At Issue this week... Vladimir Putin by Mona Charen

July 30, 2014

America Buchanan (26) This is what really needs resetting American Exceptionalism Limbaugh (25) Norris (27) he bodies of 298 passengers and Chechens, and the enraged Russian people Putin has applied the logic of the Mos- Amnesty crew of Malaysia Air Flight 17, 80 endorsed the continuation of the war. cow bombings (stoke hatred of others to Schlafly (22) of them children, lie unburied in a Some members of the Kovalev Commis- rally Russians around himself) to relations Answer Man Seamans-Shook (14) UkrainianT field while Vladimir Putin’s men sion, appointed to investigate the bombings, with other nations. Russian state TV, after Black Americans fire their weapons into the air to keep in- expressed interest in accounts of possible labeling the elected government in Kiev, Williams (24) ternational investigators from approaching FSB responsibility for the attacks. Here’s Ukraine, as Nazi for months, recently ac- Clinton, Hillary Bozell (20) the site. Yes, “Putin’s men.” Calling them what happened to them: Sergei cused the Ukrainian army of crucifying a Conservatives “Russian separatists” unnecessarily digni- Yushenkov, co-chairman of three-year-old boy. Russian media feature Limbaugh (4) fies them. They are supplied, armed and an almost daily diet of conspiracies suppos- Dear Mark Levy (19) trained by the despot in the Kremlin. Mona edly concocted by Americans to undermine Death Penalty and humiliate Russia. Saunders (3) AT THE VERY least, Putin is respon- Charen For about the 100th time, Obama this Downing of Flight 17 sible for arming these dangerous actors. At (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate week warned Putin that if he didn’t cooper- Bay (29) Buchanan (15) most, it’s possible the missile wasn’t fired ate in the Malaysia plane investigation, he Economic Strength by Ukrainians at all, but by Russians, which the commission and a member of the Lib- would risk “isolating” Russia from the in- Kudlow (13) would answer President Barack Obama’s eral Russia party, was assassinated in front ternational community. Executive Power Lowry (5) question: “What do they have to hide?” The of his apartment; Yuri Shchekochikhin, Putin doesn’t seek to be part of any First Amendment SA-11 is apparently a complex system re- another commission member, independent community. He seeks to be feared — and Napolitano (21) quiring four well-trained weapons special- journalist and Duma member, was poi- he should be. A look back at recent his- Free Enterprise Greenberg (6) ists to operate. In either case, the man with soned with thallium; and Mikhail Trepash- tory shows clearly that he is incapable of Harding & Clinton blood on his hands is Putin. kin was arrested on a weapons charge that shame and deaf to conscience. In light of Tyrrell (10) Obama began relations with Russia with later morphed into an espionage case. He this, Obama can at least do a few things: Illegal Immigration a “reset.” The premise of this new start was was tried in a closed military proceeding 1) arm the Ukrainians with something con- Coulter (7) Massie (24) that relations between our nations had dete- and condemned to four years in prison. siderably more lethal than MREs; 2) stop Saunders (13) riorated due to the policies of former Presi- placing phone calls to the Kremlin — we Immigrants dent George W. Bush. A KBG DEFECTOR, Alexander Lit- should have nothing to say to him; 3) fast- Lambro (23) Impeachment But Obama was following the same tra- vinenko, wrote a book called Blowing Up track liquefied natural gas export permits; Farah (14) jectory as his predecessor. Bush, too, began Russia alleging that the FSB was respon- and 4) freeze the assets of Putin and his cro- Iran with high hopes for Putin. He was even sible for the Moscow bombings. He died, nies just as we did to Saddam Hussein. Chavez (30) Israel & Hamas taken in, for a short time, by Putin’s pro- slowly, of poisoning with polonium-210. Greenberg (16) fession of religious faith — surely one of Litvinenko had also accused Putin of arrang- THE THING that needs a reset is our Krauthammer (31) the biggest cons of modern diplomacy. As ing the murder of Anna Politkovskaya — a perception of Putin. Thomas (17) Bush watched Putin commit one aggres- Russian journalist and critic of Putin and the LaMarche, Philip Gara Malkin (29) sive act after another, both domestically Chechnya war. She was gunned down in the July 22, 2014 Liberalism and internationally, he wised up. Midway elevator of her apartment in 2006. Barone (5) through his second term, journalist Peter Obamacare Jeffrey (20) Baker writes, when Tony Blair said he was McCaughey (2) more worried than ever about Putin, Bush Obama Presidency replied, “You should be.” Lowry (15) Patriotism Bush may have clung too long to the Harsanyi (12) hope of moderating the criminal in the Paul, Rand Kremlin, but Obama had even less excuse. Saunders (9) Perry, Rick He had the benefit of Bush’s experience. He Morris (6) had witnessed Putin’s invasion of Georgia Murchison (22) in 2008, his unflagging support for Iran and Political Correctness Greenberg (28) Syria, his use of oil and gas to intimidate Putin, Vladimir Ukraine and other nations, his obliteration Charen (1) of democracy in Russia, his muzzling of the Shapiro (18) press, and his systematic murder of domes- Race Card Elder (11) tic critics. Funny that Obama would have Sowell (3) thought that responsibility for the decay in Thomas (12) relations should be laid at the feet of Bush. Republicans Charen (8) When Putin took command of the FSB Towery (9) (the KGB renamed), Russia was enduring Russia international criticism for its war in Chech- Prager (30) VA Scandal nya. Moscow apartment complexes ex- Malkin (27) perienced a wave of bombings that killed Worldwide Chaos several hundred. Putin pointed the finger at Barone (10) 2 Conservative Chronicle OBAMACARE: July 23, 2014 Obamacare is in critical condition he nation’s No. 2 court on Tues- The D.C. Circuit ruling also chastised Despite that and other warnings, IRS shifted the cost from premium payers to day slapped down the Obama the Obama administration for rewrit- officials last fall dispensed tax subsidies taxpayers. administration in a 2-1 decision ing the law to suit its own ends. Judge in all 50 states. The court ruled “with reluctance,” thatT could kill the president’s signature Thomas Griffith, writing for the -major Administration lawyers argued that, Griffith said. “At least until states that health care law. A less-prestigious fed- ity, declared, “The Constitution assigns regardless of what Section 1401 wish to can set up exchanges, our ruling eral appeals court issued a contradictory the legislative power to Congress, and to says, Congress envisioned will likely have significant consequences opinion the same day, but if the Supreme Congress alone.” offering subsidies to both for the millions of individuals re- Court upholds the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, it No more gov- Betsy buyers nationwide. ceiving tax credits through federal ex- will force Congress back to the drawing erning by fiat, Mr. The court didn’t changes and for health-insurance markets board to design a health law that is genu- President. McCaughey buy it. more broadly. But, high as those stakes inely affordable, not just falsely titled The businesses (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate “The fact is that are, the principle of legislative supremacy “Affordable Care Act.” and individuals the legislative re- that guides us is higher still.” who sued in Halbig argued that the ac- cord provides little indication one way or The judges made it clear that either THE RULING in Halbig v. Bur- tual wording of the Affordable Care Act the other of congressional intent,” wrote Congress must act to change the law well bars the federal government from clearly allows the IRS to provide subsi- Griffith. (highly unlikely) or states must establish handing out taxpayer-funded subsidies dies (via a tax credit) only to buyers in their own exchanges (also unlikely), or to people who buy Obamacare plans in states that established state exchanges. NO WONDER. Obamacare was Obamacare will collapse because of its nearly two-thirds of the states — the 35 Section 1401 of that law unambigu- crammed through the Senate on Christ- unaffordable premiums. that refused to set up their own insurance ously states that subsidies will be made mas Eve 2009, before lawmakers had The ruling puts Obamacare in legal exchanges. available “through an exchange estab- read it, much less debated it. (Majority limbo, even with a less-influential court, Those subsidies took the sting out of lished by the state.” Leader Harry Reid was racing the clock the Fourth Circuit, issuing a conflicting being forced to buy pricey Obamacare The subsidies were intended as a carrot to pass the bill through before not-yet- ruling. The administration says it will re- plans. If the ruling sticks, buyers in those to persuade states to establish exchanges. seated Scott Brown could provide the key quest an en banc hearing before the entire states will have to pay full price, on aver- But surprise, only 14 states went along. vote to stop Obamacare, as Massachu- 11-judge D.C. Circuit, which is weighted age a whopping four times the subsidized The others, mostly led by Republican setts voters had just elected him to do.) in Obama’s favor with seven Democratic price they paid this year. governors, refused. Late in the game, Without subsidies, the Affordable Care appointees. Quadrupling the price would trigger the administration had to establish the Act is just the opposite — hugely unaf- But the issue is plainly headed to the a mass exodus out of the plans, causing federal healthcare.gov exchange to get fordable. According to the Department of U.S. Supreme Court eventually. Two what the insurance industry calls a “death Obamacare launched in those uncoopera- Health and Human Services, 87 percent other federal appeals courts are decid- spiral.” tive states. of people who signed up for Obamacare ing challenges almost identical to Halbig. Sadly, many of the people who’ll be In 2012, the Congressional Research for 2014 qualified for subsidies, and on Any disagreement among them will force forced to flee the exchanges had cheap- Service cautioned that the text of the law average they paid just 24 percent of the the high court to rule. er health coverage pre-Obamacare, but plainly indicated “the IRS’ authority to true cost of their plan — $82 a month in- the president’s law outlawed plans that issue the premium tax credits is limited stead of $376. DON’T BET that Chief Justice John didn’t contain all the bells and whistles only to situations in which the taxpayer is That $82 price tag didn’t mean Obam- Roberts will save Obamacare again. The he deemed necessary. enrolled in a state-established exchange.” acare had lowered insurance costs. It just issue here is the clear language of the law, and twice in recent months the Supreme Court has emphatically declared that the executive branch must execute the laws, not rewrite them.

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[email protected] Visit our web site at: Contact us at 800-888-3039 or email: [email protected] www.conservativechronicle.com July 30, 2014 3 DEATH PENALTY: July 20, 2014 The triumph of dubious death penalty appeals — all bow — federal judge It doesn’t bother Carney that death is admittedly too slow and obscenely You may be wondering what Jones has ruled that California’s row inmates’ lawyers have created that pricey because it makes less sense to did to earn a cell on death row. Though death penalty is unconstitu- preposterous sentence — remote possi- allow capital punishment opponents Carney’s opinion included no shortage tionalA because the state’s “dysfunctional bility of death — by slowing the wheels to sub- vert the rule of law. of political arguments, he neglected administration” has meted out the punish- of justice with It doesn’t to document the ugly details of Jones’ ment to more than 900 murderers but im- dubious time- Debra J. bother Carney 1992 crime. He failed to mention Ju- posed it on “only 13” since 1978. That’s sucking appeals. that another fed- lia Miller — the mother of Jones’ too arbitrary, wrote U.S. District Judge If appellate attor- Saunders eral judge, Jer- girlfriend — who was found bound, Cormac J. Carney of Santa Ana. Besides, neys think delays (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate emy Fogel of San stripped to the waist and dead from “the slight possibility of death, almost a are too painful for Jose, effectively multiple knife wounds. Carney didn’t generation after (killer Ernest Dewayne their clients, maybe they should curb stopped the death penalty in California use the word “rape” or “stab.” He didn’t Jones) was first sentenced, violates the their appeals. when he ruled in 2006 that the state’s mention that, as the Los Angeles Times Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against It doesn’t matter to the judge that Cal- three-drug lethal injection protocol was reported, investigators found Jones’ se- cruel and unusual punishment.” ifornians have upheld the state’s capital unconstitutional. men and DNA at the scene or that Jones punishment law three times since 1972. admitted to killing Miller on the stand, AND: A “death sentence carefully In 2012, a majority of voters rejected NOR DOES it bother the judge that although he denied planning it. and deliberately imposed by the jury has the well-funded, celebrity-endorsed the court did not correct Fogel’s outlier Carney, however, did find room to been quietly transformed into one no ra- Proposition 34, which would have re- ruling in 2008 after the U.S. Supreme reject any notion that endless frivolous tional jury or legislature could ever im- placed the death penalty with life with- Court ruled 7-2 that Kentucky’s three- appeals cause the delays. The office of pose: life in prison, with the remote pos- out parole. Clearly, voters think it is ra- drug death penalty concoction passes California Attorney General Kamala sibility of death.” tional to hang on to a death penalty that constitutional muster. Harris argued that Jones’ attorneys have submitted hundreds of pages of legal briefs with a host of complaints. RACE CARD: July 22, 2014 Ergo the delays. The strongest legal ar- gument — the one that moved Carney to vacate Jones’ death sentence — was the creative claim that the “psychologi- Bordering on madness cal impact” of legal delays is cruel and n a recent confrontation be- ging, though I have seen both whites immigrants from some other countries, unusual. tween protesters against the il- and blacks doing so. and do not end up being supported by Kent Scheidegger of the tough-on- legal flood of unaccompanied But such impressions are no basis the taxpayers nearly as often as immi- crime Criminal Justice Legal Founda- childrenI into the United States and for deciding serious issues about im- grants from other countries. But such tion faults a system that nonsensically counter-protests by some Hispanic migration and citizenship. When we do information is seldom mentioned in pays lawyers to undermine the law. A group, one man from the latter group not control our own borders, we have discussions of immigrants, as if they criminal attorney, argued Scheidegger, said angrily, “We are as good as you no way of knowing how many of those were abstract people in an abstract doesn’t go to court to argue that it is are!” coming across those borders are crimi- world. unconstitutional to imprison a rapist, One of the things that make the his- nals or even terrorists. Questions about immigration and but the Habeas Corpus Resource Cen- tory of clashes over race or ethnicity citizenship are questions about irre- ter sees its job as doing “everything it such a history of tragedies around the versible decisions that can permanently can do to stop the death penalty.” world is that — regardless of whatever Thomas change the composition of the Ameri- Guilt is irrelevant. particular issue sets off these clashes Sowell can population and the very culture of “For a law to work,” Scheidegger — many people see the ultimate stakes the country — perhaps in the direction added, “people in the trenches have to as their worth as human beings. On (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate of the cultures of the countries from take it seriously to implement it.” that, there is no room for compromise, which illegal immigrants have fled. Some federal judges also apparent- but only polarization. That is why play- WE HAVE no way of knowing During the era of epidemics that ly think it’s their job to stop the death ing “the race card” is such an irrespon- how many of those children are car- swept across Europe in centuries past, penalty. They are not restrained by Su- sible and dangerous political game. rying what diseases that will spread people fleeing from those epidemics preme Court precedent; they are politi- to our children. And we already know, often spread the diseases to the places cal actors trying to pretend they are not THE REAL ISSUE when it comes from studies of American children, that to which they fled. Counterproductive political actors. to immigration is not simply what par- those who are raised without fathers and dangerous cultures can be spread In upholding Kentucky’s death pen- ticular immigration policy America in the home have a high probability of to America the same way. alty, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, should have, but whether America can becoming huge, expensive problems Willful ignorance is not the way to “It is not a little ironic — and telling — have any immigration policy at all. for taxpayers in the years ahead, and a make immigration decisions or any that lethal injection, hailed just a few A country that does not control its mortal danger to others. other decisions. Yet the Obama admin- years ago as the humane alternative in own borders does not have any immi- A hundred years ago, when there istration is keeping secret even where light of which every other method of gration policy. There may be laws on was a huge influx of immigrants from they are dumping illegal immigrants by execution was deemed an unconstitu- the books, but such laws are just mean- Europe, there were extensive govern- the thousands, in communities far from tional relic of the past,” became sub- ingless words if people from other ment studies of what those immigrants the border states. ject to a constitutional challenge on the countries can cross the borders when- did in the United States. There were Looking before we leap is not rac- grounds that it may induce pain. When ever they choose. data on how many, from what coun- ism — except in the sense that anything that fails, he noted, in “an exercise of One of the reasons why many Amer- tries, ended up in jail, diseased or on the Obama administration doesn’t like raw judicial power,” opponents choose icans are reluctant to keep out illegal the dole. There were data on how well is subject to being called racist. the next best option, “never-ending liti- immigrants — or even to call them “il- their children did in school. gation.” legal immigrants,” instead of using the As with most things, some immi- AMERICANS WHO gather to pro- mealy-mouthed word “undocumented” grant groups did very well and others test the high-handed way this adminis- NOW A FEDERAL judge has ruled — is that most Hispanics they encoun- did not do nearly as well. But today, tration has sneaked illegal immigrants essentially that “never-ending litiga- ter seem to be decent, hard-working even to ask such questions is to be con- into their communities can expect the tion” produces unconstitutional psy- people. sidered mean-spirited. race card to be played against them. chic pain to convicted killers. This column has pointed out, more Such information as we have to- The time is long overdue to stop being Cheap date. than once, that I have never seen Mexi- day shows that immigrants from some intimidated by such cheap — and dan- cans standing on a street corner beg- countries have far more education than gerous — political tactics. 4 Conservative Chronicle CONSERVATIVES: July 18, 2014 Has the right lost its will to fight? don’t think Congress should begin But to me, impeachment really isn’t impeachment proceedings against the issue when it comes to the various President Obama right now, but I factions within the Republican Party alsoI don’t think that considering the idea and the conservative move- is “crazy talk.” ment. I have long contended The man has, in that the differences my view and that David between tea party of many others, conservatives and committed multi- Limbaugh the so-called es- tudinous impeach- (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate tablishment are able offenses, and far deeper than we need to strenuously object and bring “tactics;” they also involve policy dis- it to the public’s attention every chance agreements. we get. The idea of turning our heads and On that point, let me ask you to con- looking the other way is repugnant. sider what will happen if Republicans do end up with control of both the House YES, THE ELECTIONS are too and the Senate. What will the prudent close for Republicans to risk impeach- and cautious advocate then? Will they ment proceedings at this point, unless it say not to oppose Obama too much for became clear that the majority of Ameri- fear that he’d successfully demonize cans have the political will for that ac- Republicans as partisan saboteurs and tion — as Andy McCarthy eloquently ensure the election of a Democrat as er words, we should throw in the towel the freedom-smothering metastasis of explains in his book Faithless Execution. president in 2016? on our founding principles, accept the the federal regulatory leviathan, and the But my concern is that many of those Let’s go further. Let’s say Repub- liberal narrative that Reagan conserva- danger to the republic from unchecked, who are so dismissive of impeachment licans then win the presidency and re- tism is extremism, and do the best we rampant illegal immigration. are the same ones who always argue cau- tain control of Congress in 2016. Then can within the new paradigm. Will Republicans, if they regain tion in opposing Obama. They tend to what? power of both political branches, have throw in the towel before the fights even I would wager that many of my es- I CERTAINLY hope I’m overstat- the political will to begin to unravel the begin, scared of their shadow and forever tablishment friends will continue to ing the case, but I’ve seen how timidly nightmares caused by an abandonment banking on that next election. advise restraint, urging us not to drasti- Republicans have operated on domes- of our founding principles, or will they Though it may not be the opportune cally roll back Obama’s liberal policies, tic and social issues when in power, just nibble around the edges with in- time for impeachment, I am very con- either because they’ll be horrified about and I’ve read the commentary of many significant modifications because they cerned about what Obama’s unchecked the next election or because they have establishment-oriented pundits about no longer believe in either conservative usurpations of power have done to the really, in the end, lost their stomach for “compassionate conservatism” and sim- principles or their ability to convince the balance of power in the federal govern- political battle and their taste for free ilar tautologies. people that our ideas are still superior? ment and the overall integrity of the Con- market principles. Conservatives have been warning for You see, my real concern is not about stitution and the rule of law. Seeing as we I suspect that many of them have years about the unchecked explosion of impeachment. It’s that too many of us have not taken any formal action against come to accept a large, “energetic’ fed- entitlements, runaway deficits and debt, have given up on the ideas that made this president for his egregious transgres- eral government and believe that Re- the destructiveness of the welfare state, America great — other than to pay mean- sions, what will the next president be al- publicans should just accept it and in- the enormous problems with federal con- ingless lip service to them. I’m worried lowed to do on his own should he choose stead devise original and creative yet trol of education, the evils of socialized that too many of us have given up the to operate outside his authority to the “conservative” policy solutions within medicine, the growth-smothering effects fight. We have watched as liberals have same extent Obama has? the big-government framework. In oth- of federal taxing and spending policies, overtaken our cultural and educational institutions and successfully vilified the American idea — even to the point that they have many on our side convinced. Well, I’m not among those convinced, and I don’t believe that the majority of the American people are, either. But I do think that we need leaders who will ar- ticulate conservative ideas unapologeti- cally and that conservatives need to en- gage in the culture war and try to make progress toward reversing this illusion that limited government, capitalism and traditional morality are wrongheaded and extreme. I just want us to get back in the fight. We face a tireless, relentless foe in lib- eralism, and if we’re not up to the chal- lenge, we might as well kiss America goodbye, irrespective of whether we win or lose the next few elections.

BUT I AM PRAYING — and choose to believe — that we can and will turn this around because our ideas are supe- rior and the majority of people still in- stinctively understand that. But we need to begin acting and talking as though we believe it. July 30, 2014 5 LIBERALISM: July 18, 2014 Obama turning liberalism into instrument of coercion iberals just aren’t very liberal has the old meaning), and much of the The amendment is poorly drafted to restrict political speech, which is the these days. The word “liberal” Obama Democrats’ agenda are logi- and leaves many questions danger- core value the Founders sought to pro- comes from the Latin word cal outgrowths — Obamacare, the vast ously open (who qualifies for the me- tect. meaningL freedom, and in the 19th century, expansion of food stamps, attempted dia ex- ception?), perhaps Or consider liberals’ recent attitude liberals in this country and abroad stood assistance to un- because its sponsors toward free exercise of religion, made for free speech, free exercise of religion, derwater home- know it has no sig- plain in their reaction to the Supreme free markets, free trade — for minimal owners. Michael nificant chance of Court’s Hobby Lobby decision declar- state interference in people’s lives. But in some re- passage. ing the Obamacare contraception man- In the 20th-century, New Dealers re- spects the Obama Barone It also seems date invalid as a violation of the Reli- vised this definition by arguing that peo- Democrats want (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate animated by a gious Freedom Restoration Act. ple had a right not only to free speech and to go further — delusionary para- The RFRA was passed, with three dis- freedom of religion but also, as Franklin and are complaining that they’re having noia: Democrats profess to be afraid senting votes, and signed by Bill Clinton Roosevelt said in his 1941 Four Free- a hard time getting there. Their form they’ll be swamped by a flood of rich in 1993. It was prompted by a Supreme doms speech, freedom from fear and of liberalism is in danger of standing people’s money, even though their rich Court decision upholding the penaliza- from want. for something like the very opposite supporters have raised more than the tion of Oregon Indians for using peyote, of freedom, for government coercion other side in recent years. which they claimed was a religious rite. FREEDOM FROM want meant, for of those who refuse to behave the way Nonetheless the picture is striking. In passing RFRA, liberals and con- Roosevelt, government provision of jobs, they’d like. Many conservatives wanted to change servatives alike responded as Americans housing, health care and food. And so Example one is the constitutional the First Amendment in order to pros- have often done when small groups have government would have to be much larg- amendment, sponsored by 43 of the 55 ecute flag burning, not the Founding claimed laws infringed their religious er, more expensive and more intrusive Democratic U.S. senators, which would Fathers’ central concern. beliefs: They put a higher priority to a than ever before. cut back on the First Amendment and few individuals’ free exercise of religion That’s what liberalism has come authorize Congress and state legisla- TODAY’S LIBERALS, in contrast, than they did to widely supported laws to mean in America (in Europe it still tures to restrict political speech. want to change the First Amendment of general application. Thus Congress allowed for conscien- EXECUTIVE POWER: July 17, 2014 tious objectors to be exempt from mili- tary service in World War II, in which more than 400,000 U.S. service mem- bers died. Even in a national emergency, when lives were at stake, Americans Obama’s hilarious lawlessness were willing to accommodate religious resident Barack Obama styles administration nonetheless delayed the As Bagley writes, “the Obama ad- beliefs that a large majority did not himself a wit, and some of his mandate for a year via a Treasury De- ministration’s claim of enforcement share. best material lately has to do partment blog post in July 2013. discretion, if accepted, would limit Today’s liberals take a different view. withP his abuse of his powers. Before his adoring audiences, the Congress’s ability to specify when They want to make Hobby Lobby’s “As long as they’re doing nothing, president says he has to act because and under what circumstances its laws owners pay for what they regard as the I’m not going to apologize for doing Congress won’t. In this case, Congress should take effect.” If the next presi- destruction of human life. They spent something,” Obama riffed to a crowd was happy to act. In fact, the House dent accepts Obama’s modus operandi, much time arguing the owners are mis- at the Georgetown Waterfront Park in passed a bill to delay the mandate until we will witness the effective institu- taken (actually, they have a plausible Washington, D.C., on July 1, referring Jan. 1, 2015. President Obama tionalization of a chief executive un- scientific basis for their belief). to Republicans. “So sue me.” Hilarity threatened to veto it. moored from the laws. But the point about freedom of re- ensued. So I sympathize with the impetus ligion isn’t that everyone has to agree. Rich behind the Boehner suit, even if I am On the contrary: Almost no one agreed HE CRACKED them up in Austin, Lowry lukewarm on the suit itself. The key with the Oregon Indians’ beliefs about Texas, last week. “You hear some of procedural question is whether Con- peyote. them,” he said, “’Sue him.’ ‘Impeach (c) 2014, King Features Syndicate gress has standing to sue the president. They just thought the larger society him.’ Really? Really? For what? You’re The courts have strict rules on stand- should not use compulsion to bar them going to sue me for doing my job?” LAST FEBRUARY, the adminis- ing — there must be a specific injury from practicing their religion. Today’s One can only imagine the comedic tration delayed the mandate yet again. traceable to unlawful conduct, etc. — liberals seem comfortable with using the possibilities in his 9-0 defeat in the Su- It made a distinction between employ- that are “founded in concern about the force of law to prevent people from do- preme Court in June for his blatantly ers with 50 to 99 workers (the mandate proper — and properly limited — role ing so. abusive recess appointments to the Na- won’t apply to them until 2016) and of the courts in a democratic society,” Or consider the Supreme Court deci- tional Labor Relations Board, or any of employers with 100 or more workers in the words of the Supreme Court. sion in Harris v. Quinn, ruling that care- the court’s other recent unanimous re- (the mandate will apply to them begin- Even if Congress can establish givers for disabled relatives paid with bukes of his executive overreach. ning in 2015) that has no basis in the standing, it is inviting the courts di- Medicaid funds are not state employees It takes a truly blithe spirit to play law, and layered on additional rules rectly into a political dispute with the and thus cannot be forced into a public the constitutional deformation of his also created ex nihilo. executive branch, when the Constitu- employee union. office, and the ensuing congressional All of this is indefensible. Nicholas tion equips it with its own tools to fight Today’s liberals did this in Presi- reaction, for laughs. The Constitution’s Bagley, a University of Michigan law such battles, especially the power of dent Obama’s Illinois to channel public injunction that the executive “take care professor and Obamacare supporter, the purse and impeachment. That pru- money away from low-income caregiv- that the Laws be faithfully executed” wrote in a piece for the New England dential considerations make wielding ers and toward public employee unions is not a suggestion. It is a requirement. Journal of Medicine in May that the those powers problematic in this po- that do so much to fund and support the It is designed to prevent the executive various ACA delays “appear to exceed litical environment doesn’t mean that Democratic Party. They seem unembar- from unilaterally suspending laws, as the scope of the executive’s traditional the courts should necessarily be the rassed by this crass political motive and English kings claimed the right to do. enforcement discretion.” recourse. indifferent to the plight of the needy. The lawsuit against the president The left’s reaction to the Boehner suit undertaken by House Speaker John has been to rip the speaker for, in effect, AT THE END of the day, there’s TODAY’S LIBERALS seem bent on Boehner targets the serial delay of suing to achieve the expeditious imple- simply no substitute for a political cul- pushing people around, preventing them Obamacare’s employer mandate, just mentation of a law he opposes. True ture that values lawfulness. The presi- from speaking their minds and practicing one of a number of seat-of-the-pants enough, but Boehner is trying to vindi- dent has damaged it gravely, and evi- their beliefs. It’s not just the language delays and alterations in the law. The cate a principle that should be obvious. dently had a heck of a lot of fun doing it. that’s changed. 6 Conservative Chronicle FREE ENTERPRISE: July 16, 2014 Try it, you’ll like it: Economics for beginners o you like convenience, ser- capitalism’s bidding — local politicians vice, simplicity, competition, like Joan Adcock on Little Rock’s city more jobs and all the other council. Alderwoman Adcock sounds featuresD of a free market that stays free much disturbed by these and ever produc- ominous signs that tive? free enterprise Then you’ll Paul is breaking out love a service in Little Rock’s like Uber or Lyft, Greenberg comfortably closed which use private (c) 2014, Tribune Media Services market for cab drivers to give rides. Let ordinary customers a, yes, lyft. No waiting for- citizens use their apps to summon a ride ever, just door-to-door or even corner- quickly, conveniently, efficiently and to-corner service. Provided by friendly economically, and where will it all end? folks who use their own cars and stand The alderwoman can provide a lim- to collect the lion’s share of the fares, the itless supply of doomsday visions. She worker being worthy of his hire. Who foresees a horde of unqualified drivers, wouldn’t like it? It’s good for the cus- or worse, invading the public streets. Let tomer, good for the driver, and good for free enterprise get a foot inside this door the local economy. and the public safety will be at risk, unli- censed drivers will run rampant, and the cepting drivers, provides liability cover- AS USUAL when competition enters HERE’S WHO wouldn’t like it: the sky will fall. age, and is careful to screen those offer- the picture, both old and new enterprises kind of vested interests, like cab com- ing drives. benefit by learning from each other, and panies, who long ago formed a cozy ANYBODY WHO’S ever used a To see how such operations really the whole industry improves. Whether relationship with local government to service like Uber or Lyft elsewhere, or work, Alderwoman Adcock might try the stultifying monopoly is in public keep any competition out by imposing a just glanced at those operations’ actual one — like Lyft in San Francisco — and transportation or public education, the ef- whole web of onerous rules and regula- policies, knows better. As a spokesman experience the ease, economy and con- fect of such a stranglehold can be equally tions that mainly benefit themselves. for Uber points out, the company does venience of it for herself. Try it, and I bet paralyzing, and its being broken can It was Jonathan Swift who observed extensive background checks before ac- she’d like it.. prove just as energizing. long ago, “When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all July 23, 2014 the dunces are in a confederacy against RICK PERRY: him.” In the same way, you can spot a true — and useful — innovation in the economy by this sign: that all the vested interests form a confederacy of monopo- Rick Perry in Barack Obama’s face lists against it. Which is how a dynamic y sending 1,000 National With Clark Kent black glasses, and But, if he is really willing to work at system like capitalism becomes encrust- Guardsmen to the Texas/ sans cowboy boots, will the new Rick ramping up his intellectual firepower to ed with special privileges and inefficient Mexico border, Governor Perry do better than his previous incar- the level required to run for president, bottlenecks that make it anything but RickB Perry is stepping up to challenge nation? he could win. Swagger is fine in a can- dynamic. the president and fill the vacuum left by There are seeds of hope in his candid didate, but intellectual arrogance is not. That’s how the economic powers that Barack Obama’s lack of leadership in a comment that “The biggest error in judg- And laziness is inexcusable. Perry says be, and that are determined to stay, sub- way other possible presidential candi- ment I made [in 2011] was thinking that he was ill last time and performed sub- stitute government-issue paralysis for dates cannot match. just because I’d been the governor in the par. We’ll see. capitalism’s usual cycle of destruction His boldness and courage come as a state of Texas I was prepared Republicans like their candidates to and creation, which an Austrian (and lat- welcome relief for the legions of Re- have gone through the legitimacy of er American) economist named Joseph publicans and Independents who ask, Dick losing before they finally win the prize Schumpeter (1883-1950) labeled Cre- with frustration, “Will nobody stand up of the nomination. Romney, McCain, ative Destruction — a process that con- to this president?” Legislators can only Morris Dole, Bush-41, Reagan and Nixon all tinues to alarm those opposed to both the talk. Governors can act. (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate lost before they eventually got nomi- creativity and the necessary destruction nated. that leads to it. PERRY’S MORE cautious advisors to run for the presidency of the United Of the alumni class of 2012, only How stop that never-ending process? likely warned the governor of the dan- States. It is very different in the sense of Perry can really stake a claim. Santo- Simple. All the vested interests need do gers he faces. What if the Guardsmen having a global grasp of what’s going on rum was too much of a fringe candidate is ally themselves with the kind of com- kill someone? Will there be complaints in the world.” and Romney would face big obstacles pliant politicos who impose all those from the Border Guard that they are in in convincing us to trust him again. rules and regs. This unholy alliance has the way? Will they be consigned to desk PERRY’S INFAMOUS brain lock So, while Texas Senator Ted Cruz, come to be known in our time as crony duty or, worse, diaper duty? How long moment when he couldn’t name the Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Flori- capitalism, which is a lot more crony will Texas taxpayers be willing to shell three federal cabinet departments he’d da Senator Marco Rubio duke it out for than capitalism. out $12 million per month? eliminate was just the straw that broke the tea party nod as the insurgent Re- Naturally creative outfits like Uber But Perry saw that this Party and this his back. Before that, in answer after an- publican, look for Perry, New Jersey and Lyft keep running into the same wall nation wanted action, and he gave it to swer, he was constantly drawling “in the Governor Chris Christie, and possibly of vested interests in city after city — them! State-a-Texas,” as if he were seeking an- former Florida Governor Jeb Bush to like Little Rock, Ark., this week. Which Lets remember that the two policy other term in Austin. It was obvious that battle it out for the establishment des- is why its city attorney has been writ- gaffes that got him in trouble in 2011- he had no grasp of federal issues, nation- ignation. ing lawyer-letters to both companies de- 12 were when he backed instate tuition al economics or foreign policy, and no manding that they cease and desist their for illegal immigrants and criticized op- particular interest in acquiring any. THEN THE winners will meet in the subversive attempt to practice free enter- ponents of immigration for lacking “a As a candidate, he resembled the cari- semi-finals. With Bush uncertain about prise. And he’s waving the law in their heart.” His tough action on the border cature depicted in The Best Little Whore- running and Christie hobbled by his faces — the kind of law imposed by lo- will do a lot to erase these unpleasant house in Texas, sliding one by us once bridge scandal, the early betting has to cal politicians all too willing to do crony memories. more! be Perry vs. Cruz — an all Texas runoff. July 30, 2014 7 ILLEGAL IMMIBRATION: July 16, 2014 30th birthday, Central American humanitarian crisis t’s been fun to watch the media Reagan and Mondale — and that was discuss the border crisis in real in 1984. Mondale campaigned on con- time, improvising their argu- ditioning aid to El Salvador on dis- mentsI on the fly. Let’s try A, and if that banding that country’s “most lawless doesn’t work, we’ll try B. and notorious security forces” and First, they said there was no surge bring- ing to justice the mur- at the border — it derers of American was a phony cri- nuns. Those guys sis manufactured Ann are putting in for by the Drudge Coulter their pensions by Report. The facts now. (c) 2014, Ann Coulter on the ground In 1992, Noam quickly made that Chomsky de- argument inoperable. scribed El Salvador and Guatemala as Next, liberals told us these “undocu- “murderous terrorist state(s),” adding mented migrants” (the PC phrase for that human rights abuses in Honduras “illegal aliens” — because we’ll never were worse even than in Panama under figure out what that means) were mere Noriega. children fleeing violence and drug car- So what’s new now? tels. Liberals finally settled on complain- ing that if only we’d passed “compre- THEN WE found out that more hensive immigration reform,” none of Every powerful group in America is be true. Raise taxes and we’ll get more than 80 percent of the “children” were this would have ever happened. Why pushing for amnesty: President Obama, revenue! Give condoms to teenagers teenage males, some being recruited not a global warming bill? That might Sen. Schumer, Schumer’s new friends and we’ll reduce unwed pregnancies! for the homicidal Central American be nutty, but at least it wouldn’t be the Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Chris Ban guns and we’ll have fewer gun gang MS-13, right there in the deten- exact opposite of the truth. Christie, Wall Street, the Republican crimes! tion facilities. We are not dealing with a delicate National Committee, the Democratic On immigration, they’re out of prac- (Suspiciously, liberals’ wailing point of logic here, some tiny flaw in National Committee, farmers, ethnic tice and don’t know what to say when about a “humanitarian” crisis began liberals’ reasoning, where they neglect activists, the entire media, wealthy their auto-pilot “living in the shadows” immediately after Sen. Chuck Schumer to consider this or that aspect of a situ- elites who need domestics and the claptrap doesn’t work. emerged from a meeting with Demo- ation. This is something I don’t recall Chamber of Commerce. They seem to know that the prospect cratic number-crunchers figuring out encountering before. It’s anti-logic. of amnesty has something to do with exactly how many more Latin Ameri- The Schumer-Rubio amnesty bill INSTEAD OF “living in the shad- the current crisis, so the word “amnes- can voters they’ll need to take Texas would have made this crisis 10,000 ows” — the shadows of mass protests, ty” pops into their heads, and then they and Florida.) times worse than it already is. New York Times magazine covers, end up blurting out that the cause is the Rick Perry in Barack Obama’s face Why would there be a humanitarian The precise reason our borders are TV shows, government housing, free solution. crisis now? Guatemala, Honduras and besieged is that the 11 million to 20 schools, free medical care, free food We need to discourage people com- El Salvador — where most of the mi- million “undocumented migrants” cur- stamps, the Catholic Church, state ing to America for amnesty by passing grants are coming from — have been rently living here seem just a few more colleges at in-state tuition rates in 17 amnesty! Yes, of course! If Congress hellholes forever, even longer than De- bad Marco Rubio speeches away from states — “undocumented migrants” would only pass amnesty, the people troit. being legalized. And the reason they seem poised to become full legal resi- of the world would say to themselves, The “horrendous civil wars in Cen- entered the country undocumentedly is dents. “Uh-oh! I better not cross the border tral America” were a major topic dur- that Reagan granted amnesty to three With that, they would gain the addi- into America now! I’ll never get amn ing the presidential debates between million illegal aliens in 1986. tional rights to more welfare programs, —” Oh, wait. to vote for more welfare programs — It’s not that one small part of their ar- and to vote for more amnesty. (Also, gument is wrong. It’s more like there’s they won’t have to worry about being a whole section missing from the ex- deported if they’re convicted of rape or planation. Or as if they’re talking about murder after they’re amnestied.) some other issue altogether, such as a Obama has already effectively solution to the elites’ servant problem. granted amnesty to millions of “undoc- Or two totally different ideas got into a umented migrants” by refusing to de- teleportation machine and their atoms port “children,” i.e., MS-13 members. were accidentally mixed up as they (I’m starting to think somebody ought traveled across the universe, which I to sue that guy.) saw happen in the movie The Fly. Consequently, a lot of Latin Ameri- Immigration advocates don’t have cans decided it was a good time to a good set of arguments and, with tens come to the U.S. to get in on Obama’s of thousands of “undocumented mi- administrative amnesty and also to be grants” crossing the border, their usual here in time for the next amnesty. method of prohibiting any debate on So why are Obama, Sen. Harry Reid, the subject isn’t working. Sen. Jeff Flake, MSNBC and the New The very inanity of their argument York Times editorial page all telling us that amnesty would prevent people that if only we’d passed “comprehen- from coming here to get amnesty gob- sive immigration reform” — which smacks us into silence. would grant amnesty to millions of il- legal immigrants — this never would IN THE WORLD of the sane, the have happened? That’s the reason it’s only way to prevent all of Latin Amer- happening! ica’s poor from showing up on our bor- Usually, liberals push ideas that der expecting to be admitted is to repeal aren’t true, but sound like they could the law requiring that they be admitted. 8 Conservative Chronicle REPUBLICANS: July 18, 2014 Cleveland could be good for GOP, if ... ou needn’t be clairvoyant to kidding, don’t write me!) In any case, deduce what the Democratic both of those local institutions should Party wants to run on in 2016. coax convention planners away from It reallyY doesn’t matter whether their the monotonous diet of country music nominee is Hillary Clinton or someone that has so dominated recent else. Democrats Republican conven- won’t be cam- tions. paigning on the Mona Beyond music, thriving economy the Cleveland lo- under President Charen cation opens whole Barack Obama, (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate vistas for the Re- global stability publican Party. under American leadership, the success- America’s big cities are nearly all ful routing of al Qaeda or Obamacare. Democratic monopolies. Republicans No, the Democratic Party is the ladies’ will have to be tactful about this — it party now — dependent completely on would be very bad form to trash their the lopsided votes of single females for host city — but the locale does present their electoral success. To the degree an opportunity to stress their solidarity possible, 2016 will be about women’s with the poor of America’s cities who sex lives and who should pay for IUDs. have been ill-served by Democratic government. REPUBLICANS HAVE perfectly The poverty rate in Cleveland is the good responses to these juvenile argu- nation’s third highest for cities of more ments, starting with “buy your own than 200,000. According to the 2010 blankety-blank contraceptives” and census, 53 percent of Clevelanders one of six school districts found guilty couple of points ahead of public school moving up to sensible health care re- younger than age 18 live in poverty. The of falsifying students’ test scores in or- students in reading and math. More form. Still, Republicans (and grown- unemployment rate is an unhealthy 8.5 der to boost their standing on the state’s thorough reform is urgent. ups) are not well-served if the election percent; not as terrible as Detroit (14.5), “report card.” In 2009-10, according to Cleveland is among the 11 most dan- revolves around condoms and morning but not anything close to the other city state data, only 40 percent of fifth-grad- gerous cities in the U.S. An estimated after pills. the RNC was considering, Dallas (5.1). ers could demonstrate basic grade-level 76,000 housing units are empty and de- I take it as a good sign that the Re- The public school system in Cleve- reading skills, and only 29 percent could caying in the metropolitan area, offering publican National Committee has cho- land performs poorly, though per pu- do the same for math. gangs and drug dealers ideal environ- sen to hold its convention in Cleveland. pil spending was $15,000 in the 2011 ments. And while the murder rate is not One undeniable bonus will be musical. school year, compared with an Ohio av- CLEVELAND IS moving toward as high as in some cities, Cleveland has The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the erage of $10,700. Only around 55 per- more charter schools, but results have a very high rate of rape. nation’s finest. If good music isn’t to cent of students complete high school. so far been less than stellar. According Public corruption has plagued the your taste, Cleveland is also home to During the 2010-11 school year, the As- to an analysis by Public Impact, urban city and county for decades. Hundreds the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Just sociated Press reports, Cleveland was charter students in Ohio scored just a of public officials have been convicted of bribery, fraud and tax evasion. Jim- my Dimora, a former Cuyahoga County commissioner and Democratic Party leader, was sentenced to 28 years in July 2012 after he was convicted of award- ing contracts in exchange for more than $166,000 in cash, home improvements, gambling trips and services from prosti- tutes. The former county auditor, Frank Russo, could serve 22 years for taking more than $1 million in bribes to steer no-bid real estate appraisal contracts. The city has strengths (aside from LeBron James), such as the renowned Cleveland Clinic. But Obamacare has forced even the Cleveland Clinic to lay off employees. “Health care reform has really changed things, and the burden of cost is going to be falling on patients,” a spokeswoman told the Plain Dealer.

WILL REPUBLICANS make in- roads among African-American and His- panic voters by stressing their solutions to poverty, bad schools, unsafe streets and public corruption? Who knows? They could hardly do worse than in 2012. But some emphasis on the rot that afflicts large chunks of urban America will help to change the image of the Re- publican Party — and that could affect voters far beyond Cuyahoga County. July 30, 2014 9 REPUBLICANS: July 17, 2014 Runoff may end intraparty fighting nationwide for 2014 ost of the battles to deter- But the wishful thinking of most mine Republican nominees Democrats and many pundits did not in the GOP’s quest to take come to pass. controlM of the U.S. Senate this year have In most states where Republicans been decided. On July 22, Georgia, con- have a chance of replacing sitting Dem- sidered to be a rare potential gain by ocrats in the U.S. Senate, the Democrats, will GOP nominee has hold its GOP Sen- potential for broad ate runoff election. Matt appeal to not only Regardless of the Towery conservatives, but winner, some GOP among moderates (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate intraparty battles who have lost faith of one who has been a longtime elect- His opponent, David Perdue, has led will likely close not in President Barack ed Republican “stalwart” and one who major national corporations and has run only in that state, but throughout the na- Obama and many of his policies. brings “an outsider’s” perspective to the an amazingly strong race for a newcom- tion. There could be no better example contest. er to statewide elected politics. As the contests for various GOP Sen- of the direction Republican voters and Surprisingly, and contrary to what Most of the polls indicate that Kings- ate nominations began around the coun- activists are taking as we head toward many expected, being a so-called “Wash- ton leads the race, although Georgia’s try earlier in the year, many pundits November than in the fight to replace re- ington insider” has proved in many GOP odd open primary rules, and its elector- viewed the contests as simply a test of tiring incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. contests not to be the detriment that was ate’s increasingly notorious lack of ap- “tea party candidates” versus the “GOP Saxby Chambliss in Georgia. first expected going into this year. In petite for actually voting, makes the race establishment.” Make no mistake; both the primary Georgia, the same may well be the case. a hard one to call. election among a host of candidates and Still, the themes of the race, and in- SOME CONTESTS were just that, the ensuing runoff between Congress- KINGSTON SERVED in his state deed the players backing the various with each side claiming some victo- man Jack Kingston and businessman legislature for many years and has been candidates, debunk the concept that Re- ries. And there are still some residual David Perdue were bruising and tough. a member of Congress since 1993. The publican voters will be so obsessed over bitter feelings for a few of those who But that’s what all political contests are Savannah resident was a part of Newt “tea or no tea” as to somehow boycott lost. Most notable is Mississippi, where these days. Even as Kingston and Per- Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” of nominees who like their politics hot and Chris McDaniel’s closest supporters are due reach the end of their contest, the the mid-1990s and has risen to high lev- with sugar, or prefer something else in continuing to claim the election was negative ads abound. But the fight is not els in the Republican-controlled House their cup. Kingston has managed to col- “stolen” by forces who favored winner one over tea party credentials. Instead it of Representatives, where he is well- lect the support of many leaders of the Thad Cochran. has become more of a long-tested battle liked by colleagues. various tea party organizations in the state. This is despite the fact that he has RAND PAUL: July 22, 2014 strong backing from “the U.S. Chamber crowd,” often viewed as enemies of the tea party movement in other GOP con- tests this year. Perdue, ironically, is viewed to be the Less government, more sharing economy candidate supported by many of the so- ho will be the GOP nomi- steams on,” Paul argued. Don’t trash cisco, believes that such measures could called “silk stocking” Republicans who nee in 2016? I don’t know, capitalism; without free markets, others help Paul among African-American vot- admire his rise to national CEO stardom but I have a pretty good won’t be able to succeed. ers. and his willingness to seek office. He has ideaW who the running mate will be: Sen. The Kentucky Republican didn’t need On foreign policy, Paul risks alienat- his endorsements as well, including one Rand Paul of Kentucky. Unless Paul is to remind the crowd that in Democratic ing traditional conservatives while draw- from businessman turned presidential the nominee. San Francisco, some politicians are mo- ing votes from the middle. In June, the candidate Herman Cain. A new NBC News/Marist poll found bilizing against Airbnb. Regulation is the senator refused to blame Obama for the But in this race for every Herman that Paul would be the top GOP vote- enemy. inroads Islamist separatists have made Cain who supports Perdue, there is a getter against Hillary Clinton in critical- in Iraq. Former Vice President Dick Newt Gingrich who has endorsed Kings- ly important Iowa and New Hampshire; Cheney was so angry with Paul that he ton. Whether the winner is frontrunner political reporter Chuck Todd duly has Debra J. dismissed him as an “isolationist.” I’m Kingston or dark-horse Perdue, both will proclaimed Paul the Republican front- Saunders not comfortable with Paul’s willingness likely enjoy a unified GOP electorate as runner. to cede American leadership in an ugly they face a strong Democratic nominee, (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate world, but for most voters, Cheney’s Michelle Nunn, in November. SO I HAD to see the libertarian-lean- censure is practically an endorsement. ing darling Saturday. He delivered a key- THE TECH crowd ate up Paul’s jer- Paul, of course, remains very con- THAT MUST be the case for Repub- note speech to the LincolnLabs’ “Reboot emiads on another case of big govern- servative. He likes the minimum wage licans and conservatives in every state 2014” confab of libertarian-leaning te- ment: National Security Agency over- the way it is. He told the techies that he with a contested battle for the U.S Sen- chies, also known as “conservatarians.” reach. And the techies didn’t need to believes in a safety net but a safety net ate this year. Without a united effort and You’d expect the audience to be sim- be reminded of Paul’s 13-hour “talking in which welfare recipients work. He strong voter turnout, the Senate could re- patico. Tech geeks and libertarians have filibuster” against the surveillance state, doesn’t sound old when he says it. main in the hands of the Democrats. so much in common. Both tend to be which pressured Attorney General Eric “I am 100 percent pro-life,” Paul, 51, male, young and much impressed with Holder to concede that President Barack boasts on his Senate website. “I believe Matt Towery is author of the book their own intelligence. Obama does not have the authority to or- life begins at conception and that abor- Paranoid Nation: The Real Story of Though libertarian thinking may der a drone strike against a U.S. citizen tion takes the life of an innocent human the 2008 Fight for the Presidency. He seem sink-or-swim, Paul showed how on American soil without a trial. being.” has served as an elected official, has less government is good for the hip and Under-40s also go for Paul’s long- advised major national campaigns and trendy sharing economy. He hailed com- standing criticism of excesses in Wash- DENNIS TOLD me that Paul holds heads a non-partisan polling and me- panies such as Uber and Lyft as “so pop- ington’s war on drugs. Sen. Cory Book- socially conservative positions with dia company. He is also publisher of the ular you can’t stop them.” er, D-N.J., and Paul have introduced a which he personally disagrees. But he’s Washington-based Southern Political While other Republicans evoke the measure to allow nonviolent offenders on board because Rand Paul is “a pretty Report, the nation’s oldest active politi- good old days of the Grand Old Party, to seal their criminal records. John Den- good gateway drug to the ‘conservatar- cal newsletter. Follow him on Twitter: Paul looks to the future. “Capitalism nis, a longtime supporter from San Fran- ian’ position.” @matttowery. 10 Conservative Chronicle WORLDWIDE CHAOS: July 22, 2014 It’s the chaos at home and abroad, not the economy “Why do you think President not only stagflation (inflation-plus-re- 1854 and were stationed on rivers in a caliphate. Israel has been forced to Obama’s job rating is falling, even cession) at home and but also an “arc of China from the 1840s to the 1930s. launch a ground attack on the terrorist though the economy is recovering?” the instability” abroad. Which brings us to today. Many Hamas regime in Gaza. interviewer asked. Americans, unlike voters in many things seem to be spinning out A Malaysian airliner cruising at It’s a fair question, even though the other countries, demand the mainte- of con- trol. Important gov- 33,000 feet over Ukraine has been economy declined 2.9 percent in the nance of order in ernment agencies brought down by a rocket, probably by first quarter, even though most jobs cre- the world as well Michael are malfunction- thugs armed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. ated in June were part-time, and even in their own na- ing — the Internal The president, in-between fundrais- though labor force participation remains tion. From the Barone Revenue Service, ers, has time for a photo-op playing low. early days of the (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate Veterans Affairs. pool in Colorado, but not for one on the republic, there has Obamacare is pro- border. He has time for only two sen- THE FACT IS that the economy is been an unspoken awareness that what ducing higher health care premiums and tences on the airliner shoot-down before growing, however slowly; jobs are being happens in the world affects their own is on track to deliver more. a photo-op and two more fundraisers. created, and the unemployment rate is lives. Tens of thousands of underage and First things first. heading down toward what economists In the 19th century, American mer- some not-so-underage Central Ameri- Not everything spinning out of con- consider full employment. And still the chants went out into the Mediterranean, can illegal immigrants are streaming trol is the president’s fault. But his re- president’s job rating languishes. American whalers to the Pacific, Ameri- across the Rio Grande, and the govern- sponses so far have confirmed voters’ What’s wrong with the question is can missionaries to China and the Mid- ment is flying them to parts unknown sense that the nation and the world are an assumption embedded within it, that dle East. — and sending 38 back to their home in disarray. what voters seek most from government American troops followed. The Navy countries. and political officeholders is economic and Marines went after the Barbary pi- Abroad things are even worse. In THIS, NOT economic sluggishness, growth. I think there’s something they rates on the shores of Tripoli. American Syria there is violent civil war, and next is why he and his party are in trouble. value even more: the maintenance of gunboats opened Japan to the world in door in Iraq terrorists are proclaiming order. This isn’t what I was taught in politi- HARDING & CLINTON: July 17, 2014 cal science classes. Political scientists who had grown up in the 1930s’ Depres- sion taught that politics was about “who gets what, when and how.” Operating on that assumption, po- The two playboy presidents litical scientists developed rules that have been vindicated! For years Boy would Warren have had a good pursued the masculine pastimes of their explained past election outcomes as a I have been comparing the Clin- time with Monica. day, golf and poker for Harding, golf function of economic variables — how ton family to the family of War- Of course, we only have Warren’s and jogging for Clinton. much the economy grew in the second renI Gamaliel Harding, our 29th presi- reminiscences of his recent assignations Harding, of course, was less driven quarter of the election year, for example. dent and a president of dark memory at with Mrs. Phillips, but that is enough to than the Boy Governor of Arkansas and Those rules generally worked pretty least to most liberal historians. For me, convey what took place in a dark hotel obviously more dignified. He had a bet- well at predicting future elections — Warren was sheer slapstick, as to some room or under an elm. He names his pri- ter tailor. He seemed to age more grace- until they didn’t. degree his modern-day equivalent was, vate part. I will encourage my fully and less abruptly in office until he What they don’t explain very well Bill Clinton. And forget not their grue- readers to attend the Library suffered a heart attack while in San Fran- are the political upheavals that come some wives. cisco where he died. Then, too, while when voters perceive that the nation R. Emmett alive Harding was freer of scandal. His- and the world are in disarray. Ameri- I BEGAN my historical compari- tory remembers Harding as an amiable cans, blessed with a mostly happy his- sons in the 1996 bestselling book, Boy Tyrrell bungler whose scandals were revealed tory, tend to take fundamental order for Clinton: The Political Biography. For (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate only upon his death. Clinton’s blunders granted. They recoil and rebel when years, I punctuated my syndicated col- began early and the shadows of scandal things spin out of control. umn with references to the two families. of Congress exhibit by not betraying my crossed him earlier still. Moreover there Example: The political scientists Then in my 2007 book, The Clinton knowledge of it. He names Mrs. Phillips’ were witnesses to his scandals, a lot of taught that the big shift toward Demo- Crack-Up, I clinched the comparison in private parts while describing her other them. crats in 1874 was a response to the fi- a reminder of how that Little Rock mon- physical attributes. It is my judgment Bill, aside from his scandals and prat- nancial panic of 1873. Sort of like the strosity, the Clinton Library, compared as a presidential historian that nothing falls, presided over a relatively pros- Great Depression. so favorably with the Harding Memorial quite like the Harding letters have ever perous and peaceful presidency, owing But further study convinces me it was in Warren’s hometown, Marion, Ohio. escaped from a president’s confidence, in part to his cooperation with Repub- a rebellion against Ulysses Grant’s mili- But now, you ask, how am I vindicated? save the Lewinsky testimony. licans, particularly Newt Gingrich’s tary occupation of the South to protect Well, America’s historical memory is I am vindicated! House of Representatives. Remember blacks’ rights. Voters tired of violence not very strong. Comparing Bill with a his boast that “the era of Big Govern- voted for the anti-black Democrats, who 1920s president to a modern American AS I HAVE written, the comparisons ment is over?” Surprisingly, today we held House majorities for 14 of the next audience was not easy. Yet, by month’s between the Hardings and the Clintons recall Warren’s presidency as prosper- 20 years and won the popular vote for end it will be much easier. In fact, the are inescapable. Both the Clintons and ous and peaceful, too. Amity Shlaes, president in five of six presidential elec- comparison will be inescapable. the Hardings came from rural parts, al- in her book, Coolidge, recalls that he tions in those years. On July 29, the Library of Congress beit Harding had a more exalted pedi- cut taxes, cut federal spending, got the Or consider Republicans’ “back to is putting on display a goldmine of ro- gree. Both couples included a clever, economy going again and ended his pre- normalcy” victory in 1920. This was mantic letters Warren wrote his mistress assertive and forbidding wife who had decessor Woodrow Wilson’s excessive a response to disorder at home (dizzy- from 1910 to 1920, Carrie Fulton Phil- displayed above-average competence regulation of the economy. Also he en- ing inflation and depression, waves of lips. He later had other gals, most no- in business and in politics. Both fami- dorsed African-Americans’ rights. strikes, terrorist bombings) and abroad tably Nan Britton, while he was presi- lies were compact; the Clintons had one (Communist revolutions, continued dent. Yet no letters from these affairs are daughter, the Hardings had no children. SO I AM vindicated in my compari- fighting in Russia and the Middle East, extant. The Phillips letters are volumi- Both presidents were personable and son of Clinton and Harding, and one rejection of Woodrow Wilson’s League nous and very steamy. In fact, one can- charming to the fair sex, whose nicely other thing. I would welcome either of of Nations). not read them without being reminded turned ankles fetched their wandering them back in the White House today to Closer to our times, Jimmy Carter of Monica Lewinsky’s testimony in the eyes. When not boldly at the helm of the replace Barack Obama, who is not very was rejected in 1980 as the nation faced Starr Report. They are that salacious. ship of state, both presidents vigorously funny. July 30, 2014 11 RACE CARD: July 17, 2014 Will Eric Holder ever run out of race cards? ttorney General Eric Hold- gument back in 2010. “They use this er, in a recent interview, re- rhetoric,” said Jealous, “’take back our iterates the theme heard from country’ — as if nobody else belongs to theA very beginning of President Barack the country. ... They question the nation- Obama’s administration: opposition to ality of people of color from Obama’s agenda the President all the equals racism. Larry way down. And it’s “There’s a cer- deeply, deeply dis- tain level of vehe- Elder turbing.” mence, it seems to (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate But CNN’s me, that’s directed Anderson Cooper at me (and) directed at the president.” played Jealous a montage of Democratic What is Holder’s proof — to the ex- politicians using the very same rhetoric: tent that any is required? Then-presidential candidate Howard Dean, 2003: “Today, we stand in com- AFTER ALL, following his election, mon purpose to take our country back!” Obama’s favorable ratings reached near- Then-presidential candidate Sen. John ly 80 percent, higher than any president- Kerry, 2004: “To take back our country elect since John F. Kennedy. Obama, in ...” 2008, received a greater percentage of the Sen. Charles Schumer, N.Y., 2006: “white vote” than did John Kerry. “We are going to take our country back!” ing, “Real America understands that the somehow, some way, we have to make Polls, studies and statistics, for Holder, Then-presidential candidate Sen. Constitution is there for a reason.” real in daily American life.” aren’t relevant when it comes to racism. Barack Obama, 2007: “It’s going to be To this Dershowitz responded, “When- Then-President Clinton, 1998: “Amer- Some claim to possess “gaydar,” an abil- because of you that we take our country ever I hear the words ‘real Americans,’ ica’s got a good agenda in the coming ity to discern the sexual orientation of a back.” that sounds to me like a code word for months. We can be for saving Social Se- gay person. Holder, it seems, possesses Then-presidential candidate Sen. Hill- racism, a code word for bigotry, a code curity first, better schools, a cleaner en- the instinctive ability to discern “racists.” ary Clinton, 2008: “To make sure we take word for anti-Semitism.” We go again to vironment, and a Patient’s Bill of Rights, Holder added, “You know, people our country back ...” the videotape: and we can sell that in every place in talking about taking their country back. ... New Mexico’s Gov. Bill Richardson, America. They are real choices real The two playboy presidents There’s a certain racial component to this 2008: “Are you ready to take our country THEN-PRESIDENT Bill Clinton, Americans face in this election.” for some people. I don’t think this is the back?” 1995: “Look, I know America first and Then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clin- thing that is a main driver, but for some Then-Minnesota senatorial candidate foremost is a place where individual ef- ton, 1994: “They have enabled this day there’s a racial animus.” Al Franken, 2008: “This is the year we fort and family values count. That’s why I to come about, because they were willing Is Holder truly suggesting opponents take our country back.” am successful. But I live in the real Amer- to think differently, to put people first, to disguise their racial animus through rhet- Harvard law professor and defense at- ica — not in Washington, D.C.” solve real problems that real Americans oric like, “taking their country back?” torney Alan Dershowitz made the same Then-President Clinton, 1997: “Re- face every day.” Where have we heard the assertion that rhetoric-equals-racism argument back in member how you have seen things like Then-House Minority Leader Rep. the take-back-America slogan equals rac- 1998, only he objected the way the “right that during the natural disasters here in Richard Gephardt, Mo., 1998: “We will ism? wing” refers to themselves as “real Amer- California. That is the face of the real carry on this fight every day of the rest Ben Jealous, the former president and icans.” For example, a former Southern America. That is the face I have seen of this year to fight for the real issues that CEO of the NAACP, made the same ar- Republican criticized Dershowitz by say- over and over again. That is the America real Americans care about so deeply.” Speaking of race, Attorney General Holder said, “The greatest threats (posed by racism) do not announce themselves in screaming headlines. They are more subtle. They cut deeper ... and ... are more pernicious.” Holder offered three specific examples of “subtle,” “deep,” “perni- cious” racism. What are they? One, the push by some states for voter ID. Two, that black men receive longer prison sentences compared to white men for same crime. Third, that black kids are expelled/suspended at higher rates compared to white students. In the case of voter ID, blacks sup- port the requirement almost as much as do whites. Prison sentences are based, in part on arrests, something juries are un- usually barred from hearing about. As for suspensions, schools in both liberal and conservative areas experience the same thing — black boys disproportionately expelled.

BLAME BAD behavior, lack of dis- cipline at home or fatherless homes. But blaming the consequences of bad behav- ior on “pernicious” racism does damage to growth and personal responsibility. Nice work, Mr. Holder. 12 Conservative Chronicle RACE CARD: July 17, 2014 Are black voters turning against Obama? t may be too soon to label it a If President Obama’s policies and trend and there is insufficient those of his fellow Democrats in Con- data to confirm it, but Presi- gress and in Chicago worked, dentI Obama and Democrats would his party may be be boasting of losing their iron Cal their successes grip on their most Thomas and ignoring crit- loyal and enthusi- ics. astic voting bloc: (c) 2014, Tribune Media Services Patriotism is African-Ameri- said to be the last cans. refuge of scoundrels, so what is play- Last Friday in Chicago, a group ing the race card? Is that the last refuge boozled. The protesters feel used and can-Americans have been treated; as of black residents of the city’s South of failed policies? now the president and the Democrats pawns in a never-ending game of po- Side, staged a protest against the vio- seem to have jilted them in favor of the litical chess, eventually tossed aside as lent shootings that are becoming as BLACKS RIGHTLY feel jilted af- Hispanic vote. That’s what the unbri- freely as a Bill Clinton conquest. commonplace as White Sox games at ter pledging so much loyalty and emo- dled illegal immigration debate is all Amid all this, Eric Holder deals the Cellular Field. It wasn’t just the protest tion to a man they thought was one of about. race card ... again. that should concern the administration their own. They are painfully learning One hundred fifty years ago the end and Democrats; it was the language that President Obama is like the fast- of slavery and its consequences were I’LL TELL YOU what the race used by some of the protesters, many talking peddler of magical elixirs who just beginning. Hispanic immigrants card has become. It is the Joker. of whom at the time of the president’s promises a cure-all, then skips town will likely find themselves treated by 2009 inauguration likely joined other before you find out you’ve been bam- most Democrats the same way Afri- African-Americans in worshipping at the Obama shrine. PATRIOTISM: July 18, 2014 ONE WOMAN was quoted in the Washington Times: “Mr. President, we’re asking for you. You’re spending billions of dollars in Texas, but we’ve How Obama questions your patriotism a problem here in Chicago ...” o Barack Obama is again using staying. Besides, where we stand on the try to make sure that not only the young Another said: “Today, if you look one of the most contemptible issue of corporate taxation is no way to people who are here but their kids and at the time we were brought here as phrases in American politics — measure a person’s loyalty to his coun- their grandkids are going to be able to slaves 400 years ago, we got the same “economicS patriotism.” try. enjoy the same incredible opportunities results today.” There are many credible reasons to Actually, logic would also dictate that this country offers as we have?’ In what might have been regarded despise this rhetorical construct. Pa- that if you’re texting on your Samsung That’s our job. That’s what we should as political heresy only a few years triotism, after all, is the attachment to phone while driving your Honda or be focused on. And it’s worth remem- ago, something akin to denying Jesus one’s homeland, a nationalistic devo- BMW, you are also complicit in unpa- bering as we go into Independence in church, another protester seemed to tion to one’s country and the values that triotic behavior. You are, in most cases, Day.” suggest the president should resign if make it great. If a person not only resists sending your cash to compa- Yes, thinking up new ways to cre- he continues to ignore the city’s prob- things that are “patriotic” but opposes ate reliance on government is exactly lems: “For the president to set aside them, then logic dictates that the person what the Founding Fathers had in mind all of these funds for immigrants and is being unpatriotic. So the president is David in 1776. How do we achieve this? A (have) forsaken the African-American really asking one question: Why do you Harsanyi few years ago, Obama released a 20- community, I think that’s a disgrace.” hate America? page campaign stunt called “The New Speaking to the Rebel Pundit, the man (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate Economic Patriotism: A Plan for Jobs added, “He will go down as the worst INSTEAD OF protecting tax loop- nies that aren’t pitching in enough to re- & Middle-Class Security.” Thin on president ever elected. Bill Clinton holes that let corporations keep their build our airports. Plenty of companies details, it was big on advocating new was the African-American president.” profits overseas, let’s put some of that that normally suck up to the administra- stimulus to fund a slew of liberal hob- How sharper than a serpent’s tooth money to work right here in the United tion — General Electric, IBM, Merck byhorses. The title, “New Economic to have such ingratitude for a former States rebuilding America. We can re- and Microsoft, to name a few — believe Patriotism,” oozed an authoritarian Chicago community organizer. build our airports, create the next gener- that punishing foreign companies for scent, and, fittingly enough, anyone Last weekend on several Sunday ation of good manufacturing jobs, make doing business in the United States is a who disagreed was “betting against talk shows, Attorney General Eric sure those are made in America. bad idea. Are all these companies unpa- America.” This is just one of the accu- Holder asserted that criticism of Presi- A politician may rally millions of triotic, as well? Someone should ask the sations regularly thrown around these dent Obama is, for some, borne of rac- economic illiterates to his cause with president. days to chill speech. ism. Since the criticizers in Chicago this sort of speechifying, but these are last week were black, are they racists, not “loopholes;” they are “business BUT LET’S NOT forget that for AND AS THE president lets it rip, or can only white critics be racists? decisions” that companies make when Obama, the idea of “economic patrio- perhaps we should take his definition of Are those who criticize conservative they face high regulatory burdens or tism” is elastic. The contours of its phi- patriotism seriously. Though the idea and Republican African-Americans high corporate taxes. Seeing as the goal losophy are now identical to the presi- can be somewhat amorphous, patrio- also racists or does that overused la- of a business is not to become a more ef- dent’s own policy proposals. Which is tism, especially in this country, is driv- bel only apply to whites who criticize fective tax collector or health care pro- curious, considering we’re supposed to en by idealism rather than chauvinism black liberal Democrats? vider, as this administration seems to set aside “politics” to achieve our com- or ethnic and religious considerations The president’s policies have made believe, moving offshore, or tax inver- munal goal. Then again, though you — the kind of idealism that soldiers those Chicago protesters angry, not sion — which might mean $20 billion may be knee-deep in politics, our presi- go and die for. So if you believe that his skin color. They expected more less for the Treasury over a decade — is dent is guided solely by common sense. left-wing economic policies are synon- and got far less. Part of their problem becoming more popular. But either way, Here’s how Obama explained economic ymous with “patriotism” but religious is what is shared by all who put too a lack of new tariffs and taxes does not patriotism on July Fourth: freedom, freedom of speech and eco- much faith in political leaders to solve “reward companies for moving profits “It’s a sort of economic patriotism nomic freedom are antiquated notions problems, which, ultimately, only they overseas” as much as U.S. tax and regu- where you say to yourself, ‘How is it in need of fixing, maybe it’s your idea have the power to solve. latory policy is a punishment for their that we can start rebuilding this coun- of American patriotism that is warped. July 30, 2014 13 ECONOMIC STRENGTH: July 18, 2014 Obama crushing the Reagan link: Putin knows it cross his remarkably suc- ing Soviet economy couldn’t match us. stands all this, I don’t know. His poli- But can they say that now? cessful presidency, Ronald In the end, the Soviet system im- cies have been alternatively passive As I testified (http://www.national- Reagan repeatedly made the ploded in one of the greatest reversals (Libya, Egypt), incoherent (Russian re- review.com/article/382777/recovery- linkA between the U.S. economy and in world history. Freedom won. Com- set) and feckless (Syria). But five-years-larry-kudlow) this week be- U.S. international security and defense. munism lost. the fact that the cur- fore the congressional Joint Economic He consistently argued that weakness Now, circum- rent U.S. economic Committee, at 2.1 percent average real at home leads to weakness abroad. stances are some- Larry recovery is the growth, the U.S. is lagging far behind Reagan was aiming at the dismal what different slowest in post- the 4.1 percent average recovery pace Carter years. But he understood for all today. But the Kudlow WWII history — of the post-war business cycles. The times that economic strength at home horrible Malaysia (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate spanning 70 years Reagan recovery averaged five percent sends a powerful signal for internation- Airlines crash in — is surely a key annual growth at the same point as the al security overseas. Ukraine highlights some worrisome factor in Vladimir Putin’s adventurism. Obama recovery. facts about American-Russian rela- This brings us back to Reagan’s Obama’s stock market from the WHEN REAGAN went to Reyk- tions. Mitt Romney was right. Russia link. Putin may recognize that Russia’s depth of the meltdown does beat Rea- javik to meet with Gorbachev, he be- is our biggest threat. economy is a thin deck of cards. But he gan’s market and the post-war average lieved the resurgent American econ- We know that the Malaysian plane surely doesn’t fear the weak American for equities. But here’s a very worri- omy would hammer the nails in the was brought down by a ground-to-air economic position. Ditto for the bro- some trend. Over the entire post-war coffin of Soviet communism. And he missile fired from Russian-made SA- ken economic dictatorships in North period, average yearly growth has been explained to Gorbachev that if the So- 11 weapons run by pro-Russian Ukrai- Korea, Iran and Venezuela, and the 3.2 percent. And in the 1980s and ‘90s, viets didn’t come to the negotiating nian rebel terrorists. We also know that rising economic dictatorship in China. growth was 3.7 percent. Since 2001, table with nuclear weapons, the U.S. Russia is fighting a proxy war with They don’t fear us. however, under Republican and Dem- would out-produce them on nukes and the U.S. in Ukraine, and that Russian ocratic presidents and congresses, as with technological superiority. Similar- special forces are leading the terrorist IN FACT, America’s economic the dollar lost over a third of its value, ly, Reagan would not give up his vision movement in Ukraine. We can add to weakness is so worrisome, one sus- growth has dropped to only 1.8 percent for strategic missile defense. this the proxy war fought by Russia pects our friends are losing respect for annually. Something has clearly gone And in both cases — building nukes in the Middle East, with its main ally us, too. Whether in Europe, Asia, Latin very wrong. and SDI — Reagan knew the American Iran, and the fact that Russia is engag- America or Israel, our allies know that For payrolls, Obama’s five-year re- economy had the resources capable of ing in state-sponsored terrorism. America has been the backstop for covery has averaged annual job growth How Obama questions your patriotism achieving these goals, while the sink- Whether President Obama under- freedom. If not us, who? of 1.2 percent (7.9 million jobs). Rea- gan’s was 3.1 percent (14.6 million jobs). Even with the recent jobs im- ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: July 17, 2014 provement, record numbers of Ameri- cans have dropped out of the labor force, part-time employment is replac- ing full-time, wages are abnormally Reporter without a visa at the border low and middle-class real incomes are he star of a CNN film, Docu- legally, and federal authorities left him His driving without a license both- falling. mented, journalist Jose An- alone. The only repercussion was that ers me to no end. I asked Vargas: If you The massive federal spending stimu- tonio Vargas went to Texas Washington state revoked a driver’s li- want to convince citizens you respect lus of 2009-2010 did not work. There to Tbring attention to the 57,000 unac- cense he had obtained fraudulently. the law, why would you do that? were no so-called fiscal multipliers. companied minors who have crossed Now, for three years, he’s been “I was driving because, as a human The fed’s near-$3.5 trillion of balance- the border illegally since October. On making appearances across the coun- being, I wanted to be free and I wanted sheet creation also failed, with money Tuesday, authorities detained Vargas at try. “This is my first time to drive,” Vargas answered. And: “An multipliers and velocity rates collaps- McAllen/Miller International Airport undocumented person driving in the ing. Obamacare has thrown a wet blan- because his Philippine passport lacks morning in Minneapolis isn’t thinking, ket over business hiring, hours worked a U.S. visa. Within hours, Immigration Debra J. ‘Oh, my G--, look what I’m getting and full-time jobs. Business investment and Customs Enforcement released away with.’” and housing have not really recovered. him. Saunders I support the DREAM Act, which Overregulation has stifled Main (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate would grant permanent residence to Street businesses and start-ups. The UPON RELEASE, Vargas issued immigrants brought here illegally as highest corporate tax rate among de- a statement, in which he noted that he getting stopped at the airport,” Vargas children. Washington should not pun- veloped countries is forcing American had come to the border to shine a light told me. (When he decided to go to ish children for the crimes of their par- businesses to flee to lower-tax nations, on the children and the fear they must McAllen, he didn’t realize that when ents. taking their cash and jobs with them. endure in the course of simple acts such he left, he’d have to risk a highway or But it leaves me cold when “dream- Tax hikes on personal income, capital as boarding a plane. airport checkpoint.) He has visited 43 ers” declare in Documented, “We are gains, dividends and payrolls are re- The problem here is: Vargas is living states. undocumented, unafraid, unapologet- ducing growth incentives. proof that U.S. immigration enforce- In 2012, Minnesota police stopped ic.” Ronald Reagan’s free-enterprise ment is toothless. Vargas for driving with headphones on Unafraid? I don’t think so. Vargas growth model of easier taxes, limited I first met Vargas when he was an in- and then arrested him for driving with- has written movingly about the fear government, lighter regulation and tern at the San Francisco Chronicle. He out a valid license. ICE did not detain that haunted his heady climb in jour- sound money strengthened Ameri- reminded me over the phone Wednes- him. nalism. When his work for the Wash- ca both at home and abroad. Barack day, “I used to deliver your mail.” (He ington Post led to a shared Pulitzer Obama’s model of heavy-handed gov- lied about his legal status to get the job.) A SPOKESWOMAN told the New Prize, he was afraid he’d be exposed. ernment, income redistribution, pun- In 2011, after years of living in fear York Times, “ICE is focused on smart, ishing success and cheap money has of exposure, Vargas outed himself as an effective immigration enforcement AND UNAPOLOGETIC? Such diminished us at home and weakened undocumented immigrant in the New that prioritizes the removal of public talk, Vargas told me, used to bother us around the world. York Times. His Filipina mother had safety threats, recent border crossers him, too. If I were Vargas, I’d go back sent him to live in the United States and egregious immigration law vio- to those roots. Unapologetic is the CAVEAT EMPTOR, voters. It’s when he was 12. lators, such as those who have been wrong attitude for young people who truly time for change. Think about it. Vargas announced in previously removed from the United want to convince others that they re- the New York Times that he is here il- States.” spect the rule of law. 14 Conservative Chronicle IMPEACHEMENT: July 23, 2014 Repeat after me: ‘Impeachment is a distraction’ elax. Keep your eyes on my Impeachment is not a distraction; it’s timepiece. You are getting the serious business of the Constitution sleepy. Clear your mind and of the United States. It’s a duty. It’s a repeatR after me: “Impeachment is a dis- sober responsibility. It’s the moral and traction. Impeachment is a distraction. legal consequence of high Impeachment is a crimes and misde- distraction.” meanors committed It’s like a man- Joseph by an out-of-control, tra or the soothing rogue president. It’s words of a hypno- Farah cowardice to make tist. Maybe it’s a (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate excuses whether a word-association conviction is politi- game being played by Republicans: cally likely or not. “Impeachment” equals “distraction.” Some Republicans are in hopeless — “If somebody were to file im- denial, like House Judiciary Committee peachment proceedings — well, the fact Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.: “We is we know that’s going nowhere in the are not working on or drawing up arti- Senate. And it’s going to be a major, ma- cles of impeachment. The Constitution is jor distraction from actually getting re- very clear as to what constitutes grounds sults, which means rolling back some of for impeachment of the president of the his power relative to Congress.” — Rep. United States. He has not committed the Charles Boustany, R-La. kind of criminal acts that call for that.” — “Does President Obama deserve This is what the Constitution says to be sued or impeached? Yes! Is there about impeachment: “The President, Democrats keep control of the Senate, dent Obama’s actions, American vot- a snowball’s chance in hell that either Vice President and all civil Officers of this would be one way to do it.” ers, by and large, do not feel President the lawsuit or an impeachment will suc- the United States, shall be removed from Obama deserves to be impeached,” he ceed? No! Why not sue Barack Obama Office on Impeachment for, and Con- I AGREE, for once, with the Daily said. “The priorities for the majority then or impeach him? For the simplest viction of, Treason, Bribery, or other Show host Jon Stewart, who mocked Re- of voters are to rein in out-of-control of all reasons: Neither of these actions high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Does publican lawmakers for accusing Obama spending and get the economy working is going to do anything to stop Obama, Goodlatte actually believe President of tyranny and worse, but then doing again. Impeachment is a distraction.” or even discredit him — and both can Barack Obama is not guilty of even a nothing about it. There’s that D-word, again. Distrac- create a distraction that draws attention political misdemeanor? Where has he “That’s how you know all this talk of tion from what? away from the Democrats’ disasters dur- been for the last five years? Perhaps he’s tyranny is bull----,” he said. “When your What are Republicans doing about ing an election year.” — Thomas Sowell spending too much time in Washington. main concern when you’re deposing a reining in out-of-control spending and — “I’m glad to see House Repub- By the way, is he also aware the Con- tyrant is how it will affect your party’s getting the economy working again? licans are challenging him (Barack stitution gives the Republican-controlled chances in the upcoming midterm elec- Didn’t Republicans in the House give Obama), at least legally, at this point, House of Representatives sole authority tions, that’s not tyranny.” Obama a blank checkbook every time but I think that (impeachment) gets to to impeach? “The House of Representa- Even some self-proclaimed tea party they raised the debt limit over the last be a bit of a distraction, just like the im- tives shall choose their speaker and other leaders are falling in line with Republi- five years? peachment of Bill Clinton did.” — Dick officers; and shall have the sole power of can cowardice. Taylor Budowich, ex- I’d really like to know what it is Re- Cheney impeachment.” ecutive director of the Tea Party Express publicans are being “distracted” from Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., sees PAC in California, says an attempt to im- doing by talk of impeachment. I’M NOT ONE for censorship, but impeachment purely in terms of politi- peach the president would be misguided if there is ever a movement to ban the cal expedience. He says it could alienate and potentially damaging to the conser- I WOULD suggest to you that fo- word “distraction” from the English lan- independent voters who “right now are vative movement heading into the fall cusing on anything but impeaching this guage, count me in for support. leaning our way. If you want to help the midterms. president is a distraction from solving “While conservatives may have some our nation’s problems. legitimate legal grievances with Presi-

ANSWER MAN: July 19, 2014 The Answer Man ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS 1. A basalt slab, unearthed by Napo- Dawn leon Bonaparte’s troops in 1799, was Seamans- the key to deciphering Egyptian hi- eroglyphics. What is the name of this Shook priceless stone? (c) 2013, Creators Syndicate 2. In addition to the process of pre- between the rivers.” Can you name the serving the dead and installing their de- rivers? parted rulers in elaborate mausoleums, 5. Many civilizations were founded what was unusual about the surround- along rivers and in valleys because of ings provided by the Egyptians within their proximity to water and eventual the pyramids? travel. What two rivers — one in Paki- 3. This city in Tennessee shares a stan and one in China — were the birth- name with the first capital of ancient places of civilization in those two coun- Egypt. Name the city. tries? 4. Mesopotamia means “the country (answers on page 19) July 30, 2014 15 DOWNING OF FLIGHT 17: July 22, 2014 The Day of the Hawk, declaring Russia an adversary he bombing of Pan Am 103 those between first- and second-degree surface-to-air missiles from an army de- sanctions on Vladimir Putin and Russia.” over Lockerbie was premedi- murder, and manslaughter. pot, there is evidence the missile was pro- “So first, give the Ukrainians weapons tated mass murder. Gadhafi The respective reactions confirm this. vided by Russia, and Russians may have to defend themselves and regain their wasT taking revenge for Reagan’s raid on Gadhafi concealed his role in the Scot- advised or assisted in the fatal launch. territory,” McCain adds, “Second of all, Tripoli in 1986. land slaughter. Moscow was defiant in This crisis has caused move some of our troops into areas that The downing of KAL 007, flying the KAL case. President Obama to are being threatened by Vladimir Putin.” from Anchorage to Seoul, was mass America was apol- Pat insist that Putin cut murder in the second degree. Seeing an ogetic over the Ira- off the rebels. And RIGHT. LET’S get eyeball to eyeball aircraft intrude into Russian air space, nian airliner. Buchanan if he does not rein with the Russians again. Soviet officers brutally ordered it shot Today, Vladi- (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate them in, and aban- In this “moment of moral and strate- down. mir Putin, with an don their cause, gic clarity about the threat that Vladimir The downing of the Malaysian airlin- indictment being drawn up against him, Putin is likely to face new U.S.-EU sanc- Putin’s regime poses to world order,” the er that took the lives of 298 men, women is blaming Ukraine for the war out of tions that could cripple his economy and Wall Street Journal said this weekend, and children was not deliberate terror- which the tragedy came. push his country further out into the cold. we should send “arms to Ukraine until ism. No one wanted to massacre those But though Putin did not order the And the ostracism of Putin and the Mr. Putin stops arming the separatists.” women and children. plane shot down, the horror of it all has sinking of Russia’s economy is what The Washington Post urges “military put him in a box. And the course he pur- some in the West have long had in mind. assistance to Ukraine” and sanctions “to IT WAS A horrendous military blun- sues could determine the future of U.S.- The Day of the Hawk is at hand. force Mr. Putin to choose between con- der, like the U.S. shoot-down of the Ira- Russian relations for his tenure. John McCain and John Bolton are tinued aggression in Ukraine and saving nian Airbus by the Vincennes in 1988. For the rebels in Ukraine are seen as calling for punitive sanctions, declaring the Russian economy.” That U.S. cruiser thought it was com- Putin’s proxies. They have been armed Russia an adversary, putting defensive But if aiding rebels in overthrowing ing under attack. And Ukraine’s separat- and advised by Russia. And it was a missiles and U.S. troops in Eastern Eu- their government is “aggression,” is that ists thought they were firing at an army Russian SA-11 that brought the airliner rope, and arming Kiev. not exactly what we are doing in Syria? plane. down. “That’s just for openers,” says Mc- Hopefully, those who prodded the The distinctions are as important as While the separatists say they got the Cain, who wants “the harshest possible U.S. to send surface-to-air missiles to the Syrian rebels are having second thoughts today. OBAMA PRESIDENCY: July 21, 2014 But before we sink the Russian econ- omy and send weapons to Ukraine, per- haps we should consider the potential consequences. The alleged leader of the free world If Kiev, bolstered by U.S. weapons, resident Barack Obama must So far, he hasn’t paid enough of a holding bake sales to support the army. decides to go in for the kill in Eastern have missed his calling as head concrete price, despite repeated warn- Our initial response was to send the Ukraine, Putin will face a choice: Back of the National Transportation ings from President Obama. When they Ukrainian military meals ready to eat, down and let his allies be defeated and SafetyP Board. go unheeded, Obama simply makes new which would have been a fearsome re- routed, or move his army into Ukraine to In the wake of the downing of Ma- warnings. They have marked each step sponse if Russian-backed rebels could protect them. laysia Airlines Flight 17, Obama has of Putin’s escalation, and never made a be defeated by Spam. A report in the Heretofore, Putin has not done so, been the nation’s forensic investigator- difference. What Teddy Roosevelt was Wall Street Journal in April captured clearly because he does not wish to an- in-chief. He has summoned all the mor- to gunboat diplomacy, Barack Obama is the administration’s mindset when it nex Luhansk and Donetsk, which would al authority of his office to call for the to the ineffectual demand. noted that we were reviewing Ukrainian have been a cakewalk for the army he professional handling of the wreckage. requests for medical kits and military had on Ukraine’s border after the Crimea President Ronald Reagan famously socks because “you want to calibrate crisis. implored the Soviets to “Tear down this Rich your chest-thumps,” in the words of a And should Ukraine, with U.S. arms, wall.” President Obama’s injunction is Lowry senior military official. The nonlethal win its war in the east, what is to stop it from sending troops to recapture Crimea, “Investigate this crash.” Or as he put it (c) 2014, King Features Syndicate aid is now flowing, but who thinks of rousingly in his statement on Ukraine socks as a “chest thump?” which would surely cross any “red line” from the South Lawn Monday, “I’ve Putin is surely counting on the urgen- President Obama speaks as if both of Vladimir Putin. sent teams; other countries have sent cy of the latest outrage fading with time, the Ukrainian government and the Arming Ukraine, and putting U.S. teams.” If transportation disaster as- and with his inevitable obfuscations and Russian-supported separatists need to prestige on the line for a victory by Kiev sistance specialists strike fear in Vladi- lies. President Obama said on Monday stand down. This glosses over that the over the rebels in the east and Russians in mir Putin, the Russian strongman is no that if Russia persists in Ukraine it “will Ukrainian government was elected in a the south, is a formula for a war Ukraine doubt daunted by the Western response. only further isolate itself from the inter- landslide and seeks merely to reassert cannot win, unless the United States national community.” But isolation isn’t control over its sovereign territory. It comes in to win it for them. Then we A FAIR, expeditious investigation of an autocatalytic process. Someone has deserves our fullest material and moral could be on the escalator to something the crash is obviously preferable to the to do the isolating. support. unthinkable. depredations of Putin’s minions, but is In international affairs, President Sanctions on Russia can cripple her largely beside the point. This isn’t the THE U.S. HAS been more aggres- Obama possesses only an uncertain economy. But Russia can also cripple the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. There sive on sanctions than the Europeans, trumpet. It’s not as though he’s inca- economies of Ukraine and Europe. is no mystery. Forces controlled by Putin yet has stopped short of cutting off pable of outraged righteousness in other Declaring Putin persona non grata shot a civilian airliner out of the sky. End broad sectors of the Russian economy circumstances. He summons it against may make us feel good about ourselves, of story. Whether Ukrainian separatists from our financial system. That is with- Republicans all the time. If Vladimir but it could also mean Russia tightening or Russian personnel pulled the trigger in our power to do, even if the Europe- Putin tried to repeal Obamacare instead ties to Beijing, and breaking up the U.S.- is almost moot, since both are creatures ans balk at going so far, and there also is of merely overturning the post-World led sanctions regime on Iran. of the Russian state. nothing stopping us from providing the War II order in Europe by force of arms, The downing of Flight 17 is of a piece Ukrainian military with the heavy arms perhaps he would be truly exercised and RUSSIA IS on the other side in with Putin’s lawless aggression. Having to win the Putin-instigated civil war. fully engaged. Ukraine, but in battling the Taliban and already absorbed Crimea, he seeks to The Ukrainian military was starved Islamic State, al Qaeda and the al-Nusra further dismember a European country of funds by pro-Russian President Vik- THE PRESIDENT lacks the same Front, she is on our side. for the offense of seeking to govern itself tor Yanukovych, who fled the country passion for his responsibilities as al- That “moral and strategic clarity” ex- in keeping with its values and interests. earlier this year. Ukrainians have been leged leader of the free world. ists only in uncomplicated minds. 16 July 30, 2014 That’ll be one round trip to Gaza, please espite their reluctance, the Is- general do — the Israelis cleared out of raelis are back in Gaza — for Gaza lock, stock and not just barrel but to the third time in a decade, and the last farm, hothouse, dining hall, syna- forD who knows how many times to come. gogue and Jew back in 2005. The with- It’s become almost a regularly scheduled drawal was carried out over round trip by now. the settlers’ vigor- Their reluctance ous protests, as if is understandable; Paul they could foresee Gaza has been a Greenberg the disaster their trap since the old (c) 2013, Tribune Media Services oh-so-enlightened days. Specifically, government was the Old Testament days. inviting. They did foresee it; the world (“The Philistines are upon thee, Sam- didn’t. son!” —Judges 16:20.) The dream was indeed beautiful, if only you didn’t have to wake from it. ALL OF WHICH may explain why The theory behind it was lovely: If only the Israelis didn’t invade this time until Gaza could be turned over to the Pales- Hamas rejected their (and the Egyptians’) tinians and not a single Israeli allowed to repeated offers of a truce. Now they’re remain there, it would prove a model of back to block the tunnels Hamas was us- two states living side by side in peace and ing, or rather planning to use, to burrow security. A mini-Canada and the United And now once again Gaza has proven a Khartoum Conference after the Six-Day under Israeli lines and augment its indis- States. You could almost hear the harps model for a one-state, one-terror-base War: no peace, no recognition, no nego- criminate rocket attacks all over Israel playing in the background as the vision non-solution. Also a model of Israeli gull- tiations. And no real change. with new guerrilla raids. The ground war was unveiled. (Peace in the Middle East ibility. Even today all those rockets out of The moral of this sad old story: It’s Israel had been trying to avoid was no — a DreamWorks Production.) Gaza are said to be protests against the never been the creation of another Arab longer avoidable. There’ll always be a full house of gull- Israeli “occupation” — when not a single state that has been the major sticking Welcome to the real world. It’s not ex- ibles for such productions in Israel and Israeli has occupied Gaza in years. How point between Israelis and Arabs but the actly the neat picture all the critics love out, and a producer like John Kerry to long are we supposed to fall for that line? destruction of the Jewish one. Just read to draw. It gets murky after a while. For turn out the latest sequel till he throws up But some always will. over Hamas’ charter, which still contains it tends to wind up covered with blood. his hands, gives up and leaves the whole a demand that Israel be destroyed — “Is- No longer eyeless in Gaza, the Israelis folly to the next promoter. THE ISRAELIS, who are supposed rael will exist and will continue to exist may finally have learned that they must Sometimes the promoters come back to be so quick on the uptake, have prov- until Islam will obliterate it....” That pret- not only strike back but keep striking again and again. Not having learned his en time and again to be slow learners. ty much captures the malignant spirit of back if they are ever to have any hope of lesson at Camp David, where he staged They’ve been willing to accept still an- the whole 36-article declaration of end- peace and quiet at home. his fiasco of a peace negotiation, Bill other Arab state in the Mideast time and less war. The fabled two-state solution, largely Clinton was back over the weekend again — how many would this new Pal- And yet the Israelis have been slow to an invention of the Israelis themselves, second-guessing the Israelis’ latest inva- estine make, 22, 23? — at least since the adopt even the most obvious and neces- is continuing to prove, yes, a fable. And sion of Gaza and promoting the same old Peel Commission’s report in 1937. And at sary steps to keep the aggressors at bay: a fable it has always been. As is shown Peace Process that has a way of becom- regular intervals ever since: the partition They debated for years before building by the history of Gaza, and maybe of the ing a war process. Some of us can under- of British Palestine in 1947, after the Six- a wall — excuse us, a “defensive barrier,” whole Arab-Israeli conflict. stand. We’ve dreamed from time to time, Day War in 1967, even until now. And the to use the going euphemism — to keep Lest we forget — the way so many too. Arab response hasn’t changed essentially suicide bombers from attacking every bus diplomats, mediators and kibitzers in But then reality dawns, as reality will. since the infamous Three No’s of the route, cafe, supermarket and hotel they chose to at the time. They were skeptical about erecting a sophisticated missile defense that would protect their towns and cities (“Iron Dome”), and which now has proven so effective that the Israelis have had the luxury of putting off this year’s invasion of Gaza till Hamas left them no other choice. The Israelis arrived last Thursday, hoping to seal those tunnels into Israel and come back in short order. But in this war as in all others, noth- ing is sure. And whatever the Arab-Israeli conflict is, one thing it isn’t is short or sure. Intractable would be a better adjec- tive for the nature of that struggle. Even if the Israelis are able to accomplish their currently limited mission in Gaza and re- turn home in a few days or weeks, it won’t be Goodbye but only See You Later.

LIKE MANY another nation, Israel is learning that freedom isn’t free or secu- rity attainable without sacrifice. Not just eternal vigilance but a willingness to act is the price of liberty.

July 21, 2014 This Week’s Conservative Focus 17 Israel & Hamas No more aid to the Palestinian Authority he anti-Semitic “tradition” of lin — yes, Berlin — during which blaming Jews for the world’s crowds reportedly chanted “Jew, Jew, problems mostly took a tem- cowardly pig, come on out and fight.” poraryT back seat in light of the indis- They might as well have chanted “Sieg criminate rocket attacks on Israel by heil.” the terrorist group Hamas is a des- Hamas. ignated terrorist Major news- Cal organization that paper editori- is religiously and als condemned Thomas politically com- Hamas, but their (c) 2013, Tribune Media Services mitted to the condemnation eradication of Is- was hedged by calls for “restraint” on rael. That it formed a coalition with the “both sides” and “proportionality” in Palestinian Authority (PA) and its sup- Israel’s response to the attacks. There posedly “moderate” leader, Mahmoud is little or no mention of Hamas’ di- Abbas, doesn’t make Hamas more rective to ignore Israel’s warning to moderate; it underscores the true ideol- leave homes in areas where the rockets ogy of the PA. have been placed among civilians. The The Guardian newspaper printed Hamas strategy is to parade the bodies a column by associate editor Seumas of the dead before TV cameras to dem- Milne, the gist of which was, “The idea onstrate Israel’s “cruelty” and uncaring that Israel is defending itself from un- attitude toward innocent lives. provoked attacks from outside its bor- ders is an absurdity.” Occupied people, STILL, THERE was room for the like the Palestinians of Gaza, says and kill all Israelis. ‘Raze it (Israel) to Research Service, “Since the establish- predictable screeds against Israel. The Thrall, “... have the right to resist, by the ground, exterminate the cockroach- ment of limited Palestinian self-rule in New York Times gave space on its op-ed force if they choose.” es’ nest, and banish all the Zionists,’ the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the page to Nathan Thrall, a senior analyst Yes, Gaza is occupied, but by the lyrics read.” mid-1990s, the U.S. government has at the International Crisis Group cover- Hamas, not Israel, which withdrew in committed approximately $5 billion in ing Gaza, Israel, Jordan and the West 2005 and created a vacuum Hamas pre- WHILE THE United States has lim- bilateral assistance to the Palestinians, Bank. Thrall writes, “Israel and much dictably filled. ited options in the region, it does have who are among the largest per capita of the international community placed Writing in the Jerusalem Post, one that could help undermine Hamas recipients of international foreign aid.” a prohibitive set of obstacles in the way Caroline Glick notes the objectives and free Gaza from its real occupiers. What have we gotten for it? of the Palestinian ‘national consensus’ of Hamas, which has vowed never to The U.S. should eliminate financial aid A bill sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul government that was formed in early make peace with Israel: “In the midst to the Palestinian Authority, which has (R-KY) would prohibit any direct U.S. June.” of Operation Protective Edge, Hamas been provided in the false hope that assistance, loan guarantee, or debt re- The Times of Israel reported on a released a music video in Hebrew call- “moderation” would prevail over ter- lief to the PA so long as it is affiliated pro-Palestinian demonstration in Ber- ing for the Palestinians to bomb Israel rorism. According to the Congressional with Hamas. The bill is currently tied up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It should be voted out and debated by the full Senate. Last year Edwin Black, writing in the Times of Israel, reported that “Each year, American aid and finan- cial programs fungibly fund terrorist salaries paid by the Palestinian Author- ity. This astonishing financial dynamic is known to most Israeli leaders and Western journalists in Israel. ... But it is still a shock to most in Congress, who are unaware that U.S. money going to the Palestinian Authority is regularly diverted to a program that systemati- cally rewards terrorists with generous salaries.” Now that the Palestinian Authority has formally aligned with Hamas and its murderous objectives, which in re- ality are little different from theirs, de- spite its outward claim that Israel has a right to exist (how tolerant of them), ending U.S. aid might get their atten- tion.

THERE IS NO moral equivalency between Israel and those who wish to destroy the Jewish state. None. Stop- ping aid to terrorists would be the best policy option.

July 22, 2014 18 Conservative Chronicle VLADIMIR PUTIN: July 23, 2014 Why Vladimir is kicking Obama’s behind n Monday, four days after themselves against rocket attacks from Vladimir Putin’s minions in Hamas terrorists. Ukraine shot down a pas- But now, the West has told Putin, in sengerO airliner carrying 298 people, in- no uncertain terms, that his people cluding an American citizen, President can hit a civilian aircraft Barack Obama with a missile, and emerged from the Ben that there will be White House to no costs. issue a statement. Shapiro How can a sec- Scowling at the (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate ond-rate power camera, Obama hold the United stated: “Russia has extraordinary in- States and NATO over a barrel? fluence over these separatists. No one Vice President Joe Biden gave the denies that. Russia has urged them on. answer in an interview with the New Russia has trained them.” Yorker, albeit unwittingly (though that should go without saying, given FINALLY, AFTER fulminating Biden’s witlessness). While bragging for several minutes about the nastiness about his gung-ho, macho political atti- of the Russian government, Obama tude, Biden related a story about meet- approached the predictable climax: ing Putin — a story he pledged was threats of action. “absolutely, positively” true, meaning Except that there were none. there is a three in four chance it is com- Instead, Obama explained that if plete fiction. Russia were to ignore his warnings, it But, taking the vice president at his would “only further isolate itself from word, the story went like this. Biden be saying, is an inhuman James Bond everyone to know that he will never the international community, and the met Putin at the Kremlin in 2011. They villain — and for some reason, Biden bluff and that he will always shoot first. costs for Russia’s behavior will only found themselves standing face to face. thinks this widespread perception of Obama, Biden and the European continue to increase.” “I said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I’m look- Putin makes him weak. Union somehow believe that hand- To which Putin’s only rational re- ing into your eyes, and I don’t think wringing and moral proclamations sponse would be laughter. you have a soul,” Biden related to in- BUT THAT’S Putin’s entire goal: will bring Putin into line. Putin knows This is a Western humiliation on an terviewer. “And he looked back at me, He wants the West to believe he has strength — or, at least, the impression epic scale. Obama and Europe could and he smiled, and he said, ‘We under- no soul. While the West, like Biden, of intransigent steeliness — will bring wrongly and weakly pass off the in- stand one another.’ This is who this guy seeks to demonstrate its bigheartedness the West into line. In a game of chick- vasion and annexation of Crimea as a is.” to Putin, with “reset” buttons and U.N. en, the man who openly puts a brick on historical anomaly brutally corrected. The last line from Biden is the key resolutions and G8 summits and Olym- the accelerator will always win. They could ignore the further invasion to the story: He sees Putin’s response pic Games, Putin seeks to demonstrate Putin’s got the brick on the accel- of eastern Ukraine, focusing instead on as a defeat for Putin somehow, a denial that he has no heart. He wants to be erator. He’s had quite a hot streak: those naughty Israelis busily defending of his humanity. Putin, Biden seems to seen as cruel and inhuman. He wants Georgia, Syria, Iran and now Ukraine. The result will be a far more danger- ous world, as potential Russian targets seek nuclear weapons to deter the bear, and as Putin speeds to consolidate his gains. Obama’s nuclear-free world, his multipolar United Nations geopolitics, spirals the toilet, thanks to his own uto- pian wishful thinking.

THIS IS what happens when chil- dren play against adults on the world stage. This is what happens when starry-eyed post-Americans are given charge of Western leadership. Putin rolls on, evilly manipulating, grossly murdering. And Obama makes peeved faces as bodies smolder in Ukrainian fields.

Ben Shapiro, 30, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, a radio host on KTTH 770 Seattle and KRLA 870 Los Angeles, Editor-in- Chief of TruthRevolt.org, and Senior Editor-at-Large of Breitbart News. He is the New York Times bestselling au- thor of Bullies.” His latest book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Crimi- nal Case Against the Obama Adminis- tration, will be released on June 10. He lives with his wife and daughter in Los Angeles. July 30, 2014 19 DEAR MARK: July 20, 2014 Russian missiles, the border, food stamp movie passes DEAR MARK: liner tragedy, and if this incident doesn’t executive orders would make the current Well, who could’ve imagined with motivate President Obama to take bold immigration policy “more fair, more ef- CONTACT INFORMATION Barack Obama leading the world that the action, then his legacy of being a worse ficient and more just.” He’s right; his pol- situation between Russia and the Ukraine foreign policy president than Jimmy icy has made it more efficient for illegal Individual Contact Information could have ever gotten worse? Now a Ma- Carter is sealed. children to stampede across our border laysian airliner full of innocent passen- and into our pocketbooks. Greenberg - [email protected] DEAR MARK: gers has been shot down over Ukraine. I Jacoby - [email protected] don’t care who pulled the trigger because The situation with illegal immigrant DEAR MARK: we know that the missiles were given to children crossing our border is driving Our liberal government must be the Krauthammer - [email protected] the Pro-Russia rebels by Vladimir Putin. me insane. We’ve now got a humanitar- most idiotic in history. The USDA under Levy - [email protected] What do you think our illustrious presi- ian crisis that the United Nations wants barrack Obama wants to give free movie Lowry - [email protected] dent is going to do? — P.O.’d in PA to stick its nose in, and it could tickets to food stamp recipients when Malkin - [email protected] Dear P.O.’d: have been avoided if our they make the proper food choices. What Napolitano - [email protected] President Obama will probably play about those of us who eat right using our Saunders - [email protected] nine holes of golf instead of 18, give a Mark own money? — Tea Party Tom Schlafly - [email protected] speech full of empty promises about in- Levy Dear Tom: Thomas - [email protected] ternational repercussions, and then jet off Great. Let’s send the malnourished to Will - [email protected] to a Democrat fundraiser. I’m sorry; did (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate the movies where the taxpayer will prob- that sound snarky? ably pay for buckets of buttered popcorn From the outside it appears that the stinking president had just enforced the the size of dump trucks. Do you really Contact through Creators Syndicate “reset” button Hillary Clinton proudly current immigration laws instead of pan- need any further proof that Hollywood is pressed with the Russians has backfired. dering for Hispanic votes. What is going in bed with Washington liberals? Michael Barone, Austin Bay, Brent Unless of course it meant Vladimir Putin on here? — Coastal Connie The USDA is also discussing talking Bozell, Pat Buchanan, Stephen Chap- could “reset” Russia back to the cold war Dear Coastal: shopping carts and better lighting in the man, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, era. This is now a situation where liberal produce departments. Talking shopping Larry Elder, David Harsanyi, Terry Jef- What President Obama should do is vote pandering has met reality. Back in carts — really? When I go to the grocery frey, Larry Kudlow, David Limbaugh, adopt George Bush’s “cowboy mental- 2012, President Obama decided to sign store, I can’t find a shopping cart with Dick Morris, William Murchison, ity” and immediately institute harsh eco- an executive order that basically ordered four wheels that roll in the same direc- Chuck Norris, Oliver North, Dennis nomic sanctions on Russia, and also open federal agents to stop deportation of ille- tion. What makes the USDA think that up the United States energy industry’s gal immigrants if they entered the United the voice box in a talking shopping cart Prager, Dawn Seamans-Shook, Ben ability to supply Europe with natural gas. States as “children.” To cover his butt, he will last more than a week? Go ahead Shapiro, Thomas Sowell That action is simply to bring Putin and put in a few vague stipulations such as il- and add this to the list of wasted taxpayer the European leaders to the negotiating legal immigrants had to have come to the money because that study cost us over $1 Contact - [email protected] table. Once that has occurred, all par- United States before the age of 16. There million. Sheesh! ties can discuss Russia pulling out of the is no way to prove that other than taking Contact through Universal Press Ukraine and ending this conflict. their word. Whoop-de-do. E-mail your questions to mar- As of the release of this column, Rus- During his Rose Garden remarks back [email protected]. Ann Coulter sia’s blood is all over this Malaysian air- in 2012, President Obama claimed his Contact by mail : c/o Universal Press Syndicate 1130 Walnut Street Kansas City, MO 64106

Answers from page 14 THE ANSWER MAN Dawn Seamans-Shook

ANSWERS 1. Rosetta Stone. 2. Tombs of Egyptian rulers were decorated with furnishings, musical instruments and in some instances even bathrooms. 3. Memphis, Tennessee, was named after Egypt’s first capital. 4. The rivers are currently called the Tigris and Euphrates. 5. The Harappa civilization be- gan in the Indus River Valley and in China; the first-known civilization began near the Huang He, or Yellow River. Take “The Answer Man” to work or to school. Challenge your friends for “Bragging Rights.” Send your Need to make a correction on your mailing label? questions and answers to: The An- swer Man, Dawn Seamans-Shook. Contact us at 800-888-3039 or email: [email protected] [email protected] 20 Conservative Chronicle OBAMACARE: July 23, 2014 Will John Roberts decide a ‘state’ is not a ‘state?’ he Supreme Court may soon not apply if a health insurance plan Two members of a three judge panel supremacy is that our duty when in- need to decide whether the would cost more than eight percent of on the Appeals Court did a very sim- terpreting a statute is to ascertain the federal government can be a household’s income. Similarly, the ple thing: They read the law and meaning of the words of the statute consideredT a “state” in our federal provision that penalizes companies the IRS regulation. They duly enacted through the formal legis- republic in the same sense that Iowa, that employ more then determined lative process. This limited role serves Wyo. and Wis. are states. than 50 people if Terry the regulation did democratic interests by ensuring that On the face of it, this question may they do not buy something the law policy is made by elected, politically seem absurd. In fact, given any level insurance for their Jeffrey did not authorize: accountable representatives, not by ap- of reflection, it is absurd. The federal employees does (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate It provided sub- pointed, life-tenured judges.” government is not one of the states. not apply unless sidies to people In his infamous opinion deciding But this absurd question was at the an employee of the company qualifies buying insurance on the federal ex- that the individual mandate was con- heart of Halbig v. Burwell, decided for the government subsidy to buy in- changes. stitutional, Chief Justice John Roberts this week by the U.S. Court of Appeals surance in an exchange. “We reach this conclusion, frankly, wrote: “The text of a statute can some- for the District of Columbia, and it with reluctance,” wrote Judge Thom- times have more than one possible could soon become a defining issue in WITHOUT THE exchanges and as Griffith, who was joined by senior meaning.” American life. their subsidies, far fewer people would Judge Raymond Randolph. For Roberts, in that case, the word be subject to both the individual and “At least until states that wish to can “shall” in the ACA did not always SECTION 1311 of the Affordable employer mandates. Had the IRS not set up exchanges, our ruling will likely mean “shall” and the word “penalty” Care Act, the court explained, pro- unilaterally extended to the federal have significant consequences both for did not always mean “penalty.” He led vided for “each State” to establish an exchanges the subsidies that the lan- the millions of individuals receiving the court in rewriting the law that Con- exchange to sell health insurance. guage of the law only extends to state tax credits through federal exchanges gress enacted, so he could claim it was However, the federal government exchanges, those individuals and busi- and for health insurance markets more constitutional. cannot force a state government to cre- nesses would be free of the mandate. broadly,” he wrote. ate a health insurance exchange. In Halbig v. Burwell, a group of em- “But, high as those stakes are, the NOW, THE question for John Rob- So, Section 1321 of the ACA em- ployers and individuals sued the federal principle of legislative supremacy erts may be: Is the federal government powered the secretary of Health and government, arguing that the IRS regu- that guides us is higher still,” said sometimes a “state” just like Texas or Human Services to directly create an lation contradicted the plain language the judge. “Within constitutional lim- Rhode Island? exchange, under the authority of the of the ACA as passed by Congress and its, Congress is supreme in matters of federal government, in those states signed by President Barack Obama. policy, and the consequence of that where the state government exercised its right not to create one. But then the lengthy and compli- HILLARY CLINTON: July 23, 2014 cated law did an interesting thing. It provided that people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level could get a federal subsidy to buy health insur- Hillary’s bullying the media ance — so long as they bought that in- illary Clinton’s $35 doorstop anonymous sources gives the pro-Hill- board members talking about the report- surance in an exchange “established by of a memoir is a flop. It was a ary media a reason to ignore him. That er, and why is your reporter referring to the State under Section 1311.” best-seller to hard-core Dem- doesn’t mean they don’t have a double Chelsea as a prostitute?’” The law did not extend the federal ocrats,H but her advance is estimated at standard, however. Recall NBC and Shuster apologized repeatedly on subsidy to people who make more than $14 million, which means Simon & others gleefully detailing the gossipy MSNBC’s air and then was suspended 400 percent of the poverty level, or Schuster is taking a bath in the hopes of Joe McGinniss character assassination for two weeks. Halper writes this epi- who buy their insurance some place a publishing a future president. of Sarah Palin in 2011, and never mind sode sent a message to all media. “You other than in an exchange “established Kitty Kelley’s uber-trashy Nancy Rea- may like Obama more than Hillary, by the State under Section 1311.” WORSE YET, the Washington Post gan biography. but you’d better watch what you say For example, the law did not include reported that according to an Amazon. because we have the power to destroy language providing a federal subsidy com measurement of which electronic you.” They “bullied a relatively obscure to people who bought their insurance books are most-read, Clinton’s book Brent reporter with powerless friends and in an exchange established by the fed- came in dead last among recent politi- Bozell spineless bosses.” eral government under Section 1321. The media are continuously pres- cal books. Every time people highlight (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate But the actual language of the law something in a book on their Kindles, sured to ignore all books that are any proved no obstacle to the Internal Rev- Amazon records that data. By that mea- Now Daniel Halper of the Weekly less adoring of Hillary than she is about enue Service. When the IRS wrote sure, most readers barely started it. “The Standard is “Clinton Inc.,” with a new herself. Politico went to Hillary spokes- the regulation governing the federal deepest into Hard Choices the popular set of scandals. Among them? Politico man Nick Merrill, who offered the subsidies that people can get to buy highlights get is page 33, a quote about is reporting that a source told Halper usual thuggish reply: “Daniel Halper health insurance under the Affordable smart power. Three of the five most- that Bill and Hillary went straight to the has joined the discredited and disgraced Care Act, it simply pretended the law popular highlights occur within the first board of directors of General Electric in ranks of Ed Klein and Jeff Gerth. His extended subsidies to people buying 10 pages.” 2008 to “get back” at MSNBC host Da- book came and went so fast that nobody health insurance on federal exchanges After Hard Choices came the anti- vid Shuster for saying Chelsea Clinton bothered to read it, and nobody will.” as well as state exchanges. Hillary books. Edward Klein’s Blood was being “pimped out” by Hillary’s A thuggish response, yes. But it For advocates of Obamacare, the Feud claims the Clintons and the Obam- campaign. might end up ultimately true in media IRS’s expansion of the law turned as loathe each other. It replaced Hard circles. The Shuster story speaks to the out to be extremely important. Only Choices at the top of the best-seller list. HALPER’S SOURCE says the Clin- power of the Clinton machine. When 14 states established exchanges under The New York Post reported that Hill- tons told GE brass they needed “to do that machine declares an author to be Section 1311. The federal government, ary Clinton told college friends last year something” to punish Shuster. “Before politically stillborn, woe to he who using Section 1321, established ex- that President Barack Obama was “in- long, GE’s chairman Jeffrey Immelt, veers from the directive. changes in the other 36 states. competent and feckless,” and charged was on the phone with Jeff Zucker, the Under the Affordable Care Act, the that he had “no hand on the tiller half president and CEO of NBC Universal at ON NOV. 14, 2011, NBC News Appeals Court explained this week, the time.” the time, and (former NBC News presi- picked up Chelsea Clinton for a cool the penalty that enforces the indi- That sounds quite accurate — but dent) Steve Capus asking, ‘What the $600,000 a year to play reporter. Coin- vidual mandate to buy insurance does it’s unsubstantiated. Klein’s reliance on he-- is going on over there? Why are my cidence or apology? July 30, 2014 21 FIRST AMENDMENT: July 17, 2014 Chilling: Our government deterring behavior “Chilling” is the word lawyers use exposed as part of a huge government to describe governmental behavior that plot to stifle dissent, known as COIN- does not directly interfere with constitu- TELPRO, the government stopped do- tionally protected freedoms, but rather ing it. tends to deter folks from exercising Until now. them. Classic examples of “chilling” Now, the government fears the verbal occurred in the 1970s, when FBI agents slings and arrows of dis- and U.S. Army sol- senters, even as the diers, in business means for promul- suits with badges Andrew gating one’s criti- displayed or in full cisms of the govern- uniform, showed Napolitano ment in general the feds wanted to see their sources and ensure that the government stays out of up at anti-war ral- (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate and of President their means of acquiring information. investigating speech. lies and proceeded Obama in particu- What journalist could perform his work And just last week, Attorney General to photograph and tape record protest- lar have been refined and enhanced far with the feds watching? The reason we Eric Holder, while in London, opined ers. When an umbrella group of protest- beyond those available to the critics of have a First Amendment is to assure that that much of the criticism of Obama is ers sued the government, the Supreme the government in the 1970s. no journalist would need to endure that. based on race — meaning that if Obama Court dismissed the case, ruling that the So, what has the Obama administra- Two weeks ago, a notorious pot stirrer were fully white, his critics would be protesters lacked standing — meaning, tion done to stifle, or chill, the words in Norfolk, Neb., built a mock outhouse, silent. This is highly inflammatory, because they could not show that they of its detractors? For starters, it has put it on a truck and drove the truck with grossly misleading, patently without ev- were actually harmed, they could not in- subpoenaed the emails and home tele- permission in a local Fourth of July pa- idential support and, yet again, chilling. voke the federal courts for redress. phone records of journalists who have rade. In front of the outhouse, he placed Tagging someone as a racist is the po- either challenged it or exposed its dark a mannequin that he claimed looked like litical equivalent of applying paint that YET, THEY WERE harmed, and secrets. Among those journalists are himself, and on the outhouse, he posted won’t come off. Were the Democrats the government knew it. Years after he James Risen of the New York Times and a sign that stated: “Obama Presidential who criticized Attorney General Alberto died, longtime FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover my colleague and friend James Rosen of Library.” Gonzales or Secretary of State Condo- was quoted boasting of the success of Fox News. This is more personal than leezza Rice racists? Is it appropriate for this program. The harm existed in the the NSA spying on everyone, because SOME THOUGHT this was crude, government officials to frighten people pause or second thoughts that protest- a subpoena is an announcement that a and some thought it was funny; yet it is into silence by giving them pause before ers gave to their contemplated behavior specific person’s words or effects have fully protected speech. It is protected they speak, during which they basically because they knew the feds would be in been targeted by the government, and because satire and opinion about public ask themselves whether the criticism their faces — figuratively and literally. that person continues to remain in the figures are absolutely protected, as well they are about to hurl is worth the pain The government’s goal, and its limited government’s crosshairs until it decides as is all criticism of the government. the government will soon inflict in re- success, was to deter dissent without ac- to let go. Yet, the Department of Justice has sent taliation? tually interfering with it. Even the gov- This necessitates hiring legal counsel a team to investigate this event because The whole purpose of the First Hillary’s bullying the media ernment recognized that physical inter- and paying legal fees. Yet, the targeting a local official called it racist. Such an Amendment is to permit, encourage and ference with and legal prosecutions of of Risen and Rosen was not because the allegation by a public official and such even foment open, wide, robust debate pure speech are prohibited by the First feds alleged that they broke the law — a federal investigation are chilling. The about the policies and personnel of the Amendment. Eventually, when this was there were no such allegations. Rather, reason we have a First Amendment is to government. That amendment presumes that individuals — not the government — will decide what language to read and hear. Because of that amendment, the marketplace of ideas — not the gov- ernment — will determine which criti- cisms will sink in and sting and which will fall by the wayside and be forgot- ten. Surely, government officials can use words to defend themselves; in fact, one would hope they would. Yet, when the people fear exercising their expressive liberties because of how the govern- mental targets they criticize might use the power of the government to stifle them, we are no longer free.

EXPRESSING IDEAS, no matter how bold or brazen, is the personal ex- ercise of a natural right that the govern- ment in a free society is powerless to touch, directly or indirectly. Yet, when the government succeeds in diminishing public discourse so that it only contains words and ideas of which the govern- ment approves, it will have succeeded in establishing tyranny. This tyranny — if it comes — will not come about over- night. It will begin in baby steps and tri- umph before we know it. Yet we do know that it already has begun. 22 Conservative Chronicle AMNESTY: July 22, 2014 Layoffs prove the deceit of amnesty he shocking announcement Economics 101 teaches that wages erman explained in the Wall Street Jour- When we first brought the transfor- that Microsoft is cutting 18,000 are a function of supply and demand. nal, “Most people will have the impres- mation of the American economy into a jobs is still sinking in. Most of When the supply of labor is increased, sion that the 288,000 jobs created last part-time worker society in 2010, many thoseT employees do not have a realistic such as by expanding immigration, then month were full-time. Not so.” They scoffed and suggested that when the chance of obtaining as good a job as the wages can and do decrease, despite in- were part-time jobs, ‘recovery’ really gets going the temp one they are losing. creased productiv- which pay lower jobs will all be morphed into high-pay- In the United States, the number of ity. wages than the ing full-time jobs. Instead, Zuckerman engineering jobs has been sharply de- Recently a re- Phyllis full-time jobs writes, “more than 24 million Ameri- clining. In 2002 the number of electri- porter caught up Schlafly that have disap- cans remain jobless, working part-time cal engineering jobs in the United States with the laid-off peared. involuntarily or having left the work- was 385,000, but despite increased semiconductor (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate There are sev- force.” demand for technology, the job total engineer whose eral reasons for Zuckerman hits us with the depress- dropped to only 300,000 last year. wife publicly challenged President this, such as employers’ desire to avoid ing conclusion: “Faith in the American Obama in January 2012, “Why does the Obamacare mandate to provide dream is eroding fast. The feeling is that AND THAT number is not even for the government continue to issue and health insurance to anyone working 30 the rules aren’t fair and the system has American workers, because thousands extend H-1B visas when there are tons or more hours a week. Another is wom- been rigged in favor of business and of these jobs are soaked up by the H-1B of Americans just like my husband with en’s willingness to accept lower pay in against the average person.” visa racket, whereby companies like no job?” Darin Wedel eventually found exchange for a flexible schedule with Microsoft can import and pay foreign a job in the health care industry, earn- fewer hours per day, per week, and per ONE SENATOR who always speaks workers less than it costs to hire an ing $40,000-a-year less than before. year. up for Americans, Jeff Sessions of Ala- American. High-tech companies have But now many breadwinners, in- bama, said, “I don’t think you can make thousands of foreign employees work- PRESIDENT OBAMA is still de- cluding men, have been forced to take the argument that we have a labor short- ing on H-1B visas, who are almost like ceiving the American public about the these jobs. Of men aged 25 to 54, one age.” The answer should be: close the indentured servants to the company be- economy, bragging that 288,000 jobs in six does not work; fifty years ago, border; absolutely no amnesty masquer- cause they lose their right to be in our were created last month. As Mort Zuck- only one in 20 was not working. ading as “immigration reform.” country if they leave their job. Microsoft’s massive layoff makes RICK PERRY: July 22, 2014 downright ridiculous the op-ed recently published by Bill Gates and his billion- aire pals, Warren Buffett and Sheldon Adelson. They and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who financed the lobby At last — someone did something group FWD.us, demand immediate am- o, then, what are we supposed to decide how to proceed. The gover- The exodus of — it must be by now nesty disguised as immigration reform to think when the governor nor said, all right, here’s what we’ll do. 60,000 uninvited Guatemalans, Hondu- in order to bring in more cheap labor. of Texas dispatches National We’ll send in the guard. The efficacy of rans and Salvadorans into the United The real shortage is in good jobs, but GuardsmenS to the state border with Perry’s decision remains to be tested. States in this fiscal year commands at- these visas flood the labor market and Mexico in order to deflect the onrush It’s nevertheless a decision, as distin- tention in a way that mere trickles of hold wages down, when wages should of illegal border-crossers? What are we guished from a decision to think about newcomers cannot. What does all this be climbing for American workers. supposed to do? when to think about alternatives, before mean? That is the question that demands Fewer Americans have a job today than Do? A strange concept these days. taking soundings and testing the answers. It seems to mean, unless put in just six years ago, even though the po- Do something about the Russians and water. reverse gear, that pretty much anybody tential workforce has expanded during their depraved allies for shooting down who aspires to life in the United States that time. One reason is the overuse of a passenger plane? Do something about William can have it for the coming and the ask- foreign labor by large companies. the depraved crowd of terrorists who ing. Microsoft is highly profitable, break- provoked Israel into assaulting the tun- Murchison A country of immigrants knows the ing its own records for revenue and nels in which they skulk? Do something (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate value of immigration; it knows, none- profits as recently as last year, with an about those equally depraved Iraqi ter- theless, in the 21st century that the con- effective tax rate of less than 20 percent. rorists now rounding up and expelling THE CRY FOR a “man on horse- ditions for uncontrolled admissions are One of its directors has agreed to pay $2 Christians from their midst? Do some- back” to carpe the diem, bring clar- not as they were 125 years ago. We are billion for a basketball team, and Bill thing about the kidnappers of school ity, make the rains run on time, get the not in the same place. What we once Gates is often listed as the wealthiest children in Nigeria? mail delivered, and so forth is eternal: could do — take in your tired and poor man in the world. as we would know if public education — we no longer can do with old-time In 2007, at a U.S. Senate committee NOT A CHANCE. As if there were taught history with anything like the ease. Restrictions have to apply. Which hearing, Gates asked for permission to the slightest chance anyway of rebuking thoroughness that formerly prevailed restrictions? Unable to pose such a po- import “an infinite number” of foreign and punishing all the world’s bad actors in our schools. We get in these what- litically loaded question, far less answer workers. “I don’t think there should — a constantly growing crowd. Not do-we-do-now moods whenever things it, we dither, we drool, we sort of look be any limit,” he continued, but at any even the Romans pulled off the trick. begin to go amiss. Equally to the point, sideways at the fruits of our indecision. rate the cap should be “dramatically in- On the other hand, outlawry tends to whenever problems grow complex and Rick Perry’s army of critics, lam- creased.” flourish in climates where the outlaws, general exhaustion sets in, which may pooners and detractors will assail his In 2008, before the Science and Tech- actual or potential, sense the sheriff to be where we are now, in the twilight of motives, impugn his sense of human- nology Committee of the U.S. House, be farthest away, and perhaps to be most the “hope and change” era. ity; so on and so on. Big deal. The feds Gates claimed he had jobs “going beg- conformable to their purposes: Andy The border problem is complex. It is aren’t doing the job the governor wants ging” that no American could be found Devine in The Man Who Shot Liberty not so complex as our political analysts done. He’ll take a hand himself. to do, so he had no choice but to import Valance. In an age of general and delib- make it out to be: a welter of impuls- workers from India. When Representa- erate non-judgmentalism, with punish- es — fear of gangs, rapacity of smug- ABROAD, PUTIN will slither and tive Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) suggest- ment an oddity and outrage rarely suc- glers, ease of transportation, division of the jihadists slaughter. A governor can ed he might consider raising the pay for ceeded by action, outlaws flourish. a political nature among the potential do only so much. Perry has done as those jobs, Gates impatiently dismissed On the matter of the influx of illegals “hosts,” their eyes fixed on the size of much as he could. But you know what? that option, saying, “No, it’s not an issue into Texas, Gov. Rick Perry saw the fed- the immigrant vote more than on the He did something. A very nice change of raising wages. These jobs are very, eral government as flustered and inani- country’s capacity to accommodate all that makes for. very high paying jobs.” mate: unable to proceed because unable the immigrants who want to come. July 30, 2014 23 IMMIGRANTS: July 17, 2014 Hard-working immigrants created American colossus met a man in his mid-50s re- and barely 12 years old, in the 1920s cently who told me he came to — sent here by his widowed mother America as a very young man in the hope for a better life than faced withI less than $25 in his pocket and him in post-World War I East- made a pretty good life for himself ern Europe. here. Carrying a small As the son of Donald bag of belongings, Albanian immi- with his boat and grants who came Lambro train fare care- here with just (c) 2014, United Media Services fully sewn into the clothes on the lining of his their backs, I love such stories about native clothes by his mother, he set the people who come to this country, forth on a perilous journey to the New filled with hope for a far better future World in July 1923. and a willingness to toil long hours to Starting out on foot across treach- achieve the American dream. erous mountains and farm fields, he made his way, often with the help of THIS GENTLEMAN told me how people his mother had painstakingly he worked 18-hour days, six days a arranged to escort him along portions week, on his feet for decades, gradu- of his trek into Greece, then across the ally climbing the economic ladder. Adriatic Sea on a small boat to Italy, He married, raised a family, saved and then by train to Naples, where he his money and bought a home that he boarded a passenger ship bound for proudly said he owns “free and clear.” America. HE IMMEDIATELY was put to essence of America, told and retold At a time when immigration has He once told me how he was taken work as a laborer to earn his keep, put- from generation to generation of am- become a fierce political battlefield, down to the lowest, cheapest level of ting in long hours. He eventually went bitious, hardworking immigrants and particularly as it pertains to illegals, the vessel, known as “steerage” back to night school to learn and write the their offspring who built America into but even to those who come here le- in those days, where bearded, menac- language, and later went to a trade the great nation it has become. gally, we need to remember how our ing men frightened him and made fun school to learn barbering. My parents’ belief in hard work parents and grandparents came here to of his clothes, sometimes poking him. He became a U.S. citizen and was and in their endlessly repeated plea make a better life for themselves and My father began to cry until a pass- employed by barbershops from Boston to “make something of yourself” has At last — someone did something for us. And, in the process, they helped ing woman came by, comforted him to Philadelphia, moving up the income deeply and profoundly shaped my life to build this country into the largest and took him up to her room, where he scale and dreaming of one day open- and belief in the work ethic, American economy on the face of the Earth. stayed until he had reached the port of ing his own shop and becoming an em- enterprise and economic freedom. It is during this debate that I most immigrants, New York’s Ellis Island. ployer himself. Multiply my father’s immigrant look back on my father’s inspiring sto- Somehow, often with the kind help He saved his money, though he was story with that of tens of millions of ry, overcoming huge odds against him of other strangers, he managed to find fastidious about his clothes and had a immigrants who came to our shores, to become a businessman, employer, his way through the confusion and cha- reputation among fellow immigrants facing seemingly insurmountable ob- homeowner and an investor in our os of immigration officials and medi- as a well-tailored gentleman. So much stacles, and it is clear who turned this country’s future. cal inspectors. He was put on a train so, he caught the eye of a beautiful country into an economic colossus He emigrated from poverty-stricken to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where a young Albanian immigrant who lived over the past century. Albania as a very young boy, alone cold and uncaring uncle took him in. in Worcester, Massachusetts, and mar- We seem to have lost sight of all this ried her. in the battle over immigration, which My dad liked college towns and of- has, for all intents and purposes, come ten took the train out to Wellesley, a to a standstill in Washington. suburb of Boston, a lovely town with We surely need to control our bor- a large and prosperous professional ders. We also need to modernize a clientele where he believed he could system that most Americans agree is make a good living. broken. But we also need to recognize He opened his own shop, worked and appreciate the value of immigrants hard from early in the morning to the who come here legally to work, build evening hours, and at one time held a new life and become citizens of our two jobs, serving as the only barber country. at a military training facility during Ronald Reagan said he once got a World War II. letter from a man who wrote: “You Over time, his business grew, re- can go live in Turkey, but you can’t quiring him to hire other barbers. He become a Turk. You can go to Japan, expanded it into electric shaver sales but you cannot become Japanese — or and service and hair care products. Germany or France ...” But, he contin- He saved and invested his money, ued, “anyone from any corner of the particularly in a fast-growing commer- world can come to America and be- cial aircraft company called Boeing. come an American.” He bought property, built a handsome colonial home, and with my mom, an MY FATHER asked for no special industrious and frugal homemaker, privileges or handouts when he stepped raised three children. onto Ellis Island. “In Albania, we heard For my father and mother, both of that the streets here were paved with whom have passed away, the United gold,” he once told me. They weren’t, States kept its enduring promise as the of course, but in terms of the freedom “land of opportunity.” and opportunities America gave him, Their story perfectly embraces the they really were. 24 Conservative Chronicle ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: July 17 2014 Be very afraid, especially for your children n July 1, 2014, I wrote a syn- the health challenges awaiting us from transmitted diseases will be taken to the Our children will be attending classes dicated column titled “What these third-world children, and when health facility with the host? Will the with infected children. Our hospitals and If Terrorists Used Infectious school opens in a month, their co-min- community now become at health risk? restaurants are employing infected ille- Diseases.”O I postulated that America is gling will create potential nightmares Who will pay for these treatments, gals. Prisons are becoming incubation being placed in mortal danger as illegal given that most of these diseases have a or the results of contamina- chambers of disease as more infected il- aliens, to which I specifically add the 30-45 day incuba- tion?” legals are arrested and incarcerated with tens of thousands of illegal alien chil- tion period, which Mychal If that doesn’t unsuspecting inmates — inmates who dren, are flooding our borders. period should ex- give you cause for will themselves become infected and pire about the time Massie concern, what released at some point back into society. I WROTE: “It is a fact that no one, of the school sea- (c) 2014, Mychal Massie will? As if on cue not government nor otherwise can be- son. For the many liberals accused HAVING READ this, you are free to gin to quantify the danger we face from who will probably not even see a school me of fear-mongering, to which I say, call me a fear monger as well; but when disease born by illegal aliens. Illegals door, they will be turned loose (many they are absolutely right! I am raising your family member becomes infected, coming from third world countries are already have been released into Ameri- the specter of fear. Someone sure as remember who it was that warned you. not the rich and well educated who were ca), and their hygiene and general mind- has to. The media isn’t. The politicians And with that said, remember that the able to seek health care in their country set of participating in society will not aren’t. And the Obama government is mainstream media, which functions as of origin. They are the least educated match the cultural values of our coun- bullying people into silence about this the bureau of agitprop for Obama and and the poorest. And let there be no try, nor will they care. In the small com- threat. politicians on both sides of the aisle, question they are infected disease car- munity of Oracle, Arizona, citizens are The diseases from infected illegal failed to say anything at all. riers. But, the government won’t tell us alarmed that the inbound illegal children children flooding across our borders Politicians, specifically Republi- that. Foolish and misguided Americans are sick, not being properly screened or raises the very real threat (read even- cans, are pushing amnesty upon us fully are blind to the terror, i.e., the illegals, treated, and will become a burden to tuality) of diseases on epidemic lev- knowing that they are placing our coun- they are advocating have a right to be their community, not to mention if they els heretofore unseen in America. And try at eminent risk. The question we rewarded with citizenship for breaking require medical treatment and are taken Obama’s response is to taunt Congress should be asking is why our federal gov- our sovereign laws. They ignorantly to the community health facility, what and play golf. ernment would knowingly do this to us? fancy themselves as showing ‘divine love’ when in reality they are sentenc- BLACK AMERICANS: July 23, 2014 ing their communities to untold poten- tial misery.” Not surprisingly, liberals accused me of hate-mongering; they argued that “as a black man, I should understand the Do blacks need special privileges? discrimination” these illegals are facing arlier this month, the 50th an- schools such as Philadelphia’s Roberts the control of educators, such as poor and that I should be more empathetic. niversary of the Civil Rights Vaux High School and New York’s Ed- home environment, derelict parental Even misguided wannabe conserva- Act was celebrated. During the ward R. Murrow High School. Last year, oversight and students with minds alien tives railed against me. Their argument act’sE legislative debate, then-Sen. Hu- two black teens -- from Intermediate and hostile to the education process. But being, that as church-goers, we should bert Humphrey, responding to predic- School 318 Eugenio Maria de Hostos in there’s one thing entirely within the con- want to help these “poor children”. tions, promised, “I’ll eat my hat if this Brooklyn, New York -- won the national trol of the education establishment. That I stood my ground without apology, leads to racial quotas.” I don’t know high-school chess championship. All of is the conferral of a high-school diploma. explaining that the United States is be- whether Humphrey got around to keep- this is in addition to quite a few black When a school confers a diploma upon ing placed at serious risk even if terror- ing his promise, but here’s my question: international masters and grandmasters a student, it attests that the student has ists did not launch such an attack. Not Is it within the capacity of black Ameri- in chess. Moreover, there’s a long list of mastered the 12th-grade levels of read- that I take any solace in being right, but cans to make it in this society without former and current black inventors and ing, writing and arithmetic. If, in fact, the I was proven to be spot on in my con- the special favors variously called racial scientists. So there’s no question that student cannot perform at the seventh- or cerns and postulation. preferences, quotas, affirmative action black people have the capacity to com- eighth-grade levels, the school has com- On Wednesday, July 16th, I received and race-sensitive policies? What might pete intellectually. mitted gross fraud. Even worse is the fact a briefing report titled: “Rush the Bor- a “yes” answer to that question assume that black people, including those hold- der of the United States” prepared by and imply about blacks? Likewise, what Walter ing fraudulent diplomas, are completely my good friend and colleague, Dr. Lyle would a “no” answer assume and imply? unaware. It has absolutely nothing to do Rapacki. Let’s look at it. Williams with racial discrimination. In fact, black education is the worst in cities where (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate THE SECOND point in Dr. Ra- THERE ARE some areas of black blacks have been the mayor, chief of po- packi’s report reads: “The now national- life in which excellence can be found CIVIL RIGHTS organizations and lice and superintendent of schools and ly discussed medical fears are beginning without the slightest hint of racial pref- their progressive allies, who all but sug- where most of the teachers and princi- to manifest. Reports by border patrol erences. Young blacks dominate basket- gest that blacks cannot achieve unless pals are black. facilities holding illegal children and ball, football and some track-and-field they are given special privileges, gross- Racial preferences in college admis- military bases used likewise, now re- events despite the fact that there has been ly insult and demean black people. But sions give elementary schools, middle port strong cases, and quickly spreading a history of gross racial discrimination in worse than that, when civil rights or- schools and high schools a free hand to cases of pneumonia, TB, scabies, para- those activities. Blacks are also promi- ganizations and their progressive allies continue their destructive educational sitic diseases not even seen previously nent in several areas of the entertainment pursue special privileges for blacks in policy. If colleges did not have special in America, sexually transmitted diseas- industry. Those observations mean that college admissions and when they attack admissions practices for black students, es, severe swine flu. Isolated for now, racial discrimination alone is not an in- academic performance standards as ra- there would be far fewer blacks in colleg- cases of Polio are reported in southern surmountable barrier to success. By the cially discriminatory, they are aiding and es, and the fraud would be more apparent states. A Navy base in San Diego has way, I can’t think of any two fields with abetting an education establishment that to parents. They might begin to ask why been forced to seal a portion of the base more ruthless competition. delivers fraudulent education. They let so many blacks with high-school diplo- due to severe pneumonia by illegal chil- You say, “OK, Williams, everyone educators off the hook, thereby enabling mas could not get into college. dren. Just today, reports are beginning to knows about the success of blacks in them to continue to produce educational reach the light of day of leprosy cases in sports and entertainment, but what about fraud. IF THE CIVIL rights establishment New York and other severe skin diseas- the intellectual arena?” A few inner-city You say, “What do you mean by ed- and the progressives have their way, es from illegal children dropped off in junior high and high schools have pro- ucational fraud, Williams?” There are blacks will have to rely on special privi- that city. We have not even begun to see duced black champion chess players, many inputs to education that are beyond leges in perpetuity. July 30, 2014 25 AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM: July 22, 2014 Moral equivalence is usually moral negligence fforts to proclaim moral For example, I don’t know a single equivalence are not always conservative who supports muzzling misguided; sometimes each leftist thought or speech, no matter how sideE is equally at fault or close enough. repugnant he may find it. Yet leftists are But these efforts are often misguided strongly supportive of various and unhelpful — measures to sup- and sometimes press, even out- harmful. David law, conservative Throughout Limbaugh speech, from cam- my life, there has pus speech codes (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate been an increas- to the Fairness ing trend to attach Doctrine. There most ardent leftist proponents, an Or- the American idea is exceptional and moral equivalence to all kinds of dis- is no way to describe this disparity in wellian tool to disparage Western civi- that it has led to the freest, most pros- putes and conflicts, such as Israel vs. terms of moral equivalence. lization and Western culture. The multi- perous and most beneficent nation in Hamas, which is the subject of a fu- I sincerely believe there is a reason culturalist professes that all cultures are world history. ture column. I assume this is mostly an liberals engage in this behavior far equal and in the next breath condemns That’s hardly a racist or nativist idea, outgrowth of our culture’s descent into more than conservatives. It is because Western culture because, in his view, it for Americans truly are — at least up moral relativism, but it’s also a product many of them believe that their ends, is unfairly exclusive, intolerant and big- until recent times — a melting pot of of our intellectual laziness. which they believe are vastly superior, oted. all races and ethnicities. It is the Ameri- justify their means. I’ve seen it so much can idea that is superior, not the Ameri- WE SEE IT everywhere. It is a com- that I suspect it is inherent in leftist ide- HE SEES NO conflict in making can people. America is about freedom, mon practice in describing marriages ology. this negative judgment, because to him, made possible by limited government, gone wrong. “It takes two.” “Who’s to See the irony? Liberals, who are it’s not intolerant to refuse to tolerate established by a Constitution anchored say who is more at fault?” Well, that usually the first to throw up moral cultures and worldviews he believes in Judeo-Christian values. sounds good and is often true, but how equivalency arguments when caught to be intolerant. It’s the exact type of Our nation, based on a superior sys- about in the case of the spousal or child red-handed, are skilled practitioners at warped and muddled thinking that leads tem of government, has been the beacon abuser? judging us — their political opponents him to justify muzzling conservative to the world. This system was crafted But where I find it most troubling — all the while claiming they just want speech; in other words, conservative by 18th-century giants who knew that is in partisan politics. There the trend everyone to get along. Through such ideas are so despicable that they don’t certain ideas are superior to others and toward moral equivalence is the wrong- moral shaming about moral judgments, deserve protection. But his argument is that the political history of the world doer’s best friend. If we dismiss every the left intimidates conservatives from self-defeating because while he says it’s provides the clues. They designed our Do blacks need special privileges? despicable and corrupt act with the making and articulating their own mor- intolerant to judge other cultures, he is system to allow what is great about hu- mindless cliché “everyone does it,” al assessments. judging ours. man beings to flourish and to keep in then we excuse the wrongdoer for his Modern manifestations of this prac- But there’s a big difference between check our evil propensities. misconduct and encourage further mis- tice are the left’s virtual weaponization treating everyone — all people and cul- But when we abandon our God- behavior. of political correctness, its obsession tures — with respect and treating their given gift to make intellectual distinc- Sure, both sides are often at fault, with so-called “diversity” and multicul- ideas as equally valid and profitable. tions, when we surrender our duty to but that isn’t always the case, and it turalism, and its rejection of the idea of Though I agree that we can borrow and make discriminating moral judgments, doesn’t make you a better person to say American exceptionalism. have borrowed great things from other we forfeit our own intellectual integrity otherwise if it isn’t true. Multiculturalism is, for many of its civilizations and peoples, I believe that and moral authority. When we can’t hold up certain standards as preferable, we descend into irrelevance and mean- inglessness. The United States, despite its faults and missteps, has, among nations, been the greatest force for good in history and can continue to be if we return to our roots and our founding ideals. President Barack Obama and his left- ist ilk outright reject these ideas. They don’t believe in American exceptional- ism and the superiority of the American idea, which explains why they have no problem managing the decline of our military power and refusing to zealous- ly protect our borders. Conservatives, for their part, need to overcome their timidity and quit trying to appease and emulate the left and mol- lify the gods of political correctness. It’s time that we start championing our ideas — based on the American idea — as if we believe they are superior.

WE MUST remember what has made us unique and great and rededi- cate ourselves to re-establishing those founding principles. There is no room for moral equivalence here and nothing moral about pretending there is. We for- sake the American idea at our peril. 26 Conservative Chronicle AMERICA: July 18, 2014 USA: The Brazil of North America o observe the decades-long pa- versal nation” unlike any that has existed ralysis of America’s political in the history of the West. elite in controlling her borders And if we look abroad at those West- callsT to mind the insight of James Burn- ern nations traveling along this perilous ham in 1964 — “Liberalism is the ide- path with us, we can see ology of Western clearly now our fu- suicide.” ture What the ex- Pat Before the Trotskyite turned Buchanan 1960s, Europe Cold Warrior never knew mass meant was that (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate immigration. And by faithfully fol- after the terrible lowing the tenets of liberalism, the West ethnic cleansing of Germans after World would embrace suicidal policies that War II, most of Europe’s nations were would bring about the death of her civi- ethnically homogeneous. lization. Several were not. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the USSR. At the end of the THE CRISIS on our Southern bor- Cold War, with freedom, all three came der, where the left, and not only the left, apart. Where we had three nations, sud- is wailing that we cannot turn away des- denly we had 24 and such sub-nations as perate people fleeing wicked regimes South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnis- and remain true to our liberal values, is tria. a case in point. Now Scots are seeking to break away nicity, culture and faith, from the Western cession to establish a new East Turkes- To assert that we cannot take all these from England, Catalans from Spain, Cor- societies into which they have migrated. tan. people in, that we must send them back sicans from France, Venetians from Italy Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Domini- Disintegration, separatism and seces- and seal out border for our survival, is and Flemish from Belgium, though these cans, Somalis and Arabs in America also sionism, for racial, religious, and cultural to be called a variety of names — rac- peoples have lived together for centuries. build replicas of the countries and cul- causes, are a phenomenon common now ist, xenophobe, nativist — all of which Crimeans have gone back to Russia, tures whence they came. Thus, we take to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and translate into “illiberal.” while Chechens and other peoples of the on the aspect of an empire. And empires Asia. Are we somehow immune? But as we continue our descent to Caucasus are fighting to break free of fall apart. The world is boiling with racial, tribal, Third World status, perhaps we should Russia. The melting pot, rejected by our elites cultural and moral conflict. People carry explore more deeply the “diversity” that The roots of these secessionist move- as an instrument of nativist bigots, is his- in their hearts the seeds of these conflicts. has of late come to be regarded as Amer- ments may be traced to economics, eth- tory. The notion that they will come here and ica’s most treasured attribute. nicity, history, religion, language, culture Libya, Syria and Iraq are coming be converted into Ozzie-and-Harriet In 1960, we were not nearly so di- and borders. apart, as did Sudan and Ethiopia. The Americans may be a bit utopian. verse. Nine in 10 Americans professed Kurds seek to carve a nation out of Tur- America is becoming a microcosm of a Christian faith. Nine in 10 Americans THEN THERE are the rising mil- key, Iran, Iraq and Syria. A Sunni-Shia a world on fire. traced their ancestry back to Europe. E lions of Muslims in Europe who are not sectarian war impends. Why are we doing this? Why are we Pluribus Unum. We were one nation and assimilating, as Catholic Irish and Catho- Christians are being persecuted, mar- inviting the world into the USA? Was one people. lic Germans did in a Protestant USA, but tyred and expelled from Islamic nations. there some grievous flaw in the America Since then, we have become the Bra- are replicating within the West the coun- In Myanmar, Muslims are brutalized by of Ike and JFK that must be expunged? zil of North America, a multiracial, mul- tries and cultures whence they came. Buddhists. In Western China, ethnic Ui- Some sin for which we must do penance? tilingual, multiethnic, multicultural “uni- They are separating themselves, by eth- ghurs resort to terrorism in a war of se- What is coming is predictable, and has been predicted. By 2042, Americans of European ancestry will be a minority in a country built by Europeans. “Anglos” are now a minority in Calif., N.M. and Texas. His- panics will soon be the majority in all four border states with Mexico. And should Hispanics decide not to give their electoral votes to any presiden- tial candidate who does not promise to erase the border with Latin America, that would mean the end of the United States as we know it. Americans are already deep in a cul- ture war over morality — marijuana, abortion, same-sex marriage. We are al- ready racially polarized over affirmative action and income inequality.

AND WHEN we have ceased to be an English-speaking, Christian country and become instead an Asian-Hispanic-Af- rican-American-white nation, with large Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Bud- dhist, agnostic and atheist minorities, and no defined borders, or common faith and culture, what holds us together? And when did we vote for this future? July 30, 2014 27 VA SCANDAL: July 18, 2014 Mrs. Obama’s operation VA scandal distraction arack and Michelle Obama from battle, should “horrify all of us.” launching this initiative and that pro- leave or harassed. “Retaliation culture are quite the diversionary Of course, vet homelessness is a gram to do right by the vets. is a cancer,” said Dr. Christian Head, tag-team. He blames every- shame, and it should be eradicated. But Various federal agencies live-tweet- who was investigating time-card fraud oneB else for his problems. She takes the timing of Mrs. Obama’s remarks ed the event; Mrs. Obama’s inside the Greater Los Angeles VA credit for progress on his behalf that he — not to mention fan base oohed and Health Care System. doesn’t deserve and distracts public at- her glaring omis- aahed. And the tention from his avalanche of failures sions — is calcu- Michelle Veterans Affairs A NEW report by the VA inspec- with endless feel-good photo-ops. lated cynicism on Malkin media relations tor general provided more details of While the shirker in chief golfed and Louboutins. and social media how bureaucrats made pending ben- grubbed for money at closed-door ce- President (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate tracking teams efits cases vanish and mishandled or lebrity fundraisers this week, his East Obama’s human undoubtedly high- intentionally lost paperwork related to Wing flak-catcher provided him cun- deflector sprinkled her remarks with fived each other as they tallied up the claims in a mad attempt to reduce the ning cover on the still-festering VA various anecdotes about vets strug- positive press. 600,000-case backlog. Linda Halliday, scandals. gling to get back on their feet. But not Meanwhile, more whistleblowers an assistant inspector general, ticked once in her 2,700-word speech did who will never gain Mrs. Obama’s off all the new targets of investigative MRS. OBAMA flew to Los Ange- Mrs. Obama mention the horrifying public sympathy or accolades gave probes: Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los les to declare a war or something on stories of veterans neglected, abused, damning testimony about the “culture Angeles, Oakland, Houston and Little veterans’ homelessness. At a summit manipulated and crushed by corrupt of corruption” at the VA. One told Rock, Ark. with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti VA bureaucrats under her husband’s Capitol Hill lawmakers about how her Asked whether she believes in the on Wednesday, she said the neglect of administration. car was dented after she reported ma- integrity of data being supplied to her our men and women in uniform, aban- Instead, she spent the rest of the nipulation of veterans’ benefits claims by VA officials, Halliday told the House doned on the streets after returning speech bragging about “my husband” in Philadelphia. Others were put on Veterans Affairs Committee: “No. ... I don’t want to say I trust them.” Good- bye, hope and change. Hello, lying li- AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM: July 22, 2014 ars. And how’s this for horrifying: Yet another VA IG report released this week affirmed that the Baltimore VA What America needs now “had inappropriately stockpiled about orty-five years ago, there was I’m not overlooking the achieve- “2. It built its wealth on the backs of 8,000 documents” containing sensitive a day like few others that ral- ments of technological wizards, such as African slaves, and is essentially white personal information and processed lied Americans and changed Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and many supremacist. and unprocessed claims-related mail AmericaF forever. Yet I could find but others. I just believe that their types of “3. It expanded by unjustly stealing with the potential to affect benefits one or two news stories about that mo- drive, passion and vision should per- land from its neighbor Mexico. payments. “More than 9,500 docu- mentous occasion and triumph. Do you meate every field of American life, es- “4. It is consistently imperialist and ments and 80 claims folders lacked the remember what it was? It’s the type of pecially government. If they did, we’d aggressive toward other countries. oversight necessary to ensure timely event that America needs now, maybe have a whole new generation of great “5. It is dominated by an unjust and claims processing,” investigators said. more than ever before. and inspirational leaders. exploitative capitalist system that harms Translation: Feckless VA drones sat the poor.” on their plump, worthless backsides IF YOU’RE old enough, you re- Dinesh summarizes the state of af- while the desperate entreaties of our member July 20, 1969, when 123 mil- Chuck fairs well in the movie: “The American nation’s best and bravest clogged their lion of roughly 200 million Americans Norris dream is shrinking because some of our do-nothing desks. were riveted to their televisions, watch- leaders want it to shrink. Decline, in The horrors of government inepti- ing astronaut Neil Armstrong 240,000 (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate other words, has become a policy ob- tude and malpractice are behemoth. miles from Earth. As he stepped off jective. And if this decline continues at The OIG also affirmed this week that the Eagle — the lunar landing module BUT INSTEAD of raising Ameri- the current pace, America as we know the same kind of book-cooking hap- — to become the first human to walk ca out of the muck and mire of global it will cease to exist. In effect, we will pening across the country took place on the moon, Armstrong’s words were entanglements with new challenges have committed national suicide.” at Philadelphia VA offices. Staffers heard by over a billion people around and adventure, too many today believe Some might think that America or changed dates on old claims to make the globe: “That’s one small step for that the only way forward is by simply the world is too unstable for the type of them look new. Whistleblowers ex- man, one giant leap for mankind.” shrinking back to our corner of isola- forward-thinking visionary leadership posed systematic document shredding It was a moment that inspired Amer- tionism and preservation. As a result, that ushered in missions to reach for the and piles of veterans’ unanswered cor- ica and even the world. And we all instead of casting visions, our leaders stars. I would completely disagree. respondence stuffed in boxes and cabi- know that the impetus for that inspiring are crippling American values, apolo- Actually, there’s no better time than nets. Still to be probed: cherry-pick- moment came nearly a decade earlier, gizing for our power and surrendering now — in the midst of a pessimistic, ing of claims to inflate performance; on May 25, 1961, when then-President our superiority and sovereignty. war-torn era — to call and challenge 32,000 unanswered electronic queries John F. Kennedy uttered this challenge Dinesh D’Souza’s new blockbuster the American people to the next level. from veterans seeking information to our Congress and country: “I believe film, America: Imagine a World With- Remember, when Kennedy called our about their benefits claims; and dupli- that this nation should commit itself to out Her, does an outstanding job of cri- nation onward and upward to the moon, cate payments being written off. achieving the goal, before this decade tiquing exactly what is killing American the Cold War was happening, and the is out, of landing a man on the moon exceptionalism. We are surrendering U.S. was flailing behind the space ad- THE FIRST lady’s Operation VA and returning him safely to Earth.” to five major mentalities that are being vances of the Soviet Union. Scandal Distraction may have been a Where are the presidents today perpetuated by a progressive drive from success for one day. But evasion-by- who are visionary leaders and spur on Washington to our public schools. MAYBE IT’S time again for leaders photo-op can’t work forever. American exceptionalism, excellence As John Zmirak summarized for the who have a bigger picture and can raise and the entrepreneurial spirit? Where Blaze, liberals have convinced Ameri- our vision beyond survival and manage- Michelle Malkin is the author of are the leaders who call us to dream cans that these five historical lies are ment. Or to put it how Armstrong once Culture of Corruption: Obama and his again — to rise above the levels of historical truths about our people and said it: “Science has not yet mastered Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cro- maintenance and mediocrity? Where republic: prophecy. We predict too much for the nies (Regnery 2010). Her email ad- have American innovation and explo- “1. (America) was founded on con- next year and yet far too little for the dress is [email protected]. ration gone? quest and genocide aimed at the Indians. next 10.” 28 Conservative Chronicle POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: July 22, 2014 Quick, hide the past so as not to disturb “Who controls the past controls the and the Tsar’s family stood against a future: who controls the present con- wall and mowed down. Lest any trace trols the past.” of the past survive to return. Or even be — Party slogan, 1984 remembered. Except in the caricature of It is an essential part of the totalitar- history the New Order would au- ian mentality — excuse me, not men- thorize. tality, but to use It’s not just to- today’s neo-non- Paul talitarian regimes word, mindset. As that insist on a if approved ideas Greenberg kind of historical could simply be (c) 2014, Tribune Media Services amnesia: “College poured into the to remove Lee mind to set, the way concrete is. And Chapel’s flags” — Arkansas Democrat- any trace of what was once there will Gazette, July 10, 2014. It seems Wash- be covered, effaced, smoothed over. For ington and Lee University is removing the past must not only be hidden but, to the Confederate flags from the place the well-trained mindset, it never ex- they occupied in the chapel, where one isted at all. of its namesakes lies buried. A group of law students at the university objected IT’S AN APPROACH as old as the to the flags’ being displayed there, and French Revolution, which was not only so they had to be moved. going to create a new socio-economic To quote the university’s president, system but a New Man — just as the slavery was a “regrettable chapter of But why remove only the flags? What which was as lengthy as it was super- Bolshevik Revolution set out to do the our history, and we must confront and about the general? Why even keep Lee’s ficial. Just forget all those bothersome same. And would end in the same result: try to understand this chapter.” name as part of the university’s? Not to historical details, along with slavery, the total dictatorship. Bonaparte was the President Kenneth Ruscio’s language mention Washington’s. Weren’t they Confederacy and anything else in the natural result of one revolution, Stalin is itself worth confronting and trying to both not just planters and generals but past that might disturb our equilibrium of the other. understand. Let’s see: Slavery was “re- slaveholders? — or educate us. Some things never change, except grettable” — like a social engagement Yes, the flags had to go. To quote the maybe the name of the dictator. The one cannot attend, as in Mrs. and Mrs. NO NEED to go into detail about law students’ letter of protest, they felt Reign of Terror became the Great Purge John Doe regret they will not be able how they both came to oppose slavery “alienation and discomfort” whenever became Mao’s Cultural Revolution as to attend high tea next Sunday a week. and eventually provided for the eman- they saw those banners. Their tender sen- one revolution followed another, each And we must confront human slavery, cipation of their own slaves, which both sibilities should not have to be subjected bloodier and more terrible than the last. the South’s “peculiar institution,” to of them had acquired largely through in- to such a sight. It’s enough to make you It’s not just results that some revo- use the euphemism of an earlier time, heritance or marriage. That would mean wonder how these law students will face lutions seek to impose but finality. For by moving, not confronting, those Con- going into history, which can be messy. up to some of the characters they may there must never be any going back to federate flags. Quick, hide them away Unlike ideology, which can be as super- run across when they become lawyers, the old order, the ancien regime. Louis somewhere. Quick, before the children ficial as President Ruscio’s explanation civil or criminal: murderers, rapists, se- XVI and his queen had to be guillotined, see. for why the flags are being removed, rial killers, abortionists, chiselers small- time and big, gangsters, pimp s.... Maybe these future lawyers could be given what today are called trigger- warnings, formal notices now issued by some of our more prestigious universi- ties so their students can be forewarned, and won’t risk being shocked on open- ing any book that deals with history, that record of mankind’s follies, crimes and atrocities. So, yes, hide those old Confederate flags away, maybe in the kind of dusty display cases museums use. Or at least call them something else, like Historical Artifacts. The way the signage for Con- federate Boulevard here in Little Rock was changed to some less historically charged name. Yes, that’s the ticket. Change the name, change the past. Just as Constan- tinople became Istanbul, Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City, and St. Petersburg became Petrograd, then Leningrad, and now is St. Petersburg again. What’s in a name? Sometimes a whole history.

NO, WE WOULDN’T want the past to live, or even be remembered. Lest it disturb our innocence, which is not always easy to distinguish these days from what used to be recognized as just plain ignorance. July 30, 2014 29 DOWNING OF FLIGHT 17: July 23, 2014 Penalize Putin and his culpable Kremlin ltimate responsibility for the departing Ukraine for Russia, numerous mit mass murder, the Kremlin had to be conditions that produced this slaughter? massacre of the 298 people experts believe a Russian-made SA-11 providing essential support personnel. Who holds him responsible, and how? aboard Malaysian Airlines surface-to-air missile shot down MH17. The Ukrainian government has re- Verbal condemnation as a penalty FlightU MH17 begins and ends in the The missile itself is only one com- leased electronic intercepts of conversa- for MH17 is demonstrably inadequate. Kremlin office of Russian president ponent of a complex weapon system. tions among militiamen discussing the Recall Putin’s Kremlin was responsi- Vladimir Putin. Militiamen do not simply find an SA-11 launch. Though there is ble for the invasion and annexation of Even if the triggermen who fired the launcher, func- no evidence (yet) that Crimea. The February invasion severely missile turn out to be Donetsk locals, the tional missiles, ties a Russian field damaged the post-Cold War diplomatic so-called pro-Russian separatist militia control vans, radar Austin operative directly framework for securing territorial sover- fighters are armed and advised by Rus- and other commu- Bay to the launch, the eignty in Eastern Europe. Putin’s March sian intelligence officers. nications equip- Kremlin initially 18 Crimean annexation completely de- ment. The Krem- (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate tried to hinder in- stroyed it. UNTIL THIS latest outrage, Putin’s lin had to authorize ternational inves- Putin was condemned, but mere KGB-type agitation-propaganda cam- the delivery of the SA-11 system to its tigators. When investigators finally -ar words don’t deter bullies. Tough words paign had provided timorous Europeans militia proxies. rived at the crash site, they discovered backed by forceful actions are no sure and Americans with enough anecdotal An ill-trained volunteer could launch that someone with a chainsaw had sliced thing, either, but they have a far better deceit to give his militia proxies media the missile on a whim. However, main- up the plane cabin. track record than sound-bite bombast. cover. taining the complex system, especially In Crimea’s aftermath, I strongly sup- MH17’s fatal interception has opened in field conditions, requires trained per- WILL PUTIN and his crony govern- ported the Obama administration’s call eyes. For several good reasons, to in- sonnel. In order to keep the system oper- ment be held accountable for provid- for stiff economic penalties. Russia’s clude photos of SA-11 mobile launchers ational, so an impulsive fool could com- ing the weapon system and creating the economy is vulnerable to sanctions. Meaningful U.S. and European Union economic sanctions, however, have yet July 23, 2014 PHILIP GARA LAMARCHE: to be imposed. A long-term U.S.-E.U. agreement to develop alternative energy resources that reduce dependency on Russia energy exports would truly dam- The left’s dark money managers age Putin’s regime. hilip Gara LaMarche is a se- Randi Weingarten, should know that Now group. As the tax disclaimer for I argued that economic sanctions cretive political operative who $230,000 of their hard-earned union HCAN discloses, “HCAN is related were deserved but insufficient. Putin’s funnels billions of dollars from dues go to DA, as Lachlan Markay of to Health Care for America Education arrogant disdain for diplomatic agree- undisclosedP donors to nonprofits and as- the Washington Free Beacon has re- Fund, a project of The Tides Center, a ments demanded a NATO political re- troturf groups. But you won’t hear un- ported. section 501(c)(3) public charity.” The sponse that affirmed alliance security hinged Harry Reid railing Queegishly While they bemoan “income inequal- Tides Center and its parent organiza- commitments. In March I advocated about him on the Senate floor. Why? ity,” DA brass have wined, dined and tion, the Tides Foundation, in turn have permanently stationing a reinforced U.S. Here’s why: LaMarche is a militant wooed one-percenter plutocrats with seeded some of the country’s most radi- heavy-armor brigade in Poland. NATO leftist philanthropist. He’s a protected swanky get-togethers featuring New cal activist groups of the left, includ- would affirm the front line. There was elite — Columbia University grad, for- York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, ing the communist-friendly United for also an outside chance that promising to mer ACLU leader and Human Rights Kentucky Secretary of State Peace and Justice, the jihadist-friendly permanently station U.S. combat forc- Watch official — with ready access to National Lawyers Guild and the griev- es in Poland might give Putin second the White House. He and the left’s other Michelle ance-mongering Council on American- thoughts about waging low-level war in dark money managers preach transpar- Islamic Relations. Eastern Ukraine. ency and openness, while plotting be- Malkin The faux populist HCAN, coordinat- The MH17 massacre demands a sus- hind closed doors to secure power at (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate ed from 1825 K Street, provided invalu- tained American and European response every level of government. able ground and air support to reinforce to the long-term threat posed by Putin’s and Democratic Senate candidate Ali- Democratic messaging on Obamacare. imperial ambitions. The objective is to LAMARCHE CURRENTLY son Grimes, and popular “comediennes” LaMarche met with Valerie Jarrett for create the political foundation for main- heads the shadowy Democracy Alliance Stephanie Miller and Lizz Winstead. hours-long meetings on at least two dis- taining effective, long-term economic (DA). In internal documents obtained “Over the past nine years,” the or- closed occasions before the health care and diplomatic sanctions that will lead and published this month by John Hin- ganization brags to potential contribu- juggernaut’s passage. By November to meaningful behavioral changes and deraker of the Power Line blog, the tors, DA has “aligned leaders in the 2009, he had visited the White House productive political changes in Russia. group currently describes itself as the progressive movement and political in- nine times. “center of gravity” for the progressive frastructure” to “achieve victories at the I checked the most updated White THE INSTRUMENTS for this al- funding world. DA enrolls wealthy lib- ballot box and in policy fights.” Their House visitor logs (as incomplete and ready exist: NATO and the E.U. NATO eral “members” who coordinate and agenda spans “social justice,” “climate shoddy as they are). LaMarche has tri- needs to permanently station allied finance a web of at least 132 left-wing change,” “voting rights,” gun control, pled his visits over the past five years. ground-combat units in Poland. Where groups. Though some of their members’ illegal alien amnesty, campaign finance He is listed 23 times (21 under “Philip and how many depend on Kremlin and partners’ identities have been ex- and sustained “strategic investment” to G. LaMarche” or “Philip LaMarche” behavior? The E.U. must get serious posed, DA takes great care to promise turn red states blue. That’s exactly what and twice under “Gara LaMarche”). about economic sanctions. This means a cloak of donor secrecy “to provide a DA members Jared Polis and Tim Gill LaMarche also donated $18 million focusing on energy alternatives to Rus- comfortable environment for our part- succeeded in doing in once-GOP-domi- through the Atlantic Philanthropies to a sian supplies. The fracking revolution ners to collectively make a real impact.” nated Colorado in 2008. Chicago charity headed by Jarrett. is about to make the U.S. a natural gas While they bash Wall Street publicly, LaMarche previously served as pres- exporter. U.S. gas denies the Kremlin a DA leaders have quietly recruited ven- ident and CEO of the Atlantic Philan- FRIEND OF Barack and Val. Bag- potent political weapon. Unlike Russia, ture capitalists, bankers and hedge fund thropies. As I first reported five years man for Soros. Community organizer the U.S. is not going to threaten to shut moguls — along with union bosses ago, that entity was a Bermuda-based for progressive billionaires. Chances off gas supplies to Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and red-diaper trust fund babies — to political front stocked with acolytes are, LaMarche and his operators have or, yes, Kiev. Putin has used oil and gas fund their takeover goals. Public school of progressive billionaire George So- affected you, your statehouses, your income to rebuild his military. Reduc- educators who belong to the Ameri- ros. The “charity” run by LaMarche businesses and your freedom, no matter ing that revenue hinders Russian Army can Federation of Teachers, headed by dumped some $40 million to help fund where you live. Know your enemies. modernization more effectively than a $500,000-plus yearly salaried President the astroturf Health Care for America week of heavy air strikes. 30 Conservative Chronicle RUSSIA: July 22, 2014 Is there a Russian conscience? A European? hen I was a graduate stu- the separatist forces were openly us- Union, there are Russians of extraordi- considerations will have trumped not dent at Columbia Univer- ing man-portable air-defense systems nary moral courage. I worked with and only morality, but even empathy for sity’s Russian Institute, (MANPADS) and boasting of having for Soviet dissidents during the Cold one’s own. thereW was a great debate: Was the com- taken down large Ukrainian transport War, and if there was a finer person on And is America far behind? Hav- munist Soviet Union an organic Rus- planes, clearly with Russian specialist earth than Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet ing been influenced for at least two sian development or was it largely a assistance. ... scientist who gave up fame generations by European values much cancer imposed on it? “This is the and fortune to fight more than by traditional American and Those who held the organic view ar- context within the immorality of Judeo-Christian values, America, too, gued that the change from czar to com- which a surface- Dennis the Soviet regime, is being tested. If all we will hear from missar was only one of degree. Both to-air missile was Prager I don’t know who this president are calls for “impartial were tyrannies, the latter more tyranni- aimed at a passen- that person was. investigations” and promises to “bring (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate cal than the former. ger plane: a law- But, for rea- those responsible to justice,” we can less environment sons outlined conclude that the American conscience I AGREED with the second view, ... a nihilistic disregard for human life; above, I now incline toward the dark — at least as embodied by this presi- that communism was something radi- scorn for international norms, rules or view of the Russian conscience. dent and his supporters — is, to say the cally new, not a logical, let alone in- standards.” The bigger question is whether Eu- least, not what it was. evitable, Russian path. The czars were And most relevant to our assessment rope has enough of a conscience to act. autocrats, not genocidal totalitarians. of the Russian conscience, Applebaum If Europe doesn’t muster the cour- ON THE OTHER hand, there is a I have to admit that in recent years, concludes: “So far there is no sign of age to confront Putin’s Russia after nation whose actions — protecting it- I have wondered whether the first view shock or shame in Russia.” hundreds of Europeans are blown out self against genocidal fanatics — are was right after all. of the sky — including 192 from the stirring the much of the world’s con- First, Vladimir Putin suppresses — OF COURSE, today, as in Czarist Netherlands alone — there is truly little science: Israel. Reassuring, no? sometimes violently — virtually all dis- Russia and in the communist Soviet left of Europe’s moral spine. Economic sent in Russia; and most Russians are apparently entirely comfortable with it. Not just comfortable — supportive. IRAN: July 18, 2014 Second, there is widespread nostal- gia among Russian citizens for Stalin. One has to wonder if there is any other example of a large body of people pin- We’re talking to the wrong Iranians ing for a leader who murdered tens of hen it comes to an agree- where that new leadership in Iran makes The only way to ensure a nuclear- millions of their own people. ment with Iran about its a deal possible. The election of Presi- free Iran is if the mullahs in power Third, there is increasingly little dif- nuclear program, no deal dent Hassan Rouhani gave many in the are gone. But the U.S. does nothing to ference between the Russian media and is betterW than a bad deal. Secretary of West hope that Iran was entering a more promote a democratic future for Iran. the Soviet media. Both were/are saturat- State John Kerry delivered the news to moderate stage. But Rouhani’s actions Obama turned a deaf ear to thousands ed with lies. Anne Applebaum, foreign President Obama this week that a deal should dispel that myth. Internally, he of protesters in Tehran in 2009 who affairs columnist for the Washington was unlikely by the July 20th deadline has been as repressive as his predeces- sought change. He kept the main Iranian Post, reports that: “Russia’s state-con- agreed to at the beginning of talks last sors, executing hundreds of Iranians in opposition group in exile, the MEK, on trolled mass media ... still constantly September — which no doubt disap- public hangings that give lie to the hope the U.S. terrorist list until a U.S. court denigrate Ukraine and its ‘Nazi’ gov- pointed his boss, who is desperate for he is a moderate. And his own words in basically forced the State Department’s ernment. Just in the past week, Russian some foreign policy success to point to. the past show he’s an expert manipula- hand to either show evidence that the reporting on Ukraine reached a new But unless Iran is willing to give up its tor who should not be trusted. group was a threat or delist them. pitch of hysteria, with fake stories about program — and dismantle the uranium- Former New York City Mayor Rudy the supposed crucifixion of a child and enriching centrifuges it currently oper- Giuliani summed up the problem of an extraordinary documentary compar- ates and destroy its existing stockpile of negotiating with Iran in a gathering of ing the Ukrainian army’s defense of its heavily enriched uranium — economic Linda some 100,000 MEK members in Paris own country with the Rwandan geno- sanctions should not be lifted. Chavez in June, for which I was the emcee: “We cide.” went through this before. They prom- Fourth, to the widespread acclaim UNFORTUNATELY, the U.S. ne- (c) 2014, Creators Syndicate ised they weren’t going to enrich ura- of the Russian people, Putin annexed gotiating position has been far more nium. And then they were caught red- part of Ukraine, and is using Russian conciliatory to the Iranians. We’ve vir- IN HIS PUBLISHED memoirs, handed three times enriching uranium. Ukrainians to violently annex more. All tually conceded Iran’s right to enrich Rouhani bragged that in the past Iran Who was in charge of that program for evidence points to these people — sup- uranium, with the caveat that we expect has agreed to suspend programs in ar- Iran? Rouhani the ‘reformer,’ who brags plied with Russian arms including the them to freeze their capabilities of pro- eas where they had no technical prob- about it in his memoirs that he fooled Russian SA-11 antiaircraft missile — as ducing weapons-grade nuclear mate- lems, knowing that they could quickly us, that he cheated us, that he lied to us. the murderers who shot down a civilian rial and will ensure their compliance revive those programs when needed. And who caught him? Who caught him airliner with 298 people on board. through inspections. If they agree, we He also boasted that during talks about in his lies? You did, the MEK.” Again, the Washington Post’s Anne will lift the sanctions that have helped its nuclear program with England, Ger- Applebaum: “This plane crash is a re- cripple the Iranian economy. many and France in 2003, Iran was busy WHEN IT COMES to a nuclear- sult of the Russian invasion of east- If Iran truly needed nuclear power for building a uranium conversion facility free Iran, the Obama administration is ern Ukraine, an operation deliberately purely peaceful energy-producing pur- that produced heavy water and yellow talking to the wrong people. Rouhani designed to create legal, political and poses, it could allow foreign companies cake uranium and boosted the number and the ruling mullahs are not the future military chaos. Without this chaos, a to build and operate the reactors. They of centrifuges to 3,000 over the next two of Iran. No agreement with them would surface-to-air missile would not have want to keep enriching uranium because years. Negotiations were simply a way be worth the paper on which it’s writ- been fired at a passenger plane. they want to build nuclear weapons — to make it appear that Iran was willing ten. At least MEK leader Maryam Ra- “Into this ambiguous and unstable they already have an ICBM program to slow down its nuclear program, while javi understands what the West should situation, the Russians cynically fun- whose only purpose is to build delivery rushing ahead as quickly as it was tech- be demanding. “Compel the mullahs neled a stream of heavy weapons: ma- systems to target the West, including the nologically capable. to shut down their entire bomb-mak- chine guns and artillery and, eventually, United States. We’ve been fooled over and over ing, enrichment and heavy water pro- tanks, armed personnel carriers and The impetus behind the talks is the again by the Iranians. Why should this gram,” she told her followers in Paris. anti-aircraft missiles. In recent days, naive sense in Washington and else- time be different? Shouldn’t we make the same demands? July 30, 2014 31 ISRAEL & HAMAS: July 18, 2014 Rarely seen moral clarity as in Gaza srael accepts an Egyptian-pro- not a settler, not a single Israeli left in posed Gaza cease-fire; Hamas Gaza. keeps firing. Hamas deliberately And there was no blockade. On the aimsI rockets at civilians; Israel pains- contrary. Israel wanted this new Pales- takingly tries to avoid them, actually tinian state to succeed. To telephoning civil- help the Gaza econ- ians in the area and omy, Israel gave the dropping warning Charles Palestinians its 3,000 charges, so-called Krauthammer greenhouses that roof knocking. had produced fruit (c) 2014, Washington Post Writers Group “Here’s the dif- and flowers for ference between us,” explains the Is- export. It opened border crossings and raeli prime minister. “We’re using mis- encouraged commerce. sile defense to protect our civilians and The whole idea was to establish the they’re using their civilians to protect model for two states living peacefully their missiles.” and productively side by side. No one seems to remember that simultaneous RARELY DOES international poli- with the Gaza withdrawal, Israel dis- tics present a moment of such moral mantled four smaller settlements in the clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel- northern West Bank as a clear signal of Gaza fighting described as a morally Israel’s desire to leave the West Bank equivalent “cycle of violence.” This is too and thus achieve an amicable two- absurd. What possible interest can Israel state solution. have in cross-border fighting? Everyone And how did the Gaza Palestinians built mile upon mile of underground Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas has knows Hamas set off this mini-war. And react to being granted by the Israelis tunnels to hide their weapons and, when asked: “What are you trying to achieve everyone knows Hamas’ proudly self- what no previous ruler, neither Egyp- the going gets tough, their military com- by sending rockets?” declared raison d’etre: the eradication tian, nor British, nor Turkish, had ever manders. They spent millions importing It makes no sense. Unless you under- of Israel and its Jews. given them — an independent territory? and producing rockets, launchers, mor- stand, as a Washington Post editorial ex- Apologists for Hamas attribute the First, they demolished the greenhouses. tars, small arms, even drones. They de- plained, that the whole point is to draw We’re talking to the wrong Iranians bloodlust to the Israeli occupation and Then they elected Hamas. Then, instead liberately placed them in schools, hos- Israeli counterfire. blockade. Occupation? Does no one of building a state with its attendant po- pitals, mosques and private homes to This produces dead Palestinians for remember anything? It was less than litical and economic institutions, they better expose their own civilians. And international television. Which is why 10 years ago that worldwide television spent the better part of a decade turn- from which they fire rockets at Jerusa- Hamas perversely urges its own people showed the Israeli army pulling diehard ing Gaza into a massive military base, lem and Tel Aviv. not to seek safety when Israel drops settlers off synagogue roofs in Gaza as brimming with terror weapons, to make leaflets warning of an imminent attack. Israel uprooted its settlements, expelled ceaseless war on Israel. WHY? THE rockets can’t even To deliberately wage war so that your its citizens, withdrew its military and Where are the roads and rail, the in- inflict serious damage, being almost own people can be telegenically killed turned every inch of Gaza over to the dustry and infrastructure of the new Pal- uniformly intercepted by Israel’s Iron is indeed moral and tactical insanity. Palestinians. There was not a soldier, estinian state? Nowhere. Instead, they Dome anti-missile system. Even West But it rests on a very rational premise: Given the Orwellian state of the world’s treatment of Israel (see: the U.N.’s gro- tesque Human Rights Council), fueled by a mix of classic anti-Semitism, near- total historical ignorance and reflexive sympathy for the ostensible Third World underdog, these eruptions featuring Pal- estinian casualties ultimately undermine support for Israel’s legitimacy and right to self-defense. In a world of such Kafkaesque ethi- cal inversions, Hamas’ depravity begins to make sense. This is a world in which the Munich massacre is a movie and the murder of Klinghoffer is an opera — both deeply sympathetic to the kill- ers. This is a world in which the U.N. ignores humanity’s worst war crimi- nals while incessantly condemning Is- rael, a state warred upon for 66 years which nonetheless goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid harming the very inno- cents its enemies use as shields.

IT’S TO THE Israelis’ credit that amid all this madness they haven’t lost their moral scruples. Or their nerve. Those outside the region have the mini- mum obligation, therefore, to expose the madness and speak the truth. Rarely has it been so blindingly clear. RUSH! •NEWSPAPER• •DATED MATERIAL•

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