For the handful of Americans sitting at home watching the Tony Awards, it must have been a confusing scene. Actor Robert DeNiro walked out on stage, pumped his fists in the air, and started talking. The audience went wild with applause — but since CBS producers had scrambled to bleep out the Godfather star’s profanity, no one was quite sure what all the frenzy was about. Unfortunately for the liberals who are trying to knock off President Trump in two years, they do now. “I’m going to say one thing,” DeNiro started. “F— Trump. It’s no longer down with Trump. It’s f— Trump.” After a gasp, the whole room stood and cheered. Though, 24 hours later, no one is quite sure why. Though plenty of liberal activists probably agree with DeNiro, they also know the kind of damage this kind of anti-Trump rage can do.
As commentators on the Right and Left pointed out, the only one who stands to gain from it is the man he’s trying to shame!
“These idiots are going to make sure Trump is president forever,” tweeted one liberal pundit. People like Laura Ingraham can’t believe the Left continues to be so out of touch with America. “Another ‘celebutainment’ gift to the GOP & @realDonaldTrump.” It might as well be, Becket Adams agreed in the Washington Examiner, “an early in-kind donation to the committee to reelect Trump.” Over at the Atlantic, Sophie Gilbert called it “toothless,” saying, “It’s easy to be angry. It’s easy to take a platform that offers easy (if bleeped-out) access to millions of people and use profanity to capture a mood, to express an emotion. But the outrage that will doubtless ensue is a distraction from what really matters, and what’s much harder to realize: the work of trying to change a situation, not just rage against it.”
Once again, some on the Left are coming unhinged. There’s no longer even a fig leaf of impartiality with the entertainment industry and liberal extremists. This administration, through their reversal of President Obama’s anti-family, anti-faith policies, is clearly revealing what the 2016 election did: the fault lines in America. As we’ve seen with Meryl Streep, Avenger director Joss Whedon (who tweeted a death wish for the president), the curtain is now clearly pulled back on America’s so-called cultural elite (and I have to say “so-called,” because their limited four-letter word vocabulary shows how they truly lack culture).
There was a time when civil society didn’t allow for such language in public. Now, some want to feign disgust at the president while, as former press secretary Sean Spicer pointed out, “they engage in the same behavior they find reprehensible – except,” he points out, “they do it in public, on public airways where every American can see and see just how deplorable they are.” The hypocrisy is astounding. So is the elitists’ belief that this condescension is working. The more they sneer and belittle Trump’s base, the more committed voters will be.
When it comes to Hollywood, regular folks — the New York Post’s Salena Zito warns — have had enough.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
RELATED VIDEO: Dan Bongino on Robert De Niro’s Tony speech: “Captain String Bean. Look at this guy. Limpy with his arms here. I think cause he played Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver and LaMotta in Raging Bull, I swear to you this guy thinks he’s a real life tough guy.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-deniro-e1528836692547.jpg358640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2018-06-12 16:51:512018-06-12 17:38:35Vitriol Goes from Zero to DeNiro…
CAIR issued a news release titled CAIR-Massachusetts Receives $100,000 Cummings Foundation Grant. The news release states in part:
The Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is one of 100 local nonprofits to receive grants of $100,000 each through Cummings Foundation’s “$100K for 100” program.
CAIR-Massachusetts intends to use the funds to hire two legal fellows to assist with case management and to support its civil rights programming for the Massachusetts Muslim community.
Cummings Foundation has granted $100,000 to CAIR Massachusetts so that it can harass and sue businesses to force them to comply with certain provisions of Islamist Sharia law. Many of the oppressive tenets of Sharia law are antithetical to the rights afforded all Americans by the United States Constitution.
CAIR has harassed companies in an attempt to force them to allow employees Salah times of prayer. Requiring businesses to allow groups of employees to meet to pray five times a day results in making Islamic Salah times for Muslim prayer a priority over fairness to other employees and a company’s efficiency, profitability. Example 1. Example 2. Example 3. Example 4. Example 5.
CAIR has harassed companies in an attempt to force them to allow employees to wear a hijab which exemplifies Islamist oppression towards women that is commanded by Sharia law and fatwas. Pew Research reports that 57% of Muslim women in America do NOT wear a hijab. The hijab is a symbol of the cruel creed that it represents. The hijab was invented in the 1970s over 1300 years after the Quran was written. The hijab is not derived from the Quran but is legislated by Islamist dictates and fatwas that oppress and dominate woman. Strict Islamic law, Sharia and fatwa enforcement requiring women to wear the hijab started only within the last 50 years. Today, women in Iran and Saudi Arabia are put in jail for protesting the hijab. Click here for more info on hijab. Example 1. Example 2. Example 3. Example 4.
Numerous Council on American Islamic Relations’ officials have been sentenced to prison and/or deported for supporting terrorism. CAIR officials have defended people convicted of terror activities in the United States. CAIR is linked to Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood. Click here for more info on CAIR.
Did Cummings Foundation officials know about CAIR’s terror linked history and its plans to use Cumming’s grant money to harass American businesses to comply with un-American Islamist Sharia law provisions before granting CAIR $100,000?
Here is a list of all of Cummings Properties real estate rental properties.
Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to send to express concern to Cummings Foundation officials regarding grant support for CAIR.
To send your email, please click the following link, enter your name and email address then click the “Send Your Message” button. You may also edit the subject or message text if you wish.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/cummings-foundation.jpg360640Florida Family Associationhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFlorida Family Association2018-06-12 08:20:212018-06-12 08:20:21Foundation grants $100,000 to Islamic Supremacists to force Islamic Law on American businesses
Editor’s note: This article accurately describes a “gay pride” event and contains language and images that may offend some readers.
Thousands of gay rights activists and their supporters celebrated Saturday in Washington, D.C., by participating in and watching the city’s gay pride parade.
The “Pride Month” parade consisted of over 200 floats in addition to marchers and vehicles, and covered 1.5 miles in promoting and celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, among other gender identities.
I checked out the event for The Daily Signal, observing the parade and talking with attendees. With a warning that some readers will find this content offensive, here are nine things I noticed:
1. Animosity for the Trump Administration
During a rally before the parade, one speaker called Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson a “wacko” and others in his agency “the other wacko wackos at HUD.”
Carson parted with recent “national tradition,” Politico reported Thursday, by declaring June to be “National Happy Homes Month” and declining to recognize it as Gay Pride Month.
2. Law Enforcement Not Welcome
Signs posted near the parade route read: “No cops at pride.”
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
3. A ‘F–k Them’ Attitude
Some attendees told me that the deeply held religious beliefs of some Americans about marriage—including those such as bakers who don’t want to be forced to design and make a cake for a same-sex wedding—don’t matter.
“F–k them,” one person said of business owners who would choose not to make a cake or provide floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding.
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
The Supreme Court ruled June 4 in favor of Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, who declined to create a custom cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding because of his traditional Christian beliefs.
Multiple people I interviewed at the parade said bakers should be forced to fill orders that celebrate messages going against their deeply held religious beliefs.
4. Hostility to Traditional Ideas on Marriage
Multiple signs and pins displayed vulgar language suggesting that those who do not support gay marriage are intolerant and hateful.
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
One person in the parade wore a shirt saying, “Homosexuals are possessed by demons,” which appeared to make fun of the religious beliefs of some who don’t back the LGBT political agenda.
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
5. Unquestionable Acceptance for the Gay Lifestyle
In contrast to the evidence of hostility and even hatred toward those with traditional views of marriage—one T-shirt read: “If you’re not gay friendly take your b—h a-s home”—the event provided ample public affection for homosexual men and women and acceptance for gay rights.
One marcher held a sign that said, “I love my gay family.” One couple’s sign, “God blessed us with two gay sons.”
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
6. A Shoutout for Bisexual Moms
One person I encountered along the parade route appeared to be pregnant and wore a tank top with the message “#Still Bisexual,” apparently promoting the opinion that women can have children but be sexually attracted to both men and women.
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
7. Not Age Appropriate
Aspects of the parade certainly weren’t family friendly or appropriate for children. At one point, men clad only in leather straps marched in front of a school group.
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
The event also featured trash receptacles along the parade route that advertised lubricant for gay sex.
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
Some attendees chose not to wear shirts; others wore very revealing outfits.
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
8. ‘Resist’ Crowd Promotes ‘No Hate on My Ballot’
The anti-Trump “resistance” movement was present in the parade, carrying signs sporting the “HRC” logo of the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest advocates of the LGBT political agenda.
Marchers who walked with a “Resist” banner also carried signs with messages such as “Resist. Vote. Win,” “Midterms Matter, Vote 2018,” “Don’t Just Hope for Equality, Vote for It,” and “No Hate on My Ballot.”
(Photo: Rachel del Guidice/The Daily Signal)
9. Planned Parenthood Supports LGBT Rights
Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the nation, was present in full force. The organization’s pink shirts, tank tops, and signs had slogans such as “Together We Fight for All,” “#QueersForRepro,” and “Repro rights = LGBTQ Rights.”
Rachel del Guidice is a reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/indecent-1-pride-parade-header-1250x650-e1528802845825.jpg363640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-06-12 07:27:442018-06-20 07:36:20I Went to DC’s Gay Pride Parade. Here Are 9 Things I Saw. [Graphic images]
Four of the world’s biggest tech platforms have working partnerships with a left-wing nonprofit that has a track record of inaccuracies and routinely labels conservative organizations as “hate groups.”
Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Twitter all work with or consult the Southern Poverty Law Center in policing their platforms for “hate speech” or “hate groups,” a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.
The SPLC is on a list of “external experts and organizations” that Facebook works with “to inform our hate speech policies,” Facebook spokeswoman Ruchika Budhraja told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.
Facebook consults the outside organizations when developing changes to hate speech policies, Budhraja said, noting that Facebook representatives will typically hold between one and three meetings with the groups.
Citing privacy concerns, the Facebook spokeswoman declined to name all the outside groups working with Facebook, but confirmed the SPLC’s participation.
Budhraja emphasized that Facebook’s definition of “hate group” is distinct from the SPLC’s definition and said that Facebook consults with groups across the political spectrum.
The SPLC accused Facebook in a May 8 article of not doing enough to censor “anti-Muslim hate” on the platform. That article did not disclose the SPLC’s working partnership with Facebook.
“We have our own process and our processes are different and I think that’s why we get the criticism [from the SPLC], because organizations that are hate organizations by their standards don’t match ours,” Budhraja said.
“That doesn’t mean that we don’t have a process in place, and that definitely doesn’t mean we want the platform to be a place for hate but we aren’t going to map to the SPLC’s list or process,” she said.
Of the four companies, Amazon gives the SPLC the most direct authority over its platform, The Daily Caller News Foundation found.
While Facebook emphasizes its independence from the SPLC, Amazon does the opposite: Jeff Bezos’ company grants the SPLC broad policing power over the Amazon Smile charitable program, while claiming to remain unbiased.
“We remove organizations that the SPLC deems as ineligible,” an Amazon spokeswoman told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Amazon grants the SPLC that power “because we don’t want to be biased whatsoever,” said the spokeswoman, who could not say whether Amazon considers the SPLC to be unbiased.
The Smile program allows customers to identify a charity to receive 0.5 percent of the proceeds from their purchases on Amazon. Customers have given more than $8 million to charities through the program since 2013, according to Amazon.
Only one participant in the program, the SPLC, gets to determine which other groups are allowed to join it.
Christian legal groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom—which recently successfully represented a Christian baker at the Supreme Court—are barred from the Amazon Smile program, while openly anti-Semitic groups remain, The Daily Caller News Foundation found in May.
One month later, the anti-Semitic groups—but not the Alliance Defending Freedom—are still able to participate in the program.
Twitter lists the SPLC as a “safety partner” working with Twitter to combat “hateful conduct and harassment.”
The platform also includes the Trust and Safety Council, which “provides input on our safety products, policies, and programs,” according to Twitter. Free speech advocates have criticized it as Orwellian.
A Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment on the SPLC specifically, but said the company is “in regular contact with a wide range of civil society organizations and [nongovernmental organizations].”
Google uses the SPLC to help police hate speech on YouTube as part of YouTube’s “Trusted Flagger” program, The Daily Caller reported in February, citing a source with knowledge of the agreement. Following that report, the SPLC confirmed it’s policing hate speech on YouTube.
The SPLC and other third-party groups in the Trusted Flagger program work closely with YouTube’s employees to crack down on extremist content in two ways, according to YouTube.
First, the flaggers are equipped with digital tools allowing them to mass flag content for review by YouTube personnel. Second, the groups act as guides to YouTube’s content monitors and engineers who design the algorithms policing the video platform, but may lack the expertise needed to tackle a given subject.
The SPLC has consistently courted controversy in publishing lists of “extremists” and “hate groups.” The nonprofit has been plagued by inaccuracies this year, retracting four articles in March and April alone.
All three articles focused on drawing conspiratorial connections between anti-establishment American political figures and Russian influence operations in the United States.
The SPLC removed a controversial “anti-Muslim extremist” list in April, after British Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz threatened to sue over his inclusion on the list. The SPLC had accused the supposed extremists of inciting anti-Muslim hate crimes.
Somali-born women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali also made the list.
Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation who now advocates against the practice, is an award-winning human rights activist. But according to the SPLC’s since-deleted list, she was an “anti-Muslim extremist.”
Ali criticized Apple CEO Tim Cook in August 2017 for donating to the SPLC, which she described as “an organization that has lost its way, smearing people who are fighting for liberty and turning a blind eye to an ideology and political movement that has much in common with Nazism.”
Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who is now the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was surprised to find out in February 2015 that the SPLC had placed him on an “extremist watch list” for his conservative beliefs.
“When embracing traditional Christian values is equated to hatred, we are approaching the stage where wrong is called right and right is called wrong. It is important for us to once again advocate true tolerance,” Carson said in response.
“That means being respectful of those with whom we disagree and allowing people to live according to their values without harassment,” he continued. “It is nothing but projectionism when some groups label those who disagree with them as haters.”
Following a backlash, the SPLC apologized and removed him from its list. Carson was on the list for four months before the SPLC removed the “extremist” label.
Floyd Lee Corkins, who attempted a mass shooting at the conservative Family Research Council in 2012, said he chose the organization for his act of violence because the SPLC listed it as a “hate group.”
The SPLC has faced tough criticisms not just from conservatives, but from establishment publications as well.
“At a time when the line between ‘hate group’ and mainstream politics is getting thinner and the need for productive civil discourse is growing more serious, fanning liberal fears, while a great opportunity for the SPLC, might be a problem for the nation,” Ben Schreckinger, now with GQ, wrote in a June 2017 piece for Politico.
The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle, while still at Bloomberg, similarly criticized the SPLC’s flimsy definition of “hate group” in September 2017. Media outlets who trust the SPLC’s labels, McArdle warned, “will discredit themselves with conservative readers and donors.”
COLUMN BY
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The school shooting in Parkland, Florida, rocked the nation. It also revealed incompetence and even corruption within the local school board. Kenneth Preston, a student journalist who helped expose some of these issues, joins us.
Plus: A new poll shows Americans are split on whether they want to go to space.
PODCAST BY
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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Sunday expressed regret over eating at Chick-fil-A because of the chicken company’s CEO’s personal views on gay marriage.
Dorsey tweeted a screenshot from his phone that showed a purchase he had made at Chick-fil-A using a mobile application. After a liberal backlash, however, Dorsey apologized for eating at the popular fast-food restaurant.
At issue was Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy’s 2012 support for defining marriage as between a man and a woman, which he described as “the biblical definition of a family.”
Peter J. Hasson is a reporter for The Daily Caller. Twitter: @peterjhasson.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who posted a screenshot of his Chick-fil-A meal and received liberal backlash. (Photo: Mike Segar/Reuters/Newscom)
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Dangerous people are filling the heads of young people with dangerous nonsense.
Who are these people?
They are what Jordan Peterson calls “the post-modernists:” neo-Marxist professors who dominate our colleges and universities. And here’s the worst part: we are financing these nihilists with tax dollars, alumni gifts and tuition payments.
Time to wise up.
TRANSCRIPT
You may not realize it, but you are currently funding some dangerous people.
They are indoctrinating young minds throughout the West with their resentment-ridden ideology. They have made it their life’s mission to undermine Western civilization itself, which they regard as corrupt, oppressive and “patriarchal.”
If you’re a taxpayer—or paying for your kid’s liberal arts degree—you’re underwriting this gang of nihilists.
You’re supporting ideologues who claim that all truth is subjective; that all sex differences are socially constructed; and that Western imperialism is the sole source of all Third World problems. They are the post-modernists, pushing “progressive” activism at a college near you.
They produce the mobs that violently shut down campus speakers; the language police who enshrine into law use of fabricated gender pronouns; and the deans whose livelihoods depend on madly rooting out discrimination where little or none exists.
Their thinking took hold in Western universities in the ‘60s and ‘70s, when the true believers of the radical left became the professors of today. And now we rack up education-related debt—not so that our children learn to think critically, write clearly, or speak properly, but so they can model their mentors’ destructive agenda.
It’s now possible to complete an English degree and never encounter Shakespeare—one of those dead white males whose works underlie our “society of oppression.”
To understand and oppose the post-modernists, the ideas by which they orient themselves must be clearly identified.
First is their new unholy trinity of diversity, equity and inclusion. Diversity is defined not by opinion, but by race, ethnicity or sexual identity; equity is no longer the laudable goal of equality of opportunity, but the insistence on equality of outcome; and inclusion is the use of identity-based quotas to attain this misconceived state of equity.
All the classic rights of the West are to be considered secondary to these new values. Take, for example, freedom of speech—the very pillar of democracy. The post-modernists refuse to believe that people of good will can exchange ideas and reach consensus.
Their world is instead a Hobbesian nightmare of identity groups warring for power. They don’t see ideas that run contrary to their ideology as simply incorrect. They see them as integral to the oppressive system they wish to supplant, and consider it a moral obligation to stifle and constrain their expression.
Second is rejection of the free market—of the very idea that free, voluntary trading benefits everyone. They won’t acknowledge that capitalism has lifted up hundreds of millions of people so they can for the first time in history afford food, shelter, clothing, transportation—even entertainment and travel. Those classified as poor in the US (and, increasingly, everywhere else) are able to meet their basic needs. Meanwhile, in once-prosperous Venezuela—until recently the poster-child of the campus radicals—the middle class lines up for toilet paper.
Third, and finally, are the politics of identity. Post-modernists don’t believe in individuals. You’re an exemplar of your race, sex, or sexual preference. You’re also either a victim or an oppressor. No wrong can be done by anyone in the former group, and no good by the latter. Such ideas of victimization do nothing but justify the use of power and engender intergroup conflict.
All these concepts originated with Karl Marx, the 19th-century German philosopher. Marx viewed the world as a gigantic class struggle—the bourgeoisie against the proletariat; the grasping rich against the desperate poor. But wherever his ideas were put into practice—in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, to name just a few—whole economies failed, and tens of millions were killed. We fought a decades-long cold war to stop the spread of those murderous notions. But they’re back, in the new guise of identity politics.
The corrupt ideas of the post-modern neo-Marxists should be consigned to the dustbin of history. Instead, we underwrite their continuance in the very institutions where the central ideas of the West should be transmitted across the generations. Unless we stop, post-modernism will do to America and the entire Western world what it’s already done to its universities.
I’m Jordan Peterson, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, for Prager University.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Vadim Ivanov/Shutterstock.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/child.jpg360640Prager Universityhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngPrager University2018-06-11 14:09:282018-06-11 14:09:28VIDEO: Dangerous People Are Teaching Your Kids
An Indiana high school teacher alleges that he was forced to resign because he wouldn’t ascribe to the school’s policy of calling transgender students by their chosen names and pronouns.
“I’m being compelled to encourage students in what I believe is something that’s a dangerous lifestyle,” former Brownsburg High School orchestra teacher John Kluge told NBC News. He alleges that compelling him to address students with pronouns that do not accord to their biological sex violates his religious beliefs as well as his constitutional right to free speech.
“I’m fine to teach students with other beliefs, but the fact that teachers are being compelled to speak a certain way is the scary thing,” Kluge also told NBC.
The school requires that teachers call students by their chosen name or pronoun provided that the student has a written note of consent from a parent and doctor. The school previously allowed Kluge to call students by their last names but changed the policies two months ago to mandate that Kluge call them by their chosen names and pronouns.
Advocates of queer inclusion at the school and in the community don’t see the requirement as an infringement upon Kluge’s rights but simply as a requirement of respect. “Using a trans student’s chosen name is an invaluable support. Educators need to lead by example with respect for students’ identities, names, and pronouns,” said GLSEN advocacy group education manager Becca Mui, NBC reported.
GLSEN is “a national network of students, educators, parents, & community leaders working to create LGBTQ-inclusive schools,” according to its Twitter handle.
“Everyone deserves to be called by their name, and in doing so teachers are able to effortlessly respect their students and enable them to live authentically,” the Trevor Project’s head of advocacy and government affairs, Sam Brinton, also said. The Trevor Project provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.
A Brownsburg representative maintains that Kluge voluntarily resigned before the end of the school year, but Kluge claims he only sent in a resignation letter because the school threatened to fire him. “I’m pleading … I still want to work here,” Kluge explained.
Kluge has indicated he will appeal to the school board if he and the school can find no compromise that will allow him to continue teaching at Brownsburg High School.
RELATED VIDEO: Ohio Teachers Union Presidents Defend “physical, sexual, verbal” Abuse of Children.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Getty Images: DONGSEON_KIM. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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Tucker Carlson, host of the popular Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” spoke to Daily Signal Editor-in-Chief Rob Bluey at The Heritage Foundation’s 41st annual Resource Bank meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Carlson received the prestigious Salvatori Prize, recognizing his work to uphold and advance the principles of America’s founding. The full video, plus an edited transcript of the interview, is below.
Rob Bluey: It is a true honor to celebrate the work that you’ve done, and I want to begin with the advice that you left this audience on how conservatives can take back the culture. You had two pieces of advice. Tell us about them.
Tucker Carlson: Well, have more children. I grew up in a world where it was considered embarrassing to have more than two children. I don’t think that’s the case now among middle-class, upper middle-class people, but it was.
First of all, it’s the most rewarding, greatest, most fun thing you can do. But it’s also the most profound thing. If you don’t like the direction of the country, have children, raise them the way that you want, consistent with your beliefs. It seems like all the answers are basic, nature-based answers, in my opinion. To everything. That’s the most basic of all, have more kids. Raise decent children.
And the second was just say what you think is true. I don’t actually think you get a ton out of confronting people and getting in people’s faces. I don’t think you’re going to convince anybody that way. But I think there’s inherent value in speaking principle out loud without shame or fear. And again, without the expectation that you’re going to win people over right away, because most times you’re not going to.
Aggression really doesn’t help much. I’ve definitely concluded that after years of being aggressive. But I think telling the truth is an inherently valuable act.
Bluey: You’ve had tremendous success with your show. It’s highly rated and millions of people are tuning in. How does that last point inform the work that you do on a day-to-day basis?
Carlson: The show’s successful because it’s on Fox News, which is successful. I’ve worked at a lot of different TV networks, and the network is what matters most.
I don’t imagine that my show is successful because I’m so great. I do think much more about what I say because there’s a bigger audience and because we’re in the middle of this revolutionary moment, and I’m counterrevolutionary.
I don’t say a lot of things without thinking them through, which is good. I mean, occasionally I do and get in trouble for it. But I really try to think through what I really believe and what I really think is true.
Bluey: But I’d say the topics you cover and the way that you conduct your questioning is different and unique from other TV hosts.
Carlson: Well, I don’t have a lot to add. I would just say two things. I think President Trump is interesting, and I agree broadly with his agenda. I certainly agree with immigration, that’s for sure. But I don’t think that every story is about Donald Trump, and most other people at the other networks think every story is about Trump.
I don’t have anything to add to that; I don’t think it’s that interesting. I don’t want to talk about Trump five hours a week, I just don’t. And not because I have some political agenda and it’s bad to talk about; I’m just not that interested, actually. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on. I try to talk about that.
The second thing is, I really try to have an honest conversation. By the way, my mind occasionally changes. There are a bunch of topics, several topics, where I’ve totally changed my views because someone else had a better point than I did. And I love that.
Tucker Carlson at The Heritage Foundation’s Resource Bank. (Photo: Ivan Apfel Photography for The Heritage Foundation)
Bluey: You have a book coming out this fall called “Ship of Fools.” I want to hear about it because it relates a bit to Trump, right? I mean, you’re going after the elites, the ruling class.
Carlson: The book, like the show, is based on the most obvious questions. I’m not a super-clever person, I try to keep it very simple. Why would America elect Donald Trump president?
And the explanation in Washington is, well, they didn’t really. Putin did. Or voters were just so dumb, they didn’t know the difference. Or America’s racist, so they elected a racist. Those are contemptible nonexplanations. Those are stupid.
The real answer, obviously, is that people were so dissatisfied with the leadership in place as of the first Tuesday in November of 2016, that they decided to punish them by electing Trump.
This was a referendum on the ruling class; and by the way, we have a ruling class, and I’ve lived in it most of my life, so I know it’s real. It’s not a conspiracy, but we have a class system, increasingly, in this country.
The people in charge have done a really bad job on the big things, on foreign policy and the economy; and they’ve gotten us into a number of counterproductive wars. That was a bipartisan effort. It was started by Bush, but it was applauded by Clinton. So it wasn’t one party, it was both parties.
They made a bunch of assumptions about the economy that turned out to be wrong, and they helped destroy the American middle class, and then they don’t care. So they’re terrible. They’re deeply unwise and selfish and stupid.
Trump is the result of decades of unwise, selfish, and stupid leadership. It’s so obvious. I’m not a genius, I’m hardly a genius. It’s just so clear, and no one says that. I’m not sure why.
Carlson: He’s certainly made the divisions clear, which was always his role. Trump is whatever the opposite of a technocrat is; it’s Donald Trump. He’s not a detail man, to put it mildly.
He hasn’t swept into town with the “Mandate for Leadership” that Heritage produced in 1980 to guide the Reagan transformation of Washington. Here is how you handle every department of government. There’s nothing like that. And that really wasn’t the point. One hopes that there will subsequently be someone like that, but that’s not Trump’s role.
Trump’s role was to realign, or to make what had already happened obvious to everyone—which is that Republican Party really didn’t represent its voters very well, and the Democratic Party didn’t represent its voters very well either.
Actually, it’s not a contest between left and right so much as it’s a contest or a struggle between people who’ve benefited from the way things were going—me and all my neighbors—and everyone else who has gone backward, particularly economically.
If I could just say, the one sort of sin that conservatives like me committed was not paying attention to the massive transfer of wealth upward, and the stagnation in the middle. We thought that income inequality was something that you weren’t supposed to talk about, or you only cared about if you were Bernie Sanders and against capitalism. I’m totally for capitalism, but that’s bad.
You don’t want to live in a country where a small group of people control everything because you will have a revolution, and the system will be destroyed. Conservatives missed that and liberals were benefiting from it, so they didn’t say anything. That’s what the book’s about.
Bluey: You brought up Bernie Sanders and the left, and we’re having a conversation right now about whether we’re going to have a huge wave of progressives come into Congress next year. What is the left’s end game in view?
Carlson: The end game is always the same, which is to take back power. And Trump is offensive to them probably for a bunch of reasons, but the core offense is taking power away from them, disempowering the technocratic class.
Trump is the candidate for people who didn’t go to Choate and Princeton and Harvard Business School, and work at McKinsey. Those are his voters. The people who did buy into the system—with the expectation they would be in charge—are deeply offended by that, deeply offended by the power transfer.
So the point always is to take back control. But below that, a bunch of different things are going on. And politically, I think it’s pretty obvious now there’s no actual agenda. It’s not like they’re mad about trade.
They don’t like Trump, and Trump’s weird kind of unintentional political genius is to drive his opponents crazy. So all of a sudden you have liberals, some of whom are kind of reasonable, smart people, defending MS-13 and the dignity of porn stars. They basically are pivoting against Trump in such a way where whatever he’s for, they’re against and vice versa. Whatever he’s against, they’re for.
But then do they really want to be on the side of no borders, or calling ICE the stormtroopers, or defending Salvadoran gang members? Like, what?
He’s driven them crazy, and how does that work itself out? I don’t really know, it’s amazing to watch it, though, I’ll tell you that.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson received the prestigious Salvatori Prize, recognizing his work to uphold and advance the principles of America’s founding. The award was presented by The Heritage Foundation’s David Azerrad, director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics and AWC Family Foundation fellow. (Photo: Ivan Apfel Photography for The Heritage Foundation)
Bluey: It sure is amazing to watch. Tucker, finally, I want to ask you: You started your career at The Heritage Foundation as a writer for Policy Review. Here you are today receiving the Salvatori Prize. What does it mean to you to win this high honor?
Carlson: I’ve always been grateful to Heritage for doing the most important thing you can do for a young person, particularly a young man, and that’s give him a job—making $14,000 a year! But no one else was hiring me, and Heritage did.
Adam Meyerson, who ran Policy Review, hired me and really kind of systematically taught me journalism. He was conservative, it was a conservative publication. But I actually didn’t write about politics, I wrote about the police and it was kind of nonpolitical. It was more a study in how to gather information, organize it coherently in an expository essay, just the basics. They’re not very complicated, but someone needed to teach me, and he did.
The Heritage Foundation made that possible and I’ve always been grateful for that. I don’t know why they hired me. I wouldn’t have hired me. I was a total loser. But they did, and so I’ve never stopped being thankful for that, ever.
Bluey: We’re so glad it worked out.
Carlson: Thank you. I am too.
Bluey: Make sure you watch his show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” Pre-order the book, “Ship of Fools.” Tucker, great to be with you.
Rob Bluey is editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Rob. Twitter: @RobertBluey.
Dear Readers:
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/tucker-carlson.png312600The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-06-11 07:16:002018-06-11 07:19:03An Interview With Tucker Carlson on What Makes Trump a ‘Political Genius’
The funeral of my dad, Dr. Reverend Lloyd E. Marcus, was June 7, 2018. My sister told everyone she was wearing a yellow dress to Dad’s funeral because we wanted it to be a celebration of Dad’s extraordinary life and homecoming. Yellow represents bright sunshine. She also chose it to represent God’s “Son”. My sister’s idea caught on like wildfire. Surprisingly, several women showed up at Dad’s funeral wearing yellow. I was only able to gather a handful of the lovely ladies for a photo.
God’s grace and timing for Dad’s passing was perfect. Although he was 90, had Dad passed two months earlier, my three brothers, sister and I would have been devastated. Dad was placed into home hospice. Dad out lived two wives. His second wife died in March. As Dad’s health rapidly declined, each of his five kids took shifts taking care of him. The hospice nurse said typically only one child shows up to care for their dying parent.
Whenever my sister spoon fed Dad and whenever us four sons bathed him, Dad told us he was ready, happily anticipating going home to Jesus. This helped us release Dad.
The day before Dad died, all five of us gathered around his bed. Dad appeared unconscious with his eyes closed. Earlier, the hospice nurse told my sister that hearing is the last to go and Dad would be able to hear us. Each of us spoke so dad could hear our voices. We told Dad that he did a great job raising us, we loved him and we would be okay. Dad appeared to give a sigh of relief. From that moment, and I sensed my siblings felt the same, I was at peace with Dad going home. God had graciously prepared us.
The warm united vibe in Dad’s bedroom was amazing. My brother David is not big on making touchy-feely statements. He blurted out, “Thank y’all for being who you are.” I knew what David meant. We were united in love for our father and each other; committed to sending Dad peacefully home.
Around 7:00 AM the next morning, my sister calmly yelled down to me sleeping in the basement, “Hey Peanut, Daddy is gone.” I replied, “Okay.”
When Dad’s health began declining, I knew if we, his 5 kids, did not handle the process correctly it would haunt us for the rest of our lives. Each of us stepped up and did our part.
Dad’s funeral was a wonderful celebration. Citations were read from Baltimore’s mayor and the Baltimore Fire Department. Pastors and community leaders spoke of how Dad impacted theirs lives, congregations and communities.
About a year ago, I felt compelled to get video of Dad on YouTube for future generations to see and hear him. Grand-kids barely remember my mom who passed 25 years ago. I took Dad and my 4 siblings into a recording studio to record an uptempo version of “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”. The music producer and engineer were stunned that our 89 year old Dad recorded his vocal in one take. We produced a music video of the song using family photos. The music video was a huge hit at Dad’s funeral.
Dad was a man of several firsts – Baltimore’s first black paramedic and first black chaplain. The fire department chaplain who spoke at the funeral said Dad was also the first firefighter to become a chaplain which paved the way for other firefighters to become chaplain.
When I spoke at the funeral, I shared how Dad strove to be excellent and walk in biblical principles despite horrific racist working conditions at Engine 6. Dad could not pour himself a cup of coffee from the same coffeepot as the white firefighters. I said no special concessions (lowered standards) were made because Dad was black. And yet, Dad won “Firefighter of the Year” two times. The audience erupted with applause.
At the reception with food called “the Repass”, one of Dad’s grandsons told me he had no idea of the humiliating racism his grandfather endured as a civil rights trailblazer. He wasn’t sure he could have taken it. The twenty-something year old said the information gave him as insight into where he came from and who he is as a Marcus.
Black firefighters at the funeral said Dad corralled, encouraged and mentored them to take the test to become firefighters.
A private conversation I had with a gentlemen at the funeral epitomized Dad. The gentlemen said several years ago, he was going through a severe crisis. He knocked on my parent’s front door at 3am. Rev Marcus opened the door, invited him in, listened and ministered to him. That’s my Dad.
Years ago, a book was popular titled, “Passages”. I never read it, but I feel like I have entered a new passage of my life. With Dad gone, I am the patriarch of our family. Like my 4 siblings, I want to continue making Dad proud.
While in Baltimore for Dad’s funeral, my wife Mary and I stayed at his home. I noticed Dad’s slippers on the floor and put them on my feet. I told Mary, “Wow, I have literally stepped into Dad’s shoes.” God has prepared me for such a time as this.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/heaven-1.jpg360639Lloyd Marcushttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLloyd Marcus2018-06-10 06:21:402018-06-10 06:21:40Dad’s Funeral: Final Notes Regarding A Civil Rights Pioneer
Until communities retake control of their local school boards, and until there are sweeping changes in the educational process so children are taught to read, write, and do arithmetic…oh, and write in cursive so their brains and neurological system can develop properly; and until the socialist agenda now rampant in our schools, including no longer teaching well or at any length about our founding as an exceptional nation, and what our founding documents truly mean, and why they came about in the first place; until Common Core and other New-World Order crap is sponged from the educational system; until dollar numbers demonstrate beyond a doubt that our classrooms are properly prepared with all the needed manipulatives – and Kleenex and toilet paper; until parents (tax payers) begin to demand a full accounting of the never ending cycle of pay increases which never seem to trickle down into classrooms; until school boards once again become accountable to the citizens of that particular district, there will continue to be an exodus of students into private or charter schools.
It has taken time to gain momentum but parents are beginning to grasp the scam of continued and increased funding for education while the product being turned out is less than impressive. One large school district in Arizona was excited to tell any and everyone who would listen that 80% of their senior’s graduate high school. What about the other 20% that don’t graduate?! And out of that 80% what is not told is that only 15-20% attend a university, with the remainder going on to junior college, but even then after a year many drop out. Junior College is fine, and actually makes great sense helping to get lower division college courses out of the way before tackling those within your major. Likewise junior college is less expensive than a university. But beneath the smiles and all is right with the world, a bitter and hard truth remains. A very large portion of students still matriculating cannot successfully work at the academic level they are occupying, much less at institutions of higher learning and taking challenging academics.
Additionally…the social reprogramming and social Marxism deliberately taught in our school systems is atrocious and getting worse.
As parents pull away from the quickly deteriorating schools and systems, turning to either home schooling, charter schools, or private schools funding based on student enrollments will also deteriorate, and teachers will once again be out marching and protesting.
Parents truly need to confront local school boards about turning out a better product, one based on time honored traditional educational practices, versus the shift to New Age and New-World Order philosophy and thinking. Parents are their child’s best advocate. Many parents have found their voices in this regard, and it shows by the numbers of children withdrawn from schools. Advocate on! Pulling your student from a poorly functioning/performing school is another form.
Children are our best hope for the future…take a long and sober look and tell me what you see?
(Natural News) Thanks to the incessant Left-wing counter-culture social engineering and increasing levels of violence and bullying, more American parents are pulling their kids out of failing government schools and teaching them at home.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/home-schooling-e1528624127230.jpg361640Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.2018-06-10 05:49:042018-06-10 05:52:34Homeschooling Skyrockets
With Starbucks in hot water over its donations to Planned Parenthood, 2ndVote decided to look into other major donors to the abortionist the general public might night be aware of.
What’s less known is that behind the Foundation’s “evidence-based” efforts is frequently distinctly left-wing, anti-life advocacy.
For example, while the Arnolds give to both parties, John Arnold was a bundler for the 2008 Obama campaign. According to Huffington Post in 2012:
Billionaire John Arnold, a former Enron trader and his wife Laura, were slated to host in their Houston home a $10,000-ticket Obama fundraiser to feature Michelle Obama last October (the event was postponed). Arnold describes himself as a libertarian, and his wife Laura identifies as a Democrat. Still, Arnold was one of Obama’s top 2008 donors, a bundler who gave the campaign between $50,000 and $100,000. According to Huffington Post’s FundRace, he has given $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund 2012.
Both Arnolds have also contributed a few thousand each to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and hundreds of thousands to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
National Network Of Abortion Funds ($50,000-$99,999)
Also, their foundation gave nearly $1.5 million in 2015 and 2016 to Improving Contraceptive Options Now (ICON), a research project of MRDC which explicitly focuses on funding abortion-inducing drugs and devices like the Intra-Uterine Device for teenagers.
See more of 2nd Vote’s research on which companies and non-profits are funding Planned Parenthood here.
Leading up to the G7 summit, the entirety of the world Left, from Eurocrats to Media to American Democrats, are angry and supposedly fearful over President Trump starting a new trade war and tearing down the post World War II world order. They claim he is destabilizing the western world and much of the globe.
But that stability was for too long built on America shouldering everyone else’s load, from military protection for Europeans who could afford to do more for their own defense to unfavorable trade deals with those same Europeans and non-allied competitors such as China. In the decade or two after WWII decimated the world, that probably made sense. Maybe even through the fall of the Soviet Union in 1988, although that is less clear. But by 2018?
A shakeup in that part of the Post-War order is long overdue, and many common-sense Americans know this. And it may ultimately be good for the Europeans, depending on their long-term response.
The global pre-G7 hand-wringing and anger of the elitist Left is more akin to a child who has been coddled and spoiled and is suddenly being held to account for his actions. That child is naturally going to be angry and throw a tantrum.
This is most clear with our cushioned western European allies. Our eastern European allies are less elitist, less cushioned and have a more pro-American take.
Donald Tusk, President of the European Council and an elitist bureaucrat among elitist bureaucrats, arrogantly dismissed President Trump as mere “seasonal turbulence.” It’s really pitch perfect for exactly what is wrong in Europe, including that this man, a “president,” is utterly unaccountable and unreachable by any European voters.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after Trump criticized European leaders for not spending what they promised to spend on military as part of NATO — part of America shouldering an undue share of their burden: “the times when we could fully rely on others are to some extent over.”
Germany has been one of the biggest leeches on the American military, and thus American taxpayer, even though they were at the front line of the Iron Curtain. If Merkel is saying “fully rely” on America to carry too much of the German defense burden, then hopefully she is right. It doesn’t mean we aren’t allies
But Merkel, arguably the worst Post-War German Chancellor (counting only West Germans when the nation was divided) has continued on her anti-Trump, and anti-America-first rhetoric leading up to the G7.
Just Wednesday, she said, “That was my takeaway from the NATO summit, and in the meantime I continue to feel confirmed by my statement…All of that confirms the assessment that the world is being reorganized.”
Merkel, along with French, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and other western European leaders combine the NATO comments with Trump’s decision to exit from the Paris global climate treaty — which has since been revealed to be the empty vessel it was — and his exit from the Iran nuclear “accord” last month with his push for more fair trade for Americans, as a threat.
It’s only a threat to the coddled. Ultimately, forcing the Europeans to stand more firmly on their own two legs, and compete for fairly, will be good for them unless they just lay on the floor scream in tantrum mode. They probably will not. After an adjustment period, they will begin altering policies to reflect the new reality and potentially become more lean and competitive and be able to carry more of their own defense load.
Because the reality is that the American economy is rocking from top to bottom, and a lot of it is due directly to the election of Trump and his deregulation and tax policies.
Here is a telling confession from a top American economist: “A lot of us economists have had our long-term forecasts ruined by the election of Donald Trump,” Moody Managing Director and Chief Economist John Lonski told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney. “The idea was that growth would be stuck at 2 percent indefinitely, stagnation had set in for the long run and now we’re not so sure that is necessarily going to be the cast.”
GDP growth is now estimated to be 3.5 percent this year. Trump has changed the domestic paradigm as he is working on the international paradigm.
Trump upsetting the table cart domestically has meant net good things for all Americans who don’t want to just live on the dole. It can mean the same for our European allies, too. But they’ll have to adjust.
We won’t see that sentiment at the G7 summit. But we might down the road.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-knight-world-against-me-e1528576368850.jpg360640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2018-06-09 16:32:562018-06-10 06:33:16G7 — World Throws Tantrum As President Trump Puts America First
Donald Trump may not be on the ballot in November, but the future of his conservative agenda is. And three waves into this primary season, that seems to be all the motivation Republican voters need.
For the third time in as many primaries, conservatives seemed determined to change the media’s narrative about the midterm elections — turning out en masse in four southern states that will be critical to keeping the GOP’s hold on the House. At least in Republican-leaning states, the “blue wave” Democrats keep promising has been more like a blue sprinkle. That’s not to say things can’t change — they most certainly can, especially with the string of West Coast and New England races still to be decided. But for now, it is clear that conservative voters are far from disengaged.
David Wasserman, one of the analysts with an eye on these trends, says that after a rough start to the year, Republicans are getting some small doses of good news. So far, the GOP seems to be reaping the benefits of a banner spring for the White House’s international policies. After positive developments on Iran, Israel, and North Korea, the Democrats’ lead over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot is nonexistent. After being up by double digits in January, Reuters says the two parties are neck-and-neck. But, Wasserman warns, there’s still a long way to go. “Republicans still can’t point to hard election data that proves their base has suddenly closed the ‘intensity gap’ in the last few months.”
But they’re working on it! Tuesday’s showing in Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia was the third strong showing for conservatives in states where liberals hoped to make some noise. Our friend Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA), who first started seeing some positive trends for Republicans in toss-up states like Pennsylvania, says that pattern is continuing. In Texas, the Democrats’ turnout in the runoff resulted in the fewest votes case since 1920!
“D’s hopes of turning #TX even slightly violet continue to fade,” Chris tweeted. “Despite a closely contested #TXgov runoff… Dems can’t reach record low of 449k votes from 100 years ago!” And that’s not all, “In each of the open #TX [congressional districts] where *both parties* had a runoff, [Democrats] massively underperformed.” Republicans, on the other hand, continued to stream into their polling stations. In Georgia, the party cast 54,000 more votes than Democrats, which seemed like small potatoes compared to Arkansas, where they cast 96,000 more. Obviously, these are states where conservatives should be outperforming liberals. But in a year where Republicans can’t afford to take anything for granted, the outcome was a reassuring one.
Meanwhile, over at Democratic headquarters, party bosses deepened their bench of far-Left radicals on the November ballot with wins for LGBT activists, abortion extremists, and candidates who promise a return to the Obama years. In the Democrats’ words: We will impeach. We will abort. We will raise taxes. And that’s exactly the kind of agenda that failed them in 2016. Even now, a full year and change into Trump’s administration, heartland Democrats have pleaded with the national party to return to the middle. “You’re Killing Us” was the message to Washington. A message, so far, unreceived.
Over at Deep Root Analytics, experts are making a pretty solid case for a values-driven campaign. After the May 5 and 18 primaries, we mentioned just how potent social issues are proving to be in this election cycle. Well, it turns out, they’re even more compelling than most pollsters realized. In Pennsylvania and Idaho, where we pointed out that turnout was higher than expected, social issues appeared in “more GOP ads than any other issue — nearly doubling the total number of ads as tax reform, the next highest appearing issue.” In fact, Deep Root explains, there were “nearly two-times as many ads containing a social issue message than a tax message in these primaries.”
What does that mean? A lot if you’re a conservative campaign manager. “While the data we currently have access to does not allow us to comprehensively connect social issues advertising to higher-than-expected turnout, it does indicate something clearly: GOP advertisers relied on social issue messaging as their closing argument…” Obviously, David Seawright wrote, “advertisers believed that messaging on social issues was critical to their goal of both motivating and persuading GOP primary voters during the final stages of each campaign.”
It’s certainly worked in the primaries we’ve seen so far. Of course, the important part is not to get comfortable. I don’t mention these positive developments so that people can get complacent. On the contrary, we want people to know just how important and influential their voice can be. Making America great again starts by making America good again. And that’s not government’s mission, but ours.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/052318_flags_770x400_1-e1528491879145.jpg368640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2018-06-08 17:04:482018-06-09 06:28:58Are the Dems Still Ballot-proof?
For all intents and purposes, people are being paid not to be productive.
Guided by the spirit of Calvin Coolidge, we need to reform the welfare state.
Professor Dorfman of the University of Georgia, in a column for Forbes, pinpoints the core problem.
The first failure of government welfare programs is to favor help with current consumption while placing almost no emphasis on job training or anything else that might allow today’s poor people to become self-sufficient in the future. …It is the classic story of giving a man a fish or teaching him how to fish. Government welfare programs hand out lots of fish, but never seem to teach people how to fish for themselves. The problem is not a lack of job training programs, but rather the fact that the job training programs fail to help people. In a study for ProPublica, Amy Goldstein documents that people who lost their jobs and participated in a federal job training program were less likely to be employed afterward than those who lost their jobs and did not receive any job training. That is, the job training made people worse off instead of better. …Right now, the government cannot teach anyone how to find a fish, let alone catch one.
And Peter Cove opines on the issue for the Wall Street Journal.
…the labor-force participation rate for men 25 to 54 is lower now than it was at the end of the Great Depression. The welfare state is largely to blame. More than a fifth of American men of prime working age are on Medicaid. According to the Census Bureau, nearly three-fifths of nonworking men receive federal disability benefits. The good news is that the 1996 welfare reform taught us how to reduce government dependency and get idle Americans back to work. …Within 10 years of the 1996 reform, the number of Americans in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program fell 60%.
Interestingly, European nations seem to be more interested in fixing the problem, perhaps because they’ve reached the point where reform is a fiscal necessity.
Let’s look at what happened when the Dutch tightened benefit rules.
A fascinating new study from economists in California and the Netherlands sheds light on how welfare dependency is passed from one generation to the next—and how to save children from lives of idleness.
A snowball effect across generations could arise if welfare dependency is transmitted from parents to their children, with potentially serious consequences for the future economic situation of children. …there is little evidence on whether this relationship is causal. Testing for the existence of a behavioural response, where children become benefit recipients because their parents were, is difficult… Our work overcomes these identification challenges by exploiting a 1993 reform in the Dutch Disability Insurance (DI) programme… The 1993 reform tightened DI eligibility for existing and future claimants, but exempted older cohorts currently on DI (age 45+) from the new rules. This reform generates quasi-experimental variation in DI use… Intuitively, the idea is to compare the children of parents who are just over 45 years of age to children whose parents are just under 45. .
Here’s the methodology of their research.
The first step is to understand the impact of the 1993 reform on parents. Figure 1 shows that parents who were just under the age 45 cut-off, and therefore subject to the harsher DI rules, are 5.5 percentage points more likely to exit DI by the year 1999 compared to parents just over the age 45 cut-off. These treated parents saw a 1,300 euro drop in payments on average. …the reform changed other outcomes as well. There is a strong rebound in labour earnings.
This chart from their research captures the discontinuity.
Here are the main results.
The second step is to see how children’s DI use changed based on whether the reform affected their parents. We measure a child’s cumulative use of DI as of 2014, by which time they are 37 years old on average. Figure 2 reveals a noticeable jump in child DI participation at the parental age cut-off of 45. There is an economically significant 1.1 percentage point drop for children if their parent was exposed to the reform, which translates into an 11% effect relative to the mean child participation rate of 10%. …welfare cultures, defined as a causal intergenerational link, exist.
This second chart illustrates the positive impact.
But here’s the most important part of the research.
Reducing access to redistribution to parents is a good way of boosting income and education for children.
…we examine whether a child’s taxable earnings and participation in other social support programmes change. Cumulative earnings up to 2014 rise by approximately €7,200 euros, or a little less than 2%, for children of parents subject to the less generous DI rules. In contrast, we find no detectable change in cumulative unemployment insurance receipt, general assistance (i.e. traditional cash welfare), or other miscellaneous safety net programs. Looking at a child’s educational attainment, there is intriguing evidence for anticipatory investments. When a parent is subject to the reform which tightened DI benefits, their child invests in 0.12 extra years of education relative to an overall mean of 11.5 years. …these findings provide suggestive evidence that children of treated parents plan for a future with less reliance on DI in part by investing in their labour market skills.
And it’s also worth noting that taxpayers benefit when welfare eligibility is restricted.
These strong intergenerational links between parents and children have sizable fiscal consequences for the government’s long term budget. Cumulative DI payments to children of the targeted parents are 16% lower. This is a substantial additional saving for the government’s budget, especially since there is no evidence that children substitute these reductions in DI income for additional income from other social assistance programmes. Furthermore, there is a fiscal gain resulting from the increased taxes these children pay due to their increased labour market earnings. Overall, we calculate that through the year 2013, children account for 21% of the net fiscal savings of the 1993 Dutch reform in present discounted value terms. This share is projected to increase to 40% over time.
Ryan Streeter of American Enterprise Institute explains that other European nations also are reforming.
Welfare reformers might draw some lessons from unlikely places, such as Scandinavia. While progressives like to uphold Nordic democratic socialism as a model for America, the Scandinavian welfare systems are arguably more pro-work than ours… For instance, to deal with declining labor force participation, Denmark eliminated permanent disability benefits for people under 40 and refashioned its system to make employment central. Sweden reformed its welfare system to focus on rapid transitions from unemployment to work. Their program lowers jobless assistance the longer one is on welfare. The Nordic model is more focused on eliminating reasons not to work such as caregiving or lack of proper training than providing income replacement. Similarly, the British government combined six welfare programs with varying requirements into a single “universal credit.” The benefit is based on a sliding scale and decreases as a recipient’s earnings increase, replacing several differing formulas for phasing out of welfare programs with one. An evaluation of the new program, which encourages work, found that 86 percent of claimants were trying to increase their work hours and 77 percent were trying to earn more, compared to 38 percent and 55 percent, respectively, under the previous system. …Scandinavia and Britain learned a while ago that successful welfare reform is not just about how much money a country spends on people who earn too little. It’s really about how to help them find and keep a good job. It’s time for America to catch up.
In effect, block grant all means-tested programs to the states and then phase out the federal funding. That would give states the ability to experiment and they could learn from each other about the best way of helping the truly needy while minimizing incentives for idleness.
P.S. This Wizard-of-Id parody is a very good explanation of why handouts discourage productive work.
Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/lookingoffpaper-e1528490669552.jpg364640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2018-06-08 16:44:362018-06-08 16:44:36What We Can Learn About Welfare Reform from Europe
CAIR issued 
Tucker Carlson: Well, have more children. I grew up in a world where it was considered embarrassing to have more than two children. I don’t think that’s the case now among middle-class, upper middle-class people, but it was.
Carlson: Well, I don’t have a lot to add. I would just say two things. I think President Trump is interesting, and I agree broadly with his agenda. I certainly agree with immigration, that’s for sure. But I don’t think that every story is about Donald Trump, and most other people at the other networks think every story is about Trump.
The real answer, obviously, is that people were so dissatisfied with the leadership in place as of the first Tuesday in November of 2016, that they decided to punish them by electing Trump.
Trump’s role was to realign, or to make what had already happened obvious to everyone—which is that Republican Party really didn’t represent its voters very well, and the Democratic Party didn’t represent its voters very well either.
Trump is the candidate for people who didn’t go to Choate and Princeton and Harvard Business School, and work at McKinsey. Those are his voters. The people who did buy into the system—with the expectation they would be in charge—are deeply offended by that, deeply offended by the power transfer.
Carlson: I’ve always been grateful to Heritage for doing the most important thing you can do for a young person, particularly a young man, and that’s give him a job—making $14,000 a year! But no one else was hiring me, and Heritage did.
The funeral of my dad, Dr. Reverend Lloyd E. Marcus, was June 7, 2018. My sister told everyone she was wearing a yellow dress to Dad’s funeral because we wanted it to be a celebration of Dad’s extraordinary life and homecoming. Yellow represents bright sunshine. She also chose it to represent God’s “Son”. My sister’s idea caught on like wildfire. Surprisingly, several women showed up at Dad’s funeral wearing yellow. I was only able to gather a handful of the lovely ladies for a photo.
