Radio America Online News Bureau

Archives for August 2018

Why the Left is Lurching Towards Socialism

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A new Gallup poll shows a majority of Democrats are favorable towards socialism and their opinion of capitalism is quickly souring, a trend that one respected expert chalks up to the political rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders and a full century of education steering America’s youth to appreciate a system that has failed everywhere it’s been tried.

In the survey, 57 percent of Democrats and Americans who lean to the political left have a favorable view toward socialism.  That is largely unchanged since 2016 and only five points higher than in 2010.

However, only 47 percent of Democrats have a favorable view towards capitalism.  Fifty-six percent of Democrats endorsed capitalism in 2016.

In contrast, 71 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents approve of capitalism.  Just 16 percent are favorable towards socialism.

Not only are Democrats willing to back socialism in opinion polls, they are making political stars out of figures like Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

So how did socialism become so popular just one generation after the fall of the Iron Curtain?  Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow Lee Edwards says this supposedly sudden shift is really decades in the making.

“This is really the result of about one century of progressive politics in education, going all the way back to Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt through President Franklin D. Roosevelt to [Lyndon B. Johnson], culminating with Mr. Obama and his Obamacare.

“All of those are marks of socialism and progressive belief that the government knows better than the average American what to do with his life,” said Edwards, who is also chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Edwards points out that socialism has failed everywhere it’s been tried, from the Soviet Union to China to Cuba, and resulted in mass repression or even mass murder by the tens of millions.

Still, he says the allure of getting something for nothing is very strong.

“They think it’s a free lunch.  Remember our friend Milton Friedman used to say there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  But those people, young millennials particularly, think they can get not only a free lunch and a free breakfast, a free dinner, free education, and maybe a job guaranteed,” said Edwards.

He says young people trying to navigate adulthood are especially susceptible.

“Democrats, particularly, young Democrats, particularly millennials looking for answers to life are saying, ‘Gee, socialism sounds wonderful.  Let’s try that.’  Then some of these victories have come along like the lady up in New York City and people say that is the future.

“What they don’t realize of course is that socialism has never worked.  It’s failed in every single country where it’s been tried in the last one hundred years,” said Edwards, adding that young progressives people love the benefits of capitalism without even realizing it.

“I have to wonder if these millennials would be willing to give up their iPhones.  I don’t think so, but that is what would happen if you take socialism to its logical outcomes,” said Edwards.

Socialists push back against the argument that socialism is a universal failure, often pointing to Scandinavian countries as success stories.  Edwards says there’s just one problem with that assertion.

“Denmark and Sweden, which are always held up as examples by the socialists in this country are not socialist.  Yes, they have high taxes, but both of them are on the record as saying, ‘We believe in private ownership of major industries and we are not socialist.’  Recently, the prime minister of Denmark said that here in Washington, D.C.,” said Edwards.

Criticizing the fundamentals of the American system is now mainstream among liberals.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., drew strong condemnation Wednesday for dismissing the notion of American greatness.

“We’re not going to make America great again.  It was never that great.  We have not reached greatness,” said Cuomo, arguing that greatness cannot be achieved until more equality is achieved on behalf of women.

Edwards was floored.

“That is all too predictable, because a socialist is not a patriot.  He is not for the country in which he lives.  He’s an internationalist, so he is not for private property.  He is for the government dictating or circumscribing what people are going to be allowed to do with their own property.

“Mr. Cuomo ought to be ashamed of himself.  It was his father who fought for this country and was a patriot and was proud of it.  His forebears came from Italy and they made their way here.  Why?  Because they thought America was great,” said Edwards.

The challenge for Edwards and his allies is to combat the messages of socialism throughout our culture.  He says education got us into this mess and it is the only way to turn the tide back towards freedom.  He says it’s not hard to punch holes in the case for socialism.

“It does sound good until you begin to pick it apart and until you begin asking questions like who’s going to pay for it and what are you going to have to give up to get all of this wonderful free stuff.

“It seems to us at Heritage that it’s a matter of education and of setting the record straight about the absolute, abject failure of socialism for a century and more,” said Edwards.

Edwards says conservatives also need to do a better job of proclaiming the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise, but he believes there are already some signs of improvement.

“I see some encouraging signs of teaching high school teachers what socialism is all about, taking that message back and then educating our young people.

“We have to do it.  We can’t let this thing slip and slide until we find ourselves in the murky socialist depths,” said Edwards.

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Nelson’s ‘Four Pinocchios,’ GOP Senators AWOL, Losing House Good for Trump?

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the Washington Post for assigning “Four Pinocchios” to Florida Sen. Bill Nelson’s claim that the Russians had already infiltrated his state’s election systems, even though every relevant office in federal and state government had no idea what he was talking about.  They also hammer Republican senators for wasting their time in session this month because seven GOP members failed to show up this week, handing Democrats a functional majority while critical votes are supposed to be happening.  And they scratch their heads over a new rationale among some Republicans that Democrats winning control of the House in the midterm elections would actually be a very good thing for President Trump’s re-election prospects in 2020.

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Cuomo & American Greatness, Warren’s Terrifying Economic Plan, Swalwell 2020?

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo slamming President Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan by saying “it was never that great.”  So what do most on the left really believe?  They also shudder at Elizabeth Warren’s plan to make any company earning more than a billion dollars in revenue each year to get permission to operate from the federal government and allow the government to dictate compensation, personnel policies, and who can be on the board of directors.  And while David remembers his own consideration of a 2016 presidential run, they marvel that people like California Rep. Eric Swalwell are seriously considering a 2020 bid.

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Coalition Urges McConnell to Confirm Trump Judicial Nominees

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While conservatives and liberals prepare for the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a coalition of conservative legal voices are pleading with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to brush aside stalling tactics from Democrats and confirm a major backlog of judicial nominees before Kavanaugh’s hearings next month.

Led by Rob Henneke of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the coalition sent a letter urging McConnell to change the rules if necessary to allow up or down votes in 152 district and appellate court nominees.

“The quality of the pending nominees and confirmed judges is outstanding. The confirmation of constitutionalist judges to these lifetime appointments will impact our nation for decades to come and will be the lasting legacy of this period in history,” states the letter.

Henneke says the Senate needs to buckle down and get these nominees across the finish line.

“There is a backlog.  It is growing every day, and it’s presenting a problem as far as the judiciary being able to get it’s job done,” said Henneke.

The nominees have all had confirmation hearings and committee votes, but Democrats are using Senate rules to grind the confirmation process to a halt.  Henneke says McConnell must be willing to make rule changes, starting with the 30-hour rule to debate each nominee.

“The Democrats are claiming that 30 hours for every nominee.  They’re not actually talking about the nominee.  There’s nobody on the Senate floor.  They’re just forcing that clock to run for each and every single nominee to slow down the process,” said Henneke, who has two ideas to trump the Democrats’ strategy.

“One is to shorten the period of time from 30 hours to a much more reasonable period of time and then to actually require and then to actually require there to be debate or discussion about a particular nominee or that time period would be waived or would expire,” said Henneke.

McConnell cancelled some of the August recess.  Lawmakers returned to Washington Wednesday and plan to tackle two nominations this week.  Henneke says they need to do better.  He wants to see Republicans willing to put in the long hours to “clear the deck” of these stalled nominations.

“The Senate needs to put more hours into this process.  We would encourage the Senate to be working 24/7 to clear the deck and to confirm all of the pending nominees.  That may require later hours and more days for the Senate to be in session,” said Henneke, who says McConnell needs to stop considering rule changes and just implement them.

“The threats need to turn into action and we need our Senate leadership and Leader McConnell to impose what he can do to get the job done,” said Henneke.

He says getting all 152 confirmed would have a major impact on the federal judiciary.

“I think it would be transformative in putting constitutional, rule of law jurists on the bench who will decide cases, not based on partisanship or policy but on what the law says and what the United States Constitution says, which is what the role of the judiciary is and should be,” said Henneke.

He says allowing the backlog to persist would shift from frustrating to disastrous if Democrats win the majority in the midterm elections.

“They don’t get confirmed, and we lose this opportunity for now and for generations to come to have reform of the federal judiciary that’s going to uphold the Constitution and defend the rule of law and that would be catastrophic for the future of our country,” said Henneke.

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West Virginia Removes Entire Supreme Court

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All five members of West Virginia’s supreme court are off the bench following a corruption scandal resulting in three impeachments, two resignations, and one plea bargain to a felony charge.

Chief Justice Margaret Workman and justices Allan Loughry and Beth Walker still face trial in the West Virgina Senate.  Justice Menis Ketchum reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors before the impeachment votes began.  Justice Robin Davis resigned following the votes in the House of Delegates.

At issue is illegal payment to senior status judges, including the falsifying of 1099 IRS forms.  The judges also spent lavishly to redecorate their offices, which was what initially caught the attention of local WCHS-TV reporter Kennie Bass, who discovered the renovation expenses in Freedom of Information forms.

But the 1099 forms immediately gave the issue import to lawmakers.  Judges falsified the forms to provide additional payment to senior status judges.  Those are retired judges to come in to fill vacancies.  State law only allows senior status judges to earn $126,000 per year, but three of the justices fudged the tax forms to get extra money to those judges.

“Not every justice was charged in this article (of impeachment).  Loughry, Workman, and Davis were charged this way.  That’s because they signed the IRS form to circumvent the law.  It was a scheme to circumvent the state law.  Once the judges hit that threshold of $126,000, they would convert them to 1099 employees and continue to pay them,” said West Virginia Republican Del. Michael Folk, a leading voice in the impeachment effort.

“It’s a criminal statute that if you sign a document as a public official, as an officer, in this case the chief justice of the supreme court with the intent to enable or assist to obtain money to which he was not entitled, you’re guilty of a felony,” said Folk.

Folk says the actions are in clear violation of the West Virginia constitution as well.

“In West Virginia, it could be maladministration under our constitution, high crimes and misdemeanors, neglect of duty, and a few others,” he said.

He says it is especially galling conduct since there were plenty of other senior status judges who had not reached their payment limit.

Folk says the reaction of justices to the initial reports of lavish spending were also very troubling.

“In the case of Loughry, he basically blamed other people and said he didn’t know anything about how much his floor cost and pretty much didn’t have anything to do with the design work.  Once it was dug into, they had found where he had done detailed drawings of the floor exactly how he wanted it done,” said Folk.

“David reacted nonchalantly saying, ‘Yeah, it’s mine but I’m allowed to spend it,'” he added.

It will take two-thirds majorities in the West Virginia Senate to convict Workman, Loughry, or Walker, which may be an uphill climb given the large but not always lopsided impeachment votes in the House.

Since Ketchum and Davis resigned, their seats will be up for election in November.  If any of the impeached justices are convicted, Republican Gov. Jim Justice would appoint replacement, who would then face the voters in 2020.

Folk is not done rooting out corruption and waste of taxpayer dollars.  He is appalled that West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee travels by plane from the campus in Morgantown to the state capitol in Charleston when they’re only 140 miles apart.

He’s even more upset about how it’s being paid for.

“He’s using student tuition money to fly from Morgantown to Charleston and back and he does that a lot.  He wastes about a million dollars a year,” said Folk.

As for the current scandal, Folk says legislators really had no choice.

“We should expect a lot more from our higher court than what we’ve been receiving in recent years,” he said.

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Phillips vs. Colorado Again, Horrific Priest Abuse & Cover-up, Economics of Abortion

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America take on three heavy topics, starting with Colorado baker Jack Phillips now having a powerful case of discrimination against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission after the commission ruled Phillips had violated the rights of a transgender lawyer for not customizing a cake for their gender transition or one depicting Satan engaged in a sex act.  They also hammer the Catholic church in Pennsylvania over the new grand jury report that reveals more than 3oo priests horrifically abusing more than a thousand children over the decades and the despicable lengths officials in the church went to in order to silence accusers and keep the priests in active ministry.  And they shred Chelsea Clinton’s absurd contention that abortion has been great for the economy because it allows more women to stay in the workforce.

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D’Souza Talks Antifa, Trump & Midterms

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Author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza says the violent “anti-fascist” protesters are the real fascists, that white nationalism is rooted on the left, and that Republican operatives urging conservatives to vote for Democrats this year as a check on President Trump “need to have their heads examined.”

D’Souza’s latest project is “Death of A Nation: Plantation Politics and the Making of the Democratic Party.”  It seeks to draw parallels from the outrage following the election of President Trump to the volcanic opposition to the 1860 victory of Abraham Lincoln.

This past weekend, Antifa protesters took to the streets of Charlottesville and Washington and spent most of their time hurling epithets at police and the media.  D’Souza says Antifa might claim to be opposing fascism but they clearly embody what they say they hate.

“They’re posing as anti-fascists.  Of course they dress like fascists.  They act like fascists.  They have the same intolerance as fascism.  And let’s notice that their target isn’t fascists.  When you’re targeting cops and Republicans and patriots and Christians, you’re actually not targeting fascists but anti-fascists.

“So we have an amazing situation in which the fascists – Antifa – are pretending to be anti-fascists and targeting anti-fascists, whom they claim are fascists,” said D’Souza

So why does the far left have a compulsion towards violence?

“Their view is that since Trump is like Hitler circa 1933, they are fully justified in using, as they say, any means necessary to eject him, including illegal means, including violence,” said D’Souza, who also asserts that fascism is a far left ideology that academic liberals twisted to blur the coziness between the American Democrats and fascist leaders before World War II.

“Fascism is properly defined as the ideology of the centralized state, when you have the state organizing and running the private economy, when you have the states running the lives of citizens.  That’s fascism.  That’s how Mussolini understood it.  That’s how Hitler understood it,” said D’Souza.

Antifa took to the streets to counter a planned rally by white nationalists who never showed up.  The tension between the two sides is often characterized by the media as right versus left.  D’Souza says that’s wrong because both are on the left.  He says this is made clear as he interviews white nationalist figures Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer in “Death of A Nation.”

“These guys actually have backgrounds in the left.  They’re not right wingers and yet the media doesn’t report this.  Why?  Because they’re trying to pin the fascist and racist tail on the Republican elephant,” said D’Souza.

D’Souza says white nationalism is a “spent force” that usually cannot muster more than a few dozen people to events that are then dwarfed by counterprotesters.  But if white nationalists are of the the left, why did so many openly endorse President Trump in 2016?

D’Souza says it was their ticket to short-term relevance.

“They call (the rally) ‘Unite the Right’ because they want to feed the left wing narrative that they are somehow representative of Trump and this somehow gives them an inflated notoriety.  In exchange, what they’re giving the left is that they’re confirming and corroborating the left’s narrative,” said D’Souza.

Liberal protesters take to the streets en masse in opposition to most Republican presidents but D’Souza says it’s worse this time because Trump fights back.

“Trump realizes that he’s in a big fight.  The Left does not hold back.  The traditional Republican strategy of going under your desk or running for the exit doesn’t really work in this situation,” said D’Souza.

He says the next big fight is in the the midterm elections.  D’Souza says Democrats already have several racial and ethnic groups dependent upon government to supply what they need to exist and handing them the majority means they will only look to expand what he calls “plantation politics.”

“They’d love to have everybody in this position of ethnically-enforced dependence.  It’s actually a horrible system and it would make this a horrible country, which is why we have to work really hard to prevent that nightmare from becoming a reality,” said D’Souza.

Several anti-Trump Republican operatives like Michael Gerson and Steve Schmidt are urging conservatives to vote for Democrats under the logic that the GOP has been corrupted by Trump and must be destroyed so it can be rebuilt again.

D’Souza rejects that entirely.

“These people literally need to have their heads examined,” he said.  “They’re talking absolute nonsense and should be completely ignored.”

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Corruption Crackdown, 9th Circus on Guns, Vote Dem to Fix GOP?

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the West Virginia legislature for impeaching four of the state’s five state supreme court justices for gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.  They also roll their eyes as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a California law requiring any guns subsequently purchased in the state must include features that don’t actually exist.  And they unload on “conservatives” from Michael Gerson to Steve Schmidt, who contend that conservatives need to vote for Democrats because supposedly the only way to save the Republican Party is to burn it to the ground.

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Omarosa Taping ‘A Serious Breach’

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Former Trump administration staffer and former reality television star Omarosa Manigault Newman is releasing clips of secret recordings she allegedly made in the most sensitive areas of the White House, and a former White House information official says that could mean big trouble.

Manigault Newman is publicizing the conversations she had with President Trump and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly from around the time she was fired from the administration.  She says the discussion with Kelly took place in the White House Situation Room, which is designated as a “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility,” or SCIF, pronounced “skiff.”

“If this turns out to be true that a recording device was in the White House Situation Room, of all places, that would be an incredibly serious breach of not only trust but a breach of a classified facility on a level that is very, very serious,” said Theresa Payton, who served as White House Chief Information Officer in the George W. Bush administration.  She is now CEO at Fortalice Solutions, a cybersecurity consulting firm.

Payton says there are severe consequences for flouting protocol in these facilities.

“This is considered a grave security breach so there’s a lot of different actions that could choose to take.  Some of those actions that they could entertain are revoking a security clearance, recommending an individual to not clear again.

“They could take legal action.  That’s typically rare unless secrets were sold to the adversary or a real grave breach happened,” said Payton.

She says it is understood by anyone with security clearance that electronic devices have no place in a SCIF.

“Classified conversations, classified phone calls, classified documents are handled within that facility.  Often times, that facility has no windows.  There’s a series of doors that you have to punch in codes and slide cards into.  There’s a whole sense of protocol.  You can’t accidentally trip into a conference room that’s a SCIF,” said Payton.

Outside the SCIF are usually a series of lockers or storage boxes for people entering the SCIF to leave all electronic devices.

“You never know if those devices are compromised and could be turned into listening and recording devices that could be used by the adversary and/or if they would potentially be connecting to other devices that could be in the room that have been cleared to be in the room for phone calls or video conferences,” said Payton.

The list of banned items includes smartphones, laptops, and tablets but also items like fitness trackers.

There are signs posted prominently outside the SCIF for people to unload their devices but for staff there is frisking or wanding involved.  They are given multiple classes on the proper handling of classified informationand are expected to honor their promises to follow protocols.

“You’re somewhat on the honor system because you are a trained individual and you signed a document saying, “I understand the training.  I understand the law and I will follow it.’  Nobody’s frisking you because they expect you to because they expect you to implement the training you were given and to honor the agreement that you signed,” said Payton.

Payton adds that guests to the White House and other sensitive facilities are put through a number of detectors and instructed to hand over their electronic devices before entering a SCIF but she says there are rarely pat downs for those people either.

She says the fight against cybercrime is far more complicated than when she served in the White House and says it is a constant challenge to stay ahead of people who wish to do far more harm than Omarosa.

“As we improve the defenses at the White House, the adversary realized, ‘This is getting hard.’  And they don’t suddenly say, ‘This is so hard, I should just go be a good person and bake pies for my neighbor.’  They up their game.

“It’s almost like an arms race if you will on the cybersecurity side to stay one step ahead of the adversary,” said Payton.

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White Nationalists Wither, Antifa Violence Largely Ignored, Omarosa vs. Trump

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are encouraged to see a pathetic turnout at the white nationalist rally in Washington D.C. on Sunday, and they hope the media will stop giving airtime to this fringe group.  They also call on the media to cover the violence of the leftist protest group Antifa the same way they cover the alt-right.  And they believe President Donald Trump hired Omarosa Manigault for the wrong reason– because she said “GREAT” things about him– which led to the fallout where she now calls him a racist.

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