Wisdom Proven True

Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article stating what many Americans knew all along–Vice-President Mike Pence was right when he said that he has a rule never to be alone with a woman who is not his wife. Think how many recent scandals we would have avoided if Hollywood, newscasters, and politicians followed that rule.

The article notes:

Vice President Mike Pence was roundly ridiculed when it was revealed that he makes an effort never to be alone with a woman who is not his wife, but the policy is looking less prudish and more sensible as accusations of sexual misconduct against powerful men proliferate.

Accusations first surfaced last month against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and have since reverberated through Hollywood, the media and government at every level. On Wednesday, Matt Lauer, a longtime host of NBC’s “Today,” and Minnesota Public Radio’s Garrison Keillor were fired by their respective organizations amid accusations of improper behavior.

Joseph Backholm, president of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, said the spate of sexual misconduct accusations makes it “increasingly obvious that we need to re-evaluate our boundaries.”

The article notes:

The entry of women into the workforce since World War II, followed by the sexual revolution and the erasure of well-established sexual mores, has left men and women with little guidance as to how to interact in the workplace, Mr. Richards said.

“We now find ourselves trying to kind of create rules after discovering fallout from these dramatic social changes,” Mr. Richards said. “It’s not as if Pence’s rule is written in stone; different people have different rules that are similar to this. But I know many Christian organizations and Christian ministries that have rules more or less like Mike Pence’s in place for all employees.”

In addition to guarding against infidelity and other sexual misconduct, Mr. Richards said, the Pence rule preserves the reputations of all parties involved.

“It’s as much or more about preserving the reputations of himself and other women,” he said. “A simple guardrail is absolutely reasonable if you want to prevent the rumor mill from starting, let alone even worse sexual transgressions.”

There are some obvious things that could have been done to prevent some of this and some obvious questions about the actions of some of the people involved. Why did Matt Lauer have a button under his desk that would allow him to lock the door to his dressing room without leaving his chair? Why did Harvey Weinstein conduct meetings with women in hotel rooms wearing only his bathrobe? Did their employers or the people they were accountable to know of their behavior? Was there anyone Harvey Weinstein was accountable to? Where did these men get the idea that it was okay for them to do the things they did? Did they not believe that societal norms and social graces applied to them?

Where these actions are proven, there have to be consequences. Those consequences need to be consistent in the political and the corporate world. It will be interesting to see if they are. Meanwhile, the wisdom of Vice-President Pence is apparent.

 

Behind The Protests

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the recent protests against the Republican tax reform bill.

The article reports:

Organizers with the left-leaning group Housing Works told protesters they must “risk arrest” in order to be reimbursed for airfare to Washington, D.C., according to an internal email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“We will transport, house and feed you, and deal with all legal support. Caveat: if you are far away from DC and expensive to transport, we can probably only fly you if you can risk arrest,” the internal email told supporters.

The article includes a screenshot of the email.

The article further states:

Housing Works is based out of New York City, and aims to further the health of the LGBTQ community, according to the group’s website.

“Housing Works fights for funding and legislation to ensure that all people living with HIV/AIDS  have access to quality housing, healthcare, HIV prevention, and treatment, among other lifesaving services,” the group asserts.

Since the organizers are based in New York, officials were forced to organize nearly every aspect of the protester’s lives during their stay in D.C. The protesters will be housed in a local church’s basement and will be provided sleeping bags, as well as free meals and a place to shower in the morning, according to the group’s email.

Organizers on either side of the aisle sometimes attempt to coordinate logistics for their teams, but the requirement that an individual need to risk arrest in the District in order to qualify for aid is unique, especially given the fact that hundreds of protesters are facing decades of prison time for violently protesting President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

There are a few obvious questions here. Why is the group protesting tax cuts that will put more money in American tax payers’ pockets and boost the economy? What kind of a church houses paid protesters? What has tax reform got to do with HIV/AIDS? What we have here is an example of the fact that the left has the ability to get splinter groups to work together. How many times have you seen the homosexual community out protesting to support abortion rights? Obviously, they don’t have a horse in that race, but they are there to show solidarity with leftest causes. The ability to bring various leftest groups together to protest issues makes the protest group appear to be larger than it actually is. Paying the protesters also increases the number of protesters. This is not grassroots–this is astroturf!

The Beginning Of Accountability

The Washington Examiner is reporting the following today:

A House Republican introduced legislation Wednesday that would make public all legislative branch settlement payments made in the past two decades and would force lawmakers and staff to repay harassment claims settled on their behalf.

The bill, authored by Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., would also prohibit future use of federal funds to pay harassment claims, which is now the practice.

This is long overdue. The practice should not have begun in the first place. There also needs to a private audit of government expenses to see what else Congress has been spending money on that the public is unaware of.

The article further reports:

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., pledged a “comprehensive” examination of harassment problems, beginning with a Dec. 7 hearing in the House Administration Committee. The panel will scrutinize the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act, which instituted a prohibition of discrimination and harassment in the legislative branch.

One thing to keep in mind here is that sometimes a person will simply pay a person bringing charges because it is easier than fighting the charges. That needs to be considered in looking at these cases–how much time would a Congressman lose fighting a charge that wasn’t true? Also, not all of these cases were sexual harassment cases–some were discrimination. Again, how many were settled because it was simply easier than going to court? What we need is a way to distinguish false charges from valid charges so that appropriate actions can be taken. I am not sure Congress is capable of that. However, the bill that Representative De Santis has introduced is a good first step toward ending a pattern of horribly adolescent behavior in Congress. Let’s see if Congress is willing to pass the bill.

Following The Money

Yesterday The Hill posted an article detailing some of the recent research done by

The article reports:

The Clinton Foundation’s donor disclosure site vastly understated support that the Clinton Global Initiative received from APCO Worldwide, a global communications firm that lobbied on behalf of Russia’s state-owned nuclear company.

The site, created to detect conflicts of interest for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because of her family’s various charitable efforts, shows APCO gave between $25,000 and $50,000 over the last decade.

But according to interviews and internal documents reviewed by The Hill, APCO was much more generous and provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in pro-bono services and in-kind contributions to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) between 2008 and 2016.

For instance, an internal CGI document prepared in fall 2011 lists APCO’s in-kind contribution at $275,000 for that year alone. And APCO’s annual report on its global charitable efforts boasted of a large jump in support for CGI in 2011.

“In 2011, APCO significantly increased its pro-bono support for CGI and, for the first time, our team managed the press around CGI’s America meeting, as well as its global Annual Meeting,” APCO stated in a report submitted to the United Nations Global Compact.

The increase in the contributions came as APCO was paid $3 million in 2010 and 2011 to work for Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear company. Rosatom paid APCO to lobby the State Department and other federal agencies on behalf of its Tenex subsidiary, which sought to increase its commercial uranium sales in the United States.

In 2010 and 2011, APCO made more than 50 contacts with federal and congressional figures for Tenex, including at least 10 at the State Department, its foreign agent disclosure reports show.

It seems as if there was an awful lot of money changing hands for this to be an ordinary business transaction.

Undercover FBI informant William Campbell helped uncover the transporting of some of the uranium outside of the United States. He is expected to be interviewed in the near future by multiple Congressional committees. One can only hope that he stays safe until those interviews take place.

Please follow this link to read the entire article. It is a shining example of what the Washington swamp looks like. Also, please understand that if Hillary Clinton had been elected, all of this information would have remained buried. What we are watching now–the Uranium One scandal and the fall of many prominent news anchors and other public figures is the result of the Clinton family losing power and influence. The Clintons can no longer protect their former allies. It remains to be seen if the Clintons can even protect themselves.

Things Are Not Always What They Seem

Yesterday, One America News posted the following video:

I am posting this video because I was very concerned about a report I heard on Fox News this morning. A commentator was talking about the recent firing of Matt Lauer. He also mentioned Roy Moore in his comments, making the assumption that Roy Moore was guilty. I would like to point out that Roy Moore has been a public figure for more than twenty years, and none of these charges have been previously reported. I would also like to note that none of the charges are less than thirty-five years old. I think a presumption of guilt in this case is not justified. The connections of some of Roy Moore’s accusers and their past activities further cast doubt on these accusations.

What Does The Senate Tax Bill Do?

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article yesterday detailing the tax cuts under the Senate Tax Bill currently being considered.

The article takes on some of the fiction about the bill currently being reported:

The Senate tax bill would reduce income taxes for people at every income level — even those who don’t pay taxes. That’s the official conclusion of the Joint Committee on Taxation. So why are Monday’s headlines screaming that the tax cuts would make the poor much worse off?

“Senate GOP tax bill hurts the poor more than originally thought, CBO finds.” That’s the headline in the Washington Post describing a Congressional Budget Office report released on Sunday.

The story claims that the “Republican tax plan gives substantial tax cuts and benefits to Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, while the nation’s poorest would be worse off.” Later, the Post story talks about the bill’s “harsh impact on the poor.”

The article explains why that story is false:

First of all, the CBO doesn’t describe the Senate bill as being “harsh” to the poor. That’s the spin put on by the reporter.

The report does, however, include a table that shows how the bill would affect federal revenues and spending by income group. And, indeed, it appears to indicate that those making less than $40,000 will take it on the chin, while those making more than $100,000 make out like bandits.

But note the word “spending” above. Since this is a tax-cut bill, why is “spending” part of the calculation at all?

That’s in there because the CBO includes the spending impact of the Senate bill’s repeal of ObamaCare’s individual mandate.

The CBO numbers assume that if the mandate is gone, people will drop their insurance. It does not consider the fact that many people pay the fine rather than the high cost of insurance. The tax bill returns the freedom to consumers to make their own choices about health coverage.

The article also includes a chart of tax savings (looking only at the tax cuts and savings in the tax bill):

If the tax cuts are passed, we can expect economic growth to return to our previous normal of about 3% (or more). We can expect people to leave welfare and join the work force because of a booming economy that results in higher wages. If the tax cuts fail, we can expect a Democratic Congress that will raise taxes, slow economic growth, and spend its time trying to impeach President Trump. It’s up to Congress to make the choice.

Good News For The Tax Bill

The Washington Examiner posted an article today stating that Rand Paul will vote for the Senate version of the tax reform bill. He stated that it is not a perfect bill, but has improved as it has been written.

The article states:

A handful of other Republican senators have expressed hesitance about the bill. One, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, has said he is against it but that he is working with leaders and the Trump administration to change the legislation.

Republicans are expected to amend the bill to get buy-in from cautious party members.

One key to winning over Paul was including repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate in the bill.

Paul wrote Monday that he would have preferred bigger tax cuts for individuals, and for the individual tax changes to be permanent rather than temporary as they are written to be in the current legislation.

He added that some of the shortcomings of the bill could be fixed in future legislation.

“The good news is — we can do this every year,” he wrote. “Want a bigger tax cut? Urge your legislators to do one every single year. I’ll sponsor it. Want them to be permanent? Well, one good start is to keep extending them, every single year.”

I would like to mention that it is wonderful that Senator Paul has recovered sufficiently from his injuries to return to Washington.

There Might Be A Reason They Are Not Cooperating

On Wednesday, The Daily Signal posted an article with the headline, “States Spurning Election Commission Show Irregularities in Voter Registration.” Obviously, someone in those states who is in authority likes the way things are going and does not want the system in place to change. It seems that common sense tells us that where there are more registered voters than people eligible to vote there might be a problem. Unfortunately, that is true in many counties in America.

The article cites a few examples:

Kentucky, a decisively red state in previous elections, had the most counties where registered voters outnumber eligible voters. California, a strongly blue state, also had significant problems, according to findings from Judicial Watch and the Public Interest Legal Foundation, both conservative watchdog groups.

Other states that outright refuse to cooperate with the commission are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming.

The states of Arizona, Illinois, and Indiana are still undecided.

“Overall, in most of the states not providing information to the commission, there are a significant number of counties with problems,” Robert Popper, senior attorney for Judicial Watch and director of its Election Integrity Project, told The Daily Signal, adding:

Most voter registration lists are available for free or for a small fee. Commercial entities can obtain voter registration lists. The only entity that is having a hard time obtaining these lists is the president’s advisory commission, which is trying to investigate data everyone has access to.

This kind of opposition to cleaning up our election process really makes me wonder what is going on behind the scenes. Every illegal vote cancels out the legitimate vote of an American citizen. It seems to me that we should all be concerned about voter integrity.

The article lists additional states with numbers that are a problem:

According to Judicial Watch’s findings, two of 15 counties in Arizona, which is undecided about cooperating, list more registered voters than eligible voters. Two of eight counties in Connecticut, which has refused to cooperate, are not in compliance with the “motor voter” law regarding maintaining voter lists.

In Delaware, which isn’t cooperating, one of the state’s three counties had more registered voters than eligible voters. Illinois, which is undecided, has 26 of 102 counties with more registered voters than eligible voters, according to Judicial Watch.

In Pence’s home state of Indiana, where the decision to cooperate with the White House commission is being held up by litigation, 34 of 92 counties have more registered than eligible voters.

In Maine, half of 16 counties have too many registered voters compared with those eligible, Popper said. In Maryland, it’s only two of 24 counties—Montgomery and Howard—but they are among the state’s largest.

Massachusetts has two of 14 counties that have too many registered voters, and in New Mexico it’s six of 33 counties.

Only two of Tennessee’s 95 counties have the issue, but Williamson County is one of the state’s largest, Popper noted. In Vermont, it’s four of 14 counties, and in Virginia, it’s 18 of 133 counties, Popper said.

As for other states that aren’t cooperating with the commission, South Carolina didn’t have any counties with the problem, Popper said, but election officials said the state won’t release data to anyone who isn’t a registered voter in the state.

The other states not complying with the commission—Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wyoming—are not subject to the “motor voter” law, Popper said. States that either had laws on the books in 1994 allowing same-day voter registration or didn’t require registration to vote were not subject to the law.

That’s why Judicial Watch didn’t track their status, Popper said. Other states with this exemption from the “motor voter” law are Idaho, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.

Judicial Watch has done a lot of the preliminary work in the area of voter fraud. Now we need to let the election commission finish the job. We need to be able to depend on the integrity of American elections–they are one of the foundations of our republic.

An Agenda That Would Help All Americans

On Tuesday, CNS News posted an article about President Trump‘s agenda after tax reform. It is an ambitious agenda that would do great things for America.

The article reports:

At the start of a Cabinet meeting on Monday, Trump plugged the Republican tax plan, then said spending cuts and welfare reform are next on the list:

“We’re working to reduce wasteful government spending,” Trump said. “We’ll be working on healthcare, infrastructure, and welfare reform. We’re looking very strongly at welfare reform, and that will all take place right after taxes — very soon, very shortly after taxes. So we’ll be submitting plans on healthcare, plans on infrastructure, and plans on welfare reform — which is desperately needed in our country — soon after taxes.”

Welfare is needed as a safety net–it should not be a career choice. It is time to examine what we are doing to educate those children from families where education is not seen as valuable. It is time to make sure that children who graduate from American high schools know how to fill out a job application, a college application, etc. The key to welfare reform is education and providing a reasonable transition from welfare to work. I think we can do that if both parties in Congress would work together.

The article concludes:

At the White House press briefing on Monday, a reporter asked spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders what Trump meant when he mentioned welfare reform:

“I think there’s no secret,” Sanders said, noting that Trump had spoken about it during the campaign. “And when we have specifics on what that will look like, we’ll certainly announce them and roll them out. I don’t anticipate that happening over the next couple of weeks. We’re very focused on tax reform and making sure we get that done by the end of the year.

“But this is something that the president has a great deal of interest in, and I think you can count on probably the first part of next year seeing more specifics and details coming out on that.”

To be a healthy country, we need to give Americans opportunities to improve their lives through education and hard work. Welfare reform would be a step in that direction.

When Political Discourse Goes Insane

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the move to end net neutrality. The first thing to understand is that net neutrality is not what it sounds like it should be. There are valid arguments to be made both for and against net neutrality. That debate would be welcome and informative–the current debate is useless.

The article reports:

Net neutrality activists left signs at Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai’s house Saturday, telling his children that their father was an “evil” man who “murdered” democracy.

The cardboard signs list Pai’s children by name, telling them that “you don’t have to be evil.” Pai’s leadership of the FCC has been fraught with criticism due to his rejection of net neutrality policies advocated by former President Barack Obama’s administration. The FCC announced last week that it plans to role back net neutrality rules, triggering protests outside the Pai family’s home for the second time this year.

Private homes need to be off limits for protests. The man’s children do not need to be afraid because their father is making a change to Internet regulations.

The article explains part of the argument to end the regulation:

Obama-era neutrality rules would have legally prevented internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast from discriminating against certain types of traffic. These regulations would effectively prevent ISPs from providing faster internet to higher-paying customers.

For an extended period of time, the FCC hosted an online forum for the public to submit comments and thoughts on net neutrality rules. While the whole process was an attempt at bureaucratic democracy, it ended up as sort of a mess due to the appearance of hundreds of thousands of fake posts from all parts of the world, including so many duplicates, and thus of highly unlikely authenticity. 

When in doubt, the free market is always the better idea.

Can The Republicans Stop Fighting Themselves Long Enough To Pass A Tax Bill?

One American News posted an article today about Senate plans to pass a tax bill. The Senate is expected to vote on their version of the tax bill next week. Speculation is that Mitch McConnell will bring the bill to the floor on Thursday.

The article reports:

The senate plan includes a repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate, which penalizes Americans for not buying into the failed health care system.

Only a handful of republican senators have expressed concerns with the bill, but none have indicated they will not vote in favor of the plan.

If the bill passes, the Senate and the House will have to hammer out the final details before sending the finalized legislation to President Trump.

I can almost guarantee it will not be a perfect bill, but hopefully it will provide the tax relief that the middle class and businesses need.

Do Some Democrats Even Read The Law?

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about the change in leadership at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The current director, Richard Cordray, is resigning from the position. There are some constitutional problems with the CFPB, in that it is accountable to no one–not even the voters.

The article reports:

A federal court found the CFPB Director position held too much power and deemed it unconstitutional. The court decision noted that giving the President power to fire the Director would fix the constitutional problem.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is complaining that with the resignation of Cordray, the directorship should automatically go to the Deputy Director. Instead, President Trump is planning to appoint Mick Mulvaney as temporary head of the agency until a permanent person can be appointed. Senator Warren has tweeted that this is unacceptable.

However, the article goes on to explain why President Trump’s appointment of a temporary director would be legal:

President Trump has power to appoint the interim or ‘acting‘ head of the agency in the case of a vacancy just like he would any other vacancy. [Important Reminder: A DC appellate court already ruled the legal issues with the CFPB Director position necessitate oversight by the executive branch.] The President fills the vacancy using the familiar mechanism of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA); until such time as a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed by the Senate.

The Dodd-Frank statute Warren cites doesn’t provide a mechanism in case of vacancy. It has a provision for when the Director is “absent” or “unavailable”, both considered temporary terms by design, but not when the Director-ship is “vacant”.

The resigning director, Richard Cordray, (who resigned from a confirmed position) cannot appoint his replacement; that responsibility falls to the President.

Nowhere in Dodd-Frank statute does congress say they are repealing Federal Vacancies Reform Act for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Therefore FVRA applies to CFPB regardless of whether Senator Warren likes the designated person assigned, or not.

Please follow the link to the original article to read the entire story. It is much more colorful than what I have posted here!

Common Sense From The Wall Street Journal

The Daily Caller is reporting today that The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board supports the repeal of the “net neutrality” rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put into effect in 2015. I am the first person to admit that I do not understand the concept of net neutrality, but generally anything that interferes with the free market is not a good idea.

The article reports the correct way to deal with this issue:

The National Review also endorsed Pai’s (Ajit Pai, Chairman of the FCC) decision, specifically saying that Congress, not an independent federal agency, should consider rules through legislation to help solve any potential issues.

“If Congress wants net neutrality, then Congress can pass a law and let the FCC enforce it. It isn’t up to the FCC to create sweeping new policy on its own,” the editorial board for the National Review wrote Wednesday. “That kind of lawlessness ran rampant in the Obama administration, and the Trump administration is undertaking important work in undoing it, from the FCC to the EPA.”

We need to get to the point where Congress (elected by the people) makes the laws. Unelected officials should not be making laws.

Leadership Matters

We have known for some time that North Korea is an awful place to live. It is a prison camp run by a heartless tyrant. Looking at a nighttime satellite photo of the Korean peninsula shows South Korea lit up and North Korea dark. That is a true picture of the total lack of nearly everything in North Korea. Recently a video was posted on the Internet showing a North Korean soldier escaping North Korea. He was shot five times as he fled to the safety of South Korea–but that is not the whole story.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line reported yesterday:

In treating the North Korean, doctors discovered that he was malnourished and had a severe parasitic infection they hadn’t seen before except in medical textbooks. The tapeworms they found in the man hadn’t been seen in South Korea since the 1970s. Uncooked corn was in the soldier’s stomach.

These discoveries shocked South Korean, given that the soldier came from an elite military unit. If the regime can’t feed its best soldiers, it is probably in more trouble than we have assumed.

Would a malnourished army fight for the regime against South Koreans? If so, how effective would it be?

Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un does not look as if he is starving. Even if the North Koreans wanted to rebel against their leadership, would they be physically able to do it?

 

Protecting Voter Fraud

The Daily Signal posted an article today about the President’s election commission that is investigating voter fraud.

The article reports:

Many of the states refusing to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s election commission aren’t in compliance with federal law on maintaining voter registration lists, according to government watchdog groups.

So far, 18 states and the District of Columbia have declined or are still considering whether to provide election data to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, established in May to examine and prevent voter fraud, among other concerns.

The commission requested voter registration data from every state and the District and 14 states include counties where registered voters outnumbered eligible voters based on Census Bureau data, according to findings from Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group.

The 1993 ‘motor voter law‘ requires states to purge their voter rolls of ineligible voters periodically.

The article explains:

Kentucky, a decisively red state in previous elections, had the most counties where registered voters outnumber eligible voters. California, a strongly blue state, also had significant problems, according to findings from Judicial Watch and the Public Interest Legal Foundation, both conservative watchdog groups.

Other states that outright refuse to cooperate with the commission are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming.

The states of Arizona, Illinois, and Indiana are still undecided.

“Overall, in most of the states not providing information to the commission, there are a significant number of counties with problems,” Robert Popper, senior attorney for Judicial Watch’s Election Integrity Project, told The Daily Signal.

Common sense tells us that if registered voters outnumber eligible voters in a county, there is a problem. Every fraudulent vote cast in an elections voids the vote of a legitimate voter. That is the true definition of voter suppression and needs to be stopped.

The Key To Understanding Recent Sexual Scandals And How They Have Been Handled

It seems like almost every public person in American life has now been accused of sexual harassment, inappropriate behavior or some other horrible crime. I don’t mean to make light of these accusations, but there is a wide range of things that can be considered inappropriate behavior. Telling someone they look nice can be misconstrued. Also, I am aware of a case where two people who worked for the same company lived together for a number of years and had children together. The relationship ended, and the women sued the man for sexual harassment. That seems like a stretch to me. However, the obvious problem in this discussion is the discrepancy in the way in which these charges are reported and handled.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today that explains it all in one sentence:

Maxine Waters to women: John Conyers ‘has impeccable integrity on our issues’

Note that she did not say that he had impeccable integrity–she said he had impeccable integrity on our issues! That is the key. It doesn’t matter how badly Democratic lawmakers behave on their own time as long as they are consistent on ‘our issues.’ Think Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd, etc. That is the key to understanding how the media is treating the various stories involving sexual scandals of public figures.

The article further quotes Ms. Waters:

“He is quiet, he is confident, he is powerful, but he has impeccable integrity on all of our issues. Give John Conyers a big round of applause.” C-SPAN captured her comments and those of others who spoke at the event.

In her address she rallied women. “We are reclaiming our time,” said the outspoken Trump critic.

“We’re speaking to women who are single mothers, women who work two and three jobs making minimum wage or less, women who have been exploited, harassed, or taken advantage of in their personal and professional lives,” said Waters, adding:

“I just want to take time to focus on something that I think we need to focus on right now. It is very fortuitous that we are gathered here this afternoon in Detroit as we continue to recognize a record number of women who are boldly coming forward to reveal disturbing and grotesque acts of sexual harassment, assault and rape, often times at the hands of men who believed they were too rich and too powerful to ever be confronted or held accountable.”

It must hurt your head to engage in the kind of reasoning it takes to justify the behavior of some of these men.

Fact Checking The Democratic Talking Points On Tax Reform

Guy Benson posted an article at Townhall today about the Democrat‘s claim that if the tax reform bill is passed, millions of people will lose their health insurance.

The article reports:

In spite of a torrent of liberal attacks, independent analyses have confirmed that the plan would boost economic growth, create nearly one million new full-time jobs, and reduce the tax burden on the vast majority of Americans; on average, taxpayers in every income group would receive a tax cut.  There will be a small percentage of Americans — many of them wealthier people who itemize deductions and exploit loopholes — who would be worse off under the proposal.  Republicans would be foolish to pretend that every single household and business would emerge as ‘winners’ if reform is implemented; that would echo one of the biggest lies Democrats peddled about Obamacare.  But the data has found that an overwhelming majority of Americans, including (or even especially) the middle and working class, would benefit from the House-approved bill.  

The article explains the impact of cutting the healthcare mandate:

Regardless of where the revised number lands, dumping the mandate liberates millions of Americans to not purchase healthcare plans that they do not want or cannot afford, without getting slapped with government fines.  People making that choice for themselves and their families is absolutely not equivalent to the government taking away coverage.  Healthcare policy expert Avik Roy puts a finer point on this important truth, which underpins liberals’ mendacious claim:

[Another] category of Democratic complaints revolves around the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that 13 million fewer people would have health insurance in 2026 if Republicans repealed Obamacare’s individual mandate. “We’re kicking 13 million people off health insurance to give tax cuts to the wealthy,” exclaimed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Wednesday. There are two problems with Schumer’s assertion. As Glenn Kessler, fact-checker at the Washington Post, notes, nobody is being “kicked off” their insurance. People are no longer being fined for not purchasing it. (Kessler gives Schumer two Pinocchios.) The second problem is that the CBO’s projections of the mandate’s magical powers are inaccurate, by their own admission.

The bottom line here is that Democrats do not want to cut taxes. A tax cut will stimulate the economy and undo (and expose) the economic damage done by the Obama Administration. The Washington establishment cannot afford a successful Trump presidency–it would come too close to draining the swamp. It will be interesting to see if the tax bill passes (and in what form). If the Republicans do not pass the tax bill, they will probably lose Congress in 2018. If the Republicans do pass the tax bill, the economy will grow, at least part of the Washington swamp will be drained, and Trump will be a successful President. Get out the popcorn.

 

 

Does This Man Actually Want To Win The Election?

Doug Jones is running for Senate in Alabama against Roy Moore. The Washington establishment (both Republican and Democratic) has tried very hard to get Roy Moore out of the race. Some of the charges against Judge Moore have already been shown to be false, so I am not sure what the voters in Alabama believe or how they will vote. I still think we may see Roy Moore win this election.

Breitbart reported today on a recent statement by Doug Jones:

He (Doug Jones) believes that every right enumerated in the Bill of Rights is limited, and the Second Amendment is no exception.

According to the Alabama Political Reporter, Jones described himself as “a Second Amendment guy,” but stressed that some gun control is necessary. He said, “We’ve got limitations on all constitutional amendments in one form or another.” This position is contrary to the clear language of the amendment, which states that the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.”

He stressed that he loves to hunt but still believes in “smart” gun laws.

This is a perfect illustration of the reason why Judge Moore should be elected. The statement that every right enumerated in the Bill of Rights is limited is false. The Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution in order to ensure the rights of the citizens–not to limit them. Also, the Second Amendment clearly states that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. What does Doug Jones think that means?

We don’t need more limits on gun ownership. We need the government to enforce the current laws. The problem with the recent shooting in Texas was that the Air Force had not fulfilled its duty to report a crime to the people providing information on background checks. It should also be noted that the shooting in Texas was stopped by a legal gun owner. Any attempt to limit the ownership of firearms in America will be followed by a crime spree by those who have been able to obtain firearms illegally. An armed citizenry can protect itself from dishonorable people; an unarmed citizenry cannot.

 

It Doesn’t Have To Be Real To Make The News

Yesterday Byron York posted an article at The Washington Examiner about the Trump dossier that received so much attention during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The article notes that the FBI has not verified the dossier.

The article reports:

FBI and Justice Department officials have told congressional investigators in recent days that they have not been able to verify or corroborate the substantive allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign outlined in the Trump dossier.

The FBI received the first installment of the dossier in July 2016. It received later installments as they were written at the height of the presidential campaign, which means the bureau has had more than a year to investigate the allegations in the document. The dossier was financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign and compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

An August 24, 2017 subpoena from the House Intelligence Committee to the FBI and Justice Department asked for information on the bureau’s efforts to validate the dossier. Specifically, the subpoena demanded “any documents, if they exist, that memorialize DOJ and/or FBI efforts to corroborate, validate, or evaluate information provided by Mr. Steele and/or sub-sources and/or contained in the ‘Trump Dossier.'”

It sounds as if Congress wants the dossier proven or disproven, but the FBI and the Justice Department are dragging their feet.

The article reminds us that some parts of the dossier have already been shown to be untrue:

Some Republicans point out that at least one group of assertions, the ones concerning Michael Cohen, have been convincingly debunked. (Cohen has produced proof that he was not in the Czech Republic, or even in Europe, when the purported meeting took place.) The dossier attributed the Cohen story to a “Kremlin insider” who was “speaking in confidence to a longstanding compatriot friend.” Investigators want to know if that insider-compatriot line of sourcing provided other, equally unreliable information in the dossier.

The article concludes:

That’s fine, as far as it goes — after all, investigators unanimously agree that Russia tried to influence the election — but what about the Trump campaign? What about all those specific allegations of coordination between Team Trump and the Russians? Those were the most explosive parts of the dossier. And they remain unverified.

The bigger question is whether or not the dossier was used as a justification to put the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team under electronic surveillance. If that was done without verifying the information in the dossier, the people who signed off on the surveillance should at the very least be fired.

Washington Adds Another Museum

On Saturday, the Museum of the Bible opened near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museum, founded by Hobby Lobby President Steve Green, houses the world’s largest private collection of rare, historic biblical artifacts, collected by Steve Green since 2009.

Breitbart posted an article about the museum today.

The article reports:

Some critics and biblical scholars are frustrated that the Museum of the Bible does not accurately represent other religions.

One professor said that the museum, which opened Saturday to the public and is located near the National Mall in Washington, DC, presents a point of view that favors American Protestantism over other religions such as Islam.

“There are a number of prominent omissions that make it clear that it’s not a museum of the Bible as one might imagine it from a secular perspective,” Joel S. Baden, a professor of the Hebrew Bible at Yale University, told the New York Times. “They don’t do a good job of talking about whether parts of the Bible are historically accurate.”

Baden added that he thinks the museum does not represent Islam and Mormonism to the same degree as other religions.

The 430,000 square foot Museum of the Bible contains six floors filled with a collection of 40,000 biblical artifacts that include first edition Bibles and Torah scrolls.

First of all, archeologists in Israel have found hundreds of artifacts proving the accuracy of the Bible. As far as I know, there have been no artifacts found that dispute anything in the Bible.

Secondly, the Bible is the foundational document of Christianity and Judaism. Why would other religions be represented in the Museum of the Bible? If you want to learn about other religions, all of them have other foundational books.

Thirdly, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were written with Biblical Judeo-Christian principles in mind. Our Founding Fathers talked about the fact that men were endowed with certain inalienable rights given to them by their Creator. That concept was revolutionary in its day (no pun intended) and was essentially based on the Bible.

To expect the Museum of the Bible to have documents relating to religions other than Christianity and Judaism is like going to the New England Patriots sports shop to look for New York Jets memorabilia–it’s not going to be there. I don’t mean to trivialize this, but there is a certain amount of common sense involved in realizing that a Museum of the Bible might focus on Christianity and Judaism.

 

Another Step Toward American Energy Independence

One America News is reporting today that the MMEX Resources Corporation is building a $50 million oil refinery in Pecos County, Texas. This will be the first refinery built in America in forty years.

The article reports:

It will be developed in two phases and is expected to create hundreds of jobs.

Once completed, the 126-acre refinery will be able to process 10-thousand barrels of crude oil each day.

Meanwhile, officials plan to file permits for a second unit which would be able to produce 100-thousand barrels.

The first phase of the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2018.

Like it or not, the world economy is carbon-based. Until someone comes up with a source of green energy that is reliable and does not have to be backed up by carbon-based energy, the world economy will continue to be carbon-based. In March 2011, I posted an article explaining what happened to Spain when they decided to convert to totally green energy. If the free market is allowed to function, we may actually come up with a workable form of green energy in the future. Until then, the search for and use of green energy is somewhat like man’s search for a perpetual motion machine. The laws of physics and principles of matter just keep getting in the way.

Losing Our Moral Authority

In 2004, the country of Afghanistan set up a constitution. The idea of having a free state was encouraged by America, as we had a substantial number of troops there and were trying to establish a viable government.

The constitution Afghanistan set up to be the law of the land contained the following:

Article One

Afghanistan shall be an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article Two

The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals.

Article Three

No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.

Article Four

National sovereignty in Afghanistan shall belong to the nation, manifested directly and through its elected representatives. The nation of Afghanistan is composed of all individuals who possess the citizenship of Afghanistan. The nation of Afghanistan shall be comprised of Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkman, Baluch, Pachaie, Nuristani, Aymaq, Arab, Qirghiz, Qizilbash, Gujur, Brahwui and other tribes. The word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. No individual of the nation of Afghanistan shall be deprived of citizenship. The citizenship and asylum related matters shall be regulated by law.

There is something here that is important–Article Three states that “no law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion on Islam in Afghanistan.” In other words, Sharia Law is the law of the land according to the constitution of Afghanistan. We need to understand that Sharia Law and democracy (i.e. freedom) are incompatible. Sharia Law does NOT allow the free exercise of religions other than Islam. Sharia Law considers saying that Jesus is the Son of God as blasphemy, punishable by prison or possibly death. Sharia Law prohibits the sharing of Christianity–considering it blasphemy. There is no room for personal freedom in a constitution that upholds Sharia Law. That is the constitution that we allowed Afghanistan to write when we were trying to establish a viable nation. As bad as that was, we did something far worse.

On Thursday, The Hill posted an article with the following headline, “Watchdog: Troops say they were told to ignore Afghan child sex abuse.” I have another source that tells me that the troops were also told not to interfere with the poppy crop. Think about that for a minute. I understand that the poppy crop is the major industry of the country, but it is a major source of trouble around the world. Wasn’t there a way to retrain the farmers to plant something less harmful? I also understand that pedophilia is part of the Afghan culture, but it bothers me that we let it continue uninterrupted. If we were there helping the country get out from under the grip of the Taliban, didn’t we have a responsibility to uphold some sort of moral standard–regardless of the ‘cultural norm.’

I am ready for America to leave Afghanistan. However, if we choose to stay there, we have an obligation to help the people of the country find their way out of the fifth century. We can’t bomb them back to the stone age–they are already there. If we are going to continue to sacrifice money and American lives for the people of Afghanistan, we need to begin to change some of their basic customs. Pedophilia and poppy growing are ultimately moral issues. If we can’t stand for the moral issues in Afghanistan, we have no moral authority to be there.