with chastity, let’s talk about the virtues of fidelity and temperance.

2. Fidelity? What’s that? For the hook-up generation, everything is permanently temporary. When I was a child, only a few kids in my class had divorced parents. Today, it’s exactly the reverse. So few children have an intact home with both their parents. Fidelity must make a strong comeback.

The younger generations need to know that people can keep their vows; people can say no to promiscuous sex; men and women can respect one another and not use one another for animalistic gratification. People can learn to love and be faithful — yes, even til death.

3. Temperance is that virtue that helps us moderate even good and pleasurable things, keeping balance in our lives, being directed by our will and not our instincts or desires. (CCC 1809) It’s learning a measure of self-denial for a higher good. It’s one cookie rather than five. It is discretion and restraint. It’s a healthy level of detachment from “stuff.” It sets us free to love God and love other people.

4. When’s the last time you heard someone extol the virtue of prudence? (Never mind the SNL skits of President Bush the elder.) Let’s dig up this pearl and keep it in our pockets once again. Prudence is “right reason in action” says St. Thomas Aquinas. Prudence helps us discern the true good and choose what is right. (CCC 1806) In this dangerously confused age, we need men and women of virtue who will think and act with prudence.

5. Justice is a virtue most people today will eagerly get behind, even though they likely misunderstand it and apply it unevenly and, ironically, unjustly. The “social justice warriors” are a new class of citizen-activists who are determined to enforce behavioral standards that satisfy their vision of justice, no matter how unjust those standards actually are.

True justice, first of all, requires giving God what God is due. Justice is then found in “habitual right thinking” and uprightness of conduct toward our neighbor. (CCC 1807) Justice promotes the true common good. (How can we determine the true common good? Ask prudence, temperance, chastity, and fidelity.)

Justice demands that we recognize the humanity of the child in the womb and protect the child from being killed. Justice requires that we provide for our children what we are obligated to give them, and not deprive them for the sake of our own wants and preferences. Justice insists that we protect the elderly, the disabled, the sick, the poor, the marginalized, those whom we are tempted to consider “less than.”

6. Fortitude is the virtue that strengthens us to choose what is right when it seems easier to compromise. It’s the inner steel that bolsters our resolve, and pushes us on “in the pursuit of good.” Along with courage, it enables us to “conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions.” (CCC 1808) Fortitude turns sinners into saints.

When our neighbors talk about the necessity of contraception, we should be talking about the freedom of chastity. When they talk about the “rights” of women and “reproductive justice,” we must answer them with true justice and defend the child in the womb.

When excess and self-indulgence is celebrated, we need to encourage temperance. When the prevailing opinion says we must go along with madness, we must call on prudence instead, and have courage!

When they say, “I won’t impose my personal beliefs on others…” we need to instruct them in fortitude. When they announce their impending divorce, someone must be brave enough to counsel them to choose fidelity instead.

Obviously, just talking about virtue isn’t going to get the job done. We have to walk this talk. We will not get very far without the grace of God. It is divine grace that gives us mere mortals the power to live a virtuous life. God will help us begin, and begin again, and again, for as long as we ask.

So let’s begin! People want to be free. They want to be happy. Let’s show them the truth — real happiness will never be found apart from virtue. (For more from the author of “What We Ought to Talk About in 2017” please click HERE)

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The Senate’s Role in Confirming Trump’s Cabinet, Explained

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Donald Trump won’t be inaugurated as president until Jan. 20, but his Cabinet choices begin to face confirmation hearings in the Senate this week.

First up for a committee hearing Tuesday is Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Trump’s choice for attorney general.

Those scheduled to follow in rapid succession include retired Marine Gen. John Kelly for secretary of homeland security, philanthropist Betsy DeVos for secretary of education, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to head the Transportation Department, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis for defense secretary, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson for secretary of housing and urban development, and businessman-investor Wilbur Ross for commerce secretary.

The process for Senate confirmation of top presidential appointees is outlined briefly in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which guides lawmakers’ examination and approval or rejection of a president’s nominees.

This section of the Constitution famously requires that a president obtain “the Advice and Consent of the Senate” in making top government appointments. U.S. law and Senate rules also apply to the process.

Here are some general questions and answers about the process, based largely on multiple detailed reports (especially in 2012 and 2015) by the Congressional Research Service, which provides exclusive policy and legal analysis to Congress.

Who begins the confirmation process?

The president—or in this case, the president-elect—chooses individuals to fill Cabinet positions and other top posts in the executive branch.

Besides the vice president, an elected official who requires no confirmation, the White House identifies Cabinet members as the attorney general, who heads the Justice Department, and the heads of 14 other executive departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs.

The heads of other agencies also enjoy Cabinet rank and must be confirmed by the Senate along with hundreds of other top executive branch officials (detailed here). They include the ambassador to the United Nations and the U.S. trade representative, as well as the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget, the Council of Economic Advisers, and the Small Business Administration.

Members of the House and Senate may suggest possible candidates for the president or president-elect’s consideration, but such recommendations generally have no official weight.

Who screens candidates for these top positions?

In preliminary screening of potential nominees, a sitting president benefits from White House offices such as Presidential Personnel and Counsel to the President.

However, an executive branch agency, the Office of Government Ethics, offers an array of services and publications to assist a presidential transition team such as Trump’s—as well as individual nominees.

The FBI and the Internal Revenue Service also review a potential or formal candidate’s personal, political, and financial backgrounds.

The FBI typically does a background investigation and submits a report. The Office of Government Ethics, along with an ethics official from the relevant agency, reviews financial disclosures. If they find conflicts of interest, they may work with the candidate to “mitigate” the conflicts.

What happens in the Senate?

The Senate’s executive clerk refers the president or president-elect’s formal choice to the appropriate committee (sometimes committees) overseeing the executive branch department in question, such as State or Defense.

In the Congressional Research Service’s 2012 report, author Maeve Carey characterizes this as a crucial step:

The decision by a committee to report a nomination is critical: To be considered on the Senate floor, the nomination must have been reported from the committee of jurisdiction or all senators must agree to its consideration.

Committee members and staff review the various forms sent along with the candidate’s name and gather more in-depth information as they choose.

Opponents and supporters of the nominee often submit letters summarizing their views to the committee. The committee chairman schedules a hearing, during which each member of the panel may ask questions or make points.

For a committee to vote on reporting the nominee to the full Senate for a confirmation vote, a majority of members must be “physically present.”

A committee may decline to act on a nomination at several points—after receiving it, after investigating the nominee, or after holding one or more hearings.

The committee has three options in voting to send a nomination to the full Senate: Report it favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation.

Once a nominee clears a committee, with or without a recommendation, the Senate majority leader may schedule a confirmation vote on the chamber’s executive calendar.

If a committee declines to report a nomination, it is still possible in certain cases for the Senate to bring the nomination to the floor for a vote.

How many votes does it take to confirm?

“Most presidential appointees are confirmed routinely by the Senate, without public debate,” Carey and Henry Hogue write in the 2015 report from the Congressional Research Service, adding:

Other appointees receive more attention from Congress and the media through hearings, investigations, and floor debate. Historically, the Senate has shown particular interest in the nominee’s views and how they are likely to affect public policy.

Opposition from one or more senators may prevent a floor vote on a nomination that has come out of committee, because the rules require “unanimous consent” to consider and confirm a nomination.

If a nominee faces substantial opposition, the Senate majority leader may wish to end debate through a procedure called cloture. Under it, a simple majority of senators voting—normally 51—is able to limit debate to 30 hours and advance the nominee to a floor vote.

After the Nov. 8 elections, when they lost two seats, Republicans now have 52 seats in the Senate to the Democrats’ 46 (two Independents caucus with the Democrats).

It used to require 60 votes, not 51, to proceed to a floor vote until Senate Democrats changed the rules in 2013, except in cases of nominations to the Supreme Court.

A simple majority vote also is required to confirm, or approve, the nomination.

The confirmation process is fluid and open to adjustments, the Congressional Research Service notes. For a change to be adopted, however, a senator must propose it and the chamber must unanimously agree. (For more from the author of “The Senate’s Role in Confirming Trump’s Cabinet, Explained” please click HERE)

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Despite Controversies, Holder Had Easier Road to Confirmation Than Sessions

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President Barack Obama’s first attorney general pick skated through Senate confirmation hearings, but top Democrats have indicated that President-elect Donald Trump’s selection may have a tougher time getting through.

Ahead of the confirmation hearing Tuesday for Trump’s attorney general designee, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, brought up issues that prevented Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., from becoming a federal judge three decades ago.

“Now that he is nominated to be attorney general, we will see if the same person is still too extreme for Republicans,” Leahy said in a Boston Globe op-ed Sunday, later adding, “Sen. Sessions has repeatedly stood in the way of efforts to promote and protect Americans’ civil rights.”

It’s a departure from what Leahy said of Sessions in 2009, when both men voted to confirm Obama’s controversial nominee, Eric Holder, to be attorney general.

“Sen. Sessions is also a former U.S. attorney and knows what one goes through in that regard, and we’ve relied on him for that experience,” Leahy said to his colleague during the Holder confirmation hearing in January 2009, according to the Washington Examiner.

In June 2010, Leahy called Sessions “wonderful to work with,” the Examiner reported.

The Sessions confirmation hearing could shape up differently from the Holder hearing of eight years earlier. Despite a controversial legal career in the public and private sector, Holder had a smooth ride to office, gaining the support of most Republicans.

By contrast, the confirmation process for Sessions has been rocky even before the first day of hearings.

Much Democratic opposition to Sessions is based on his conservative record in the Senate. However, it also extends to comments or jokes regarding race Sessions allegedly made while serving as a U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Alabama in the early 1980s, even as he was known for helping to prosecute multiple civil rights cases. These were the allegations that sunk his 1986 nomination to be a federal judge.

Two former Justice Department lawyers, one who continues to be a Sessions critic today, recanted a 1986 allegation used to stop the judicial nomination.

Witnesses opposing Sessions are scheduled to include David Cole, the legal director of American Civil Liberties Union; NAACP President Cornell Brooks; and Amita Swadhin, founder of the Los Angeles-based Mirror Memoirs, an LGBT group.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said that Sessions is one of the eight nominees that Democrats will seek to delay confirmation votes on into March. The Senate confirmed Holder in early February 2009.

In all likelihood, the Senate will confirm Sessions as attorney general given the Republican Senate majority. He’s also known for having strong relationships with Senate Democratic colleagues, and will get at least some crossover support. But it appears he is not as likely as Holder to gain overwhelmingly bipartisan support.

After his election, Obama announced he would nominate Holder to run the Justice Department. Holder was a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration under Attorney General Janet Reno. Republicans and conservative groups highlighted Holder’s record in the No. 2 spot.

Holder played a role in President Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, which the outgoing president granted on his final day in office. Before becoming a Democrat later that year, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania raised issues about Holder’s role in the controversial 1993 federal siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.

Republicans also raised questions about Holder’s role in Clinton granting clemency to 16 members of a Puerto Rican militant nationalist group in 1999. Specter further criticized Holder for ignoring the advice of career Justice Department prosecutors to appoint an independent counsel in 1997 to investigate alleged Democratic violations of campaign finance laws.

Issues also surfaced about Holder’s time in private practice at the prestigious Washington law firm of Covington & Burling, which represented terrorism suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. Holder has said the government should close Guantanamo.

Holder also vocally opposed the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation tactics, such as waterboarding.

While at the firm, Holder wrote a brief in favor of the District of Columbia, arguing that granting the individual right to bear arms, “opens the door to more people having more access to guns, and putting guns on the streets.”

Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court held in the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller that the Constitution guarantees the individual right to own a firearm.

Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2009, asserted the Holder nomination should move quickly. Leahy said on Jan. 15, 2009:

I would hope that we would have a prompt confirmation so he can restore morale and purpose throughout the Justice Department, it is important that the Justice Department have its senior leadership in place without delay. The attorney general is the top law enforcement officer in the country; he is a key member of the national security team.

The Senate largely heeded Leahy’s advice. The Judiciary Committee voted 17-2 on Jan. 28 to confirm Holder. Only Republicans Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and then-Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma voted “no.” The full Senate confirmed Holder with a bipartisan 75-21 on Feb. 2, with Sessions and Specter voting for him both times. (For more from the author of “Despite Controversies, Holder Had Easier Road to Confirmation Than Sessions” please click HERE)

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Kentucky’s Right-To-Work Earthquake Reverberates Across State Lines

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Kentucky’s Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, has now officially signed right-to-work legislation–along with other jobs legislation–into law.

Yet the impact of Kentucky’s right-to-work legislation could move beyond the state’s borders.

Right-to-work laws prohibit employers from entering into agreements that make union membership and the payment of union dues a condition of employment.

Additionally, Bevin signed the Paycheck Protection Act, which calls on workers to “opt in” if they want union dues withheld from their paychecks instead of requiring workers to “opt out” if they don’t want their union dues withheld.

The other big-ticket item eliminates the “prevailing wage” employers must now pay on work funded with public money. This involves construction work on schools and government buildings.

These laws could have a significant impact on the national debate over worker freedom. Kentucky is poised to become the 27th right-to-work state.

A Republican Wave

“Promises made, Promises kept.”

That’s how Kentucky state Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, describes the successful push for right-to-work legislation that went down during Saturday’s special session of his state’s General Assembly.

Nemes was elected in November along with a Republican wave that delivered the Kentucky House of Representatives to his party for the first time since 1921.

“I’m calling it promises made, promises kept because we ran on worker freedom, we ran on right-to-work, and we ran on paycheck protection and on repealing the prevailing wage law. We delivered in just the first week of the new General Assembly,” Nemes told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

“These votes for right-to-work were about economic development and about making our state more competitive,” Nemes said. “But it isn’t just about economic development. Right-to-work is also about liberty and freedom of association. Someone shouldn’t be forced to join an organization just to put food on the table.”

Kentucky labor unions, which held loud and boisterous protests in and around the statehouse in Frankfort, Kentucky, throughout the week and into Saturday, remain ardently opposed to the legislation the governor is set to sign into law.

UAW Local 2164, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227, and the Kentucky State AFL-CIO are among the unions that expressed strong opposition to the right-to-work bill and other labor-related bills that passed Saturday.

“They don’t want to work for the working man and it’s sad but true but they want to fight unions every way they can fight us,” Monica Williams, president of UAW Local 2164, told The Daily Signal. “Unions are good for all people, not just for unions.”

That’s unfortunate, Williams added, because unions deliver social and economic benefits that Republican critics overlook.

From Local to National Debate

What happened in Kentucky is not necessarily going to stay in Kentucky. That’s because the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers districts in Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee, and Ohio, issued a ruling in November that upheld the right of localities to pass right-to-work ordinances in the absence of state-level legislation.

The action began in Warren County, Kentucky, in the fall of 2014 with 11 other counties following suit.

The Kentucky counties argued that because the federal government has already authorized states to pass right-to-work laws, it follows that the counties are also permitted to pass right to work since they are creations of the state. Therefore, the counties argued, local right-to-work ordinances are permissible unless a state legislative body explicitly forbids them.

Jim Waters, president of the Bluegrass Institute, a libertarian, free-market think tank in Kentucky, said in a phone interview with The Daily Signal that Warren County’s decision to press ahead with its own ordinance certainly had an impact on what happened statewide.

“What this means is that we will no longer watch jobs and opportunities fly over or go around our state,” he said.

Waters pointed out that Kentucky’s largest border is with Tennessee, which is a right-to-work state, and four of Kentucky’s seven neighboring states are right to work: Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

“$1 billion in capital investment has gone into Warren County since it passed right to work in December 2014. Yes, that’s B as in billion,” Waters said. “These are not prospects; these are commitments. When legislators in other parts of the state saw what was happening in Warren County, they certainly took notice. I’m not saying it was the factor in determining what happened statewide, but it was certainly a factor.”

Waters also said that there are 55,000 new job openings in a 50-mile radius of where Warren County passed its right-to-work ordinance.

“That’s not a coincidence,” he said.

“I do believe our county government initiative advanced the Kentucky legislative effort, as it created a public awareness, and helped to educate citizens about right to work throughout the state,” Mike Buchanon, the Warren County judge-executive, said in an email. “The entire state was amazed at the remarkable increase in new prospects that contacted Warren County immediately after we passed right to work.”

Buchanon added:

Kentucky is a great place for business. But the fact that we were the only state in the southeast U.S. that was not right to work kept us from being considered for a site for new locations by growing industries. Site selectors have told us that as many as 75 percent of their clients instructed them to eliminate any state that wasn’t right to work. That left Kentucky off the list of consideration, right from the beginning.

But now that right to work has passed, Buchanon said, the state Legislature can “post a sign over the commonwealth’s front door” that says “Kentucky is open for business.”

Kentucky’s Example Could Inspire Localities to Act

Kentucky’s local clashes over right-to-work laws may now have an impact beyond even the state level.

The drive for local right-to-work laws experienced a temporary setback in February when a federal district court ruled against a right-to-work ordinance in Hardin County, Kentucky. But the 6th Circuit ruling reversed that lower court ruling.

Nemes, the Kentucky state representative, sees the 6th Circuit ruling giving impetus to localities outside of Kentucky.

“One difficulty we had with the local ordinances is that it was a novel approach and people were cautious because they knew the unions were going to sue,” he said. “But the 6th Circuit ruling in very powerful language upholding these local ordinances, will give courage to other localities to pass their own right-to-work ordinances.”

Before being elected to the Kentucky House, Nemes served as an attorney coordinating the legal defense for the counties passing their own ordinances. He anticipates that Ohio counties will now be motivated to take up right to work. With the exception of Pennsylvania, Ohio is now surrounded by right-to-work states following the passage of the law in Kentucky.

James Sherk, a labor policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, sees a potential for legal disputes over local right to work to move up to the U.S. Supreme Court, depending on how the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rules in a case out of Lincolnshire, Illinois, where a federal district judge ruled against a local right-to-work ordinance.

“If all the federal appeals courts rule the same way, the U.S. Supreme Court typically does not step in,” Sherk said. “But if the 7th Circuit were to rule against the local right to work, then you would have a conflict between the two circuits and typically the Supreme Court steps in to create consistency in the law when you have two circuits reading it differently. The litigation out of Illinois could go up to the Supreme Court potentially.”

Spreading to Other States

Now that Bevin has put his signature to the Kentucky bills, the primary legislative battleground over right-to-work laws will have already shifted over to Missouri, where that state’s House of Representatives is set to hold hearings Tuesday on its own legislation. The Missouri Senate is expected to follow up with hearings on its own version of the right-to-work bill later this week.

Eric Greitens, Missouri’s newly-elected Republican governor, campaigned for right-to-work laws and it is widely expected that he will sign off on any new legislation that reaches his desk. Missouri fell just short of passing right to work in September 2015 when Republican lawmakers could not produce enough support to override then-Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and Matt Patterson, executive director of the Center for Worker Freedom, have come out in support of a Missouri right-to-work law. The Center for Worker Freedom is a special project of Americans for Tax Reform, a nonprofit taxpayer advocacy group based in the District of Columbia.

Norquist and Patterson signed a letter last week addressed to the Missouri General Assembly urging lawmakers to vote in favor of “right to work.”

“The towns and communities in Ohio that border right-to-work states are going to start feeling the pressure just as they did in Kentucky,” Patterson, the Center for Worker Freedom executive director, told The Daily Signal. “We are also going to see Missouri start to move very quickly on right to work with the hearings that come this week.”

Norquist and Patterson highlight key statistics in their letter as they make the case for ending forced unionization. They wrote:

Right-to-work states have seen an average of 68 percent greater job growth than the average of forced-unionization states, according to government labor statistics. In 2012, Indiana has seen its unemployment cut nearly in half since it passed its right-to-work law in 2012, from 9.1 percent in 2011 to 5.4 percent today. Currently, six of the eight states bordering Missouri are right to work, putting the Show Me State at a tremendous disadvantage. In order to boost its competitiveness and give Missouri businesses every advantage to grow and create jobs, lawmakers must do their part and allow them this valuable tool.

Sherk said he expects to see Missouri become right to work in another few weeks. He also said the 6th Circuit ruling makes Ohio a clear candidate for local right-to-work laws since several of those localities will now be bordering right-to-work states.

The example of Warren County, Kentucky, will not be lost in Ohio, he said. Within a few weeks of passing its ordinance, Warren County had 47 different development projects come its way, Sherk said.

“Warren County didn’t know it was missing out on these opportunities until it passed right to work,” Sherk said. “They didn’t know how many doors were being closed. A lot of Ohio townships and cities will look at this and will want to be part of it.”

If local ordinances do take root in Ohio, which is a strong possibility, Sherk expects that other localities will start to pass ordinances in those areas of the country where a statewide option is out of reach for the moment.

Since Maine has a “long and strong tradition of powers given to localities,” it’s possible that it might also act, Sherk said.

Looking ahead to 2018, he anticipates that Minnesota and Pennsylvania could consider new legislation if right-to-work candidates win the governor’s races in those states. Sherk also sees a potential for New Hampshire and Montana in the not-too-distant future.

But even if Republicans take governor’s seats in key states where the GOP is gaining ground, right to work will remain a tough fight, Sherk warned.

“In Pennsylvania, the Legislature is more conservative than it was but the caveat there is that the left has taken control of the [state] Supreme Court,” he said. “So, you could see some judicial high-jinx.” (For more from the author of “Kentucky’s Right-To-Work Earthquake Reverberates Across State Lines” please click HERE)

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How Trump Can Make Intellectual Property Great Again

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On the path to making America great again, President-elect Donald Trump will have a tremendous opportunity to reverse the steady slide away from a property rights-oriented American patent system.

There are good reasons to believe a Trump administration will readily grasp this critical problem and work to revitalize the American patent regime.

First, someone like Trump who has succeeded so well on the world’s biggest stages in real estate development will readily understand the fundamental need for sound, secure, enforceable property rights. After all, you face huge risks and problems developing real estate if you haven’t first secured the rights to that property.

The same holds true for developing and commercializing an invention if you don’t first gain the rights to its intellectual property. It would be foolish to start down the path of commercializing a new wireless telecommunications technology, a cutting-edge implantable medical device, or a new biopharmaceutical therapy without first securing the proper patent rights.

It is vital to secure the freedom of innovators to operate by securing for them the relevant patents, or by licensing that intellectual property from the patent owner. Otherwise, innovators will be vulnerable to intellectual property infringement, which is akin to trespassing on or even stealing someone else’s real property.

Second, the restoration of strong, secure patent rights fits in with the Trump-Pence vision for making America great again: tax reform, regulatory reform, reinvigorating U.S. manufacturing, and rebuilding our military might.

While making corporations like Carrier and Ford Motor Co. curb their outsourcing strategies may do some good, it isn’t sufficient.

Revitalizing our system of patent property rights will incentivize massive private investment into the discovery, research, and development stages of innovation. These risky stages may take years to lead to commercialization, but they are essential for clearing the way for new inventions.

Only confidence in an enforceable right to your own inventions translates into the kinds of research and development that result in new manufacturing plants, good-paying jobs, and continued innovation.

Likewise, to strengthen national security, we must ensure that we create and produce in America the components and parts to our military and national security material and sensitive equipment.

Allowing China and other foreign countries the easy opportunity to steal American intellectual property or to install malware into computers that run our energy grids or warplanes, for instance, creates tremendous national security and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Trump gets this.

Similarly, the Trump administration could stand up for U.S. intellectual property rights abroad by threatening real consequences when foreign governments deny U.S. businesses due process, use questionable antitrust claims to devalue or to appropriate their intellectual property, or otherwise advantage their own domestic companies and harm American firms.

Third, Donald Trump Jr. has experienced the anti-intellectual property behavior of the anti-patent side. MacroSolve, a mobile technology firm that the president-elect’s son was involved with, found its patents being infringed by incumbent companies.

When the small company tried to defend its patents, the big companies invoked the “patent troll” smear and kept right on infringing—economically benefiting from the unauthorized use of the stolen technology in the marketplace while refusing to pay to license MacroSolve’s patents.

The younger Trump explained the problem in a 2012 op-ed in The Daily Caller:

Not every company that brings suit for software patent infringement is an exploiter. Some are genuine tech innovators with a real historical and financial investment in their ideas. To conflate these two situations, as many opponents of software patent litigation do routinely, unfairly maligns companies that deserve to reap the fruits of their labor.

The same can be said for legitimate inventors in garages, university labs, and corporate research and development people who are inventing the next immunotherapy, semiconductor, advanced material, or robotic device. Just as Trump Jr. learned, all these creators deserve the exclusive right to their inventions.

Fourth, when it comes to presidential administrations, personnel is policy—and several Trump picks bode well for restoring patent rights.

Certainly, Vice President-elect Mike Pence grasps the economic importance of Indiana’s inventive life sciences sector and other manufacturing. He values Indiana’s academic assets of invention and tech transfer such as Purdue University. Explaining the importance of the Bayh-Dole Act and the Hatch-Waxman Act—two landmark patent laws from recent decades—should resonate with Pence.

Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary nominee, considers intellectual property an asset on which a business or entrepreneur can raise capital. He also backs strong enforcement of intellectual property rights, and he understands the close link between manufacturing and invention.

Intellectual property expert Peter Harter recently catalogued Ross’ pro-intellectual property record in IPWatchdog, citing Ross’ “zero tolerance for [intellectual property] theft.”

Josh Wright, a former commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission, currently heads the Trump transition’s antitrust efforts.

Unlike antitrust leadership in the Obama administration, Wright has opposed using antitrust laws to devalue patents out of fear of an unproven theory known as patent holdup, which says the patent system threatens the rate of innovation in the U.S. economy. This theory lacks empirical evidence, and it should not hold sway in the Trump administration.

Thus, the incoming administration could well integrate strong patent rights for inventors—individual, corporate, and academic alike—into its overarching economic strategy. Returning our intellectual property regime and patent property rights to their roots would take us far toward making America great again. (For more from the author of “How Trump Can Make Intellectual Property Great Again” please click HERE)

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Ft. Lauderdale Shooter Another ‘Known Wolf’ Let Go by FBI

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It is uncertain the motive or mental state of the man who walked off a plane in the Fort Lauderdale airport, loaded a gun, and murdered five people. What we do know is that he basically turned himself in to the FBI and once again the Bureau did nothing when confronted with the possibility that he had been influenced by radical Islam. This continues a disturbing trend of law enforcement knowing that specific violent jihadis, or known wolves, exist — and not doing anything to prevent attacks.

From Omar Mateen, the jihadi who shot up a gay nightclub, to the jihadi who set off a bomb in Manhattan, to seemingly countless others, the FBI has known about specific terrorists before they carried out attacks. The FBI has time and time again caught and released these jihadis, and yet again that appears to be the case.

It is uncertain if Esteban Santiago, the man in custody for the horrific attack, is a true believer in a radical Islamic ideology, or a severely mentally unstable person who carried out jihad because of the voices in his head. What is undeniable is that he walked into a FBI office in Alaska and told them “voices” were making him do things.

He told officials he was hearing voices in his head, some of which were telling him to join ISIS and watch their videos, and was taken to hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Santiago, who also told the FBI the government controlled his mind, gunned down 13 people at Fort Lauderdale airport today, killing five and injuring eight.

After the evaluation, and after agreeing to seek help for his mental issues, Santiago was freed. It looks as though there was very little monitoring of him afterwards. There also appears to have been no follow up or monitoring of Santiago, nor an attempt to use existing laws and due process to suspend his right to carry a gun, something that is permissible under current law.

Again, it is very much unsure at this stage if Santiago is an actual convert to radical Islam. But he did flash what is known as, for lack of a better term, the ISIS gang sign in a social media photo.

If, in fact, if it turns out that Santiago is mentally unstable and not a true jihadi, that brings another government agency into focus: the VA. It is well known that the VA health system has been letting down our nation’s veterans at an alarming rate, especially the mental well-being of those veterans. It has been reported that Santiago recently spent a tour of duty in Iraq. His family said that he was not the same since coming back.

The suspect’s aunt Maria Ruiz Rivera claimed the alleged shooter “lost his mind” while fighting in Iraq.

When quizzed why Santiago may have opened fire at passengers, her husband, Hernan Rivera, said: “No idea. Only thing I could tell you was when he came out of Iraq, he wasn’t feeling too good.”

No matter if Santiago was a true believing jihadi, radicalized while in Iraq, or a veteran who did not get the health care he deserved from the VA, it is beyond doubt that our government dropped the ball once again. President-elect Trump has promised to revamp both law enforcement’s stance toward jihad and the VA. The attack in Fort Lauderdale proves that new focus cannot come fast enough. (For more from the author of “Ft. Lauderdale Shooter Another ‘Known Wolf’ Let Go by FBI” please click HERE)

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America’s CIA, FBI and NSA Continue to Lose Credibility, Issue Politicized Second Russian Hacking Report

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The report “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” released on January 6th by the Director of National Intelligence could be classified as “spam,” an irrelevant message sent over the Internet to large numbers of users for the purposes of advertising.

Out of the twenty-five pages, there is what some may describe as “news”, if you believe in assessments rather than evidence, of which none is provided:

(1) The heads of Obama’s three intelligence-gathering agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA) assess that, “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump” (disclaimer – I had a clear preference for Trump too);

(2) the three agencies “did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election,” but none of the Russian activities were “involved in vote tallying”;

(3) Obama’s political appointees “assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks,” although any link between Russian intelligence and Wikileaks was not identified;

(4) “Disclosures [from the Democratic National Committee and senior Democrat officials] through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries,” that is, the Democrats really said/did those things.

The bulk of the report, however, simply provides information about US intelligence analysis techniques, scope and sourcing, previously published material and describes:

“longstanding Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations-such as cyber activity-with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or ‘trolls,'” especially the role of RT (formerly Russia Today), the “Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”

None of that is exactly “news” as the report itself admits:

“During the Cold War, the Soviet Union used intelligence officers, influence agents, forgeries, and press placements to disparage candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin, according to a former KGB archivist.”

What is interesting is an article by another “Russia’s state-run propaganda” outlet, Sputnik News, which said that Annex A of the US intelligence report claims that “Kremlin’s TV Seeks To Influence Politics, Fuel Discontent in US,” but buried at the bottom of that page is a note stating, “This annex was originally published on 11 December 2012 by the Open Source Center, now the Open Source Enterprise.”

That is, the information cited in the US intelligence report “to provide evidence of RT influencing the American public [in 2016] was compiled in December 2012.”

According to Sputnik News, “The report focuses on television shows and interviews that took place four years before Trump was elected, and well before he was even a politician” and that two RT shows, Breaking the Set and Truthseeker, mentioned in the US intelligence report, were off air before the 2016 election season began.

I would not be terribly shocked to learn that Russian intelligence hacked Democratic Nation Committee computers and John Podesta’s personal email account on Putin’s orders and provided information from those activities to WikiLeaks and DCLeaks.

Neither the first nor the second intelligence report, however, provide direct evidence to support that accusation, but the report authors rely on Americans’ natural inclination to believe it.

The lack of evidence, the timing of the revelations as well as the delayed punitive measures taken against Russia, generate skepticism.

Public reports of alleged Russian hacking surfaced in October 2016 and it was probably known to the US intelligence community much earlier, as their report implies.

Why weren’t Russians expelled, sanctions applied and reports produced prior to the election?

One wonders if any of what has occurred after the election, would have, if Hillary Clinton had won on November 8th.

So, what is the point of the ex post facto intelligence revelations and the diplomatic punishment of Russia other than a result of Obama’s failed Russian foreign policy, his personal animosity towards Putin, a ruse to discredit the election of Donald Trump and a means to hamper the incoming administration?

Perhaps, the Obama Administration can issue a report on that. (For more from the author of “America’s CIA, FBI and NSA Continue to Lose Credibility, Issue Politicized Second Russian Hacking Report” please click HERE)

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Hollywood Celeb Donates ‘MasterChef’ Winnings to Terror Supporting Org

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On the surface, it appeared as if Kal Penn committed a noble deed.

This week, Penn won the “MasterChef Celebrity Countdown” contest in a Fox TV special, securing a $25,000 donation for a charity of his choice. The Hollywood celebrity decided to give the cash to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Penn, best known for playing Kumar in the “Harold & Kumar” stoner movie comedies, previously served in President Obama’s White House Office of Public Engagement. A committed leftist like the rest of Hollywood, Penn often articulates his political views on social media.

Though UNRWA postures itself as a simple relief agency for Palestinian refugees, its presence in the Middle East has actually worsened the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead of solving the Palestinian territorial crisis, UNRWA has helped to move it into perpetuity.

Originally, the United Nations organization only recognized 750,000 Palestinians as “refugees.” But the U.N. has expanded the definition for Palestinian refugees to include original refugees’ children and grandchildren, which has expanded the total to above 5 million. This puts Palestinians in a refugee league of their own.

The U.N.’s other refugee agency, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), does not allow other refugees to pass down their status to their kids and grandkids. And also unlike UNHCR, UNRWA does not promote resettling their “refugees” into countries that might be willing to take them in. Instead, they keep Palestinians in an endless state of dependency, with an ever-growing roster.

Worse, the Relief and Works Agency has essentially embedded itself with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip. UNRWA has employed actual terrorists and Nazi sympathizers, and uses its U.N.-funded schools to push false, exterminationist, anti-Semitic narratives about Jews and Israel.

The U.N. outfit has been caught several times stockpiling missiles for Hamas in children’s schools, and the agency’s construction materials sometimes end up in Hamas’ homemade tunnels, which are used to infiltrate Israel and commit terror attacks.

The United States remains the top contributor to UNRWA. In 2015, the U.S. taxpayers contributed $380 million toward the agency’s projects.

By all indications, Kal Penn, like UNRWA, is not a big fan of the state of Israel.

In 2014, as Israel was under bombardment from Hamas rockets, Penn vented his frustrations with U.S. policy. He disagreed with the rearming of Israel in its battle with Palestinian terrorism. Penn took to Twitter, writing: “Wow, guess we’re not serious about a ceasefire.”

(For more from the author of “Hollywood Celeb Donates ‘MasterChef’ Winnings to Terror Supporting Org” please click HERE)

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Society Isn’t Normalizing Mental Illness. It’s Medicalizing Normalcy

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In a recent syndicated column published by Conservative Review, writer Ben Shapiro argues that society needs to stop “mainstreaming” mental illness, challenging the I’m-Okay-You’re-Okay mentality that allows people to engage in deviant or aberrant behavior without censure.

He describes a case in which a woman who enjoyed being led around by her boyfriend on a leash has disappeared, suggesting that the tragedy could have been avoided if she had been given the proper treatment.

But is it true that modern society is increasingly accepting of mental illness as normal behavior? In fact, just the opposite. Many things formerly considered within the bounds of normal human variation are now classified as illnesses and treated as such.

An analysis of the Fourth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) found that, based on its diagnostic criteria, 46.4 percent of Americans will have a “disorder” at some point in their lives.

But because the mind itself is allegedly sick, should people diagnosed with these conditions be robbed of their agency and treated like children at the whim of their doctors, their families, or the state?

The psychiatric profession insists that mental illness is “just like any other illness,” but this is obviously untrue. Bodily illness can be diagnosed objectively from a detectable pathology. The presence of cancerous cells in the brain leads to a diagnosis of brain cancer, even if no symptoms are presenting.

Mental illness, on the other hand, has no such pathology. How could it? The mind is an intangible, unobservable concept. Therefore, mental illnesses must be diagnosed solely based on a subjective interpretation of behavior. The symptom is indistinguishable from the disease itself, meaning that all such diagnoses are opinion-based rather than objective.

And how do we define mental illness anyway?

We’re frequently cautioned against treating delusions as reality, but who is going to serve as the arbiter of what constitutes reality? By this definition, an atheist would be justified in classifying all people of faith as delusional and mentally ill for their belief in a higher power. To an atheist, a believer talking to God is no different than James Stewart talking to a giant rabbit in “Harvey,” and given the chance, he will treat the two equivalently. Is that really a road we want to go down, especially when our political leaders are becoming increasingly secular?

At the core of the question is this: Are we justified in depriving individuals of their freedom, of forcibly hospitalizing (read: imprisoning) and medicating them against their will because they behave in a way that we find odd or difficult to understand?

It’s important to remember that, in the past, Americans were diagnosed as mentally ill for being gay, for engaging in masturbation, and, in the days of slavery, for trying to escape from their masters. Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, thought the consumption of alcohol and opposition to the American Revolution constituted mental illness. These perfectly normal behaviors were regarded as so aberrant as to justify depriving individuals of their freedoms “for their own good.” And while these specific conditions are no longer recognized as mental illness, far more supposed disorders have arisen to take their place.

Wanting to be led around on a leash is odd, bizarre even, but the claim that such behavior justifies imprisonment and drugging is incomparably more horrific. If any unpopular behavior can be called a sickness, only conformists are safe from oppression. And who wants to be a conformist anyway?

America is supposed to be a country in which minority opinions, beliefs, and behaviors are protected from the tyranny of the majority. Ayn Rand said that the smallest minority is the individual, and I would add to this that the individual with unaccountably odd behavior is smaller still. It’s all well and good to claim such people are irrational, but to that I will respond with two quotes from the great economist Ludwig von Mises.

From “Epistemological problems in Economics”:

The assertion that there is irrational action is always rooted in an evaluation of a scale of values different from our own. Whoever says that irrationality plays a role in human action is merely saying that his fellow men behave in a way that he does not consider correct.

And from “Socialism”:

If a man drinks wine and not water I cannot say he is acting irrationally. At most I can say that in his place I would not do so. But his pursuit of happiness is his own business, not mine.

I’ll leave you with this question: Whom do you trust to decide which behaviors are “correct,” and are you willing to surrender your pursuit of happiness to white-coated experts who claim to know better? (For more from the author of “Society Isn’t Normalizing Mental Illness. It’s Medicalizing Normalcy” please click HERE)

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