by Mark Bauerlein, August 27, 2017 The American Spectator

Actually, the aggression is always first and last, and there’s never anything passive about it.

Last month in the New Republic, a headline read, “Trump Wants a Culture War. Are Democrats Ready to Fight Back?” Social and religious conservatives over 50 had to smile. The story followed a pattern that began in the 1970s, when the Moral Majority, Bill Bennett, and Allan Bloom… were said to be fomenting cultural strife.

The pattern goes like this. A conservative politician or figurehead rises up to speak for family values, God and country, or Western civilization, as President Trump did in Poland last month. Liberal commentators respond by chiding them for their aggression. In their eyes, the Culture War always seems to be started by the Right. When Politico recalled Pat Buchanan’s famous speech at the 1992 Republican Convention, the essay began, “On Aug. 17, 1992, Pat Buchanan and the Republican Part declared a ‘culture war… for the soul of America.” It’s as if Gloria Steinem, Jesse Jackson (“Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go”), Queer Theorists in the academy, and films such as Footloose, which cast conservative ministers as crazed moralists, hadn’t been waging culture war themselves.

Sometimes the one-sidedness is subtler. A 2012 CNN story described a revived culture war in America inspired by President Obama’s insistence that Catholic organizations provide contraception in employee health plans. This mandate was a shock to religious organizations, including the ones that supported his candidacy. But CNN presented Obama’s actions as simply a policy decision. The Right, on the other hand, went into full-on battle mode, reacting with “an angry, vengeful spirit” that was “channeled by candidate Rick Santorum” (referred to as “Saint Santorum” in the next paragraph).

President Trump is doing the same thing now, according to liberal journalists, when he bans transgender individuals in the military and appoints Kansas governor Sam Brownback as ambassador for international religious freedom. Somehow, President Obama’s order to admit trans- individuals into the army didn’t count as contentious, only President Trump’s suspension of it. READ it HERE

This past week, Mayor Paul Soglin (D - Madison, WI) decided to take down monuments of the Confederacy at a local cemetery. Nowhere in his public statement is there a reference to the Democratic party.

Soglin writes: “We will honor our history. We will respect the dead. We make sure that our legacy is to tell the truth and to remove evidence of racist historical revisionism. We will use the story of these monuments to tell the truth about a century of Jim Crow, economic oppression and those like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan who spread their lies far beyond the boundaries of the rebellious states.”

President Donald Trump Addresses Nation on U.S. Policy in Afghanistan shares vision for a stronger, united nation, bound together by patriotism

Watch it HERE.  

Speech begins at 22 minutes.  Scroll over. 

Trump Tower lobby, Aug. 15, 2017 

Watch it Here   Discussion of Charlottesville riot starts well into the press conference  -- after 15 minutes, scroll over. 

by  Micaiah Bilger Life Site News  Aug 11, 2017

President Donald Trump recently cut funding to a questionable teen pregnancy prevention program that has given millions of dollars to the abortion business Planned Parenthood.

The Hill reports pro-abortion President Barack Obama created the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program in 2010 to teach vulnerable populations of students about preventing pregnancy.

Participants in the program recently learned that their grant funding will end next year, two years sooner than expected, according to the report. Trump’s administration notified the 81 grant recipients that funding for the program is being cut by about $200 million and their grants will end on June 30, 2018, the report states.

Among the groups receiving grants to teach sex education are several Planned Parenthood affiliates.

The program administrators awarded an annual $1 million grant to Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands to target rural teens.  The abortion group said it uses the funds to “reduce teen pregnancy rates, increase use of contraceptives and delay initiation of sexual activity among ninth- to 12th-grade youth in rural Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Hawaii.”

Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, as well as Planned Parenthood of the Heartland also received grants of nearly $1 million each annually to promote their sex agenda to teens.

Health and Human Services Department spokesman Mark Vafiades told the New York Times that there is very little evidence that the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program is working.

Vafiades said the evidence of a positive impact is “very weak,” and the Trump administration wants to support a program that “provides youth with the information and skills they need to avoid the many risks associated with teen sex.”

Democrats and abortion activists are upset by the cuts, and are sending letters to HHS Secretary Tom Price in protest. Many speculate that the cuts could mean Trump’s administration will support abstinence-based programs instead.

Here’s more from The Hill:

    Valerie Huber, a prominent national abstinence education advocate, was recently named chief of staff to the assistant secretary for health, which oversees the office that manages the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program.

    It’s not clear how much of a role Huber played in the decision to cut funding. But she has questioned its effectiveness in the past.

    “The healthiest message for youth is one that gives youth the skills and information to avoid the risks of teen sex, not merely reduce them,” Huber wrote in an op-ed for The Hill.

    “Policymakers finally have an opportunity to give American youth the reinforcement they need to continue to make healthy choices — and to normalize sexual delay for all teens and especially for those teens who currently feel pressured to have sex by social media, their favorite music — or their sex education classes.”

Many parents and communities become very upset when they learn Planned Parenthood teaches their teenagers about sex in public school. A Michigan school district recently rejected a Planned Parenthood sex education program after witnessing a strong public outcry against it.

 READ the Rest

by Alex Pfeiffer, The Daily Caller Aug 12, 2017

President Donald Trump will start the beginning steps Monday of a long awaited crackdown on Chinese intellectual property practices, administration officials told reporters Saturday.

The president will issue an executive memorandum that will ask U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to examine whether an investigation under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 should be opened.

An official continued on to say that there is more than $600 billion of intellectual property theft against U.S. companies with China responsible for a huge portion of that.

The purpose of this memorandum is to ensure American companies and workers are not subject to harmful policies by China in relation to intellectual property and to ensure that America continues to maintain its leadership in technology, an official stated. An investigation by Lighthizer could possibly lead to tariffs against China and action through the World Trade Organization.

The concerns about China’s practices include policies that encourage businesses to share or turn over their technology to joint venture partners, and China’s use of state funds to promote its own intellectual property.

The announcement will come amid rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. President Trump has previously chastised China for not doing enough about the hermit nation, however, an administration official said the move Monday is unrelated to North Korea.

“Trade is trade, national security is national security,” the official stated.   READ more HERE

by Warner Todd Huston   Breitbart News Aug 11, 2017

As President Trump’s administration enters the last half of its first year, U.S. corporations are experiencing their best earnings in 13 years, a report finds.

Bloomberg reports that U.S. corporate profits in the second quarter “have beaten estimates at more than three-quarters of the Standard & Poor’s 500 member companies. In every sector, at least half of the companies have surpassed or met expectations, with many also getting a boost from a sinking U.S. dollar.”

“Growth was particularly strong in key regions of North America and Europe, where we grew sales greater than twice GDP, as well as throughout Asia-Pacific,” Dow Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris said.

Europe supported U.S. growth during the first three months of this year, but during the second three months, emerging markets came in strong for U.S. earnings.

Mark Luschini of financial service company Janney Montgomery Scott told Bloomberg that multinational corporations are seeing growth and higher earnings in both the U.S. and overseas operations.

Bloomberg reported:

    Of the 454 companies in the S&P 500 that have so far reported second-quarter results, 68 percent have beaten analysts’ average estimates for revenue, and 78 percent have topped per-share earnings expectations, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings rose an average of 9.8 percent, while sales have climbed 5.5 percent.

Indeed, even as U.S. prospects rise, so has that of much of the world’s economy.  Read More

By Stanley Kurtz, Ethics & Public Policy Center, Defending American Ideals August 10, 2017

This originally appeared under the title “Berkeley Chancellor Dirks Mischaracterizes Goldwater Proposal” at National Review Online.

Nicholas Dirks, who recently resigned as chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, argues in a long essay in The Washington Post that universities are “under assault” from illiberal leftist demonstrators, on the one hand, and conservative-sponsored campus free-speech legislation, on the other. Dirks is particularly disconcerted by state legislation modeled on the proposal I co-authored with Jim Manley and Jonathan Butcher of Arizona’s Goldwater Institute.

It’s a neat trick to equate the threats posed by antifa rioters and speaker shout-downs with proposed legislation modeled on the classic defenses of university free-speech (Yale’s Woodward Report and the University of Chicago’s Kalven and Stone Reports). Dirks even confesses that on reading through the Goldwater proposal, “at first blush” its provisions “seem reasonable, even necessary.” Yet he maintains that provisions on institutional neutrality and on discipline for speaker shout-downs are out of bounds. He calls these provisions, “concerted efforts to take direct political control over public colleges and universities.”

This is a serious distortion. In characterizing the Goldwater proposal, Dirks speaks only of the legislature, never mentioning the word “trustees.” Yet the Goldwater proposal works by drawing state university trustees more deeply into the management of free-speech related issues. And of course, trustees are a public university’s rightful governing body. With administrative mishandling of campus free-speech an entirely legitimate matter of public concern, it’s time for university trustees to step up and act as a check on administrative abuse. That is what the Goldwater proposal ensures.

Even then, the Goldwater proposal works with a far lighter touch than Dirks implies. Institutional neutrality has been a pillar of campus free speech at least since the University of Chicago issued its famous Kalven Report of 1967. The idea is that universities should work to remain neutral on controversial political issues so as not to pressure students or faculty to toe an official political line. This is particularly important at public universities, which service taxpayers who hold a wide spectrum of political views. Yet neutrality can never be perfect. Some issues are so central to the university’s daily functioning—a tuition increase, for example—that a school has to take a stand on them. 

READ it HERE

We believe in prayer: PRAY for Trump!

by Andrew McCarthy, National Review August 5, 2017

It’s a long way from here to there, but don’t be surprised if that’s where we’re headed. The principal function of a federal grand jury is to investigate a suspected crime with an eye toward returning an indictment — a formal accusation of felony misconduct. In the alternative, a grand jury may file a “no true bill,” a formal finding that the prosecutor failed to show probable cause that the subject of the investigation committed a crime.

Sometimes, however, to vote yea or nay on a proposed indictment is not the grand jury’s only option. In certain situations, federal law authorizes a grand jury to file a report detailing its findings, even if criminal charges are not forthcoming. One such situation involves investigations of public officials. Instead of returning an indictment, a grand jury may issue a report that recommends an official’s removal from office.

These columns have lamented the Justice Department’s assignment of a prosecutor to investigate the president without specifying a crime or the factual basis for a criminal investigation. We’ve also observed that no indictable crime is required to trigger impeachment proceedings. Neither, we now note, is a provable crime a prerequisite for the issuance of a grand-jury report.

Thus, the question arises: Is Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s impaneling of a new grand jury in Washington step one in the impeachment of President Donald Trump? By statute (Section 3333 of Title 18, U.S. Code), a grand jury’s report may address (my italics): noncriminal misconduct, malfeasance, or misfeasance in office involving organized criminal activity by an appointed public officer or employee as the basis for a recommendation of removal or disciplinary action.

READ it HERE

by Stanley Kurtz National Review Online July 31, 2017

With Governor Roy Cooper (D) taking no action on the bill, the state of North Carolina has enacted the Restore Campus Free Speech Act, the first comprehensive campus free-speech legislation based on the Goldwater proposal. That proposal, which I co-authored along with Jim Manley and Jonathan Butcher of Arizona’s Goldwater Institute, was released on January 31 and is now under consideration in several states. It’s fitting that North Carolina should be the first state to enact a Goldwater-inspired law.

North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest has been the guiding force behind the Restore Campus Free Speech Act and deserves great credit for moving it through the legislature. I’m particularly grateful to Forest, with whom I’ve been working since shortly after I laid out “A Plan to Restore Free Speech on Campus” here at NRO in late 2015. Forest and his staff provided critical early encouragement and support for the approach that eventuated in the Goldwater model bill. With the passage of the first state law based on that model, Forest has established himself as a national leader on campus free speech.

The final version of the North Carolina Restore Campus Free Speech Act passed by a margin of 80 to 31 in the House, with 10 Democratic ayes (about a quarter of the Democrats present). The final version passed the Senate by a margin of 34 to 11 along strict party lines. Given the intense party polarization in North Carolina, the substantially bipartisan House vote was impressive. Governor Cooper’s decision to let the bill become law with no action is also interesting and instructive.

The North Carolina Restore Campus Free Speech Act achieves most of what the Goldwater proposal sets out to do. It ensures that University of North Carolina policy will strongly affirm the importance of free expression. It prevents administrators from disinviting speakers whom members of the campus community wish to hear from. It establishes a system of disciplinary sanctions for students and anyone else who interferes with the free-speech rights of others, and ensures that students will be informed of those sanctions at freshman orientation. It reaffirms the principle that universities, at the official institutional level, ought to remain neutral on issues of public controversy to encourage the widest possible range of opinion and dialogue within the university itself. And it authorizes a special committee created by the Board of Regents to issue a yearly report to the public, the regents, the governor, and the legislature on the administrative handling of free-speech issues.

Although the University managed to weaken the bill at points, with one significant exception that weakening amounts to less than meets the eye. Some of the bill’s language on institutional neutrality was struck, for example, yet the law still affirms the importance of administrative neutrality.

The dependence of campus freedom of speech on institutional neutrality was famously affirmed by the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report of 1967. Likewise, the annual reports on campus free expression to be released in North Carolina will assess the university’s successes or failures at maintaining a posture of institutional neutrality. This will discourage the University from, say, joining the “fossil fuel” divestment campaign, or the campaign to boycott, divest, and sanction the state of Israel.

The University did manage to weaken the “cause of action” provision, which would have allowed anyone whose expressive rights under the new law were violated to recover reasonable court costs and attorney’s fees. However, individuals whose rights under the new law are violated still have the option of suing, and can turn to any number of organizations (e.g. the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Center for Individual Rights, or the Goldwater Institute) for representation.  READ the Rest HERE