Time To Remove RINO Grassley From Chairman of Senate Judiciary

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There is ubiquitous sense of betrayal among Republican voters. They went to the polls in 2014 to elect a Republican Senate and out popped a Senate controlled by Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer. Nowhere is this identity crisis more evident than within the Senate Judiciary Committee under the stewardship of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Grassley is, by all accounts, an incredibly nice man. People in Washington and his home state of Iowa speak very highly of him.

Grassley was a fresh-faced conservative in 1980. But he has served 36 years in the Senate, and is seeking a seventh term (which, if he were to complete it, would mean he would serve in the Senate for 42 years). It’s possible that Grassley is still the same conservative warrior he was in 1980 in his heart, but his “leadership” of the Senate Judiciary Committee raises serious questions about whether he is the right person to lead that all-too-important committee.

As we note in his profile, Grassley is “perhaps one of the most ideologically complex members of the Senate.” Coupled with his weak grasp of judicial issues, Grassley’s inconsistent foundation has proven a disaster as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. After being term limited as Chairman of the Finance Committee, Grassley, who has no formal legal training, shoved Jeff Sessions aside for the lead spot on Judiciary in 2011, even though Sessions was eminently more qualified.

Beyond these general concerns, there are recent, more specific reasons why Grassley might not be the right standard-bearer for Republicans on this committee.

Jail Break

Grassley has spent the first half of this allegedly Republican-led Congress catering to a laundry list of leftist legislative items and policy preferences. But one example predominates: A longtime and vocal opponent of the Smarter Sentencing Act and other misguided bills aiming to release dangerous drug traffickers and drug dealers, he is now the leader of a bipartisan effort to release not only drug traffickers and drug dealers, but traffickers and dealers who possessed firearms while committing their crimes.

This bill was a horrific idea a year ago, but as police blotters across the nation reveal the new crimes being committed each and every day by federal drug felons who were released from prison early, the legislation is becoming downright insane. And of course, we have not heard a peep from Grassley in terms of oversight of the DOJ’s war on police and its role in rising crime rates.

Judges

On judges, Grassley’s record is equally disappointing. Notwithstanding the fact that President Obama has appointed roughly 31% of all federal circuit court judges and 37% of all district court judges in the United States, Grassley seems to be tripping over himself to help Obama fill every last remaining judicial seat before Obama walks out the door on January 20, 2017. The actions are akin to a senator that actively wants Obama’s Constitution-mangling judges on the bench, since such judges make it easier for his fellow senators to avoid leadership by shirking decision-making to a leftist bench.

Raw numbers aside, Grassley has also let more than a few radical judges move through the committee to confirmation, forgetting that his role is to prevent the names of such radical judges from ever making it onto the Senate floor. The most recent (but certainly not the only) example is new federal district court judge Wilhelmina Wright, who helped publish an article in law school where she openly discussed the “whiteness” of private property and the belief that people living in poor neighborhoods might have a substantive right to move into wealthy neighborhoods. Grassley was asleep at the switch with this nominee. Wright was unfortunately confirmed, but many Republican senators woke up at the last minute to prevent her confirmation from being unanimous. Grassley failed in his constitutionally required gatekeeping role.

And of course, as the power of the judiciary continues to grow beyond even the worst nightmares of the Warren era, Grassley has not used the committee to hold hearings on judicial tyranny or propose judicial reform ideas.

Hearings

What about hearings? Surely, Grassley has thrown some punches on hearings? Planned Parenthood harvesting of fetal tissue, rampant IRS targeting and abuses, the war on immigration enforcement, a broken and racist Department of Justice, the administration’s blind eye toward domestic terrorism threats, Hillary Clinton’s private server, which exposed intelligence assets and collection methods… there is almost no end to the significant damage done to this Republic by the administration or to how its actions have breached the public trust. Surely, Grassley has looked into each of these with an aggressive desire to find the truth?

The reality will disappoint. Check out the lineup of hearings that Grassley has conducted at the full committee level. In the final days of what is perhaps the most corrupt administration this nation has ever seen, the Senate Judiciary Committee it tackling weak-sauce topics like the transparency of asbestos trusts and ensuring a right to counsel for federal misdemeanor offenders. It is almost like they made a deal with the administration to avoid any and all topics that would even remotely make the president uncomfortable. This is a failure of the committee’s function and a disservice to the American people.

In fairness to Grassley, he has held some important hearings this Congress, including one examining the life-and-death nature of the sanctuary cities that are violating federal law, and another on the job-killing qualities of the H-1B visa program. But even in these instances, good legislation that was written in the wake of these hearings has stagnated, including sanctuary city defunding legislation and H-1B reform legislation. One might almost get the impression that these hearings and their resultant bills were done for show, to create the illusion of listening to the American people.

Grassley spends lot of his time during committee hearings and business meetings (seemingly, most of his time) talking about his “good friend from Vermont.” His good friend from Vermont, in case you didn’t know, is the extreme leftist senator and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont). Based on the contours of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s actions this Congress, it is arguable that Grassley’s “good friend from Vermont” is dictating the agenda of the committee. Americans did not turn out to the polls in record numbers in 2014 to allow Patrick Leahy to finish Obama’s legislative agenda and push through as many radical leftist judges as time would allow.

Moreover, the committee hearings are often full of Democrat witnesses, including the former Iowa state Supreme Court justice who struck down the state’s marriage law, with the entire tenor and direction of the meetings rooted in far-left, anti-law enforcement premises. How about having a hearing with victims of anti-religious bigotry, such as the Kline family in Oregon?

The Judiciary Committee is not a JV panel. The Republican Party cannot afford to have a Senate Judiciary Committee that is happy just “being there.” Those days are gone, if they were ever here. Grassley’s dedication to the people of the state of Iowa is admirable, but the time has come for a more forceful, leftist-opposing chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. No one can be sure what the future holds for the Republican Party, especially in its current dynamic, but the one thing that probably is a guarantee is that continued weak leadership by Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee will give Democrats back the Senate starting in 2017. Based on how the Senate Judiciary Committee is currently being run, we might not even notice when the changeover happens. (For more from the author of “Time to Remove RINO Grassley From Chairman of Senate Judiciary” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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The 2016 Election for Dummies: ‘The System Is on the Verge of Coming Apart’

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On August 5, 2015, I wrote:

The two most important issues of the 2016 election are non-partisan.

(1) The federal government and the media are, as institutions, hopelessly corrupt.

(2) The United States has elections, but we no longer have representative government.

None of the problems facing the country can be solved effectively without first confronting those two issues.

Those words still ring true and any candidate addressing those issues directly could capture the majority of voters on both sides of the political center.

Many Americans now believe that we are no longer citizens of a republic, but subjects of a reigning oligarchy composed of a self-absorbed permanent political class, which services the interests of wealthy financiers at the expense of the wider population. They maintain their authority by an ever-expanding and increasingly intrusive government and use a compliant media to manipulate public perception and opinion in order to maintain the illusion of democracy.

To maintain control, both Democrats and Republicans have fostered a culture of dependency. Democrats create dependency by expanding federal mandates and increasing entitlements. Republicans promote dependency by limiting voter choice and co-opting or crushing independent candidates and grass roots political movements.

To sustain itself, the corrupt political-media establishment has the power to suppress the truth or interfere with honest inquiry by false authoritative pronouncements or by manipulating the news through the release of misleading information.

On January 2, 2014, I called for a “political insurgency” because there are no untainted elections, there is no rule of law, there is no means to petition elected officials or the courts for the redress of grievances and there is no independent press to challenge governmental abuse. In other words, all the traditional avenues to fight the corrupt practices of political expediency and crony capitalism have been blocked.

Democrat pollster Pat Caddell recently noted that the 2016 election “is not about ideology, not about issues, it’s about insurgency… The system is on the verge of coming apart…The politicians in Washington aren’t going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle.”

According to Caddell, such conditions are largely responsible for the rise of non-political-consultant-class candidates like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders as well as the weakness of those considered establishment candidates.

The political insurgency feature of the 2016 campaign would also explain the fragmentation of the conservative moment.

Like the Republican Party in general, American conservatism appears to be fully and openly untethered from any principles. Like the Constitution, conservatism is now whatever you want it to be, and for most but not all, whatever is politically expedient in the pure pursuit of power.

The internal conflicts within the conservative movement have widened the already existing fissures, roughly dividing it into three groups: status quo, zealots and anti-establishment nationalists.

Status quo conservatives are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican establishment. They are the inhabitants of the House of Representatives Freedom Caucus, who provide a convenient venting mechanism as a substitute for meaningful political reform or opposition to Democrat legislation. They are the political pundits ensconced in the hallways of the National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, who, during every election cycle, help dress up Republican establishment candidates in appropriate conservative clothing.

Conservative zealots tend to espouse a multitude of widely varying conservative “values,” but, in practice, often consider Constitutional principles as optional and disposable components, when political expediency requires it. In an effort to resurrect Ronald Reagan, the zealots tend to produce candidates that more resemble Frankenstein.

A growing constituency of the fragmented conservative movement is the anti-establishment nationalists, which comprises the largest fraction of Donald Trump supporters. These voters are more insurgents than conservatives and are unlikely to respond to classical conservative or establishment Republican arguments. It is this constituency that is most likely to attract disaffected Democrats and has the greatest potential for disruptive political innovation.

Stay tuned. (For more from the author of “The 2016 Election for Dummies: ‘The System Is on the Verge of Coming Apart'” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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Why Did MSNBC Put Rachel Maddow on the Debate Stage?

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Rachel Maddow did a pretty good job in questioning Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders at MSNBC’s Democratic debate last night.

But she shouldn’t have been on that stage as a moderator, sitting next to Chuck Todd, NBC’s political director and moderator of “Meet the Press.”

This is not a knock on Maddow as a commentator. She is smart and passionate, a Rhodes scholar with a deep knowledge of the issues. She did not roll over for Clinton during a recent interview on her prime-time show.

But she is an unabashedly liberal commentator who rips the Republicans every night on her program. She should not have been put in that position.

This is especially true because MSNBC has aggressively been trying to shed its left-wing label and rebrand itself as a news network. Brian Williams is now a regular presence as a breaking-news anchor. Liberal hosts who once populated the daytime hours, such as Ed Schultz, Ronan Farrow, Joy Reid and Alex Wagner, have lost their programs. Al Sharpton was shifted to early Sunday morning. Todd was brought back for a daily show. The liberals are now restricted to the evening hours. (Read more from “Why Did MSNBC Put Rachel Maddow on the Debate Stage?” HERE)

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Why Are so Many Millennials Feeling the Bern?

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One of the most stunning results that came out of the Iowa caucuses was the overwhelming support a 74-year-old socialist received from young people. Among voters between the ages of 17 and 29, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders won 84 percent of the vote.

This support is in keeping with a Pew study that shows 42 percent of Millennials favor socialism. In a country built on free markets, personal responsibility, political liberty, and private property rights, this is a disturbing trend.

Why all the newfound love for socialism? There are several reasons that have caused young people to turn a critical eye toward capitalism.

Bad Economy

One of the major reasons they’re open to socialism is the struggling economy, which still hasn’t rebounded from the recession that propelled Obama into office in 2008. Millennials are facing a tougher job market and stagnant wages. They’re not making as much money as their parents did at the same age, and while they’re more educated than previous generations, their education isn’t translating into high incomes and stable employment. They’re also burdened by student debt (47%), credit cards (31%), and auto loans (26%).

Young people want to make money as much as anyone else, but they see their opportunities diminished. They graduate from college and find themselves at home working at a retail store or waiting tables. Some of that has to do with their choice of degree, but even those in the science and technology fields are finding it difficult to get a job.

They’re frustrated because they see businesses going overseas, and they interpret this as greedy corporations wanting to make more money off of cheap labor. Their conclusion is the capitalist system is broken. They sympathize with Occupy Wall Street in feeling like big banks and big businesses are in control of everything, and the “little guy” is being edged out. Little do they understand that many of the problems in today’s economy are rooted in big government, over-regulation, and cronyism. The answer to these problems isn’t socialism but actually freeing the markets to compete in a way that will spur economic growth, which leads me to my next point.

Poor Education

Millennials are poorly educated when it comes to capitalism and the history of socialism and communism. They didn’t live through the Cold War. They’ve benefited from the capitalist system that they are now rejecting, failing to understand the devastating consequences of government imposing its will on the economy. They haven’t been taught the value of private property and how it is essential to liberty.

In history class, they’ve been reading anti-American Marxist Howard Zinn instead of Paul Johnson or David McCullough. As Zinn himself once remarked:

Objectivity is impossible and it is also undesirable. That is, if it were possible it would be undesirable, because if you have any kind of a social aim, if you think history should serve society in some way; should serve the progress of the human race; should serve justice in some way, then it requires that you make your selection on the basis of what you think will advance causes of humanity.

This is the bilge our younger generation has been learning, so is it any wonder they would turn out in droves for Sanders? The fact that he’s an old white guy doesn’t matter to these tattooed, Birkenstock-clad kids sporting pricy graphic T’s from Urban Outfitters and typing away on their iPhones (a great gift of capitalism). They hear his message, and they’re inspired by his call to break up the evil banks, increase regulations on businesses to protect the environment, provide universal healthcare, and make college available to all.

He reminds them of their silver-haired Boomer college professor waxing eloquent about humanity’s progression toward some great utopia. They haven’t benefited from the instruction of Milton Friedman or Friedrich Hayek. They haven’t learned one of the great lessons from history that economic freedom is a necessary condition for political freedom. They haven’t taken an honest look at how the democratic societies in Europe are unraveling, and how, as Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money.

This ghastly mix of economic stagnancy and mal-education, which pushes young people in a socialist direction, is reinforced by a youthful idealism and a love of equality and “fairness” over freedom.

Youthful Idealism

There is a German phrase that translates to “One who isn’t a socialist at twenty has no heart. One who is a socialist at forty has no brain.” It is often the case that younger people lead with their hearts and run after fanciful idealism because this is simply part of being young.

There are good and bad aspects to this. The good is that we should have a heart for our world, especially those who are suffering the most—the poor and downtrodden. Many young people today are inspired to make a difference in this world and to help those who are not as privileged as they are. This is a noble thing, and more should be done to help the poor.

The problem is many think capitalism and its focus on profit undermines and stands opposed to generosity and compassion. But this is simply not the case. If there is greed and selfishness in the capitalist system, it’s not because of the system itself (which is morally neutral), it is because people are selfish and immoral. This fact won’t change under a socialist system. Compelling people to care for the poor doesn’t change their hearts.

This desire to help others, however, and to be socially responsible is a noble trait among young people. The goal is not to let go of that compassion but to direct it in a healthy way and align it with an economic system that actually promotes liberty so people are free to use their resources in a way that helps others—not only in an altruistic way but in a self-interested way that is rightly understood.

“Self-interest rightly understood” means that we can pursue profit and our own interests but still do so in a way that helps others. People might not always be motivated out of the goodness of their hearts or because of some righteous utopian calling, but that doesn’t mean they won’t help people. Montaigne once wisely said, “When I do not follow the right path for the sake of righteousness, I follow it for having found by experience that all things considered it is commonly the happiest and most useful.”

So few young people, however, have figured this out. Instead of letting people (and markets) be free, they want a higher power (the government) to come in and force people to be generous and compassionate through the redistribution of their property and by regulating what they do with their businesses and their lives. They haven’t learned that this kind of compulsory morality doesn’t work.

The Lure of Equality

This leads me to my next point: the longing for equality. While their desire to make a difference and to show compassion is good, their sense of “fairness” isn’t driven purely by a concern to help others. They’re also driven by an ardent desire for equality. This is an important point in understanding the 84 percent who support Sanders as well as many others in America who demand wealth redistribution and advocate some form of egalitarianism.

We have raised a generation of young people who have been hovered over by helicopter parents making sure everything in their lives is fair. They’ve received participation trophies and participated in sporting events where no one scores. Some have even been in classes where no grades are given. Those who succeed are made to feel guilty, and those who have failed are told it’s not their fault (it’s the teacher, the coach, their parents, the “system”). This is the Rainbow Fish generation in which all the beautiful glittering scales must be equally shared.

It is no surprise then that a generation so fixated on equality instead of being instructed in the hard, messy lessons of freedom favor a system that promises equality of outcomes and is managed by government and its mechanisms of force. This focus on extreme equality is something Americans should have been on guard against since its inception, but we have failed to remain watchful. We have assumed that everyone loves liberty and therefore Americans will do whatever it takes to keep it—politically, socially, and economically.

That has not been the case. Alexis de Tocqueville observed when he came to America in the 19th century that democratic peoples have a “natural taste for freedom.” They seek it and they love it. But they love equality even more.

For equality they have an ardent, insatiable, eternal, invincible passion; they want equality in freedom, and, if they cannot get it, they still want it in slavery. They will tolerate poverty, enslavement, barbarism, but they will not tolerate aristocracy.

Tocqueville said this is true in all times, but it is especially true in America where equality for all is the foundation of our society. He called this desire for equality an “irresistible power,” and any effort to defy it will be overturned and destroyed by it. “In our day, freedom cannot be established without its support, and despotism itself cannot reign without it.”

Just as Tocqueville said, Millennials today—and not just Millennials, but anyone who wants big government to “equalize” everything—are driven by a desire for equality. This desire has been fostered in three ways: by a natural (and good) propensity toward equality, by increased inequality in our country because of the growth of government and crony corporatism, and by an overly indulged sense of equality due to being raised by authority figures promising equal outcomes.

Equality and Freedom

These three strands woven together are creating a demand for equality that overshadows liberty. One would think young people would see how their freedoms are being lost in their desire for equality at all costs (even to the point of giving more power to the government in every aspect of their lives), but as Tocqueville observed, the loss of liberty is not so immediately apparent in our lives because the negative impact of that loss happens slowly over time.

The loss of equality, however, hits us like a ton of bricks. It’s right in our faces. We immediately see that someone has more money than us. We see whole groups unable to gain traction in a failing economy. We see the one percent getting richer and the middle class shrinking. We see laws favoring those with money while those without power or money struggle. In a sense, a class system—and an aristocracy of sorts—has developed.

This breeds discontent, and if that discontent is justified by a wrong or nonexistent understanding of economics and free markets, if that discontent is supported by religious systems that denounce the West and its capitalist system as being evil as Pope Francis has done, and if that discontent is reinforced by a pop culture in which music and film denigrate the “greedy rich” and romanticize the “working people,” then we have what we see today: a younger generation that favors socialism.

We can take some comfort in the fact Millennials that don’t really understand socialism or that their political views are incoherent and contradictory. We can also look forward to them growing up and developing a more conservative mindset as many of us have done. But some of these core problems remain, and the issue of equality over freedom will continue.

The only way to right that ship is by bringing more equality to our society by freeing up opportunities and putting an end to cronyism, which favors the rich on Wall Street and empowers Washington; by reforming our education system and teaching our children the truth about economic liberty; by raising children with the hard lessons of competition and freedom instead of pampering them with distorted notions of fairness and equality; and by fostering a true love for one another so we care for the poor and show compassion, giving out of the goodness of our hearts and even a right sense of self-interest instead of being compelled by the heavy hand of big brother.

If we make progress in all these areas, then maybe we can stop the drift toward socialism. If we don’t, like Tocqueville said, equality will be pursued even if it means the enslavement of us all. (For more from the author of “Why Are so Many Millennials Feeling the Bern?” please click HERE)

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Trump Reveals His Liberal Heart

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Republicans have always specialized in running candidates that accept the most important premises of liberal governance and make themselves indistinguishable from their Democrat counterparts. They should patent their pale pastels, which blend in so effectively there is no discernable ink contrasting their talking points to Democrat policies.

In 2012, Republicans concocted a brilliant electoral plan. In a race fought over healthcare, they managed to nominate the only human being in America who implemented Obamacare before President Obama did. Now that the Democrat front-runner is Hillary Clinton, the original god-mother of single-payer healthcare, Republicans are on the cusp of nominating the one man in the GOP who has long championed Marxist healthcare policies.

In case anyone thought Donald Trump has indeed undergone a cathartic change since deciding to run for president and is no longer promoting New York values, he wants everyone to know if you oppose universal healthcare, you don’t have a heart. Here is what he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos this morning:

We’re going to work with our hospitals. We’re going to work with our doctors. We’ve got to do something. You can’t have a — a small percentage of our economy, because they’re down and out, have absolutely no protection so they end up dying from, you know, what you could have a simple procedure or even a pill. You can’t do that. We’ll work something out. That doesn’t mean single payer. And I mean, maybe he’s got no heart. And if this means I lose an election, that’s fine, because, frankly, we have to take care of the people in our country. We can’t let them die on the sidewalks of New York or the sidewalks of Iowa or anywhere else.

Somehow Trump “opposes” Obamacare, but believes that if you don’t champion something similar to it you have no heart. He declined to defend “single-payer,” which he championed for years, but left out the fact that he praised Canada and Scotland’s dysfunctional Marxist system during one of the early presidential debates.

What’s worse than Trump’s support for the Democrat position on healthcare (wait, how is he going to debate Hillary again?) is the way he articulates this position. He uses the most antiquated tool in the Marxist/Alinsky shed, which is to play on emotions over intelligence, thereby achieving neither sound policy nor compassionate outcomes. Let’s not even discuss the constitutional powers of government; evidently that is never a factor with Trump.

Had Trump spent more time studying the government he seeks to run instead of pandering for the endorsements of Bob Dole and his less charismatic mini-me, Terry Branstad, The Donald would understand that we already spend hundreds of billions on Medicaid, S-Chip, and an array of state programs for those who would “die on the sidewalks” because they have no money. Medicaid alone will cost us $350 billion this year. The “dying on the sidewalk” Alinsky argument is a non-sequitur. The real question is what happens with the rest of us. Either we are all forced into single-payer, which has been Trump’s long-standing position. Or we are forced into something similar to Obamacare’s coverage mandates that he won’t specify. Here are the results of such a plan from my personal experience:

This is the outcome of a liberal “heart” in which no middle class family will be able to afford health insurance with dignity. When you pursue increased coverage at the expense of reducing costs you achieve neither objective. I can’t wait to see the premiums under Trump-care. Then again, under single-payer the problems will go much further than health insurance but will spill over to healthcare itself. Perhaps he will then take his rode show onto universal housing, college, and transportation.

Many of us who believe immigration is the single most important issue have tolerated Trump’s New York values on many critical issues so that we could engage in the long-overdue discussion of national sovereignty. But as Trump devotes less time to immigration (shocker!) and promotes one left-wing idea and talking point after another, the circus has come full circle. Moreover, doesn’t Trump’s Alinsky thought process on healthcare sound awfully similar to his immigration views he harbored prior to running for president?

“You have to give them a path and you have to make it possible for them to succeed…“You have to do that.”

“How do you throw somebody out that’s lived in the country for 20 years?…You just can’t throw them out.”

Again, it’s not just the positions he took in recent years that are problematic, it’s the way he expressed them. Trump’s comments are not taken out of context; they are clearly coming from a deep-rooted liberal intuition on the most critical issues facing our nation. You might even say they come from the “heart.”

As someone who has fought for national sovereignty over the past decade I can tell you there is no such thing as a politician who is to the left of Susan Collins on most issues but is somehow aligned with Jeff Sessions on immigration. If you believe that in your heart I have some property to sell you in Ciudad Juárez. (For more from the author of “Trump Reveals His Liberal Heart” please click HERE)

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What Should A Catholic Do With Trump?

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As Iowans prepare to cast the first votes in the 2016 nomination process, we owe you our thoughts. While we are not officially endorsing a candidate at this time, we believe it is important to share some critical thoughts on the race, or at least on one candidate in particular.

As Catholics, we are called to participate in the democratic process. The Church does not endorse candidates for public office. That job rests with us, the laity. No candidate is perfect, and no simple checklist is sufficient. Prudence is a necessity. Some candidates ought to be disqualified from receiving the support of a Catholic voter. Others must be weighed in light of the moral principles given to us by our Church.

We have asked for your feedback on multiple occasions. Thousands of CV members have written. We’ve read them all. In addition we follow the daily news, analysis, polling, and have crafted our strategy for 2016.

And so today we begin with the elephant in the room.

Should Catholics support Donald Trump? No.

We have sifted through the most popular arguments in defense of Trump and listed them below along with our own take. Here they are:

1. “Trump is a leader we can trust”

While we share much of the frustration over the failure of the GOP to make significant progress, we are reminded of Republicans’ once oft-quoted criticism of President Bill Clinton: character matters.

Donald J. Trump left his first wife and married his mistress, only to leave her a few years later for another mistress. Reportedly he left his second wife by leaking the news to a NY newspaper and left the headline on the bed for his wife to find. In his book, The Art of the Deal, Trump bragged about having sex with many women, including some who were married. He has appeared on the cover of Playboy Magazine with a model wearing only his tuxedo jacket. He has mocked the disability of a NY Times reporter. He belittled John McCain for being a prisoner of war. His casino in Atlantic City was the first in the country to open up a strip club. His Twitter account is a running barrage of insults, lies, and personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with him. And did we mention he famously cheats at golf? Now who does that remind you of?

Now ask yourself: does this man have the character becoming of the President of the United States?

2. “Trump can’t be bought because he is rich!”

Trump is a salesmen, and salesmen don’t buy, they sell. So he won’t be “bought.” Instead he will sell out everyone and anyone when it benefits him, as he has his entire career. He was a liberal democrat, pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-universal health care, pro-government bailouts, and a financial backer and friend of Hillary Clinton until he decided to run as a Republican last summer. He is the definition of an opportunist with no guiding principles.

3. “Trump is a leader who will get things done”

Trump markets himself as an effective leader who will get things done simply by making “smart deals.” He refuses to explain precisely how he intends to deliver results, and more often than not, promises to use force or work around or outside the law. Such a leader mirrors what we currently see in the White House. It would be incredibly harmful to our system of government, which is limited by our Constitution — even if we like the policy outcome. We must be a nation of laws. For Trump, it is all about power. For a Christian, the presidency should be about service.

4. “Trump is a successful businessman who will make great deals”

If you believe the headlines, you would assume everything Donald Trump touches turns to gold. Not so. Trump has only demonstrated an ability to make deals that benefit him personally. Four times he bailed on his own casinos to shield himself from their impending bankruptcies. And then there is Trump Magazine, Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks/Steakhouse, Trump Vodka, and most famously Trump University, to name only a few — all bankrupt or closed, and massive failures. “Losers” as Trump is fond of saying.

He has constantly cozied up to big government to trample the little guy, either by abusing private property rights, or selling out small contractors and vendors, many of whom lost their life savings. Just ask elderly widow Vera Coking, whom Trump attempted to displace via eminent domain laws to make way for a limousine parking lot for his New Jersey casino — the same casino he put into bankruptcy. Vera stood tall against the politically-connected billionaire Trump for years in court, enduring his practice of belittling personal attacks. She eventually won and called Trump a “maggot, a cockroach, and a crumb.”

5. “Trump will end illegal immigration”

Trump has pledged to build a massive wall on our southern border and to make Mexico pay for it. Meanwhile he has promised to deport 11 million+ illegals, without explaining how, then plans to allow them all back in legally according to criteria he has yet to fully explain.

We agree illegal immigration is a problem that must be solved. Trump’s solution is delusional, strikes us as xenophobic — and truthfully, will never happen. If anything, Trump’s demagoguery on immigration showcases the emptiness of many of his promises. As President Obama has learned, American presidents don’t dictate laws. The Senate and House would have to pass any change of this magnitude, and such a solution has little to no chance of being approved. Border security and immigration enforcement are realistic fixes. Rounding up 11 million+ people and sending them back to Mexico is not practical or realistic, let alone humane. Those who rightfully want to solve the problem of illegal immigration deserve more than crowd pleasing platitudes. And it’s certainly worth noting that Donald Trump criticized Mitt Romney for being too harsh on immigration back in 2012. This is just another issue where Donald Trump had a very recent and rather convenient conversion.

Several other presidential candidates have outlined more realistic policies to deal with problem. And that’s what real leaders do. They outline solutions and build consensus. Hyperbole and demagoguery are tools of salesmen (see above) out for your money or your vote. Trump’s lack of detail reminds us of another famous politician who proclaimed: “we have to pass the bill before you can see what’s in it.”

6. “Trump will fight the Establishment!”

This defense of Trump is somewhat rich, given the irony that Trump himself has boasted of playing the game, paying off politicians and enriching himself from the very system he now purports to reform. Case in point: in the past week a growing number of so-called “establishment Republicans” have warmed to supporting Trump, people like Bob Dole and Trent Lott — including establishment Republicans in Iowa like Gov. Terry Branstad. Why? Because they believe, rightly in our view, that Trump doesn’t have any principles at the end of the day. He’s someone who will wheel and deal — and you and I will be stuck with the bill.

Electing Donald Trump would send the pro-life movement back to the 1990s, when the Republican Party wanted to run away from defending the unborn. In fact, Trump recommended his own sister, Maryanne Trump Berry, for the Supreme Court. She’s the federal judge who overturned New Jersey’s ban on grisly partial-birth abortions. The next President may choose as many as three or more new justices. Trump’s suggestion of his pro-abortion sister as an example ought to worry anyone who cares about the Court. And let’s not forget he once said Oprah would make a great Vice President. Enough said.

7. “Trump is one of us”

Trump’s political conversions have all happened at very convenient times. As recently as 2000, Trump was firmly “pro-choice,” even refusing to oppose partial birth abortion! He was in favor of gay civil unions. He is open, even now, to subsidizing abortion giant Planned Parenthood with our tax dollars. He considers gay marriage a settled issue and has offered no plan to protect religious freedom. He is pro-universal health care, supported the stimulus package and government bailouts, supported gun control and a host of radical positions. Trump is like many Democrats we know. He is a political opportunist.

Conclusion

Trump is right about something — it is time for a change. We do need to shake things up and make America great again. And his awakening of working class voters who are often sidelined by terrible policy and poor leadership is a lesson every Republican must take seriously or they will lose in November.

But the power to change does not require a fear mongering business mogul, appealing to our worst fears instead of our best hopes.

With other good candidates in the race, we encourage our members to look beyond Trump.

This is an historic opportunity to win back the White House with someone we can be proud to have as President.

Iowa, New Hampshire… we’re looking to you to lead the way. (For more from the author of “Truth on Trump” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Fox News Republican Debate: Trump’s Absence Sucks the Energy Out of the Room, Leaves Three Winners and Two Losers

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The intentional winner of the Fox News Republican debate Thursday night was Marco Rubio. He had a really good debate. He was substantive and sharp, clear and polished. He came across as likable. He came across as someone who knows foreign policy.

The accidental winner, though, was Ted Cruz. The debate got off to a rough start with Cruz. The other candidates were piling on the man in the center seat. His campaign had expected it. His engagement with the moderators made him seem less likable. But the moderators, unintentionally and accidentally, solidified Cruz’s support for him and got fence sitters between Trump and Cruz off the fence . . .

Jeb Bush had a far better night without Trump there. I was surprised there was not a clash with Kasich, given his rise in Iowa. But Bush held his own and Kasich annoyed as always . . .

Overall, though the debate had lower energy than prior ones, it was wonderful to have the candidates have to own their records.

As for losers, that had to be Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who had their “kneel before Zod” moment showing up at a Donald Trump rally where everyone treated Donald Trump as the conquering hero. (Read more from “Fox News Republican Debate: Trump’s Absence Leaves Three Winners and Two Losers” HERE)

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FBI’s Video of LaVoy Finicum Killing Raises More Questions Than It Answers

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UPDATE: Over 24 hours after the incident in question, and after repeated demands by websites like Restoring Liberty, the FBI finally released a video of what allegedly happened during the LaVoy Finicum killing. However, neither audio nor video from the numerous officers on the ground was released. Here’s an enhanced video – from the FBI’s aerial recording – of the shooting:

As you watch the video, keep in mind that LaVoy Finicum wore his pistol on his right hip, as depicted here:

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Attorney KrisAnne Hall: LaVoy Finnicum, “Summarily Executed”

KrisAnne Hall, the legal advisor for the Coalition of Western States, was interviewed today on The Joe Miller Show. Ms. Hall, who was just in Burns, Oregon this last week teaching several constitutional law courses, spoke with protesters present at the refuge. She also discussed what happened regarding LaVoy Finicum’s shooting with Ammon Bundy’s sister.

Ms. Hall states that no shots were fired by any of the protesters, but that there were multiple shots fired by federal agents at the protesters’ car. She characterized the stop as an “ambush.” Additionally, Ms. Hall states that LaVoy Finicum was “summarily executed.”

Ms. Hall asks, “Does the federal government have the right to execute these people” without due process? Listen to the full interview here:


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LaVoy Finicum’s Daughter Says Her Dad Was Murdered

From LaVoy Finicum’s daughter’s (Thara Tenney’s) Facebook page:

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Interview With Victoria Sharps Who Claims She Was Present in the Vehicle at the Time of the Shooting

Stick a Fork in the Willie Horton Jailbreak Bill

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After Islamic terror and immigration, the rise in domestic crime constitutes the third leg of Obama’s war on our sovereignty, security, and society. For the first time in over two decades, violent crime is on the rise; yet instead of clamping down on crime, there is now a bipartisan consensus to join the far left and dismantle some of the tough-on-crime laws that have worked so well over the past few decades.

Instead of fighting Obama on immigration, Iran, and illegal executive actions, a number of Republicans are expending all of their energy and political capital working with far-left groups to pass the “Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015” (S.2123). With the growing spike in crime, this retroactive jailbreak bill is now on life support. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) deserves a lot of credit for leading the fight to sink this bill. And for good reason.

There’s some disagreement in the criminology field over why crime has fallen so much since the early ‘90s, but everyone agrees there are clearly some long-term macro factors fueling the precipitous decline. Perforce, the fact that the FBI is reporting a 6.2% increase in homicides nationwide for the first six months of 2015 is a big deal because it goes against the grain of these strong countervailing factors pushing the trend in the other direction. In the nation’s 25 largest cities, the murder rate jumped 14.6% in 2015, which is the largest single-year spike since 1960, according to the left-leaning Marshall Project.

Radical pro-criminal groups, such as The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, are now panicking for fear that recent news will scuttle their jailbreak bill. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) even reassured one of their leaders that he is still committed to the cause of jailbreak.

And in case you thought the Senate criminal injustice bill was not the new gang of eight, La Raza would like you to know they want this bill passed…now!

Recidivism: Not Just about victimless, non-violent drug offenses.

Obviously, the war on cops looms large in creating incentives for criminals to strike, but the recidivism of the large numbers of criminals released from jail in recent years is certainly not helping. Over the past nine years, the Sentencing Commission has repeatedly imposed retroactive reductions in sentences for federal drug felons, culminating with the announcement last year 46,000 drug traffickers would be released from federal prison as a result of their latest actions. Now we are seeing the tragedies resulting from the release of career criminals.

Despite the fallacious talking points about “non-violent drug offenses,” those serving time in federal prison are often incorrigible. As Tennessee’s First District Attorney General Tony Clark recently said regarding the uptick of recidivism in eastern Tennessee resulting from the jailbreak policies, “most of the drug dealers are armed, most of them use violence, people are killed over drugs, so to say that drug dealing, just because they’re incarcerated for a non-violent drug offense I think is a misnomer. And it’s a mistake.”

Consider the following recent examples:

“The man charged with killing an ex-girlfriend and two of her children in a North Side stabbing rampage early on Tuesday likely would have been deep into a 12 1/2-year federal prison sentence if sentencing guidelines for convicted crack dealers had remained unchanged. Wendell L. Callahan, 35, twice benefited from changes in federal sentencing guidelines, which reduced his sentence by a total of more than four years, from the 150 months he was first given in 2007, to 110 months in 2008 including time served, and 100 months in 2011.” [Columbus Dispatch, 1/13/2016]

In June 2013, Devon Saunders was sentenced to 41 months in prison for dealing crack cocaine and six years of supervised release thereafter. He was released last November by a judge who applied the early release guidelines from the Sentencing Commission. Just two months later he was arrested in Pittsburgh for possession of heroin and ….second-degree robbery. So much for the victimless crime.

Another big dimension of the fight to “reduce prison population at all costs” is the transfer of violent criminals to halfway houses. Earlier this month it was reported that a violent criminal escaped from a halfway house and immediately went on a rampage, raping and robbing five women throughout the city. At the time, Police Chief Cathy Lanier admitted this is a growing trend and is contributing to the rise in crime in D.C. “These alternatives to being incarcerated include group homes, halfway houses, community placement with GPS tracking devices, and it’s those folks that we are seeing that are increasingly being involved in crime,” said Lanier.

Now consider that, according to the Sentencing Commission, over 11,500 inmates would be eligible for retroactive leniency under the current Senate bill. There is no telling how many prospective criminals will be affected by this legislation. Here is just one likely example, cited by Sen. David Purdue (R-GA) during the committee markup:

In 2010, Albert Burnett was convicted and sentenced for unlawful possession of a firearm for his participation in a shootout in an Illinois shopping mall. Prior to this, he was convicted in state court 5 times of murder, 2 times of attempted murder, aggravated battery, domestic battery, and twice being a felon in possession of a firearm. He served less than 4 years of his sentence for murder, a crime he committed while on parole from his 2 attempted murder convictions, before being released again on parole. [details from US v. Burnett, 641 F. 3d 894 (7th Cir. 2011)] For his federal conviction, Burnett was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment – the mandatory minimum. But under the current Senate bill, he could have his sentence reduced by 5 years. And federal prisoners generally serve only 85% of their sentences, meaning Burnett could be back on the streets by 2018.

The Great Success of Jailbreak on a state level?

Although state programs for early release make slightly more sense than release of federal criminals, don’t think that many of the people serving time in state prison on drug charges are not violent career criminals either. According to a report released last year by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 76.9% of drug offenders who were released from prison in 30 states from 2005-2010 were arrested again within five years, a quarter of them committing violent crimes.

The much-vaunted early release program in Utah, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, is in part what has fueled support for federal jailbreak legislation. But just last week, a career criminal who was eligible for early parole under this program murdered a Salt Lake City cop. He had accrued a decade-long rap sheet of charges for drugs, firearms violations, and theft—the paradigm of a career criminal eligible for early release under the proposed federal legislation. Like many of these career criminals, they might be serving time because they were convicted for a lower-level crime, but they remain dangerous criminals.

In the alacrity of some of these states to empty their prison populations at all costs, some are even letting out the wrong people. Washington cloddishly erred in calculating the sentences of eight criminals, resulting in their release. They committed numerous felonies and 19 misdemeanors shortly after their release. Several of them committed murder.

In Delaware, 71% of the 11,700 felony weapon charges filed between 2012 and 2014 were dropped and 80% of those charged with using firearms while committing crimes over the same time period were never prosecuted. They are already seeing a recidivism problem from those early releases or dropped charges, which has led to the loss of human life. Remember, the bipartisan Senate bill codifies Obama’s willful disregard of criminals who committed firearms violations [sections 104, 105 of S. 2123].

In California, voters passed Proposition 47, which dramatically reduced the penalty for drug offenses and property crimes. What are the results? Heather McDonald compiled the following data:

In the city of Los Angeles, violent crime rose nearly 20 percent through August 22, 2015, compared with the same period in 2014; property crime was up 11 percent. Shooting victims were up 27 percent. Arrests were down 9 percent. In Santa Ana, felony crime was up 33 percent in May 2015, compared with May 2014. Violent crime was up 28 percent, property crime up 43 percent, and robbery up 89 percent. In nearby Costa Mesa, violent crime increased 47 percent, and theft was up 44 percent, through late July, compared with the same period in 2014. In San Francisco, violent crime was up 13 percent, and property crime up 22 percent, through June 2015 over the previous year.”

Ironically, prison costs have increased in California, even as they released 30,000 prisoners over the past three years. The moral of the story? When you pursue reduction in prison population at the expense of public safety you reap the benefits of neither.

As we noted before, those serving time in federal prisons tend to be even worse than those released from state prisons. The Senate bill would likely release even worse offenders. The bill repeals the “Three Strikes” law, allowing early release for those convicted of three serious drug dealing offenses, offers early release to juvenile MS-13 gang members, and reduces sentences for those convicted of firearms violations while committing robberies. The general leniencies for juveniles are appalling and on par with some of the lunacy blue state legislatures have passed in states like Maryland. Taken as a whole, these categories of crimes are all associated with the most violent individuals who are capable of murder, and if released, will likely re-offend with worse offenses.

In a rare moment of candor, Senator Durbin, a sponsor of this bill, said: “This is dangerous business for a politician. We are going to release people, but we don’t know what they are going to do. We may be held personally accountable. But if we use that as our inspiration we will never touch the sentencing laws.”

Maybe he is on to something after all. (For more from the author of “Stick a Fork in the Willie Horton Jailbreak Bill” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Will Pro-Lifers for Trump Get Dumped — Like Ivana and Marla?

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“If he’ll cheat on her, he’ll cheat on you,” is what Southern mothers tell their daughters, warning them that stealing away a woman’s husband isn’t just gravely immoral. It also means you’re as dumb as a box of rocks. A man who proves that he’s willing to be unfaithful this time is pretty much promising you that he’ll be unfaithful next time, when you’re the victim. The only safe response to a man like this is Carrie Underwood’s: “The next time he cheats/it won’t be on me.”

And that’s what we’d like pro-life Americans to think about as they consider Donald Trump. Not Mr. Trump’s personal life [warning: graphic content] — the fact that he abandoned one aging wife (Ivana) to take up with a younger woman (Marla), then dumped her just shy of the date when their pre-nup would have expired, chivalrously breaking her the news by leaking it to a newspaper, and leaving a copy of the paper on her bed. No, that’s strictly personal stuff, and there’s no way we can learn about a man’s promise-keeping habits from irrelevant data like that. Instead, let’s think about Trump’s stated, public record on life issues, and what it means.

But first please walk on a little imaginative journey with us. Pretend, for just a second, that the pro-life movement acted as an effective pressure group, like the gun lobby. Imagine if in addition to its spiritual uplift mission, the pro-life movement were disciplined, rigorous and political. This would make sense on the face of it, since its stated goal is to change the laws of this country.

Yes, we do hope to change Americans’ hearts, and restore the dignity of sex, and build up a wholesome culture that sees life as meaningful and beautiful. But that is really a job for the churches, one which too many good-hearted people have piled onto the pro-life movement because their churches aren’t bothering with it. That sad fact makes it all too easy to lose our focus on the movement’s stated goal, which is to legally protect a whole class of abandoned Americans from lethal violence. Period. If that has the happy side effects of strengthening marriage, curing the “hook-up” culture, increasing respect for women, and helping souls to accept Jesus as Lord — and we think it will — then all the better.

But first the laws must change. There is no substitute. If we had never outlawed slavery, you can count on it people would own some. If segregation in restaurants had never been outlawed, it would still prevail in many places. The law is a great teacher. It tells citizens what is really, really important — important enough that if you flout the law, there are people in uniform who will come to your door. We wouldn’t settle for a nation that had changed its heart, but not its laws, on slavery or segregation, and we can’t when it comes to abortion.

The Margaret Sanger Argument Against Abortion

If you were pro-life in the same way that the head of the NRA is pro-gun rights, would you settle for a candidate who had spent most of his life as a radical anti-gun advocate, supporting the seizure of all private weapons? Well, Donald Trump favored abortion on demand until … some point after he decided to run for president. In 1999, he expressed support even for partial birth abortion, the destruction of near-newborns who could survive outside the womb. By 2011, Trump claimed to be pro-life, recalling that he knew “a friend had a child who they were going to abort, and now they have it, and the child is incredible.” In a GOP debate, Trump upped the ante, calling that lucky child a “superstar.” Jamie Weinstein of The Daily Caller, as a good journalist, asked Trump the obvious question:

Would Trump have changed his view on abortion if the child had become a total loser?

“I’ve never thought of it,” Trump said in our interview. “That’s an interesting question. I’ve never thought of it. Probably not, but I’ve never thought of it.”

Margaret Sanger couldn’t have said it any better. In fact, Trump’s view echoes her slogan: “More children from the fit, fewer from the unfit.” He would realize that if he ever took the time to think about it, which he admits he has not. That’s how important the deaths of a million American pre-born children each year are to Donald Trump: unworthy of two consecutive, logical thoughts, bridged by an inference. Would the NRA settle for this kind of callous “conversion” from a lifelong gun-grabber? Why should pro-lifers?

Perhaps it’s not surprising that when every pro-lifer in America was reeling from the gruesome footage obtained by journalistic hero David Daleiden, which proved that Planned Parenthood doesn’t just kill unborn babies, but cuts them up for parts, Donald Trump was one of the few Republicans to openly say that the government should go on funding that ghoulish group. He argued that the taxpayer should pay for all the non-abortion stuff (like imaginary mammograms) that Planned Parenthood is supposed to do — a distinction which he understands is meaningless. If your son is a heroin addict, you can’t make a deal with him that you will pay all his other bills, but will not pay for his drugs. Of course, you’re just freeing up his other money for … buying drugs! A man who has navigated four bankruptcies unscathed, while his investors lost tens of millions, surely understands basic accounting better than that.

We all know the way that abortion was legalized for all nine months, for any reason, in 50 states, against the wishes of voters — by unelected judges. In the same way, same-sex marriage and countless other evils have been foisted on us, and carved in stone out of voters’ reach. Trump knows this too. He knows that vast power has been seized from the citizens of this country by a cabal of judges, the presidents who appoint them, and the senators who confirm them.

This travesty of democracy which perverts and degrades our Constitution is one of the main complaints of the entire conservative movement — including immigration restrictionists, who note that “birthright citizenship” was only applied to illegal immigrants by virtue of a crackpot Supreme Court decision made in 1898. The greatest disappointment to social conservatives of three Republican presidents has been their mixed record of choosing Supreme Court appointees. Notice that Democratic presidents never, never disappoint the abortion lobby. Why do you think that is? Because they wouldn’t get away with it. Republican candidates know that they can, so they do. Since up to four Supreme Court seats might become vacant in the next presidential term, this issue matters more than ever, and more than most. The next four (or eight) years of presidential Court appointments could change America radically, revoking gun rights and gutting the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion.

So you’d think that the fervent pro-life convert Donald Trump would be keenly attuned to the need for appointing solid Constitutionalists to federal courts, especially the Supreme Court. But you would be wrong. When asked about this issue, Trump didn’t offer some mealy-mouthed speech about avoiding “litmus tests,” as too many weak pro-life politicians do. No, he didn’t hint with a wink that he might betray us. He outright promised to. Trump cited as the kind of judge he’d appoint to the Court his left-wing, judicial activist sister, who in the Trump tradition supports partial birth abortion. Some were tempted to write this statement off, even excuse it, as a mere example of charming, roguish nepotism. Really? Would Wayne LaPierre of the NRA settle for such an excuse? So why should we?

Lately, it seems that someone who knows the pro-life movement has gotten to Mr. Trump, and helped him to hire a ghostwriter. We’re glad that writer found work, but it’s hard to take seriously an op-ed like Trump’s recent piece in the Washington Examiner, which flies in the face not only of what he was saying in recent years, but in recent months. Given what he has said over many years, and in unguarded moments when there was no ghostwriter at hand, we must take Trump’s pro-life promises no more seriously than he took his business debts, or “till death do us part.”

If pro-lifers accept at face value Donald Trump’s half-hearted, fingers-crossed, nod-and-a-wink conversion, then they really are as clueless as Donald Trump thinks all Republican voters are. He boasted just this weekend that he “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” If voters choose such a man as the legal champion of innocent unborn life, then they deserve to be betrayed. But those unborn babies don’t.

Or maybe some “pro-lifers” just don’t care. They are so concerned with winning, with sidling up to the big dog, with walling off the border or stopping goods from China, that a fig leaf’s enough for them. Ann Coulter, with her famous good taste, responded to Trump’s vague immigration plan by Tweeting:

Pro-lifers who share her priorities will nod at Trump’s empty promises, and pretend that they believe them. Then they’ll bat their eyes, sign the prenup, and give The Donald what he wants.’ (For more from the author of “Will Pro-Lifers for Trump Get Dumped — Like Ivana and Marla?” please click HERE)

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