The first presidential debate of 2016 is over. Initial ratings suggest a record audience tuned in at home. That’s a good thing because a Pew Research survey released last week finds that many Americans don’t know much about where the candidates stand. For example:

48% of registered voters said they knew “a lot” about Hillary Clinton’s positions on “important issues facing the country.”

32% said they had “some” knowledge of Clinton’s positions.

And 18% said they knew little or nothing at all about Clinton’s views.

When it came to Donald Trump:

41% of voters said they knew “a lot” about his stands on the issues.

27% said they had “some” knowledge.

And 30% said they knew little or nothing about Trump’s views.

My friends, we have a lot of work to do!

There are just 41 days until the most consequential election in decades. So much is on the line this year, including control of the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, I hope everyone receiving these reports is doing their part to educate friends and family members. Let me help you. Hillary Clinton is a pro-abortion extremist. She is also radically out-of-touch with mainstream American values on a host of critical issues.

Are your friends and family members registered to vote? Voter registration deadlines are approaching fast.

Help inform them about the key issues confronting our country by sharing these messages with them!

The Ferguson Effect

FBI statistics released [Monday] reignited the debate over the so-called “Ferguson effect.” Heather Mac Donald, a research fellow at the Manhattan Institute, coined the phrase after the riots that erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, over the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown.

Even though “hands up, don’t shoot” turned out to be a lie, the police were under intense scrutiny. Many feared, as Mac Donald suggested, that law enforcement officers would “desist from discretionary policing and criminals [would] thus become emboldened.”

[Monday’s] report suggests that is exactly what happened. Between 2014 and 2015 there was a dramatic and disturbing 10% spike in the murder rate. Violent crimes also rose 4%.

Many on the left rejected the idea of the “Ferguson effect.” But even a leading critic of the theory is having second thoughts. Professor Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, acknowledges that there is a “real” and “worrisome” rise in the murder rate, adding, “The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect.”

As Investor’s Business Daily notes, President Obama bears much of the burden for the “Ferguson effect.”

“As the data show, the long, steady decline in violent crime rates that took place in the 1990s and into the 2000s has ended. The nation today is increasingly violent and racially divided, in large part thanks to Obama’s refusal to rebuke rioters in Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore or, most recently, Charlotte, N.C.

"This refusal has made it much harder for police to do their jobs, turning what once were routine police contacts in minority neighborhoods into highly fraught confrontations that can turn violent in an instant… Police are pulling back from aggressive crime control in troubled areas, letting criminals, many freshly out of prison, take advantage of the lack of police presence to commit crimes — most often, with minority citizens as their victims.

”… in addition to trashing the economy and wrecking America’s relations with its closest allies, President Obama can now take credit for one more dubious accomplishment — ending a decades-long decline in violent crime in America. Add this to the long list of things the next president will have to fix.“

Fighting For Life

The Obama administration is working furiously to advance its agenda on every front during its remaining days in power. One of the more egregious examples involves a proposed regulation by the Department of Health and Human Services that would essentially force states to fund Planned Parenthood.

The effort is a blatant attempt by big government in Washington, DC, to overrule the will of at least a dozen state legislatures. Thankfully, pro-life members of Congress are pushing back against this federal overreach.

More than 100 members of Congress signed a letter of protest to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell. The letter questioned the standards the Obama administration used in drafting the rule and warned, "Rarely do the American people benefit when the federal government attempts to substitute its judgment for that of state or local governments.”

We desperately need a conservative president and a conservative Congress to rein in big government! Just one more reason to vote for the Trump/Pence ticket on November 8th.