Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review discuss the controversy in the GOP delegate and Donald Trump’s frustration with the process while the real story seems to be that Ted Cruz knows what he’s doing in delegate matters and Trump doesn’t. They also slam Pres. Obama for saying Hillary shouldn’t be in trouble for her emails because she was a good secretary of state and because some classified information needs to be protected while other classified material isn’t really that important. And we unload on vile Trump internet supporters for telling Mary Katharine Ham they’re glad her husband is dead because she wrote a column unflattering to Trump.
Archives for April 2016
Romney Rule Backfiring on Establishment
The Republican Party rejected at least two chances to allow convention delegates to vote for their candidate of choice, assuming current rules would benefit establishment candidates, and now party officials are scrambling to change the rules late in the game since the existing ones favor their least favorite candidates.
At the same time, one of the leading Republican rules experts says the campaigns need to follow existing rules on delegates that have been in place for decades and not complain that the process is unfair.
At issue for national Republicans right now is Rule 40(b), which states no candidate can be placed in nomination unless they have won a majority of delegates in eight states. It was instituted by the Mitt Romney campaign at the Republican National Convention in 2012 to make Romney the only eligible candidate and trigger a unanimous nomination. The rule passed over loud objections, particularly from backers of former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.
Following the 2012 elections, Republican National Committeeman Morton Blackwell tried twice to remove Rule 40(b) in an effort to allow delegates to vote for the candidates they are pledge to support.
His first attempt was three years ago.
“I got 25 states back in April of 2013 to support my repeal, but the other states and D.C. and the territories voted the other way,” said Blackwell.
He then tried to change the rule at the start of this year, before any votes were cast in the primaries and caucuses.
“I proposed a rifle shot amendment to establish the principle that duly elected delegates, who were credentialed at the convention and were voting in accord with their state party rules and state law, would have their votes counted, even if they didn’t vote for somebody who had made this artificial eight-state threshold,” said Blackwell.
His amendment was adopted without much opposition, but soon RNC attorneys huddled with party leaders and suddenly there was a motion to reconsider.
“After they voted to reconsider they then amended out the end of this disenfranchisement of duly elected delegates,” said Blackwell.
Blackwell says even just a couple of weeks before the votes started, the Republican Party was convinced Rule 40(b) would steer one of the establishment’s favored candidates toward the nomination.
“I think what happened it the establishment that put in these rules, expecting that it would help establishment candidates for president, still believed in January that these rules would facilitate the nomination of an establishment person,” said Blackwell.
The party’s attitude toward the rule has now shifted 180 degrees due the primary and caucus results seen across the country.
“It appears that the only two candidates for whom votes may count at the convention coming up in Cleveland would be Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. That is why the establishment is now talking about changing these rules,” said Blackwell.
The goal of such a change would be to allow a candidate who has not done as well – or not run at all – to be eligible for nomination in a multi-ballot convention. Blackwell says the Republican Party’s explanation for the opinion change is very dubious.
“The word is spreading through the establishment types that we don’t have any rules now. The convention always writes it’s own rules. Nobody’s ever made that point in previous discussions about the rules because essentially it’s not true,” said Blackwell.
“The rules that were adopted in 2012 are the temporary rules of the convention and they will become the permanent rules of the convention unless they are amended,” added Blackwell.
Blackwell is uneasy about changing any rules once the voting has begun, which is why he tried to change the rule in January. He says there are only two ways for Rule 40(b) to change now. One is a consensus among Trump, Cruz and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.
He says the other avenue could be very chaotic.
“The only other way the rules can be changed, if there is not a consensus among these major players, is after a bitter, ferocious rules battle in Cleveland, which I believe could split the Republican Party,” said Blackwell.
While the rules for Cleveland are hotly debated, the battle to accumulate the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination is heating up, with the Trump campaign making multiple arguments in recent days that fall on deaf ears for Blackwell.
Last month, Trump asserted that if he fails to win a majority of pledge delegates but leads Cruz by a substantial margin, then he should be handed the nomination. Blackwell says the GOP has never operated that way.
“The Republican Party rules at the national level, from the very start of the Republican Party in the middle of the 19th century, requires that you get a majority of the delegates to the convention in order to be nominated. I think [Trump’s] idea is a non-starter,” said Blackwell.
Trump and his campaign team also accuse Cruz of trying to “steal” delegates by getting Cruz supporters elected as delegates, who would initially be bound to vote for Trump in Cleveland but could later switch to Cruz on subsequent ballots.
Again, Blackwell says the rules on delegates have been the same for a very long time.
“If you want to have people who are personally committed to your candidate, then you have to campaign at these congressional districts and at the state convention to elect the people you want as delegates. There’s nothing unfair about it. It’s been done that way for decades,” said Blackwell.
He says one interesting twist, however, is that if a candidate who lost a caucus or primary can get their preferred delegates to comprise a majority of that state’s delegation, those supporters can make it known who their favorite candidate truly is. That declaration would then add that state to the list of eight currently needed to qualify for being nominated.
So given all these variables, what does Blackwell think will actually happen in Cleveland?
” I would hesitate to predict,” he said. “In my experience, people who make their lives with crystal balls sometimes have to eat ground glass.”
Three Martini Lunch 4/8/16
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are pleasantly surprised to see Bill Clinton deliver a verbal rebuke to Black Lives Matter. They also groan as a third of Wisconsin GOP voters say they will not support either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in as the nominee. And they laugh as Ben Carson dismisses the misdemeanor assault charge against Corey Lewandowski by suggesting that many people have been charged with things – maybe even his CNN interviewers.
‘One More Nail in the Coffin of the Great Deception’
A new, exhaustive study on precipitation levels over more than a thousand years shows the assumptions made by the United Nations and other climate change activists are badly flawed, suggesting that human activity may not be having the impact on our climate that so many insist to be true.
The report from Stockholm University in Sweden examined Northern Hemisphere rainfall statistics over a 1,200 year period. Researchers concluded that extremes between heavy rainfall totals and droughts were more severe centuries ago, before the fossil fuel-based economy ever existed.
“Hopefully this will be one more nail in the coffin of the great deception that is the global warming deception,” said Dr. Tim Ball, a former climatologist at the University of Winnipeg, who taught classes on global precipitation for some 25 years.
Ball is also the author of multiple books, including “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science.” He says this report comes as no shock to him. In fact, he wrote about the very same issue just five months ago. Ball says the problem is amounts in part to willful ignorance on the part of climate change proponents.
“They list three major greenhouse gases: water vapor, CO2, and methane. They then ignore water vapor. They just say the amount humans produce is of no significant so they just assume it’s constant. That’s a problem,” said Ball.
“The second problem is there is inadequate temperature data to build their computer models. The weather data covers only about 25 percent of the world’s surface. How do you build your models on that? The answer is you don’t,” said Ball.
He says reality has proven the experts wrong at every turn.
“Every single prediction they’ve made with temperature, starting in 1990, has been wrong. Every one has been wrong. One simple word definition of science is prediction. If you can’t predict, you haven’t got science,” said Ball.
But as lacking as the data is on temperature levels, Ball says the scientists are even further behind on precipitation.
“The data for precipitation is even worse. Measuring rainfall and measuring the water content of snow are some of the most difficult things to do in the weather and climate business,” said Ball.
Ball says a perfect example of the weak precipitation data could be seen five years ago when scientists tried to predict the impact of monsoons upon Africa during the growing season. Half the models predicted a wetter season and the other half concluded it would be drier.
“Their conclusion was that there weren’t enough precipitation data stations to even meet the minimum requirement of the World Meteorological Association. So the lack of data is the serious problem that supports what these people (in Stockholm) are finding,” said Ball.
According to Ball, this new study also puts the lie to the climate change premise that temperature is the most important factor when examining where our climate is trending.
Temperature variation is an issue but it has to change quite a bit before it comes difficult. For example, they talk about a two-degree celsius warming. All you’ve got to do is look at a city that’s just south of you that’s two degrees warmer and they get along very nicely, thank you,” said Ball.
He says precipitation is far more important.
“But when you get precipitation change, that impacts flora and fauna and humans tremendously,” said Ball.
Ball says 200 climatologists were surveyed in the year 2000 to select the 20 worst natural disasters in the 20th Century. Of those 20, scientists picked 11 droughts and five floods.
“So the knowledge of precipitation and it’s impact is actually more important,” he said.
Ball the Stockholm report also erodes the credibility of climate change scientists on another front, namely their contention that rising global temperatures lead to more and more severe droughts.
“They said with global warming, there’ll be more droughts but that’s counter-intuitive. If you’ve got warmer temperatures, you’ve got more evaporation, more water in the air, therefore fewer droughts. Again that illustrates how wrong their thinking is,” said Ball.
Scientists who believe in human-triggered climate change admit the Stockholm study will intensify the existing debate.
“Do their results invalidate current predictive models? Certainly not. But they do highlight a big challenge for climate modelers, and present major research opportunities both for modelers and climate scientists,” wrote Matthew Kirby of California State University’s Department of Geological Sciences in response to the study.
Another researcher, James Renwick of the Victoria University of Wellington, stated the new data suggests the wet-dry extremes will come this century instead of the last one.
That leaves Ball shaking his head.
“They will look for some way around the evidence. They’ll say this is wrong, that’s wrong and so on,” said Ball. “They’ve done that every time. They had a hypothesis and they accepted it as proven right from the start. Every time evidence came out that contradicted it, they found ways of blunting that.”
He says the most egregious example was after 1998, when temperatures began leveling off but carbon dioxide levels kept rising, in contrast to the belief that the two factors were linked.
“Instead of correcting their science, they changed from global warming to climate change. This is what they constantly do. They try to blunt the evidence and deflect the evidence because it’s not fitting with their political agenda,” said Ball.
Or their financial agenda. Ball contends so many scientists swear by man-caused climate change simply to keep the research dollars pouring in.
“These people, I guarantee you will find out, are very heavily funded by government in this research. Of course, if you look at Paris and how much money was put into the Green Climate Fund. It’s all driven by money, not by science and the truth,” said Ball.
He says this was proven by the Australian government in recent years.
“What the Australian government said was, ‘You’re telling us the science is settled. Well fine. We’ll cut off all the funding to the research.” Of course everybody scrambled, ‘Oh, no no no. Hold on a minute here,'” said Ball.
Three Martini Lunch 4/7/16
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are pleased to see Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey looking to be in good shape for re-election in a state that is not all that strong for Republicans. They also rip Pres. Obama and the VA for wait times and benefits only getting much worse for our veterans. And they shake their heads as the Trump campaign contends its candidate doesn’t have a problem with women and any polls suggesting otherwise are manipulated.
No Substitute for Tax Reform
National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp says new rules designed to stop American companies from setting up shop on foreign soil may work to keep some firms in the U.S. but he says the only thing that is going to allow businesses to stay and thrive is a tax code overhaul featuring lower rates and a much simpler code.
On Tuesday, President Obama announced the Treasury Department is implementing new rules designed to make it more painful for American firms to purchase a smaller, foreign business and use it as an offshore hub to avoid American taxes. It’s a concept known as an inversion.
While watching American corporations avoid paying U.S. taxes is infuriating to many, Sepp says there are bigger problems.
“President Obama calls this practice ‘insidious’ but what’s really insidious is our failure to keep up with the rest of the world in terms of reforming our business tax systems. We have not had major tax reform in this country for individuals or businesses since 1986,” said Sepp.
Among the new Treasury Department rules are a policy putting a three-year limit on companies outside the U.S. adding American assets so as not to dodge ownership requirements for future inversions. Treasury is also planning to put a stop to earnings stripping after inversions.
Some experts believe the new policies had an instant impact as Pfizer and Irish drugmaker Allergan walked away from their $160 billion merger. Whether that’s the main reason or not, Sepp says a few new policies don’t solve the larger problems.
“Ultimately, it won’t effect the problem a great deal because the problem is rooted in other parts of our tax system: High rates, twice as high as many of our economic competitors. High effective rates, whereby even after deductions and credits, the tax burdens are too heavy for our companies to bear,” said Sepp, who then listed even more problems.
“Shareholders demand that companies limit their tax liabilities and maximize returns. Other countries are not standing in place. They are reforming their tax systems constantly,” said Sepp, nothing that Canada and the United Kingdom have been aggressively cutting rates and rooting out tax code complexities.
The bottom line, says Sepp, is nothing can replace what needs to be done.
“Whatever minor rule makings that the United States Treasury issues, or even laws Congress might make to create new clampdowns on inversions are no substitute for doing the heavy lifting of comprehensive tax reform,” said Sepp.
The problems are clear. Sepp says our rates are simply not competitive, noting our corporate tax rates are north of 39 percent while the average of OECD nations stand near 25 percent. He says Canada’s rate is now around 15 percent.
On top of that, the U.S. also imposes the highly unusual worldwide tax, meaning American firms pay taxes to the U.S. Treasury on profits earned in other nations. Most other nations require companies only to pay taxes where the money was made.
On the complexity front, Sepp says the situation is borderline hopeless. He says businesses spend six billion hours poring over the tax laws to make sure they are in compliance. By the time they are done, the time and cost for properly filing taxes amounts to firms spending an additional $960 per employee. And that’s before the the actual tax payments are made.
Sepp says he wants to hear more specifics from all presidential candidates. As for the Republican hopefuls, he says each have their strong and weak points.
He says Donald Trump has perhaps the most aggressive plan.
“Trump’s tax plan, both for individuals and businesses is very ambitious in terms of the amount of tax relief it would grant. But Trump’s system would preserve many of the inequities in the current tax code and would target a few industries, for example, in finance with higher tax rates. That’s probably the opposite direction we want to take,” said Sepp.
He also sees Ted Cruz as a mixed bag.
“Cruz has proposed a flat-rate income tax for individuals and something like a value added tax for companies. That’s raised a different type of concern as to whether we could control a system like that and prevent the rate from becoming terribly punitive, the way it has in many European countries,” said Sepp.
Sepp describes John Kasich’s plan as a hybrid, offering fewer tax rates and more simplicity. He says both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders would impose “terribly punitive” tax penalties on businesses. But he says everyone needs to get more specific.
“It’s one thing to say you will lower rates. It’s another thing to say how you’re going to make the process of filing taxes easier for businesses. And that’s on the minds of business owners large and small,” said Sepp.
Three Martini Lunch 4/6/16
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Ian Tuttle of National Review discuss the results of the Wisconsin primary and how they slightly increase the odds of a conservative GOP nominee. They also slam Trump backer Roger Stone for promising to give hotel room numbers of RNC delegates to Trump activists so they can go to their rooms and convince them to stay with Trump. And they get a kick out of liberal college students protesting the choice of Madeleine Albright as commencement speaker because she is a white feminist.
Frontrunners Stumble on Abortion
Pro-life activists are openly frustrated with the leading candidates for both the Democratic and Republican nominations, scolding Hillary Clinton for saying the unborn have no rights and slamming Donald Trump for offering a variety of positions in recent days.
Clinton is under fire for her Sunday “Meet the Press” appearance. Moderator Chuck Todd asked if or when the unborn have constitutional rights. Clinton flatly said she believes they have no rights.
“Under our laws currently, that is not something that exists. The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights,” said Clinton.
Susan B. Anthony List National Campaign Chair Jill Stanek says Clinton managed to get herself in trouble with advocates on both sides of the issue.
“The key word there, of course, was person. She called a pre-born baby a person. Since then, she’s been under fire from both sides for saying this. The abortion lobby is furious with her because she used the word person, saying that it further stigmatizes abortion. Pro-lifers are saying, ‘If you acknowledge the baby is a person, then why does not this person have rights?” said Stanek.
Stanek is a former nurse who held an aborted baby until it died because the medical team refused to provide life-saving treatment. She became a pro-life advocate and confronted then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama over his opposition to a bill that would require doctors to treat babies who survive abortions. In 2015, she was among the leaders of a Capitol Hill sit-in, demanding House action on a bill to ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In her “Meet the Press” interview, Clinton stated that she would be open to “reasonable restrictions” to abortion as president. Stanek says that’s nonsense because the rest of her answer proves she will do the bidding of the abortion lobby. Specifically, she cited Clinton’s regard for “health of the mother.”
“Health of the mother is a huge loophole. She’s signaling to the pro-abortion lobby. She’s wink-winking with them. She’s still with them on everything,” said Stanek.
So why is “health of the mother” such a loaded term in Stanek’s estimation?
“When the Doe v. Bolton decision was decided on the same day as Roe v. Wade, they defined health of the mother as all factors, ‘physical, emotional, psychological, familial and women’s age.’ That is basically abortion on demand and she knows it,” said Stanek.
Stanek says the media constantly fail to press Clinton on her pro-choice position.
“The press really needs to ask her to name a circumstance in which she would protect the life of a pre-born child because she hasn’t and she can’t,” said Stanek.
As for Trump, it was a recent interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that put the GOP delegate leader on the defensive. One exchange in particular drew headlines, as Matthews asked Trump what the consequence for abortion should be for women if abortion were made illegal in the U.S.:
Matthews: Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?
Trump: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.
Matthews: For the woman.
Trump. Yeah, there has to be some form.
Earlier in that same discussion of what banning abortion would look like, Trump indicated that a sizable portion of the GOP electorate would favor punishing the woman.
“People in certain parts of the Republican Party and conservative Republicans would say, ‘Yes, they should be punished,'” said Trump.
Stanek says abortion is hurting Trump because his answers do not assure activists he is truly pro-life, which Trump emphatically insists that he is.
“We know he says he is a pro-life convert. If that’s true, he doesn’t know very much about the pro-life issue. So he definitely needs to take counsel from pro-lifers. What he said is that women should be punished, which is not the pro-life position. It has never been the pro-life position,” said Stanek.
The Trump campaign followed up the MSNBC appearance with multiple statements, retracting Trump’s contention that women would hypothetically be punished if abortion were made illegal. But the campaign also seemed content to leave abortion laws as they are.
“I would’ve preferred states’ rights,” he added. “I think it would’ve been better if it were up to the states. But right now, the laws are set….At this moment, the laws are set. And I think we have to leave it that way,” said Trump to John Dickerson of ‘Face the Nation.’
However, Trump also said he considers abortion to be murder.
Following that appearance, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said Trump only meant the laws are set until he becomes president.
“Mr. Trump gave an accurate account of the law as it is today and made clear it must stay that way now –until he is President,” said Hicks in the statement. “Then he will change the law through his judicial appointments and allow the states to protect the unborn. There is nothing new or different here.”
The whole sequence leaves Stanek dazed.
“Forty-three years ago, when abortion was illegal, women were not punished for abortion and they won’t be punished when it’s made illegal again. Then he said it was a state’s decision. That would mean that he was violating his oath to sign the 20-week abortion ban if he became president,” said Stanek.
“Then he said it wasn’t a states’ decision after all. Then most recently, within the last couple days he said abortion is the law of the land and that’s the way it should be,” said Stanek.
Stanek says if Trump sticks to the latter position, Susan B. Anthony List will consider him disqualified for the presidency.
Another Matthews-Trump exchange discussed what options women would have to terminate their pregnancies if abortion were to be made illegal.
“You’ll go back to a position like they had where people will perhaps go to illegal places, but you have to ban it,” said Trump.
Stanek says it’s not a choice between legal abortions and back-alley abortions.
“There’s no excuse to say because we think somebody’s going to break a law that we shouldn’t pass a law. Our focus should be on not allowing women to be exploited, who find themselves in crisis pregnancies and helping them. The answer is not to get a back-alley abortion for a front-alley abortion,” said Stanek.
She says the pro-choice hypocrisy is on full display when it comes to abortion clinics as activists angrily fight against clinics having the same cleanliness standards as surgical facilities or requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at hospitals.
So how should a solidly pro-life candidate answer these key questions according to Stanek?
Should abortion be illegal?
“Yes, abortion should be illegal,” she said.
Stanek’s only exception would be to save the life of the mother but she says those circumstances are extremely rare and that doctors had the freedom to make that decision even before Roe v. Wade.
Do unborn children have rights?
“The unborn have full constitutional rights that all people in the United States have from conception on,” stated Stanek.
And if abortion is made illegal, who should be punished if one occurs?
“The abortionist should be punished and the abortionist should be punished for murder, whatever the laws are for murder in those particular states. Women should not be prosecuted. Women have always been considered victims and exploited by abortion,” said Stanek.
She says not prosecuting women will also help law enforcement to track down those responsible for performing abortions, whereas women would be far less likely to cooperate if they fear prosecution.
Three Martini Lunch 4/5/16
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review enjoy Greg Gutfeld needling his colleagues over their soft “town hall” interviews of Donald Trump. They also blast the notion promoted by GOP operatives and donors that House Speaker Paul Ryan will somehow emerge as the nominee at a contested convention. And they groan as Trump says it’s “very unfair” that he has to win a majority of the delegates to become the Republican nominee because the original field was so big.
Socialism Would ‘Undermine,’ ‘Destroy’ Civil Society
A 1981 New York Times item quotes Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as saying he doesn’t “believe in charities,” an outlook that one expert says is common in socialism and would destroy civil society.
In September 1981, the Times reported on comments then-Burlington Mayor Sanders made at a charity event:
“For the kickoff of the 40th annual Chittenden County United Way fund-raising drive in Burlington, Vt., the sponsors considered themselves fortunate to have as guests Mayor Bernard Sanders of Burlington and Gov. Richard Snelling of Vermont,” reported the Times.
“But the charity workers heard the sort of things they wanted to hear from only one of their guests.
“‘I don’t believe in charities,” said Mayor Sanders, bringing a shocked silence to a packed hotel banquet room. The Mayor, who is a Socialist, went on to question the ”fundamental concepts on which charities are based” and contended that government, rather than charity organizations, should take over responsibility for social programs,'” the article stated.
Joe Loconte fiercely disagrees. Loconte teaches Western Civilization and American Foreign Policy at The King’s College in New York City. He has also held positions with the Heritage Foundation and the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. From 2001-2003, he was also an informal adviser to the George W. Bush administration’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
“It’s no surprise that Bernie Sanders then, and I think even now, really has no real respect or regard for civil society. This is the problem with socialism. It sees such an overwhelming, intrusive role for the state at all levels, there’s no room left for the voluntary society,” said Loconte.
He says the history of America shows civil society as a indispensable part of what makes America great.
“Those associations, those charities, those faith-based organizations that have always been the lifeblood of American democracy have always contributed to this truth as we describe the United States. It’s exceptionalism. Near the heart of American exceptionalism is this vibrant, independent civil society,” said Loconte.
Loconte says Americans have always understood instinctively that neighbor helping neighbor builds better communities than relying on the government to solve problems. He says Europe is learning this hard lesson right now.
“The overweening state cannot meet human needs, cannot address our deepest moral and social problems. It just can’t do it and Bernie Sanders, apparently, has just not learned a thing from American history, from European history and not even the present crisis,” said Loconte.
From the very start of America, private charity and a vibrant civil society set us apart from the world, according to Loconte. He says Alexis de Tocqueville rightly observed this in his famous “Democracy in America.”
“He sees something in America that he doesn’t see in Europe. What he sees is individuals coming together in associations to tackle problems together, common problems. So he sees a moral energy, civic energy, religious energy used to try to produce a more just and humane society,” said Loconte.
He says socialism threatens every bit of that American fabric.
“That’s the genius of a vibrant, independent civil society. It’s something that socialists like Bernie Sanders cannot and will not understand. Not only will they not promote it if they get into real positions of power and responsibility in government. They will hinder it. They will undermine it. Ultimately, they’ll destroy it,” said Loconte.
Loconte says it’s all about socialists devaluing the individual.
“At the end of the day there’s this logical and even theological problem. Bernie Sanders is not just a proclaimed socialist. He’s an atheist, a secularist. It seems to me the history of ideologies rooted in secularism shows at the end of the day there’ll be a distrust and even contempt for the individual,” said Loconte.
“Individual freedom, individual responsibility and human rights. That’s where it’s going. Basic human rights will always be compromised under a socialist regime. That’s the historical record. It’s not even debatable,” said Loconte.
He says civil society and personal charity will plummet the more government gets involved and determines right and wrong.
“The larger government gets in terms of regulations, its intrusiveness, its attempt to have one-size-fits-all imposed on groups and organizations, to force people into its militantly secular way of thinking: That’s simply going to undermine and weaken civil society. We can’t afford that now when we think about our great social problems, where the breakdown of the family is so near the heart of all of them,” said Loconte.