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How Environmental Groups Are Responding to Trump’s ‘Solar Wall’ Pitch

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President Donald Trump’s idea of putting solar panels on his long-promised border wall hasn’t gained a lot of support among top environmental lobbying groups—even though the organizations have long backed solar power as a key renewable energy.

“The problem with talking about solar panels on Trump’s border wall is that it’s science fiction,” Travis Nichols, a spokesman for Greenpeace, a liberal environmentalist group, told The Daily Signal. “Just like clean coal does not exist and will never exist, Trump’s wall with solar panels won’t exist, so it’s irrelevant to discuss climate issues.”

A spokesman with the Sierra Club referred to a tweet storm by the Sierra Club executive director, Michael Brune, reacting to Trump’s proposal for solar panels on the border wall.

Speaking Wednesday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Trump proposed putting solar panels on the wall. Such panels would capture power along the hot southern border, to help increase the power supply, which the president said would help pay for the wall.

“We’re thinking of something that’s unique, we’re talking about the southern border, lots of sun, lots of heat. We’re thinking about building the wall as a solar wall, so it creates energy and pays for itself. And this way, Mexico will have to pay much less money,” Trump told the Iowa crowd.

“And that’s good, right? Is that good? You are the first group I’ve told that to. A solar wall. It makes sense. Let’s see. We are working it out. Solar wall panels.”

Trump added: “Pretty good imagination, right? Good? My idea.”

There would likely be more effective ways to pay for the wall, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, a pro-border enforcement think tank.

“It is one of the sunnier parts of the country, but solar panels are fairly fragile,” Camarota told The Daily Signal. “Each illegal border crosser has a cost of about $75,000 for taxpayers. A modest reduction in border crossings could help pay for the wall.”

Camarota, who believes interior enforcement is perhaps more important than the wall, said the reduction in needed law enforcement and health costs from drugs not entering the country would also offset the costs.

There are too many uncertainties to know whether this would cover the cost of the border wall, said Nick Loris, a research fellow in energy and environmental policy at The Heritage Foundation.

“It’s entirely too early to tell and there are too many outstanding questions. If the solar panels are subsidized, we’re just paying for them through another mechanism,” Loris told The Daily Signal. “It’s difficult to know what the solar panels would cost, how much energy they’d produce standing vertically as opposed to angled horizontally like you see at a solar farm or a rooftop.”

It would require additional building, Loris said, adding:

You also have to factor in the transmission lines to take the energy from remote places to where it’s needed. There’s repair, replacement, and waste costs. They’re also not very efficient compared to other forms of energy, which is why they only account for a meager 2 percent of our net electricity generation, even with generous support from the taxpayer. There’s a lot of question marks surrounding the project so that it’s difficult to know how costly or beneficial it would be.

A Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “A Shiny Border Wall That Pays for Itself” by Vasilis Fthenakis, an earth and engineering professor at Columbia University, and Ken Zweibel, director of the Solar Institute at George Washington University, contends:

Resolving the political impasse between Mexico and the U.S. over a border wall requires innovative thinking. How about this: Presidents Donald Trump and Enrique Peña Nieto should work together to construct a ‘solar wall’—a massive string of photovoltaic panels—on the Mexican side of the border.

Another op-ed in the liberal Huffington Post on Dec. 16, 2016, “Instead of Trump’s Wall, Let’s Build A Border of Solar Panels,” by Homero Aridjis, a poet and novelist, and James Ramey, a professor at Metropolitan Autonomous University and member of Mexico’s National System of Researchers, said:

There is indeed a way that Mexico could create a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico, one constructed exclusively on the Mexican side, with substantial benefits for both countries and the planet: a solar border. …

If one were to construct the equivalent of a strip of arrays one-third the width of a football field south of the entire U.S.-Mexico border, wider in some areas and narrower in others, with a wide berth allowed for populated areas and stretches of rugged terrain, sufficient energy might be produced to also supply Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Dallas, and Houston. For the U.S. cities, it would be a way to obtain cheaper and cleaner energy than they can from other sources.

(For more from the author of “How Environmental Groups Are Responding to Trump’s ‘Solar Wall’ Pitch” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

With Ominous Tweet, Comey Pal Suggests Bombshell Story Is Soon to Drop

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A longtime friend of James Comey is teasing what could be a bombshell story about the former FBI director and his interactions with President Trump.

Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, posted an ominous message on Twitter on Friday: “TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK.”

The lawyer, who blogs at Lawfare, has posted similar messages in the past just before major stories in the ongoing Trump-Comey saga hit The New York Times.

Wittes wrote on Twitter that the upcoming story could be published late Friday or on Monday. The heads-up comes a day after Trump revealed that he was bluffing last month when he suggested that he had recorded his conversations with Comey.

May 16 appears to be his first time Wittes previewed Comey stories.

(Read more from “With Ominous Tweet, Comey Pal Suggests Bombshell Story Is Soon to Drop” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

No Tapes: Trump Says He Didn’t Record Meetings With Comey

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President Donald Trump said Thursday he “did not make” and doesn’t have any recordings of his private conversations with ousted FBI Director James Comey, speaking up on Twitter after a month-long guessing game.

“With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information,” Trump said he has “no idea” whether there are “tapes” or recordings of the two men’s conversations. “But,” he declared, “I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.”

The saga began in May, just days after Trump fired Comey, who was then leading an investigation into contacts before and after the election between the president’s campaign and Russian officials. Trump disputed Comet’s version of a January dinner during which Comey said Trump had asked for a pledge of loyalty. (Read more from “No Tapes: Trump Says He Didn’t Record Meetings With Comey” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Protesting Trump Is Easy. These CEOs Did the Hard, Adult Thing

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CEOs at the American Technology Council summit this week at the White House displayed a level of maturity and leadership that is absent with Democrats and the left-wing media.

While many of the CEOs supported Hillary Clinton and aggressively oppose President Trump’s policies, they put aside their political ideology to seek ways to use their expertise to benefit the U.S. (and perhaps their investors).

The 18 CEOs and three university presidents were invited to the White House to explore ways technology can improve the federal government’s lagging operations. Unlike Democrats and the left-wing media that are intent on destroying Trump, the tech CEOs exhibited business-savvy pragmatism to make the most of their White House access.

The business leaders did what mature adults do — they met and talked despite divergent political views and likely personal animosity. Even though they have deep philosophical differences with Trump on numerous issues, they made progress on the issue of modernizing government technology while also freely expressing their political concerns.

Attending the technology summit was undoubtedly not easy for the major tech titans that reside in a progressive bubble. Most live and work in deep-blue states and cities surrounded by progressive Democrat employees, friends, and families.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, for example, held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton last year and he strongly opposes Trump on immigration and environmental policies.

Following the 2016 presidential election, questioned by Apple employees about his decision to meet with Trump last December, Cook defended the meeting, saying, “Personally, I’ve never found being on the sideline a successful place to be.”

To date, Cook’s effort to influence Trump on political matters have not been successful. Cook lobbied Trump to stay in the Paris climate accord, and criticized Trump after the president decided to have the U.S. leave the agreement. Under Cook’s direction, Apple joined with almost 100 other companies in filing an amicus brief to oppose an executive order on immigration by Trump.

Despite being a high-profile critic of the administration, the president invited Cook and Cook participated in the American Technology Council meeting. Cook made the most of his access and pushed his idea to make computer coding a school requirement. Among other issues, he also expressed his views on the important role immigration plays in the U.S. economy, as well as the need for improvements in veterans’ health care.

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty also attended, despite Trump’s unpopularity with some of the company’s workforce.

During an interview on CNBC’s “Mad Money” with host Jim Cramer, Rometty said the summit was an opportunity to advance an issue she is personally passionate about — technology skill training for the future.

Following Trump’s presidential victory, IBM employees criticized Rometty and her open letter to the then president-elect, as many felt it was a tacit endorsement of Trump and that she offered the backing of IBM’s global workforce in support of his agenda.

One employee quit over Rometty’s outreach effort, and others signed a petition that included five demands (including Trump-related demands). Rometty cast aside the internal pressure and negative press and carried on to advance her fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

In today’s politically correct world, the easy thing for Cook and Rometty would be to use their personal feelings to protest Trump and not participate in business summits. Such a decision would make them heroes in Progressiville.

Indeed, that’s the approach Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger took with Trump. Musk followed through on his threat to leave White House business advisory councils over the Paris agreement. Iger also bolted from a business council group over Trump’s climate change decision.

Again: Protesting Trump is easy for business leaders that live and work in a progressive bubble. But taking your ball and walking away is not what real leaders do. Resisting Trump is the major focus for Democrats, and they refuse to work with the president on important policy issues, including health care and tax reform.

The left-wing media are also working hard to undermine Trump where their political agenda supersedes the truth. Democrats and the left-wing media should take note from the actions of the 18 tech CEOs at the White House this week. (For more from the author of “Michigan Cop Stabbed in Neck by Attacker Shouting ‘Allahu Akbar'” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Was It Wrong to Disrupt the Trump Murder Fantasy Play?

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The Stream’s Al Perrotta wrote cogently about it last week: The repulsive production that New York City’s Shakespeare in the Park had mounted. It was Julius Caesar, with the burgeoning tyrant played by a Donald Trump impersonator. Crowds of frustrated liberals savored it. They turned out for the thrill of watching the president get stabbed to death on stage. This in the context of 15 different instances of celebrities inciting violence against the president or his administration. Kathy Griffin’s ISIS photo shoot was only the worst.

All this incitement finally had the predictable effect: An enraged liberal Democrat attempted to wipe out the House GOP leadership. Rep. Steve Scalise still fights for his life. So a few lonely Trump supporters in New York City decided they’d had enough. They got tickets to the Shakespeare play, and one of them leaped up during it to register their protest. As Daniel Greenfield recounts it:

A New York production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” with a Trump-like character who is assassinated had a boisterous new scene this weekend: an activist who stormed the stage, yelling, “Do you want Trump to be assassinated?”

Police said Laura Loomer was arrested Friday evening during the play presented in Central Park by the city’s Public Theater. She was arrested, charged with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct and released. She must appear in court at a later date to respond to the charges.

“I’m out of jail, but I’m not apologetic,” the 24-year-old conservative activist wrote on Twitter. “Thanks to everyone who is supporting me & condemning political violence.”

As she rushed to the stage, Loomer reportedly shouted, “Stop leftist violence!”

Here’s a longish video that includes footage of her protest:

Some conservatives, such as Ben Shapiro and David French, treated this protest as the same sort of poison served up almost daily on the left. They used words like “tribalism” and “hooliganism.” I had a different reaction: I thought it was great. I wished I had been in NYC to join it.

Not Poison But Pepper

Tribalism isn’t poison. It’s more like pepper. Too much of it, and a dish is inedible, even dangerous. Too little and it’s insipid, as bland and unattractive as … well, a long list of GOP 2016 presidential hopefuls.

Ben Shapiro suggested that a lone protestor briefly taking the stage was “no different” than massed crowds of hooded, threatening Antifa rioters. You know, the folks who assaulted a faculty member at Middlebury. Who intimidated police with fires and cudgels at Berkeley. Does he really believe that? I hate to be pedantic. But here are a few key differences I could spot:

Laura Loomer had no weapons. Antifa protestors used metal rods and other weapons to menace their opponents.

Loomer peacefully left the stage when security guards escorted her off, and the performance continued. Campus leftists come in vast numbers, and typically administrators refuse to have them removed — so conservative speeches end, abruptly.

Loomer will face charges, just as civil rights demonstrators faced charges for desegregating “Whites-Only” lunch counters. Almost no leftist campus protestors have faced legal or even school punishment, anywhere.

But the two types of protest are for Shapiro “no different.” In fact, it’s hard to see what they have in common. They share exactly one element: In each case, hecklers violate the social contract that says that public events should be allowed to proceed without interruption.

Where Politeness Becomes Pusillanimous

Is that social contract absolute? Is it part of the natural law, so that if we violate it we are lowering ourselves to the same level as the worst, most intolerant leftists in America? Let’s pose a few hypotheticals and see how that thesis fares. Imagine each of the following public performances:

A live-action performance in spring 2008 of The Birth of a Nation, the infamous pro-Klan epic. In that production, a look-alike of newly elected President Barack Obama is killed by “heroic” Klansmen.

A version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, with a ringer for Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) playing the venal usurer Shylock — who at the play’s end is utterly humiliated and forced to convert to Christianity, at the point of a sword.

A theatrical adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, in which characters played by actresses who look like Cecile Richards, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Michelle Obama are beaten and raped.

Would we expect liberal intellectuals to savagely condemn as “tribalists” or “juvenile hooligans” black, Jewish, or female audience members who heckled such productions? Especially if their communities had recently been victims of real-world violence comparable to the attempt to murder the GOP House leadership?

Would we even condemn such hecklers ourselves?

Them’s Fighting Words

Of course not. We would realize that such productions were the equivalent of “fighting words.” That they were blatant provocations, which deserved some vocal, non-violent pushback. The protest against the Trump murder fantasy play made that clear. It’s a point we should be ready to make again and again.

Again, we must do it while eschewing violence, obeying police, and paying the relevant fines. Because, unlike the radical left, we aren’t barbarians. But neither are we passive, hapless piñatas. Spirited conservatives should be able to tell the difference. Or, as I wrote on Twitter in response to French and Shapiro: “This is how you get Jeb!” (For more from the author of “Was It Wrong to Disrupt the Trump Murder Fantasy Play?” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump CANNOT Be Indicted, Say DOJ Memoranda

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Yes, it’s just that simple. The long-held official policy of the Department of Justice is that a sitting president of the United States cannot be indicted, according to official DOJ memoranda. Even The New York Times agrees…

Mark Levin informed his listeners of this fact during his radio program Monday night, saying, “whether I agree with that position or not is quite beside the point.”

“So all this talk about whether Trump personally is under investigation for obstruction of justice, or whether Trump violated the law, it will never go to court … if Robert Mueller should seek to indict Trump, a sitting president, in the end the Supreme Court would throw it out,” Levin continued.

So why does the endless cloud of investigation around the Trump administration exist? It exists generally to distract and derail Trump’s presidency, and specifically for the purposes of impeachment.

Levin said as much: “Mueller’s investigation, to the extent it involves Trump himself, has as its purpose to lay a predicate or a pretext, if you will, for impeachment — and that’s not that man’s job!” (For more from the author of “Trump CANNOT Be Indicted, Say DOJ Memoranda” please click HERE)

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Who Is the Cop-Killer Trump Said He Wants Extradited From Cuba?

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During his speech in Miami on Friday, President Trump called on the regime in Cuba to extradite wanted terrorist Joanne Chesimard (who goes by the name Assata Shakur) to the United States.

“Return the fugitives from American justice. Including the return of the cop-killer, Joanne Chesimard,” Trump demanded of the regime in Cuba.

Chesimard is a well-known, infamous figure in the law enforcement community. But many outside of that community, especially millennials, may not be so familiar with her case.

A convicted murderer, Chesimard was a prominent member of the ruthless Black Liberation Army (BLA), a splinter group comprised of the most radical members of the Black Panthers. Shakur was the leader of a notorious New York City BLA cell that hunted down police officers for brutal assassinations.

Chesimard has become a folk hero among the fringe Left. Because of her background in far-left activism, some in movements like Black Lives Matter see her as a hero, and not the terrorist cop-killer that she really is.

The Black Liberation Army, which rose to prominence in the 1970s, was known for its ruthless methods. In one incident showcasing their carnage, three BLA militants killed two NYPD officers in the East Village. But that wasn’t the worst part. The assailants stood over the officers and continued to shoot into their bodies repeatedly.

By 1973, Shakur was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. The FBI labeled her the “revolutionary mother hen” of the cell that had carried out the murders of NYPD officers. Later that year, Shakur bolted New York City with fellow BLA members.

On her escape down the New Jersey turnpike, she was pulled over by state troopers. At that time, her accomplice, Zayd Shakur, was killed in a gunfire battle. A police officer was also killed in the incident, with help from Chesimard, who again sped away in her vehicle

But ultimately, she was captured sitting on the side of the highway after being wounded in the gun battle.

In 1977, Chesimard was charged with murder and convicted of firing the shots that killed New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster. She was also convicted of seven other felonies. She was sentenced to life in prison plus thirty years for her crimes.

She was later transferred to a lax security prison facility. The facility did not screen guests, so anyone was able to visit her. This allowed Chesimard to plot with members of the BLA to break her out. And on Nov. 2, 1979, three militants held a correctional officer hostage and proceeded to break Chesimard out of prison, with getaway cars waiting outside.

Two years later, she surfaced in Cuba. A wanted fugitive, Fidel Castro’s dictatorial regime provided Chesimard with asylum. Her path from prison to Cuba is largely unknown, and has baffled even the experts who traced every step of her case. Some speculate that she made her way to the Bahamas and was later picked up by a Cuban patrol boat. There are as many as 70 American fugitives living in Cuba under protection of the tyrannical Castro regime.

In 2013, the FBI placed Chesimard on its most wanted terrorists list, giving her the distinct honor of becoming the first woman to ever be placed on the FBI fugitive roster.

As former President Obama opened up diplomatic relations with Cuba, many had hoped that Chesimard would be on his list of priorities for extradition. This turned out not to be the case. Obama ignored the pleas of the law enforcement community and her victims families’ who sought to bring Chesimard to justice.

Many in the law enforcement community hoped that President Trump would act on behalf of their slain colleagues, and get to the bottom of Chesimard’s case. Today, they are surely thankful that the president demanded the Cuban regime extradite her back to America to face justice. (For more from the author of “Who Is the Cop-Killer Trump Said He Wants Extradited From Cuba?” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Do This If You Really Want to Save Trump From Impeachment

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I’m going to give those claiming they want to save President Trump from a potential impeachment the benefit of the doubt, although at times like these I seriously wonder whether such benefit should be extended.

I mean, when someone like myself, who didn’t even vote for Trump, seems more earnest in salvaging his presidency than those who shill for him, I have to wonder if some of these people really care about the country. Or do they just want the show (see that as clicks)?

Because advising Trump to fire independent counsel Robert Mueller is arguably the single dumbest strategic advice I’ve ever heard. Beyond it dragging Trump into a credibility war he cannot possibly win versus a man with an impeccable service record (whom the Trump administration appointed in the first place), it also incentivizes Trump to do more of why he has a historically low approval rating.

It’s the political equivalent of telling a friend trying to kick a meth habit, and struggling through withdrawal, to just take a little tweak to tide him over. (When that “little tweak” is what led him to being a junkie in the first place.)

But there is something Trump can absolutely do to make this all go away — at least in the minds of anyone who would even entertain ever voting for him. And he can do it right now, before Mueller issues a single subpoena or conducts a single deposition.

Trump can take a page out of the playbook of his old friends, the Clintons, when they were besieged by scandal, and simply govern well.

Back then, we caught a president committing a crime on tape. Yet most Americans simply shrugged and said, “Why should I care more than his wife does?” They did so because we were in the midst of a robust economic recovery, primarily fueled by the dot.com boom, when the economy was growing three times the current rate.

In other words, the people didn’t want to rock the boat while things were going well. That is especially so since that Al Gore guy would then take over, and he actually believes that crazy economy-killing environmentalist wacko stuff Bubba only paid lip service to.

Since then, the American people’s overall disdain for their political class has only grown. And their expectations for their politicians have eroded all the more as a result — to the point the character of our leaders is largely irrelevant now. Not even those supposedly Sola Scriptura fundamentalist Christians believe character counts anymore.

I don’t approve of that, and I wish that wasn’t the case. But I also wish I had six-pack abs, too. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in politics, it’s that you can’t change an environment any more than you change the weather forecast. So when the meteorologist tells you winter is coming, you can either howl at the monitor or equip yourself to thrive in that environment.

Instead of encouraging Trump to pursue a course of action that will likely end with him before Speaker Pelosi’s Congress pressing impeachment in 2019, supporters of the president should be urging him to use this cynical environment to his advantage. See, the vast majority of those who voted for Trump knew he wasn’t Mr. Virtue. They did so because the other damaged option, Hillary Clinton, would use government as the means to damage them as well.

This is the reason so many Trump voters aren’t moved by his alleged misbehavior. Most who voted for Trump aren’t in this because of his notorious cult of personality, but “because Hillary.” And when your primary investment in a politician is who they aren’t rather than whom they are, you didn’t really have expectations to begin with.

Thus, if Trump just does what he promised to do – repeal Obamacare, cut taxes, protect the border, and kill lots of terrorists – names like Comey and Mueller will simply pass into the Netherrealm of the comments sections of the lefty blogosphere. The rest of America will simply shrug their shoulders and say, “They’re all crooks anyway, but this one at least leaves me alone and kills the bad guys before they kill us.”

I want Trump’s presidency to be successful, regardless of my reservations, for he makes decisions each day that could determine our kids’ futures. If I wanted my previous NeverTrump stance vindicated, I’d just sit by and say nothing while he chose the road to political perdition, and then pridefully utter, “I told you so.”

However, Trump has done some good things when it comes to judicial appointments (I hope), the regulatory state, and foreign policy I’d like him to continue doing. But the odds he’ll get to do so decline every day his focus isn’t on good governing. (For more from the author of “Do This If You Really Want to Save Trump From Impeachment” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

“If We Knew He Would Win, We Would Have Stopped Him”

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This was the comment made by the lead reporter covering Joe Miller and his upstart race for senate, for the then little known, and financially unviable Alaska Dispatch, the night of the primary when Miller pulled off the biggest upset in the history of Alaskan politics, in Trumpian style, back in 2010.

The power, and sheer hubris of the media – had never been more on display – for those attuned to it, than in that race. To be clear- All the powers that be, the media, the left, the establishment GOP, the “deep state” – as it’s now referred to (those sitting in the bureaucracy taking an active hand against a populist or independent minded candidate), all had been taken off guard, and reacted with the full might of their power, doing all they could to sink his campaign in the general election. And, with some help from his own missteps and those of his well meaning staff of honest novices-none of whom, admittedly, had ever been on such a stage, against such seasoned foes- it worked.

It is fair to say, never had Alaskan politics experienced such an upset- and never had that upset been followed by such an assault, from all quarters. Page one lies, followed a week later by page seven retractions. Over an 8 week period of the general election, a count was done of the published articles on each candidate; 26 negative on Miller, 3 on McAdams (the Democrat) and 5, all favorable, on Murkowski, running as a write-in. The myriad of laws broken by state and federal election officials, the slanders by the media, and the betrayals by the party whose primary he won, are legion – too many to list here – but needless to say, the fix was in, and it was heaped on all sides, by all sides.

Fast forward 6 years – and on a much grander stage – a similar event takes place. An unprecedented and more importantly, unpredicted win takes place, and the pillars of power shake.

The response was immediate. The strategy predictable: discredit the win, disavow the mandate.

Never, in the recorded history of our national political scene, has the media, the left wing, the establishment right, and the “deep state” lifelong bureaucrats, all coordinated such a prolonged attack against a sitting president, over.. in realty, nothing..and yet, in a battle, essentially for everything. Make no mistake, the country’s soul is what is up for grabs, and if you do not think so, please take a moment to consider the stage that is set, and where we find ourselves.

A concocted narrative, with no facts, no evidence, and no proof, has dominated the last 8 months of American politics, and is all but insuring the failing of a legislative and executive agenda, which puts as it’s primarily goals, restoring peace and security to the nation and its peoples, and returning freedom and prosperity to the American body, and the individuals of which it’s made, as it’s central goals.

And that, is exactly the problem.

And that, is exactly the point.

The powers that be, on all sides, may not be “colluding” as is the new en vogue phraseology- but they all may as well be. They have a common goal, status quo- and thus- a common enemy: the President. More importantly – his agenda – but there’s more to it than that. A visceral hate, on all sides, because he is beholden to none of them, and this is key; none of them ordained him. In essence- his affront to their sensibilities is three-fold; his goals are in opposition to theirs (no matter what they say in the GOP), they did not create him, thus they cannot control him, and thirdly- they did not predict him, thus he disapproves their all knowing omnipotence.

The last, is the greatest sin.

You can never underestimate the sheer insult it is to the ruling class, when someone they don’t own, and didn’t create, beats their expectations. By extension their lackeys and sycophants in the media and academia are likewise injured, after all- they are the keepers of knowledge and the “knowers of all that is and shall be”, far be it from any citizen, be he small town judge, father of eight and decorated veteran, or billionaire New York real estate magnate and pop culture icon. If they don’t approve you, you don’t get in. If they don’t control you, you don’t get to make decisions. And most importantly – if your basic existence refutes the premise that they know all..

..you must be destroyed.

It’s that simple.

As we watch good men, like former Senator and now Attorney General Jeff Session, get drug thru the mud and have to defend baseless accusations that he should not be subject to…as we watch a media hate cycle feed itself it’s own stories 24 hours a day seven days a week…as we watch craven political operatives and elected politicians shiver with fear in the corner of inaction and cowardice- we may ask ourselves “Why?” And “How did this come to be?” To be be frank, the answer is really not that hard to discern.

For certain, there is money, lots of money at stake. Power, mainline power, the kind that money can’t buy- that is there, to be sure, all of that as well..and all of that has contributed to the decline of nobility of service and replaced it with the utter sleaziness of “job security”, but if you want to know what is really driving all of this, in a word, it is simply this:

Arrogance.

Not just any arrogance.

The kind of arrogance that believes a story shouldn’t be a story unless it was thought of or predicted in the minds of the journalists writing it weeks, months or years before.

The kind of arrogance that thinks the citizen works for the government, and not the other way around.

The kind of arrogance that thinks the powers that be should brook no insolence from the serfs and slaves that tend the fields.

And finally, the kind of arrogance that corrupts a man when he wakes up one day and thinks, not only does he know better than his neighbor how his neighbor should live his life, but that he should be entitled to compel his neighbor- thru force- to live his life accordingly.

At best, this arrogance is giving in to a weakness in all men and women- a failure to discipline oneself against base instincts and poor character temptation that tests us all– at worst, it is the embodiment of evil, and a desire to control ones fellow man, and see them all as merely extras, in the grand Play of ones life, to be moved about to for purposes other than their own, and not deserving of power over their own lives, instead of individuals, with thoughts and opinions and hopes and dreams, and as the only true masters over their own destinies.

It is this arrogance that we are, those of us who hold these beliefs the founders annunciated so well, have been fighting for for centuries. It is this arrogance that we confront now, in the face of the farce that are these hearings and investigations, innuendos and insults, and the attack on our intelligence that is the daily media and pop culture assault, on anyone who dare challenge this arrogance, and those who hold to its self centered axiom, and it is why we must continue to persevere.

This is the world when they have no true power. Full of lies, rumor, slurs, defamation, and character assassination. They are losing right now, thru the grace of God alone.

Imagine the world in which they win?

In the midst of all this, now more than ever, we cannot waiver. We cannot relinquish our freedom and our intellect. We cannot fail to resist. We cannot afford to lose.

______________________________________________

Dr Walter Campbell is a lifelong Alaskan, former Marine, and physician.

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Administration Keeps Obama LGBT Policies at Pentagon, Other Agencies

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The Defense Department recently held an LGBT Pride Month event, while the Army conducted transgender sensitivity training, moves that baffled retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin and some other conservatives.

They had expected that the new command, under President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis, a retired Marine general, would revise if not reverse some of the Obama administration’s policies on transgender individuals in the military.

“I was very surprised, not so much by Donald Trump but by Gen. Mattis. I thought his total focus would be on military readiness and winning wars, and not social engineering,” Boykin told The Daily Signal.

Boykin is now executive vice president of the Family Research Council, which promotes traditional values.

The retired Army general argues that political correctness about both gender identity and women in combat is degrading the morale and readiness of the armed services by having troops spend hours in classrooms learning about gender issues.

“For 16 years we’ve been at war. When service members are not deployed overseas, they are preparing for war,” Boykin said. “Not one minute of preparation time should be squandered on social experiments.”

On June 12, the Pentagon held its sixth annual LGBT Pride Month celebration. Anthony M. Kurta, a retired Navy rear admiral, stressed its importance.

“[L]et us reflect on the service and sacrifice of all DOD members, past and present,” Kurta said, according to a Defense Department press release on the event. “We take pride in the contributions of all who defend and serve our country, and rely on the diversity of our members to meet our mission.”

Kurta is the Defense Department’s undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, a position he has held since 2014 under the Obama administration.

One group of conservative leaders, the Conservative Action Project, called for the Trump administration to “discontinue funding and directing personnel resources” for special interest events such as LGBT Pride Month that “do not strengthen military readiness.”

Some of those conservative leaders, including Reagan administration veteran Becky Norton Dunlop, say they understand that such programs likely have operated on autopilot since Trump succeeded Barack Obama as president Jan. 20.

Trump did not issue a presidential proclamation declaring June as LGBT Pride Month, as Obama did in the eight previous years.

Just before June, however, the Navy issued its own statement anticipating LGBT Pride Month.

“To remain the finest seagoing fighting force, the Navy needs men and women who are the right fit for the right job regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, creed, or gender identity,” Capt. Candace Eckert, the Navy’s special assistant for inclusion and diversity, said. “Our goal is to ensure that the mission is carried out by the most qualified and capable sailors.”

Other federal agencies, from the State Department to the Department of Homeland Security to the Department of Veterans Affairs, confirmed to The Daily Signal that they use government resources to promote LGBT Pride Month during June.

Kathy McGettigan, the Trump administration’s acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees all federal employees, heralded the month celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.

“LGBT Pride Month is just one way that we can honor the struggles and achievements of the LGBT community, including the LGBT members of our federal workforce,” McGettigan, a 25-year employee, wrote June 9 on the Office of Personnel Management website. Her post provided related links for LGBT employees.

“Enjoy your celebration and Happy Pride Month,” McGettigan wrote.

The Department of Veterans Affairs put up three large LGBT Pride Month posters in its central office in Washington. The agency printed 150 bulletins to hand out at an event scheduled June 22 at VA headquarters, Sterling Atkins, the VA’s diversity and inclusion specialist, told The Daily Signal.

As for the State Department, a spokeswoman told The Daily Signal that the department “issued guidance to embassies and consulates allowing them to, as appropriate to their local context, recognize LGBTI Pride Month.” The “I” in LGBTI stands for “intersex.”

The State Department did not provide specifics.

The Small Business Administration scheduled an event June 21 and printed 75 pamphlets, spokeswoman Carol Wilkerson told The Daily Signal.

Conservatives interviewed say they particularly are concerned about the military, specifically with transgender recruits, because of what they consider issues of preparedness for war and unit cohesion.

“This puts extra burdens on military doctors and nurses who have to provide these hormone benefits and surgeries to service members who aren’t deployable for months. So, this becomes a magnet [for people seeking gender transition],” Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a conservative pro-defense group, said in an interview.

Both the Republican Party platform and Trump as the nominee for president “vowed to eliminate political correctness in the military,” Donnelly told The Daily Signal.

“Military voters put trust in the president, but now there are so many Obama holdovers in the Pentagon making policy,” she said.

Donnelly, Boykin, and Dunlop were among 85 conservative leaders— including former members of Congress and former Cabinet officials—who signed a May 16 “memo from the movement” as part of the Conservative Action Project.

The memo raises similar concerns about government time and resources being devoted to “gender transitioning,” saying:

It must be difficult to suffer from gender dysphoria and confusion about one’s sexual identity, but concerns about these individuals do not justify mandates on military medical doctors and nurses to approve, provide, or participate in life-altering transgender treatment or surgeries. Many object to these experimental treatments on grounds of medical ethics or sincere religious convictions. …

[C]ontinuing implementation of the Obama transgender policies for service members would ignore the strongly felt concerns of women particularly, who do not want to be exposed to individuals of the opposite sex in facilities which offer minimal privacy. This grave problem must be taken seriously when the incidence of sexual assaults and rape in the military is so severe. …

Secretary Mattis should suspend and, upon further careful study, rescind Defense Department and military service directives permitting transgender individuals to serve. … Further, the Trump administration should discontinue funding and directing personnel resources for special interest events, including LGBT Pride Month events in June, which do not strengthen military readiness.

The memo was signed by cultural, economic, and national defense conservatives because frivolous defense spending affects everyone, said Dunlop, chairwoman of the Conservative Action Project, who is the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

“This is entirely at the feet of Secretary Mattis,” Dunlop told The Daily Signal. “The president clearly, just by watching him, is a delegator.”

Even so, Dunlop, who worked in the Reagan administration, said she understands the Trump administration may not be able to address related issues immediately. But, she said, she would like to see movement in the right direction.

“Things do take time, but we expect to see evidence of changes,” Dunlop said. “We have not even seen evidence of people put in place to make the changes at the Defense Department.”

Readiness and combat effectiveness are the priority, Lt. Col. Myles Caggins, a Defense Department spokesman, told The Daily Signal. He said the department, at Kurta’s direction, conducted a review of the military’s ability to work with new transgender enlistees.

In a statement provided to The Daily Signal, Caggins said:

Diversity is a source of strength for the Department of Defense, and is a key to maintaining our high state of readiness. Diversity encompasses more than demographic differences (e.g., race, gender, and sexual orientation) — we also value diversity of thought, background, language, culture, and skills.

Matt Thorn, executive director for OutServe-SLDN, a Washington-based advocacy group for LGBT individuals in the military, dismissed the concerns expressed by the conservative leaders. SLDN stands for Service Members Legal Defense Network.

“This is expected from the far right, and it doesn’t have any foundational basis,” Thorn told The Daily Signal. “There is no evidence that we’ve heard or seen that makes the argument that transgender people [in the armed forces] affect military readiness.”

Navy veteran Ken Boehm, chairman of National and Legal Policy Center, a government watchdog group, was among the signers of the memo. Continuing the Obama administration’s social engineering policies is fiscally irresponsible, he told The Daily Signal.

“The Obama administration stuffed the Pentagon with people who didn’t have the defense of the country in mind, but had social engineering on their mind. Every dollar we spend on social engineering is one dollar less we are spending on defense,” Boehm said.

Boehm said he doesn’t understand why the Trump administration hasn’t made a change, but is willing to give Mattis the benefit of the doubt.

“I would suspect it’s a little like drinking from a fire hydrant,” Boehm said of what may be on the defense secretary’s mind, adding:

There is already one problem after another. I’ve never viewed Mattis as squishy. Trump authorized him to handle troop levels in Afghanistan. If he has that authority, I’d think he would tighten other things up. But sometimes you have to make trades in the short term for the bigger picture.

At this early juncture, it likely is a matter of priorities for the Trump administration, said Steven Bucci, a retired Army Special Forces officer and former top Pentagon official who was military assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Every day a policy is in place, it gets harder. Because of the ‘little c’ conservative nature of the Department of Defense, change is difficult,” Bucci, now a visiting fellow on national security policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

“Ash Carter’s legacy was women in combat and transgender issues,” Bucci said, referring to the last of Obama’s three defense secretaries, and a deputy to the previous two. “I don’t think we want Mattis to focus on the social issues as his No. 1 priority. We want him fighting bad guys. It’s unrealistic to think he would change the policies this early.” (For more from the author of “Trump Administration Keeps Obama LGBT Policies at Pentagon, Other Agencies” please click HERE)

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