Columnist.
To say the 2016 presidential election is dramatic would be an understatement. Never before have we had so many revelations, leaks, and shocking moments in an election. The revelation that Hillary Clinton consigliere Huma Abedin's estranged husband Anthony Weiner would be the reason why the FBI's criminal investigation would be re-opened will make a great movie plot twist someday.
You've got to hand it to Pennsylvania voters. They must be among the most patriotic Americans. After all, as the redoubtable Robert Knight recently revealed, hundreds of voters over 100 have been casting ballots, apparently for years. One was reportedly born on August 7, 1853, making him a very young 163. He voted in both 2008 and 2012. Hopefully he won't miss the 2016 election. It's great to see that sort of commitment to our democracy!
If you rely on press coverage of the presidential race you probably think everything is fine in America. No foreign threats. No domestic crises. No budget or crime problems. Certainly nothing important enough to warrant discussing where the candidates stand. Instead, we see stories telling us that Donald Trump apparently is crude like Bill Clinton. Not that journalists said much about the latter when he ran for office. Then it was a non-issue. But, of course, he's a liberal, so personal imperfections didn't matter. Yet in 1992, when Clinton was elected, the real issues didn't seem so important. America really did stand tall in the world. The Soviet Union had disappeared, Warsaw Pact had dissolved, and Iraq had been defeated. The U.S. was respected internationally and there was no deadly terrorist threat raging around the globe.
Both parties have an opportunity to talk substantively about a serious trade issue – ongoing efforts by China to hack and steal intellectual property from U.S. companies.
While many Americans rightly have concerns about the affordability of some medicines, the evidence has always shown that government solutions are the wrong way to go. People are living longer and healthier and many previously debilitating and incurable diseases are now better managed, and sometimes cured. That is made possible thanks to a culture of innovation in this country where people and companies, both large and small, spend valuable time and resources researching, testing and ultimately bringing life-saving drugs to the market. However, when government dictates prices or tilts the playing field towards certain players that will only discourage that investment in inventing groundbreaking new treatments and medicines.
Record numbers of Americans are frustrated with the two major party candidates. Third party options are proliferating: there's a libertarian, a "greenie," and even an independent former CIA operative — at least, he says he's *former* CIA. No doubt, they all have some redeeming qualities, although the positions taken by the greenie, a recently arrested Harvard-trained physician, suggest she might be taking too many of the meds she normally prescribes to others. The libertarian is running ads arguing that the two-party system is outdated. I suppose that's hardly a new argument coming from a third party, but the claim makes no more sense today than in the past.
The New York Times Sept. 4 feature on Tim Kaine shows that his year in Honduras introduced him not to Jesus Christ, but to Karl Marx. The story doesn't say that, exactly, but connect the dots with a little history, and an alarming picture emerges of Kaine's adventures with radicals and revolutionaries in 1980s Latin America. The Times notes that in Honduras, "Mr. Kaine embraced an interpretation of the gospel, known as liberation theology..." This wasn't mainstream "Catholic thought" at the time. It was a radical, Marxist-based ideology at odds with the Church, the pope, and the United States, but supportive of (and supported by) the Soviet Union.
The Democrats are now playing the Russia card. As Donald Trump rises in the polls against an increasingly unpopular Hillary Clinton, Democrats are raising the specter of the nefarious Vladimir Putin. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's famous reset of relations was a bust, but we are supposed to trust her to handle Putin in the future. More important, the Democrats are sowing grounds to challenge the election, relying on their unnatural ability to squeeze, as if by magic, extra votes from the courtroom. There may be an even more insidious objective, however, than swaying the 2016 result. Outgoing Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, never a fan of election fair play, warned of Russian tampering and called for an FBI investigation. This followed warnings by Jeh Johnson, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, of potential cyber-attacks come November. He indicated he was considering designating the election system "critical infrastructure."
The Freedom from Religion Foundation folks must have been licking their chops the day they heard about the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) director's emails to his employees. This was going to be easy. The Wisconsin-based foundation would whip up a letter alleging a constitutional violation of the separation of church and state and Arizona officials would fall all over themselves to admonish DES Director Tim Jeffries. After all, he had used the state email system to send out an email to employees informing them that he would be going to Lourdes as a member of the Order of Malta to serve the "seriously afflicted and dying." Not only that, but he offered to carry employees' "special intentions" to Lourdes if they wrote to his assistant. Jeffries even ended his emails with the Latin phrase "Ditat Deus." ("God Enriches").
The world has seen a number of women as top political leaders. Theresa May is the second female prime minister in Great Britain, after Maggie Thatcher. Angela Merkel is the long-serving chancellor of Germany. Years ago there was Indira Gandhi of India. Now Hillary Clinton is on the cusp of being elected U.S. president, the biggest political prize in the world. Despite America's disquiet with family dynasties in a republic, there is much to celebrate in America's willingness to elect anyone, irrespective of background, as president. Unfortunately, Clinton is a poor choice to be a path-breaker. The image that best fits her time in politics is not breaking the glass ceiling but engaging in crass dealing. From the emergence of the Clintons in Arkansas politics to now, everything has been about them in the worst way.
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has many allies within the Progressive movement. Funded largely by the most liberal elements of the Left, especially those within the George Soros network, like his Center for American Progress, BLM has been a major motivator for the attacks on police officers all over the country. With chants like "Pigs in a blanket, fry-em like bacon" and "What do we want? Dead Cops!" the simple fact is that BLM has created an atmosphere of anger and hatred and has incited violence against law enforcement officers across the country. In no way has the killing and wounding of law enforcement officers dampened the enthusiasm of the BLM. It would seem that no reasonable person or group, regardless of how liberal, would want to be associated with any organization that advocates the killing of anyone, especially police.
Again state legislatures have approved new rules to prevent election fraud. Again federal courts have struck the laws down. Much of America's political and legal establishment is resolutely opposed to election integrity. It makes you wonder what they believe democracy is all about. Obviously, there is no excuse for racial discrimination. But protecting elections against cheating has nothing to do with race. Democracy doesn't work unless the votes are counted accurately. There has been election fraud as long as there have been elections. Great Britain was the fount of parliaments around the world, but it was infamous for such abuses as "rotten boroughs." It took centuries to clean up the process, and even today many parliamentary districts are unfairly drawn. The U.S. long suffered through manifold abuses of ethnic and urban "machines." Party bosses ruled in Chicago, New York City, other big cities, and even some rural areas.
In around 100 days America will be witnessing a crucial election. In the meantime, much will be done on both sides of the national divide, and this year we may see more than the usual political maneuvering in the run-up to this election. Regardless of the outcome, the next president will face the same unique national security challenges. The Middle East is in a greater crisis than ever before and according to various analysts, it is heading toward anarchy. The scenes of defenseless people getting killed in Syria have only grown more painful over the past year, even as they have become less prevalent on our TV screens. Islamic extremism and the resulting terrorism is now targeting Western Europe, America and the Middle East with unprecedented barbarity, and there is no easy response to it.
The Democratic Party is about to approve the most radically pro-abortion platform in its history. It's a Hillary platform, a Hillary party, and a Hillary convention. Tragically, making it easier to kill unborn children has been a Hillary Clinton priority throughout her long career. In 1992, she and Bill Clinton told Americans that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." That seductive message helped them to win the presidency. Liberals claim that killing unborn children is "a fundamental constitutional right." But no reporter ever asked Bill and Hillary why this "constitutional right" should be rare. Can they name any *other* constitutional right they want to be rare?
Although Hillary Clinton and the beleaguered Democratic National Committee (DNC) are attempting to paint Donald Trump and Mike Pence as out of step with the country on abortion, new polling shows that a majority of Americans actually agree with Trump-Pence on this hot-button issue, while Clinton is pushing an abortion agenda opposed by almost 80 percent of Americans. A new Marist poll of over 1,000 American adults (sampling all adults yields more liberal results than registered voters, and significantly more liberal than likely voters) finds that while 51 percent of Americans use the term "pro-choice" to describe their abortion views, that term is misleading, because 78 percent of Americans believe in substantial restrictions to abortion.
We all claim to hate the "establishment." And why not? Look at the mess around us. It's obvious that the folks in charge haven't done a very good job. But who is the establishment? The term gets tossed around a lot as an insult these days — even by some people who sure appear to be part of it. There's a lot that can go into being a member. Education, job, philosophy, position, mindset. All matter. But attitude trumps experience. Some of those campaigning against the establishment assume that anyone holding office is a member. That's a big mistake. Many of the most courageous warriors for liberty were elected to something. After all, if the government is the problem, then you've got to get into it to fix it.
After last week's protests over police practices, mass killing of cops in Dallas, and usual efforts to take political advantage, it should be evident to every American that we face a crisis in public trust and accountability. The only solution is good old-fashioned leadership by men and women of integrity and principle. American law enforcement faces a multitude of serious criticisms. For instance, the federal government has turned homeland security into pork by distributing military equipment to local governments. Some police departments use drug busts as a profit-making opportunity by seizing private property. SWAT teams look more like military special operations forces than cops.
America always has been an exceptional nation. People in other countries recognize that America is unique. It's why so many of those fleeing foreign oppression come to the "land of the free." What made the U.S. great were its principles, not its officials. America was different from most other nations. It was committed to limited government and individual liberty, alien concepts in most countries. The U.S. attempted to restrain government abuse through the separation of powers, another unusual idea, especially at a time of absolute monarchs.
This week marks twenty-five years since President George H.W. Bush named Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, inaugurating a tenure marked by unwavering commitment to principled originalism. Justice Thomas's life is an only-in-America success story. As movingly recounted in his autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son," Clarence Thomas was born into extremely modest circumstances, then raised by his maternal grandparents when his mother became unable to provide for him and his brother. This man of humble origins eventually made his way to Yale Law School, quickly rose through the ranks of public service to become a federal appeals judge, and ultimately ascended to the nation's highest court at age 44.
