The Trump Offensive
Finally someone is shaking up the corrupt politics of Washington, D.C.
Ben Carson Scores Big Win at the First GOP Debate followed by Marco Rubio
WASHINGTON, D.C. /PRNewswire/ — One America News Network, “OAN”, a credible source for 24/7 national and international news, released this evening its Post GOP Debate Poll results conducted by Gravis Marketing. Two primary questions asked to Republican polled participants were “Who do you think won the debate?” and “Who do you think lost the debate?” GOP Presidential Candidates Ben Carson and Marco Rubio scored well in both categories. Donald Trump came in second on the question of “who won the debate?” but he also scored second on “who lost the debate?” showing a heavily polarized Republican base when it comes to their post-debate opinions of the New York Businessman. Rand Paul and Chris Christie did not have a good evening, with both scoring at the bottom of “who won?” and Paul taking the lead of “who lost?” with Christie coming in a distant third, behind Trump.
|
Who Won the Debate? |
% |
Who Lost the Debate? |
% |
|
Ben Carson |
22% |
Rand Paul |
34% |
|
Donald Trump |
19% |
Donald Trump |
30% |
|
Marco Rubio |
13% |
Chris Christie |
9% |
|
Jeb Bush |
10% |
Jeb Bush |
7% |
|
Mike Huckabee |
9% |
John Kasich |
4% |
|
John Kasich |
8% |
Ben Carson |
4% |
|
Ted Cruz |
7% |
Mike Huckabee |
4% |
|
Scott Walker |
7% |
Ted Cruz |
4% |
|
Rand Paul |
3% |
Scott Walker |
2% |
|
Chris Christie |
2% |
Marco Rubio |
2% |
Polled registered Republican voters were also asked, “Do you have a more favorable or less favorable opinion of (each candidate) after the debate?” Poll results clearly show that Ben Carson won the first GOP debate in the minds of Republican voters with Marco Rubio coming in second place. Rand Paul had a rough evening, uncharacteristic of his general performance in state and national polls.
|
GOP Candidate |
More Favorable? |
Less Favorable? |
Unchanged? |
|
Ben Carson |
80% |
9% |
11% |
|
Marco Rubio |
68% |
13% |
19% |
|
Mike Huckabee |
60% |
18% |
22% |
|
Scott Walker |
58% |
17% |
25% |
|
Ted Cruz |
57% |
19% |
23% |
|
John Kasich |
54% |
18% |
28% |
|
Jeb Bush |
48% |
27% |
25% |
|
Chris Christie |
41% |
33% |
26% |
|
Donald Trump |
36% |
45% |
19% |
|
Rand Paul |
14% |
67% |
19% |
According to Robert Herring, Sr., CEO of One America News Network, “Dr. Ben Carson had a wonderful evening. He was articulate and, at times, funny. Carson stayed out of the verbal jabbing that cost Christie and Paul some points this evening.”
Gravis Marketing, a nonpartisan research firm, conducted a random survey of 904 registered Republican voters across the U.S. Questions included in the poll were focused only on the top ten GOP candidates that participated in the 9 PM ET debate. The poll has an overall margin of error of +/- 3%. The polls were conducted on August 6, immediately following the GOP debate using interactive voice response, IVR, technology. The poll was conducted exclusively for One America News Network.
One America News Network has been providing extensive coverage of the 2016 Presidential campaign, including numerous exclusive one-on-one interviews with the leading candidates. One America News Network will be releasing on-going 2016 Presidential polling results. Complete poll results of this recent poll, along with past polls, are available on One America News Network’s website at:http://www.oann.com/pollresults/
About One America News Network (“OAN”)
One America News Network offers 21 hours of live news coverage plus two one-hour political talk shows, namely The Daily Ledger and On Point with Tomi Lahren. While other emerging and established cable news networks offer multiple hours of live news coverage, only OAN can claim to consistently provide 21 hours of live coverage every weekday. Third party viewership data for Q2 2015 from Rentrak, namely accumulated viewer hours, shows that OAN surpasses other news channels such as Al Jazeera America, Fusion, Fox Business News, and Bloomberg TV as measured on AT&T U-verse TV, across 65 markets.
Since its debut on July 4, 2013, One America News Network has grown its distribution to over 12 million households with carriage by AT&T U-Verse TV (ch 208/1208 in HD), Verizon FiOS TV (ch 116/616 in HD), GCI Cable, Frontier Communications, CenturyLink PRISM TV (ch 208/1208 in HD), Consolidated Communications,Duncan Cable, GVTC, and numerous additional video providers. One America News Network operates production studios and news bureaus in California and Washington, D.C. For more information on One America News Network, please visit www.OANN.com.
Flipboard Launches 2016 Election Central: All the News and Perspectives on the Campaigns in One Place
PALO ALTO, CA /PRNewswire/ — Today, in time for the first presidential debate, Flipboard launched 2016 Election Central, a destination where anyone can get all of the news and perspectives — left, right and center— around the 2016 U.S. presidential election on a mobile device. Flipboard, along with leading publishers CNN and The Washington Post, created custom political packages for Flipboard’s 2016 Election Central that help voters go deep on the people, issues and politics of this campaign season.
In addition to working with top media sources, the Flipboard editorial team has selected Flipboard Magazines, created by enthusiasts and political organizations, that reflect the diverse points of views among the millions of people on Flipboard.
A Single Destination for Mobile Readers
Nearly 70 percent of Americans use their mobile devices to follow news events, according the Pew Research Center*. But, with an increasing field of candidates and the debates kicking off this week, keeping up with the presidential election is more challenging than ever. For those who want to stay connected to the issues and candidates, Flipboard’s 2016 Election Central is a single place for smartphone owners to get all the best election coverage.
“Mobile devices are how millions of people keep up with the news every day. But information is still spread across websites and social networks, and it’s hard to get the full picture or different points of view,” saidGabriella Schwarz, News Editor at Flipboard. “We built Election Central to bring insightful political coverage and the best campaign moments together, but more importantly we also want it to be a very personal place, where the reader can go deep on just what interests them.”
Flipboard’s Election Central organizes all the coverage into five core areas of interest: The Issues, The Candidates, The Politics, Top Stories, and Flipboard’s Political Rundown, the top 10 stories of the week. For mobile or desktop, Flipboard users can find 2016 Election Central in the “Explore tab.”
Leading Publishers Powering Politics
In the Candidates section, the Washington Post is curating Flipboard Magazines on each of the leading candidates, covering White House hopefuls in their “Contenders Revealed” series. In addition to the Washington Post’s custom candidate packages, readers can browse all the latest stories on a candidate by tapping on his or her “topic tag” (a news feed specifically dedicated to a particular candidate).
For the Politics section, CNN is covering the polling and debates of this election cycle in its Flipboard Magazine, “CNN Politics: 2016 on Tap.” Flipboard will interview a member of the CNN Politics team after each debate for a “2016 on Tap: CNN Politics Debate Recap” blog post. This unique content will only be available to Flipboard Election Central readers.
In addition, the Politics section will tell the story of the political maneuvering and advertising surrounding the race to the White House with coverage from leading news sources and Flipboard Magazines from NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CNN’s Inside Politics and the Des Moines Register.
2016 Election Central is the first destination site Flipboard has launched. It will be available until December 2016.
ABOUT FLIPBOARD
Flipboard gives people a single place to keep up on the topics, news, and events they care about. People use Flipboard to follow their favorite sources from around the world and then collect stories, images, and videos into their own Flipboard magazines—sharing items that reflect their interests, express their perspectives, or are simply things they want to read later. Download Flipboard in any app store or visit www.flipboard.com.
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Here Are 21 Policy Highlights From the First 2016 Republican Debate
Clinton in Jeopardy of Losing New Hampshire to Sanders
WASHINGTON /PRNewswire/ — One America News Network, “OAN”, a credible source for 24/7 national and international news, released today its most recent 2016 Republican and Democratic Presidential New Hampshire Poll results conducted by Gravis Marketing. The poll results show that Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders has increased his support to 39%, with Hillary Clinton only 4 percentage points ahead at 43%. The results represent a major surge in the polls for Sanders, landing him within the margin of error away from Clinton. Undeclared Elizabeth Warren received 8% with Joe Biden achieving 6%. Martin O’Malley and Jim Webb both received 2% with Lincoln Chafee not registering a reportable percentage.
GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump continues his large lead with 32%, followed by John Kasich at 15% with Chris Christie coming in third at 9%. Rounding out the top five are Ben Carson and Scott Walker, both achieving 8%. Jeb Bush just missed the top five with 7% of the vote from polled Republican participants.
According to Robert Herring, Sr., CEO of One America News Network, “Bernie Sanders is surging in New Hampshire and threatening to win this early State. With 14% of the participants voting for two undeclared candidates, we may see a Sanders victory in New Hampshire. Kasich is also gaining in the polls and will be the challenger to watch.”
Gravis Marketing, a nonpartisan research firm, conducted a random survey of 1179 registered voters across the U.S. regarding the presidential election. The sample includes 599 Republicans and 475 Democrats. The poll has an overall margin of error of +/- 2.9%, 4.0% for the Republican results and 4.5% for the Democrat results. The total may not equal exactly 100% due to rounding. The polls were conducted on July 31st throughAugust 3rd using interactive voice response, IVR, technology and weighted separately for each population in the question presented. The poll was conducted exclusively for One America News Network.
One America News Network has been providing extensive coverage of the 2016 Presidential campaign, including numerous exclusive one-on-one interviews with the leading candidates. One America News Network will be releasing on-going 2016 Presidential polling results, including national Presidential polling results at the end of July. Complete poll results will be posted tomorrow at http://www.oann.com/pollNH
ABOUT ONE AMERICA NEWS NETWORK
One America News Network offers 21 hours of live news coverage plus two one-hour political talk shows, namely The Daily Ledger and On Point with Tomi Lahren. While other emerging and established cable news networks offer multiple hours of live news coverage, only OAN can claim to consistently provide 21 hours of live coverage every weekday. Third party viewership data for Q2 2015 from Rentrak, namely accumulated viewer hours, shows that OAN surpasses other news channels such as Al Jazeera America, Fusion, Fox Business News, and Bloomberg TV as measured on AT&T U-verse TV, across 65 markets.
Since its debut on July 4, 2013, One America News Network has grown its distribution to over 12 million households with carriage by AT&T U-Verse TV (ch 208/1208 in HD), Verizon FiOS TV (ch 116/616 in HD), GCI Cable, Frontier Communications, CenturyLink PRISM TV, Consolidated Communications, Duncan Cable, GVTC and numerous additional video providers. One America News Network operates production studios and news bureaus in California and Washington, DC. For more information on One America News Network, please visit www.OANN.com.
RELATED ARTICLE: O’Malley Blasts Democrats for Limiting Debates
Presidential Debate TV Ad Asks Candidates To Focus on One Million Legal Immigrants A Year
WASHINGTON /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The greatest concern about immigration policy should be the overall numbers admitted and not about the race, national origin and other characteristics of individual immigrants, claims the NumbersUSA TV commercial to be aired during this Thursday’s Republican Presidential debate on FOX News.
“We are glad that candidates are beginning to address various problems of our immigration policies, but our ad seeks to remind presidential hopefuls and voters that the overwhelming issue is that our government will admit another one million immigrants into the United States this year alone,” said Roy Beck, President of NumbersUSA, a grassroots organization claiming nearly 3 million participants.
“All American wage-earners and their families are potentially affected by the fact that every one of those million new immigrants each year gets a life-time work authorization to compete for jobs despite persistent wage stagnation and 17 million Americans who are still unemployed or underemployed.”
The TV ad features a diverse group of Americans calmly making the point that the immigration debate should not be about the color of people’s skin or their nation of origin, but it should be about the numbers.
The ad invites viewers to see where each politician stands on immigration numbers by going towww.NumbersUSA.com. There they will find the NumbersUSA Worker-Protection Immigration Grade Cards which provide ratings in 10 immigration categories and an overall grade for how each of 21 Republican and Democratic Presidential hopefuls would “affect Americans’ jobs and wages by changing the supply of workers” through actions addressing both illegal and legal immigration.
For more information about NumbersUSA or to view the NumbersUSA TV commercial, please visitwww.NumbersUSA.com.
Clinton’s Startup Tax Will Crush New Businesses by Dan Gelernter
Hillary Clinton has announced that she will, if elected, raise the capital-gains tax to a maximum that equals the highest income tax bracket. She hopes to promote long-term investments by penalizing short-term ones with a tax rate that gets lower the longer an investment is held, reaching the current 20% rate only after six years.
This, Ms. Clinton says, would allow a CEO to focus on the company’s true interests rather than just making the next quarter. It is, unfortunately, exactly the sort of plan you would expect from someone who has never started a company — and who doesn’t seem to know anyone who has.
The CEO of a startup is unlike the CEO of an established business. He is not the head of a chain of command: he is the spokesman or agent of a few colleagues, entrusted for the moment to represent them. The startup CEO has one primary job, which is raising money. It is the hardest thing a young company has to do — and it is an unending process.
Most germinal startups never raise any money at all. The ones that get seed funding are already breathing rarified air, and can afford perhaps a day of celebration before they start pursuing the next round.
The picture is especially tough for tech startups. A startup that builds software doesn’t have any machinery or physical supplies to auction off if the company fails. This means that banks won’t make the kind of secured business loans of the sort small companies traditionally get.
As a result, tech startups are wholly reliant on a relatively small number of investors who are looking for something more exciting than the establishment choices and are willing to take a big gamble in the hope of a big, short-term payoff. Though Ms. Clinton’s proposal would only affect those in the top income bracket, she may be surprised to learn that those are the only people who can afford to make such investments.
Professional investors think in terms of risk: they balance the likelihood of a startup’s failure against the potential payoff of its success. Increasing the tax rate reduces the effective payoff, which increases risk. Investors can lower that risk by reducing the valuation at which they are willing to invest, which means they take a larger share of the company — a straightforward transfer of risk from investors to entrepreneurs.
Ms. Clinton’s tax therefore will not be borne by wealthy investors: it comes out of the entrepreneur’s payday. The increased tax rate means a risk-equivalent decrease in the percentage of the company the entrepreneur gets to keep. And that’s just the best-case scenario.
The other option is that the tax doesn’t get paid at all, because the investor decides the increased risk isn’t worth it — the startup can’t attract funding and dies.
That sounds melodramatic, but it is no exaggeration. A startup company never has more offers than it needs; it never raises money with time spare. Even a slight change in the risk-return balance — say, the 3.8% which Obamacare quietly laid on top of the current capital-gains — kills companies, as investors and entrepreneurs see the potential upside finally shaved past the tipping point.
A tech startup has short-term potential. That is a major part of the attraction to investors, and that makes Ms. Clinton’s proposal especially damaging. In the tech world, we all hope we’ll be the next Facebook or Twitter, but you can’t pitch that to an investor. A good tech startup takes a small, simple idea and implements it beautifully.
The most direct success scenario is an acquisition by a larger company. In the app world — and this is the upside to not having physical limitations on distribution — the timescale is remarkably accelerated. A recent benchmark example was Mailbox, purchased by Dropbox just two months after it launched.
Giving investors an incentive to not to sell will hurt entrepreneurs yet again, postponing the day their sweat equity finally has tangible value, and encouraging decisions that make tax-sense rather than business-sense.
If Hillary Clinton really wants to help entrepreneurs, she should talk to some and find out what they actually want. A lower capital-gains tax — or no capital-gains tax — would be an excellent start.
Dan Gelernter is CEO of the technology startup Dittach.
2 Qualities Americans Look for in a President: Hillary Has Neither
There are two qualities that most Americans are looking for in a president: judgment and leadership. With the recent revelations that, at best, Hillary Clinton disclosed extremely sensitive data over her private email system and, at worst, she may have disclosed classified U.S. state secrets to foreign governments through her private email system, it’s now time for Americans, regardless of their partisan alignment, to dismiss her candidacy for the presidency.
Because of the perilous position the country is now in, due to the selection over seven years ago of an untested and un-vetted Barack Obama, you need to know this to avoid a similar mistake. A verified source contacted me not long ago and told me that the private Clinton email server had been hacked into and the hacking may have been performed by foreign governments. As a former federal agent, subject to strict operational and email security rules and regulations, I was appalled. I couldn’t help but think, How is it that hard-working, rank-and-file, government employees would be fired, and potentially prosecuted, for this type of irresponsible behavior but Hillary Clinton may get elected president for doing the same thing?
Regardless of whether Hillary Clinton is prosecuted by the Department of Justice for this egregious behavior, or not, this sorry episode should have EVERY single American, regardless of partisan affiliation, openly questioning Hillary Clinton’s judgment to lead the military and federal workforce, despite her determination to ignore the rules they must obey.
This scandal also brings to light some very serious questions about Hillary Clinton’s leadership abilities. I recently put out a list of seven things for which the Left, and in this case Hillary, should consider offering an apology and explanation. The American people are tired of the liberal excuses and the hiding from facts. If Hillary were truly serious about trying to restore trust among the public and prove she is capable of leading, she would start by taking responsibility for her actions.
Good leaders step up and take responsibility in times of crisis; they do not duck and shamelessly blame others when crisis knocks on their doors. Hillary Clinton has shown none of the requisite leadership abilities to be the next President of the United States during the numerous crises she and her husband have been involved in. She is not a leader and she is lacking the character traits necessary for an introductory management position, no less the presidency of the greatest country on earth.
Note to Democrats: it’s time to move on, both for the future of your party, and for the future of our country.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. The featured image of Hillary Clinton is by Charlie Riedel | AP Photo.
Immigration and the Presidential Debates — The burning question on voters’ minds
Every day brings America closer to the next presidential election. Every day also brings us closer to the debates in which candidates for America’s highest elected office will be questioned about their goals and visions for the future of our nation.
So many important questions that will need to be answered. Where will the moderators begin?
If the moderators are thoughtful and honest, they will begin by asking questions about that most important topic that plays a vital role in all of the other challenges and threats facing America and Americans today. That singular topic is immigration.
While it is rarely if ever discussed in the mainstream media, immigration is arguably the most impactful component of each and every one of the most important challenges and threats facing America and Americans today.
Those challenges include national security and the war on terror, public safety and crime, the economy, the survival of the middle class and unemployment. Those challenges also include public health and healthcare, education, the environment and the critical infrastructure of our towns and cities.
Immigration has been of extreme importance for a very long time but has been all but ignored until very recently. Had it not been for Donald Trump’s statements about immigration, the issue of criminal aliens and the lack of border security, it is quite likely that immigration would still be off limits in the discussions. Trump’s statements and the tragic and senseless death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by a criminal alien who had been convicted of seven felonies and deported on 5 previous occasions, pushed immigration into the national consciousness and rattled the cages of the leaders of both political parties who had hoped that no one would raise the issue.
Additionally, the great majority of news organizations had been assiduously ignoring immigration, but has lately found it impossible to not provide coverage about immigration and the issues of “sanctuary cities” and the violence perpetrated by criminal aliens.
Trump’s emergence on the national stage — unfettered by the need to raise campaign contributions and making the decision to be his own man and speak his own mind — continues to resonate with many Americans even as politicians from both parties continue to rely on pollsters to tell them what to say and what not to say. They surround themselves with a small army of advisors and “handlers” and try to operate and speak within the confines of what my good friend and Congressional Representative Lou Barletta accurately refers to as “the box.” Not surprisingly, Trump is connecting with many Americans in a way that the other politicians are not because he operates outside the confines of that “box.” The impact this is having is clear.
Most politicians are expressing greater anger and frustration over Trump’s candor than they are over criminal aliens murdering innocent Americans. Many politicians are also more focused on Trump than they are on the administration that has created anarchy in the immigration system — a system that should serve as America’s first line and last line of defense against international terrorists and transnational criminals.
For decades politicians from both political parties have impugned hardworking Americans by claiming that “immigrants do the work Americans won’t do.” This has become the virtual mantra for both parties. Ask yourself if there are, in fact, any jobs that Americans won’t do?
Even as you read this article American workers are trudging off to work boarding commercial fishing vessels where they engage in the most dangerous job in America. They are trudging off to work in coal mines, heading for constructions sites to build towering office buildings, stores and houses. They are racing to put out dangerous fires threatening the lives and property of total strangers. Our American law enforcement officers on the local, state and federal level are chasing down dangerous armed felons, putting their lives on the line as a matter of routine.
Hardworking Americans who still embody the “can do” spirit that built our country are ready, willing and able to do dangerous, filthy and backbreaking work (and do it better and more productively than anyone else) are being insulted by politicians who were purportedly elected to represent them. What an outrageous betrayal.
Even as you read this, American soldiers, all of whom are volunteers, are engaging in violent combat in some of the most inhospitable hellish conditions imaginable. They see their fellow soldiers suffering grievous injuries or being killed before their very eyes, yet, as the appropriate term says, they continue to soldier on.
We are also being told that Americans lack the education and, apparently, the intelligence to take the high-tech STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) jobs even as Silicon Valley and many other employers fire thousands of American workers who have been working in these careers for many years — yet petition the federal government for more H-1B visas to bring in foreign workers to take these very same jobs.
My June 18, 2015 commentary for FrontPage Magazine, “Theft By Deception: The Immigration Con Game,” included this excerpt:
Today increasing numbers of “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) professionals are being laid off and replaced by foreign workers from India and elsewhere. The only thing “exceptional” about these foreign workers is that they will work for exceptionally low wages under exceptionally adverse conditions.
Work helps to define us. Work provides dignity, a sense of purpose, opportunities and income. Virtually every college student who attends college does so with the hope/expectation of a brighter future through a career made possible by acquiring a higher level of education.
When young Americans opt to attend colleges they put off working for years. Upon graduation from those institutions of higher learning, where they invested years of their lives studying conscientiously, they find themselves encumbered by massive debts in the form of student loans. All too often they find that they cannot get jobs in their chosen fields of study, including those who took degrees in the STEM disciplines. For these victims of the crime, their share of the “American Dream” and indeed their futures, have been stolen, their time and money wasted.
Understandably, foreign workers send as much of their earnings back to their families in their home countries whether they are illegal alien day laborers or high-tech workers who were admitted into the United States with H-1B or other such visas which enable them to legally work in the United States. That money provides an important revenue stream to those foreign families and their countries. For Mexico, for example, remittances are believed to represent the second largest source of revenue.
Last year the United States lost well over 125 billion dollars in remittances — money electronically transferred out of the United States by such foreign workers. Money also moves in covert ways as well.
Last year India was the recipient of the greatest amount of remittances any country on this planet received, more than 70 billion dollars. This money was wired home by their workers who are employed in countries around the world- although it is the United States that each year loses the greatest amount of money.
A PhD in economics is not needed to understand that as more Americans are replaced by more foreign workers who will send ever increasing amounts of money out of our economy that the U.S. economy will suffer. When middle class families drop below the poverty line as American workers lose their jobs, they lose their disposable incomes. They stop being tax-payers and become increasingly dependent on costly economic safety net programs. This jacks up our national debt and also hurts the economies of cities and states across the United States. This is completely unsustainable.
Undoubtedly the nation’s struggling economy will be important to the debates because America’s economy is linked to national security as well as not only the well-being of America but for millions of Americans. The middle class is getting hammered as family wages stagnate or even decline. Record numbers of American families now live below the poverty line.
Any politician who claims to oppose Sanctuary Cities but supports in-state tuition for illegal aliens is lying. In-state tuition for illegal aliens creates a powerful and costly magnet that incentivizes and rewards illegal immigration.
Undoubtedly the politicians who are advocates for in-state tuition for illegal aliens will insist that once educated these illegal aliens should be granted Green Cards that will enable them to compete, on an equal standing, with desperate American workers and American students who need good jobs.
The Eye, Ear, and Mind Principle
A few weeks ago I wrote a column titled, “Republican Presidential Candidates Lack Diversity.” I called out Republican presidential campaigns for not having any Blacks on staff or as consultants. I received several phone calls from various campaigns with them expressing their “disappointment” in my piece; they didn’t deny the facts of my piece, just the fact that I criticized Republicans.
These campaigns and the party, as usual, are missing the point. While diversity within a presidential campaign is extremely important; the optics are even more important for 2016. In the immortal words of my good friend John Travolta from the movie Swordfish, “What the eyes see, and the ears hear; the mind believes.” I have dubbed this the eyes, ear, and mind principle (E.E.M.).
Can you name me one Black who has been publicly validated by the leaders of the Republican Party? I am speaking in terms of a Black who is known and respected both in the Black community, as well as the White community; a Black who is well regarded in both communities simultaneous.
Have you seen one Black get out of the car or off the plane with any of our candidates for president? Have you ever seen one Black with House Speaker John Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell?
Since Blacks are not seen in the party, nor heard in the party; it is understandable why in the mind of Blacks we believe there is no place in the Republican Party for us; the E.E.M. principle in effect.
Issues of race will be one of the top three issues going into next year’s elections and the Republican Party is totally unprepared to deal with anything with a racial component. Look no further than the anemic response our presidential candidates have given to issues like Ferguson, Baltimore, or South Carolina. How do you expect these campaigns to adequately respond to these issues when they have all White staffs, consultants, and pollsters?
The National Urban League’s annual convention last week provided a great teachable moment for Republicans; but I doubt very seriously that they will learn from it.
I have been telling Republicans for years that they should never attend or speak to any of the major Black organizations unless they are given certain concessions. I am speaking about groups like the National Urban League, the NAACP, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), etc.
These Black groups are all very liberal in their orientation and rarely if ever have Black Republicans on any panels during their conventions. So why would any Republican go there and give a speech, only to have the group’s members constantly criticize the Republican messages; if there are no Black Republicans on various panels to push back on this criticism then the speech is a total waste of time?
JEB Bush spoke at the Urban League’s conference last week only have Hillary Clinton thoroughly eviscerate Bush and Republicans and we had no one to refute Hillary’s bogus speech. Bush’s speech said absolutely nothing of relevance to the audience or the Black community; and I can guarantee you that the speech was written by a white staffer with no input from any Blacks that understand communications and the Black community. So Bush got what he deserved.
Republicans go to these groups simply out of fear. They are terrified of being called a racist, so they go to these groups with hat in hand because they have no Blacks around them who are willing to take a hard line with these liberal Black groups. If these groups refuse to have Black Republicans participate in their conferences, why would party leaders agree to speak?
The Black community is not hearing anything of any relevance to them from these presidential candidates specifically or the party in general.
If Blacks don’t see anything, or hear anything of relevance to us; then the mind will tell us Republicans don’t give a damn about our vote.
The Republican Party has a brand problem within the Black community and until they decide to deal with the eyes, ears, and mind they will never make any gains in our community.
Rand Paul deserves some credit for attempting to engage with the Black community, but his execution was horrible at best; incompetent at worst.
Isn’t it amazing that Republicans have done absolutely nothing to build relationships with the Black business community?
Not only are they an invaluable source for policy input; but they are also a great source for potential political contributions.
Even with the upcoming presidential debate on Thursday with FOX News, you have all white journalists asking the questions. Why would FOX not at least have Kelly Wright (my fellow Oral Roberts alum) or Juan Williams as one of the questioners since they both work for FOX?
To my knowledge, I don’t think either party has ever had a journalist from a Black newspaper ever participate in a presidential debate.
Why? There are over 200 Black newspapers in the U.S. I hope the Republican Party will mandate a least one journalist from a Black newspaper be chosen to participate during one of the many upcoming Republican debates.
I will continue to write about these issues of diversity until the party finally begins to look like America. But too often Republicans try to do the right thing; but they do it the wrong way.
Dear Liberals: America Doesn’t Need Your Input on Who’s Conservative
Are you as tired as I am of media elites attempting to pick our GOP candidates for us?
The media tries this same magic trick during every presidential election where they feign allegiance to the least conservative GOP candidate or candidates and then, when the Democratic nominee has sealed the Party nomination, they quickly, and viciously, turn on their “favorite son” GOP candidate.
Well, they’re up to the same hijinks again. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank recently penned an absurd piece in his regular opinion column where he viciously attacked Texas Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz for having the “temerity” to call a lie a lie, to ask that the Iranians recognize Israel’s right to simply exist, and to defund the monstrous Planned Parenthood. Dana Milbank, the far-left ideologue disguising himself as a mildly credible opinion journalist in a major newspaper, has absolutely no business commenting on who should, or should not, be blacklisted by American conservatives – the very group he despises and makes no effort to otherwise understand the movement.
After reading the Milbank piece I thought the best way to respond to him and the media/Democratic Party complex would be to return the favor and write an open letter to the Left explaining which Democratic candidates should be shunned, and why. If you’re on the Left and reading this and getting angry, now you have a mild understanding of what conservatives go through every day when the left-leaning media lectures us about who the “non-angry, acceptable conservatives” are.
Here goes:
Dear American Left,
How can you support Hillary Clinton for President? Hillary Clinton claims to be a champion of the middle class but she openly advocates for policies that will decimate your quality of life. She supports Obamacare, which has dramatically hiked your insurance premiums through its reliance on community rating and guaranteed issue. She supports an enormous hike in the capital gains tax that will dramatically reduce investment in the economy and, as a result, reduce middle class wages which rely on capital investment to increase economic productivity. And, critically, she fights furiously against school choice and will destroy any chance you have of getting your child a quality education if you live an area with subpar public schools.
And Bernie Sanders? How can you support a man who describes himself as a socialist? Do you realize that Senator Sanders is guided by a political ideology that will steal away from you the freedoms you claim to cherish? Socialism claims to be an ideology of equality but, the so-called “equality” they wish to bring to the United States is an equality of misery because government doesn’t possess the ability to enforce equality of outcomes. As legendary political economist Friedrich Hayek noted in The Constitution of Liberty:
From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.
Finally, how can you support Martin O’Malley? O’Malley is a man with so few convictions that when challenged by left-wing extremists on his seemingly innocuous statement that “all lives matter” at the Netroots Nation conference he APOLOGIZED. O’Malley cowardly walked back his comments by saying “That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect.” Disrespect? For saying “all lives matter”? If this is the kind of character you are seeking in your Democratic nominee for president then your Party is lost at sea with no chance for rescue. I hope you consider my comments on your candidates before entering the voting booth in 2016.
Thanks for your time,
Dan Bongino
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. The feature image is by Earl Gibson III | AP Photo.
National Poll: Trump and Clinton in the Lead
WASHINGTON /PRNewswire/ — One America News Network, “OAN”, a credible source for 24/7 national and international news, released today its most recent 2016 Republican and Democratic Presidential National Poll results conducted by Gravis Marketing. The poll results show that GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump has a significant lead with 30.8% support among Republicans. Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush comes in second with 13.3%, trailing Trump by a margin of 17.5%. Scott Walker earned the third spot, receiving 12.5% followed by Ben Carson with 6.1%. Mike Huckabee rounds out the top five with 5.6%.
Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leads with a commanding 54.9% with Bernie Sanders the only other candidate in the double digit range with 18.4%. The only other announced Democrat Presidential Candidate to achieve more than 5% is Jim Webb at 5.1%.
The recently conducted One America News national poll results show overall unfavorable job approval sentiment for President Obama, with a split down Party lines. President Obama’s overall approval rating is 44% with his disapproval rating at 51%.
According to Robert Herring, Sr., CEO of One America News Network, “Donald Trump’s strong showing in this recent national poll is consistent with what we’ve been seeing in the state polls. He’s clearly been attracting strong interest from Republicans across the country. The Democratic poll results are clear. At best it’s a two candidate race at this point. Based upon the poll results, it looks like Hillary Clinton will secure the Democratic nomination, unless there is some sort of blow up or a surprise surge by an announced, or unannounced candidate. One America News is pleased to provide our viewers with on-going up-to-date poll results and we’ve more upcoming state and national polling underway utilizing the polling firm Gravis Marketing.”
Doug Kaplan of Gravis Marketing states, “Trump’s poll numbers are once again amazing. At this time in the process in 2008 and 2012, there were already multiple debates. The upcoming debates will be critical. I thinkJeb Bush, with a second place national poll result and sitting on a ton of money is in a strong position. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is coasting to the nomination. We haven’t seen anything like this since Richard Nixon in 1960.”
Gravis Marketing, a nonpartisan research firm, conducted a random survey of 1,535 registered voters across the U.S. regarding the presidential election. The sample includes 732 Republicans and 803 Democrats. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.5%. The total may not equal exactly 100% due to rounding. The polls were conducted on July 29th using interactive voice response, IVR, technology and weighted separately for each population in the question presented. The poll was conducted exclusively for One America News Network. See www.oann.com/pollnational
One America News Network has been providing extensive coverage of the 2016 Presidential campaign, including numerous exclusive one-on-one interviews with the leading candidates. One America News Networkwill be releasing on-going 2016 Presidential polling results, including national Presidential polling results at the end of July. Complete poll results are available at http://www.oann.com/pollnational
About One America News Network (“OAN”)
One America News Network offers 21 hours of live news coverage plus two one-hour political talk shows, namely The Daily Ledger and On Point with Tomi Lahren. While other emerging and established cable news networks offer multiple hours of live news coverage, only OAN can claim to consistently provide 21 hours of live coverage every weekday. Third party viewership data for Q2 2015 from Rentrak, namely accumulated viewer hours, shows that OAN surpasses other news channels such as Al Jazeera America, Fusion, Fox Business News, and Bloomberg TV as measured on AT&T U-verse TV, across 65 markets.
Since its debut on July 4, 2013, One America News Network has grown its distribution to over 12 million households with carriage by AT&T U-Verse TV (ch 208/1208 in HD), Verizon FiOS TV (ch 116/616 in HD), GCI Cable, Frontier Communications, CenturyLink PRISM TV, Consolidated Communications, Duncan Cable, GVTC and numerous additional video providers. One America News Network operates production studios and news bureaus in California and Washington, DC. For more information on One America News Network, please visit www.OANN.com.
The GOP Debates Scorecard
The Republican National Committee plans to conduct at least nine debates in the 2015-16 presidential primary season, the first of which will be held at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on August 6, 2015. The debate will be co-sponsored by Fox News and Facebook and moderated by Fox News anchors, Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace. And although the RNC is determined to hold far fewer debates than the twenty held during the 2012 primary season, the party has left the door open to the possibility of up to three additional debates if the need arises.
In a July 28, 2015 column, titled “Kristol Clear Straw Poll #5,” Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol expresses what a great many people have been thinking, which is that the GOP debate format agreed to by Fox News and the Republican National Committee falls far short of the ideal.
Fox News has announced that, in order to avoid having as many as sixteen candidates on the stage at one time, each vying for their share of face-time before the a national TV audience, they will limit the number of candidates to ten. Those candidates will be the top ten candidates taken from an average of the five most recent national polls… the polls to be selected by Fox.
According to one analysis of five recent national polls, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, and Scott Walker are almost certain to be selected, while the two remaining slots will be filled by either Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Rick Perry, or Rick Santorum. Carly Fiorina, George Pataki, and Lindsey Graham, each polling at roughly one percent, are apparently out of the running for the first debate.
Kristol has issued a fervent plea to Fox News and the RNC. He asks that they please abandon the “poorly-conceived ten-person, one-main-stage format” while there is still time. He argues that there simply will not be a “statistically significant difference between the 8th through 10th place finishers and the 11th through 13th places.” I would argue that there is insufficient reason to arbitrarily exclude any six of the sixteen candidates. Kristol suggests that, out of fairness, the sponsors change the format to two eight-person debates, to be held on successive nights, or, in the alternative, two five-person debates and one six-person debate on three successive nights.
In order to demonstrate how the single ten-person debate would deny primary voters the opportunity to discover what some of the best, most capable, but lesser known candidates have to offer, I have developed a rating system which, as objectively as possible, points to some significant strengths and weaknesses in the candidates that the casual observer might overlook.
The rating system I have developed utilizes six separate factors: eligibility, personal appeal,
experience, directness, the Trump factor, and position on the issues, each scored on a scale of
one to ten. (The “Trump Factor” being a measure of the extent to which each candidate has
either adhered to or ignored Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, re: the Trump candidacy.)
A quick analysis of the sixteen candidates produces the following results:
Republican Candidate Ratings – Pre-Debates
Candidate Eligibility Appeal Experience Directness Trump Factor Issues Total
Bush 10 5 10 2 0 3 30
Carson 10 10 5 10 10 8 53
Christie 10 7 10 10 5 8 50
Ted Cruz 0 7 7 10 2 8 34
Fiorina 10 10 8 10 10 8 56
Gilmore 10 ? 10 ? ? ? ?
Graham 10 2 10 10 0 8 40
Huckabee 10 8 8 10 10 10 56
Jindal 0 2 8 10 5 8 33
Kasich 10 8 10 8 5 10 51
Pataki 10 6 10 5 5 8 44
Paul 10 8 6 10 10 5 49
Perry 10 8 10 8 0 10 46
Rubio 0 10 10 10 8 10 48
Santorum 0 5 8 5 8 8 34
Trump 10 8 8 10 10 8 54
Walker 10 10 10 10 5 10 55
Using the above analytical format, the participants in the August 6th debate would be, in order of ranking, 1) Carly Fiorina, 2) Mike Huckabee, 3) Scott Walker, 4) Donald Trump, 5) Ben Carson, 6) John Kasich, 7) Chris Christie, 8) Rand Paul, 9) Marco Rubio, and 10) Rick Perry. Those watching the debate on TV would be, in order: 11) George Pataki, 12) Lindsey Graham, 13) Ted Cruz, 14) Rick Santorum, 15) Bobby Jindal, and 16) Jeb Bush. Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore has just announced and cannot be properly evaluated.
What is most interesting about the admittedly subjective analysis is that former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who regularly polls at 2% or less because she lacks name recognition, comes out tied for first place with Mike Huckabee, each winning 56 out of a possible 60 points, while Jeb Bush, the darling of the mainstream media and establishment Republicans, comes in dead last. Bush comes in last because: 1) he is not an appealing candidate, 2) he was one of the first to openly criticize Donald Trump, and 3) he has a history of pandering to liberal special interests.
To date, only three of the sixteen candidates have distinguished themselves from the others. Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee have unabashedly taken the fight to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while Donald Trump has created a firestorm with his straight-from-the-shoulder characterization of many of the illegal aliens streaming across our southern border,
What is clear is that the same not-dry-behind-the-ears incompetents who’ve managed Republican presidential campaigns since Reagan left the White House are still hanging around Washington, just waiting to see how many more presidential campaigns they can screw up. In the past two weeks they have blindly led at least seven or eight of the establishment candidates to deal with the Trump campaign in the most counterproductive way, saying some really dumb things about a totally fearless man who can always be counted upon to deliver more punishment than he receives… proving once again that it’s not always a good idea to poke at a hornets’ nest.
The Washington inside-the-Beltway political consultants are unaccustomed to honesty and forthrightness in campaign rhetoric and Donald Trump, a breath of fresh air, is now conducting a graduate seminar for them. As a case in point, two young female guests on The O’Reilly Factor on Monday evening, July 27… young women who were not alive when Ronald Reagan was president, but who now market themselves as knowledgeable campaign strategists… were both asked how the other candidates should react to Trump’s surge in the polls. True to their training, both provided the only answer they knew. They said, “It’s time for them to go on the attack. They need to go negative.” That is precisely what Trump’s opponents should not do.
What GOP establishment candidates totally ignore is the fact that Americans, in general, and conservatives and Republicans in particular, have been yearning for nearly thirty years for a presidential candidate with the courage to “tell it like it is.” They’ve longed for a conservative willing to take on the mainstream media, bare-knuckled, a leader with enough “rough edges” on him/her to scare the crap out of liberals and Democrats, both inside and outside the mainstream media. For now, at least, Donald Trump looks like a man who fits that description, although if his approach to campaigning has had any impact at all on more conventional Republicans, the GOP debates may yet uncover another contender or two.
In the meantime, while the establishment candidates are busy attacking one of their own, Mike Huckabee and Carly Fiorina are out there doing “the Lord’s work,” exposing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the frauds they are. But if Trump’s method and message fails to teach the establishment a few powerful lessons, then it looks as if some of us old “graybeards,” veterans of the Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan campaigns, will be forced to come out of retirement to show them how it’s done.
Hillary Clinton’s Ideological Vortex of Power and Planning by Jeffrey A. Tucker
Just trust her. Truly, just trust her: to know precisely how much energy we ought to use, where it should come from, how it should be generated, how we should get from here to there, and the effects that her plan will have on the global — the global! — climate, not just in the near term but decades or a century from now.
If you do this, you will have embraced “science,” “reality,” “truth,” and “innovation,” and, also, “our children.” If you don’t go along, you not only reject all those good things; you are probably also a “denier,” the catch-all epithet for anyone doubtful that the brilliance of Hillary Clinton and her czars know better than the rest of humanity how to manage their energy needs into the future.
Hillary’s campaign seems designed to prove that F.A. Hayek was a prophet.
That brilliant economist spent 50 years explaining, in book after book, that the greatest danger humanity faced, now and always, was a presumption on the part of intellectuals, politicians, and bureaucrats that they know better than the emergent and evolving wisdom of social forces.
This presumption might seem like science but it is really pretense. Civilization arises from, is protected by, and advances through the dispersed knowledge of billions of individual decision makers and the institutions that arise from them.
Hayek called the issue he was investigating the knowledge problem. Society needs to know how to use scarce resources, how to navigate a world of uncertainty, how to form rules that turn struggle into peace. It is a problem solved through freedom alone. No ruler, no scientist, no intellectual can substitute for the evolving process of decentralized decision making and trial and error.
The message is bad news for people like Hillary, who is supposed to embody the ideology called “liberalism” in America. Yet it is anything but liberal. It seems to know only one way forward: more top-down control. That’s a tough sell in times when everything good so obviously comes from anything but government, and, meanwhile, governments are responsible for every failing sector from health to education to foreign wars.
But here’s the problem. People like Hillary Clinton are stuck in an ideological vortex with no way out. Government planning is their thing, and they refuse to recognize its failures. So they press on and on, even to the point of preposterous implausibility, such as the claim that government can know everything that is necessary to know in order to plan the entire energy sector with the aim of managing the climate of the world.
Economist Donald Boudreaux puts matters this way: “why should someone who cannot ensure the proper use of a single private server be trusted with the colossal power necessary to design and to oversee the remaking of a trillion-plus dollar sector of the U.S. economy (a sector, by the way, in which this person has zero experience)?”
With this presumption comes the inevitable hypocrisy.
After unveiling her plan to ration energy use and plaster the country with solar panels, Ms. Clinton boarded a private jet that uses more fuel in one flight hour than I use in a year. “The aircraft, a Dassault model Falcon 900B, burns 347 gallons of fuel per hour,” wrote the muckraker who did a public service in exposing this. “The Trump-esque transportation costs $5,850 per hour to rent, according to the website of Executive Fliteways, the company that owns it.”
Notice how rarely it is mentioned that the US military, with hundreds of bases in over a hundred countries, is the worst single polluter on the planet. If we really believe in human-caused climate change, this might be a good place to start cutting back. But no, there’s not a word about this in any of Hillary’s plans. Government gets to do what it must do. The rest of us are supposed to pay the price, bicycling to work and powering our homes with sunshine and windmills.
When I first read about her energy plan, my response was: Why would any self-interested politician make the need for reduced living standards a centerpiece of her campaign? After all, her speech was made in a setting piled high with bicycles (oddly reminiscent of Mao’s China), while demanding a precise path forward for energy and everything that uses it (oddly reminiscent of Lenin’s first speech after he took control of Russian economic life).
As it turns out, people aren’t that interested. Sure, most people tell pollsters that they favor renewable energy to stop climate change. You have to say that or else risk being denounced as a denier. On the other hand, it seems like very few people really care enough to forgo the benefits of modern life, which is probably what will save civilization itself from plans like hers. Note that days after release, her pompous video only had only 54K views — pathetic given her celebrity and how much money her campaign is spending, but encouraging that nobody seems to put much stock in her plan for our future.
It’s extraordinary how quickly one branch of the political class has leapt from the delicate and ever-changing science of climate monitoring to the absolute certainty that extreme and extremely specific application of government force is the way to deal with it. Writes Max Borders: “The sacralization of climate is being used as a great loophole in the rule of law, an apology for bad science (and even worse economics), and an excuse to do anything and everything to have and keep power.”
The last point is critical. Everything done in the name of public policy in our lifetimes has become a handful of dust, yielding little more than unpayable debts and unworkable programs, and leaving in its wake an apparatus of compulsion and control that robs society of its inherent genius.
What to do? Give up? That’s not an option for these people. Instead, they find a new frontier for their schemes, a new rationale to sustain a failed model of social and economic organization.
I can think of no better words of rebuke but the closing of Hayek’s Nobel speech in 1974:
If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible.
He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.
There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, “dizzy with success”, to use a characteristic phrase of early communism, to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will.
The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society — a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.
Yes, it surely ought to.
Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Digital Development at FEE, CLO of the startup Liberty.me, and editor at Laissez Faire Books. Author of five books, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.
Poll: Teflon Donald Takes Double Digit Lead into GOP Debates
BOSTON /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — One week out from the first GOP debate, Donald Trump leads the Republican field with 31% of the vote, followed by Gov. Jeb Bush at 15% and Gov. Scott Walker in third at 13%. The survey was conducted July 26 to July 28, with 481 likely GOP voters at a 4.4% margin of error.
Forty percent (40%) of respondents viewed Trump’s comments regarding Senator John McCain’s War record as unimportant to their vote while another 47% said they would be less likely to vote for Trump because of his comments about the Arizona Senator. Interestingly, 11% percent said they were more likely to vote for Trump because of his commentary on McCain.
Rounding out the top 10 Republicans in this poll were Sen. Ted Cruz at 8%, Gov. Mike Huckabee at 6%, followed by Dr. Ben Carson at 5%, Sen. Rand Paul at 4% and Sen. Marco Rubio at 4%. Carly Fiorina was in 9th place at 3% and Gov. John Kasich was tied with Gov. Chris Christie with 2% of the vote. All other candidates received under 1% of the vote; 7% of Republican Primary voters were undecided.
Sen. Hillary Clinton holds a significant lead with 54% of the vote in the Democrat Primary with Sen. Bernie Sanders in second at 33% and VP Joe Biden at 9%. All other announced candidates register under 2% of the vote each. The sample size of likely Democrat Primary voters was 476 with a margin of error of 4.4%.
In a head to head contest, Clinton holds a 2 point lead over Jeb Bush 44% to 42%, an 8 point lead over Walker 49% to 41%, and a 9 point lead over Donald Trump 49% to 40%.
The poll suggests that likely voters are not that thrilled with any of the presidential candidate as all held higher negative then favorable opinions except for Sanders who had a 33% favorable and 32% unfavorable opinion.
Clinton holds an overall 38% favorable and 48% unfavorable rating, Trump is at 31% to 56% rating, Bush at 25% to 52% and Walker at 24% to 38%.
Trump holds the highest favorable rating among Republican primary voters at 54% to 33%, with Bush at 40% to 39% and Walker at 46% to 20%.
ABOUT THE EMERSON COLLEGE POLL
The Emerson College Polling Society poll was conducted Sunday July 26 through Tuesday July 28. The polling sample for both the Democrat and the GOP Primary consisted of 476 and 481 likely voters each, with a margin of error of +/-4.4% and a 95% confidence level. The General Election sample consisted of 950 likely voters with a margin of error of +/-3.1% and a 95% confidence level. Data was collected using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. The full methodology and results can be found at www.theecps.com.
RELATED ARTICLE: SHOCK POLL — Donald Trump Leads Jeb Bush in Florida
Is Politics Obsolete? How People Outpace Politicians by Max Borders and Jeffrey A. Tucker
Hillary Clinton talks of cracking down on the gig economy. Donald Trump speaks of telling American corporations where they can and can’t do business abroad. Bernie Sanders says we have too many deodorant choices. They all speak about immigrants as if it were 1863.
What the heck are these people talking about?
More and more, that’s the response many people have to the current-day political speeches and rhetoric. It’s a hotly contested election, somewhat like 2008, but this time around, public engagement is low, reports Pew.
That’s no surprise, really. Whether it’s the leftists, the rightists, or everyone in between, all of these politicians seem to be blathering about a world gone by — one that has little to do with the 21st century. If they’re not tapping into people’s baser instincts of fear and nativism, they’re dusting off 20th-century talking points about creating “good jobs.”
Maybe there was a time when the political culture seemed to keep up with the pace of innovation. If so, those times are long gone. The rhetoric of electoral politics is exposing the great rift in civic life.
The tools we use every day, the technologies we love, the way we engage each other, the means by which our lives are improving are a consequences of innovation, markets, community, and globalization — that is, by the interactions of free people. Not by politics. And not by the systems politics creates.
The political election is a tired old ritual in which we send our hopes and dreams away to distant capitals. Why do we outsource them to politicians, lobbyists, and bureaucrats: people who are trapped in a system that rewards the worst in people? What’s left of governance is logrolling, spectacle, and unwanted interference in the lives of everyone else.
Politicians seem more concerned with putting the genie of innovation and entrepreneurship back in the bottle than doing anything meaningful. After the election, we try our best to ignore them and get on with life.
Politicians seem more concerned with putting the genie of innovation and entrepreneurship back in the bottle than doing anything meaningful.
In 2012, US voters reelected Barack Obama, and now we’re gearing up to elect someone else. Candidates will talk about their visions and their wonderful plans for the country. But in the last three years, virtually none of the incredible, beautiful upheaval we’ve seen has had anything to do with the presidency or with anyone politician’s plans.
In fact, when you think about what government has done for us in recent years, only one new program comes to mind: Obamacare. Opinions vary on whether that program has been deeply disappointing or an unmitigated disaster.
Now, take a step back and observe the evolution of commercial society and how it is bringing us unprecedented bounty. The digital sector of emergent, market-generated, people-driven, technology-fueled innovation is fulfilling human aspirations and spreading useful services to people in all walks of life. National borders seem ever more arbitrary. Surprises await us around every corner. Our political systems can claim credit for none of it.
And yet, we are once again being asked to turn to politicians to drive progress.
Consider how much our lives and technologies have changed since the last presidential election. Smartphone ownership has gone from 300 million to 2 billion, meaning that most of the population of the developed world — and large parts of the rest — now have access to a wireless supercomputer in their pockets. As a result, we are more in touch than ever.
There are now dozens of ways for anyone to keep in contact with anyone else through text messaging and video, and most of the services are free. Transportation in cities has fundamentally changed due to ridesharing and app-based systems that are outcompeting municipal taxis. Traditional travel lodging has been disrupted through mobile applications that turn every empty room into a hotel, and finding permanent lodging is easier than ever. You can find the ratings for any service or establishment instantly with a click or a tap, long before you purchase. You can feasibly shop for and buy a house without ever having stepped inside of it.
Cryptocurrency is becoming a viable alternative to national monies, and payment systems on distributed networks are being customized for peer-to-peer exchanges of property titles.
The mass distribution and availability of mobile applications with maps means that you are never lost, and, moreover, that you can be intensely aware of everything around you, wherever you are or wherever you are planning to be. Extended families that are spread out over large geographic regions can stay constantly in touch, chatting and playing games.
The way we help our neighbors and communities is improving. We can contribute to charitable causes with just a click. We are closer to our neighbors and their needs — whether it’s a missing cat, a call for a handyman, or childcare for Saturday night. We can be on the lookout after a break-in and share video of the perpetrators instantly.
The way we consume music has fundamentally changed. We once bought CDs. Then we downloaded particular tracks and albums. With Internet everywhere, we now stream a seemingly endless variety of genres. The switch between classical and indie rock requires only a touch. And it’s not just new music we can access, but vast archives and recreations of music dating to antiquity. Instantly.
Software packages that once cost thousands are now low-cost downloadable apps. Many of us live in the cloud now, so that no one’s life is ruined by a computer crash. Lost hardware can be found with built-in tracers — even stealing computers is harder than ever.
Where we work no longer matters as much. 4G LTE means a powerful Internet connection wherever you are, and WiFi on airlines means staying in touch even while above the clouds. Online document signing means total portability and the end of the physical world for most business transactions. You can share almost anything — whether grocery lists or whole writing projects — with anyone and work in real time. More people than ever work from home because they can.
News is now crowdsourced through Twitter and Facebook — or through mostly silly sites like BuzzFeed. There are thousands of competitors, so that we can know what we want to know wherever we are. Once there was only “national news”; now a news event has to be pretty epic to qualify, and much of the news that we are interested in never even makes old-line newspapers.
Edward Snowden revealed ubiquitous surveillance, escaped prosecution, and now, thanks to technology, has been on a worldwide speaking tour, becoming the globe’s most famous public intellectual. This is despite his having been censored and effectively exiled by the world’s biggest and most powerful state. He has a great story to tell, and that story is more powerful than any of the big shots who want him to shut up.
Pot has been effectively legalized in many American cities, and the temperature on the war against it has dropped dramatically. When dispensaries are raided, the news flies all over the Internet within minutes, creating outrage and bringing the heat down on the one-time masters of the universe. There is now a political risk to participating in the war on pot — something unthinkable even 10 years ago. And as police continue to abuse their power, citizens are waiting with cameras.
Oil prices have collapsed, revealing the fallacy of peak oil. This happened despite pressure in the opposite direction from every special interest, from environmentalists to the oil industry itself. The reason was again technological. We discovered better and cheaper ways of drilling, and, in so doing, exposed vastly more resources than anyone thought accessible.
At the very time when oil and gas seemed untouchable, we suddenly saw electric cars becoming viable options. This was not due to government mandates — regulators tried those for years — but due to some serious innovation on the part of one remarkable company. It’s not even the subsidies, such as they are, that are making the difference; it’s the fine-tuning of the machine itself. Tesla even took it a step further and released its patents into the commons, allowing innovation to spread at a market-based pace.
We are now printing houses in one day, vaping instead of smoking, legally purchasing pharmaceuticals abroad, using drones to deliver consumer products, and enjoying one-day delivery of just about everything.
In the last four years, the ebook became a mass consumer item, outselling the physical book and readable on devices within the budget of just about everyone. And despite attempts to keep books offline, just about anything is now available for download, putting all the world’s great literature, in all major languages, at our fingertips.
Here we go again, playing “let’s pretend” and electing leaders under the old-fashioned presumption that it is politics that improves the world and drives history forward.
And speaking of languages, we now have instant access to translation programs that allow us to email and even text with anyone in a way he or she can understand regardless of language. It’s an awesome thing to consider that this final barrier to universal harmony, once seen as insuperable, is in the process of melting away.
These are all ways in which the world has been improved through markets, creativity, and free association. And yet, here we go again, playing “let’s pretend” and electing leaders under the old-fashioned presumption that it is politics that improves the world and drives history forward.
Look around: progress is everywhere. And it is not because we are electing the “right people.” Progress occurs despite politics and politicians, not because of them.
Max Borders
Max Borders is the editor of the Freeman and director of content for FEE. He is also cofounder of the event experience Voice & Exit and author of Superwealth: Why we should stop worrying about the gap between rich and poor.
Jeffrey A. Tucker
Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Digital Development at FEE, CLO of the startup Liberty.me, and editor at Laissez Faire Books. Author of five books, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.