Archives for July 2017

Facebook’s Vanishing Pages

July 19, 2017 by GregC

Over two dozen Catholic Facebook pages abruptly disappeared Tuesday, and then reappeared early Wednesday without explanation. According to Hot Air.com, the sites were mainly based in Brazil, and they all had large followings. Some wonder if the blackout was a form of censorship, but the pages didn’t seem to be politically related. In a statement, Facebook claimed it was a technical glitch that is now resolved. However, many are unsatisfied with this answer, stating that such a glitch would have affected more than just Catholic sites. ~ Sarah Schutte

Baltimore Ceasefire

July 19, 2017 by GregC

As Baltimore’s murder count skyrockets, residents are taking to the streets begging for a murder free weekend. According to Hot Air.com, the city has yet to see a murder-free weekend this year, and its murder rate may soon pass Chicago’s. This is chilling, as Baltimore’s population is significantly smaller than that of Chicago. Baltimore residents, among them a mother with young children, are taking action by walking the streets issuing a “Nobody Kill Anybody” plea to street corner drug dealers. The campaign asks for a cease-fire on the first weekend of August. This was attempted before, but without success. ~ Sarah Schutte

GOP Flip-Floppers, Trump’s 2nd Putin Meeting, Mensch’s Russia Madness

July 19, 2017 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America shake their heads in disgust as a straight Obamacare repeal appears doomed in the Senate, due to opposition from multiple Republican senators who voted for the very same bill two years ago – when they knew it would be vetoed. They also react to reports that President Trump engaged in a dinner conversation with Vladimir Putin without any other members of his staff, including a U.S. translator. And they wonder if an intervention is necessary for liberal writer Louise Mensch, after she tweeted that unnamed people might seek the death penalty for White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon due to his supposed espionage on behalf of the Russians.

‘They Have Promised This for the Last Four Election Cycles’

July 18, 2017 by GregC

Republican hopes of repealing or even drastically reforming Obamacare appear more bleak than ever after enough lawmakers emerged in the past day to scuttle an amended health care bill and sink a promised vote on a repeal bill.

Nonetheless, free market health advocates believe there is a way for this Congress to make headway while the GOP still controls the levers of power in Washington.

Moderates and conservatives are glum Tuesday. Senate Republican leaders were clinging to hopes of squeaking their amended bill through, even after Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced their plans to vote against the motion to proceed to the bill, albeit for completely different reasons.

However, on Monday evening, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, publicly opposed the plan for not doing enough to eliminate taxes, reduce premiums, or kill regulations. With all 48 Democrats firmly opposed, four GOP defections spelled defeat for the legislation.

“I think there are just too many factions within this Republican caucus and with only two votes to spare, there just was not enough room for differences of opinion,” said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner.

She says moderates were not willing to give up the federal Medicaid dollars.

“You’ve got the moderates who are very worried about losing the incredibly generous Medicaid match that their states are getting. Most of them are from states that expanded Medicaid. Remember, the federal government initially paid a hundred percent of the cost of the usually joint federal-state program if the states would put more people on their Medicaid rolls,” said Turner.

She says conservatives had their own reasons to balk at the larger GOP bill.

“Many conservatives are worried, rightly, about the regulations in Obamacare that are so difficult to reach through this narrow pathway that the Senate has to pass legislation with only a simple majority of votes,” said Turner.

“There’s some conservatives, like Rand Paul, who feel that any effort to try to do something else to provide subsidies to people going forward is really perpetuating Obamacare,” said Turner.

In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bring forward a bill to repeal much of Obamacare and trigger a two-year sunset to give lawmakers time to craft a replacement. While hailed by conservatives, those hopes were also soon dashed as Collins and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, revealed they would not vote on a repeal without seeing a replacement bill.

Both Capito and Murkowski voted for the same repeal bill in 2015 despite the absence of a replacement plan. President Obama vetoed the earlier repeal.

Turner says lawmakers act differently when a bill has no chance of becoming law than when it does.

“They knew President Obama was going to veto it, so there’s a difference between messaging and governing,” said Turner.

With Senate leaders unable to bridge the narrow divide between conservatives and moderates and the straight repeal apparently headed to defeat, many on the right believe it’s time to move on to other priorities.

Turner says that is not an option.

“They can’t not do something on repealing Obamacare. They have promised this for the last two election cycles. Every single member is going to have to go to his or her constituents and explain why, after all of this debate over Obamacare, they can’t get it done,” said Turner. “They known they have to do something.”

President Trump now suggests he may just let Obamacare collapse and blame Democrats since they did nothing to solve the problem. Turner says that strategy won’t work.

“They are going to be blamed for the millions of people that would lose coverage if nothing is done because these exchanges are failing, insurance companies are signing up to provide coverage next year because they are losing so much money providing so-called insurance under Obamacare rules that don’t work,” said Turner.

“Republicans own it. How can you have the White House and both houses of Congress and say that you don’t own this problem,” said Turner.

That being said, Turner is also slamming Democrats for asserting that Republican promises to repeal Obamacare are creating uncertainty among insurers and that is why premiums and deductibles are skyrocketing, rather than the Obamacare provisions themselves.

“That is just so completely beyond the realm of reality. The reason that costs are going up under Obamacare is because of the flawed structure of the bill that, for one thing, encourages people to wait until they’re sick to sign up for coverage and that provides all sorts of opportunities for people to drop coverage and game the system,” said Turner.

She still holds out hope that lawmakers will send power back to the states to address health care problems in the most effective way.

“Washington-centralized solutions are not the answer, whether Republicans are developing them or Democrats are developing them,” said Turner.

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President Trump’s Venezuelan Crackdown

July 18, 2017 by GregC

President Trump reacted to at recent political moves by Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro on Monday. According to Hot Air.com, Venezuela is bitterly protesting their president’s plans to scrap the country’s constitution. President Trump stated that if Maduro followed through on his plans, the U.S. would crack down on Venezuela through sanctions. The sanctions would target trade between the U.S. and Venezuela, particularly their oil trade. Many are worried for the country’s lower classes, whose suffering would likely increase if the U.S. does impose sanctions. However, the amount of corruption in the country has become increasingly intolerable to the United States and other nations in the region. ~ Sarah Schutte

Paperwork Puzzler

July 18, 2017 by GregC

Missing paperwork could cost National Collegiate Student Loans Trust more than 5 billion dollars. According to Fox News, this amount is divided among more than one hundred and sixty thousand individual loans. A legal battle is ensuing between National Collegiate and banks who initially gave students the loans. The question focuses on who owns those loans. However, because National Collegiate has lost critical paperwork, a judge could very well throw the case out. ~Sarah Schutte

GOP’s Healthcare Failure, Iran Deal Angst, Sessions Sanctions More Seizures

July 18, 2017 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America endure three bad martinis today as two more GOP Senators bail on the plan to overhaul Obamacare and a new effort to vote on a clean repeal is already in grave danger of failing. They criticize President Trump for keeping Obama’s infamous Iran Nuclear Deal without giving his advisers enough time to develop a new policy. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is another source of disappointment today as he declares his intention to increase the use of civil asset forfeiture, which allows the federal government to seize the property of suspected criminals — without charging them with a crime.

Parents vs. The Left

July 17, 2017 by GregC

The Charlie Gard case in Great Britain is stirring fierce debate over whether parents ought to have the final decision for their children or whether the government or children themselves ought to have that power.

But this debate goes much further than the UK or whether the parents of an 11-month-old boy ought to be able to seek additional treatment for their son. In fact, one of the experts weighing in on behalf of the hospital in the Gard case says the American notion of parental rights is now more the exception than the norm thanks to action at the United Nations.

“Unlike the USA, English law is focused on the protection of children’s rights,” said Jonathan Montgomery, professor of Health Care Law at University College London told the Associated Press. “The USA is the only country in the world that is not party to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child; it does not recognize that children have rights independent of their parents.”

For family advocates in the U.S., that statement is troubling both in terms of its low regard for parents but also because it’s not at all true.

“If he asserts that children have absolutely no rights separate from their parents in the United States, he ought to lose his tenure,” said Center for Family and Human Rights President Austin Ruse, who is also the author of “Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ.”

“Children do have some rights separate from their parents. They have rights in criminal law. They have rights in inheriting money. Even an unborn child has rights sometimes separate from his or her mother,” said Ruse.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child took effect in 1990. The U.S. never signed on but most nations have.

“The Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of these crazy UN documents that most of the world has signed and ratified and most of the world ignores it,” said Ruse.

However, it’s tenets concern Ruse greatly.

“The Convention on the Rights of the Child does separate the child from his or her parents in terms of all rights, which is one of the reasons the United States has never ratified it,” said Ruse.

“It also gives the child complete access to any form of information from any source. It’s a downright crazy document and it’s a good thing the U.S. has never ratified it,” said Ruse

Why doesn’t the U.S. sign it?

“The main reason the United States has never ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the same reason the U.S. has never ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on Persons with Disabilities, so on and so forth, is because they put us before treaty-monitoring bodies,” said Ruse.

Whether it’s asserting the rights of children or the superiority of the collective, progressive activists are outwardly calling for parents to have less influence in the lives of their children. In 2013, then-MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry sparked controversy with an ad for the cable channel that called for Americans to think of children as belonging to all of us instead of their parents.

“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children,” said Harris-Perry in the ad.

“So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments,” concluded Harris-Perry.

Ruse says the end game for these activists is obvious.

“The endgame of the sexual radicals is to destroy the family. There’s no question about that. It is radical individualism run amok. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is simply part of that,” said Ruse.

“The endgame is to supplant the family. It’s to supplant the church. At the French Revolution, the main idea was to overturn the traditional structures that kept people from being free, the family and the church. So this is all of a piece with those musty ideas from the French Revolution,” said Ruse.

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Secret Service Disputes Sekulow Claim, Sanders Cries Sexism, Coulter v. Delta

July 17, 2017 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America start the week off with three crazy martinis, beginning with the Secret Service disputing a Trump lawyer’s claim that it vetted the people who met with Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016. They also scold both Jane Sanders and Kellyanne Conway for asserting – in separate situations – that harsh criticism of them is a result of their gender. And they sigh as Ann Coulter unloads on Delta Airlines in a Twitter rant after having her seat assignment changed.

How Donald Trumped the Experts

July 14, 2017 by GregC

Donald Trump found common ground with tens of millions of Americans in 2016, confounding national Republicans and large swaths of the conservative movement, and talk show host and author Chris Buskirk says the GOP better warmly embrace the Trump agenda if it wants to succeed in the next few election cycles.

Buskirk is also co-author of “American Greatness: How Conservatism Inc. Missed the 2016 Election and What the D.C Establishment Needs to Learn.”

Trump’s political inexperience and his brash personality led political professionals from across the spectrum to write him at countless stages of the campaign, but Buskirk says it wasn’t Trump that was missing what voters wanted.

“This is someone who understands America in a way that, believe it or not, so many voices on the right that we’ve listened to, that I’ve listened to for a long, long time just don’t,” said Buskirk.

So did the American people respond to Trump or did Trump understand what millions of frustrated voters wanted in their next president? Buskirk says it’s both.

“I think he had and has fully-formed opinions about this country, about the right way to govern and about what’s right for America, and the American people responded to him,” said Buskirk.

“Did he respond to them in kind? I think so. If we look back at the late summer of 2015 and Donald Trump started to talk a whole lot more about immigration. Why? Because every time he did it, his lead in the polls over his primary rivals would grow and grow and grow,” said Buskirk.

Millions of Americans believed Trump was speaking their language, but most of the GOP establishment and many figures and institutions within the conservative movement rejected him. The latter is a group that Buskirk calls “Conservative Inc.”

“This is the intellectual infrastructure of the American right, has been for 40 years and they’ve done a lot of good over those years. Reagan I don’t think was possible without Bill Buckley and National Review. All honor to them for that work, but something changed,” said Buskirk.

He says conservative groups and media outlets based in Washington spend about $500 million per year with increasingly little to show for it. He says the conservatives based in D.C. simply didn’t like Trump as a result of his abrasive demeanor and they also feared that their comfortable positions in Washington would be jeopardized.

“We have developed our own class on the right of people who never, ever leave Washington. They’re permanent fixtures in Washington and, over time, that has made them beholden not to people and not to principles but to Washington itself,” said Buskirk.

“[Trump] was signaling up front, ‘I’m going to change things,’ and that means that he threatened a lot of people’s livelihoods, their prerogatives and their power. They wanted one of their own. If you’re one of these institutions, you want somebody who comes and kisses the ring. Donald Trump explicitly didn’t kiss the ring,” said Buskirk.

Buskirk says while reporters and activists focused on Trump’s style and antics, the American people he spoke to over the radio were paying attention to what he wanted to do if elected.

“Even the people for whom Trump was a second, or a third, or a fourth, or a fifth choice call us all the time and they say, ‘We agree with his agenda. We support that agenda. We do not support the agenda even of the establishment Republican Party. We support this idea of an America first foreign policy, a pro-worker trade policy and a pro-citizen immigration and border policy,'” said Buskirk.

As a result, Buskirk says the people passionate about the Trump agenda could not care less about the media’s focus on the Russia investigation. He says more casual conversations at his recent book launch bear that out.

“To a person, nobody cares. Nobody cares. They say, ‘Why are we still talking about this?’ The prevailing opinion is this is a D.C. story. It’s manufactured by D.C. media to talk about process. Meanwhile, people out here in Phoenix, people in Bangor, Maine, people in Wichita, Kansas, are wondering, ‘What is Washington doing for us?'” said Buskirk.

And because it’s the agenda that Buskirk believes put Trump over the top, he says the movement will outlast Trump and the GOP better get on board with the issues that propelled the president to the White House.

“The Republican Party needs to come to terms with his agenda. They need to come to terms with what he represents, with the agenda that he has outlined, because that is what won him the presidency. It wasn’t his personality. In fact it was explicitly the opposite. There were a lot of people who were turned off by his personality but they rallied to the agenda they outlined,” said Buskirk.

He says if the GOP doesn’t grasp what voters want, voters will find people who do.

“It’ll be very, very interesting to see what the Republican Party does. I think it’s going to be a new crop of candidates over the next two, four, six, eight years, who figure out this is actually a very traditional Republican agenda. If we get back to basics, we can win elections the way Republicans have been doing at the state level very successfully for 20 years,” said Buskirk.

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