Month: May 2018

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Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate FBI, DOJ abuses

On May 22, Congressman Lee Zeldin (R- NY) and 19 members of Congress introduced a resolution  detailing misconduct at the highest levels of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with regards to FISA Abuse, how and why the Hillary Clinton email probe ended, and how and why the Donald Trump-Russia probe began. The Resolution calls for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate the misconduct that took place.

At a press conference, Rep. Zeldin’s stated:

“The concerns of the American people are serious and the issues requiring an immediate, unbiased, independent, and thorough investigation are broad.

“In just the past few days, we learned that the DOJ, FBI, or both appear to have planted at least one person into Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign to infiltrate and surveil the campaign. This action alone reminds us of just how necessary this resolution is as well as the appointment of a second special counsel.

“First, we will discuss some of the misconduct related to how and why the Hillary Clinton email probe ended. Then we will get into details related to FISA abuse that took place, and finally, we will discuss the misconduct with regards to how and why the Donald-Trump Russia probe began.

“With regards to Secretary Clinton, federal law, and State Department rules, regulations, and protocol were violated, with her use of a private email server in her Chappaqua, New York, home.

“Official communications were transmitted on an unsecured server and included emails that contained classified information when they were sent, in addition to other emails which were retroactively deemed classified by the Department of State.

“Former FBI Director James Comey has acknowledged that 65 of these illicit emails were classified as ‘‘Secret’’ and 22 were classified as ‘‘Top Secret’’.

“There is significant evidence that the use of this private server by Secretary Clinton was meant to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552) and done to obstruct justice by not having to turn over incriminating emails in the case of a subpoena.

“Various sensitive emails subject to grand jury and congressional subpoenas were destroyed on Secretary Clinton’s private server through the use of ‘‘BleachBit’’ software and the destruction of hardware before they could be obtained by investigators in March 2015.

“In a September 2015 meeting between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and then-Director Comey, the Attorney General instructed Director Comey to refer to the Clinton email investigation as a ‘matter’, thus watering down the severity of the investigation and aligning the Justice Department’s rhetoric with the messaging of the Clinton campaign.

“Cheryl Mills, who served as Counselor and Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton during her entire tenure as Secretary of State, was offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for access to her laptop that contained many of the questionable emails.

“According to transcripts obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee, former Director Comey was prepared to exonerate Hillary Clinton as early as April or May of 2016 when he began to draft a statement announcing the end of his investigation, before up to 17 key witnesses, including former Secretary Clinton and several of her closest aides, were even interviewed.

“Comey contradicted these transcripts when he stated during sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on September 28, 2016, that he made the decision not to recommend criminal charges for Secretary Clinton ‘after’ she was interviewed by the FBI on July 2, 2016.

“Director Comey, in the final draft of his statement, allowed FBI Agent Peter Strzok to replace ‘grossly negligent’, which is legally punishable under Federal law, with ‘extremely careless’, which is not legally punishable under Federal law.

Federal law states gross negligence in handling the nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines (18 U.S.C. 793, 798).

“There is also the June 27, 2016, covert, infamous meeting between AG Lynch and former President Bill Clinton aboard her plane on the tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona. Immediately thereafter, Hillary Clinton would be exonerated.

“On July 5, 2016, Director Comey violated DOJ rules and unilaterally exonerated then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a public statement to the media.

“One day later, on July 6, 2016, an announcement followed from Attorney General Lynch that the DOJ investigation into then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would be formally closed with no criminal charges.

“In September 2016, the FBI, during an examination of the personal laptop of former Congressman Anthony Weiner as part of an unrelated investigation into him sending sexually explicit messages to a teenage girl, discovered previously unexamined Department of State classified emails belonging to his spouse, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

“It took until October 28, 2016, for Director Comey to announce via a letter to the chairs of the relevant congressional committees that he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton, an additional, egregious delay after the FBI failed to even examine the illicit emails after the FBI discovered them on Anthony Weiner’s computer.

“FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s wife, Dr. Jill McCabe, was running for Virginia State Senate at the time and, as of October 26th, had received $675,000 in donations from the Virginia Democratic Party and Common Good VA, the Leadership PAC controlled by Democratic Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton associate.

“An investigation conducted by the Office of the DOJ Inspector General noted that on October 27, 2016, Director Comey required that Deputy Director McCabe remove himself from a conference call regarding the Clinton emails discovered on Anthony Weiner’s laptop to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest after media reports surfaced noting these questionable political donations.

“Further investigation into whether then-FBI Deputy Director McCabe and other FBI officials sought to purposely delay the release of these illicit emails for politically motivated purposes is warranted.

“Throughout the Obama Administration, the DOJ failed to fully investigate serious concerns surrounding former President Clinton, then-Secretary of State Clinton, and the Clinton Foundation’s connection to Russian company Uranium One, which received Department of State approval to purchase U.S. uranium mines in 2010.

“Throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, a family foundation controlled by the Chairman of Uranium One made $2,350,000 in contributions to the Clinton Foundation which were not publicly disclosed in violation of an agreement Secretary Clinton had with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors.

“In 2010, while Russian State interests were working to both acquire a majority stake in Uranium One and to purchase American mines, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a speech in Moscow by a Kremlin-linked Russian investment bank that was underwriting Uranium One stock.

“A confidential informant who worked with the FBI to uncover bribery and other corruption related to the Uranium One matter was threatened with reprisal by the Justice Department under Attorney General Lynch when he tried to come forward in 2016.

If you want to cure it you have to take medication for the pain. on line levitra Freeze Dried Acai is accessible easily on the web; you just need to look at the Acai cialis without prescription Checklist. On the other hand, misuse of a peptide such as Mechano growth factor has been noticed among people involved in sport activities as it leads to widespread growth of muscles. cheap viagra in india cute-n-tiny.com But the problem is becoming very common these days, many medicines and solutions to these problems have come up in the market to overcome the erectile dysfunction and other kinds of medications, it is better to take the medicine. viagra soft tab “The Senate Judiciary Committee launched a probe in October 2017 to investigate the Uranium One matter, including whether Federal departments and agencies such as the Department of State knew the FBI was looking into possible corruption before the deal was approved.

“An investigation conducted by the Office of the DOJ Inspector General noted that a multi-State investigation into the questionable dealings of the Clinton Foundation with corrupt donors was shut down in August 2016, when pressure was asserted on the FBI by senior officials within the Obama Justice Department.

“The same Inspector General’s report also noted that shutting down this investigation into Clinton Foundation impropriety and influence peddling was connected to high ranking officials in the DOJ and FBI, including Attorney General Lynch, Director Comey, and Deputy Director McCabe.

“The same Inspector General’s report also found that Deputy Director McCabe, after consenting to the political pressure to shut down the Clinton Foundation multi-State investigation, attempted to later use unauthorized leaks to the press to create a false narrative that he was opposed to the closure of the investigation and that he did this in an attempt to salvage his reputation following revelations of questionable Clinton-connected money being donated to his wife’s Virginia State Senate campaign.

“In October 2016, the FBI and DOJ used politically biased, unverified sources to obtain warrants issued by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISA Court) that aided in the surveillance of U.S. citizens, including Carter Page.

“The warrants grant U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies sweeping power to collect bulk information and conduct ‘about collection’, which results in surveillance of a broad array of private communications from the past, present, and future, including those of U.S. citizens not specifically targeted in the FISA authorized warrant.

“To obtain these warrants, FBI and DOJ officials submitted an unverified dossier prepared by Christopher Steele to the FISA Court, failing to disclose that Christopher Steele was hired by the firm Fusion GPS, which was hired by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign to prepare this dossier and that the source was unreliable and was soon thereafter going to be terminated as a source.

“The FISA Court was not informed that Christopher Steele was actively opposed to the election of Donald Trump, that he was the unnamed source cited in the media reports that the FBI used to corroborate his dossier, and that Fusion GPS had been hired to perform previous anti-Trump research efforts in 2015.

“The Woods Procedures, which are the FBI’s mandatory vetting process required for all FISA warrant applications instituted to ensure that all the facts contained in an application are accurate and verified to clearly support probable cause for a warrant, were not followed.

“Former Director Comey admitted in sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 8, 2017, that material contained in the Steele dossier was known to be both ‘salacious’ and ‘unverified’.

“Since FISA warrant applications are rarely turned down, are almost never subject to appeal, and are presented in closed court with no public record where the Government is not challenged by any defense, it is imperative that the Government take extra care to validate the information being utilized to build their case before they take the extraordinary step of waiving rights of a U.S. citizen without his or her knowledge or the opportunity to present a defense.

“At the FISA Court, the Government has a responsibility not only to provide its best evidence in support of its case, but also to provide the best evidence against its case.

“These deeply flawed and questionable FISA warrant applications utilizing illicit sources and politically biased intelligence were approved by DOJ and FBI officials at the highest levels before being submitted to the FISA Court.

“It was further not disclosed to the FISA court that the wife of fourth-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr worked for Fusion GPS and that Christopher Steele directly transmitted the dossier and other information through Bruce Ohr for submission to the FISA court.

“To this day there does not appear to be any evidence that President Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election.

“The initial FBI probe into the Trump Campaign and alleged collusion with Russia was launched in July 2016, based on questionable and insufficient intelligence and biased motivations.

“The DOJ, FBI, or both appear to have planted at least one person into Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign to infiltrate and surveil the campaign.

“Text messages exchanged between FBI Agent Strzok and FBI Counsel Lisa Page, during the period of August 16, 2015, to May 17, 2017, contain serious evidence of political bias and the improper handling of investigations within the agency.

“Whereas the texts contain egregious evidence of bias against President Trump, including Lisa Page stating ‘‘Trump should go f himself’’ and Peter Strzok stating ‘‘F TRUMP’’.

“Those text messages were not stored within the FBI archive system, an egregious oversight blamed on a technical glitch, and even after these messages were partially recovered by the Bureau’s Inspector General in January 2018, many unanswered questions remain regarding impropriety and bias.

“Former Director Comey prepared a series of seven memoranda containing classified information, including notes on his conversations with President Trump.

“Comey admitted in sworn testimony to the Senate Committee on Intelligence on June 8, 2017, that he had leaked this content to a personal friend and encouraged that friend to share the material with the press in order to trigger a Special Counsel investigation.

“An investigation conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee later revealed that the personal friend of Director Comey was Professor Daniel Richman of Columbia Law School and that Director Comey provided him with four of the seven memoranda.

“Director Comey’s actions are a clear violation of non-disclosure agreements he signed as a condition of his appointment and a clear violation of FBI protocols regarding the dissemination of sensitive information outside of the Bureau which are based on provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552a).

“In March 2018, former FBI Deputy Director McCabe was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions who noted that Deputy Director McCabe ‘‘lacked candor—including under oath—on multiple occasions’’ and had partaken in ‘‘unauthorized disclosure to the news media’’, among other violations noted in a report issued by the Office of the DOJ Inspector General after a wide-reaching investigation into Deputy Director McCabe’s conduct.

“A myriad of DOJ and FBI personnel have been fired or demoted, or have resigned, including FBI Director Comey, Deputy Director McCabe, Chief of Staff to the Director James Rybicki, FBI General Counsel James Baker, FBI Agent Strzok, FBI Counsel Page, FBI Special Agent Josh Campbell, DOJ Senior Official Ohr, FBI Assistant Director Michael Kortan, and Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik.

“The DOJ has failed to timely comply with several related document requests by Congress. Providing Members of Congress with heavily redacted versions of some but not all of the documents demanded and offering Members limited in-person viewing of these documents is an inadequate response to repeated requests after months of delay by the DOJ…A second special counsel must be appointed and transparency and accountability is demanded for these great, legendary, historic agencies. With that they are sure to move forward stronger than ever before.”

Photo: Zeldin press conference

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Iran Nuclear Deal, North Korean talks: The Difference

There is a remarkable contrast between the current state of the North Korean negotiations and the recently decertified Iran Nuclear Agreement.

In August, President Trump threatened the Pyongyang government with “Fire and fury like the world has never seen” in response to its advances in atomic weaponry. Much of the media and the political left reacted to those words with a fit of apoplexy, and predicted something not very short of Armageddon.  The threatening tactic, however, has achieved the desired result.  Before even taking a seat at the bargaining table, Kim Jong-un has returned Americans he had illegally detained, and announced that he would abandon his nuclear efforts. Indeed, journalist have already been invited to a ceremony later this month in which the Hermit Kingdom’s test facilities would be publicly destroyed.

Compare that with Obama’s stance in negotiations with Iran, in which the former administration essentially entered the talks signaling it would grant major concessions before receiving any solid give-backs from Tehran. The result, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), failed to provide any substantive benefit to the United States, except, at best, a delay in Iran’s developing nuclear weapons and some inconvenience caused by the necessity of hiding prior or ongoing research, a fact made startlingly clear by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent revelations.

The flaws in the Iran deal are glaringly obvious. Even if the Mullahs faithfully complied to its provisions, they would still have the right to build atomic bombs within a decade. Additionally, JCPOA did nothing to inhibit Iran’s ICBM development program. In return, Iran received, upfront, vast sums of cash, and an end to sanctions.

Critics of JCPOA note that “JCPOA… merely ‘rents’ Iranian arms control for a limited and defined period, after which Iran will be permitted to have an industrial-scale nuclear program with no limitations on number and type of centrifuges, or on its stockpiles of fissile material, buttressed by the economic benefits obtained through sanctions easing.”

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The concept of American negotiators entering into talks with adversarial powers from a position of strength has, despite its apparent success with North Korea so far, received little support from those more used to Washington’s prior agreement-at-any-price nature. Martin B. Malin and Hui Zhang, wrote in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists “It is not yet clear if the Trump administration has a strategy for negotiating with North Korea. Since the announcement of a possible meeting, much public commentary has focused on the improbability of North Korea ever giving up its nuclear weapons and on the apparent lack of preparedness inside the US administration. There are good reasons to be skeptical about a possible breakthrough. North Korea has spared no effort to develop its nuclear arsenal and missiles. Kim will not give up his arsenal before he is convinced his regime’s security is guaranteed. It is not clear he can be convinced… with few exceptions, there has been almost no US thinking about a negotiating strategy. Incoming national security advisor John Bolton has recently suggested bombing North Korea. Even the most thoughtful analysts have focused almost exclusively on maintaining coercive leverage in the course of negotiations… The United States must come to terms with the possibility that it may need to make peace with North Korea, and take significant steps toward full normalization before Kim Jong-un would ever implement a complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of his nuclear arsenal.”

Malin and Zhang have been proven incorrect, as were the extensive number of critics that decried President Trump’s “fire and fury” comments.

Obama was personally invested in the Iran deal. In essence, he placed his legacy above the needs of the nation.  Trump, despite the political gains he could reap from a North Korea deal, has repeatedly stressed that he is willing to walk away if the talks don’t produce good results, placing him in a far better negotiating position than his predecessor.

Photo: Trump at decertification of JCPOA (White House photo)

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America’s Schools Flunk Civics, Part 2

Both Democrats and Republicans have justifiably complained about the stunning failure of America’s educational system to provide adequate instruction in history and civics. But who is to blame? We continue our examination of the crisis.

A Center for American Progress study notes that “Civic knowledge and public engagement is at an all-time low…While the 2016 election brought a renewed interest in engagement among youth,4 only 23 percent of eighth-graders performed at or above the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics exam, and achievement levels have virtually stagnated since 1998.5 In addition, the increased focus on math and reading in K-12 education—while critical to prepare all students for success—has pushed out civics and other important subjects.”

While both leftists and conservatives have noticed the troubling lack of knowledge regarding American history and civics, the pronounced trend towards the use of education for leftist indoctrination may well be to blame. A study by the National Association of Scholars  reveals that “A new movement in American higher education aims to transform the teaching of civics…What we call the “New Civics” redefines civics as progressive political activism. Rooted in the radical program of the 1960s’ New Left, the New Civics presents itself as an up-to-date version of volunteerism and good works. Though camouflaged with soft rhetoric, the New Civics, properly understood, is an effort to repurpose higher education.

“The New Civics seeks above all to make students into enthusiastic supporters of the New Left’s dream of ‘fundamentally transforming’ America. The transformation includes de-carbonizing the economy, massively redistributing wealth, intensifying identity group grievance, curtailing the free market, expanding government bureaucracy, elevating international “norms” over American Constitutional law, and disparaging our common history and ideals. New Civics advocates argue among themselves which of these transformations should take precedence, but they agree that America must be transformed by “systemic change” from an unjust, oppressive society to a society that embodies social justice.”

The studies findings include:

  1. Traditional civic literacy is in deep decay in America. Because middle schools and high schools no longer can be relied on to provide students basic civic literacy, the subject has migrated to colleges. But colleges have generally failed to recognize a responsibility to cover the basic content of traditional civics, and have instead substituted programs under the name of civics that bypass instruction in American government and history.
  2. The New Civics, a movement devoted to progressive activism, has taken over civics education. “Service-learning” and “civic engagement” are the most common labels this movement uses, but it also calls itself global civics, deliberative democracy, and intercultural learning.

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  3. The New Civics movement is national, and it extends far beyond the universities. Each individual college and university now slots its “civic” efforts into a framework that includes federal and state bureaucracies, nonprofit organizations, and professional organizations. Universities affiliate themselves with these national organizations’ progressive political goals.
  4. The New Civics redefines “civic activity” as “progressive activism.” It advertises progressive causes to students and uses student labor and university resources to support progressive “community” organizations.
  5. The New Civics redefines “civic activity” as channeling government funds toward progressive nonprofits. The New Civics has worked to divert government funds to progressive causes since its founding in the 1960s.
  6. The New Civics redefines “volunteerism” as labor for progressive organizations and administration of the welfare state. The new measures to require “civic engagement” will make this volunteerism compulsory.
  7. The New Civics replaces traditional liberal arts education with vocational training for community activists. The traditional liberal arts prepared students for leadership in a free society. The New Civics prepares them to administer the welfare state.
  8. The New Civics shifts authority within the university from the faculty to administrators, especially in offices of civic engagement, diversity, and sustainability, as well as among student affairs professionals. The New Civics also shifts the emphasis of a university education from curricula, drafted by faculty, to “co-curricular activities,” run by non-academic administrators.
  9. The New Civics movement aims to take over the entire university. The New Civics advocates want to make “civic engagement” part of every class, every tenure decision, and every extracurricular activity.”

Appropriate, unbiased education in the essentials of American history and civics is vital to the health, and indeed, survival of the United States as a constitutional republic of free citizens.  It’s a topic that must not be ignored.

Photo: Smithsonian Institution

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The Meaning of Freedom

We are pleased to present this guest editorial from U.S. Army Chaplain Don Zapsic (ret.)

Freedom, a.k.a. liberty. What does it mean and how much does it really matter? Most people associate freedom with patriotic displays such as flag-waving, marching bands, and anthem-laced sporting events. Articulating a working definition of freedom beyond feelings evoked is as daunting a task as a necessity. For without proper understanding, there can be little awareness of incremental encroachments upon inalienable rights nor an adequate appreciation of why such liberties should be defended at all costs.

A great challenge to stirring a free people’s passion for liberty to ensure its continued preservation lies in understanding the fundamental difference between personal autonomy and inherent responsibility. To regard freedom simply based upon personal needs and wants means that I am free to live as I choose (autonomy) as long as I don’t infringe upon the rights of others. The obligations of citizenship, however, compels an individual to look beyond his or her own situation to consider that of others as able to do so.

Is freedom prospering in America or in retreat? History points out that freedom is never so a popular a subject as when under attack. Nazi Germany and Communist Russia effectively employed propaganda with devastating results to enslave entire nations promising prosperity while delivering misery. The promotion and passage of the Affordable Care Act serves as a more recent example of how propaganda reduces freedom to mere servitude. It turned out to be little more than a sophisticated rouse utilizing statecraft to massively redistribute wealth from producer to consumer thru the iron fist of socialism in the name of democracy.

Doctrinaire proponents of social justice are quick to endorse the methodology of
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Plato’s “noble lie” to further enlighten the so-called ignorant masses thru benevolent deception. The underlying belief is that the end will justify the means thereby facilitating a materialistic society’s moral development. Such utopian-style thinking is also an assault on freedom as pointed out by F.A. Hayek in his classic book, “The Road to Serfdom.” Hayek maintains that moral development can only take place where the individual is free to choose, “sacrificing personal advantage to the observance of a moral rule (p. 216).”

Perhaps one of the greatest impediments to preserving liberty at every turn lies in the prevailing attitude that somehow freedom is a done deal. Freedom indeed is an inalienable right, but also a privilege only to be enjoyed by a society with enough patriots willing to stand at the ready and fight when necessary while others relax. The Preamble to the Constitution implies that freedom in America is a work in progress encapsulated in the phrase, “in order to form a more perfect union.” Such a union is a perishable commodity always in flux, sometimes closer or further away from the ideal perfect union worth striving for at all times.

Does freedom really matter? Only to those determined to take responsibility for their own lives void of undue interference. True patriots are not interested in suppressing the views of others and are tolerant of contrary opinions respectfully promoted. They care about people without carrying the able-bodied. Such individuals actively engage in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” not surrendering deeply held beliefs and values when threatened by political correctness bullies. Even more importantly, a true American stands up to tyranny whether a thug on the street, judge in a black robe, or elected official who would rather rule than represent.

U.S. Army Photo

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America’s Schools Flunk Civics

The excessive discord among American political factions, and the rejection of traditional  American values by a sizeable minority, may be fueled by the stunning inadequacy of the public education system, particularly in the teaching of civics and history. A fatal lack of knowledge about the meaning of the unique U.S. Constitutional form of government and the growing absence of historical memory warps the national dialogue.

Leftists and conservatives alike have worried about this issue. But what is to blame?

A Forbes article by George Leef reports that “A good many educators take seriously the idea that teaching is a political activity and accordingly feel justified in using their classrooms as platforms for spreading their social, economic, and philosophical beliefs. They want to act as “change agents” who will improve the world…Most of those educators have been imbued with a leftist cast of mind – hostile to capitalism, private property, and anything that stands in the way of their utopian visions of a just society brought about through government power. Instances like the recent ones at UC Santa Barbara (where a professor physically attacked a student who was peacefully protesting abortion) and Eastern Connecticut (where a writing professor went off on a rant about how evil Republicans are) are pretty common.”

Jonathon Cole, writing in The Atlantic, notes that “While there surely are many varied causes for the current American political situation, one among those is the relative ignorance of basic American history…and what some refer to as “civics” among a large sector of our population. It is testimony to the failure of the country’s education system that a high percentage of the voting-age population is simply ignorant of basic facts—knowledge that is necessary to act reasonably and rationally in the political process. This void isn’t limited to those with little education or those without significant professional achievements. It is telling, for example, that in 2009, 89 percent of those who took a test on civic knowledge expressed confidence they could pass it; in fact, 83 percent would have failed.”

The American Bar Association has long worried about this issue.  In 2011, Mark Hansen, writing in the ABA Journal stressed that “Parents traditionally worry about what their children are learning in school, but it’s what those students are not learning that’s even more unsettling.”

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The Education Commission of the United States  conducted a comprehensive survey on the teaching of civics. Finn states that “We’ve known for a while—thanks to the National Assessment and other measures—that American primary-secondary students aren’t learning a heckuva lot of civics… NAEP assessed civics in 2006 and found that fewer than a quarter of high school seniors could supply a satisfactory answer to a question about the means by which citizens can change laws. uCenter surveyed American adults in 2014 and found that only 36 percent could name the three branches of the U.S. government…”

A 2017 study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that “Many Americans are poorly informed about basic constitutional provisions, according to a new national survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center…More than a third of those surveyed (37 percent) can’t name any of the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment; Only a quarter of Americans (26 percent) can name all three branches of government. ‘Protecting the rights guaranteed by the Constitution presupposes that we know what they are. The fact that many don’t is worrisome,’ said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania…”

That research is echoed by The Brookings Institute:  that asks “…do America’s young people have the tools they need to assess candidates for public office and influence the policy process? The statistics say no. According to a new book edited by David Feith, young Americans know little about the Bill of Rights, the democratic process, or the civil rights movement. Three of every four high school seniors aren’t proficient in civics, nine of ten aren’t proficient in U.S. history, and the problem is aggravated by a lack of civic education at the university level.”

The Report Concludes Tuesday, May 29.

Photo: Smithsonian Institute

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On Diplomacy

Criticism of President’s Trump’s get-tough policy on North Korea, in particular his decision to back out of the Singapore meeting in response to statements by Pyongyang officials that made the success of the negotiations suspect, is indicative of a lack of understanding about what the purpose of American diplomacy is. Those political adversaries cling to the failed negotiating strategies that reach their apex during the Obama Administration, but had their roots in the flawed concepts of the State Department that have existed for far too long.

They fail to understand a basic premise: The purpose of U.S. diplomacy is to make life better and safer for the American people. Period.

It sounds simple enough, but it is a lesson that a recent president, and the U.S. diplomatic corps, seem to have forgotten. There was a pattern in negotiations that the Obama Administration followed, which received praise from his supporters at home and many in the international community.  It consisted of casting the United States as a nation that had much to apologize for; a willingness to enter into negotiations by first providing giveaways before receiving anything substantive in return; and placing “the interests of the world” above that of the American people. All three principals were faulty and did not lead to results that were beneficial to the American people.

For at least one hundred years, the United States has been the greatest force for good the planet has ever seen—including for those whom we have opposed in combat.  One example: After the monumental war against Germany and Japan, America rebuilt those nations into entities greater than they ever were.  Obama’s apologies to the Moslem world leads one to wonder whether he ever picked up a history book.  The U.S. defended Egypt against our wartime allies, the British and the French, when they sought to control the Suez Canal.  Reagan defended the people of Afghanistan against Soviet invaders. Washington defended Eastern European Moslems against genocide. Yes, the U.S. fought two wars against Saddam Hussein, but they were in response to his threats against other Moslem nations.  And of course, the American people made several Middle Eastern nations rich by buying their oil, often at inflated prices.

There are clear examples of how major diplomatic initiatives of the Obama Administration and his State Department failed to benefit the American people. To cite two:

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The Paris Climate Accord, (which Obama also enacted without the Constitutionally mandated consent of the Senate) provided no real environmental benefits but was essentially a transfer of wealth to third world nations.  Again, no substantive benefit to the American people.

The State Department, and indeed presidents, are the employees of the American people.  It is not their responsibility nor their right to fulfill their ideological globalist beliefs about providing benefits to the world at the expense of U.S. citizens. Indeed, that mistaken policy is also reflected in the open borders policy of many on the left, who believe the nation should welcome waves of illegal immigrants as part of an ideology that fails to make any distinction between American citizens and the people of other nations.  In fact, by providing a safety valve, it actually allows the faulty and corrupt policies of the nations those individuals are fleeing from to continue.

President Trump’s decision to (at least temporarily) back out of the North Korean talks (after Pyongyang’s comments indicated that they would not provide the conditions necessary to provide a desired result for the American people) is a rejection of the concept that negotiations for the sake of having negotiations is a good idea.  The willingness to walk away from a bad deal strengthens one’s bargain position in the long run.

Photo: State Department building (State Dept. photo)

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The Continuous Attack on Free Speech, Part 2

The New York Analysis concludes its latest review of the ongoing attacks on the First Amendment.

How extreme is this threat getting? Consider California State Senator Pan’s proposed legislation,  which reads: “This bill would require any person who operates a social media, as defined, Internet Web site with a physical presence in California to…prominently display a link on the site to a disclosure informing users how the site determines what content to display to the user, the order in which content is displayed, and the format in which content is displayed, and to inform users of the site’s strategic plan to mitigate the spread of false information, among other things. With respect to a social media Internet Web site that utilizes factcheckers to verify the accuracy of news stories, the bill would require the disclosure to state what policies and practices the factcheckers use to determine whether news stories are accurate and what the site does with the content that the factcheckers determine is not accurate.”

 A key problem with Pan’s proposal, among others, is that many of the “fact checking” organizations which are on the list to consult are politically biased, as a number of studies, including those by George Mason University have revealed.

Ben Kamisar, writing in The Hill describes how the use of biased fact checking is becoming an increased challenge to free speech: “Conservative groups are crying foul after discovering that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is helping YouTube decide what content is too offensive for the video platform.”

Kyle Smith, in a National Review article, describes SPLC: “ SPLC… spends far more on direct-mail fundraising pleas ($10 million) than it ever has on legal services, according to an analysis by Philanthropy Roundtable, and has never passed along more than 31 percent of its funding to charitable programs, sometimes as little as 18 percent. Meanwhile it has built itself a palatial six-story headquarters and an endowment of more than $200 million. In essence it is a machine for turning leftist hysteria into cash that portrays itself as a non-partisan, fact-finding group and has long been treated as such by media institutions such as the Washington Post and the New York Times.”

A spinal manipulation should never be attempted by anyone other than a licensed Doctor of Chiropractic buy pfizer viagra or Osteopathy. Pomegranates aid longevity, reduce heart disease and strokes, reverse the buildup of arterial plaque, and reduce best online viagra blood sugar level. And with Kamagra Polo, you viagra sildenafil canada have got what you always wished and prayed for. It may have aspect consequences devensec.com price for levitra which are life threatening. Consortium News’ Robert Parry writes:  the [NY] Times gives no thought to the potential downside of having a select group of mainstream journalistic entities feeding their judgment about what is true and what is not into some algorithms that would then scrub the Internet of contrary items. Since the Times is a member of the Google-funded First Draft Coalition – along with other mainstream outlets such as The Washington Post… this idea of eliminating information that counters what the group asserts is true may seem quite appealing to the Times and the other insiders. After all, it might seem cool to have some high-tech tool that silences your critics automatically. But you don’t need a huge amount of imagination to see how this combination of mainstream groupthink and artificial intelligence could create an Orwellian future in which only one side of a story gets told and the other side simply disappears from view.”

While federal bureaucratic assaults on free speech, particularly from the FCC which, during the Obama years actually sought to impose government “monitors” in newsrooms and concocted schemes to regulate conservative news outlets have diminished, the threat continues. The Washington Examiner’s  Paul Bedard found that “Democratic efforts on the Federal Election Commission to punish media and stifle voices like the Drudge Report and Fox are going ‘underground’ after failing in public, according to the agency’s outgoing defender of media and digital outlets… Lee Goodman… ‘The desire to regulate Americans’ political speech on the internet remains alive and well here at the commission and now even in Congress,’ added Goodman.”

More chilling than the question of bias, however, is the central concept behind Pan’s proposal, and others like it.  Despite the existence of the First Amendment and centuries of precedent, Pan, like other leftist politicians, pundits and academics, assume that they have the right to pass laws or enact measures that regulate free speech.

Photo: U.S. National Archives

 

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Quick Analysis

The Continuous Attack on Free Speech

A  federal judge has rejected UC Berkeley’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit based on the University’s discriminatory policy against conservative speakers. The court battle highlights the growing trend among many universities, as well as other leftist institutions and social media outlets, to stifle those who dissent from leftist orthodoxy.

America is dealing with the signature legacy of the eight years coinciding with the Obama presidency, namely, the attempted removal of First Amendment protections from conservatives.

It could be seen in President Obama’s influencing of the Federal Communications Commission to attempt to place monitors in news rooms, and his transfer of control of the internet to an international body not devoted to free speech. It could be observed in his rather embarrassing attacks on news outlets that disagree with his policies. A description of President Obama’s initial reaction to contrary opinion was described in 2009 by Spectator magazine:

“The Obama Administration declared war on the minority of media outlets that do not worship the political left’s newest false idol immediately after Obama was sworn in. Three days into his presidency Obama warned Congressional Republicans against listening to radio host Rush Limbaugh…Then the White House launched a jihad against Fox News Channel and its hosts by first boycotting appearances on the cable channel and then second, by engaging in name-calling and leveling baseless allegations… the White House brazenly attempted to marginalize Fox News Channel by enlisting the support of the heretofore compliant news media. Fortunately, competing news outlets found the backbone — if only temporarily — to put the kibosh on Obama’s attempts to blacklist FNC from the White House press pool.”

Attorney General Loretta Lynch considered criminally prosecuting those who merely disagreed with Obama’s climate change views. Senator Schumer (D-NY) introduced legislation which specifically and openly sought to limit the First Amendment regarding paid political speech. The Internal Revenue Service attacked conservative organizations. Leftist state attorneys general engaged in harassing legal tactics against dissidents. Social media initiated various methods to silence conservative users. And, of course, universities adopted a variety of tactics to eliminate non-leftist influence within both the faculty and the student body.

The pronounced drive to stifle the right has emphasized different issues at different times, sometimes with proposed government actions, at other times with the use of inflammatory language. Attempts to ensure that predominately liberal institutions had more influence in general elections manifested itself in increasingly restrictive “campaign reform” measures. Labeling any opposition to the most extreme race and gender-baiting tactics of the left as “hate speech” is currently in vogue. Those attempting to limit so-called poverty programs that have failed for over half a century are attacked for their “heartlessness.” Those seeking to protect the Second Amendment are portrayed as being in favor of mass murder.

If you are impotence, it is very unlikely that you get more than a couple of inches for that matter. buy cheap sildenafil This increases the blood free get viagra in the reproductive organs and cures weak erection and premature ejaculation. The sildenafil free shipping Qualities that is good and Associated With Erectile dysfunction measure. You are able to mix the herbal male enhancement drug you need to look at cialis generic is normally oral, approximately 60 minutes before the sexual act. However, differences of opinion, no matter how harsh, are not the problem.  Spirited political debate is a good thing. What is truly concerning is the goal of far too many on the left to criminalize the right for having a different opinion, and the lock-step acquiescence of institutions to that attempt.

Journalist Caroline Glick  wrote:  “The fact is that the attempts of leftist activists on campuses to silence non-leftist dissenters…is simply an extreme version of what is increasingly becoming standard operating procedure for leftist activists throughout the US. Rather than participating in a battle of ideas with their ideological opponents on the Right, increasingly, leftist activists, groups and policy-makers seek to silence their opponents through slander, intimidation and misrepresentation of their own agenda.”

Perhaps the most important analysis of the attempt to silence non-leftist speech comes not from a conservative, but from a journalist closely associated with liberal politics. Kirsten Powers served in the Clinton Administration and was a fixture in Democrat politics in New York.  She provides one the most bluntly honest and hard-hitting analyses of this problem:

“This intolerance,” she writes, “is not a passive matter of opinion. It’s an aggressive, illiberal impulse to silence people.  This conduct has become an existential threat to those who hold orthodox religious beliefs… increasingly I hear from people across the political spectrum who are fearful not only of expressing their views, but also as to where all of this is heading.  I’ve followed this trend closely as a columnist with growing concern.  It’s become clear that the attempts—too often successful—to silence dissent from the liberal worldview isn’t isolated outbursts. They are part of a bigger story.”

Mark Pulliam, writing in the New York Post describes a disturbing recent example: “…would-be brownshirts let the mask slip when they disrupted and attempted to shout down a speaker at the City University of New York School of Law….South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman arrived on campus to discuss … ‘The Importance of Free Speech on Campus,’…The episode is deeply disturbing … the audience was not made up of undergraduates. This was a lecture at a law school… Yet the numerous signs waved by the protesters contained such slogans as ‘Rule of Law equals White Supremacy’ and ‘The First Amendment is Not a Licence [sic] to Dehumanize Marginalized People.’ Students shouted ‘Legal objectivity is a myth’ and ‘F – – k the law.’ CUNY Law’s National Lawyers Guild chapter tweeted that ‘free speech’ activists are ‘not welcome at our PUBLIC INTEREST school.’

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

Photo: U.S. National Archives

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Dangers of a Too-Small Navy, Part 2

In yesterday’s report, we pointed out the dangers and challenges from an undersized U.S. Navy.  Today, we provide a summary of the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the task in expanding America’s seapower to an adequate level.

In December 2016, the Navy released a new force structure assessment (FSA) that called for a fleet of 355 ships—substantially larger than the current force of 280 ships. In response to a request from the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces of the House Committee on Armed Services, CBO [Cogressional Budget Office]  explored the costs of achieving that goal in a previous report. To expand on that analysis, CBO has estimated the costs of achieving a 355-ship fleet under two alternatives. The agency then compared those scenarios with two other alternatives involving smaller fleets. For all four alternatives, CBO explored shipbuilding and operating costs, the composition and capabilities of the fleet, and effects on the shipbuilding industry.

The four alternatives would affect the size and composition of the Navy in the following ways, CBO estimates:

  • Under the first alternative, the Navy would create a 355-ship fleet by building more ships over the next 20 years, achieving the force goal by 2037. The cost to build, crew, and operate a 355-ship fleet achieved by new construction would average $103 billion (in 2017 dollars) per year through 2047.
  • Under the second alternative, the Navy would attain a 355-ship fleet sooner, in about 2028, but would not achieve the composition that the service wants until 2037—by using a new-ship construction schedule similar to the schedule under the first alternative, and also by extending the service life of some large surface combatants, amphibious ships, attack submarines, and logistics ships. Its costs would average $104 billion annually through 2047.
  • Under the third alternative, the Navy would maintain a fleet comparable in size and composition to today’s fleet of 280 ships. It would cost an average of $91 billion annually through 2047.
  • The fourth alternative would cost the least and illustrates the long-term implications of funding the Navy at roughly the level it has received historically for ship procurement. By 2047, the fleet would fall to 230 ships. In total, that alternative would cost an average of $82 billion per year over the next 30 years.

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Shipbuilding Costs

CBO estimates that, over the next 30 years, meeting the 355-ship goal with new-ship construction alone would cost an average of $26.7 billion annually (in 2017 dollars). Combining that shipbuilding program with service life extension programs (commonly called SLEPs) for some existing ships to achieve a 355-ship fleet faster would cost an average of $27.5 billion annually; the costs for those SLEPs would be concentrated over the next 10 years. The smaller fleets would cost less: If the Navy was kept at its current size, shipbuilding costs would average $22.4 billion annually. By contrast, if funding for the fleet was kept at roughly historical levels, shipbuilding costs would average $16.8 billion per year.

Operating Costs

CBO projects that the costs to operate and maintain the Navy’s ships will grow faster than general inflation in the economy. On the basis of historical experience, pay for military and civilians is projected to increase faster than inflation as are costs to supply and repair the Navy’s ships. As a result, CBO expects that the costs for operation and support for all of the alternatives—even a substantially smaller fleet—would be higher in 2047 in real (inflation-adjusted) terms than comparable costs for the existing fleet. By 2047, the annual cost (in 2017 dollars) of operating a 355-ship fleet would be about $38 billion (or 68 percent) more than the $56 billion the current fleet of 280 ships costs to operate. Overall, costs for the alternative that would include SLEPs would be higher in earlier years because some of the ships would be retired later than under the first alternative. A fleet that maintained the size and composition of the current fleet would cost $22 billion (or 39 percent) more in 2047. And the smallest fleet would still cost $12 billion (or 21 percent) more than the fleet costs to operate today.

Capabilities of the Different Fleets

CBO compared the four alternative fleets using several standard measures of capability. Not surprisingly, the larger fleets would provide the most capability, whereas the smallest fleet would provide the least. To measure capability during peacetime, CBO used the number of ships providing forward presence (those on patrol overseas in peacetime) and the number of vertical launch system (VLS) cells—missile tubes—on those ships. For a wartime measure, CBO used the number of ships that could be “surged” (that is, rapidly deployed) overseas within 30 days and the number of VLS cells on those ships. Because the alternative that includes SLEPs would retain more cruisers and destroyers in the fleet—retiring ships later than the other alternatives—and they carry large numbers of VLS cells, it would increase the fleet’s VLS inventory by 20 percent by 2032 for less than 2 percent additional cost compared with the 355-ship alternative without SLEPs.

Implications for the Shipbuilding Industry

CBO anticipates that shipyards would need to make significant investments in facilities and infrastructure to build the larger fleets. For the smaller fleet alternatives, maintaining the Navy at its current size would require little change to the industrial base that builds warships, whereas a fleet based on historical funding would lead to less ship construction business for the shipyards, with the possibility that one or more could leave the industry.

Photo:  The U.S. Navy Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ship USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) comes into port following the conclusion of Eager Lion 2018.

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Dangers of a Too-Small Navy

A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office reports that “Since January 2017, the Navy has suffered four significant mishaps at sea that resulted in serious damage to its ships and the loss of 17 sailors.”

The fact is, the U.S. Navy is overstretched. The problem is getting worse as both Russia and China continue to build up their fleets, leading to strains on both ships and personnel.

In September,  Admiral Moran  expanded on his worrisome theme:  “The Navy has deployed, on average, about 100 ships around the world each day, collectively steaming thousands of underway days each year, despite having the smallest battle fleet since before World War I, and significantly smaller than the Navy we had immediately after 9/11 over a decade ago. 2 Although warfighting capabilities of ships have dramatically increased in the last century, the size and scope of U.S. responsibilities around the world have also increased.”

While the U.S. Navy struggles, America’s maritime adversaries grow larger and bolder. According to a study by the Brookings Institute  “Russia is, impressively, both retrofitting older vessels and procuring newer ones. And the [Russian] navy has unveiled a significant capability: Its Caspian Sea corvettes and frigates can fire cruise missiles at targets over 900 miles away. This is a previously unknown capability. To put things in perspective, the two variants of the U.S. Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom and Independence, are substantially larger at roughly 2,900 tons and 3,100 tons respectively—but they do not possess any cruise missile or similar power projection capability.”

The United Kingdom’s Royal United Services Institute, reports the Daily Mail,
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“has warned the Kremlin is building up its maritime arsenal. It calls on Nato to prepare for how to deal with Russian hybrid warfare at sea ‘before it is too late.’ Its study notes that “Russia could send new submarines and ships to launch undersea attacks to ‘paralyse’ Europe…”

China’s threat may exceed Russia’s, and the two nations are closely allied, and increasing their coordination through joint training exercises. In its Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2016 the Department of Defense notes that “Over the past 15 years, China’s ambitious naval modernization program has produced a more technologically advanced and flexible force. The PLAN now possesses the largest number of vessels in Asia, with more than 300 surface ships, submarines, amphibious ships, and patrol craft. China is rapidly retiring legacy combatants in favor of larger, multi-mission ships equipped with advanced anti-ship, antiair, and anti-submarine weapons and sensors. China continues its gradual shift from “near sea” defense to “far seas” protection.”…China is expanding its access to foreign ports to pre-position the necessary logistics support to regularize and sustain deployments in the “far seas,” waters as distant as the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. In late November, China publicly confirmed its intention to build military supporting facilities in Djibouti…This Chinese initiative both reflects and amplifies China’s growing geopolitical clout, extending the reach of its influence and armed forces…”

Real Clear Defense  notes the consequences of America having an undersized Navy: “the consequences of…a shortfall could be dire…Deterrence is the peacetime U.S. Navy’s chief purpose. After the navy faces down aggression, it does the wonderful things navies can do with freedom of the sea. Showing the flag in foreign seaports, alleviating human misery following natural disasters or other emergencies, scouring the sea of unlawful trafficking—such worthwhile endeavors depend on free use of the global commons… A big, capable navy can deter even if the bulk of the fleet is dispersed, remote from hotspots, or both. The United States, that is, can discourage mischief if would-be aggressors know U.S. commanders can bring overbearing combat power to bear. Virtual deterrence comes with a world-beating navy.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow.

Photo:  U.S.S. Theodore Navy (U.S. Navy photo)