Who Should Replace James Comey At The FBI?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! writers, community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question : Who Should Replace James Comey At The FBI?


Don Surber: My candidate to replace James Comey at the FBI would be someone within the agency who is not Andy McCabe. The Hillary pardon — and that is what the non-indictment was — evidently tore the agency  apart.

Some agents resent giving her a pass. Some agents resent the October Surprise in which Comey, either by choice or stupidity, wrote a letter to Congress that re-opened the case.
Some agents also liked Comey. He was a good boss who made a helluva mistake last July.

Another possibility is someone from his list of 21 Supreme Court nominees. I would be fine with any of them.

Trump knows he needs to heal the FBI. Someone flashy will not do that. FBI agents are lawyers who would respect a judge. Perhaps that ultimately is the answer.

 Mike McDaniel: James Comey’s replacement at the FBI should be a seasoned FBI agent--an actual investigator, not an administrative drone; there are people who are great cops and great leaders as well--and a confirmed conservative.

But the Democrats will scream bloody murder! They’ll demand a Democrat they can be sure will do whatever is necessary to support whatever narrative they cook up.

Let them.

By “conservative,” I mean a man--or woman, whose true allegiance is to the Constitution and to the rule of law. Someone who not only does things right, but who does the right thing. Someone who will see that Hillary Clinton and all of her minions are properly and professionally investigated, and who, at the least sign of undue political influence, will follow the chain of command, and if such influence is not ended, resign. They will also be someone who will investigate the suppose collusion between Mr. Trump and Russia and if there is no there there, end the idiocy.

Such a person must be a straight arrow, and when pursuing criminals, terrorists and spies, absolutely indefatigable and ruthless. And they need to be a conservative--perhaps a Republican.

But won’t that show bad faith? Won’t that be partisan?

No, not if they possess the qualities I’ve described. In that case, their party affiliation won’t matter. But even if they were partisan, which party is “the resistance?” Which party is working assiduously to prevent government from working? Which party is trying to run a lawfully elected president out of office based on nothing? Which party is resisting the Constitution, the rule of law, and half, perhaps more, of the American people? Which party is building toward a paroxysm of rage, violence and hatred? Which party is working to destroy free speech?

Which party isn’t doing all those things?

Oh yes, we surely need a confirmed Democrat in charge of the FBI about now, don’t we?

It would take the Stupid Party to think they should give in to the Democrats in this or anything, because if they do, the Democrats will appreciate it and be nice to them. How many times do the Democrats have to pull away the football at the last moment before the Stupid Party learns? If Democrats were in power, Eric Holder, Janet Reno, Loretta Lynch, Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, Perhaps Joe Biden would be put in charge of the FBI, and they would not hesitate to do their duty to their maximum leader and party, the Constitution and the rule of law be damned. Gratitude is not in them.

Appoint someone that will be loyal to the Constitution, first, last and always. Ignore the Democrat’s and the media’s wailing, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, and screaming, spittle-flinging temper tantrums, and the rest will take care of itself.


 Rob Miller: We don't need a judge or a lawyer per se. We need a top cop and investigator who's smart,fearless, honest and isn't connected to the Clintons or Obama in any way, which leaves Andrew McCabe out. In short, we need someone along the lines of J Edgar Hoover. Regardless of some of his personal proclivities, he made the Bureau an effective force against crime as well as against foreign espionage and national security in a world war and a cold war.

Another thing to consider is that it's not just a matter of replacing a Director, important as that is. The whole Bureau needs to be revamped. Among other things, during the Bush and especially during the Obama years, people who focused too carefully on domestic Islamist terrorism and sedition were reprimanded, eased out of promotion tracks or out of the Bureau itself. Training and manuals were changed to minimize the Bureau's concentration on this area, often with the assistance of Muslim Brotherhood front groups like CAIR. And some agents were hired strictly for reasons of diversity. The entire culture and makeup of the FBI needs remaking. Anyone Trump chooses to lead the Bureau can expect some problems and even active resistance from some of the rank and file.  Some of it may be politically motivated while some of it maybe normal human dislike of change.  The new Director will have to be a real leader who inspires both respect and discipline.

Yucky Chucky Schumer is ranting about how the Dems won't vote for anyone Trump proposes for the position unless they get a special prosecutor.  If I were the president, I'd giggle and take that as carte blanche to appoint  whomever I wanted. And there's no way they can block Trump's choice anyway, despite the juvenile threats...thank you Harry Reid, for showing us the way!

And here's a fun fact. During his lame duck period, it was none other than Bill Clinton who changed the Special Prosecutor's office from being an independent entity to being part of the Department of Justice under the Attorney General. So the president can have another chuckle at Schumer and his playmates being stymied by the corrupt antics of one of their fellow Democrats.

Who to pick? Mike Rogers  seems like he might be a good pick.  He was a veteran FBI agent who  specialized in organized crime and public corruption. And a former Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman, who introduced the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act designed to facilitate cybersecurity, combat hacking and increase cooperation between government agencies and private companies towards that goal. He also has a fair amount of media savvy.

Whether his leadership abilities and personality are fitted to the job I can't say, but he certainly seems qualified in other respects.

 Bookworm Room : Sheriffs Joe Arpaio or David Clarke, both of whom are law enforcement agents with good values.

Laura Rambeau Lee : Ever since Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 the NSA was collecting massive quantities of metadata on unsuspecting citizens through their smart phones and computers, Americans have grown increasingly suspicious of our intelligence community. We had perhaps naively believed our government limited its intelligence collection to those suspected terrorists and bad actors who mean us harm. We knew about the secret FISA Court, but we believed the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protected us from unreasonable search and seizure. The random gathering of our personal information came as quite a shock. Many of us have become increasingly concerned with what these agencies are doing with all of this data collected.

There is no doubt James Comey had to go. He created uncertainty in the rule of law when he made his comments about Hillary Clinton, holding a press conference listing all of her illegal activities and then declaring he would not recommend she be prosecuted. He overstepped his duties and responsibility. It’s been almost comical hearing the Democrats express outrage over Comey’s firing when a few months ago they said they lost all confidence in his role as FBI director. Of course they would have relished a president Hillary Clinton fire James Comey. It’s been over six months and they still cannot believe or accept she lost. They blame Comey as a major reason for her loss. Their hypocrisy is laughable.

We cannot afford to lose any of our representatives in the House or Senate nor would they be able to be confirmed easily with such a polarized Senate. President Trump should choose someone removed from the political scene to become FBI director. We need a person with agency or law enforcement experience who has shown a commitment to and respect for the rule of law.

I would like to see someone like former New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly become director of the FBI, although he is seventy-five years old. Another name mentioned outside of the beltway is Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke.

If President Trump looks within the agency to replace the director, those who could step into the role are Paul Abbate, currently serving as assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office; or Adam Lee, special agent in charge of the Richmond office of the FBI.

We entrust our intelligence agencies with the power and resources necessary to protect us. We understand they work in secrecy. Whomever President Trump chooses, the FBI director must be able to restore the confidence of the American people with the agency. They must restore the morale within the agency as well.



Well, there it is!

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IDF Paratroopers Who Liberated Kotel In Jerusalem Return 50 Years Later

According to Israel's Hebrew calendar, today marks the Jubilee celebration of Israel's Six Day War and the liberation of Jerusalem. Take a good look at the three men standing there, along with Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, Dr. Yitzhak Yifat, Tzion Karasenti and Chaim Oshri.

they took a tour of the Old City as part of the festivities, retracing the exact steps these three men, then young paratroopers in the Tzahal took on that day, from the Lion's Gate until they reached the 2,000 year old stones of the Western Wall. They were the first Jews to stand before the Kotel in 19 years after Jordan seized it and ethnically cleansed every Jew from the Old City in 1948.

The picture they're holding is an iconic photo of these three men, taken originally by David Rubinger. They all signed it and gave the copy of it to Minister Hotovely. Here's a larger version of it:

 

When these men first saw the Kotel, it was not what is today. The Jordanians used it as a trash dump, and scribbled obscene graffiti on it. But the awe these three young soldiers had upon reaching it shows on their faces. Besmirched and vandalized, it was still the Kotel, the Western Wall. Afterwards, (and as some tell it, when there were still a few Jordanian snipers not yet dealt with) Chief IDF Chaplain Rabbi Shlomo Goren came to the Western Wall with Torah scrolls to thank G-d and blow the Shofar, celebrating the end of Israel's long exile from its holiest site.

 

One of them, Tzion Karasenti expressed exactly what that meant to a crowd of foreign students from around the world studying in Israel at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herziliya and at Hebrew University, who were invited to come along and participate in the tour. He told the students that that the moment they reached the Western Wall in 1967 was the moment when the beating heart of the State of Israel was restored.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hotovely also had some remarks to make. She said that "the longing to reach the Western Wall, and the tears of the paratroopers who returned to the Western Wall after 2,000 years of prayer, are the best answer to those who are trying to sever the deep connection between the Jewish people and their capital."

"We are celebrating a great period," she added. "The unification of the city under Israeli sovereignty was the moment when every person of every religion could walk in Jerusalem. Our duty to liberate the city is to preserve a united Jerusalem and to strengthen its status so that the world recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel."

This celebration comes  just days after UNESCO passed yet another anti-Semitic UN  Resolution trying to deny the Jew's claim to Jerusalem.

They simply don't get it. Jerusalem, especially the Old City is united with the Jewish people again. All the UN resolutions, hatred and sophistry Israel's haters can muster isn't going to change that. No threats are going todo that. No bogus offers of 'peace' and 'full relations' are going to change that, because the Israelis have already seen what that means. Fifty years is not such a long time in the almost 6,000 years of Jewish history. It is barely yesterday.

Jerusalem is now what it once was, the beating heart of Israel and the Jewish people, just as Tzion Karasenti said. With G-d's help and Israel's strong right arm, it will remain so.

James Comey: The Real Story Behind His Firing

 

Well, FBI Director James Comey has finally been fired. I can't imagine why it took so long. Both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended that President Trump can him after he 'misstated' in front of the senate last week about Clinton's email practices that in their words, 'raised new questions about the director's competence and judgment.'

As we'll see, James Comey was not just incompetent. He was corrupt, owned, and what amounted to an enemy of the Trump administration. I'm surprised the president didn't fire him months ago.

Last March, when James Comey was pushing the Trump/Russia fable hard, he was hailed as “the most powerful person in Washington.” by the Lefty media's trained seals, the same folks that were referring to him as Satan in a power suit back in July when he put on his little show detailing exactly how Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies with her antics concerning classified information on an unprotected bootleg server. Not to mention probable obstruction of justice by illegally wiping material after it had been subpoenaed by congress. And of course, that while he had reopened his investigation, she shouldn't be prosecuted for anything. Of course.

And then of course, he suddenly changed his mind two days before Election Day, after the FBI had supposedly reviewed the 49,000 potentially relevant emails the FBI had found on Anthony Weiner's laptop. 'Nothing to see here, move along.'

After which of course, James Comey was a Democrat hero again. And remained one, because he continued to drop coy little hints about the Democrat's favorite bedtime story, how Trump was Putin's puppet and Russia hacked the election. That gave the fairy tale some weight, so it could be repeated by the media over and over. More on that in a bit.

The real story's simple.First of all, James Comey let the attention go to his head and got a mistaken impression of his importance in the grand scheme of things. And second, more importantly, he forgot that he was simply another DC chiseler owned by the Clintons, and tried to cover his behind to give the public impression he was someone of integrity.

That was really the reason for his little show back in July. Most FBI agents are fairly straitlaced, patriotic fellas who really care about law and order, and they knew Mrs. Clinton had committed multiple felonies. On the other hand there was Obama's crooked Attorney General, just a few days after she met with Bill Clinton in a hot Phoenix airplane hanger telling Comey that there was no way her Department of Justice was going to prosecute Hillary Clinton and telling him it was his job to talk to the media and let them know that. Oh and by the way, I'm sure she mentioned that also applied to the ongoing investigation of the Clinton Foundation too, something I'm sure Comey understood because of his own ties to the Clinton Foundation.

So he came up with a cockamamie idea; detail the felonies, sort of, to show the agents and the public he was really on the job, and then recommend no prosecution to protect the Clintons as well as himself.That was odd in itself, since the FBI doesn't usually make those recommendations, at least not publicly. But after AG Lynch got caught at her secret meeting with Mr. Bill, she likely told Comey that it was his mess to clean up.

He used that lawyer's favorite trick , supposed lack of intent as a reason not to charge Mrs. Clinton in an attempt to divert us from the actual issue, which was criminal negligence. Intent isn't a factor in the laws she broke, and a good prosecutor could definitely make the case that simply having those illegal private servers showed intent. So did wiping all those e-mails, another felony according to the Federal Records Act.

The problem for James Comey was that no one bought his shtick. The agents were outraged, because they felt it reflected on the Bureau's credibility. Ever since, there's been a major morale problem at the Bureau according to various sources. It was at the point where, reportedly, a number of people won't even return his greetings and limit their interaction with him as much as possible.

As far as the public went, the True Believers and the media were fine with it, while the rest of us realized that the fix was in and that was that. And needless to say, the Clintons were certainly fine with the outcome.

So Comey's main job after that was to keep in good with his benefactors by pounding the Russia drum loud and often,Trump, Trump , Trump. There's no evidence Russia had anything to do with hacking the election, but the same old tune keeps playing and will continue to play, though perhaps without Comey's help in the future.

I particularly liked Dem Rep Adam Schiff's take on this... 'Well, it's been a long time, we haven't found a unicorn yet and there's no evidence they exist. But of course they might, so it's vital that we keep investigating.' And of course, keep pounding that narrative into people's heads. Herr Goebbels wound be so proud.

Just for giggles, ask yourself this,just three little words..where's the crime? Let's imagine someone from Putin's government met with someone from Trump's campaign or even the Donald himself and told him 'President Putin really hates Hillary and wants you to win, so we're going to do everything we can to help,da?' And Trump or a member of his team said 'Oh, OK.'

Is that a crime? Absolutely not, unless you can prove actual collusion that affected the election. And that's not going to remotely happen because there's no evidence whatsoever, nothing even remotely connecting any of Trump's team or the president with meetings with Russians. And that's even with clear violations of FISA laws and the Fourth Amendment being used to try and find something. Comey's FBI even goofed when they said Trump's attorney met with the Russians in Prague and it turned out to be the wrong person entirely! And this is going on while leaks of the president's private conversations with world leaders weren't being investigated at all. That was something else that didn't sit well.

The idea that this is some kind of 'constitutional crisis' is ridiculous, although the usual suspects will of course go absolutely Batsh*t Crazy totryand convince the gullible that it is. That's to be expected. What happens if Trump appoints a real go getter who decides to investigate real criminal acts? What if he or she reopens the Clinton Foundation investigation, or actually gives Jeff Sessions what he needs to prosecute Hillary? What if they lean on Loretta Lynch or Huma Abedin and get her to spill the beans in exchange for immunity? Hence the manufactured hysteria.

So James Comey is gone. But don't cry too much for him. There will undoubtedly be a corporate sinecure for him somewhere, just like there was before as a reward for services rendered.

Good riddance.

L.A. City Council Votes To Back Trump Impeachment Investigation

 

CBS has reported that the L.A.  City Council voted 10-0 last Friday,May 5th to back an investigation of President Donald Trump in order to to find grounds to impeach him.

The city’s 2017-18 federal legislative program will be required to include support, financial or otherwise for any legislative action to investigate whether Trump is guilty of high crime or misdemeanors.

 

The L.A. City  Council is completely composed of Democrats except for one member, Councilman Mitchell Englander. He reportedly stepped out during the vote, but was present both before and after.

The resolution was presented by the West Valley Resistance to Council member Bob Blumenfield.

The focus is on an alleged violation of the the Foreign Emoluments Clause, because of the president's
real estate holdings in the form of hotels in foreign countries. That clause bars government officials from accepting gifts or benefits from foreign leaders or foreign states, something a little difficult to extend to things like renting hotel rooms, drinks at the bar or greens fees on a hotel golf course. That's especially true since President Trump is now no longer running his companies, in common with most presidents with outside investments, and has pledged to donate any foreign profits to to the U.S. Treasury on an annual basis to reduce the deficit. But if that doesn't pan out, the L.A. City Council is mandated to continue to back investigations into, well, anything as long as it might remotely involve impeaching President Trump.

The whole idea of invoking the  rather hypocritical in view of what Hillary Clinton was allowed to get away with while she was secretary of state. Talk about accepting money from Foreign governments! But I digress.

What the L.A. City Council has now endorsed is the use of taxpayer funded resources and funds to support the impeachment proceedings against a sitting president on partisan grounds, and that is a fascinating precedent.

Isn't the L.A. City Council and their respect for democracy touching?

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France’s Election – A Vote For the Failed Status Quo 

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France's Election - A Vote For the Failed Status Quo

The choice has been made, France's election is over and the French have chosen the status quo. Emmanuelle Macron won in a landslide over Marine Le Pen by better than two to one.

Marine Le Pen's astute and piercing observation, that France was going to be ruled by a woman regardless now has an answer. Rather than Marine Le Pen, France's new ruler will be Germany's Angela Merkel.

 

The joke is that while Merkel has a fairly subservient French president again, Macron's ascendancy to the Elysee Palace may actually do more than a little to help dissolve the EU. He's already seriously angered Poland by accusing them of being in cahoots with Putin to hack the French Election, something anyone even vaguely aware of Poland's history with Russia knows is an absolutely ludicrous idea. And his support for Merkel's threats of sanctions for any EU member that refuses to take in massive amounts of Muslim 'refugees' has angered Visograd EU members like Poland and Hungary as well as countries like Denmark.

France's election was noted for a record low turnout. Over a third of the voters simply sat home or turned in blank ballots as a protest vote. Abstention like this is unheard of in French elections.

France's socialist government did its bit with a certain amount of dirty tricks not seen before in French presidential elections, but in the end, they weren't really necessary. Macron not only had the government on his side but the media, which consistently described the long time socialist as a 'centrist' while always referring to Marine Le Pen as 'far-right.' For Marine Le Pen to win France's election, she would have had to attract a large chunk of Mélenchon's anti-EU far left followers, 19.5% of the voters in the first round. Instead, most of them decided sit home. So they will be stuck instead with an Eu-friendly banker in Macron.

What France's election was really about was a choice between a new, independent path and the Socialist status quo. In the end, they chose the status quo, which means increased outsourcing, increased globalization and open doors for a lot more Muslim 'refugees.' Macron actually said that the terrorist attacks in France were simply 'the price we must pay for a truly multicultural society.'

After numerous attacks and terrorist incidents, Macron still got almost 90 percent of the vote in Paris...encroyable!

One of the oddest things about this particular  election is that the winning candidate essentially has no political party! France's parliamentary elections come in about a month, and Macron's En Marche (Onwards) party has no list of candidates competing for seats. This again is something unheard of in any of France's elections.Most of the other parties except for the National Front and Mélenchon's followers endorsed Macron, but that was essentially a tactic to defeat Marine Le Pen at any cost. Now that's done, Macron will need to put together a coalition to govern effectively, and it remains to be seen whether he can do it, because the price is going to be high, mais oui. This is a recipe for sheer chaos.

And Marine Le Pen? She can console herself that she did better than any other National Front candidate by taking almost 34% of the vote. And she's already looking to the future.

Macron is essentially the failed Hollande government's second term. He will not improve France's security. In fact, he will worsen it considerably, since like Hollande he will likely be unwilling to risk alienating a key voting block that supported him in this election by taking real steps to do so. Outsourcing and globalization will continue, along with high taxation...Macron may be described by the media as a 'centrist' but he was a member of the Socialist Party until he decided to run for president and realized that running as the candidate of France's incumbent and now deeply unpopular Socialist Party was a quick road to failure.

 
Source: Twitter                    Hat tip: Gates of Vienna


If, as I expect, Macron is essentially Hollande II and events unfold as a consequence of that, France's Right is going to stand to gain quite a bit of political power. And Marine Le Pen's reaction to France's Election? That this was the start of new movement, one which would not be called the National Front. We haven't seen the last act of this play quite yet.

 




Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com and other publications.


Follow him on Twitter here

Forum: Are There Limits On Free Speech? Should There be?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question : Are There Limits On Free Speech? Should There be?

Michael McDaniel: There are, of course, limits on free speech, the classic “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” being the most obvious example. Theoretically, obscenity may be criminalized, though in practice, it seldom is. After all, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously noted in an obscenity case (Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964) he couldn’t describe it, but he knew it when he saw it. The Supreme Court has also decided exotic dancing, because it is a form of artistic expression, deserves the protection of the First Amendment. Apparently they’ve seen it, and that wasn’t it.

Therein lies much of the difficulty in proscribing speech. For any law to be constitutional, the reasonable man must be able to read it, and understand what is and is not unlawful. If one cannot gaze upon a given nude body, or a given sexual act without confusion about whether it is obscene, and therefore unlawful, or merely an expression of free speech, life becomes even more confusing than ever.

Clearly child pornography is beyond the pale, yet before the advent of digital photography, parents sending negatives of their children playing in a bathtub to the developer sometimes found themselves accused of child porn. Now, one must worry about the intrusion of cyber cops into their electronic devices. Will they think similar digital photos evidence of child porn? Will they seize my computers, throw me in prison, force me to deplete my bank accounts and retirement to defend myself against unwarranted and false charges?

I do not defend, for a moment, what is clearly the sexual exploitation of children. I merely point out the difficulty in applying a single, often politicized, standard to that which is hardly black and white.

Political speech deserves the greatest protection under the Constitution, yet it is precisely that which Democrats--and some Republicans--wish to restrict. They wanted to make criticizing Hillary Clinton unlawful. They wished to make criticizing any politician during election season a crime. Many still wish it.

And one cannot forget Academia, where the idea that unpopular speakers may not only be preemptively shut up, if they dare try to exercise their First Amendment rights, they may be--must be--physically attacked. This is not only the stance of lunatic special snowflakes, but the spineless administrators, and state politicians that aid and abet such insanity. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me,” is an axiom lost on such people, who believe the mere existence of words with which they disagree harmful, and they’ll be delighted to use the sticks and stones on anyone they don’t like.

The First Amendment like the Second, is the backbone of our society. Both establish and uphold the rule of law, where everyone can reasonably understand the limits of discourse and behavior. But civilization is a matter of informed consent and willing participation. Those seeking to limit the First Amendment, if they move beyond mere words, force us toward the exercise of the Second.

Any limitation on fundamental rights must be narrowly drawn and so simple as to be understood by the proverbial reasonable man. The antidote for “bad” speech, is good speech, and plenty of it. To do otherwise is to abandon civilized persuasion and reason in favor of brute force.

That’s precisely what the many--and growing in number--enemies of liberty, of America and Americans, seek. Many of them are too stupid, too unschooled in history and human nature, to understand the danger of the precipice to which they push us. Their leaders, however, understand precisely what they’re doing. They may well force us to abandon words, and rely instead on the Second Amendment. The pen is mightier than the sword only in a society wherein liberty and civilized discourse--free speech--reign. God help us all when that is no longer true in America.


Fausta Rodriquez Wertz: No limits.



Don Surber: Answer: No.


 Rob Miller: I have to honestly confess myself perplexed on this one. In the America I grew up in, what was considered free speech was pretty well defined and the standard was relatively universal, based on the old Supreme Court 'fire in a crowded theater' definition.Neither is true anymore and in my opinion it is mostly the Left that has deliberately bastardized the concept.

What we have now is a situation where what constitutes free speech basically depends on whose talking and where. If you're on most of America's campuses, speech that is openly racist, disparages males, talks about assassinating the president or in some cases borderline incites violence against 'Republicans' or other select groups is considered free speech, while having someone like Milo Yiannopoulos,  Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray et al  speak by invitation on a college campus is not considered free speech at all, but something to be suppressed by any means necessary.

The same thing occurs almost daily in our public media and discourse. Someone like Bill Maher can gleefully accuse the president of the United States of incest with his own daughter, or a Stephen Corbet can lunch an obscene hateful rant from the safety of the CBS studios. Someone like Hasan Minhaj can attack the president viciously far beyond any pretense of a roast and call Steve Bannon a Nazi and it passes for protected speech and 'comedy.' Mention that Minhaj avidly supports Islamist Muslim Brotherhood front groups like CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) is apparently 'racist' beyond the pale and in need of suppression, at least according to the Left. And in fact, the Left does it's very best to suppress any realistic discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist fascism on the channels of communication it controls.

 In 1942, the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine by a 9–0 decision in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. It held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of [which] … have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."

In that case, the fighting words were 'fascist' and 'racketeer.'  What would happen if Steve Bannon (who is definitely not a Nazi) were to sue Minhaj for libel? Based on our current libel laws, it's an open question. What if Bannon were to confront Minhaj and demand a public apology and when he didn't receive one, knock Mihaj to the pavement?  Again, an open question. And in Bannon's case, the position he holds in the Trump Administration pretty much precludes himfrom taking any action at all, something Minhaj in certainly aware of.


The First Amendment obviously only applies to certain people. And I don't think that's what our Founders intended.

I'm not really sure how we fix this. We could loosen up and redefine the libel laws, but we run the risk of the cure being worse than the disease, as much as I'd like to see certain people get the pants sued off them.  or we could wait for a case to amble its way to the Supreme Court (assuming they even agree to hear it) and hope for new guidelines that enforce the same tolerance on everyone. But given that there are now plenty of people wearing judicial robes out there whom are perfectly happy with the abuse of our First Amendment (including on our Supreme Court) depending on the  politics and  who the plaintiff is, that's essentially a coin toss.


Doug Hagin: Outside of libel? No.


Laura Rambeau Lee :Over the past several decades we have seen our First Amendment right to free speech become more restricted through a progressive campaign of political correctness. The left has deemed certain words and expressing certain beliefs as “offensive” and those who speak the truth are often attacked verbally and called racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, etc. Progressives know very well how destructive these labels can be and use them effectively to silence their opposition.

Today we are seeing the Antifa movement seeking to curtail the free speech of those with whom they disagree. These self-labeled anti-fascists are actually anti-First Amendment groups who are growing more violent and disruptive across the country. Their only purpose is to create chaos and widen the chasm of divisiveness the left has created in our country. Incitement to violence is not free speech, just as rioting and destroying private property or blocking traffic and businesses cannot be considered peaceably assembling or justifiably expressing grievances.

Speech itself should remain unlimited except for the common sense “don’t yell fire in a crowded theater” type of speech. While we may disagree with what someone says or even find it offensive, we must respect a person’s right to say it. But as with so many of our inherent rights we have to accept responsibility for our words and actions. Violent protesters and those who destroy property must be held accountable and punished for these crimes. This cannot be permitted and protected as free speech. The rule of law must be upheld and applied equally to all individuals.

The left must understand what free speech truly is and what it means to speak freely in a free society. We cannot allow them to dictate what viewpoints can or cannot be expressed. Tolerance goes both ways. Individuals in our society must be able to speak freely without fear of personal attack or injury by those who disagree with them. It is up to our elected officials and our law enforcement officers to assure that all of our rights are protected.



Well, there it is!

Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.

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WoW! Forum: :What Grade Does President Trump get For His First 100 days?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! writers, community and our invited guests weigh in at the Wow! Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:What Grade Does President Trump get For His First 100 days?

Scott Kirwin:I give the President an “A” for one reason: Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

If he fails to deliver on any of his promises he would still merit an “A” as long as he keeps the Supreme Court conservative during his term.

Conservatives should appreciate that.

Don Surber: A-plus

1. Neil Gorsuch

2. Cabinet of Competents. The stars are Mattis, Tillerson and Mnuchin. 

3. Executive orders rescinding some of the damage from Obama.

4. Getting Republicans to pass CRAs galore.

5. Taking out a Syrian base. MOABs. Message to the world DF w/USA

6. No TPP and negotiating trade

7. Hillary is not my president

Rob Miller: Hey it's the end first inning so let's analyze who won the game, shall we? And why not, when everyone else is?

But before we go there, lets keep two things in mind. President Trump (I still love the sound of that) has faced more insane opposition, disrespect and obstruction than any president in living memory. And that includes members of his own party who actually like the status quo, like Rat Ryan. You can't compare The Donald to other presidents who were given at least nominal respect. Even Dubyah never faced this kind of disgusting disrespect for our democracy, at least not nearly so openly. When the Left is deliberately stalling your cabinet appointees for no reason except 'resistance' just finally getting the most important of your appointees in place is a major accomplishment.

And second, that while he has a lot of concrete accomplishments, there are also a number of subtle ones that will bloom over the long haul. We're waging a civil war here. And this is going to be a Grant-style brutal slogging rather than a rapid Sherman-style March to the Sea.

So first, let's look at this president's accomplishments. First of all, he has totally revitalized the office. Rep. Jim Meadows, who heads the Freedom Caucus recently weighed in on that one. Even though he has been critical of The Donald from time to time, he's amazed at his work ethic and recently said so in an op-ed. Meadows wrote that President Trump is the kind of person you could have a conversation with at 2 AM yet at 6:30 he's in his office working. Is it any wonder the Freedom Caucus is starting to come around now that they understand what a revolutionary figure they're dealing with? We're not dealing with someone who saunters in at 10 AM and quits early to go play another round of golf.

And what is he spending his time doing? Destroying th e literally thousands of executive orders and ridiculous regulation handcuffing the country.

 
President Trump is a builder. He understand that in order to build something, the foundation comes first. To build a foundation to really jump start the amazing American economy, you have to release it from the chains it was shackled with over the last eight years. The Donald is doing exactly that. The results are already starting to show. And this is just his first 100 days, while battling headwinds.

Second, he has revitalized America's foreign policy. He is in the process of putting real muscle on NATO by insisting that they fulfill commitments for defense spending. The UK, for the first time in years is actually rebuilding its navy and starting to beef up the British Army. Germany and Mutti Merkel remain holdouts, mainly because they have U.S. bases there, but most of NATO is getting with the program. Even NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg endorsed Trump’s call for other nations to pay their fair share for defending themselves.

Having our Navy destroy a Syrian air base sent a clear message to Russia's Putin and Syria's Assad that there is a new sheriff in town and that they weren't dealing with Barack Hussein Obama anymore. And Trump's MOAB strike in AfPack is one of the first positive moves we've seen there in a long time. Not only did it take out 94 jihadis, but it destroyed a major tunnel network along with lots of supplies and weaponry.

President Trump also has had a pretty good record when it comes to revitalizing relationships with America's allies, especially Egypt, South Korea, Japan, Israel, the UK, and our allies in Eastern Europe.  And  a hugely successful meeting with  Chinese general secretary Xi Jinping that established the chemistry between the two leaders. Before that meeting, China was making threatening noises about the US giving South Korea a THAAD anti-missile system. Afterwards not a peep and it's obvious the twomen agreed that North Korea is getting out of hand. Another aspect is that the president and Xi obviously have come to a similar understanding to the one the U.S. and Japan came to inthe 1980s' ; no more one way trade deficit. Watch and see. China will end up building plants here and employing Americans, just like Japan did.

Legislative accomplishments? Here's a brief list:


The Keystone Pipeline

Reining in the EPA. No more war on coal.

Signing eleven Congressional Review Act bills to dump almost all of Obama’s end of term regulatory orgy. Not to mention requiring two regulations to be dumped for every one adopted.

Obama’s rule that forced states to send federal Title X family-planning funds to Planned Parenthood. President Trump's new executive order allows states who object to abortion on demand and bartering baby parts to opt out of doing so.

The VA scandal is finally being addressed, and while that's going on, thanks to President Trump, vets now have increased access to private sector health care. No more taking a number and waiting to die.

And just wait until tax reform kicks in.

ObamaCare? A temporary setback. The Donald is still transitioning a bit and learning that running a major corporation has its differences from running a government.Among those lessons is that in government, if someone in a key position is screwing up or sabotaging your policy, you can't just fire them. But this president is a quick study who rarely makes the same mistake twice. The ObamaCare failure is one that helped him, as we will see.

And then there's the major reduction in illegal migrants... over 60% from this time last year, when Barack Hussein Obama presided over a handcuffed ICE and the Border Patrol. Give it time. Trump's travel ban and AG Jeff Sessions' threat to defund sanctuary cities who don't follow U.S. immigration laws were stopped by two hyper-partisan judges. One of them is a long time crony of Obama's who knew him in Hawaii and was at the same Harvard Law class with him. The other was an Obama bundler. Both based their opinions on totally spurious legal grounds and both were confirmed because Mitch McConnell refused to use the nuclear option and block them. These judgments will be overturned in time because the law, the federal McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 makes it quite clear that the president has the authority to regulate immigration and selectively ban immigrants from specific areas. And as for the sanctuary city nonsense, because an injunction on something that hasn't even happened yet is a legal absurdity.

What we have in President Trump is a revolutionary figure. After a quarter century of decline, America is actually starting to function again, to awaken from that long slide to socialist despondency. What grade to give him? Hard to say, because of the obstruction he's been subjected to. But I'll say this. While I don't agree with everything he's done, I've never been more proud of a president, not since Ronaldus Magnus rode off into the sunset. And part of that, I'll have to admit, is because he infuriates the right people. You can take that as a solid "A" if you like.


Michael McDaniel: I, like many Americans, have been pleasantly, if guardedly, surprised by the performance of President Trump. I agree with him on much, including the idiocy of worrying about an arbitrary, 100 day-long period. It is ironically fitting he is ignoring the self-congratulatory dinner of the progressive press in favor of spending his time with actual Americans on the final day of his first 100 days. He has been masterfully trolling the press, and this is yet another example of his brilliance in not preventing them from behaving like the fools, liars and intellectual pretenders they are.

Above all, it’s clear Mr. Trump intends to fulfill his campaign promises, which suggests they are more than political fluff. They may actually be--dare I say it?---convictions. They may actually represent his core beliefs. All that stands in his way is the press, a bit less than half the Congress, a bit less than half the country, and congressional Republicans.

Everything about Donald Trump is horrifying to the left, but they’ve been knocked on their expansive asses, their heads spinning, by the reality of a president used to working for a living. And not only working, but working at a furious pace. Mr. Trump is a man whose fortune was made by hard work, attention to detail, and a canny understanding of his fellow man and what is and is not possible. Just as the sight of George W. Bush--an actual fighter pilot--in a flight suit outraged and horrified Democrats and the press, the sight of Mr. Trump sitting behind the Resolute Desk in his battle dress, looking entirely comfortable and presidential, does the same.

As the press and their fellow leftists obsess over individual issues, imagining that like them, no one can possibly do anything other than handle one thing at a time, Trump juggles, effortlessly, as many running chainsaws as he pleases, and surrounds himself with people capable of doing the same.

His executive orders have been uniformly within the law and the boundaries of executive power, his cabinet choices, superb, indicative of a keen intelligence and dedication to the rule of law. His choice of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court appears to be an equally inspired choice, though it is always possible, as often happens with Republican presidents, Gorsuch will go native and adopt progressive principles.

His children and wife quietly go about their business, and Mrs. Trump seems unlikely to impose her will on the nation’s children by starving them to death rather than forcing them to eat unpalatable food for their own good.

His accomplishments, mostly ignored by the media unless they are criticizing what are plainly lawful and reasonable measures, are many and significant. Conservatives, however, continue to be surprised when the DOJ or the VA or other federal criminal conspiracies continue to push unlawful and abusive policies that were the hallmark of the Obama Administration. Those agencies have, for decades, been stacked with leftist revolutionaries, people whose hatred for America is exceeded only by their hatred of Americans. It will take some time to clean even a portion of them out, and as hard working as Mr. Trump is, there are only so many hours in the day.

Heartening to Americans is his determination to once again make America a nation to be respected and appreciated by her allies, and feared by her enemies. Because of decades old neglect and abject stupidity in foreign policy, we will not restore our rightful place in the world without the expenditure of blood and treasure, but if we don’t do it now, nothing but humiliation and the decline of western civilization is our future. Mr. Trump appears to understand that, while not for a moment appearing to desire unnecessary conflict.

His greatest challenge--America’s greatest challenge--is the feckless and fractious Republican Congress. Not only do they seem determined to resist Mr. Trump nearly as much as the Democrats, they seem determined--idiots--to destroy themselves. It won’t be long before formerly Republican Americans agree with them and give them what they want. If they can’t, when they control every lever of government, govern, the public is poised to end them, once and for all, and they seem too stupid--they’ve manifestly earned the title: the stupid party--to recognize that reality.

Overall, Mr. Trump has turned in an impressive performance, and has demonstrated much of his bluster during the campaign was a masterful act, calculated to win the White House. His tweets confound the press, Democrats, and Republicans alike, but for Americans, they work. As for the future, if the Secret Service can keep intruders out of the White House--not a certainty by any means--Mr. Trump may succeed in draining the swamp to an unprecedented degree. We had all better hope he does.


David Schuler :I had prepared a much longer disquisition but I think I'll limit my remarks to this. If you're going to try to assign a letter grade to President Trump's term of office so far, I think the only fair grade is Incomplete.

As of today his actual accomplishments are very few. The greatest are the nomination and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and getting Chinese support in dealing with North Korea. How extensive that support will actually be remains to be seen.

He has no legislative accomplishments. Some of his executive orders are already having effects; others like the travel ban are running into fierce opposition.

The transition has been rough. It took until April 27 before he had a complete cabinet. He's made many fewer appointments at this point in his presidency than any of recent memory.

President Trump is already backpedaling on some of his campaign promises, notably the wall. That was to be expected from a president as transactional in his approach as Trump.

If you consider his not being Hillary Clinton to be enough, that's a pretty low bar. All of the other candidates and 300 million other Americans all fit the same description.

If you're going to assign a letter grade based on actual accomplishments to date, it would have to be a D. I'm more charitable than that so I say "Incomplete".

Laura Rambeau Lee : Contrary to mainstream media opinion, President Trump’s first one hundred days have been positive. Illegal immigration is down 67% since he was sworn into office on Inauguration Day. He has by executive order: dismantled President Obama’s climate change regulations; placed a hiring freeze on federal employees; approved the Keystone XL pipeline and other energy producing ventures; mandated for every new regulation created two must be eliminated; imposed travel bans from countries involved in terrorism and where vetting of people wanting to come in is difficult if not impossible. These are just a few of a total of sixty-six executive orders President Trump has signed making good on his promises as he campaigned for the presidency.

Although the attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare failed, this is a positive as President Trump promised to repeal it and many of us were against the new bill as it was written. Hopefully Congress will work out a better plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. We must make sure the fix will truly help the people who have suffered under the high premiums and co-pays mandated by the “Affordable” Care Act. The Democrats know it will implode unless something is done, so they too have an interest in making sure a good bill is passed. Their future elections may very well depend on fixing Obamacare.

On a different level President Trump has been uniquely positioned to expose the radical left in America like no one else has been able to do. Many of us have been aware of the expanding influence of the left, which includes socialists, Marxists, Islamists, and communists. They have been successful over the past couple of generations of infiltrating our politics at every level of government, our schools and universities, and the media. His win despite the odds against him has them outraged and incensed. Their plans, first under President Obama and continuing under a Hillary Clinton presidency, have been exposed and they are publicly showing their true intentions. Americans are now seeing how pervasive their influence and numbers have become. They realize we are in a fight to save our republic from those who want to destroy our country.

Finally, but most significant in my opinion, was the Senate approval of his nomination of Constitutionalist Judge Neil Gorsuch as a Supreme Court Justice. This alone was the reason many Americans voted for Trump for President. In the near term the Supreme Court will continue to lean ever so slightly to the right as Justice Gorsuch replaced Constitutionalist Justice Antonin Scalia. President Trump may well have the opportunity to appoint at least two more justices during his term which should bring the court more in keeping with the powers afforded to it within the framework of the Constitution for many decades.

All in all I give President Trump a grade of B for his first one hundred days in office. He has more to learn as all new presidents do, but it appears he is a quick study and up to the tasks before him.


Well, there it is!

Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.

Ann Coulter Forced To Cancel Speech At Berkeley - And How We Fight back

Ann Coulter was forced to cancel her speech at UC Berkeley after the city of Berkeley's Police Department told her they could not (read, would not) guarantee her safety. That should be no surprise, since they essentially followed orders from the mayor and police chief to stand down and allowed radical antifa and black prog-facist terrorists to freely assault and seroiusly injure people whose only crime was to be in line to hear Milo Yiannopoulos speak. Not to mention the over $100,000 in damages to private property they were allowed to act out and commit before the police finally got the OK to quash the carnage.

The university made a show in the beginning of permitting Ann Coulter to speak, but there were so many additional fees and numerous conditions they insisted on designed to limit access and reduce turnout for the event that it was obvious they were attempt in to quash it. Needless to say,no radical Leftist (and Berkeley has had a number of those creeps speakers there) has ever been subject toanything like these special fees and conditions. When that didn't work, they simply banned her because of course, they weren't going to have the campus police protect her.

So in the end University officials sent the Berkeley College Republicans, who were hosting the event  a letter Tuesday, saying that in their wisdom, they had determined it was just too much of a security risk to allow here to speak.

“We have been unable to find a safe and suitable venue,” said the letter from Vice Chancellor Scott Biddy (what a perfectly surnamed official) and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Stephen Sutton. Especially when you'd much rather avoid having someone speak whom might challenge what's being poured into the lil' snowflake's heads (horrors, they might learn something!!) and anger the mob.

La Coulter toyed with the idea of speaking in public at Sproul Plaza, where Mario Savio started the original free speech movement and which is open to the public. After which the powers that be in Berkeley who are responsible for law enforcement let her know that they weren't going to do much to protect her either.

You can't really blame the Berkeley Police. Like most cops, I'm sure they are admirable people who take their jobs seriously, a job most of us wouldn't do for any money. But they are also human beings with pensions to protect, bills to pay and families to support. When the word comes from upstairs to knuckle under and not get in the way of some of the Lefty brown shirts beating up on people who came to hear the latest subject of the Two Minute Hate commit thought crimes,  they going to obey.

So, the Young America's Foundation decided it was too risky to participate,Berkeley College Republicans are suing the university and Ann Coulter is staying home.

And the powers that be in Berkeley? The college administrators are undoubtedly getting a few fist bumps and atta boys in the faculty room. And Jesse Arreguin, the mayor, who has deep ties with the Antifa group By Any Means Necessary and publicly supports them is enjoying another win. After all, why do you think he was elected mayor of a place like Berkeley in the first place if not to suppress thought crimes in Lenin's Little Acre?



He's not facing re-election until 2020, and anyone who participated in Black Lives Matter protests and the Occupy Movement. and called - officially - for the impeachment of President Trump is not worried about his job or reputation when it comes to anyone he thinks counts.

So if you're expecting any remorse or even mild embarrassment over this blatant display, forget about it.

With increasingly rare exceptions, the Left feels the same way about free speech as they do about democracy in general. They only approve of it when it applies to them and works for The Cause. They are totalitarian to the core, and Berkeley is a yet another superb example of what happens when they actually have power and hold all the cards.

Milo was making some noise earlier today about invading Berkeley with what he called 'a free speech army' in the future. As far as I'm concerned, that is a uniquely futile gesture. What it would do, unless it happens earlier is to simply become the occasion when someone who merely wants to exercise freedom of speech gets murdered by the Left's brownshirts. And when that happens, you're going to see people defend themselves. Which is exactly how brownshirt street thug Horst Wessel became a 'martyr' and got famous. He simply tried to beat up on the wrong person and a virtual civil war erupted. And those of you saying 'bring it on' might perhaps have noticed that Antifa, Black Lives Matter and the rest of the Left's violent cadres only really operate in areas where they know they're going to be protected by the local authorities; university campuses like Berkeley and Blue fifedoms like coastal California. So don't expect justice when it comes to defending yourselves.Or count on the police to protect you.

A better way to fight this? Sure there is. What tactics work?

• Lawfare: There's no question that the City of Berkeley and UCSB are guilty of violating the civil rights of the people who were beaten up while police stood by. Or that Ann Coulter's civil and Constitutional rights were violated  as well as those whom wished to hear her speak...just read the First Amendment. There is also a clear claim based on unequal treatment, since she and the College Republicans were subjected to fees and regulations Lefty speakers weren't. Second wave feminists cut a path on that one.The Berkeley PD can also probably be sued for negligence by those whom were injured. Sue the bastards and make them pay through the nose. And remember, Judge shopping works two ways.

• Boycotting: Berkeley is a public university and receives public funds. But it also receives money from alumni and from the proceeds of its sports event as well as merchandising. Don't go to Berkeley sporting events. Don't attend concerts or exhibits at the university's facilities.If any TV or radio shows carry their games, don't watch or listen and write the companies that sponsor the games  that you don't patronize companies that aid and abet such fascism. Don't buy their tee shirts, mugs or other garbage.  Picket and disrupt any speakers from Berkeley who do events in Red States. Make it expensive security wise for universities to invite them. And one way of disrupting them is to ask them how they can continue to represent such a fascist institution.

• Ridicule, shame and target Berkeley's prog-fascist view point as socially unacceptable at every opportunity: Remember back in the old days of the fledgling  civil rights or women's lib movement? Remember how you and perhaps other people responded to remarks and 'jokes' that were racist or misogynist, with a nasty look and a remark to the effect that you didn't find that funny but offensive? Make Berkeley's prog-fascist attitudes just as socially unacceptable when you run across them. In public. Make 'Berserkeley' a figure of ridicule.

• And yes,  be aware at anytime that you might just have to physically defend yourself and conduct yourself accordingly: Bullies like the antifa crowd are usually physical cowards who hide their faces and only attack in mobs where they can get away with it. Faced with opposition, especially in areas the Left doesn't control,they can be beaten badly at their own game.

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Pope Francis Viciously Insults The Jews - Again

Last Saturday, Pope Francis referred to EU refugee centers as "concentration camps."

“These refugee camps — so many are concentration camps, crowded with people… because international accords seem more important than human rights,” Francis said in impromptu remarks. Ironically, this happened while he was  attending a ceremony in memory of modern-day Christian martyrs and mentioned an anecdotal story of a Christian woman murdered in front of her Muslim husband.

He went on to say that he had met the woman’s husband during his visit to a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos last year. “I do not know what happened to him, if he managed to get out of his concentration camp, and get to somewhere else.”

If the story's true, who does he imagine murdered that Christian woman 'for her faith' if not Muslims?

And that basically tells us a lot of what a leftist ideologue and tool the current Pope is. During Easter week, the Pope gave a 20 minute speech about the plight of the Muslim migrants. Yet his reaction to the massacres of Christians in the Middle East by Muslims, especially the mass casualties from the bombing of Coptic churches in Egypt, his response was something along the lines of 'Isn't it wonderful that Christians would give their lives for Jesus Christ?'

Even more hypocritically, the Pope has consistently demanded that western nations open their borders to more of these 'refugees' and foot the huge bills for their housing, care and feeding. Not to mention the horrendous security problems, the rapes, murders and other crimes that every nation who has done what Pope Francis suggested has suffered. Oh, and the Vatican? They have not taken in a single refugee. And in spite of the fact the Church still has plenty of money even after being sued multiple times for shielding and attempting to cover up the activities of pedophile priests, it has contributed virtually nothing to help pay for these 'refugees' the Pope wants other countries to foot the bill for.

To add insult to injury, Pope Francis, who is no friend of Israel made these remarks just before Yom HaShoah, the day Jews worldwide memorialize the victims of the Holocaust. No accident there, I guarantee you.

Yet, to be charitable, perhaps Pope Francis is like many people today, who simply don't comprehend what a concentration camp is what a Holocaust really is. As the elderly people with the numbers forcibly tattooed on the arms fade into history, these words get used commonly for situations they don't remotely resemble. So perhaps Pope Francis merely needs a bit of understanding of what a concentration camp actually was.

The phrase 'concentration camp' was actually a Nazi euphemism for 'murder factory.' Its working principle was, first, to sort out the elderly, the infirm and those who hadn't managed to do so well after being shipped east for miles in unheated boxcars. Those were murdered immediately, usually in gas chambers, after which their bodies were plundered for hair and for gold and silver dental work and either burned or buried in mass graves, depending on what means were available.The end result looked like this:



Seen anything like that on Lesbos or any other European refugee center, Pope Francis? Do tell.

In the camps like Auschwitz where huge crematoriums were constructed, you could literally smell the odor of burning flesh for miles. Tell us, Pope Francis, did you smell anything like that? Or see anything like the ovens at Auschwitz in those refugee centers?

 

Now, the ones that survived the initial selection became slave laborers. They were put on starvation rations and literally worked to death, unless some of them, particularly children were subjected to hideous medical 'experiments.' Young women were frequently put into brothels and forced into assembly line prostitution, something that also usually resulted in a fairly quick demise. And the remnant that managed to survive? They were human skeletons when they were liberated.

 

Tell us about the living skeletons you saw at Lesbos, Pontiff. What, none? Surely you must have seen something, to call in a concentration camp.

Look into those dead eyes, Pope Francis. Along with the Jewish people, this is who you have defamed, trivialized and insulted,beyond what they suffered while your Church did NOTHING, although individual Catholics certainly did. Not a single Catholic was ever excommunicated for their part in perpetrating or cooperating with the Holocaust, even after the war.

Again, just so you fully understand what's coming out of your mouth...this is what a concentration camp looks like. This is what it is.

Seen anything like this in Lesbos or any other refugee center Pope Francis?

Seen anything remotely like it?

I didn't think so. What was that the Scriptures say about bearing false witness?

Pope Francis is the second Pope in a row to have the distinction of being an utter failure. At a time when Christians in the Middle East are in danger of extermination, he has spent his time attacking Israel, the one country in the region where the Christian population is actually growing.At a time where Christians are being assailed by Muslims in Pakistan, Turkey, Europe, Nigeria and elsewhere by Muslims, he has opted to appease the Muslims and confine his remarks to the joys of Christian 'martyrdom.'

Benedict, his predecessor started out as the leader the Church needed by became so frightened by Muslim reaction to his linking the fate of the Church to that of the Jews that he became a servile, terrified tool of Islamism. On a visit to Turkey and its Islamist ruler Tayyip Erdogan, he was so cowed that he followed Erdogan's orders not to even look like he was praying at St. Sophia, formerly the largest cathedral in Europe. And before it became a museum of sorts,  a mosque sanctified, as it were, by the blood of thousands of  unarmed Christians who were slaughtered in cold blood when the Turks captured Constantinople* and entered it. 

At least Benedict had the decency to realize what an utter failure he had become and resign.

Pope Francis shows no such signs of doing so. And both men have consequently forfeited all claim to any moral authority whatsoever., not to mention hurting the Church and weakening it immensely.


* Now Istanbul.

Forum: What Would Real Tax Reform Look Like?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! writers, communityand our invited guests weigh in at the Wow! Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: What Would Real Tax Reform Look Like?

Don Surber: Real tax reform would be 20% of all income over $120,000 with the end of all tax credits. But good luck getting rid of EITC. Until we stop using the tax code as welfare -- corporate and personal -- we will never see real tax reform.

But we live in a world where we can simplify income taxes.

Doug Hagin : Well, I would eliminate most deductions, loopholes, etc. The fewer of these we have, the fewer ways to cheat. The less ways to cheat, the less need for enforcement. Thus a smaller IRS. A far better system would be for everyone to pay 10% on income after the first $25,000. You make $35,000 you pay $1,000, you make $350,000, you pay $32,500. For dependents, an exemption of $10,000 each. For corporations, businesses, a flat 10%. In short, it should be fairly easy to file your taxes. CPA's and tax attorneys would hate my plan but, oh well.

In addition, I would eliminate or shrink most government agencies, and reign in foreign aid to nations that are not our friends. At some point the discussion has to be about spending less. There are things the federal government should fund, our military, veterans needs, protection for our coasts, borders, etc.

This is, of course never going to happen, it makes too much sense. And too many people are invested in the convoluted mess that our tax code has become.


Fausta Rodríguez Wertz: What Doug said!


JoshuaPundit: Whooo, tax reform! I have something of a contrary view. First off, let's remember where all these handy dandy deductions originally came from. They were efforts by the Feds to promote different industries and different social behavior at a given time, and while they might have been good ideas then, they've largely stayed on the books and been abused. And some of the good ones that still make sense were eliminated. F'rinstance, people in arts and entertainment who had been  struggling for years  to get a record contract, a book/script  deal or a movie contract  used to be 
able to divide that sudden huge chunk of moola by the years they had been struggling and reporting any arts income they made and pay taxes on just a percentage of the income they made during that first reasonably fat year instead of getting killed. Ronaldus Magnus took that one away. GRRR! OK, forgiven.

So the first thing to think about is what the goals are here, and here's my two cents (agorat for the initiated ; )

President Trump's skillful handling of the Chinese is going to eventually lead to the same thing that happened with Japan. To avoid tariffs (the stick hidden behind the carrots) they will build plants here, hire Americans and pay U.S. taxes provided they're competitive. Ditto with American companies. So the first thing we need to do is start more manufacturing here, which will create a great deal more activity that can be taxed and thus more revenue.  So the first goal is to lower the corporate income tax. Ditto with capital gains which means you pay twice for the same damned money.

The second goal is to simplify the IRS tax code. I never used to be a flat taxer, but I've gradually come over to that view as I realized the truth of  something a very wise fella once said to me once : "If it ain't yours, you don't worry about it."

Too many folks aren't paying taxes? Well yeah, but a lot of those people actually are because of legitimate itemized deductions deductions, or because of taking less W-2 exemptions which are subtracted from their gross income. That's not exactly unfair when you think about it. If you're self employed and have to pay money out to run your business, should you have to pay taxes on that money? So the first part of reforming our byzantine tax code is to go through it and eliminate deductions that once might have made sense but perhaps no longer do, like the oil depletion allowance perhaps. I'm a little wary about starting anew because some deductions actually pay for themselves and then some, like R&D. Goal number three is to parse the tax code and eliminate what no longer makes sense.

However, if we were going to start fresh with personal income tax, the best way is probably four brackets. I'd have to sit down with the numbers crunchers to come up with actual percentages, but say, 10% of income $20,000 and below, 15% on income $20,000 to $200,000, 20% on income from $200,000 on up. I would still allow a certain amount of deductions to the self employed. You want to promote small business..it pays in the end and cxreates more revenue.

I'd also keep the child credit for now. America's birth rate needs to pump up a bit so perhaps we're not so dependent on immigration. Whole countries in Europe aren't reproducing at replacement rates, and I  think you see how well that's working out with what they've imported to make up the numbers.

The bee-eeg enchilada, the home mortgage deduction? I would allow it for one, count 'em one family residence. The original idea behind that one was to promote home ownership, and that has a lot of sociological benefits. If people have a stake in things, they tend to care more about their neighborhoods, et cetera, et cetera et cetera.



And when people pay taxes, they also get concerned about the money the government is wasting.  Like my friend said, if it ain't yours...but OTOH, if it is, you definitely make it your business to get worried about it.I think the American people would go for that. it would suck for me personally, but there's always my old friend depreciation and some of the stuff's free and clear anyway, so I'd  swallow it. Grr again. Ehh!

Another problem with the tax code nobody wants to mention is the waste and fraud involved dealing with illegal migrants. We spend billions on earned income credits for people working here illegally and for child credits for children not in America whom may not even exist. Read the link to find out how that scam works.

Finally, as much as people dislike the IRS, I think fantasies  about eliminating them are just that. Some people simply won't  pay taxes. As ol' Ben said, if men had their way none of them would be taxed. So there needs to be enforcement, accounting and record keeping. Also, if we're going to eliminate the IRS, you're talking about a huge amount of unemployment for a class of people who make enough money to buy houses, cars, refrigerators, tires, clothes, food and other consumer items, all of which create economic activity that can be taxed. So while a hiring freeze and/or transfers into a different civil service branch correct this scenario, I think simply axing them is not too bright, as much as some of them may deserve it.

Off topic, one thing The Donald absolutely ought to get into is civil service reform that would allow these so-called public servants to be transferred to different job categories or face layoffs. It can be done, and Jeb Bush of all people did it in Florida, saving the state millions.



Bookworm Room :Real federal tax reform: A 10% sales tax on everything but food basics (milk, meat, produce, bread, etc.). It sounds regressive, but it's not because people's consumption tends to be consistent with their income and lifestyle. Marin's wealthy shop at Whole Foods, drive expensive electric cars, and buy their clothes at Nordstroms and Neiman Marcus. Marin's less wealth shop at Safeway, drive cheap cars, and buy their clothes at Goodwill or Costco.

Alternative federal tax reform: A 10% tax on gross income over $20,000. Those earning $20,000 or less would pay a 5% tax. Everyone should pay tax.


David Schuler : I'm not sure I can discuss this question adequately in brief but here goes. It depends on your operative definition of "real". I would say that real tax reform would have the following characteristics:

• It would not be financed by adding to the debt. That means it should either be revenue neutral or increase revenues.

• It must be politically possible.

• It must be either economically neutral or benign.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but no tax reform involving a reduction in the marginal personal income tax rates would be real reform under that rubric. Tax cuts only pay for themselves under very specific circumstances. Neither today's tax rates nor economy are the tax rates or economy of the 1980s. We don't make enough of what we consume for the Keynesian stimulus of putting more money in people's pockets to boost incomes to be effective and the prospects for a tax cut resulting in increased domestic investment are bleak. If a tax cut stimulated the economy it would be China's economy that would be stimulated not ours.

Cutting spending is equally problematic. About 75% of the budget is just four items: defense spending (including military pensions and the VA), Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and interest on the debt. With just paying for the federal courts and a minimal regulatory state, that would account for about 85% of the budget with the other 15% already being paid for by borrowing. So, no cuts in marginal rates.

The present deductions are fiercely defended by those who depend on them for their incomes. The biggie, the home mortgage interest deduction, will be defended to the death by the real estate industry. The deductibility of charitable contributions will be defended by not-for-profits. The deductibility of state and local taxes will, unsurprisingly, be defended by state and local governments.

From time to time you hear a national sales tax floated as a replacement for the income tax or a way of reducing marginal tax rates. That's not real, either. Sales tax is a matter of life and death for state and local governments and retailers.

And so on.

IMO the only prospect for real tax reform is that we might be able to reduce the corporate income tax to fall within OECD norms rather than their present very high level. The corporate income tax accounts for about 11% of present federal revenues. Cutting them in half would require about $180 million in cuts. That can be accomplished in any number of ways including reductions in military spending, trimming the budgets of some federal agencies, or even by a surtax on personal incomes over $1 million. Bringing the corporate income tax down would reduce the incentives for inversions and encourage companies to repatriate some of their overseas earning. That's something anyway.


Michael McDaniel:
I haven’t spent sufficient time on the issue of tax reform to propound at length, and with any special insight, to say nothing of the nuts and bolts of specific proposals, but I can suggest a few general principles that might have a positive effect:

Everyone needs to have skin in the game. At present, only about 47% of the public pays taxes, and a great many of those that don’t get tax refunds. Think about that one: refunds on taxes they don’t pay. Even the poverty stricken can afford a few hundred a year. Until everyone is a taxpayer, we can’t hope to have meaningful tax reform.

There is no reason individuals can’t pay their taxes on a post card. The simpler, the better.

We absolutely must dramatically reduce business taxes. Our current “progressive” tax system is among the most regressive in the world and is badly damaging our economy. It has been for a very long time.

There should be very few, and highly specific deductions, available only to those that actually pay substantial taxes, such as the middle class. A home mortgage deduction, deductions for dependent children, and perhaps for adults caring for elderly parents--an issue that becomes more common and pressing by the year--can be retained, and easily citied when filing one’s form 1040 postcard.

There must be no tax loopholes or exemptions for members of Congress or any other governmental employee. They sink or float in the same boat as the rest of us poor deplorables.

It should go without saying that corporate tax welfare is out. Temporary incentives to stimulate plant building, etc., sure, but we must let free enterprise do what it does best and get government out of the market.

Constitutional Amendment: the Federal Tax code may not exceed 50 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 font. Felony penalties for anyone adding a period more.

Of course, none of this will be possible without repealing Obamacare, restoring sane immigration policies designed only to directly benefit America and Americans, and without dramatically reducing the size of government. President Trump is making a good beginning, but this is going to be a multi-generational project. Until Americans give up the idea that government can and should provide for all their needs, taxes will never be under control. And of course, whenever progressives are in power, we’ll be skyrocketing in exactly the wrong direction.

Doing this will have one additional useful effect: the IRS can be reduced to a fraction of its current size and power. Oh yes, felony penalties for any IRS employee that abuses their power, including total loss of employment, benefits and pension.



Right Reason :Tax reform cannot be accomplished overnight but we should set a goal to eliminate personal and corporate income taxes completely and stop the federal government’s theft of the hard earned wages of American workers. We have to starve the beast. Government must be forced to operate within a balanced budget. We can eliminate several cabinet departments such as the EPA, DOE, Dept of Ed, FHA… which have no legitimacy from a constitutional perspective. The federal government should operate the way any business is required to operate, spending no more than it takes in.

The federal income tax system is confiscatory theft. The American taxpayers are debt slaves to an out of control and too powerful federal government. As we saw under the Obama Administration the Internal Revenue Service became a political weapon of the left, targeting conservative organizations in an effort to keep them from being able to obtain 501c3 status. This seriously hindered their ability to operate and advance the conservative message going into the 2010 and 2012 election cycles and one might argue a major contributing factor to President Obama’s re-election in 2012. The Internal Revenue Service needs to be stripped of its power and reduced to a simple accounting division of the federal government if left to exist at all.

Real tax reform would be the implementation of a flat tax (a set rate based on income) or a fair tax, which is a consumption tax. I would prefer to see a fair tax replace the current system. Under a fair tax everyone would pay for the products and services they purchase. This fair tax would exempt food, medical care, medicines, and certain other products or services of necessity that could be negotiated and agreed upon by our legislators. We do not want the fair tax to be a regressive tax that would harm low income, elderly, and disabled citizens, but the less people consume the less they would pay. With a consumption tax everyone would contribute towards the operation of the government. Having skin in the game is the only way to make people aware of and care how their money is being spent. Today nearly half of Americans pay no income tax and many actually receive money and benefits without paying anything into the system. As long as they continue to receive government handouts they have no incentive to fix this broken system. A fair tax would also eliminate the need to file federal income tax returns.

Progressives love to tell us the rich don’t pay enough taxes while the fact is they pay the majority of taxes received by the federal government. The current system is pure wealth redistribution, which has been the goal of socialists since the implementation of the federal income tax nearly one hundred years ago.

The more money we pay in taxes the more the government spends. It is never enough. The Supreme Court ruled Obamacare was a tax and therefore constitutionally legal. Americans are seeing higher taxes and health care premiums and costs while experiencing less health care and less discretionary income. It appears the federal government’s goal is to take every last penny we earn to redistribute as it chooses. The national debt is nearing $20 Trillion Dollars. The government has borrowed on our future earnings and the labor and earnings of our children and grandchildren. It is theft and if not criminal it is most certainly immoral.

Well, there it is!

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