Radio America Online News Bureau

Weiner’s Sentence, GOP’s Latest Health Care Flop, Damage Control for Steelers

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America believe the judge made the right decision in sentencing former congressman/predator Anthony Weiner to 21 months in prison for transferring obscene material to a minor.  They also discuss the latest GOP health care bill going up in flames as some Republicans think it’s not conservative enough and others think it’s too conservative, making the likelihood of anything getting done on this issue in this Congress very slim.  And they’re disturbed as Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle – and former Army ranger – Alejandro Villanueva apologizes to his teammates, coaches and the Steelers organization for being the only one on the field Sunday for the national anthem.

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Trump’s Firing Offense, Ugly Anti-Trump Backlash, McCain Breaks Promise Again

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America agree with President Trump’s disapproval for national anthem protests but also believe it is wrong for the president to suggest anyone be fired for their constitutionally-protected beliefs.  They also unload on those who took a knee during the anthem, which turned into a referendum on Trump – a fight Trump is sure to win.  Thy hammer three NFL teams for refusing to take the field for the anthem, blast the Pittsburgh Steelers for condemning their own player who is an Afghanistan war vet for defying the decision and honoring the anthem, and shake their head as Bob Costas frets that the anthem is only used to honor military instead of teachers and social workers.  Finally, they slam John McCain for once again breaking his promise on health care reform and planning to vote against the latest Senate bill.  They also question Rand Paul’s decision to oppose it.

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Age of Consent Laws Under Attack?

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Twenty years after politicians and researchers howled in protest at research suggesting no lasting harm for minors who engage in same-sex sexual relationships with much older adults, similar research is being met with the silence of the scientific community and may be used to challenge age of consent laws.

University of Texas Sociology Professor Dr. Mark Regnerus is at the forefront of the debate on sexual research and has come under withering criticism for his work concluding that children in homes where a parent is in a same-sex relationship fare worse than kids in homes with their biological moms and dads.

Regnerus is sounding the alarm on research quietly published in the “Archives of Sexual Behavior”.   Researcher Bruce Rind has led studies reaching similar conclusions in the past, and was also behind the 1998 study that drew widespread condemnation from Congress and the American Psychological Association..

In the new studies, Rind declared there was no noticeable difference in long-term regret, shame or other negative reactions when compared to the teenagers’ long-term response after having sex for the first time with boys or girls of the same age.

In the Rind studies, the minor girls studied were age 15 on average, while their same-sex partners were 26 years old on average.  For males, the boys were an average of 15 years old and their partners were 28-years-old on average.

Regnerus says the efforts to remove the stigma from such sex are making a comeback after being scored almost two decades.

“And now here they are, back again in respectable academic journals,” said Regnerus.  “Here they are teeing up the kind of evidence to overturn age of consent laws.”

“I’m not sure there’s another way to read that.  That’s what I saw when I read them.  They all come from the same person,” he added.

But the reaction from the scientific community is deeply troubling to Regnerus, mainly because there isn’t one.

“It’s not as if (the studies) are being praised or lauded.  It’s that they have been released and published, largely to quiet.  To be quiet here is to be complicit.  And so I thought we have to call this out,” said Regnerus, who can only shake his head when comparing the reaction to his own research.

“It’s disturbing that this guy publishes stuff on minor-adult sex to quietness and anything I say is shouted down from the rooftops, which is distressing to say the least,” said Regnerus.

He says the lack of outrage suggests this could be the first step towards trying to normalize such behavior.

“Downstream from documenting something becomes acceptability, which becomes something that’s legal.  I don’t know that we’ll ever legalize this sort of thing.  I pray not.  But there is a bridge being built in that direction,” said Regnerus, and he says that bridge is being paid for in part with our tax dollars.

“There’s not just foundation money underwriting this.  Even the federal government, via the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, is tacitly complicit in this type of research,” said Regnerus.

Regnerus says this disturbing foothold is another direct consequence of the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

“The quest for marriage, I say in my new book entitled ‘Cheap Sex,’ was actually a sort of cultural land grab.  Here we’re seeing a little more evidence that what’s at stake here is human decency and the dignity of children and persons in general,” said Regnerus.

Regnerus also condemns the research methods, from tiny numbers of sample cases to questionably gathered data.  He says LGBT activists often use small samples to conclude there is no harm to children in same-sex parenting situations as well.

Also disturbing to Regnerus is that Rind admits many of the boys and girls went along with the same-sex experience and did not resist even though they did not want it.  He says Rind seems to brush off a very serious aspect of this type of encounter.

One of the ploys going on here is the, ‘Oh, regardless of the situation in which the first sex occurred, the outcomes long term are OK and going along with it is some form of consent,'” said Regnerus.

“That’s a ridiculous notion to suspect that somehow we’re talking about power that’s equal between a 13-year-old and say a 27 or 28-year-old.  It’s a ludicrous notion,” said Regnerus.

Regnerus further asserts that because such events can convince young people that they must be of a certain sexual persuasion, that they don’t look back on such experiences negatively and may even look back on them as enjoyable, a metric he says Rind also equates with consent.  He says it is very difficult to quantify the true impact of such an event years or even decades later.

He says the ongoing goal of the cultural and scientific left remains clear.

“What we’re looking at is sort of a comprehensive union when we’re talking about the sexual union.  It’s just frightening to me that people want to pick apart at that until there’s almost nothing left,” said Regnerus.

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Samantha’s Power Play, Kim’s Latest Craziness, Plame’s Anti-Semitism

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see former UN Ambassador Samantha Power exposed for egregious “unmasking” of Americans detected on foreign surveillance, including a huge number just prior to President Trump’s inauguration.  They also cast a skeptical eye upon North Korea’s threat to detonate a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean, but note the troubling impact it would have on the area and the prospects for war.  And they express disgust as former CIA operative and liberal media darling Valerie Plame tweets out a story blaming “America’s Jews” for America’s Wars and suggesting American Jews recuse themselves from Middle East policy and be identified as Jews when speaking on television.  They also roll their eyes at her pathetic explanation and wonder how her attitude played into her controversy at the outset of the Iraq War.

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Bolton Cheers Trump’s UN Performance

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Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is cheering President Trump for a strong address to the United Nations this week and for perhaps already reaping critical results in his effort to isolate North Korea.

On Thursday, Trump announced a new round of U.S. sanctions aimed at North Korea and also reported that China is vowing to deal a major financial blow to the communist regime in Pyongyang.

“Today I’m announcing a new executive order I just signed that significantly expands our authorities to target individuals, companies, financial institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea,” said Trump.

Bolton says this could be a very significant move.

“It’s potentially significant because if we were to sanction companies or banks doing business with North Korea, that could have a knock-on effect to other countries doing the same and could effect their ability to do transactions in the United States,” said Bolton.

He says it leaves those banks and corporations with a stark choice.

“Do you want to do business with us or do you want to do business with North Korea?  Your choice entirely, but it’s going to be one or the other,” said Bolton.

Bolton likes the aggressive nature of the sanctions.

“Why didn’t we do this about eight or ten years ago?  Why is it that we’ve waited this long?  I think we have the answer.  I think President Trump is determined to do something about North Korea and Iran and their nuclear programs,” said Bolton.

Bolton served as ambassador to the United Nations for President George W. Bush.  So why didn’t these sanctions come then?

“There was a lot of discussion in the Bush administration about sanctions but (there was) a lot of opposition to really squeezing North Korea.  Ultimately, I don’t think we did really anywhere near what we could have,” said Bolton.

He says there was virtually no chance for stiff penalties in the Obama years.

“There was no appetite for sanctions against North Korea.  They were exercising what they called ‘strategic patience’ in the Obama administration.  That’s a synonym for doing nothing and the North Koreans took advantage of it,” said Bolton.

Just as importantly, Bolton says the new sanctions turn the screws on China as well.

“The vast bulk of the institutions doing business with North Korea – financial, commodities, machinery, you name it – are Chinese.  China, for 25 years, frankly, has two-timed us on their concern about the North Korean nuclear program.  So this gives the president some bite,” said Bolton.

That may have already paid off Thursday, as, Trump announced news that seemed to surprise even him, as China appears ready to play hardball with Kim Jong-Un as well.

“China, their central bank has told other banks – and it’s a massive banking system –  to immediately stop doing business with North Korea,” said Trump.

Bolton says if China is serious about taking this step it could have a huge impact on North Korea.   However, he says it is very tough to determine if China is making good on such a policy.

“I think that’s difficult from the outside.  God knows how many banks there are and how many new banks can be created that might be able to facilitate North Korean trade, for example with Iran,” said Bolton.

Trump made major headlines with his blunt talk about North Korea in his speech on Tuesday.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.  Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.  The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary,” said Trump.

Bolton says Trump struck exactly the right tone.

“I thought it was entirely appropriate.  Some of these people who talk about what’s becoming or unbecoming to say at the UN.  Honestly, the United Nations is not a church.  You’re not supposed to be reverential towards threats to international peace and security and innocent American civilians,” said Bolton, who thought the Trump approach was refreshing after the past eight years.

“After eight years of global governance kind of rhetoric from Obama and the weakness that he projected, maybe some people are shocked when they hear what a real American president has to say.  All in all, I think it’s the right thing for the president to do.  In America, plain speaking is a virtue and it’s important that these other countries hear it,” said Bolton.

Bolton also lauded Trump for labeling the Iran nuclear deal an “embarrassment” and “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”  He says that puts the onus on Trump to get out of the deal soon.

“If you don’t certify but stay in the deal that you’ve described already as embarrassing, I think that’s unpresidential.  It’s sort of a one shoe on, one shoe off foreign policy.  He needs to lead with moral and political clarity.  I think the way you do that is to say this deal is a disaster for the United States and its friends and allies and we’re getting out of it,” said Bolton.

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Rudderless Dems, Kimmel vs. Health Bill, NFL Activism Month?

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are pleasantly reminded the Democrats are also deeply dysfunctional as former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. says he doesn’t know what his party’s economic agenda is.  They also sigh as late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel suddenly becomes the media’s benchmark for whether the latest GOP health care bill is a good idea.  And they groan as four NFL players want to institute a month dedicated to social activism, similar to how the league devotes a month to breast cancer awareness.

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‘Crushing the Collective’

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From the podium of the United Nations to domestic U.S. politics, socialist ideas are frequently discussed and in many cases seem to be advancing in our society, and a new book concludes that the far left has been on the march for a full century in this country and is now on the verge of victory.

President Trump took heat for denouncing the socialist regime in Venezuela during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday and for pointing out socialism and communism result in poverty and misery whenever it is tried.

On the domestic side, in just the past few weeks, over a dozen Senate Democrats have lined up in favor of single payer health care, meaning the government would be in complete control of one-sixth of the economy.

Charles Sasser is a veteran of U.S. Army Special Forces.  He’s a history teacher and a prolific author.  His latest work is “Crushing the Collective: The Last Chance to Keep America Free and Self-Governing.”

He says history is replete with examples of people being convinced to give up their rights for the supposed good of the larger community.  He says collectivism still pushes the same message today.

“Collectivism means the collective is of more value than the individual.  That’s been used by every tyrant ever.  It’s always for the cause, for the people.  You give up this freedom for this and this,” said Sasser.

“Throughout history, the individual has always devolved into the collective.  That’s been the historical movement, from individualism to collectivism, and collectivism always ends in tyranny,” he added.

To prove the rise of collectivism in our own society, Sasser says we only need to examine the widespread popularity of avowed socialist Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race.

“He could have won it because so many of our young people have been indoctrinated into this idea that you can have free college.  You can have everything free now.  So like pigs squealing at the trough, we’re all running for that trough to get whatever is thrown into the trough for us.  As a result, we give up our independence,” said Sasser.

He says we’re already well down that road as a nation.

“We’re already socialist.  Right now we have 47 percent of the people living off the government.  When you’ve got that many people dependent, guess what?  They continue to want more and more.  You can hear them at the trough, demanding more and more,” said Sasser.

Sasser says it’s not just Sanders.  He says Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are also clear that they embrace collectivism.

“Obama revealed one of his slogans at the 2012 Democratic convention.  He said we belong to the government.  That sounds fascist to me.  It’s definitely collectivism.  Hillary (said) deep-seated cultural codes and religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.  In other words, we have to condition the people to change it,” said Sasser.

He says the course America chooses to chart in the coming years is critical since most of the modern world, including western Europe, are already lost down the road to collectivism.

“Europe’s gone.  It’s declined already.  It’s on its way to collapse,” said Sasser.  “And now the U.S. is collapsing. As a result of this, we’re no longer seen in the world as a stabilizing force,” said Sasser.

“So what happens?  We’re not longer a stabilizing force.  The world is going bonkers.  Who’s going to stabilize it?  Nobody.  We’re in for some interesting times,” said Sasser.

Sasser refers to the Tytler cycle, a concept created by Scottish historian Alexander Tytler in the 1780’s.  The cycle suggests people in bondage turn to faith, which in turn leads to courage and then liberty.  According to Tytler, liberty creates abundance, which then brings on complacency, apathy and dependence before resulting in bondage again.

He says we’re frighteningly far along in that progression.

“Every society throughout history has gone through that same cycle and end up in bondage.  The average endurance of any empire has been about 200 years.  We have exceeded that so far, but in Tytler’s liberty-tyranny cycle, we’re back to the stage of dependency,” said Sasser.

While there may be an historical process to observe, Sasser points out this erosion of the American experiment doesn’t just happen.  He says a very organized and determined effort from the far left has been applying pressure for a full century, with the Frankfurt School in 1917.

He says a key tenet of the Frankfurt School was a “long march” to take over or destroy institutions, from education to the church to the family.

“You take over or destroy whatever stands in the way of socialism.  Never mind that socialism has never worked, never throughout history has it worked and it’s always ended up in tyranny.  It’s just that we call it by different names, but it always ends the same way,” said Sasser.

The Frankfurt School emigrated to London and eventually to the U.S.  Sasser says a key figure in the movement, a German professor named Herbert Marcuse who later taught at the University of California-Berkeley, pioneered the type of selective tolerance we see rampant on campuses today.

“He said to tolerate whatever ideas and movements the left does, but have intolerance for the right.  As a result of that, [they] just destroy everything and take it over in the march through the institutions,” said Sasser.

Sasser says many colleges now cater to keeping the students ignorant, ushering them away from learning history and economics and instead focusing them on gender and race studies.

However, he says opponents of the march to collectivism are fighting with their hands tied behind their back due to the intimidation of political correctness.

“Did you know America now ranks 46th in the world when it comes to first amendment rights of freedom of press and freedom of speech?  Forty-sixth in the world, somewhere near Albania.  Primarily it’s because of political correctness and self-censorship.  We won’t speak out,” said Sasser.

He says the recent debate over the transgender movement is a prime example.

“Men are calling themselves women.  Women call themselves men.  We have 50 different genders now, and we’re not supposed to say something is absurd here?”

“We don’t.  We keep silent.  We accept it.  Once you tolerate something in the first generation, you accept it in the second generation, and then in the third generation you extol it and light up the White House in rainbow colors,” said Sasser.

He says winning the fight against collectivism is very difficult and may well end up being a losing cause, but he says those who want to preserve the best of America must stand up and have their voices heard as the push form the left gets more fierce.

“We have to have courage.  We have to have the courage to say something is wrong.  This is insanity.  It is total insanity and if we follow that over the cliff then we all go over the cliff,” said Sasser.

“That’s what I try to do in this book, to lay it out in a cohesive order so people could understand where we came from, how we got here, what is occurring around us at this moment, and what it’s leading to, and what we can do is mainly speak out,” said Sasser.

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Right to Work Wins Again, Students Clueless on Free Speech, ‘Top Gun’ Ad Flops

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer a court decision that upholds Wisconsin’s right to work law and rejects the argument of organized labor that it has a right to part of workers’ paychecks.  They also shudder as a new study shows students of all political stripes evenly divided on whether “hate speech” should be protected speech, whether it’s OK to shout down speakers they don’t like, or even whether uncomfortable views should be allowed on campus.  And they have fun with a political ad that is a horrible parody of a famous scene from “Top Gun.”

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Why Was Manafort Wiretapped?

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After months of current and former federal officials insisting there was no merit to allegations the government conducted surveillance on Donald Trump or his campaign during the 2016 cycle, there are now reports that former campaign manager Paul Manafort was being wiretapped.

After Trump tweeted his frustration at the Obama administration for greenlighting the alleged wiretapping, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper rejected and validity to such an assertion.

“For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect as a candidate or against his campaign,” said Clapper on NBC’s “Meet the Press” back in March.

But CNN’s revelation that the government did procure a FISA warrant against Manafort and conduct surveillance in on him in 2016 and 2017 brings such denials under the spotlight once again.  Most importantly, did they lie?

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says the way Clapper and others carefully worded their denials earlier this year probably leaves them some wiggle room.

“I always thought that the denials, as indignant as they were by people connected to the Obama administration and even from the Justice Department after Trump took it over were always carefully couched and very narrow,” said McCarthy.

“What I took the denials to mean was that they were saying they never targeted Trump himself for surveillance and even more specifically that Obama did not do it,” said McCarthy.

“I always thought that was quite narrow because as we know, the president does not go to the FISA court and get the authorization to do these surveillances, much less do the physical work to set up the surveillance himself,” said McCarthy.

“I always thought that the loudness and indignation of the denials was much broader than what the denials actually said read carefully,” he added.

According to CNN’s reporting, Manafort was under surveillance from 2014 to early 2016 and again from late 2016 to sometime earlier this year, including time when Trump was president.  At issue, according to sources, was Manafort’s cozy relationship with the ousted pro-Putin regime of Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine, and ultimately whether he was tapping those connections to aid Trump’s campaign in any way.

Still, the government’s pursuit of a FISA warrant is much different than a standard criminal search warrant.

“You have to show there’s probable cause that the subject is an agent of a foreign power.  That’s importantly different from a criminal warrant.  In a criminal case, you have to show that there’s probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed and that evidence of a crime is likely to be recovered in the place that you want to search,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy says the political circumstances surrounding the case should not impact the enforcement of the law but he says there is usually great sensitivity exercised when political events could be impacted.  As a result this decision, should have been deliberated at the highest levels of government.

“That gets scrutinized, not only much more carefully at the FISA court, (but) it also should be scrutinized very heavily in the Justice Department, the FBI, and the upper ranks of the administration before you would even go to the FISA court to seek the surveillance,” said McCarthy.

The New York Times is reporting that special counsel Robert Mueller is using “shock and awe” tactics, meaning he is threatening witnesses with considerable punishment for not cooperating fully with the Mueller team.

McCarthy says we already saw that when the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s Virginia home in July.  He points out that any raid conducted before 6 a.m. and allowing agents to pick the locks at a home require special permission from the court.

But perhaps the most curious part of the FBI’s physical raid on Manafort’s home was the timing of it.

“The search warrant that Mueller did came on the day after Manafort met with Senate Intelligence Committee investigators and on the very day he was supposed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy suspects there could be multiple motives at work.  One is simply that investigators are eager to determine exactly how much Russia did to influence the 2016 elections, which he believes is warranted.

However, in a politically charged atmosphere like Washington, he says some could be trying to make whatever evidence is in hand fit a political goal.

“I think there are other people looking to cement a political narrative that it was Trump collusion and Russian espionage that cost Hillary Clinton the election.  There’s all kinds of factors and considerations that go into it.  But certainly Manafort and his prior connection to this Ukrainian faction gives a lot of ammunition to the investigators,” said McCarthy.

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Pelosi vs. Amnesty Crowd, Feds Tapped Manafort, Trump & ‘Rocket Man’

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enjoy watching Nancy Pelosi get drowned out by amnesty activists who think she and Chuck Schumer are not doing enough for people who are in the U.S. illegally.  They also discuss the revelation that the feds did in fact wiretap former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort before and after the 2016 election.  And they have no problem with President Trump referring to Kim Jong-Un as “Rocket Man,” given that decades of professional diplomatic statements have achieved so little.

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