3 Reasons New Flint Spending Will Make Things Worse

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Liberal lawmakers held a liberal spending bill hostage this week until the Republican-controlled Congress agreed to even more big government priorities.

Here’s what happened: For the past few weeks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., worked with Democrats to propose a 10-week government funding bill, commonly referred to as a continuing resolution.

That bill failed to include countless conservative priorities. It failed to keep spending levels within the reasonable levels set by the Budget Control Act. It failed to protect life by opening the door for more taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood. And it failed to do anything positive through the addition of conservative policy riders like stopping the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers transfer in the interest of protecting internet freedom, requiring a more stringent vetting process for refugees, or blocking the Labor Department’s new overtime rule.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his fellow Senate Democrats defeated a key procedural vote on this continuing resolution because it was not liberal enough—it did not include federal taxpayer money for the water problems in the city of Flint, Michigan.

With government funding set to expire at midnight Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi agreed to add $170 million in federal aid for Flint’s water issues in a water infrastructure bill that was under consideration in the House.

There are three major problems with the Flint spending bill:

1. It uses federal tax dollars for something that should be appropriated at the state level.

2. It authorizes federal dollars at a time when the nation is nearly $20 trillion in debt.

3. It sets the precedent of allowing liberal lawmakers to take bad spending bills hostage until they receive even more.

State, Not Federal Funding

State, not federal, funds and resources should be used to solve Flint’s crisis. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, made this point repeatedly when objecting to the inclusion of Flint spending in an earlier version of the Senate version of the Water Resources Development Act, speaking to The Daily Signal:

If we create a precedent that suggests any time there’s a significant problem with a locally operated utility that operates entirely intrastate, I would ask, where’s the stopping point? What’s the limit?

Unnecessarily Additions to National Debt

America’s spending is out of control. Every penny counts when our nation is nearly $20 trillion in debt. Earlier this year President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Flint, authorizing more than $80 million in aid to help in the cleanup effort.

There are additional funds built into the state budget to help provide for local clean up and rehabilitation. Flint has already squandered federal funding sources, as The Daily Signal reported earlier this year: “Michigan has squirreled away $386 million in an emergency fund and collected a $575 million surplus in 2015. Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, has already requested $200 million in relief funds from the state legislature for Flint.”

Bad Precedent for Capitulation

After Senate Democrats blocked the liberal continuing resolution, the Republican-controlled Congress could have moved forward with a conservative bill. Instead, Republican leaders looked at Reid, Pelosi, and Obama and asked which additional bad funding provisions should be added.

If these lawmakers won’t stand up for the principles of their constituents before an election, we shouldn’t expect them to in a post-election lame-duck session, either. (For more from the author of “3 Reasons New Flint Spending Will Make Things Worse” please click HERE)

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Post Debate Memo to Donald Trump From a Never-Hillary Voter

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Okay, Donald, you’re not going to like this. But if you wanted to hear from a yes-man, you would have let Christie out of the basement. So here’s the deal: We GOP voters didn’t overlook your long years of schmoozing with corrupt Democrats, your childish attacks on solid conservatives like Ted Cruz, and your cartoonish public persona, just to have you blow this thing in the home stretch. We nominated, for better or worse, a guy who body-slammed and head-shaved Vince McMahon in a wrestling ring on TV.

What we saw last night was more like George Pataki — nervous, defensive, wonkish, boring, and worried about your legacy. If you win this thing, you’re the president. You’ll have upended U.S. politics. If you lose, you have no legacy. You’ll be a cautionary tale, which the GOP establishment uses to nominate Paul Ryan next time. How’s that going to feel?

In last night’s debate, you started off strong, like an angry boxer blowing all his steam in the first three rounds. Then you let Hillary Clinton play you. She played you like a fiddle — no, I take that back. Sometimes we don’t mind hearing a fiddle. She played you like an accordion. Every time she pushed a button and squeezed, you made the exact wheezing sound that she wanted. And she leaned back and gave that same icy smile that psychologists painted on the wiry monkey mama. Please, for the love of everything that is decent, don’t hand our government to that woman.

Every time she attacked something that you hold dear, like your business acumen, you took the bait and swam right up to the surface where she could spear you. Only once or twice did you hit back effectively — for instance, when she pressed you on your tax returns and you came back and demanded her emails. But then you let it drop — an issue that ought to disqualify Clinton completely from serving as president. Then you actually let her bloviate about the importance of “cyber-security.” Even “little” Marco Rubio would have been pounding on the lectern at that point demanding:

How DARE you, of all people, even mention that! You broke the law, violated the rules, evaded government safeguards, and sent classified materials floating around the Internet — which who knows what countries are using to track down our friends and allies and murder them. Your underlings are all hiding behind immunity and the 5th Amendment, and you barely escaped being put into handcuffs and arrested — because you intentionally destroyed the evidence. You’re the Al Capone of foreign policy — except he got caught on a technicality, while you managed to skate. Maybe you had some friends at the Justice Department.

Why didn’t you point out that your tax returns don’t affect America’s security, did not result in dead Americans and launch a wave of dangerous Muslim immigrants, like her amateur-hour meddling in Libya? Then you could have reminded Americans how Hillary wants to increase the number of unvettable Muslim immigrants into America — like the Cascade Mall shooter from Turkey who is a Hillary supporter. Instead of thinking about reams of boring tax filings, Americans would have been wondering how many more pressure cooker bombers Hillary wants to resettle in their home towns.

You need to stop defending the honor of your hotel chains. Stop thundering like Ralph Kramden (of The Honeymooners) about how wonderful your temperament is. You stopped just short of saying something like “Bang, zoom, Alice — right to the moon!” Remember that in each of those arguments, Alice won.

Stop wandering into the weeds with references and names that only make sense to reporters but not to the public. That tells the media pros who have been targeting you since the convention that they’re getting inside your head. You had Hillary dead to rights on starting the ridiculous birther issue — but you squandered that moment by rattling off boring names and facts. John Kasich could have done that, if that was what we wanted — with more entertaining hand gestures.

Why didn’t you talk about the bribery and influence-peddling operation that is the Clinton Foundation, which sold access to the Department of State in return for secret donations from murderous governments like Saudi Arabia — which hatched most of the 9/11 hijackers, and beheads women and gays? Why didn’t you talk about the uranium deal with Russia that the government had turned down, and suddenly approved after the Russians made a big donation to Bill? How about Hillary’s right-hand woman, Huma Abedin, whose magazine tries to radicalize Muslims throughout the West, and published pieces blaming domestic abuse on women, and blaming the 9/11 attacks on American policies?

When Hillary accused you of stiffing building contractors, why didn’t you answer that she lied to the families of four Americans who died in Benghazi on her watch, blaming what she knew was an al Qaeda attack on a Coptic Christian’s Internet video?

More so than most politicians in the past 30 years, you know how to be funny. We didn’t see that last night. I was hoping that you’d interrupt Hillary’s blather about her father’s drapery business with a classic Trumpian zinger — for instance, “Where was your father on Nov. 23, 1963? I think America deserves to know.” The audience would have loved it, and it would actually have helped defuse some of the resentment which we Cruz voters still treasure despite his endorsement.

Instead, you seemed rattled and touchy. That’s not even the real you, most of the time. You are typically blithely, even blindly self-confident. It’s Hillary who’s the paranoid, secretive, misanthropic control freak. Americans need to see that, before it’s too late.

You need to hit Clinton hard, relentlessly hard, on her deep personal corruption and radical policies — which don’t even flow from conviction, but cold and soulless ambition. You can get away with hitting back at a mean girl — you’ve proven that. Those who despise you for being a bit of a cad are already Hillary stalwarts. Now the rest of us need to see you use that power for good, instead of … stupid. You’re Jimmy Cagney, facing Lady Macbeth, and you’re the one holding a grapefruit. We want to see you use it. (For more from the author of “Post Debate Memo to Donald Trump From a Never-Hillary Voter” please click HERE)

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Who’s Going to Save the Church?

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“I’ve got a word this group really needs to hear this morning. Do you mind if I give today’s message instead of you?” It was 6:00 in the morning. Men were already scooping up their scrambled eggs and biscuits and gravy for our church’s regular Tuesday men’s breakfast.

I wasn’t scheduled to share with the group this time, but at the previous Sunday’s church business meeting, one of our members had made an impassioned call for us all to work together to “save the church.” I was just a layman, but I knew his plea needed an answer. So I approached the morning’s designated leader and made this very unusual last-minute request to speak.

A Church in Crisis

There was nothing idle in my friend’s call to “save the church.” In the short space of just three or four years:

Based on high hopes and a steep growth curve we built a new $4 million dollar sanctuary, but that growth leveled out right when we moved into the new addition and giving expectations went unmet. Result: we were becoming strapped for funds.

Our construction coordinator embezzled funds from the church.

Our greatly loved youth pastor had to admit to disqualifying issues in his life and resigned his position.

He and his family had remained in the church, but one morning not long after that, an undiagnosed lung problem caught up with him and he stopped breathing and died. He was about 35 years old.

Speaking for the whole church, his resignation and especially his death hurt like absolutely crazy. But we went on:

We hired an extremely dynamic new youth pastor.

Then our senior pastor decided (wisely, in my view) that he had led the church as far as he could take it, so he resigned.

The church split into ugly factions, first over his severance package, then over the interim leadership team taking his place. Church meetings were tension-filled nightmares.

The worst meeting by far was also the shortest: our pastor both opened and closed it with the announcement that our youth pastor was under investigation by the sheriff’s department, and had been ordered not to have any contact with minors. He ended up in federal prison.

For me and many others, that last blow hurt the worst of all. I can’t begin to describe it. I don’t even really want to try. It was that bad.

Save the Church? Not Us!

So the church was reeling, no doubt about it. We were losing members, and having trouble making the budget, and a church across the river had just closed its doors after declaring bankruptcy, and people were wondering if we were heading the same direction, and — “We’ve got to pull together to save this church!”

That was what I knew I had to speak to that Tuesday morning. Save the church? No! Emphatically no! Not us! Jesus Christ saved the Church! He died on the cross for His Church. He rose again in victory for His Church. He sent His Holy Spirit to establish His Church as His body.

The same Spirit is still with us with the same life and power. Jesus’ Church was thoroughly saved once, and it remains thoroughly saved.

Our job is to follow our Lord faithfully in the light of His fully finished, perfectly complete salvation. The men there that morning already knew that, I’m sure — but it needed saying anyway.

As time went on and as we trusted Christ together, we saw Christ’s power among us. The church made it through, and it’s thriving beautifully today. The factions let go of their enmity. The surrounding community noticed our endurance through that trial, and recognized it as testimony to the powerful work of Jesus Christ.

I can’t tell you how deeply I miss the richness of the love and fellowship there, since moving to another state four years ago. My wife and I would go back in a minute if God called us.

We Don’t Need To Save the Church

There’s a message here for the wider Church in America, and indeed the whole Western world. We’re under unprecedented stress, to the point that it feels like we’re seriously in danger.

Massachusetts just passed regulations empowering the state to decide what counts as a true religious gathering and what doesn’t. If a church holds a meeting — a spaghetti supper, for example — that doesn’t fit the state’s religion standards, then it must accede to the state’s version of what counts as sexual morality — even inside the church building. Who’s going to save Massachusetts’ churches from that encroachment on their liberty?

Individuals across the country are being coerced into denying conscience to fulfill state-designated moral standards. Businesses have been told they must spend their own money to fund abortion. Who’s going to save them from those infringements?

Without discounting in any what they have lost, still it is true, and I’m sure they know it: Jesus has already saved His people.

God Didn’t Put the First Amendment In the Bible

I’m a firm believer in the U.S. Constitution. I am deeply grateful for the First Amendment. I’ve got friends serving as attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom, and I give my unreserved support to efforts like theirs to defend religious liberty. We need to stand firm on the ground our Founders established for us. Our legal and public information battles are indeed important. I fervently hope and pray we win every one of them.

And yet I think we may be in danger of seeing our Constitutional conflicts as if we were fighting to save the Church. That’s wrong. Neither the Church nor any individuals following Christ are ultimately at risk, for God has a perfectly good eternal plan for us.

What’s really at risk is a certain familiar way of living as Christians and as the Church. It’s a good way, a way of freedom — and because it’s good, it’s well worth fighting for — but it’s not the only good way.

God didn’t put the First Amendment in Holy Scripture, and (have we forgotten?) the Church grew for seventeen centuries without it. Christians through the ages and around the world stand as witness to the way oppressed and persecuted churches can shine bright in the darkness. We could lose every legal battle, and the Church would still have the resurrection life of Christ.

The Battle Is the Lord’s

So whatever battles we may be fighting, we must remember the hope on which we stand. Speaking to persecuted Christians, the book of Hebrews (verse 10:23) says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

One way we know whether we’re holding on to hope is whether we can keep smiling no matter what the world may bring against the Church. Jesus told those who would be persecuted (Matthew 5:12), “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Meanwhile we must remember that the battle is the Lord’s. As Paul tells us:

For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:3-5).

Saving the Church isn’t our responsibility. Jesus Christ has already done it, once and for all time, even for times like ours. Let’s hold on that hope with confidence and with joy, whatever may come. (For more from the author of “Who’s Going to Save the Church?” please click HERE)

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5 Times Lester Holt Came to Hillary’s Rescue in Debate Number 1

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Monday night’s debate confirmed several presidential debate truisms. For example, substantive discussions of the issues tend to dissolve during these debates. That happened at Hofstra University.

Another tried and true fact of presidential debates is the mainstream media moderator will act as a praetorian guard for the Democrat. And yes, that too happened.

Debate moderator Lester Holt repeatedly challenged statements from Republican candidate Donald Trump while permitting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to slip away. The questions he asked, at times, were also completely irrelevant to the issues facing American citizens, and contributed to the lack of substance in the candidates’ policy stances.

Let’s go over just five quick points to demonstrate Holt’s biased performance.

1) The NBC News anchor interrupted Trump twice on a question on jobs.

The question was, “How are you going to bring back the industries that have left this country for cheap labor overseas?”

Trump suggested renegotiating trade deals like NAFTA and was explaining the different tax systems in the U.S. and Mexico when Holt interrupted to ask the question again that Trump had just answered. Perhaps his answer wasn’t satisfactory, but that’s a point the other candidate — not the moderator — should make.

2) Holt dragged Trump’s tax returns into a discussion on tax policy.

“Mr. Trump, we’re talking about the burden that Americans have to pay, yet you have not released your tax returns. And the reason nominees have released their returns for decades is so that voters will know if their potential president owes money to …who he owes it to and any business conflicts. Don’t Americans have a right to know if there are any conflicts of interest?”

Whether or not Donald Trump could or should release his tax returns has absolutely no bearing on the tax policies the next president will enact in office. And in the context of “American prosperity,” which was the nominal topic of this segment of the debate, it was a completely irrelevant point.

Consider that the previous question asked Hillary Clinton to spend two minutes defending raising taxes on the wealthy and Trump to spend the same amount of time defending his plan for tax cuts. Instead of digging deeper into these policy ideas and their effects on the pocketbooks of American families, we were treated to Hillary Clinton asserting Donald Trump may not be as rich as he says he is, and Trump reciting how much his real estate/buildings are worth.

3) Holt brought up the constitutionality of “stop and frisk”; he forgot to do so regarding the due process rights of Americans on the terror watch list.

In the segment on “America’s direction,” Lester Holt began a discussion on race in which both major party candidates agreed that some form of gun control was necessary to curb violence in America’s inner-cities.

As Clinton herself said: “We finally need to pass a prohibition on anyone who’s on the terrorist watch list from being able to buy a gun in our country.” If the moderator is going to challenge the candidates on some political points, this would’ve been a great time to point out the due process rights of American citizens that are threatened by banning individuals on an arbitrary government list from purchasing firearms.

Instead of a follow-up on that point, Lester Holt decided to follow up on Trump on his advocacy for a possible nationwide “stop and frisk” policy — noting that a judge in New York ruled that policy unconstitutional. Constitutional questions are crucial, but shouldn’t the moderator serve them to both sides?

4) Speaking of forgetting issues, where were the questions on the Clinton Foundation’s incestuous relationship to the Clinton State Department? What about Benghazi? Or Hillary’s email server?

When the topic turned to “America’s security,” Lester Holt asked each candidate to describe how they would protect America from cyber warfare by foreign agents like the those that are believed to have hacked the Democratic National Committee.

Unbelievably, Lester Holt did not ask Hillary Clinton about her mishandling of classified information on a private email server, despite the fact that experts have said Clinton’s private email server was likely hacked. Further, not a single question directed to Hillary Clinton regarding her multiple grievous lies.

5) Questions directed to Trump were about personality, not policy.

“Mr. Trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim that the nation’s first black president was not a natural-born citizen. You questioned his legitimacy. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: The president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?”

“Mr. Trump, this year Secretary Clinton became the first woman nominated for president by a major party. Earlier this month, you said she doesn’t have, quote, “a presidential look.” She’s standing here right now. What did you mean by that?”

If the candidates want to have a back and forth over who is more sexist/racist/intolerant/bigoted/what-have-you, that’s the candidates’ prerogative. Should the moderator of a presidential debate, whose job is to make these two individuals running for president give the American people an idea of what they will do in office, do their work for them? (For more from the author of “5 Times Lester Holt Came to Hillary’s Rescue in Debate Number 1” please click HERE)

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3 Things America Can Learn From a Likely Jihadist Assassination in Jordan

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The assassination of a Jordanian writer who was under investigation for allegedly sharing a cartoon mocking the Islamic State has some very real lessons for American policy makers and the fight against global jihadism.

According to a report at CNN:

A prominent Jordanian writer facing charges for sharing a “blasphemous” anti-ISIS cartoon that outraged Muslim groups was fatally shot in Amman on Sunday, state news agency Petra reported.

Nahed Hattar, a member of the country’s Christian minority, was shot three times outside a courthouse in the capital where charges against him were being heard.

Public Security Department personnel, who were near the scene of the attack, rushed Hattar to a nearby hospital, but he died from his injuries, Petra reported.

Hattar was brought up on charges for sharing a cartoon that depicted a jihadist in bed with two naked women demanding that God bring him refreshments (thereby mocking ISIS members’ view of heaven). Hattar was charged with “inciting sectarian strife” for having shared an image that was “abusive to the divine entity,” according to state media reports.

Local authorities have arrested the attacker and an investigation is underway, but the attack would appear to be motivated by the high-profile case against Hattar.

The assassination itself is a tragedy — one that evokes painful memories of other extrajudicial Islamist killings in other Mideast regimes (which will be discussed later). But it also offers three very important lessons for those of us in the West.

1. Our allies still have Islamism problems, and that’s a problem for us

First, the fact that this happened in Jordan shows us that even our allies in the Middle East exhibit the same root problems that lead to the formation of jihadist terror organizations.

“Our challenge in the Middle East is that sharia supremacism fills all vacuums. It was this ideology that created ISIS long before President Obama came along,” writes Andy McCarthy at National Review. “And if ISIS were to disappear tomorrow, sharia supremacism would still be our challenge.”

Jordan has been one of the anti-ISIS coalition’s most visible and important players, but the weekend’s courthouse murder suggests that even the Hashemite monarchy run by King Abdullah II (and the beloved Queen Rania) isn’t free from the societal trends that feed the problem of Islamist supremacism.

“America needs to finally wake up,” says Dr. Zhudi Jasser, the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

Dr. Jasser is a prominent Muslim reformist, former U.S. religious freedom commissioner, and author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith.” The Muslim Reform movement, which he co-founded, names the “separation of Mosque and state” as a core tenet of its beliefs.

“Hattar was assassinated only after he was formally charged with the same kind of crime for which ISIS executes people on a daily basis,” said Jasser in an interview with Conservative Review Monday. “The only difference between countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia and ISIS is that the former two are corporate Sharia states … but they’re all drinking from the same ideology.”

When the United States refuses to acknowledge these trends in its foreign policy, it has the effect of “treating arsonists like firefighters,” he added.

That cases like Nahed Hattar’s persistently happen outside ISIS lines and beyond the control of the Iranian mullahs ought to show Americans that real peace in the Middle East won’t be achieved by balancing the region out with America-friendly, Sharia-based regimes, says Jasser. Rather, it’s going to take a much more stringent litmus test.

“When we realized that the Soviet Union has ideological, imperialist goals that involved spreading communism to every corner of the globe, we didn’t try to work with ‘moderate’ communists elsewhere in the world” to moderate the threat, Jasser explains, saying that American foreign policy should exhibit a similar commitment to only ally itself with regimes that do not function as Sharia states.

“This problem is not going to go away until we raise the bar for our allies,” he said. “It may seem far-fetched or quixotic, but there is no other alternative.”

2. This is bigger than one assassination

Second, Hattar was also a victim of one of one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world right now: blasphemy laws. The simple fact that Hattar was even facing charges for something as simple as a Facebook post speaks to a global attack on free speech that goes by several names. In several Muslim-majority nations, this trend takes the form of blasphemy laws, which carry heavy penalties — in many cases, death.

“The reason Nahed’s death is more shocking than others who have been executed under Draconian blasphemy laws is because Nahed simply shared the drawing — he didn’t even draw it himself. It shows us the depth of intolerance in regressive Muslim communities, even if that community is Jordan — a country hailed as being one of the few beacons of the Muslim world,” reads an emailed statement from CounterJihad.com’s Shireen Qudosi, who testified before congress last week.

“However,” she adds, “no society is truly progressive, stable, or capable of taking on the tide of Radical Islam unless it can champion free speech.”

Elsewhere in the world, Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five, has marked her seventh year on death row in Pakistan for having the audacity to drink water from the same glass as her Muslim co-workers, then subsequently refusing to convert to Islam in front of her co-workers. While Asia Bibi may be the world’s most visible symbol of the tyranny of blasphemy laws, she’s far from alone, as her case has also claimed the lives of Shahbaz Bhatti and Salman Taseer, Pakistani politicians who were assassinated for daring to speak out on her behalf.

3. America isn’t that different from Jordan or Pakistan when it comes to free speech

Thirdly, sadly, as I have pointed out before, this is a problem outside the Muslim-majority world. In multiculturalist — or what R.R. Reno would more aptly call “non-judgementalist” — Europe, the anti-free speech phenomenon takes the form of so-called “hate speech” laws, where people have even been subjected to jail time for such offenses as giving a sermon about sexuality and marriage, or drunkenly speculating on the sexuality of a policeman’s horse.

Yes, an Oxford student was actually arrested for “hate speech” against a horse.

Meanwhile, the trend in the United States’ is to enact“non-discrimination” laws that prohibit any form of public dissent against the newest government-imposed view of marriage or human biology are taking root from coast to coast. Additionally, Qudosi tells CR, “countless critical thinkers in Islam — including Muslim Reformers like myself — are shamed, harassed, and threatened for the Constitutional values we espouse.”

The trends and laws that led to Nahed Hattar’s death in Jordan represent an egregious violence against basic human freedom. But those in a society dominated by political correctness need to remember that the only difference between these laws and the ones gaining ground in the West are the prevailing ideology and the degree of punishment — for now, at least.

“As long as America allows speech to be censored under a manipulation of the First Amendment and under the illusion of tolerance, America is not that different from Jordan in the challenges it faces,” CounterJihad’s Shireen Qudosi concludes. “American can no longer rally the Muslim world toward liberty and democracy, and not identify the cracks within its own walls.”

Hattar died a martyr to free speech, but he need not have died in vain, so long as freedom-loving countries and policy makers take heed of the lessons his death offered. (For more from the author of “3 Things America Can Learn From a Likely Jihadist Assassination in Jordan” please click HERE)

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O.J. To Charlotte in Black and White

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I remember the moment well.

I was sitting in my car, waiting outside my office, my ear glued to the radio. The newscasters were about to announce the verdict of the O. J. Simpson double murder case. Would he be found guilty or not?

The evidence against him seemed overwhelming. But was he framed? Could the police be trusted? Yet if he was innocent, why did he run?

It seemed all of America was waiting with bated breath. What would the jury decide?

Many Americans stood gathered around TV monitors in public places, and as the words “Not guilty” were pronounced something extraordinary happened. Many blacks were absolutely elated while many whites were absolutely shocked, as preserved in more than one iconic photo.

Why such disparate reactions?

Was it simply a matter of skin color, with blacks siding with O. J. and whites siding with the victims?

For some, it may have been that simple, but remember that O. J. was hugely popular in white America, and he had been married to a white American and was living the American dream. And how many blacks would want a cold-blooded, double-murderer, living in privileged white communities, to walk away free?

No, there was something deeper going on, and it had to do with perceptions about “the system,” in this case, police and the courts.

Blacks, generally speaking, tended to distrust the system; whites, generally speaking, tended to trust it.

Even today, more than 20 years after the O. J. verdict in June, 1995, “A full 83 percent of white Americans said that they are ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ sure of Simpson’s guilt. By contrast, 57 percent of black Americans agreed.”

Significantly, 2015 marked the first time that polls indicated that a majority of black Americans also believed O. J. was guilty, in sharp contrast with a 1997 poll where 82 percent of whites and just 31 percent of blacks believed he was guilty.

But the numbers still remain quite disparate today, with the 2015 poll still showing a difference of 26 percent between the views of white and black Americans, and those deep difference in perceptions have surfaced time and again in the last few years (think Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Terrence Crutcher, and Keith Lamont Scott).

After George Zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of Trayvon Martin, I wrote an article titled, “The George Zimmerman Trial in Black and White,” where I laid out the varied racial perspectives on the trial, arguing passionately for each position and doing my best to expose each side to the perspective of the other side.

Now, this tragic scenario is playing out again with the Charlotte shooting of Keith Lamont Scott.

Speaking again in broadly general terms (and I apologize for the obvious over-generalizations), white Americans are grieved over the shooting but see it as justifiable.

After all, the man had a gun, he refused to obey numerous orders by the police officer (hey, he didn’t even listen to his wife saying, “Don’t do it!”), and he was potentially threatening the life of others. He also had a police record – come on, he previously assaulted someone with a deadly weapon – and his fingerprints, blood, and DNA were found on the gun.

And there’s more: The officer who shot him is black and the local police chief is black, and the police chief insists that there are eyewitnesses, along with video evidence, confirming that the officer acted properly.

Black Americans are not just grieved over the shooting, they are outraged.

They’re thinking: Here was a man sitting peacefully in his car, waiting for his son to come home from school as he did every day, reading a book (the Quran). He posed no threat to anyone, nor did he own a gun or regularly carry a gun.

And for goodness sake, the man had been in a motorcycle accident and had a traumatic brain injury (TBI), making it difficult for him to respond to the police properly. His own wife was shouting, “He doesn’t have a gun!” and “He has a TBI!”

As for the gun, the police planted it at the scene (remember the white cop in South Carolina who was charged with murder and who allegedly altered the crime scene to implicate the black man he shot in the back?), and there are eyewitnesses who confirm that it was a white officer who shot Mr. Scott.

White Americans then say, “You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re sticking your head in the sand. And just look at these lawless rioters and looters. No wonder the police are so quick to shoot.”

Black Americans say, “What will it take for you to accept that we are not treated equally? And while these looters do not represent our community, they’re expressing a deep frustration we’ve felt for decades.”

And on and it goes, with no end in sight.

A few days ago, my wife Nancy said to me, “How would we feel if, as whites, we were the small minority, brought over on slave ships and sold as slaves, then oppressed by black society for generations, with anti-white prejudice still alive and well in many parts of the society?”

Obviously, we’ve thought about these things before, but it’s almost impossible for us to know how we’d feel since this was not our background and experience (although as Jews, we have had more than our share of suffering in history through the centuries).

At the same time, the perception of the oppressed can also be skewed, especially when agitators play into a perpetual victim mentality that continues to enslave rather than empower.

What, then, is the solution?

At the risk of repeating points I’ve made in previous articles, here are four simple things we must do.

First, we must determine not to react in a fleshly, emotional, even irrational way, recognizing that carnal anger does not produce positive results. Pointing fingers, insulting others, and, worse still, breaking the law, does far more harm than good.

Second, we must talk face to face as much as possible with other fair-minded people across the racial divide, asking them to share their perspectives before allowing us to share ours.

Third, we must ask God to reveal blind spots we might have along with blind spots our friends and colleagues might have.

Fourth, we must commit to following the truth wherever it leads – to pursuing justice, regardless of the consequences and implications – which requires courage and integrity and humility.

Can we do this together?

Do we really have a choice? (For more from the author of “O.J. To Charlotte in Black and White” please click HERE)

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A Proper American Response to Chinese Aggression and Humiliation

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Upon entering office, President Obama fought a nomenclature battle with the Bush administration over China. “Strategic competitor” became “strategic partner.” The “Strategic Economic Dialogue,” critically, became the “Strategic AND Economic Dialogue.” Despite this lunacy and China’s flagrant disrespect for Obama, our China policy did not change all that much from President Bush’s. Yes, Obama’s fecklessness accelerated the downward trajectory of our position in Asia, but that trajectory was already plunging. Presidents Bush and Obama share the same affliction: muddling our economic and security interests. The muddle results in China’s regional security provocations going unchallenged, and the reasons why are linked.

Firstly, administrations fail to respond to China’s security transgression for fear that it will damage our economics interests. It is a perverse, defensive form of mercantilism. Secondly, we have a bad habit of reaching for economic sanctions as part of our toolkit for responding to security threats.

For both of these reasons, China’s security transgressions should only beget security responses.

Why? Because economic sanctions tend to boomerang back on us and act as a regressive tax on the middle class. We may not like it, but American and Chinese economic interests align more often than not. We and the global economy need a healthy Chinese economy (and vice versa). Most of what we would sanction are things that we buy or need for manufacturing inputs. That spells inflation here and less competitive manufacturing and exports. Imagine Chrysler sales if the Detroit automakers’ vehicles suddenly cost more than a Mercedes. And that is before Chinese retaliation or a move in the value of the dollar.

The other big reason Chinese security violations should be met with a security response is the empty nature of our economic threats. Policy makers usually figure out that economic threats will hurt U.S. consumers and consequently back down. We end up looking feckless, and China’s security challenges go unanswered.

When China tests us, we need a firm response. Failure to do so just invites more antics from Beijing, and we look like, well, Obama.

During his last trip to China the Chinese gratuitously snubbed Obama by making him deplane “from the ass end of the plane.” China likewise set the tone in 2010 in Copenhagen when the they sent a junior official to negotiate with Obama. After making the president wait for hours, Obama met with the waterboy.

China has stolen the files of millions of Americans, including me. Maybe the government passed China a stern note, but as far as I could tell the only administration response was to give me a subscription to an identity monitoring service … as if China using my credit card numbers is the worry.

Similarly, when China established an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea in November 2013, Obama’s silence was deafening. China made a naked attempt at a territory grab that could restrict trade routes, freedom of navigation, and pit our ally Japan against China. Obama flew one unarmed B52 sortie through the area and then advised U.S. airlines to comply with China’s demands.

So when China began building islands in the South China Sea and claiming new territory, it correctly assumed a weak U.S. response would follow.

Each of these events had an appropriate rejoinder. Obama should have refused the meeting with the junior official in Copenhagen and ignored China’s demands to deplane from the back of Air Force One. Why did he follow small orders from Beijing’s communist leadership? The ADIZ and the South China Sea situations placed China’s credibility in our hands, but we did not use that leverage. We should have regularly sent planes and ships through the territory China claimed. When China did not back up their threats of force (and they would not have), we could have advertised it.

It should trouble us that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump want to lead with an economic and not a security response. They thunder about economic reprisal, but, should they be elected, will almost certainly back down. Clinton has adopted Sen. Schumer, R-N.Y. (F, 2%) and Donald Trump’s currency manipulation hobbyhorse (which, by the way, is wildly inaccurate), and Trump has his trade war threat. Both are terrible ideas, though does anyone doubt that they will get left on the cutting room floor after November? To be sure, both belong on the floor, but we should worry that — in the midst of the flip-flops — we will once again fail to respond to China.

China presents a security challenge for us in Asia, but we must better relearn how to respond. Our reflexive grasp for economic responses creates threats from which we must eventually climb down or, if followed through on, would significantly harm the U.S. economy. The Chinese must be overjoyed at economic threats because they must know we do not mean it. China sees the American presence in the region as limiting its geopolitical rise, but the zero-sum thinking stops there. Economically they need us, and we need them. While no politician, especially Trump and Clinton, will say that in our populist moment, failure to do so merely aids China. (For more from the author of “A Proper American Response to Chinese Aggression and Humiliation” please click HERE)

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Violence on Charlotte’s Streets Began With Chaos in Hearts, Homes — and, Yes, Bathrooms

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North Carolina is a battleground today as it hasn’t been since 1864. It’s a crucial swing state in the upcoming presidential election, whose outcome in judicial appointments might determine the very meaning of the U.S. Constitution — including its First Amendment protections for political speech and religious freedom, and Second Amendment guarantee of the right to self-defense. The state’s brave, pro-family governor is fighting for reelection, targeted by multimillion-dollar gay activist foundations. The state itself is under boycott by massive corporations including the NBA, NCAA and Paypal over its resistance to transgender pressure.

And the streets of Charlotte offer scenes that look like they were filmed in Libya or Syria — places where the state has lost control over public violence, and factional warfare has erupted in the streets. Agitators from all over the country have been shipped in to stir the outrage after a possibly unjust police shooting of a black citizen. Instead of peaceful protests, however, what erupted was large-scale violence, including this chilling footage of rioters seemingly trying to burn a reporter alive:

The last time I heard of Charlotte in the news was when that city passed a transgender access law that would have denied any legal recognition to biological sex, granting men full access to women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, provided they whispered the secret password: “transgender.” The state’s legislature and governor swung into action, passing a state law overturning the local measure, and calling down on it the wrath of Bruce Springsteen, Barack Obama, and the rest of our country’s financial, political and cultural elite. And now Charlotte is ground zero for radical activists who want to start a race war.

Is that a coincidence? Some grim piece of irony? More than that, it’s a vital clue to the fragile chain of order in civilized society, and a warning that when we weaken its basic links, the whole thing can come crashing down in the most literal sense — in the form of burning cars, shattered storefronts, and policemen under siege by mobs of fanatics.

In his classic The Roots of American Order, Russell Kirk observes that harmony, order and freedom in society are not something imposed from outside by police or the national guard. Armed guards are the backstops, the last resort, which we call in for emergencies, when chaos is breaking out.

Those great good things make up the social peace that St. Paul, and all Christians since him, have prayed for in their time. They emerge from a much more intimate source than government agents with guns. They flow from the human heart and well-ordered minds, then play out in everyday life, especially in the home. That same order radiates organically through society, as honest people interact with each other, compete fairly, cooperate for mutual benefit, and when need be sacrifice their personal interests for the sake of the greater good. Fallen though we are, people can live together fruitfully when they agree on basic, truthful premises about good and evil, man and woman, justice and freedom — even if they differ on points of philosophy or theology.

What happens when that consensus breaks down? When the rules are constantly changing, perpetually under self-righteous attack, and as a result large swathes of the population learn that they don’t have to play by them? Picture trying to hold something as simple as a football game, if the referees had markedly different rule books and were subject to bribery; if each team felt free to doctor the ball; and players were stashing brass knuckles or knives inside their uniforms. Go further, and imagine that each team’s fans were so fanatical that they would cheer, not jeer, each time their own team cheated.

Charlotte: Ground Zero of the Bathroom War and Maybe a Race War

Welcome to Charlotte, North Carolina, a place where the many fault-lines of postmodern life apparently intersected, and the ground simply gave way under citizens’ feet. Below I will list the basic ground rules that used to govern American life, which virtually everyone held in common until 1968 or so.

Men and women are equally important, but crucially different. Their biology both dictates and reflects these profound differences.

Sex is meant for marriage, and marriage is meant for children, who deserve a full set of parents.

Citizens must support themselves and their children, and not rely on the government except for short periods during emergencies.

Men must support the children whom they father, and women should withhold sex from men who haven’t proven their ability and willingness to do that.

Men must help to rear and discipline their sons, and protect their daughters.

Clearly these aren’t truths peculiar to America, or the West. They are not even distinctively Christian, though the church has embraced them as part of the “natural law” written on the human heart by God, which even pagans can usually discern, in the dim light of fallen reason. These are simply the rules of human life by which virtually every society we know of has lived — with certain short-lived, decadent exceptions.

They are also truths that are now literally unspeakable — by which I mean that security guards will come and stop you from speaking them — on our country’s college campuses.

That’s because each of those rules has been attacked by our own elites in the past 40 or 50 years, as a barrier to self-expression, pleasure or absolute autonomy — the kinds of goals that spoiled members of leisure classes start to insist on, when they take too much for granted that there will always be food in the restaurants, clean water flowing through the tap and order in the streets.

In fact, well-protected property rights, a functioning economy, abundant food, potable water and civil peace are not the natural state of mankind, as the fragile snowflakes who preen and fret on our college campuses have been taught by their fools of professors to believe. (I wonder how many Ivy Leaguers by now believe that Mt. Rushmore is a natural formation.) These crucial goods are carefully crafted artifacts, the result of hundreds of years of political struggle, hard work, technical competence, careful reflection and compromise. They demand our cooperation, our consent and sometimes our willingness to sacrifice the next whim that flickers through our libido, for the sake of some greater good — such as the life of an unborn child, a woman’s self-respect or the property rights of a neighbor.

In the 1960s a New Left desperate to wreck the social order in free market countries — which were clearly out-competing the socialist hellholes that had taken Marx at his word — latched onto the destructive power of short-sighted selfishness. That movement offered elite approval to sexual hedonism and drug abuse as “revolutionary acts,” and set about undermining support in our laws and in our mores for those fundamental truths listed above. And now we are seeing this program of cultural terrorism achieve its desired outcome:

Young men born out of wedlock, raised by their mothers on government largesse, whose communities are as a result hotbeds of violent crime where police are afraid to patrol and sometimes overreact (with tragic outcomes) are destroying the businesses and homes in their own neighborhoods. Meanwhile national elites bully the hard-pressed local government with threats of crippling economic sanctions if it will not destroy the privacy of women and deny biology, allegedly in service to a tiny group of mentally ill people, who are backed by a wealthy splinter group, the homosexual lobby, that speaks for some two percent of Americans.

No, what’s happening in Charlotte isn’t an accident. It’s a postcard from the future. If Hillary Clinton is elected, that future will come sooner, and with mathematical certainty. (For more from the author of “Violence on Charlotte’s Streets Began With Chaos in Hearts, Homes — and, Yes, Bathrooms” please click HERE)

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When Does Debating End and the Work Begin?

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The crowd was standing and booing loud and long. The worried Secret Service hustled the speaker’s wife out of the arena as the tension and decibel level increased. The senator got off the stage.

A few weeks ago, Ted Cruz attempted a victory lap in the Republican National Convention after losing the primary fight. Cruz had refused to endorse the decision of the organization. I was sitting with a former Ohio Congressman who said, “He just ended his political life…” Commentator Charles Krauthammer said Cruz’s speech, “Was the Longest Suicide Note in US Political History.”

There are times to debate. There are times to work. Cruz didn’t know the difference. Unfortunately, most in business don’t either.

But Cruz has, in the end, taken the right action.

No Yes-Men

Your subordinates are pushing back. This is what you want — you didn’t hire yes-persons who polish apples and kiss your backside. You need a real debate to get the best recommendation to help you make the best decision. A heated discussion is needed around the conference table; the refining fire of dispute to burn away dross and all that.

The best bosses demand vigorous deliberation to vet a course of action. No unthinking rubber-stampers are on your team, right?

But sometimes the push-back pushes the manager over the edge. When is too much debate simply too much? And does the staffer understand when to stop debate and start executing?

The manager and staffers should know as a matter of policy when the debate turns from a dialogue of equals to the hierarchy of superior and subordinate.

The deliberation is over when the manager has made the decision. Or when a nominee is picked and the work pivots from Primary Debate to General Election. The political decision was made, but some who lost the debate want the argument to continue as Ted Cruz demonstrated at the GOP Convention in Cleveland.

Here, in business, the subordinate can help manage the manager. The alert staffer can clear the fog of decision-making by asking the manager a direct question, “Is the debate over and is there a ruling?” If the answer is yes and the decision has been made, then the arguing and arm-wrestling is over, and then the execution begins. A gavel pounded on a lectern is helpful.

Talented managers make decisions and are, well, decisive. There should be no doubt further down the org chart that the talking is done and action is to begin.

(In)Decision

However, if the staff does not know that the decision has (really!) been made, then confusion sets in. The push-back and the pleading will continue, followed by the whining.

We have an example of where even the Creator of the Universe was reconsidering a decision. Abraham, a good man, is arguing with God against destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten [righteous] can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” (Genesis 18:32)

Those ten could not be found and the decision of God’s wrath was about to be carried out. So Abraham, you better get out.

Managers must make clear the bright line that divides debate from decision. When the boss has signaled that the line has been crossed and the decision has been made, then the debating and second-guessing is over.

After the debating is over and the decision made, the professional will support the manager even if he disagrees. The pro will get the job done as if the decision were his own.

This is where Ted Cruz missed his moment: He did not say ‘yes.’ Instead of supporting the verdict of the organization and its common goals, he did not immediately endorse the candidate of his party. We each have the option of saying ‘no’ to an organizational decision. But—

When the boss decides, then do the work. Or leave the organization.

Ted Cruz now understands that his party’s debate is over and that the decision has been made.

The planning and organizing are complete. Leading the execution is about to begin. (For more from the author of “When Does Debating End and the Work Begin?” please click HERE)

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How to Use Presidential Debate to Talk About Conservatism

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With an estimated 100 million people tuning in to watch Monday night’s presidential debate, the topic of conversation for the week will be the showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, therefore giving you ample opportunity to talk conservative policy.

But you’ll have to be diligent in this endeavor as the memorable moments in presidential debates are rarely about policy:

1. Ronald Reagan disarmed Walter Mondale in a 1984 debate, saying, “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The punchline not only made the audience laugh, but Mondale genuinely cracked up too.

2. In 1988, Michael Dukakis lacked every emotion when asked if he would favor the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. He responded without mentioning his, uh, wife: “No, I don’t … I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don’t see any evidence that it’s a deterrent and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime.”

3. Most remember that Al Gore repeatedly sighed as George W. Bush spoke during a 2000 debate. “But the best moment might have been when Gore at one point stood up, seemingly to intimidate Bush, and Bush simply nodded hello at him and continued what he was saying,” writes Time’s Dan Mitchell.

These moments are brought to you by an “uh-oh,” or a laugh, or a great sound bite, not policy. But we promise the ensuing chatter around these moments and the superficial aspects highlighted by the media allows you to pivot to a substantive conversation.

Here are three ways to focus your otherwise shallow conversation on conservative policy.

Common Ground

While we want to be entertained during the 90-minute debate (no risk of being slighted this year), you want to move past the performance and instead discuss policy. Acknowledge the moments the media will obsess over, but then pivot to the candidates’ policies on your political issue of choice.

For example, if a candidate makes an exaggerated claim about income inequality that the media just can’t stop talking about, acknowledge the claim as absurd and then pivot to policy. Use common identifiers like “we both know his/her statement was absurd, but the policy behind it needs to be addressed. We can both agree that…” You recognize the absurdity of the claim (common ground) and then refocus the conversation on the substance behind the claim.

Examples

Use what the candidates say. Even if we witness in-depth policy discussions Monday night, you may disagree with the style and substance. Play off the candidates’ comments to give tangible examples. If the person you’re talking to cares about guns, or health care, or income inequality, refer back to the columns we’ve written about how to have conversations about those topics.

Remember, you win by using an example, personal anecdote, or analogy that frames the policy in a relatable way. And adding in a simple data point along with an example is always a great way to prove you’re right … because numbers, like hips, don’t lie.

Words

NEWS FLASH: Beating someone over the head with your perspective is not persuasive. You gain no ground by talking (or yelling) at someone. They will shut down and likely never want to discuss politics with you again. We know the debate will be heated Monday, but don’t let that tension influence your conversation.

A great way to resist the temptation to yell/kick/scream your way to winning is to use the right words. Talk about “choice,” what’s “fair,” “rights,” and “equality.” It’s been said many times before, but steal the words and phrases used to great effect by liberals. Doing so is disarming, but more importantly, those words accurately describe your conservative policy position too.

While fireworks are expected, remember that what the candidates do on stage won’t be worth mimicking in real life, especially if you want to persuade. Instead, find common ground, use examples, and say the right words. (For more from the author of “How to Use Presidential Debate to Talk About Conservatism” please click HERE)

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