Murders attributed by the Anti-Defamation League to white supremacists from 2012 through 2021 account for a mere .001% of such violent deaths. Pictured: The scene outside a Tops market May 15 in Buffalo, New York, after a gunman opened fire, killing 10 and wounding three. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
In May 2021, two members of the Family Values, a white supremacist prison gang, allegedly killed a member of the rival Southwest Honkeys prison gang over a longstanding beef. Three months later, a New Jersey man who had vandalized synagogues and distributed neo-Nazi pamphlets strangled his wife.
On the surface, the crimes would appear to have little more in common than their brutality. But the Anti-Defamation League includes these murders by white men of other whites in its tally of right-wing and white supremacist murders in its report, “Murder & Extremism in the United States in 2021.”
“In 2021, white supremacists were responsible for more murders than any other type of extremist; in many years, they comprised an outright majority of the extremist murders that year,” the report says. “Indeed, over the past 10 years, white supremacists have committed 244 (55%) of the 443 killings that the [Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism] has documented.”
The ADL also claims that other “right-wing extremists” were responsible for another 20% of extremist killings during the 10-year-period from 2012 through 2021—including those it describes as “anti-government” and “incel/manosphere” (typically, involuntary celibates or misogynists).
ADL’s report has been cited repeatedly in media pieces as evidence of the lethal threat posed by far-right extremists since a mentally disturbed 18-year-old white supremacist murdered 10 African Americans and injured three others at a Buffalo market May 14. The report’s stark warning has helped provide a backdrop for the narrative advanced by the White House, advocacy groups, and national media outlets that toxic white nationalism permeates American society.
“White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison … running through our body politic,” President Joe Biden said in his speech in Buffalo after the shooting. “… And it’s been allowed to grow and fester right before our eyes.”
But a closer examination of the statistics compiled by the ADL—which did not respond to multiple requests for comment—casts doubt on their use as evidence that African Americans or any other Americans are under increasing or serious threats from racist white zealots.
Significant Problems
The ADL report was publicized in a month of back-to-back massacres by mentally disturbed young men, the latest by a member of a heavily Hispanic community in Texas, suggesting mass killings defy pat analysis.
Critics cite significant problems with the ADL presentation. Like other organizations tracking extremism, the ADL rarely offers context to claims regarding extremist murders by comparing them to broader homicide statistics.
During the same 10-year period cited by the ADL in its 2021 report identifying 244 murders by white supremacists, there were at least 165,000 murders in the U.S. That means the murders the group attributes to white supremacists accounted for .001% of such violent deaths over the decade.
That statistic pales in comparison with those of major cities that have seen shocking increases in bloodshed, with recent annual murder totals breaking or nearing records set in the 20th century.
Chicago had 797 murders in 2021, the highest total in 25 years. Much smaller Minneapolis, one year after George Floyd died in police custody there, had 96 murders, one shy of the city’s 1995 record. Huge jumps in murders also occurred in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and other metropolitan areas.
“The FBI has not issued the official number of murders in the U.S. in 2021, but it is expected to exceed the number of murders in 2020: 21,570—of which, according to ADL, 23 were committed by extremists,” Carl Moody, an economist at the College of William & Mary who studies crime, told RealClearInvestigations.
“The data presented by the ADL could also be characterized as follows: The number of murders committed by extremists is very small, only 29 in 2021, of which less than half were committed by white supremacists,” Moody said, adding:
It is also 63% lower than the maximum number (78) in 2016, so extremism is down since 2016. In 2020, according to the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], 1,080 people were killed falling out of bed. Therefore, you are 47 times more likely to be killed by a bed than by an extremist.
‘Creating Divisions’
“It’s important that we get the numbers right and in perspective,” said John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. “And we’ve had mainstream narratives that make it sound like they are all like the Buffalo killer.”
“But there are very specific circumstances to a number of these shootings,” Lott said. “If there is a significant threat to blacks from these kinds of mass attacks, they need to know that. Otherwise, you’re creating divisions that don’t need to be there.”
Crime experts also note that many of the killings cited by the ADL—such as the slaying committed by Shawn Lichtfuss, the New Jersey man who killed his wife, or John Hilt and Justin Murphy, the allegedly lethal members of the Family Values prison gang—were not hate crimes aimed at terrorizing blacks or other minorities.
These cases include:
A white supremacist with a “swastika and SS tattoos on his face” who killed another man in an extended-stay hotel “following an argument over a social media post.”
A member of a white supremacist street gang in Fresno, California, who “allegedly [shot] a man with whom he had long been feuding.”
Four members of the New Mexico Aryan Brotherhood who “were involved in a shootout amongst themselves inside a vehicle.”
Excluding Other Mass Murders
At the same time, critics say, the Anti-Defamation League overstates the percentage of white supremacist murders because it omits some high-profile crimes committed by nonwhites.
Lott provided eight examples of mass killings—traditionally defined as those with four or more fatalities—excluded by the ADL in its decadelong tally. One of those was the 2016 attack a black man launched against white police officers in Dallas that killed five and wounded 11.
The ADL report also doesn’t include the more recent carnage in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in November when a black man with a history of racist social posts drove into a mostly white crowd in a Christmas parade, killing six and injuring 62.
For 2021, the ADL lists just two murders by people it classifies as “black nationalists.” If the Waukesha victims were included, black racist murders would account for 23% of extremist murders (eight of 35) for 2021.
“The Wisconsin car attack is one that is very hard to miss,” Lott said. “It is such an obvious and well-known case that you have to wonder if they omitted it because it goes against ‘their narrative.’”
The ADL’s own report indicates that many of the killings it attributes to white supremacists do not fit common understandings of racist hate crimes.
The report says, for example, that 76 of the 244 killings, or 31%, were committed by members, suspected members, or associates of white supremacist prison gangs. They were the deadliest group profiled, and “given the nature of prison gangs as organized crime groups, it is predictable that many of the murders would be related to traditional criminal activities, ranging from drug-related murders to killings committed in robberies.”
Killings That Aren’t Ideological
Indeed, the ADL admits that the majority of murders it attributes to white supremacists were non-ideological.
“Over the past 10 years, only 86 of the 244 white supremacist killings (35%) were ideological murders,” the report says. “The remainder were group-related but not ideological attacks, were related to traditional criminal activities, or were murders for which no clear motive could be determined.”
That finding tracks with a March 2021 report from Lott’s organization addressing what it called “the false narrative of white supremacists doing mass public shootings.” Examining all shootings involving four or more fatalities from 1998 to March 2021, it found in 71% of them “no mention of political affiliation” of the shooters.
Of the remainder, “4% are right-wingers or conservatives or Republicans, 6% were liberals or Democrats or left-wing, and 10% were Muslim,” the report from the Crime Prevention Research Center determined. “About 9% are white supremacist, neo-Nazis, or anti-immigrant, but these people come from both the left and the right. Mass public shootings make up a small percentage of murders, and anti-minority mass public shooters are not the biggest threat even in that group.”
Brian Levin, who heads the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino, said it can be difficult to pinpoint precise motivations of mass murderers, as “we are seeing less rigid ideological killers who increasingly seem to browse at a buffet of hatreds.”
The Buffalo killer’s overwhelming hatred, however, was racist, as he expressed both the belief that blacks are inferior and angst over a kind of global conspiracy called “the great replacement theory,” Levin said.
In his 180-page rant published while he was allegedly opening fire in Buffalo, the extremist described himself at various points as a “mild/moderate left authoritarian,” and he viewed conservatism with contempt as a corporate catspaw.
“In whole or in part, he’s a Nazi,” Levin said of the shooter. “He hates Jews, he hates blacks—hatred is the primary driver.”
A Misleading Emphasis
To be sure, targeted racist mass murders invoke a terror that everyday murders do not—massacres such as those by a 21-year-old white shooter at an African-American church in Charleston in 2015 (nine dead, one injured); the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018 (11 dead, six injured); the 2019 attack at the El Paso Walmart (23 dead, 23 wounded); as well as the recent attack in Buffalo.
When such killers target African Americans, Jews, or others on racist terms, the crimes have a disproportionate impact on how they and all Americans may perceive the atmosphere, Levin said.
“Not all crimes have the same effect on the American psyche,” Levin said. “I’ll leave it to others to talk about how the media covers it, but when Tony Soprano knocks off another criminal family wiseguy it does not have the kind of impact these manifesto mass killers do.”
Levin said his research supports the idea that right-wing extremists are a huge threat and he pointed to other studies that have drawn the same conclusion.
Nevertheless, critics say the evidence indicates that the emphasis the White House and media outlets have thrown on the threat posed by white supremacist killings is misleading.
“Death by extremist is an incredibly rare event,” said Moody, the William & Mary economist. “It is absurd to try to generalize from such tiny numbers.”
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Roger Kimball Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Roger Kimball is editor and publisher of The New Criterionand publisher of Encounter Books. He earned his B.A. from Bennington College and his M.A. and M.Phil. in philosophy from Yale University. He has written for numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times Book Review, and is a columnist for The Spectator World, American Greatness, and The Epoch Times. He is editor or author of several books, including The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America, The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art, Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education, and Vox Populi: The Perils and Promises of Populism.
The following is adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on September 20, 2021, during a Center for Constructive Alternatives conference on “Critical American Elections.”
Notwithstanding all the hysterical rhetoric surrounding the events of January 6, 2021, two critical things stand out. The first is that what happened was much more hoax than insurrection. In fact, in my judgment, it wasn’t an insurrection at all.
An “insurrection,” as the dictionary will tell you, is a violent uprising against a government or other established authority. Unlike the violent riots that swept the country in the summer of 2020—riots that caused some $2 billion in property damage and claimed more than 20 lives—the January 6 protest at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. lasted a few hours, caused minimal damage, and the only person directly killed was an unarmed female Trump supporter who was shot by a Capitol Police officer. It was, as Tucker Carlson said shortly after the event, a political protest that “got out of hand.”
At the rally preceding the events in question, Donald Trump had suggested that people march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”—these were his exact words—in order to make their voices heard. He did not incite a riot; he stirred up a crowd. Was that, given the circumstances, imprudent? Probably. Was it an effort to overthrow the government? Hardly.
I know this is not the narrative that we have all been instructed to parrot. Indeed, to listen to the establishment media and our political masters, the January 6 protest was a dire threat to the very fabric of our nation: the worst assault on “our democracy” since 9/11, since Pearl Harbor, and even—according to Joe Biden last April—since the Civil War!
Note that phrase “our democracy”: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and various talking heads have repeated it ad nauseam. But you do not need an advanced degree in hermeneutics to understand that what they mean by “our democracy” is their oligarchy. Similarly, when Pelosi talks about “the people’s house,” she doesn’t mean a house that welcomes riff-raff like you and me.
I just alluded to Ashli Babbitt, the unarmed supporter of Donald Trump who was shot and killed on January 6. Her fate brings me to the second critical thing to understand about the January 6 insurrection hoax. Namely, that it was not a stand-alone event.
On the contrary, what happened that afternoon, and what happened afterwards, is only intelligible when seen as a chapter in the long-running effort to discredit and, ultimately, to dispose of Donald Trump—as well as what Hillary Clinton might call the “deplorable” populist sentiment that brought Trump to power.
In other words, to understand the January 6 insurrection hoax, you also have to understand that other long-running hoax, the Russia collusion hoax. The story of that hoax begins back in 2015, when the resources of the federal government were first mobilized to spy on the Trump campaign, to frame various people close to Trump, and eventually to launch a full-throated criminal investigation of the Trump administration.
From before Trump took office, the Russia collusion hoax was used as a pretext to create a parallel administration shadowing the elected administration. Remember the Steele dossier, the fantastical document confected by the “well-regarded” former British spy Christopher Steele? We know now that it was the only relevant predicate for ordering FISA warrants to spy on Carter Page and other American citizens.
But in truth, the Steele dossier was just opposition dirt covertly paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. From beginning to end, it was a tissue of lies and fabrications. Everyone involved knew all along it was garbage—rumors and fantasies fed to a gullible Steele by shady Russian sources. But it was nonetheless used to deploy, illegally, the awesome coercive power of the state against a presidential candidate of whom the ruling bureaucracy and its favored candidate disapproved.
The public learned that the Democratic National Committee paid for the manufactured evidence only because of a court order. James Comey, the disgraced former director of the FBI, publicly denied knowing who paid for it, but emails from a year earlier prove that he knew all along. And what was the penalty for lying in Comey’s case? He got a huge book deal and toured the country denouncing Trump to the gleeful satisfaction of his anti-Trump audiences.
What was true of Comey was also true of the entire intelligence apparat, from former CIA Director John Brennan to Congressman Adam Schiff and other Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee to senior members of the FBI. All these people said publicly that they had seen clear evidence of collusion with Russia. But they admitted under oath behind closed doors that they hadn’t.
General Michael Flynn, Trump’s original National Security Advisor, had his career ruined and was bankrupted as part of this political vendetta. Meanwhile James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, John Brennan, Peter Strzok, and all the rest of the crew at the FBI, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies suffered nothing. When it came to light that an FBI lawyer altered an email in order to help get a FISA warrant—in other words, that he doctored evidence to spy on a political opponent, which is a felony—he got probation.
The recent news that Special Counsel John Durham is indicting Michael Sussman, a lawyer who covertly worked for the Clinton campaign and lied to the FBI, is welcome news. But it seems like small beer given the rampant higher-level corruption that saturated the Russia collusion hoax.
At least 74 million citizens voted for Donald Trump in 2020, which is at least 11 million more than voted for him in 2016. Many of those voters are profoundly disillusioned and increasingly angry about this entire story—the years-long Robert Mueller “investigation,” the two impeachments of President Trump, the cloud of unknowing that surrounds the 2020 election, and the many questions that have emerged not only from the January 6 protest at the Capitol, but even more from the government’s response to that protest.
Which brings me back to Ashli Babbitt, the long-serving Air Force veteran who was shot and killed by a nervous Capitol Police officer. Babbitt was a useful prop when the media was in overdrive describing the January 6 events as an “armed insurrection” in which wild Trump supporters, supposedly at Trump’s instigation, attacked the Capitol with the intention of overturning the 2020 election.
According to that narrative, five people, including Babbitt, died in the skirmish. Moreover, it was said, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was bludgeoned to death by a raging Trump supporter wielding a fire extinguisher. That gem of a story about the fire extinguisher, reported in our former paper of record, The New York Times, was instantly picked up by other media outlets and spread like a Chinese virus.
Of course, it is absolutely critical to the Democratic Party narrative that the January 6 incident be made to seem as violent and crazed as possible. Hence the comparisons to 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Civil War. Only thus can pro-Trump Americans be excluded from “our democracy” by being branded as “domestic extremists” if not, indeed, “domestic terrorists.”
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution accords American citizens the right to a speedy trial. But most of the political prisoners of January 6—many of whom have been kept in solitary confinement—are still waiting to be brought to trial. And although the media was full of predictions that they would be found guilty of criminal sedition, none has.
Indeed, the prosecution’s cases seem to be falling apart. Most of the hundreds who have been arrested are being charged with trespassing. Another charge being leveled against them is “disrupting an official proceeding.” This is a felony charge designed not for ceremonial procedures like the January 6 certification of the vote, but rather for disrupting Congressional inquiries—for example, by shredding documents relevant to a Congressional investigation. It originated during the George W. Bush administration to deal with the Enron case.
The indisputable fact about January 6 is that although five people died at or near the Capitol on that day or soon thereafter, none of these deaths was brought about by the protesters. The shot fired by Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd that hit Ashli Babbitt in the neck and killed her was the only shot fired at the Capitol that day. No guns were recovered from the Capitol on January 6. Zero.
The liberal commentator Glenn Greenwald further diminished the “armed insurrection” narrative in an important column last February titled “The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot.” The title says it all. Kevin Greeson, Greenwald notes, was killed not by the protesters but died of a heart attack outside the Capitol. Benjamin Philips, the founder of a pro-Trump website called Trumparoo, died of a stroke that day. Rosanne Boyland, another Trump supporter, was reported by The New York Times to have been inadvertently “killed in a crush of fellow rioters during their attempt to fight through a police line.” But later video shows that, far from that, the police pushed protesters on top of Boyland and would not allow other protesters to pull her out.
Four of the five who died, then, were pro-Trump protesters. And the fifth? Well, that was Officer Sicknick—also a Trump supporter, as it turned out—who, contrary to the false report gone viral of The New York Times, went home, told his family he felt fine, but died a day later from, as The Washington Post eventually and grudgingly reported, “natural causes.” No fire extinguishers were involved in his demise.
***
The January 6 insurrection hoax prompts lots of questions.
Why, for example, did the government mobilize 26,000 federal troops from all across the country to surround “the people’s house” following January 6? Why were those troops subjected to FBI vetting, with some of them sent packing?
Why is there some 14,000 hours of video footage of the event on January 6 that the government refuses to release? What are they afraid of letting the public see? More scenes of security guards actually opening doors and politely ushering in protesters? More pictures of FBI informants covertly salted among the crowd?
My own view is that turning Washington into an armed camp was mostly theater. There was no threat that the Washington police could not have handled. But it was also a show of force and an act of intimidation. The message was: “We’re in charge now, rubes, and don’t you forget it.”
In truth, there is little threat of domestic terror in this country. But there is plenty of domestic conservatism. And that conservatism is the real focus of the establishment’s ire.
It is important to note that while the government provides the muscle for this war on dissent, the elite culture at large is a willing accomplice. Consider, for example, the open letter, signed by more than 500 “publishing professionals” (authors, editors, designers, and so on), calling on the industry to reject books written by anyone who had anything to do with the Trump administration.
These paragons pledged to do whatever they could to stop “enriching the monsters among us.” But here’s their problem: over 74 million people voted for Trump. That’s a lot of monsters.
Many people have been quoting Benjamin Franklin’s famous response when asked what sort of government they had come up with at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. “A republic,” Franklin said, “if you can keep it.” Right now, it looks like we can’t. It looks as if the American constitutional republic has given way, as least temporarily, to an American oligarchy.
As the years go by, historians, if the censors allow them access to the documents and give them leave to publish their findings, may well count the 2016 presidential election as the last fair and open democratic election in U.S. history. I know we are not supposed to say that. I know that the heads of Twitter and Facebook and other woke guardians of the status quo call this view “The Big Lie” and do all they can to suppress it. But every honest person knows that the 2020 election was tainted.
The forces responsible for the taint had tried before. Hitherto, their efforts had met with only limited success. But a perfect storm of forces conspired to make 2020 the first oligarchic installation of a president. It would not have happened, I think, absent the panic over the Chinese virus. But that panic, folded in a lover’s embrace by the Democratic establishment, was not only a splendid pretext to clamp down on civil liberties; it also provided an inarguable excuse to alter the rules for elections in several key states.
“Inarguable” is not quite the right word. There could have been plenty of arguments, and many lawsuits, against the way the executive branches in these states usurped the constitutionally guaranteed prerogative of state legislatures to set the election rules when they intervened to allow massive mail-in voting. But the Trump administration, though foreseeing and complaining about the executive interventions, did too little too late to make a difference.
Among the many sobering realities that the 2020 election brought home is that in our current and particular form of oligarchy, the people do have a voice, but it is a voice that is everywhere pressured, cajoled, shaped, and bullied. The people also have a choice, but only among a roster of candidates approved by the elite consensus.
The central fact to appreciate about Donald Trump is that he was elected president without the permission, and over the incredulous objections, of the bipartisan oligarchy that governs us. That was his unforgivable offense. Trump was the greatest threat in history to the credentialed class and the globalist administrative state upon which they feed. Representatives of that oligarchy tried for four years to destroy Trump. Remember that the first mention of impeachment came 19 minutes after his inauguration, an event that was met not only by a widespread Democratic boycott and hysterical claims by Nancy Pelosi and others that the election had been hijacked, but also by riots in Washington, D.C. that saw at least six policemen injured, numerous cars torched, and other property destroyed.
You will search in vain for media or other ruling class denunciations of that violence, or for bulletins from corporate America advising their customers of their solidarity with the newly-installed Trump administration. As the commentator Howie Carr noted, some riots are more equal than others. Some get you the approval of people like Nancy Pelosi and at least the grudging acceptance of oligarchs of the other party. Others get the FBI sweeping the country for “domestic terrorists” and the lords of Big Tech canceling people who defend the protesters’ cause.
Someday—maybe someday soon—this witches’ sabbath, this festival of scapegoating, and what George Orwell called the “hideous ecstasy” of hate will be at an end. Perhaps someday people will be aghast, and some will be ashamed, of what they did to the President of the United States and people who supported him: the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, for instance, proposing to put Senator Ted Cruz on a “no fly” list, and Simon & Schuster canceling Senator Josh Hawley’s book contract.
Donald Trump is the Emmanuel Goldstein (the designated principal enemy of the totalitarian state Oceania in Orwell’s 1984) of the movement. But minor public enemies are legion. Anyone harboring “Trumpist” inclinations is suspect, hence the widespread calls for “deprogramming” Trump’s supporters, who are routinely said to be “marching toward sedition.”
Michael Barone, one of our most perceptive political commentators, got it right when he wrote of the rapid movement “from impeaching incitement to canceling conservatism.” That is the path our oligarchs are inviting us to travel now, criminalizing political dissent and transforming policy differences into a species of heresy. You don’t debate heretics, after all. You seek to destroy them.
Donald Trump’s accomplishments as president were nothing less than stunning. Trump was, and is, a rude force of nature. He accomplished an immense amount. But he lacked one thing. Some say it was self-discipline or finesse. I agree with a friend of mine who suggested that Trump’s critical flaw was a deficit in guile. That sounds odd, no doubt, since Trump is supposed to be the tough guy who mastered “the art of the deal.” But I think my friend is probably right. Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club.
Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively.
Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.
I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years.
Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building.
As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.
Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have been branded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.
Hayek’s overriding concern in The Road to Serfdomwas to combat the forces that were pushing people further along that road to servitude. His chief concern was unchecked state power. In a new preface to the book’s 1956 edition, Hayek noted that one of its “main points” was to document how “extensive government control produces a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.”
“This means,” Hayek wrote, “that even a strong tradition of political liberty is no safeguard if the danger is precisely that new institutions and policies will gradually undermine and destroy that spirit.”
This dismal situation, Hayek continues, can be averted, but only if the spirit of liberty “reasserts itself in time and the people not only throw out the party which has been leading them further and further in the dangerous direction but also recognize the nature of the danger and resolutely change their course.”
Note the power of that little word “if.” It was not so long ago that an American could contemplate totalitarian regimes and say, “Thank God we’ve escaped that.” It’s not at all clear that we can entertain that happy conviction any longer.
That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.
Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”
Attorney Alan Dershowitz, in 2020 when he was a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)By Newsmax Wires Sunday, 14 Feb 2021 1:56 PM
Former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on Sunday blasted the “new McCarthyism” of the Democrats’ “hard left.”
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Dershowitz, a constitutional law expert, said some liberals have become radical censors of free speech.
“Common Cause, which purports to be a liberal, not a radical organization, has now demanded that Facebook keep Donald Trump off its platform,” he said. “We are getting liberals… [calling for] Fox News [to be] taken off the networks. I hated communism but I defended the rights of lawyers to defend accused communists.”
“If any lawyer is the subject of this kind of McCarthyism, I will represent you pro bono, in front of universities and bar associations,” he added. “I will dedicate myself that the new McCarthyism of the hard left doesn’t become American culture.”
Dershowitz called the Senate trial acquittal of former President Donald Trump a “great day” for the Constitution and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., — but “not such a good day” for Trump himself.
“McConnell “taught us a civic’s lesson: You don’t have to support President Trump or Donald Trump, you don’t have to agree with the speech, but support the First Amendment and the Constitution’s limitations on the power of the Senate to put a former president on trial,” he said.
“McConnell accepted the constitutional argument I’ve been making from the very beginning — that Congress has no power to put on trial Citizen Trump.”
On the flip side, Dershowitz said, Saturday was “not such a good day for Donald Trump because McConnell and others criticized him.”
In laying out a long-running objection to election fraud by former President Donald Trump, House impeachment managers are effectively making the case for the defense because the speech under the microscope is protected, even if they disagree with it, according to constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz on Newsmax TV.
“Very good theater, terrible constitutional law,” Dershowitz told “The Chris Salcedo Show” of the House Democrats’ opening statements Wednesday.
“The videos make good theater; they’re very riveting,” the noted legal scholar said. “”But they prove President Trump’s constitutional defense.”
House Democrats are emphasizing that Trump had long argued the election was stolen, but then they show how the president challenged it “by all lawful means and all political means,” Dershowitz told host Chris Salcedo.
“The Constitution protects a person that says the Earth is flat as much as a person who says it’s round,” Dershowitz said. “The Constitution protects a Holocaust denier as much as it does a historian who can prove that 6 million Jews were killed.
“And the Constitution, the First Amendment, protects a president who’s wrong about the election as much as a president who’s right.”
Instead of tying the lone article of impeachment — incitement of insurrection — solely on Trump’s Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally speech, which was delivered at a rally just before the Capitol siege, House Democrat impeachment managers are making a case that he’d long objected to a stolen election as a predicate to inciting the storming of the U.S. Capitol Building.
“Matters of opinion cannot be disputed or taken outside of constitutional protections,” Dershowitz said. “So I think the House managers were actually helping the Trump defense by trying to prove that what he said was false.”
Dershowitz did suggest that Democrats’ gaffe might be part of a plan to “lay a trap” for Trump defense lawyers — getting them to argue the validity of a stolen-election claim, which could derail the president’s case.
“That would be a serious mistake, because it would lose a number of senators who are now on their side,” Dershowitz concluded.
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I have read several books by Alan Dershowitz and he is a liberal but he does look at the constitution honestly and here he has made some very insightful observations that I am sure will upset Democrats but nonetheless will not slow them down from impeaching the President a second time because of their hate of all things Trump!
Dershowitz: Senate Rules Would Prevent Impeachment Trial Of Trump
An image from video of Alan Dershowitz, an attorney for President Donald Trump, walking from the podium after speaking on behalf of the president during the impeachment trial in the Senate on Jan. 27, 2020. (Senate Television via AP)By Newsmax Wires Sunday, 10 Jan 2021 2:42 PM
Harvard law professor and constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz on Sunday warned an impeachment of President Donald Trump won’t go to trial — but could “lie around like a loaded weapon” for both parties in the future.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Dershowitz said a Senate trial of citizen Trump would be unconstitutional.
“It will not go to trial,” he said. “All Democrats can do is impeach the president in House of Representatives, for that you only need a majority vote.
“The case cannot come to trial in the Senate” because of rules that do no allow it until, “according to the Majority Leader [Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.), until 1 p.m. on Jan. 20” — an hour after Trump leaves office.
“Congress has no power to impeach or try a private citizen, whether it’d be a private citizen in Donald Trump or …. Barack Obama or anyone else,” he said. “The jurisdiction is limited to a sitting president and so there won’t be a trial.”
But Dershowitz said he worried more about is“the impact of impeachment on the First Amendment.”
“For 100 years the Supreme Court and other courts have struggled to develop a juris prudence which distinguishes between advocacy and incitement.”
“To impeach a president for having exercised his First Amendment rights would be so dangerous to the Constitution, it would lie around like a loaded weapon ready to be used by either party against the other party and that’s not what impeachment nor the 25th amendment were intended to be,” Dershowitz said.
The host emphasizes that “we should be furious about what happened on Capitol Hill,” but adds that “the media have played a huge, huge role in what’s going on in this country.”
“We need to reject all this violence, but what about the media?” asks Levin before displaying front pages of various newspapers from around the country.
“The New York Times: ‘Trump Incites Mob’. This is projection,” Levin contends. “This is projection. He never did that. Or The Washington Post: ‘Trump mob storms Capitol’. There were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people there … That’s an awfully broad brush. Or the [New York] Daily News: ‘President Incites Insurrection’ … or USA Today: ‘Pro-Trump Mobs Storm US [sic] Capitol’. How about ‘Thugs Storm U.S. Capitol’? How about ‘Lawbreakers Storm U.S. Capitol’?”
Levin then calls out politicians like Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who he says are also “exploiting the situation.”
“They’re talking about impeaching the president of the United States or [invoking] the 25th Amendment nine days before he leaves office,” the host says. “Do they even know what’s involved in the 25th Amendment?
“So they double down, they triple down, they quadruple down. They’re not going to change at all. On one side of their mouth, they talk about unity. Out of the other side of their mouth, they spit on people,” he goes on. “Seventy-four million [Trump-voting] people and more, they’re not going away. Their concerns still exist.”
Meanwhile, Levin says, House Democrats are working toward their goal to “choke the system even further” by passing a rules package for the 117th Congressthat makes it “virtually impossible for Republicans to even propose legislation or amend legislation, even though [they] only has a 10- or 11-person majority in the House.”
“Nancy Pelosi … eliminated 100 years of tradition …”, the host argues, “and the media are trying to intimidate conservatives and constitutionalists by projecting onto them the violence that occurred by reprobates and others who need to be tracked down and punished.
“So it seems that the lessons have not been learned,” Levin concludes. “They certainly haven’t been learned by the left, they certainly haven’t been learned by the media, and they certainly haven’t been learned by the Never Trumpers.”
—-
December 13, 2020
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The story of how this postwar consensus broke down—starting with LBJ’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his prediction that it would lead to the South’s wholesale abandonment of the Democratic Party—has been told many times before. The realignment Johnson foresaw ended up taking longer than he had expected. But steadily, year by year—through Vietnam, RIOTS…and Nixon’s southern strategy; through busing, Roe v. Wade, urban crime, and white flight; through affirmative action, the Moral Majority, union busting, and Robert Bork; through assault weapons bans and the rise of Newt Gingrich…and the Clinton impeachment—America’s voters and their representatives became more and more polarized.
During 2020 I have noticed lots of riots and looting across the USA and I wanted to ask you why it is always the liberals doing that? AND WHY DIDN’T ANYONE CONDEMN THESE ACTIONS AT THE 2020 CONVENTION AND DIDN’T YOU SPEAK AT THE CONVENTION TOO?
In Kenosha, Portland, Seattle, and Chicago, city officials have tolerated criminal activity performed by mobs for politically motivated reasons. Philadelphia appears to be the next hotspot for mob violence to go unchecked. Pictured: A barricade is set on fire during a night of looting and violence in Philadelphia on Oct. 27. (Photo: Gabriella Audi/AFP/Getty Images)
James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is The Heritage Foundation’s vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, E. W. Richardson fellow, and director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. Read his research.
Like the replay of a bad movie, a law enforcement incident in Philadelphia triggered an excuse for violence and looting. It remains to be seen whether the City of Brotherly Love will become the next “Kenosha,” where city officials moved quickly to restore order and seek state and federal support—though sadly after 48 hours of opportunistic looting, violence, and destruction devastated the city.
Or perhaps Philadelphia will be the next Portland, Seattle, or Chicago, where systemic attacks seem to be a daily occurrence.
Police in Philadelphia are fully capable of restoring peace. The open question is whether the mayor and Larry Krasner, the former defense attorney-turned elected rogue prosecutor, will do their job and hold people accountable for their crimes.
When local, state, and federal governments work together, act quickly, and demonstrate no tolerance for organized violence to advance radical agendas, communities are kept safe and equal protection under the law is afforded for all citizens.
The left is actively working to undermine the integrity of our elections. Read the plan to stop them now. Learn more now >>
On the other hand, when local officials, the media, and politicians ignore, excuse, normalize, and enable violence, everyday Americans pay the price.
There is a plague sweeping this country that many don’t want to talk about: The deliberate use of street violence to advance radical political agendas, often under a smoke screen of campaigning for civil liberties. The evidence of organized criminal activity at the root of the outbreaks in American cities is mounting.
The list of people enabling this violence sadly includes some public officials, who are principally responsible for ensuring public safety. For example, a growing threat to peaceful communities is “rogue prosecutors,” former criminal defense attorneys recruited and funded by liberal billionaire backers, who—once elected—abuse their office by refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes.
These rogue prosecutors are usurping the power of the legislature in the process, and ignoring victim’s rights—all to advance their politics.
Baltimore is a perfect example. Since being sworn into office, under the watch of Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby.
Rogue prosecutors fuel street violence by refusing to prosecute rioters and looters. When confronted with the rising crimes rates, Mosby called the statistics “rhetoric.”
The only way to break the cycle of violence is for local and state officials to work with each other, and if necessary, the federal government. They need to stop enabling the destruction of property and lives on their streets, and start investigating and prosecuting the individuals (and organizations) behind the riots.
It’s time to start shaming and calling out the media, politicians, and advocates who excuse and normalize the violence.
There is a proven action plan for making our streets safe. It is past time for officials to start following this blueprint.
There is no time—zero time to waste. There are already fears of more violence in our streets, regardless of the outcome of the national elections.
In my hometown of Washington, D.C., downtown buildings are already boarding up in anticipation of violence on our streets after the election. If Trump wins, violence. If Biden wins, violence. This makes no sense, and it’s time for it to stop.
It is time for every official and public figure, every political party, in every part of the country to publically reject violence on American streets as a legitimate form of protected speech. Violence is not protected speech, period.
The notion of deliberately destroying the lives and property of our neighbors to advance a radical political agenda is abhorrent. American leaders—of all stripes—should stand up now as one and reject these violent acts. It has gone on for too long, well before the death of George Floyd.
Leaders in Philadelphia and across America must take a principled stand to demand the end to this violence, and they need to do it before the election. In one voice, they should demand: “Leave our streets alone.”
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttiegieg, left, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—seen here at the White House on March 3—are among members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet that columnist Victor Davis Hanson regards as incompetent or worse. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
As the nation sinks inexplicably into self-created crisis after crisis, debate rages whether President Joe Biden is incompetent, mean-spirited, or an ideologue who feels the country’s mess is his success.
A second national discussion revolves around who actually is overseeing the current national catastrophe, given Biden’s frequent bewilderment and cognitive challenges.
But one area of agreement is the sheer craziness of Biden’s Cabinet appointments, who have translated his incoherent ideology into catastrophic governance.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has essentially nullified federal immigration law. More than 2 million foreign nationals have illegally crossed the southern border without audit—and without COVID-19 vaccinations and tests during a pandemic.
Mayorkas either cannot or will not follow federal law.
But he did create a new Disinformation Governance Board. To head his new Orwellian Ministry of Truth, he appointed Nina Jankowicz—an arch disinformationist who helped peddle the Russian collusion, Steele dossier, and Alfa Bank hoaxes.
While Jankowicz’s adolescent videos and past tweets finally forced her resignation, Mayorkas promises his board will carry on.
In the days before the recent Virginia election, grassroots parent groups challenged critical race theory taught in the schools.
In reaction and under prompts from teachers unions, Attorney General Merrick Garland directed both the FBI and the Justice Department to establish a special task force apparently to “investigate threats” from parents against school board members.
The FBI recently has been knee-deep in political controversies. It illegally doctored a FISA application to entrap an American citizen. Its former directors, under oath before Congress, either claimed faulty memory or admitted lying to federal investigators.
The last thing a scandal-plagued FBI needed was to go undercover at school board meetings to investigate parents worried over their children’s education.
We are in a fuel price spiral that is destroying the middle class.
Yet when Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was asked about plans to lower gas prices, she laughed off the idea as “hilarious.”
Later, Granholm preposterously claimed, “It is not the administration policies that have affected supply and demand.”
Apparently haranguing those who finance fossil-fuel production, canceling the Keystone pipeline, suspending new federal oil and gas leases, and stopping production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge all had nothing to do with high fuel prices.
Currently, supply chain disruptions are paralyzing the U.S. economy.
The huge Port of Los Angeles has been a mess for more than a year. Since last fall, dozens of cargo ships have been backed up to the horizon. Thousands of trucks are bottlenecked at the port.
During the mess, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was not at work. Instead, at the height of the crisis, he took a two-month paternity leave to help out his husband and two newborn babies.
Such paternal concern is a noble thing. But Buttigieg is supposed to ensure that life-or-death supplies reach millions of strapped Americans.
This winter, trains entering and leaving Los Angeles were routinely looted in the Old West style of train robbing—without much of a response from Buttigieg’s transportation bureau.
In Senate testimony, Secretary of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland refused to explain why her department is slow walking federal oil and gas leases at a time when Americans are paying between $5 and $6 a gallon for gas.
Haaland was unable to provide simple answers about when new leases will result in more supplies of oil and gas. Her panicked aides slid talking points to her, given that in deer-in-the-headlights fashion, she seemed incapable of providing senators with basic information about U.S. energy production on federal lands.
The United States is sending many billions of dollars worth of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine to combat Russian aggression. We rightly claim it is not a proxy war against Russia, but instead an effort to help stop a brutal Russian invasion.
Why then did Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin tell the world the very opposite in a fashion that could only convince Russians that our real aim in Ukraine is to destroy Russia as a superpower?
As Austin put it publicly, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
Even if that description of the agenda is true, why broadcast it, given Russia has more than 6,000 nuclear weapons and its president, Vladimir Putin, is increasingly erratic and paranoid?
The common denominator to these Biden appointees is ideological rigidity, nonchalance, and sheer incompetence.
They seem indifferent to the current border, inflation, energy, and crime disasters. When confronted, they are unable to answer simple questions from Congress, or they mock anyone asking for answers on behalf of the strapped American people.
We don’t know why or how such an unimpressive cadre ended up running the government, only that they are here and the American people are suffering from their presence.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Milton Friedman in 2004
Power of the Market – Immigration
MILTON FRIEDMAN ON IMMIGRATION
MILTON FRIEDMAN ON IMMIGRATION PART 2
March 18, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
There are several issues raised in your book that I would like to discuss with you such as the minimum wage law, the liberal press, the cause of 2007 financial meltdown, and especially your pro-choice (what I call pro-abortion) view which I strongly object to on both religious and scientific grounds, Two of the most impressive things in your book were your dedication to both the National Prayer Breakfast (which spoke at 8 times and your many visits to the sides of wounded warriors!!
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
WHEN IT CAME to immigration, everyone agreed that the system was broken. The process of immigrating legally to the United States could take a decade or longer, often depending on what country you were coming from and how much money you had.Meanwhile, the economic gulf between us and our southern neighbors drove hundreds of thousands of people to illegally cross the 1,933-mile U.S.-Mexico border each year, searching for work and a better life. Congress had spent billions to harden the border, with fencing, cameras, drones, and an expanded and increasingly militarized border patrol. But rather than stop the flow of immigrants, these steps had spurred an industry of smugglers—coyotes—who made big money transporting human cargo in barbaric and sometimes deadly fashion. And although border crossings by poor Mexican and Central American migrants received most of the attention from politicians and the press, about 40 percent of America’s unauthorized immigrants arrived through airports or other legal ports of entry and then overstayed their visas. By 2010, an estimated eleven million undocumented persons were living in the United States, in large part thoroughly woven into the fabric of American life.Many were longtime residents, with children who either were U.S. citizens by virtue of having been born on American soil or had been brought to the United States at such an early age that they were American in every respect except for a piece of paper. Entire sectors of the U.S. economy relied on their labor, as undocumented immigrants were often willing to do the toughest, dirtiest work for meager pay—picking the fruits and vegetables that stocked our grocery stores, mopping the floors of offices, washing dishes at restaurants, and providing care to the elderly. But although American consumers benefited from this invisible workforce, many feared that immigrants were taking jobs from citizens, burdening social services programs, and changing the nation’s racial and cultural makeup, which led to demands for the government to crack down on illegal immigration. This sentiment was strongest among Republican constituencies, egged on by an increasingly nativist right-wing press. However, the politics didn’t fall neatly along partisan lines: The traditionally Democratic trade union rank and file, for example, saw the growing presence of undocumented workers on co nstruction sites as threatening their livelihoods, while Republican-leaning business groups interested in maintaining a steady supply of cheap labor (or, in the case of Silicon Valley, foreign-born computer programmers and engineers) often took pro-immigration positions. Back in 2007, the maverick version of John McCain, along with his sidekick Lindsey Graham, had actually joined Ted Kennedy to put together a comprehensive reform bill that offered citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants while more tightly securing our borders. Despite strong support from President Bush, it had failed to clear the Senate. The bill did, however, receive twelve Republican votes, indicating the real possibility of a future bipartisan accord. I’d pledged during the campaign to resurrect similar legislation once elected, and I’d appointed former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano as head of the Department of Homeland Security—the agency that oversaw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection—partly because of her knowledge of border issues and her reputation for having previously managed immigration in a way that was both compassionate and tough. My hopes for a bill had thus far been dashed. With the economy in crisis and Americans losing jobs,few in Congress had any appetite to take on a hot-button issue like immigration. Kennedy was gone. McCain, having been criticized by the right flank for his relatively moderate immigration stance, showed little interest in taking up the banner again. Worse yet, my administration was deporting undocumented workers at an accelerating rate. This wasn’t a result of any directive from me, but rather it stemmed from a 2008 congressional mandate that both expanded ICE’s budget and increased collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement departments in an effort to deport more undocumented immigrants with criminal records. My team and I had made a strategic choice not to immediately try to reverse the policies we’d inherited in large part because we didn’t want to provide ammunition to critics who claimed that Democrats weren’t willing to enforce existing immigration laws—a perception that we thought could torpedo our chances of passing a future reform bill. But by 2010, immigrant-rights and Latino advocacy groups were criticizing our lack of progress..And although I continued to urge Congress to pass immigration reform, I had no realistic path for delivering a new comprehensive law before the midterms.
Milton Friedmanwisely noted, “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” Is it prudent to allow illegal immigrants (60 percent of whom are high-school dropouts) access to Social Security, Medicare, and, over time, to 60 federal means-tested welfare programs? I don’t think so either!
FREE TO CHOOSE “Who protects the worker?” Video and Transcript Part
The essence of what Milton Friedman is saying in this episode is found in this statement:
“The situation of immigration restrictions really has to do with the question of a welfare state. As I say in the film, I would favor completely free immigration in a society which does not have a welfare system. With a welfare system of the kind we have, you have the problem that people immigrate in order to get welfare, not in order to get employment. You know, it’s a very interesting thing, if you would ask anybody before 1914 the U.S. had no immigration restrictions whatsoever, I’m exaggerating a little bit, there were some immigration restrictions on orientals, but it was essentially, mainly free. If you ask anybody, any American economic historian was that a good thing for America, everybody will say yes it was a wonderful thing for America that we had free immigration. If you ask anybody today, should we have free immigration today, everybody will __ almost everybody will say no. What’s the difference? I think there’s only one difference and that is that when we had free immigration it was immigration of jobs in which everybody benefited. The people who were already here benefited because they got complementary workers, workers who could work with them, make their productivity better, enable them to develop and use the resources of the country better, but today, if you have a system under which you have essentially a governmental guarantee of relief in case of distress, you have a very, very real problem.”
L. WILLIAMS: Dr. Friedman and Walter Williams go back in history and they take a look at a situation where America was empty, where we didn’t have anything like the sophisticated industrial economy we have today, but had a much more agricultural and rural kind of economy and of course when the __ when the impoverished peasants of Europe, my ancestors and most of our ancestors, except for the slaves, which is another situation, but when these people came from Europe and came to a wide open continent with the most fertile soil then available to anyone in the world, naturally there was progress; and I or any of us would be mad to deny progress. But as that developed and as population increased and as we moved into a much more sophisticated industrial economy, we moved then into the situation in the 1930s, or earlier than that , at the end of the century. As some of the more skilled jobs came along, the labor movement didn’t happen by accident. Didn’t happen because there wasn’t a need there. The results of this development, even with all the wealth available in America, the results of this development was that many working people were not having anything like, by standards of civilization or whatever, anything like their fair share in this progress.
MCKENZIE: Now you’re arguing that in a free market, for labor, everyone benefits. Does that mean that you would favor abolition of all immigration restrictions?
FRIEDMAN: The situation of immigration restrictions really has to do with the question of a welfare state. As I say in the film, I would favor completely free immigration in a society which does not have a welfare system. With a welfare system of the kind we have, you have the problem that people immigrate in order to get welfare, not in order to get employment. You know, it’s a very interesting thing, if you would ask anybody before 1914 the U.S. had no immigration restrictions whatsoever, I’m exaggerating a little bit, there were some immigration restrictions on orientals, but it was essentially, mainly free. If you ask anybody, any American economic historian was that a good thing for America, everybody will say yes it was a wonderful thing for America that we had free immigration. If you ask anybody today, should we have free immigration today, everybody will __ almost everybody will say no. What’s the difference? I think there’s only one difference and that is that when we had free immigration it was immigration of jobs in which everybody benefited. The people who were already here benefited because they got complementary workers, workers who could work with them, make their productivity better, enable them to develop and use the resources of the country better, but today, if you have a system under which you have essentially a governmental guarantee of relief in case of distress, you have a very, very real problem.
MCKENZIE: But this is true of every western industrialized country.
FRIEDMAN: That’s right and that’s why today __
MCKENZIE: Yeah.
FRIEDMAN: __ under current circumstances you cannot, unfortunately have free immigration. Not because there’s anything wrong with free immigration, but because we have other policies which make it impossible to adopt free immigration.
MCKENZIE: Well I’d like other reactions. Is it at all feasible to open the door of the labor market internationally now? Bill Brady?
BRADY: I would __ I would say yes providing they open the door to us. I think that the door to not only the labor market, the door to all markets should be __ should be open. That is the product markets.
W. WILLIAMS: My feelings about the undocumented workers of Mexican-Americans are inscribed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. I think that the people should have the right to come to this country. Now, those who would say, you know, I hear a number of people saying that, well the immigrants are contributing to our unemployment problem. And I point this out to some people, I said, “look, you know, this is the same rhetoric that the Irish used when the blacks were coming up from the north, ” you know, they’re using blacks as scapegoats. They’re saying, “get those people back where they came from so that our members can get jobs, ” you know. Unions were as well doing this, you know, they called them scabs, strikebreakers, etcetera, etcetera. So I do not wish for Mexican-Americans to become the new scapegoats of our particular national problems. They are not the problem, and our nation benefits to the extent that these people come here and work. And to that extent __ to that extent__ so it’s kind of good for them to remain illegal aliens as opposed to being legal aliens where they’re subject to our welfare programs, so that we don’t want them to come here to __
(Several people talking at once.)
GREEN: I think that this country cannot have a group of workers to remain outside the framework of our laws and our protection. And as long as we have workers who are attracted to the United States because of the standards of living; and I think minimum wages play a part in that as part of that attraction. But it seems to me to have undocumented workers without providing either a means of protection for them and it seems to me that we’ve got to go to the question of providing the amnesty for those generations of workers who have come here over a period of time, now two, three, maybe four generations. We have to see that they have the same rights and protection of all other workers. And as it stands now, large numbers of them live outside the framework of the laws and statutes that we have on the __ on our books.
MCKENZIE: Comment Milton.
FRIEDMAN: They do and the tragedy of the situation, as what Walter Williams point out, that as long as they are undocumented and illegal they are a clear net gain, the nation benefits and they benefit. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t. The tragedy is that we’ve adopted all these other policies so that if we convert them into legal residents it’s no longer clear that we benefit. They may benefit, but it’s no longer clear that we do. What Lynn Williams said before is again a travesty on what was actually going on. The real boost to the trade union movement came after the Great Depression of the 1930s; that Great Depression was not a failure of capitalism; it was not a failure of the private market system as we pointed out in another one of the programs in this series; it was a failure of government. It was not the case that somehow or other there was a decline in the conditions of the working class that produced a great surge of unionism. On the contrary __ unions have never accounted for more than one out of four or one out of five of American workers. The American worker benefited not out of unions, he benefited in spite of unions. He benefited because there was greater opportunity because there were people who were willing to invest their money because there was an opportunity for people to work, to save, to invest. That’s still the case today. You say, we have to provide them with something or other Ernest. Who are the “we”?
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks May 17 in Buffalo, New York, decrying the mass shooting that occurred there three days earlier. Biden’s failure to travel to Waukesha, Wisconsin, after a similar massacre there six months earlier raises questions about his motivation for going to Buffalo. (Photo: Scott Olson/ Getty Images)
If the following news headlines were paired in an essay question on a high school Advanced Placement civics test, it might well be framed as “Compare and contrast.”
“Biden will travel to Buffalo on Tuesday following mass shooting, official says” — CNN, May 15
“Psaki says Biden has NO [emphasis in original] plans to visit Waukesha after the deadly Christmas parade attack ‘at this time’ because sending the president to a community ‘requires a lot of assets.’”— Daily Mail, Nov. 29
How can one explain the Biden administration’s diametrically different responses to these two mass killings, one week shy of six months apart?
Granted Buffalo, N.Y., is less than half the distance from Washington, D.C., that Waukesha, Wisconsin, is, but does sending the president to upstate New York really require fewer “assets”?
On May 14, a gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others at a Buffalo supermarket. Eleven of the victims were black, two of them white. Facing a first-degree murder charge is Payton Gendron, 18, who is white.
Last Nov. 21, an SUV struck and killed six people and injured 62 others at a Christmas parade in Waukesha. Police said the driver deliberately drove in a “zig-zag pattern” to hit as many people as possible.
Darrell Brooks, now 40, was arrested and charged with six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 77 other charges. Brooks is black. All six who died were white, as were most of those who were injured. As if to downplay the racist angle, however, CNN initially reported: “A car drove through a city Christmas parade, killing six people,” as though it was one of those newfangled self-driving cars.
Gendron and Brooks each posted hateful, incoherent, racist rants online before their attacks.
Given the particulars of the two massacres, then, one might be forgiven for suspecting President Joe Biden’s visit to Buffalo after shunning Waukesha was a partisan political calculus aimed at feeding red meat to his left-wing base. If true, that would be both shameless and indefensible.
Absent any other explanation, we’re left to conclude that Biden views some crime victims as more equal than others and, by extension, some perpetrators as more heinous than others. In point of fact, both Buffalo and Waukesha were incidents of domestic terrorism and deserving of equal condemnation.
While there’s a role for a president as “comforter-in-chief” in the face of senseless tragedies like these, it’s hard to see how its helps comfort those who are grieving over losing family members, friends, and loved ones for Biden to inject politics into what should be a somber and solemn occasion.
“White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison. It really is. Running through our body politic. And it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes,” the president thundered May 17 in remarks at Buffalo’s Delavan Grider Community Center.
“We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. None,” he added.
While few if anyone would dispute that, Biden would have been on firmer ground had he also denounced, with equal vehemence, Brooks’ online anti-white screeds for what they were—black supremacy. Racism is despicable, regardless of the color of its practitioners.
Also, in recounting other mass killings, Mr. Biden inexplicably left out Waukesha altogether, as though it never happened, citing Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; Pittsburgh; Atlanta; Dallas; “and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York.”
“[W]e are seeing an epidemic of hate across our country that has been evidenced by acts of violence and intolerance,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement the day after the Buffalo shootings. “We must call it out and condemn it. Racially motivated hate crimes or acts of violent extremism are harms against all of us, and we must do everything we can to ensure that our communities are safe from such acts.”
That’s a keen grasp of the obvious, Madame Vice President, but it would come across as more sincere if all hate crimes and mass killings were condemned equally, regardless of the race and ethnicity of the victims and perpetrators—and without regard to any perceived political advantage in condemning some, but not others.
The woman who helped expose IRS abuse of conservative activists has more news to share: The abuse continues, and she sees no evidence that the White House, the IRS or the Justice Department is doing anything to end it. “This is not in the past tense. This is still going on,” says Cleta Mitchell, perhaps the country’s pre-eminent expert on campaign-finance and political tax law.
In 2012, Ms. Mitchell worked to persuade members of Congress that reports of IRS harassment of conservative groups were credible. GOP lawmakers demanded information from the IRS and triggered the internal audit that finally forced the agency last month to acknowledge abuses it had previously denied. Now Ms. Mitchell is determined to end the abuse and identify the culprits.
Don’t bet against her. A partner at elite international law firm Foley and Lardner, Ms. Mitchell is sketching out a road map to uncover the truth and force reform—whether or not the Obama administration cooperates.
So far it looks like the administration will not. Ms. Mitchell represents nine conservative organizations that, beginning around 2010, were subjected to unusual delays, in many cases unlawful demands for information, and in some cases unlawful releases of their confidential data. But she reports that despite filling out the paperwork required by law and regulation, only one of the nine has received the customary IRS approval letter to operate as a tax-exempt group. She says another client received a new letter from the IRS with “very bizarre questions” as recently as three weeks ago.
The Justice Department is allegedly conducting a criminal investigation of the IRS abuse. Has anyone from Justice contacted her or her clients to gather evidence? “Not about this. The FBI’s contacted some tea party leaders about their meetings and who comes to their meetings,” she says. “I guess they viewed the tea party as domestic terrorists.” She is puzzled that the feds aren’t asking about IRS targeting: “You’d think that they would, wouldn’t you?”
They should, and perhaps the Securities and Exchange Commission ought to start a case file as well. Ms. Mitchell says she learned this week that the IRS even intervened in the business dealings of a donor to conservative causes. “There were two public companies that were in the process of trying to do a merger and somehow the IRS stepped in and demanded all this information and said, ‘If you don’t give it to us we’ll stop this merger,’ ” she says. “But I cannot get [the donor] to come forward . . . ‘Look I’ve been through this hassle with the IRS. I don’t need any more.’ People are really afraid and the donors are the most afraid.”
She has heard “a number of reports” of conservative donors “having been audited or hassled,” but she doesn’t have a sense of how many cases there might be. “I hear about them all the time, but so far they’ve been the most reluctant of all to talk.”
Ms. Mitchell, on the other hand, shows no fear as she talks strategy in Foley’s Georgetown office overlooking the Potomac River. Maybe that’s because this Oklahoma native has already overcome her share of daunting challenges.
“I was raised by a single mom. My dad was kind of a no-account,” she says with a chuckle. “But my mother made up for it. She was a very strong woman. Raised six kids.” And she demanded excellence from all of them. After Ms. Mitchell’s first term at the University of Oklahoma, “I made one B and my mother went around telling everyone that I hadn’t done very well but she hoped I’d do better the next semester.” She graduated with high honors and a Phi Beta Kappa key.
Like many of her classmates, she also developed a love for the school’s famed football team and proved to be as demanding about the Sooners as her mother had been about grades. Shortly after the team’s current coach, Bob Stoops, was hired in 1999, she met him at a Washington reception. “You know, coach,” she recalls telling him, “the good thing for you is you only need to win three games a year”—against powerhouses Nebraska, Oklahoma State and Texas. When Mr. Stoops responded that Nebraska wasn’t on the schedule that year, she replied: “Well, lucky you, you only have to win two games.”
These days, winning for her clients doesn’t necessarily mean collecting big damage awards. She says the harassed conservative groups are more focused on getting the truth out and ensuring that the IRS’s appalling conduct is stopped and never repeated. But the lever of potential monetary penalties could be useful in persuading senior government officials to come clean. Ms. Mitchell is hopeful that, even if the Justice Department sits on its hands, a combination of private lawsuits and congressional investigations can help ascertain who gave the order to target conservatives.
She has filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of an organization called True the Vote that names the IRS as well as previous and current IRS officials as defendants. She promises more lawsuits, including one on behalf of the National Organization for Marriage that had its documents leaked to its antagonists at the Human Rights Campaign.
Ms. Mitchell credits attorney Jay Sekulow for his suit on behalf of other conservative organizations and is encouraged by the work of lawmakers like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.). “They’re just getting started to get to the answers. The first round is the IRS dissembling, denying, deflecting. And now hopefully we’re beginning to get to some real information,” she says.
Thus far, senior IRS officials in office when the abuses began have often provided untruthful answers, first by telling Congress in 2012 that the IRS wasn’t targeting President Obama’s ideological opponents and more recently by suggesting that low-level employees were to blame. Sometimes they’ve been unwilling to provide any answers at all, such as when Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS unit overseeing tax-exempt organizations, asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid self-incrimination, but not before proclaiming her innocence at a congressional hearing.
In the civil lawsuits, government defendants will still enjoy their Fifth Amendment rights, but the truth may come out anyway. Ms. Mitchell notes that “civil discovery is much broader and doesn’t allow for as much opportunity to refuse to answer. There’s a magistrate who is appointed to oversee” and resolve disputes on specific questions. And if a person is forced to answer a question during a deposition, “the perjury statutes apply.”
But even if officials find ways to remain silent, they might not be able to contain the relevant information. Ms. Mitchell adds that “we are most interested in seeing documents,” and that includes emails. Such documents have hardly been examined, because while the IRS’s internal audit recently forced the agency to acknowledge abuses it had previously denied, the inquiry consisted mainly of interviews of staff with a supervisor present.
After denying for a year that IRS employees were targeting conservatives, IRS brass were forced by the imminent release of the audit last month to change their story. But they settled on another inaccurate claim: that the problems centered on a few misguided employees in a Cincinnati office. This was contradicted by a Wall Street Journal report this week that Cincinnati workers were being directed and even “micromanaged” by Washington, according to what one IRS employee told congressional investigators.
“I think the press has done a good job of exposing that it wasn’t just in Cincinnati,” Ms. Mitchell says. “I knew it wasn’t.” One of her clients has been waiting for approval for nonprofit status since 2009, she says, and for all that time the application was being considered in Washington. “I was told by the agent in Cincinnati, ‘Oh well, you send this stuff to us, but we have to send it all to Washington.’ ” She says that some unusual information requests to conservative groups have also come from the IRS office in Ogden, Utah.
She adds: “I just want to know who did what and when, and I want them to issue the letters and I want them to stop targeting and go back to the process” that prevailed before the current era of abuse.
This current era appears to have begun sometime after the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president, though the Obama campaign itself offered something of a preview. As the Journal’s Kimberley A. Strassel has noted, in the summer of 2008 Obama campaign General Counsel Bob Bauer urged the Justice Department’s criminal division to investigate the officers and donors of a group called the American Issues Project after it ran a negative ad about Mr. Obama.
The organization was a client of Ms. Mitchell’s, so she learned firsthand about the tactics of the Obama campaign and Mr. Bauer: “He would send a letter to the Justice Department demanding that my clients be criminally prosecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights. And then I would write a response, and then he’d write another letter, and I’d immediately write a response.”
Mr. Bauer was named White House counsel in late 2009, shortly before the IRS appears to have begun its harassment of conservatives. Now in private practice, he seems like the kind of former official that conservatives might want to question under oath. Could it happen?
“We’d have to find that there was some communication between him and the IRS or something like that,” says Ms. Mitchell. Though much may remain to be discovered, she says, the targeting of conservatives in recent years has been remarkably open: “The communications were all pretty public. That’s one of the things that I don’t think has gotten enough attention, is the use of the IRS as a political tool. There are 17 Democratic senators who will literally sign anything put in front of them going after conservative organizations.”
She is referring to letters sent during the last election cycle by various Democrats urging IRS investigations, some of the letters even referencing specific conservative organizations. But Ms. Mitchell might just as easily mention the many speeches in which Mr. Obama has vilified groups opposing his policies and denounced them as threats to democracy or foreign-backed front groups.
All of this history inspires skepticism that the Obama Justice Department will make the abuse of conservatives a high priority for prosecution. So the job may fall to private attorneys like Cleta Mitchell. If she is intimidated at the prospect of taking on the IRS, she is showing no signs of it. “Where I come from in Oklahoma,” she says, “the wide open spaces are not just geography. It’s a mentality. You can be whatever you’re hoss enough to be.”
Maybe it’s the IRS’s turn to worry.
Mr. Freeman is assistant editor of the Journal’s editorial page.
A version of this article appeared June 8, 2013, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: How to Investigate the IRS.
_____________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
RAISE TAXES: Report says Rick Crawford will break from GOP and back millionaires’ tax. The Arkansas Times reported that Congressman Rick Crawford has a plan that includes raising taxes for 5 years if there is an agreement to pass the Balanced Budget Amendment. However, if after 5 years the Balanced Budget Amendment does not get […]
The result of having lots of taxes is the mean IRS. The IRS: Even Worse Than You Think Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell Since it is tax-filing season and we all want to honor our wonderful tax system, let’sgo into the archives and show this video from last year about the onerous compliance costs of the internal […]
The result of having lots of taxes is the mean IRS. The IRS: Even Worse Than You Think Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell Since it is tax-filing season and we all want to honor our wonderful tax system, let’s go into the archives and show this video from last year about the onerous compliance costs […]
What did we learn from the Laffer Curve in the 1980′s? Lowering top tax rate from 70% to 28% from 1980 to 1988 and those earning over $200,000 paid 99 billion in taxes instead of 19 billion!!!! A Lesson on the Laffer Curve for Barack Obama November 6, 2011 by Dan Mitchell One of my frustrating missions […]
Better Published on May 28, 2013 No description available. “Better” – TV:30 DALE CUSTER (Little Rock): These politicians in Washington they just dont get it. NIC HORTON (Searcy): Mark Pryor just really doesnt get it. JANET CROW (Conway): Pryor votes like a liberal. DR. EARL PEEPLES (Little Rock): He is a liberal. NIC HORTON (Searcy): He […]
We can fix the IRS problem by going to the flat tax and lowering the size of government. Why the IRS Persecuted the Tea Party and How to Fix the Problem May 27, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Did President Obama and his team of Chicago cronies deliberately target the Tea Party in hopes of thwarting free speech […]
We know the IRS commissioner wasn’t telling the truth in March 2012, when he testified: “There’s absolutely no targeting.”However, Lois Lerner knew different when she misled people with those words. Two important points made by Noonan in the Wall Street Journal in the article below: First, only conservative groups were targeted in this scandal by […]
Ohio Liberty Coalition versus the I.R.S. (Tom Zawistowski) Published on May 20, 2013 The Ohio Liberty Coalition was among tea party groups that received special scrutiny from the I.R.S. Tom Zawistowski says his story is not unique. He argues the kinds of questions the I.R.S. asked his group amounts to little more than “opposition research.” Video […]
We got to lower the size of government so we don’t have these abuses like this in the IRS. Cartoonists v. the IRS May 23, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Call me perverse, but I’m enjoying this IRS scandal. It’s good to see them suffer a tiny fraction of the agony they impose on the American people. I’ve already […]
Is the irs out of control? Here is the link from cato: MAY 22, 2013 8:47AM Can You Vague That Up for Me? By TREVOR BURRUS SHARE As the IRS scandal thickens, targeted groups are coming out to describe their ordeals in dealing with that most-reviled of government agencies. The Ohio Liberty Coalition was one of […]
“The Clinton campaign fabricated evidence trying to connect [Donald] Trump to [Russia]. They fed it to the media to start a yearslong wildfire of false allegations,” says Sen. Chuck Grassley. Pictured: Hillary Clinton speaks at the Museum of Modern Art on May 24. (Photo: Cindy Ord/Getty Images)
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is accusing the FBI of having “a get-Trump-at-all-costs attitude.”
Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, highlighted new information that had come to light during the ongoing trial of Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“The Clinton campaign fabricated evidence trying to connect [Donald] Trump to [Russia],” Grassley said. “They fed it to the media to start a yearslong wildfire of false allegations. They fed it to the FBI to trigger a federal investigation into their opposing candidate.”
As part of the continuing probe by special counsel John Durham, Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI about whether he was coordinating with the Clinton campaign when he came forward with a tip that a Russian bank secretly communicated with Trump’s circle. Sussmann, the FBI’s source in pursuing alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, has pleaded not guilty.
In his remarks, Grassley highlighted how the FBI later suggested that the source of the Trump-Russia ties was the Justice Department, not an individual with ties to the Clinton campaign.
“I fear these recent developments are just the tip of the iceberg,” Grassley said. “The FBI’s exposure to false information and actually using that false information for investigative purposes reeks of a political vendetta. It points to a get-Trump-at-all-costs attitude.”
“Whether Sussmann is convicted or not, the evidence introduced by Durham shows serious government misconduct, misconduct by the federal government of the United States of America,” the Iowa Republican added.
Read Grassley’s full speech, pasted below, or watch it here:
It took on a new life when Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann met with FBI general counsel James Baker.
In that meeting, Sussmann provided information and data files that allegedly contained evidence of a secret communication channel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank—Alfa Bank.
The evidence was fabricated by the Clinton campaign. The allegations about the Trump Organization being linked with a Russian bank were false.
Of note, Sussmann also provided Baker information Fusion GPS gave him as part of their work for the Clinton campaign.
This was an all-hands-on-deck strategy to destroy the Trump presidency and the campaign.
With the ongoing Sussmann trial, now underway here in D.C., the false Alfa Bank narrative is more relevant now than ever before. So I want to tell you why.
A mere several days after the meeting with James Baker, the FBI opened a full investigation on Sept. 23, 2016.
And around that time, an FBI agent working on cyber matters reviewed the information provided by Sussmann.
That agent said, “We didn’t agree with the conclusion … that this represented a secret communication channel.”
He also stated, “Whoever had written that paper had jumped to some conclusions that were not supported by the data,” and, “the methodology they chose was questionable to me.”
And here is the kicker: “I didn’t feel that they were objective in the conclusions that they came to. The assumption that you would have to make was so far-reaching that it just didn’t make sense.”
So last Friday in the courtroom, Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, testified that Hillary Clinton was asked about the plan to share this fake information with the media.
Hillary Clinton approved that plan.
Jake Sullivan was involved in that decision as well. He’s, of course, as we know, [President Joe Biden’s] national security adviser.
The Clinton campaign fabricated evidence trying to connect [Donald] Trump to [Russia]. They fed it to the media to start a yearslong wildfire of false allegations. They fed it to the FBI to trigger a federal investigation into their opposing candidate.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Clinton campaign was the conspiracy. And it was a big bag of dirty tricks.
This false Alfa Bank information eventually landed with the media outlet Slate, which ran an article on Oct. 31, 2016. After that article, Sullivan, the now-national security adviser, issued his now-infamous tweet: “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow.”
Hillary Clinton also tweeted: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”
They weren’t the only ones pleased with this fake news. On Oct. 13, 2020, Sen. [Ron] Johnson and I wrote a letter to the FBI where we made public texts between [then-FBI Deputy Director] Andrew McCabe and [then FBI lawyer] Lisa Page.
Page says to McCabe: “The alfa bank story is in Slate.”
McCabe replied: “Awesome.”
The FBI’s excitement didn’t end there. This week, [special counsel John] Durham’s prosecutors introduced a message between FBI agents that said, “People on 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.”
… They were fired up about fake information, which is just terrible. The FBI’s job—the FBI’s job is really to get fired up about fake information? It’s more than that, however. It’s a gut-wrenching attack on our system of government.
Now, there’s another data point that I want to share. Durham recently released notes from a March 6, 2017, meeting between the Justice Department and FBI officials. In that meeting, they discussed predication and Crossfire Hurricane issues.
This meeting was two weeks before [then-FBI Director James] Comey publicly announced his investigation into Trump. On that very day, March 6, 2017, I wrote a letter to Comey asking him questions about the Steele dossier.
My press release for that letter is titled “FBI Plan to Pay Ex-Spy for Trump Intel During Campaign Sparks Questions of Obama Administration’s Use of Federal Authorities for Political Gain.” That was from March 6, 2017. Now, in May of 2022, that title just about sums up Crossfire Hurricane as best as it can be described.
Now, in closing, I’d like to make a few notes with respect to predication.
[The] Sept. 23, 2016, FBI electronic communication opened a full investigation into the Alfa Bank allegations. But let’s unpack the first few lines from that document.
“The FBI received a referral of information from the U.S. Department of Justice.”
“The Department of Justice provided the FBI with a white paper that was produced by an anonymous third party.”
Well, the information didn’t come from the Department of Justice. It came from Sussmann and the Clinton campaign. Hardly an anonymous third party, since Sussmann himself showed up at the door.
By wording it this way, the document almost blesses this so-called white paper. Mind you, the white paper is the false Alfa Bank information.
By the looks of it, the FBI document contains false information.
I fear these recent developments are just the tip of the iceberg. The FBI’s exposure to false information and actually using that false information for investigative purposes reeks of a political vendetta. It points to a get-Trump-at-all-costs attitude.
Whether Sussmann is convicted or not, the evidence introduced by Durham shows serious government misconduct, misconduct by the federal government of the United States of America.
Special counsel Durham can’t let government misconduct go unpunished.
I yield.
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MEDIAPublished December 11, 2020Last Update 12 hrs ago
From ‘smear campaign’ to ‘Russian disinformation,’ liberal media teamed up to dismiss Hunter Biden story
NPR declared, ‘We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories’
There has been plenty of criticism in recent days of the mainstream media’s refusal to cover the New York Post’s bombshell reporting on Hunter Bidenever since the Biden transition issued a press release acknowledging that he was under investigation over his so-called “tax affairs,” but the media went far beyond simply ignoring the controversy.
Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent quickly declared the day after the New York Post first began reporting on the alleged contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop that it was “Trump’s fake new Biden scandal,” calling the allegations “laughably weak.”
“While Trump and his propagandists would surely prefer to have a more compelling scandal to tout, the thinness of this new gruel is largely secondary,” Sargent wrote on Oct. 15, stressing Steve Bannon’s involvement in the distribution of the laptop’s contents. “Trump’s last-ditch hope is to cast a vague pall of corruption over Biden… But plainly, the mere fact of covering smears and disinformation, even negatively, itself rewards their purveyors.”
That same day, The New York Times ran a report sounding the alarm about “Russian disinformation,” claiming that President Trump was warned that Russians were “using” his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was given the laptop before providing its contents to the press, to spread false claims about the Bidens.
“The intelligence agencies warned the White House late last year that Russian intelligence officers were using President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani as a conduit for disinformation aimed at undermining Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential run, according to four current and former American officials,” the Times reported at the time.
It is not clear whether the ongoing taxes probe is in any way connected to the laptop’s contents.
Back in October, Politico published a joint letter signed by “more than 50 former senior intelligence officials,” who insist that the published emails that allegedly came from Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The letter, which was parroted by much of the mainstream media, baselessly suggested that the emails were hacked and that they could have been tampered with by the Kremlin in order to make its contents look incriminating.
Signatories of that letter included outspoken Trump critics John Brennan, James Clapper, Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and Jeremy Bash, many of whom work as on-air analysts on MSNBC and CNN.
NPR public editor Kelly McBride addressed a listener’s question about the news outlet’s blackout of the Hunter Biden story. After claiming that the Post’s reporting had “many, many red flags,” including its potential ties to Russia, NPR apparently determined that the “assertions don’t amount to much.”
“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR managing editor Terence Samuel told McBride. “And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”
Unlike NPR, CNN wasn’t nearly as transparent with its efforts to spike the Hunter Biden story. Last week, Project Veritas leaked audio recordings of conference calls featuring CNN’s top executives urging staff to avoid the Biden scandal during the election.
“Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden,” CNN political director David Chalian said during a conference call on Oct. 14, the same day the Post published its first story on Hunter Biden’s emails. Chalian later insisted the report was “giving its marching orders” to the “right-wing echo chamber about what to talk about today.”
“The Trump media, you know, moves immediately from — OK, well, never mind — the [Michael Flynn] unmasking was, you know, found to be completely nonsensical to the latest alleged scandal and expects everybody to just follow suit,” CNN president Jeff Zucker told his staff on Oct. 16. “So, I don’t think that we should be repeating unsubstantiated smears just because the right-wing media suggests that we should.”
Apparently such messaging was received by CNN star anchor Jake Tapper, who dismissed the allegations against Hunter Biden as “too disgusting” to repeat on-air and that the “rightwing is going crazy.”
CNN’s discomfort in covering the Hunter Biden story was put on full display when GOP spokesperson Elizabeth Harrington challenged CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour to dig into the Biden family’s foreign ties during a heated exchange.
“As you know perfectly well, I’m a journalist and a reporter and I follow the facts and there has never been any issues in terms of corruption,” Amanpour asserted.
“Wait, wait, wait, how do you know that?!?” Harrington pushed back.
“I’m talking about reporting and any evidence,” Amanpour responded.
“OK, I would love if you guys would start doing that digging and start doing that verification,” Harrington said, referring to the published Hunter Biden emails.
“No, we’re not going to do your work for you,” Amanpour scolded the GOP spokesperson.
“That’s a journalist’s job!” Harrington exclaimed. “It’s a journalist’s job to find out if this is verified.”
Of all the media deceit and propagndizing disseminated in the lead-up to the election to justify their refusal to report on the Hunter Biden documents — despite knowing they were genuine and not from Russia — this on CNN from @camanpour may be the most amazing:
A similar exchange took place on “60 Minutes,” when veteran journalist Lesley Stahl laughed off President Trump’s claim that Biden was “in the midst of a scandal” in an interview that aired just days before the election.
“Of course he is, Lesley,” Trump sternly doubled down.
“No, c’mon,” Stahl continued to reject the president’s claim, before lecturing him, “This is ’60 Minutes’ and we can’t put on things that we can’t verify.”
During the campaign, Joe Biden was mostly successful at avoiding the Post’s report as the pool reporters who followed him on the campaign trail refrained from asking him about it. However, the one reporter who did, CBS News correspondent Bo Erickson, faced hostile pushback by other journalists, including one of his own colleagues.
“My @CBSEveningNews report clearly lays out warnings about Giuliani & Russian disinformation,” CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid tweeted, attempting to undercut the legitimacy of Erickson’s question to Biden.
“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin attempted to comfort Dr. Jill Biden during an interview on the ABC daytime program while tip-toeing around the subject, accusing President Trump of “disrespecting” her family with “personal attacks.”
MSNBC anchor Katy Tur mocked the Post’s story, saying it “dropped like a bomb,” but to “wither under scrutiny, not really dropping like a bomb.” NBC News national security correspondent Ken Dilanian called it a “fishy story” despite acknowledging that various emails and images that came from the laptop looked “legitimate.”
“We have no idea, and neither does the New York Post, whether any of it was doctored or forged or faked. And that’s why the mainstream news media has declined to really touch the story because it just lacks credibility,” Dilanian told Tur. “We now know that Russian disinformation… is as dangerous to our democracy as anything exposed in these emails.”
Ahead of the final presidential debate, where President Trump hammered his Democratic rival on his son’s business dealings, NBC News correspondent Hallie Jackson offered a slanted preview of what was to come in the political showdown.
“The President’s also expected to bring up Hunter Biden and unverified emails of his business dealings, described by many intelligence experts as having hallmarks of a foreign disinformation campaign,” Jackson reported. “The Biden campaign says they’re ready for the attack, hoping to flip the script to argue the President’s more obsessed with Biden’s family than American families.”
Jackson also made an effort to degrade President Trump’s debate guest, former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski, who claimed the former VP was directly involved with his son’s business dealings.
“While President Trump is expected to bring a former business associate of Hunter Biden’s, Joe Biden is expected to bring small business owners struggling in this pandemic,” Jackson told NBC’s Lester Holt.
Following the debate, CBS political analyst John Dickerson pointed out that Biden “has an ally in the news cycle,” suggesting that media’s coverage of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic will bury the scandal, which would benefit the former VP.
“If President Trump tries to shift the turf onto the Biden family for the purposes of muddying Joe Biden, the news cycle keeps returning to the central piece of this campaign, which is the coronavirus and the president’s response to it and the country has a very negative view on that,” Dickerson explained to “CBS This Morning” co-host Anthony Mason. “And as these numbers continue, it keeps voters focused on that very bad issue for the president.”
MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle attacked those who were covering the Hunter Biden controversy, referring to it as a “so-called story” with “unverified claims.”
“We are now four days away from the election and the truth is more important than ever,” Ruhle told her viewers. “The truth is that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. The truth is that millions of Americans are out of work. The truth is we have to listen to science. And in these final days, instead of debating crowd size or unverified claims or conspiracy theories, we should be talking about policy, values, and ideas.”
Sen Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, listens Wednesday as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appears on a monitor while testifying remotely during the panel’s hearing. (Photo: Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
The CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, and Google defended themselves Wednesday on Capitol Hill from charges of political bias in how they share news and other information.
They testified before a Senate committee roughly a week after Twitter and Facebook suppressed a New York Post expose on the lucrative foreign business dealings of Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden.
But the hearing went well beyond the Post’s coverage two weeks ago of the files contained in a laptop computer purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden, delving into what Republicans called a consistent double standard in blocking content on the digital platforms.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified under oath before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The three agreed to appear voluntarily and remotely to avoid a subpoena during what has become a hot issue this election year.
The left is actively working to undermine the integrity of our elections. Read the plan to stop them now. Learn more now >>
Several Republicans have talked about revoking the protection from litigation that social media platforms enjoy under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The provision exempts the companies from being sued for published content they didn’t originate–such as the New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden scandal.
If the companies are blocking or suppressing online content based on political leaning, some lawmakers have argued, they are functionally publishers and not neutral platforms, and can be exposed to the same defamation laws as news organizations such as the Post.
Section 230 should be “carefully refined” to fit the law’s original intent but not scrapped, even if social media giants and other tech firms have squandered the public’s trust, contends Klon Kitchen, director of the Center for Technology Policy at The Heritage Foundation, in a reportpublished Tuesday.
“Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has been critical to the development of today’s Internet and Internet services,” the report’s summary states, adding:
But the expanding presence of these services in the lives of Americans and a growing political distrust of the companies providing these services highlight the need to refine the scope and language of Section 230 to better fit the statute’s original intent and to assuage these concerns. Such refinement is the best way to fan the flames of economic freedom and creativity while protecting individual and corporate freedom of speech.
Here are four key takeaways from the Senate committee’s hearing on the perceived bias of tech firms such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
1. ‘Just One Example?’
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, noted several cases in which digital platforms put restrictions on conservative politicians and media outlets, and pressed the CEOs to name one example of a liberal individual or entity that got the same scrutiny. Only Google’s CEO was able to give a specific answer.
“I see these quotes where each of you tell consumers about your business practices. Then you seem to do the opposite and take censorship-related actions against the president, against members of his administration, against the New York Post, the Babylon Bee, The Federalist, pro-life groups, and there are countless other exammples,” Lee said.
The Utah Republican clarified what he meant.
“When I use the word ‘censor,’ I mean block content, fact check, or label content or demonetize websites of conservative, Republican, or pro-life individuals or groups or companies, contradicting your commercial policies,” Lee said. “But I don’t see this suppression of high-profile liberal commentators.”
Facebook’s Zuckerberg said examples exist, but he just couldn’t think of any.
“There are certainly many examples that your Democratic colleagues object to when a fact-checker might label something as false that they disagree with,” Zuckerberg said.
Lee responded: “I get that. I’m just asking if you can name one high-profile liberal person or company who you have censored. One name.”
Zuckerberg replied, “I’d need to think about it and get you a list.”
Dorsey of Twitter responded, “We can give a more exhaustive list.”
Lee reiterated, “I’m not asking for an exhaustive list, just one example, one entity. Anyone.”
Twitter’s Dorsey said, “Two Democratic Congress people. … I’ll get those names to you.”
By contrast, Google’s Pichai seemed prepared for the question.
“We have turned down ads from Priorities USA, from Vice President Biden’s campaign,” the Google chief said. “We have had compliance issues with World Socialist Review, which is a left-leaning publication. We can give you several examples. We have a violent graphic content policy.”
Lee said the tech companies have the right to set their own terms of service.
“But given the disparate impact of who gets censored on your platforms, it seems that one, you are to enforce your terms of service equally, or two, you’re writing your standards to target conservative viewpoints,” Lee said.
2. Who Elected You?
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, didn’t mince words, declaring: “The three witnesses we have before this committee collectively pose, I believe, the single greatest threat to free speech in America and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections.”
Cruz jumped into the example of the New York Post’s explosive Oct. 14 story on Hunter Biden. Twitter blocked the Post’s Twitter account after the newspaper posted the story, and prevented Twitter users from sharing it.Twitter also blocked the account of a Politico reporter who tweeted the story until he removed it from his feed, the Texas Republican said.
“You forced a Politico reporter to take down his post about the New York Post as well. Is that correct?” Cruz asked.
Dorsey said the company changed its policy on the story.
“Within that 24-hour period, yes. But as the policy has changed,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey said if the New York Post deleted the story it would have the account back, and would be free to re-pose the story.
Cruz responded by talking about the power of Twitter’s platform:
So Twitter can censor Politico, you can censor the New York Post. Presumably you can censor The New York Times or any other media outlet. Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? And why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?
Dorsey defended his company, stating it plans to publish the process for content moderation and provide greater transparency to gain public trust.
“We’re not doing that [censoring the media]. That is why I opened this hearing with calls for more transparency,” Dorsey said. “We realize we need to earn trust more. We realize that more accountability is needed to show our intentions and to show the outcomes. So I hear the concerns and acknowledge them. But we want to fix it with more transparency.”
3. Sticking Up for Tech Giants
Democratic senators on the committee generally denied any anti-conservative bias on social media, and in some cases said there should be more censorship.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, went a step further than colleagues by casting the three CEOs as victims who were being bullied by Republicans on the committee.
“We never do this and there is a good reason we do not haul people before us to yell at them for not doing our bidding during an election,” Schatz said. “It is a misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Schatz added:
What we are seeing today is an attempt to bully CEOs of private companies into carrying out a hit job on a presidential candidate by making sure that they push out foreign and domestic misinformation meant to influence the election.
To our witnesses today, you and other tech leaders need to stand up to this immoral behavior. The truth is that because some of my colleagues accuse you, your companies, and your employees of being biased or liberal, you have institutionally bent over backwards and overcompensated. You’ve hired Republican operatives, hosted private dinners with Republcian leaders, and in contravention of your terms of service, given special dispensation to right-wing voices and even throttled progressive journalism.
Schatz cited no examples of such “throttled” news sites.
4. Tweets by Iran, China, Trump
Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., first called out Dorsey about a Chinese government official’s tweet that the U.S. Army created COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus that originated in China.
Wicker asked about a disclaimer that Twitter quickly attached to a Trump tweet about problems with mail-in ballots, in which Twitter claimed there is no security problem. By contrast, when a Chinese official tweeted that the U.S. created COVID-19, it took two months for Twitter to add a similar disclaimer.
“How does a claim by Chinese communists that the U.S. military is to blame for COVID remain up for two months without a fact check, and the president’s tweet about the security of mail-in ballots gets labeled instantly?”
Twitter’s Dorsey responded that he didn’t know exactly how long the Chinese tweet on COVID-19 remained up, but said Twitter’s gatekeepers decided that Trump’s tweet on mail-in ballots would misinform the public.
Wicker also asked about tweets from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that promised or advocated violence.
“These tweets are still up, Mr. Dorsey. How is it that they are acceptable based on your policies at Twitter?” Wicker asked.
Dorsey responded: “We believe it’s important for everyone to hear from global leaders.”
“We have policies around world leaders,” the Twitter CEO continued. “We want to make sure we are respecting their right to speak and to publish what they need. But, if there is a violation of our terms of service, we want to label it.”
Wicker: “They are still up. Do they violate your terms of service?”
Dorsey: “We did not find those to violate our terms of service because we considered them saber rattling, which is part of the speech of world leaders in concert with other countries.”
Later in the hearing, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., expressed caution about making changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
“I don’t like the idea of unelected elites in San Francisco or Silicon Valley deciding whether my speech is permissible on their platforms,” Gardner said, adding:
But I like even less the idea of unelected Washington, D.C., bureaucrats trying to enforce some kind of political neutral content moderation. We have to be very careful and not rush to legislate in ways that stifle speech. You can delete Facebook, turn off Twitter, and ditch Google. But you cannot unsubscribe from government censors.
Still, Gardner was tough on Dorsey, asking why the platform didn’t delete tweets by the Iranian leader that denied the Holocaust, yet flagged tweets by Trump.
“It’s strange to me that you flagged the tweets from the president but haven’t hidden the ayatollah’s tweets on Holocaust denial or calls to wipe Israel off the map?”
Dorsey said it is a different type of misinformation.
“We do have other policies around incitement to violence,” Dorsey said. “Some of the tweets that you mentioned are examples that might fall afoul of that.”
Gardner: “So, somebody who denies the Holocaust happened is not [spreading] misinformation?”
Dorsey: “It’s misleading information, but we don’t have a policy against that type of misleading information.”
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas slammed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for his company’s censorship of the New York Post and the bombshell Hunter Biden story published two weeks ago.
“Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?” Cruz asked. “Why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political views?”
Twitter previously blocked verified and unverified users from sharing the Post’s article link. Instead, users were met with a message stating that the Post’s story link “has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”
Twitter also locked the New York Post’s account, which still is unable to post 14 daysafter they published their story.
Dorsey defended Twitter’s actions by continuing to echo the big tech company’s claims that the article violated their hacked materials policy. He then went on to claim that for the New York Post to regain access to posting from their account, they have to log in and delete their original content, saying that Twitter’s policy was reworked to avoid bad enforcement.
“Anyone can tweet, we are not blocking their post,” Dorsey claimed.
Cruz, however, continued to grill Dorsey about Twitter’s censorship, saying that “Twitter’s conduct is by far the most egregious” of all the big tech companies.
“The New York Post is not some random guy tweeting. It is the fourth-highest circulation of any newspaper in America. It is 200 years old and founded by Alexander Hamilton,” Cruz said. “And it is your position is that you can sit in Silicon Valley and demand of the media that you can tell them what stories they can publish and the American people what reporting they can hear, is that right?”
Cruz also pointed out that Twitter’s censorship of the New York Post was hypocritical and that their claims about “hacked material” were not applied to the New York Times’s story publishing President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
“They purported to publish federally published material. It’s a federal felony to distribute someone’s tax returns against their knowledge,” Cruz said. “So that material was based on something distributed in violation of federal law, and yet Twitter gleefully allowed people to circulate that.”
“But when an article was critical of Joe Biden, Twitter engaged in rampant censorship and silencing,” Cruz continued.
Cruz’s questioning comes as members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation questioned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and Alphabet Inc., Google CEO Sundar Pichai over the companies’ content moderation policies. The hearing entitled “Does Section 230’s sweeping immunity enable big tech bad behavior?” was called in response to repeated calls for Section 230 reform by members on both sides of the political aisle.
“The three witnesses we have before this committee collectively pose, I believe, the single greatest threat to free speech in America and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections,” Cruz stated. Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.
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2 years ago
today
Silicon Valley an ‘extremely left-leaning place,’ admits Zuckerberg
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reacts to a question about the hotel he stayed in last night as he testifies before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 10, 2018, about the …
By Dan Boylan– The Washington Times – Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that Silicon Valley is an “extremely left-leaning place” but said he tries to make sure his firm doesn’t “have bias in the work that we do.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, questioned the social-media mogul about a long-running concern conservatives have that Facebook and other Silicon Valley tech firms have a clear bias against users on the right side of the political spectrum.
“A great many Americans are deeply concerned Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship,” Mr. Cruz said.
Appearing before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees to explore the massive social networking company’s recent failures protecting private data and inability to stop the spread of fake news during the 2016 presidential election — Mr. Zuckerbergcountered that Facebook was “a platform for all ideas.”
But Mr. Cruz interrupted and argued content from more conservative companies, including Chik-fil-A, had been removed whereas posts from Planned Parenthood and other progressive outfits, had not.
Mr. Zuckerberg replied that he was unaware of the deleted posts and explained that Facebookregularly removed content related to terrorism or hate speech or self harm.
Mr. Cruz, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has argued in the past the Facebook has policies and algorithms that effectively “shadow ban” conservatives.
On Tuesday, the Texas Republican also grilled Mr. Zuckerberg over Facebook’s hiring policies, pressing the CEO to explain the firing of Palmer Luckey — a virtual-realty executive who supported Donald Trump.
Mr. Zuckerberg explained Mr. Luckey’s departure had nothing to do with politics and was a personnel matter.
Adriana Cohen: Censorship of conservatives proves Twitter & Facebook are enemies of free speech, free press
Twitter is not keeping ‘all voices on the platform’ — far from it
Big Tech titans Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg better lawyer up. These enemies of free speech and a free press will be hauled in to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain their brazen censorship of conservatives. The ever-growing list of those censored includes the president of the United States, his White House press secretary and the New York Post, whose account was locked for posting a credible story about Joe Biden and his son during an election.
In light of Twitter’s unprecedented and willful censorship, Jack Dorsey could also be facing charges for lying to Congress in 2018.
While testifying before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Dorsey told lawmakers: “Let me be clear about one important and foundational fact: Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules.”
That’s an outright lie, given the overwhelming and well-documented evidence of the social network’s extreme bias and disproportionate censorship against conservatives over the years.
The Media Research Center, a watchdog group, released a study earlier this month that showed Twitter and Facebook have censored President Trump and his campaign 65 times. His political opponent, Joe Biden, hasn’t been censored once.
Hardly impartial, wouldn’t you say?
Yet, that’s not what Dorsey told Congress. He said: “We believe strongly in being impartial, and we strive to enforce our rules impartially. We do not shadow ban anyone based on political ideology. In fact, from a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized to keep all voices on the platform.”
Is that a joke?
First off, scores of conservatives, including myself, are being shadow-banned on Twitter, something I testified about in 2018 before Congress alongside other leading conservative voices being wrongfully censored.
So, no, Twitter is not keeping “all voices on the platform” — far from it. Recently it locked the White House press secretary’s Twitter account for simply posting a link to the New York Post’s verified story on Hunter Biden’s explosive emails.
Twitter locked the New York Post’s account for doing its job — reporting on a presidential candidate’s sketchy foreign business dealings and an alleged influence-peddling scheme. Amid other instances of censorship, Twitter also blocked the House Judiciary GOP from posting a link to the Post’s story to a government website.
There’s nothing impartial about this un-American suppression of information, especially if one considers that Twitter and Facebook gave Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, legacy media outlets and scores of blue-check “journos” the green light to peddle stories about the fake dossier and Russia collusion hoax against President Trump and his administration the past four years. This five-alarm conspiracy theory has since been debunked by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and various congressional probes.
Twitter permitted China’s mouthpiece, the World Health Organization, to tweet last January that the coronavirus wasn’t transmittable between humans — false information that put millions of lives at risk worldwide. And yet it routinely silences right-leaning accounts such as Dr. Scott Atlas, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, for what it considers to be misleading information about the virus.
Atlas, the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, was censored by the oligarchs at Twitter this month for simply questioning the efficacy of masks when data shows that infection rates soared in Japan, the Philippines, Hawaii, Miami and Los Angeles and elsewhere despite mask mandates.
The frightening reality is the social media speech police won’t even allow health care medical experts, like Atlas, to question anything that strays from their narrow point of view. The rest of us must regurgitate the approved left-wing talking points or risk being silenced or deplatformed from these almighty digital monopolies.
Congress must stop these rampant abuses once and for all.
Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner Tony Bobulinski claimed Joe Biden’s brother, Jim, said that he and Biden’s son were relying upon “plausible deniability” as they pursued a lucrative deal with a Chinese Communist Party-linked company.
During an hour-long interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News conducted exactly one week before Election Day, Bobulinski, a Navy veteran, insisted he had firsthand knowledge that the former vice president was aware of the Biden family’s Chinese endeavors, contrary to the 2020 Democratic nominee’s claims.
After meeting with Joe Biden the evening of May 2, 2017 at the Beverly Hills Hilton and then briefly again the following day after the former vice president spoke at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Bobulinski said on Tuesday that he had a two-hour conversation with Biden’s brother at the Peninsula Hotel. Bobulinksi said he thought to himself, “How are they doing this? I know Joe decided not to run in 2016, but what if he ran in the future? Aren’t they taking political risk or headline risk? … How are you guys doing this? Aren’t you concerned that you’re going to put your brother’s future presidential campaign at risk? You know, the Chinese, the stuff that you guys have been doing already in 2015 and 2016 around the world?”
Bobulonski said he asked Jim Biden directly, “How are you guys getting away with this? Like, aren’t you concerned?”
“He looked at me and he laughed a little bit and said, ‘Plausible deniability.’ … Anyone watching this interview can look up what plausible deniability, what he means, and the definition is very distinct,” Bobulinski said.
Newly released texts from Bobulinski back up his claims that Joe Biden met with him in 2017. At the time, Hunter, James, and their associates were pursuing a lucrative deal with a Chinese tycoon, complicating claims from the former vice president that he never discussed business dealings with his son.
The texts are part of a trove of hundreds of documents from Bobulinski obtained by the Washington Examiner, including dozens of WhatsApp messages, emails, letters, and business proposals. The records show that James Biden planned outreach to a host of Democratic politicians and world leaders as the group pursued business deals with China in 2017, and that Hunter Biden aimed to avoid having to register as a foreign agent. Bobulinski has provided the records to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and to the FBI. Bobulinski did a sit-down interview with the bureau on Friday. His records are separate from those purportedly on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“So I initially was sitting — because I got there a little earlier — was sitting with Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. And Joe came through the lobby with his security and Hunter basically said, ‘Hey, give me a second, I’ll go over and give me 10 minutes to brief my dad and read him in on things.’ And so then Hunter and his father and security came through the bar and I was just stood up out of respect to shake his hand,” Bobulinski said. “And Hunter introduced me as, ‘This is Tony, Dad, the individual I told you about that’s helping us with the business that we’re working on and the Chinese.’ … You know, we didn’t go into too much detail on business because prior to Joe showing up, Hunter and Jim had coached me. ‘Listen, we won’t go into too much detail here. This is just a high level discussion and meeting.’ So it’s not like I was drilling down with Joe about cap tables and details.”
Carlson asked if it was clear to him that the Biden family had told Joe Biden about his business, and Bobulinski replied, “Crystal clear.”
In September 2019, after being pressed by Fox News, Joe Biden said, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”
Joe Biden denied during the final debate last week that he has been involved in any family business dealings or any overseas deals, saying, “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.”
“Yeah, that’s a blatant lie,” Bobulinski said. “When he states that that is a blatant lie. Obviously, the world is aware that I attended the debate last Thursday. And in that debate, he made a specific statement around questions around this from the president. And I’ll be honest with you, I almost stood up and screamed liar and walked out because I was shocked that after four days or five days that they prep for this, that the Biden family is taking that position to the world.”
Bobulinski, a former Navy lieutenant who has done business around the world, is listed as one of the recipients of a May 13, 2017, email detailing a business deal between a Chinese company and Hunter Biden.
“I am the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings, which was a partnership between the Chinese operating through CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family. I was brought into the company to be the CEO by James Gilliar and Hunter Biden. The reference to ‘the Big Guy’ in the much-publicized May 13, 2017, email is, in fact, a reference to Joe Biden,” Bobulinski said on Thursday, adding, “Hunter Biden called his dad ‘the Big Guy’ or ‘my chairman’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing.”
The “big guy” email is from Gilliar to Hunter Biden and others, sent May 13, 2017, and it says, “We have discussed and agreed the following renumeration packages.” The email noted that Hunter Biden would receive “850” ($850,000) and lists him as “Chair/Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC” — the China Energy Fund Committee.
“Hunter and everyone was in town and they wanted to coordinate me meeting with Joe. And so it was set up for the night of May 2 at the Beverly Hilton,” Bobulinski said on Tuesday. “I met first met with Hunter Biden and Jim Biden and just had a light discussion where they briefed me that, ‘Listen, you know, my dad’s on the way and we won’t go into too much detail on the business front, but we’ll just spend time talking at a high level about you, your background, the Biden family. And then, you know, he’s got to get some rest because he’s speaking at the conference in the morning.’ … Because they were sort of wining and dining me and presenting the strength of the Biden family to get me more engaged and want to take on the CEO role. And, you know, develop SinoHawk both in the United States and around the world in partnership with CEFC.”
Carlson pressed him for further details about the purpose behind that discussion.
“As you can imagine, I’ve been asked by one hundred people over the last month, you know, ‘Why would you be meeting with Joe Biden?’ And I sort of turn the question around to the people that asked me why at 10:30 on the night of May 2, would Joe Biden take time out of his schedule to sit down with me in a dark bar at the Beverly Hilton sort of positioned behind a column so people can’t see us to have a discussion about his family and my family and business at a very high level where Jim Biden sat and Hunter Biden participated?” Bobulinski said. “And I’m irrelevant in the story. They weren’t raising money from me. There was no other reason for me to be in that bar meeting Joe Biden other than to discuss what I was doing with his family’s name with the Chinese CEFC.”
During a brief second meeting with Joe Biden after the former vice president’s speech at the conference, Bobulinski said Biden “just sort of asked me to keep an eye on his son and his brother.”
“Joe Biden has never even considered being involved in business with his family nor in any overseas business whatsoever,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told the Washington Examiner last week. “He has never held stock in any such business arrangements nor has any family member or any other person ever held stock for him.”
The former vice president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing by him or his son and dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as part of a “Russian plan.” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said that “Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”
ELECTIONSPublished October 19, 2020Last Update 13 hrs ago
Ratcliffe says Hunter Biden laptop, emails ‘not part of some Russian disinformation campaign’
‘There is no intelligence that supports that,’ Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe says
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Monday said that Hunter Biden’s laptop “is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” amid claims from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff suggesting otherwise.
Ratcliffe, during an exclusive interview on FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria,” was asked about the allegations from Schiff, D-Calif., who over the weekend said that the Hunter Biden emails suggesting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had knowledge of, and was allegedly involved in, his son’s foreign business dealings.
“It’s funny that some of the people who complain the most about intelligence being politicized are the ones politicizing the intelligence,” Ratcliffe said. “Unfortunately, it is Adam Schiff who said the intelligence community believes the Hunter Biden laptop and emails on it are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”
He added: “Let me be clear: the intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that. And we have shared no intelligence with Adam Schiff, or any member of Congress.”
Ratcliffe went on to say that it is “simply not true.”
WFP USA Board Chair Hunter Biden introduces his father Vice President Joe Biden during the World Food Program USA’s 2016 McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony at the Organization of American States on April 12, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (Kris Connor/WireImage)
“Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” Ratcliffe said, adding again that “this is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”
Ratcliffe’s comments come after Schiff over the weekend described the emails as being part of a smear coming “from the Kremlin,” amid claims the revelations are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
“We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” Schiff said on CNN. “That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about this vice president and his son.”
A senior intelligence official backed up Ratcliffe’s assessment.
“Ratcliffe is 100% correct,” the senior intelligence official told Fox News. “There is no intelligence at this time to support Chairman Schiff’s statement that recent stories on Biden’s foreign business dealings are part of a smart campaign that ‘comes from the Kremlin.’ Numerous foreign adversaries are seeking to influence American politics, policies, and media narratives. They don’t need any help from politicians who spread false information under the guise of intelligence.”
Ratcliffe went on to say that the laptop is “in the jurisdiction of the FBI.”
“The FBI has had possession of this,” he said. “Without commenting on any investigation that they may or may not have, their investigation is not centered around Russian disinformation and the intelligence community is not playing any role with respect to that.”
He added: “The intelligence community has not been involved in Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
A senior Trump administration official, however, told Fox News that the FBI was not investigating the emails as Russian disinformation.
The FBI declined to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, as is standard practice.
Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating Hunter Biden’s emails which reveal that he introduced his father, the former vice president, to a top executive at Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in 2015.
Ratcliffe went on to say that his role as director of National Intelligence, which he assumed earlier this year, is “to not allow people to leverage the intelligence community for a political narrative that’s not true.”
“In this case, Adam Schiff saying this is part of a disinformation campaign and that the intelligence community has assessed and believes that — that is simply not true,” he said. “Whether its Republicans or Democrats, if they try to leverage the intelligence community for political gain, I won’t allow it.”
Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating Hunter Biden’s emails.
The emails in question were first obtained by the New York Post and, in part, revealed that Hunter Biden introduced the then-vice president to a top executive at Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings less than a year before he pressured government officials in Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the company.
“We regularly speak with individuals who email the committee’s whistleblower account to determine whether we can validate their claims,” Johnson told Fox News. “Although we consider those communications to be confidential, because the individual in this instance spoke with the media about his contact with the committee, we can confirm receipt of his email complaint, have been in contact with the whistleblower, and are in the process of validating the information he provided.”
The Post report revealed that Biden, at Hunter’s request, met with Vadym Pozharskyi in April 2015 in Washington, D.C.
The meeting was mentioned in an email of appreciation, according to the Post, that Pozharskyi sent to Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015 — a year after Hunter took on his lucrative position on the board of Burisma.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email read.
But Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates last week hit back against the New York Post story, saying: “Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump administration officials have attested to these facts under oath.”
“The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story. They certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani—whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported—claimed to have such materials,” Bates continued. “Moreover, we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.”
The Biden campaign also told Fox News Sunday that the former vice president “never had a meeting” with Pozharskyi.
Biden, prior to the emails surfacing, repeatedly has claimed he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”
Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and role on the board of Burisma, emerged during the Trump impeachment inquiry in 2019.
Biden once famously boasted on camera that when he was vice president and spearheading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin, who was the top prosecutor at the time. He had been investigating the founder of Burisma.
“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden infamously said to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.
“Well, son of a b—,” he continued. “He got fired.”
Biden and Biden allies have maintained, though, that his intervention prompting the firing of Shokin had nothing to do with his son, but rather was tied to corruption concerns.
Meanwhile, the Post reported Wednesday the emails were part of a trove of data recovered from a laptop which was dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware in April 2019.
The Post reported that other material turned up on the laptop, including a video, which they described as showing Hunter smoking crack while engaged in a sexual act with an unidentified woman, as well as other sexually explicit images.
The FBI reportedly seized the computer and hard drive in December 2019. The shop owner, though, said he made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello.
The Post reported that the FBI referred questions about the hard drive and laptop to the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, where a spokesperson told the outlet that the office “can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”
A lawyer for Hunter Biden did not comment on specifics, but instead told the Post that Giuliani “has been pushing widely discredited conspiracy theories about the Biden family, openly relying on actors tied to Russian intelligence.”
Giuliani did not respond to Fox News’ requests for comment.
Another email, dated May 13, 2017, and obtained by Fox News, includes a discussion of “renumeration packages” for six people in a business deal with a Chinese energy firm. The email appeared to identify Hunter Biden as “Chair/ Vice Chair depending on an agreement with CEFC,” in an apparent reference to now-bankrupt CEFC China Energy Co.
The email includes a note that “Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate.” A proposed equity split references “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” with no further details.
Fox News spoke to one of the people who was copied on the email, who confirmed its authenticity.
Sources also told Fox News that “the big guy” was a reference to the former vice president. The New York Post initially published the emails, and others, that Fox News has also obtained.
While Biden has not commented on that email, or his alleged involvement in any deals with the Chinese Energy firm, his campaign said it released the former vice president’s tax documents and returns, which do not reflect any involvement with Chinese investments.
Fox News also obtained an email last week that revealed an adviser of Burisma Holdings, Vadym Pozharskyi, wrote an email to Hunter Biden on May 12, 2014, requesting “advice” on how he could use his “influence to convey a message” to “stop” what the company considers to be “politically motivated actions.”
“We urgently need your advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message / signal, etc .to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions,” Pozharskyi wrote.
The email, part of a longer email chain obtained by Fox News, appeared to be referencing the firm’s founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, being under investigation.
Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from Tucker Carlson’s opening commentary on the Oct. 15, 2020 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Tom Cotton said it best below:
We knew Joe Biden’s son Hunter pocketed $50,000 a month for a job with a Ukrainian gas company. Joe Biden allowed his son to make millions in Ukraine and China while Joe was Vice President.
Now, the New York Post is reporting that Vice President Biden may have been introduced to some of the corrupt Ukrainian businessmen paying Hunter… at the same time Vice President Biden was supposed to be overseeing our policy towards Ukraine.
Not everything you hear is untrue and not every story is complex. At the heart of the growing Biden-Ukrainescandal, for example, is a very straightforward question: Did Joe Biden subvert American foreign policy in order to enrich his own family?
In 2015, Joe Biden was the sitting vice president of the United States. Included in his portfolio were U.S. relations with the nation of Ukraine. At that moment, Vice President Joe Biden had more influence over the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian economy than any other person on the globe outside of Eastern Europe.
Biden’s younger son, Hunter, knew that and hoped to get rich from his father’s influence. Emails published Wednesday by The New York Post, documents apparently taken directly from Hunter Biden’s own laptop, tell some of that story.
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” have obtained another batch of emails, some exclusively. We believe they also came from Hunter Biden’s laptop. We can’t prove that they did, we haven’t examined that computer. But every detail that we could check, including Hunter Biden’s personal email address at the time, suggests they are authentic.
If these emails are fake, this is the most complex and sophisticated hoax in history. It almost seems beyond human capacity. The Biden campaign clearly believes these emails are real. They have not said otherwise. We sent the body of them to Hunter Biden’s attorney and never heard back. So with that in mind, here’s what we have learned.
On Nov. 2, 2015, at 4:36 p.m., a Burisma executive called Vadym Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden and his business partner, Devon Archer. The purpose of the email, Pozharskyi explains, is to “be on the same page re our final goals … including, but not limited to: a concrete course of actions.”
So what did Burisma want, exactly? Well, good PR, for starters. Pozharskyi wanted “high-ranking US [sic] officials” to express their “positive opinion” of Burisma, and then he wanted the administration to act on Burisma’s behalf.
“The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US [sic] policy-makers to Ukraine in November, aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support” to Burisma.
The goal, Pozharskyi explained, was to “close down for [sic] any cases/pursuits” against the head of Burisma in Ukraine.
It couldn’t be clearer what they wanted. Burisma wanted Huter Biden’s father to get their company out of legal trouble with the Ukrainian government. And that’s exactly what happened. One month later to the day, on Dec. 2, 2015, Hunter Biden received a notice from a Washington PR firm called Blue Star Strategies, which apparently had been hired to lobby the Obama administration on Ukraine. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” have exclusively obtained that email.
“Hello all …” it began. “This morning, the White House hosted a conference call regarding the Vice President’s upcoming trip to Ukraine. Attached is a memo from the Blue Star Strategies team with the minutes of the call, which outlined the trip’s agenda and addressed several questions regarding U.S. policy toward Ukraine.”
So here you have a PR firm involved in an official White House foreign policy call. How could that happen? Good question. But it worked.
Days later, Joe Biden flew to Ukraine and did exactly what his son wanted. The vice president gave a speech slamming the very Ukrainian law enforcement official who was tormenting Burisma. If the Ukrainian government didn’t fire its top prosecutor, a man called Viktor Shokin, Biden explained, the administration would withhold a billion dollars in American aid. Now, Ukraine is a poor country, so they had no choice but to obey. Biden’s bullying worked. He bragged about it later.
The obvious question: Why was the vice president of the United States threatening a tiny country like Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor? That doesn’t seem like a vice president’s role. Well, now we know why.
Viktor Shokin has signed an affidavit affirming that he was, in fact, investigating Burisma at the moment Joe Biden had him removed. Shokin said that before he was fired, administration officials pressured him to drop the case against Burisma. He would not do that, so Joe Biden canned him
That’s how things really work in Washington. Your son’s got a lucrative consulting deal with a Ukrainian energy company, you tailor American foreign policy — our foreign policy– to help make him rich. Even at the State Department, possibly the most cynical agency in government, this seemed shockingly brazen.
During the impeachment proceedings last fall, a State Department official named George Kent said it was widely known in Washington that the Bidens were up to something sleazy in Ukraine.
“I was on a call with somebody on the vice president’s staff and … I raised my concerns that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board” of Burisma, Kent recalled. This, he noted, could create a perception of a conflict of interest.
So how did the vice president’s office respond to this concern? According to George Kent, “The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president’s son, Beau, was dying of cancer and there was no further bandwidth to deal with family-related issues at the time.”
Family-related issues? This was America’s foreign policy being tailored to Joe Biden’s son. Five years later, Joe Biden still has not been forced to explain why he fired Ukraine’s top prosecutor at precisely the moment his son was being paid to get him to fire Ukraine’s top prosecutor, nor has Joe Biden addressed whether or not he personally benefited from the Burisma contract.
But there are tantalizing hints. On Wednesday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani published what he said was yet another email from Hunter Biden’s laptop. It’s a note to one of his children. At the end of the email, there’s this quote: “But dont [sic] worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary.”
What does that mean, exactly? Well, we don’t know. There may be more detail on the laptop, but unfortunately, we don’t have access to that. But the question remains, how has Joe Biden lived in extravagance all these years on a government salary? No one has ever answered that question. And the tech monopolies are working hard to make certain no one ever does.
Thursday morning, the New York Post published another story based on the emails. This one describes a business venture Hunter Biden was working on in China. One email describes a “provisional agreement that the equity will be distributed as follows … 10 held by H for the big guy?”
The big guy? Is the big guy Joe Biden? If so, how much did Joe Biden get and how much of that came from the Communist Chinese government? Those are real questions, this man could be elected president in three weeks. But Twitter doesn’t want you to wonder. It won’t allow you to ask those questions. Twitter restricted the New York Post story as “unsafe,” like it was a lawn dart or a defective circular saw. And that was enough for the Biden campaign.
All day Thursday, they deflected questions about Joe Biden’s subversion of our country’s foreign policy by invoking Twitter’s ban on the New York Post story. So the tech monopoly censors information to help their candidate, that candidate uses that censorship to dismiss the story. One hand washes the other.
It doesn’t matter who you plan to vote for Nov. 3, you should be terrified. Democracies cannot exist and never will be able to exist without the free flow of information. That is a prerequisite and without it, we’re done. But companies like Facebook and Google and Twitter do not care because they don’t believe in democracy. They worship power and they don’t need to be consistent. Melania Trump’s private phone conversations, the president’s stolen tax returns, they were happy to publish all of that. But if you criticize the Democratic candidate, their candidate, you are banned.
“Facebook and Twitter have policies to not spread things that are utterly unreliable, that have been debunked, and where their origin is untrustworthy,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Thursday. “They’re practicing their own internal controls, as I wish they had over the past four years … An active Russian disinformation campaign in 2016 had an influence on that election. They are trying even harder in this election. I’m glad that they are managing the content on their own websites.”
Chris Coons is a liar.
Not one word of this story has been debunked, not one word in those emails has been “debunked.” And if it is debunked, we’ll be the first to report it because we’re not liars. But did you catch the phrase he wanted you to hear: “Russian disinformation”? That’s what they’re claiming these emails are. And it’s all over the Internet, in fact-free, conspiracy-laden conjecture crazier than anything the QAnon people ever thought of.
But none of their garbage, their lunatic lies about Russia is ever censored by the tech monopolies. It’s not “unsafe” because it helps Joe Biden. Therefore, you can read it.
And where are the real journalists, now that we need them more than ever? They’re gone. They’re cowering. They’re afraid. They don’t want to upset power. Jake Sherman of Politico, who claims to be a news reporter, actually apologized on Twitter for asking the Biden campaign about Hunter Biden’s emails. These people are craven. They have no standards. They have no self-respect. Like their masters in Silicon Valley, they worship power alone.
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Twitter, Facebook Suppress New York Post Report on Hunter Biden
Andrew Kerr4 hours ago
Twitter on Wednesday afternoon began blocking tweets from being posted that contained links to the New York Post’s report on alleged emails that purportedly show Hunter Biden offered to introduce then-Vice President Joe Biden to an executive of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
“We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful,” Twitter told users who attempted to post a tweet containing a link to the Post’s story.
A Twitter spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the platform took action to limit the spread of the Post’s report because of the lack of authoritative reporting on the origins of the materials cited by the outlet.
“In line with our Hacked Materials Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action to block any links to or images of the material in question on Twitter,” the spokesperson said.
There’s no evidence at the moment the Post relied on hacked materials for its report.
According to the Post, the email was part of a “massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer” that was dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019. The owner of the repair shop said the customer never came back to pay for the service and retrieve the computer, the Post reported.
The Post uploaded an invoice signed by the customer that states that equipment left with the repair shop “after 90 days of notification of completed service will be treated as abandoned.”
The repair shop owner later alerted the FBI to the existence of the laptop and its hard drive after it went unclaimed, both of which were seized by federal authorities in December, according to a federal subpoena obtained by the Post.
Before the laptop was seized, however, the shop owner reportedly made a copy of its hard drive and turned it over to a lawyer for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who in turn provided a copy of the hard drive’s contents to the Post.
The Daily Caller News Foundation has not confirmed the authenticity of the emails reported by the Post, and the Biden campaign issued a statement on Wednesday denying that Biden met with the Burisma executive in 2015 as alleged in the Post’s report.
Link to New York Post story blocked by Twitter. (Screenshot: Andrew Kerr)
Also on Wednesday afternoon, Twitter began blocking any tweet from being posted that contained links to one of the two documents the Post uploaded to document sharing platform Scribd.
One of the documents depicts an alleged email sent by Hunter Biden in April 2014 to his former business partner Devon Archer, and the other is an alleged email that Vadym Pozharsky, an advisor to Burisma’s board of directors, sent to Hunter Biden and Archer in May 2014.
Link to New York Post Scribd document titled, “Email from Vadim Pozharskyi to Devon Archer and Hunter Biden” blocked by Twitter. (Screenshot: Andrew Kerr)
Link to New York Post Scribd document titled, “Email from Robert Biden to Devon Archer” blocked by Twitter. (Screenshot:Andrew Kerr)
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone, a former staffer for the Democratic House Majority PAC and former California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, announced earlier Wednesday it would reduce the distribution of the Post’s report despite the lack of any fact-checks against the story.
During the vice presidential debate Wednesday night, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Vice President Mike Pence sparred over a variety of policies, revealing significant differences on several issues.
The debate, which was moderated by USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page, featured the two contenders discussing issues ranging from climate change and COVID-19 to abortion and the Supreme Court.
Here are six highlights from the debate:
1) COVID-19
Harris aggressively attacked the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the opening question, she laid out what could be called a prosecutor’s case. How are socialists deluding a whole generation? Learn more now >>
“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” the California senator said. “And here are the facts: 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last several months, over 7 million people who have contracted this disease, 1 in 5 businesses closed. We are looking at frontline workers treated like sacrificial workers. We are looking at 30 million people who in the last several months had to file for unemployment.”
That was in response to a question from Page about what the Biden administration would have done differently than Trump to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Harris then went on to summarize the Biden-Harris plan.
“Our plan is about what we need to do around a national strategy, for contact tracing, for testing, for administration of a vaccine, and make sure it’s free,” Harris said.
Pence, who headed the White House coronavirus task force, defended the administration’s record.
“I want the American people to know that from the very first day, President Donald Trump has put the health of America first,” the vice president said. “Before there were more than five cases in the United States—all people who had returned from China—President Donald Trump did what no other American had ever done. That was, he suspended all travel from China, the second-largest economy in the world.”
Pence added: “Joe Biden opposed that decision.”
“He said it was xenophobic and hysterical. I can tell you, having led the White House coronavirus task force that decision alone by President Trump gave us invaluable time to set up the greatest mobilization since World War II,” Pence said. “I believe it saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.”
As for the Biden plan, Pence said, the Trump administration was already doing much of what it recommends. He also took a shot at a Biden scandal that effectively ended his 1988 presidential bid.
“The reality is, when you look at the Biden plan, it looks an awful lot like what President Trump and I and our task force have been doing every step of the way,” he said. “ … It looks a little bit like plagiarism, something Joe Biden knows a little bit about.”
In September 1987, Biden came in for withering criticism for borrowing lines from a speech by then-British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock without attribution, knocking him out of the race when it was subsequently revealed to be part of a larger pattern of borrowing lines from other politicians without credit.
Asked about the race to develop a vaccine, Harris said she wouldn’t trust a Trump-endorsed vaccine, but would take one approved by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it. Absolutely,” Harris said. “But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I’m not taking it.”
Pence fired back that the California senator was politicizing the vaccine.
“The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if a vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think, is unconscionable,” the vice president said. “Senator, I just ask you, stop playing politics with people’s lives. The reality is, we will have a vaccine by the end of this year, and it will continue to save countless American lives.”
2) Taxes and the Economy
Harris and Pence sparred over the tax cuts passed by Congress in 2017 and debated Biden’s tax plan.
Harris said that the Biden administration would repeal the 2017 tax cuts “on Day One,” and that they were passed to benefit the “rich.”
“Joe Biden believes you measure the health and strength of America’s economy based on the health and strength of the American worker and the American family,” Harris said. “On the other hand, you have Donald Trump, who measures the strength of the economy based on how rich people are doing.”
Pence defended the tax cuts and said: “Joe Biden said twice in the debate last week that he’s going to repeal the Trump tax cuts,” Pence said. “That was tax cuts that gave the average working family $2,000 with a tax break.”
In 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced federal income taxes and made various other changes to the U.S. tax code.
Following the tax cut, the American economy experienced record low unemployment, wage growth, and an overall increase in business investment, according to Adam Michel, a specialist on tax policy and the federal budget as a policy analyst in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Harris said that Biden’s tax plan would end tax breaks for the wealthy but wouldn’t raise taxes on American making under $400,000.
“He has been very clear about that,” Harris said, adding, “Joe Biden is the one who, during the Great Recession, was responsible for the Recovery Act that brought America back, and now the Trump and Pence administration wants to take credit for Joe Biden’s success for the economy that they had at the beginning of their term.”
According to The Washington Post, “most Americans received a tax” cut in 2017, not just the rich.
Biden’s tax proposal would raise taxes about $3 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
“… The Biden tax plan would reduce [gross domestic product] by 1.47 percent over the long term,” according to the Tax Foundation’s General Equilibrium Model. “On a conventional basis, the Biden tax plan by 2030 would lead to about 6.5 percent less after-tax income for the top 1 percent of taxpayers and about a 1.7 percent decline in after-tax income for all taxpayers on average.”
According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Biden’s proposal “would increase taxes on average on all income groups, but the highest-income households would see substantially larger increases, both in dollar amounts and as a share of their incomes.”
3) Climate Change and Fracking
Harris said a Biden administration would grow the economy through green energy, but she also denied past support for banning fracking.
“Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact. I will repeat that Joe Biden has been very clear that he thinks about growing jobs,” Harris said, adding, “Part of those jobs that will be created by Joe Biden are going to be about clean energy and renewable energy, because Joe understands that the West Coast of our country is burning, including my home state of California.”
Harris also spoke about climate-related problems in the Southeast and in the Midwest.
“Joe sees what is happening in the Gulf states, which are being battered by storms. Joe has seen and talked with the farmers in Iowa, whose entire crops have been destroyed because of floods,” she said. “So, Joe believes again in science. … We have seen a pattern with this administration, which is, they don’t believe in science. Joe’s plan is about saying we are going to deal with it, but we are going to create jobs.”
Pence addressed the issue of climate change, but also attacked the Biden campaign’s promises for the environment.
“As I said, Susan, the climate is changing. We’ll follow the science,” he said.
“With regard to banning fracking, I just recommend people look at the record. You yourself said repeatedly you would ban fracking,” Pence said of Harris. “You were the first Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal.
“While Joe Biden denied support for the Green New Deal, Susan, thank you for pointing out the Green New Deal is on [the Biden-Harris] website. As USA Today said, it’s essentially the same plan as you co-sponsored with AOC.”
That was a reference to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., the main sponsor of the Green New Deal in the House.
“You just heard the senator say she was going to resubmit America to the Paris Climate Accord. The American people have always cherished our environment, and we’ll continue to cherish it,” Pence said. “We’ve made great progress reducing [carbon dioxide] emissions through American innovation and the development of natural gas through fracking.
“We don’t need a massive $2 trillion Green New Deal that would impose all new mandates on American businesses and American families. … It makes no sense. It will cost jobs.”
4) China
Pence and Harris sparred over U.S. relations with China, including its role in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“China and the World Health Organization did not play straight with the American people,” Pence said. “They did not let our personnel into China … until the middle of February.”
The vice president defended the administration’s aggressive trade policy with Beijing. “But China has been taking advantage of the United States for decades, in the wake of Biden cheerleading for China,” he said.
Harris said that the Trump administration had “lost” the trade war with China. “What ended up happening because of a so-called “trade war” with China? America lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs,” she said.
Pence countered that a Biden administration would go soft on the communist country.
“Joe Biden has been a cheerleader for communist China over the last several decades,” he said.
The vice president criticized the record of the administration of Biden’s boss, President Barack Obama, saying that it had dismissed the idea that manufacturing jobs could ever come back to America.
“In our first three years, this administration saw 500,000 manufacturing jobs created, and that’s the type of growth we’re going to see,” Pence said.
5) Supreme Court and Abortion
With the nomination of federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Page asked both candidates what they would want their respective states of Indiana and California to do if the high court were to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide and sent the matter back to the states to decide for themselves.
Neither candidate directly addressed the question, but both spoke of the abortion issue in the context of the Supreme Court.
“The issues before us couldn’t be more serious,” Harris said. “There is the issue of choice, and I will always fight for a woman’s right to make a decision about her own body. It should be her decision and not that of Donald Trump and the vice president, Michael Pence.”
Pence reiterated his pro-life stance, and called out the Biden-Harris ticket.
“I couldn’t be more proud to serve as vice president to a president who stands unapologetically for the sanctity of human life. I will not apologize for it,” he said. “This is another one of those cases where there is such a dramatic contrast. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support taxpayer funding of abortion all the way up to the moment of birth, late-term abortion.”
Pence asked Harris at one point if she would support packing the courts, meaning increasing the number of Supreme Court justices to 10 or more, and then he accused her of not answering the question.
“Once again you gave a non-answer, Joe Biden gave a non-answer,” Pence said. “The American people deserve a straight answer.”
In his remarks, Pence noted the Supreme Court has had nine justices for the past 150 years.
6) Race Relations
The vice presidential candidates also had a heated exchange on race relations amid social unrest in major American cities.
Harris called out Trump for what she claimed was his reluctance to condemn white supremacists, referring to last week’s presidential debate between Trump and Biden.
“Last week, the president of the United States took a debate stage in front of 70 million Americans and refused to condemn white supremacists,” Harris said. “It wasn’t like he wasn’t given a chance. He didn’t do it, and then he doubled down. Then he said, when pressed, ‘Stand back, stand by.’ This is part of a pattern with Donald Trump.”
She also cited the deadly 2017 Charlottesville, Va., Unite the Right rally.
Pence countered by citing Trump’s comments regarding the Charlottesville violence.
“This is one of the things that makes people dislike the media so much in this country, that you selectively edit so much,” Pence said, arguing that the media had distorted what Trump had said about there being “very fine people” on both sides in Charlottesville.
“After President Trump made comments about people on either side of the debate over monuments, he condemned the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists,” the vice president said.
“He has done so repeatedly. Your concern that he doesn’t condemn neo-Nazis, President Trump has Jewish grandchildren. His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish. This is a president who respects and cherishes all of the American people.”
Pence then went on offense about Harris’ prosecution record as a district attorney in San Francisco.
“When you were D.A. in San Francisco, African Americans were 19 times more likely to be prosecuted for minor drug offenses than whites and Hispanics,” Pence said to Harris. “You increased the disproportionate incarceration. You did nothing on criminal justice reform in California. You didn’t lift a finger to pass the First Step Act on Capitol Hill.”
The First Step Act is a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill signed into law by Trump in December 2018.
Harris didn’t directly defend her record as district attorney of San Francisco, but pivoted to her record as California attorney general.
“Having served as the attorney general of California, the work I did is a model of what our nation needs to do and what we will be able to do,” she said, adding, “I was the first statewide officer to institute a requirement that my agents would wear body cameras and keep them on full time. We were the first to initiate that there would be training for law enforcement on implicit bias.”
——
I grew up and went to EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL in Memphis and ran some of our track meets at RHODES COLLEGE and I know that campus well and I even was contacted by a official at Rhodes with some recruiting material after a good performance in my sophomore year in my mile run there in 1978. Also during the late 1970’s I helped my friends Byron Tyler and David Rogers in a Christian Rock Saturday morning show on Rhodes’s radio station!!! My brother-in-law graduated from Rhodes but I graduated from University of Memphis in 1982.
President Trump is going to announce his nomination for the Supreme Court later this week, and all the talk is about Amy Coney Barrett, currently a Notre Dame professor of law and a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. As it happens, Amy was a classmate of mine at Rhodes College, a small (1,400 students at the time) liberal-arts school in Memphis. I didn’t know her well, but she was a friend of other friends, and we were acquainted a bit through being in a club together.
I can tell you a few things about her, though. For one thing, she did not have a wild reputation, so I think that if she’s nominated, the Senate hearings will have to find something else to complain about. She was an English major and served on the Honor Council, a student body that enforced our honor code against lying and cheating (a great feature of academics at Rhodes that allowed us take-home tests in many classes). We were both in Mortar Board, an honor society. She wasn’t a political activist and was never a member of the College Republicans (I was, and we had a much larger membership than the College Democrats).Amy at the homecoming game senior year
Popular, as far as I knew, and by our senior year, she shows up in the yearbook’s candid photos taken around campus.Candid photo in the social room (the ironing board refers to another picture)
I hadn’t thought about her for a long time, until three years ago when friends were pointing out she’d been nominated for the Seventh Circuit, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein grilled her over her religion, proclaiming that “the dogma lives loudly within you.” At the time, I thought that was a rough Senate hearing.
My daughter was a Notre Dame student, and two years ago, I stopped by to visit Amy at her home in South Bend and catch up. She had been listed as being on the president’s shortlist for a Supreme Court seat, and Kavanaugh was going through his own nomination process at that time.L to R: Me, Amy Barrett, and my daughter
My daughter had been treating the accusations against him as probably true by default and took an unconcerned view towards the behavior of the press. Amy knows Kavanaugh, spoke well of him, and described what it was like seeing the press contacting her and digging through rumors about him. That changed my daughter’s opinion of how these things go, she told me. I meant to ask her if she were named to the Supreme Court if she’d be willing to go through all of the hatred and attacks on her reputation that would surely be a part of it. But I can’t remember if I did. I reckon we’ll all find out soon enough, though.
As a footnote, if Amy is confirmed to the court, she would be the second Supreme Court justice to come from Rhodes. Our first was Abe Fortas (class of 1930), who was named by President Johnson in 1965. Fortas resigned in 1969 after a series of ethics scandals, but the college gives out the Abe Fortas Award for Excellence in Legal Studies each year. Quite understandable; we’re a small school, and we should still be proud one of our own was elevated to the Supreme Court. May Amy Barrett bring us more honor.Published in LawTags: SCOTUS; SUPREME COURT; Amy Coney Barrett
Barrett was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1972.[2] She is the eldest of seven children, with five sisters and a brother. Her father Michael Coney worked as an attorney for Shell Oil Company, and her mother Linda was a homemaker. Barrett grew up in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans, and graduated from St. Mary’s Dominican High School in 1990.[9]
From 1999 to 2002, she practiced law at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C.[11][14]
Teaching and scholarship
Barrett served as a visiting associate professor and John M. Olin Fellow in Law at George Washington University Law School for a year before returning to her alma mater, Notre Dame Law School in 2002.[15]At Notre Dame she taught federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. Barrett was named a Professor of Law in 2010, and from 2014 to 2017 held the Diane and M.O. Miller Research Chair of Law.[16] Her scholarship focuses on constitutional law, originalism, statutory interpretation, and stare decisis.[12] Her academic work has been published in journals such as the Columbia, Cornell, Virginia, Notre Dame, and TexasLaw Reviews.[15] Some of her most significant publications are Suspension and Delegation, 99 Cornell L. Rev. 251 (2014), Precedent and Jurisprudential Disagreement, 91 Tex. L. Rev. 1711 (2013), The Supervisory Power of the Supreme Court, 106 Colum. L. Rev. 101 (2006), and Stare Decisis and Due Process, 74 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1011 (2003).
At Notre Dame, Barrett received the “Distinguished Professor of the Year” award three times.[15] She taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Evidence, Federal Courts, Constitutional Theory Seminar, and Statutory Interpretation Seminar.[15] Barrett has continued to teach seminars as a sitting judge.[17]
A hearing on Barrett’s nomination before the Senate Judiciary Committee was held on September 6, 2017.[20] During the hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein questioned Barrett about a law review article Barrett co-wrote in 1998 with Professor John H. Garvey in which she argued that Catholic judges should in some cases recuse themselves from death penalty cases due to their moral objections to the death penalty. The article concluded that the trial judge should recuse herself instead of entering the order. Asked to “elaborate on the statements and discuss how you view the issue of faith versus fulfilling the responsibility as a judge today,” Barrett said that she had participated in many death-penalty appeals while serving as law clerk to Scalia, adding, “My personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge”[21][22] and “It is never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they arise from faith or anywhere else, on the law.”[23] Worried that Barrett would not uphold Roe v. Wade given her Catholic beliefs, Feinstein followed Barrett’s response by saying, “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that is a concern.”[24][25][26] The hearing made Barrett popular with religious conservatives,[11] and in response, the conservative Judicial Crisis Network began to sell mugs with Barrett’s photo and Feinstein’s “dogma” remark.[27]Feinstein’s and other senators’ questioning was criticized by some Republicans and other observers, such as university presidents John I. Jenkins and Christopher Eisgruber, as improper inquiry into a nominee’s religious belief that employed an unconstitutional “religious test” for office;[23][28][29]others, such as Nan Aron, defended Feinstein’s line of questioning.[29]
Lambda Legal, an LGBT civil rights organization, co-signed a letter with 26 other gay rights organizations opposing Barrett’s nomination. The letter expressed doubts about her ability to separate faith from her rulings on LGBT matters.[30][31] During her Senate confirmation hearing, Barrett was questioned about landmark LGBTQ legal precedents such as Obergefell v. Hodges, United States v. Windsor, and Lawrence v. Texas. Barrett said these cases are “binding precedents” that she intended to “faithfully follow if confirmed” to the appeals court, as required by law.[30] The letter co-signed by Lambda Legal said “Simply repeating that she would be bound by Supreme Court precedent does not illuminate—indeed, it obfuscates—how Professor Barrett would interpret and apply precedent when faced with the sorts of dilemmas that, in her view, ‘put Catholic judges in a bind.'”[30] Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network later said that warnings from LGBT advocacy groups about shortlisted nominees to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, including Barrett, were “very much overblown” and called them “mostly scare tactics.”[30]
In 2015, Barrett signed a letter in support of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family that endorsed the Catholic Church’s teachings on human sexuality and its definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. When asked about the letter, she testified that the Church’s definition of marriage is legally irrelevant.[32][33]
Barrett’s nomination was supported by every law clerk she had worked with and all of her 49 faculty colleagues at Notre Dame Law school. 450 former students signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee supporting Barrett’s nomination.[34][35]
On October 5, 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11–9 on party lines to recommend Barrett and report her nomination to the full Senate.[36][37] On October 30, the Senate invoked cloture by a vote of 54–42.[38] It confirmed her by a vote of 55–43 on October 31, with three Democrats—Joe Donnelly, Tim Kaine, and Joe Manchin—voting for her.[10] She received her commission two days later.[2] Barrett is the first and to date only woman to occupy an Indiana seat on the Seventh Circuit.[39]
Notable cases
Title IX
In Doe v. Purdue University, 928 F.3d 652 (7th Cir. 2019), the court, in a unanimous decision written by Barrett, reinstated a suit brought by a male Purdue University student (John Doe) who had been found guilty of sexual assault by Purdue University, which resulted in a one-year suspension, loss of his Navy ROTC scholarship, and expulsion from the ROTC affecting his ability to pursue his chosen career in the Navy.[40] Doe alleged the school’s Advisory Committee on Equity discriminated against him on the basis of his sex and violated his rights to due process by not interviewing the alleged victim, not allowing him to present evidence in his defense, including an erroneous statement that he confessed to some of the alleged assault, and appearing to believe the victim instead of the accused without hearing from either party or having even read the investigation report. The court found that Doe had adequately alleged that the university deprived him of his occupational liberty without due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and had violated his Title IX rights “by imposing a punishment infected by sex bias,” and remanded to the District Court for further proceedings.[41][42][43]
Title VII
In EEOC v. AutoZone, the Seventh Circuit considered the federal government’s appeal from a ruling in a suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against AutoZone; the EEOC argued that the retailer’s assignment of employees to different stores based on race (e.g., “sending African American employees to stores in heavily African American neighborhoods”) violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The panel, which did not include Barrett, ruled in favor of AutoZone. An unsuccessful petition for rehearing en banc was filed. Three judges—Chief Judge Diane Wood and Judges Ilana Rovner and David Hamilton—voted to grant rehearing, and criticized the panel decision as upholding a “separate-but-equal arrangement”; Barrett and four other judges voted to deny rehearing.[11]
Immigration
In Cook County v. Wolf, 962 F.3d 208 (7th Cir. 2020), Barrett wrote a 40-page dissent from the majority’s decision to uphold a preliminary injunction on the Trump administration’s controversial “public charge rule“, which heightened the standard for obtaining a green card. In her dissent, she argued that any noncitizens who disenrolled from government benefits because of the rule did so due to confusion about the rule itself rather than from its application, writing that the vast majority of the people subject to the rule are not eligible for government benefits in the first place. On the merits, Barrett departed from her colleagues Wood and Rovner, who held that DHS’s interpretation of that provision was unreasonable under Chevron Step Two. Barrett would have held that the new rule fell within the broad scope of discretion granted to the Executive by Congress through the Immigration and Nationality Act.[44][45][46] The public charge issue is the subject of a circuit split.[44][46][47]
In Yafai v. Pompeo, 924 F.3d 969 (7th Cir. 2019), the court considered a case brought by a Yemeni citizen, Ahmad, and her husband, a U.S. citizen, who challenged a consular officer’s decision to twice deny Ahmad’s visa application under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Yafai, the U.S. citizen, argued that the denial of his wife’s visa application violated his constitutional right to live in the United States with his spouse.[48] In an 2-1 majority opinion authored by Barrett, the court held that the plaintiff’s claim was properly dismissed under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability. She declined to address whether Yafai had been denied a constitutional right (or whether a constitutional right to live in the United States with his spouse existed) because even if a constitutional right was implicated, the court lacked authority to disturb the consular officer’s decision to deny Ahmad’s visa application because that decision was facially legitimate and bona fide. Following the panel’s decision, Yafai filed a petition for rehearing en banc; the petition was denied, with eight judges voting against rehearing and three in favor, Wood, Rovner and Hamilton. Barrett and Judge Joel Flaumconcurred in the denial of rehearing.[48][49]
Second Amendment
In Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437 (7th Cir. 2019), Barrett dissented when the court upheld a law prohibiting convicted nonviolent felons from possessing firearms. The plaintiffs had been convicted of mail fraud. The majority upheld the felony dispossession statutes as “substantially related to an important government interest in preventing gun violence.” In her dissent, Barrett argued that while the government has a legitimate interest in denying gun possession to felons convicted of violent crimes, there is no evidence that denying guns to nonviolent felons promotes this interest, and that the law violates the Second Amendment.[50][51]
Fourth Amendment
In Rainsberger v. Benner, 913 F.3d 640 (7th Cir. 2019), the panel, in an opinion by Barrett, affirmed the district court’s ruling denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment and qualified immunity in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 case. The defendant, Benner, was a police detective who knowingly provided false and misleading information in a probable cause affidavit that was used to obtain an arrest warrant against Rainsberger. (The charges were later dropped and Rainsberger was released.) The court found the defendant’s lies and omissions violated “clearly established law” and thus Benner was not shielded by qualified immunity.[52]
The case United States v. Watson, 900 F.3d 892 (7th Cir. 2018) involved police responding to an anonymous tip that people were “playing with guns” in a parking lot. The police arrived and searched the defendant’s vehicle, taking possession of two firearms; the defendant was later charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court denied the defendant’s motion to suppress. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit, in a decision by Barrett, vacated and remanded, determining that the police lacked probable cause to search the vehicle based solely upon the tip, when no crime was alleged. Barrett distinguished Navarette v. California and wrote, “the police were right to respond to the anonymous call by coming to the parking lot to determine what was happening. But determining what was happening and immediately seizing people upon arrival are two different things, and the latter was premature…Watson’s case presents a close call. But this one falls on the wrong side of the Fourth Amendment.”[53]
In a 2013 Texas Law Review article, Barrett included as one of only seven Supreme Court “superprecedents“, Mapp vs Ohio (1961); the seminal case where the court found through the doctrine of selective incorporation that the 4th Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures was binding on state and local authorities in the same way it historically applied to the federal government.
Civil procedure and standing
In Casillas v. Madison Ave. Associates, Inc., 926 F.3d 329 (7th Cir. 2019), the plaintiff brought a class-action lawsuit against Madison Avenue, alleging that the company violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) when it sent her a debt-collection letter that described the FDCPA process for verifying a debt but failed to specify that she was required to respond in writing to trigger the FDCPA protections. Casillas did not allege that she had tried to verify her debt and trigger the statutory protections under the FDCPA, or that the amount owed was in any doubt. In a decision written by Barrett, the panel, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, found that the plaintiff’s allegation of receiving incorrect or incomplete information was a “bare procedural violation” that was insufficiently concrete to satisfy the Article III‘s injury-in-fact requirement. Wood dissented from the denial of rehearing en banc. The issue created a circuit split.[54][55][56]
Judicial philosophy and political views
Barrett considers herself an originalist. She is a constitutional scholar with expertise in statutory interpretation.[10] Reuters described Barrett as a “a favorite among religious conservatives,” and said that she has supported expansive gun rights and voted in favor of one of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies.[57]
Barrett was one of Justice Antonin Scalia‘s law clerks. She has spoken and written of her admiration of his close attention to the text of statutes. She has also praised his adherence to originalism.[58]
In 2013, Barrett wrote a Texas Law Review article on the doctrine of stare decisis wherein she listed seven cases that should be considered “superprecedents”—cases that the court would never consider overturning. The list included Brown v. Board of Education but specifically excluded Roe v. Wade. In explaining why it was not included, Barrett referenced scholarship agreeing that in order to qualify as “superprecedent” a decision must enjoy widespread support from not only jurists but politicians and the public at large to the extent of becoming immune to reversal or challenge. She argued the people must trust the validity of a ruling to such an extent the matter has been taken “off of the court’s agenda,” with lower courts no longer taking challenges to them seriously. Barrett pointed to Planned Parenthood v. Casey as specific evidence Roe had not yet attained this status.[59] The article did not include any pro-Second Amendment or pro-LGBT cases as “Super-Precedent”.[30][31] When asked during her confirmation hearings why she did not include any pro-LGBT cases as “superprecedent”, Barrett explained that the list contained in the article was collected from other scholars and not a product of her own independent analysis on the subject.[32][33]
Barrett has never ruled directly on a case pertaining to abortion rights, but she did vote to rehear a successful challenge to Indiana’s parental notification law in 2019. In 2018, Barrett voted against striking down another Indiana law requiring burial or cremation of fetal remains. In both cases, Barrett voted with the minority. The Supreme Court later reinstated the fetal remains law and in July 2020 it ordered a rehearing in the parental notification case.[57] At a 2013 event reflecting on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, she described the decision—in Notre Dame Magazine‘s paraphrase—as “creating through judicial fiat a framework of abortion on demand.”[60][61] She also remarked that it was “very unlikely” the court would overturn the core of Roe v. Wade: “The fundamental element, that the woman has a right to choose abortion, will probably stand. The controversy right now is about funding. It’s a question of whether abortions will be publicly or privately funded.”[62][63] NPR said that those statements were made before the election of Donald Trump and the changing composition of the Supreme Court to the right subsequent to his election, which could make Barrett’s vote pivotal in overturning Roe v. Wade.[64]
Barrett was critical of Chief JusticeJohn Roberts’opinion in the 5–4 decision that upheld the constitutionality of the central provision in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in NFIB vs. Sebelius. Roberts’s opinion defended the constitutionality of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act by characterizing it as a “tax.” Barrett disapproved of this approach, saying Roberts pushed the ACA “beyond it’s plausible limit to save it.”[64][65][66][67] She criticized the Obama administration for providing employees of religious institutions the option of obtaining birth controlwithout having the religious institutions pay for it.[65]
Potential Supreme Court nomination
Barrett has been on President Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees since 2017, almost immediately after her court of appeals confirmation. In July 2018, after Anthony Kennedy‘s retirement announcement, she was reportedly one of three finalists Trump considered, along with Judge Raymond Kethledge and Judge Brett Kavanaugh.[16][68] Trump chose Kavanaugh.[69]Reportedly, although Trump liked Barrett, he was concerned about her lack of experience on the bench.[70] In the Republican Party, Barrett was favored by social conservatives.[70]
After Kavanaugh’s selection, Barrett was viewed as a possible Trump nominee for a future Supreme Court vacancy.[71] Trump was reportedly “saving” Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s seat for Barrett if Ginsburg retired or died during his presidency.[72] Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020, and Barrett has been widely mentioned as the front-runner to succeed her.[73][74][75][76]
Personal life
Judge Barrett with her husband, Jesse
Since 1999, Barrett has been married to fellow Notre Dame Law graduate Jesse M. Barrett, a partner at SouthBank Legal in South Bend, Indiana. Previously, Jesse Barrett worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorneyfor the Northern District of Indiana for 13 years.[77][78][79] They live in South Bend and have seven children, ranging in age from 8-19.[80] Two of the Barrett children are adopted from Haiti. Their youngest biological child has special needs.[79][2][81]Barrett is a practicing Catholic.[82][83]
Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in November 2017. She serves on the faculty of the Notre Dame Law School, teaching on constitutional law, federal courts, and statutory interpretation, and previously served on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College in 1994 and her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School in 1997. Following law school, Barrett clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. She also practiced law with Washington, D.C. law firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin.
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, President Obama, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, President Obama, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (3)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (2)
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Max Brantley, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
26 Honor is no more associated with fools than snow with summer or rain with harvest.
2 Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse will not land on its intended victim.
3 Guide a horse with a whip, a donkey with a bridle, and a fool with a rod to his back!
4 Don’t answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.
5 Be sure to answer the foolish arguments of fools, or they will become wise in their own estimation.
6 Trusting a fool to convey a message is like cutting off one’s feet or drinking poison!
7 A proverb in the mouth of a fool is as useless as a paralyzed leg.
8 Honoring a fool is as foolish as tying a stone to a slingshot.
9 A proverb in the mouth of a fool is like a thorny branch brandished by a drunk.
10 An employer who hires a fool or a bystander is like an archer who shoots at random.
11 As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.
12 There is more hope for fools than for people who think they are wise.
13 The lazy person claims, “There’s a lion on the road! Yes, I’m sure there’s a lion out there!”
14 As a door swings back and forth on its hinges, so the lazy person turns over in bed.
15 Lazy people take food in their hand but don’t even lift it to their mouth.
16 Lazy people consider themselves smarter than seven wise counselors.
17 Interfering in someone else’s argument is as foolish as yanking a dog’s ears.
18 Just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon 19 is someone who lies to a friend and then says, “I was only joking.”
20 Fire goes out without wood, and quarrels disappear when gossip stops.
21 A quarrelsome person starts fights as easily as hot embers light charcoal or fire lights wood.
22 Rumors are dainty morsels that sink deep into one’s heart.
23 Smooth[a] words may hide a wicked heart, just as a pretty glaze covers a clay pot.
24 People may cover their hatred with pleasant words, but they’re deceiving you. 25 They pretend to be kind, but don’t believe them. Their hearts are full of many evils.[b] 26 While their hatred may be concealed by trickery, their wrongdoing will be exposed in public.
27 If you set a trap for others, you will get caught in it yourself. If you roll a boulder down on others, it will crush you instead.
28 A lying tongue hates its victims, and flattering words cause ruin.
Adrian Rogers: How to Answer a Skeptic [#1534] (Audio)
How To Answer A Skeptic
Sermon Summary by Bro. Adrian Rogers
We live in a day of accelerating skepticism, humanism and scientism. We as Christians
are going to be ridiculed and made to look ignorant and uneducated because we believe
in God. Do we have sound reason for believing what we believe? Are we not worthy of
real, honest thought? How do you respond to this skepticism in this day and age in
which we live?
The Bible tells us how to respond to skeptics in 1 Peter 3:10-17, especially verse 15
which states, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an
answer to every man who ask you to give a reason of the hope that is in you, with
meekness and fear.” (As a believer, you must understand what you believe and why we
are Christians, and then be able to explain your beliefs humbly, thoughtfully,
reasonably, and biblically.)
Often we are told to keep the faith, but not only should we keep it but we need to give
it away. If you have no desire to give it away, you ought to give it up, because what you
have is not the real thing. Any man that has been born of the spirit of God, has an innate
desire to share his faith with others.
There are two things that must be true of you before you are ready to share your faith
with anybody. First, you must be Real. You are to have a full-hearted, burning,
compassionate, overflowing love for God. You are to be a zealot for the Lord Jesus.
Yours is to be a full faith, a fearless faith. Don’t let anybody intimidate you because you
are a Christian. They can hurt you but they cannot harm you, therefore don’t be afraid.
Second you must be Ready. When you live a Christian lifestyle, people will start asking
questions about you when they see something in you that cannot be explained. They
are going to want to know why you believe what you believe and why you act the way
you act. Do you know how to respond to a skeptic? There are four basic ideas to
remember as you respond to this skeptical age: 1) Forego the Folly of Fools – Some skeptics are fools, not all but some. In the Bible,
fool means someone who is morally depraved, not mentally deficient. Don’t
argue with someone who shows himself to be a fool. Give him the mind of God;
tell him what God says then go your way. In Proverbs 26:4 it says, “answer not a
fool according to his folly, less you be like unto him.” Don’t answer him; don’t get
in a debate with a fool. You won’t be able to do much with these type of people.
Also see what Jesus says about this in Mark 6:11. 2) Learn the Limits of Logic – Logic is a valuable tool but it can only carry you so far.
When you get to a chasm that logic can’t leap, then faith will have to fly. The logic
for God is found in creation and design and universal moral beliefs. It is logical to
reason that if we have a creation, we must have a Creator since nothing comes
out of nothing. Also logic tells us that if there is design in nature, there must be a
Designer; and the more complex the design, the greater the designer. The
creation found throughout the earth and universe is immensely complex and
organized. The logic of there being universally held beliefs in a moral law shared
throughout mankind also says there is a god. If anyone ever comes up to you and
says, “Prove there is a god.” Be Bold and say, “I can’t, but can you prove there is
no god?” He’ll say he can’t either. Then if he says “You just think there is a god
because it is just what you believe.” You can say, “I believe there is a god and you
believe there is no god. I have faith that there is, and you have faith that there
isn’t.” What we as Christians believe is reasonable, but it goes beyond reason. 3) Remember the Resource of Revelation –If we are to know a god, he is going to
have to reveal himself to us. The finite can never understand the infinite, unless
the infinite explains himself and reveals himself to the finite. 2 Peter 1:19-21
shows us three things about the word of God: 1) The Inspiration of the word of
God. The Bible is like no other book – it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. 2) The
Illumination of the word of God. It shines into our hearts – it enlightens us. It
reveals to us what we could not know without it. 3) The Confirmation of the
word of God. We believe not only because of what any other person has said, but
also because of what the Bible has said. The Bible is power whether you believe it
or not. It does not matter what we believe; what matters is what is true. Use the Bible because you know it is true. 4) Fortify the Force of Faith – A Christian with a glowing testimony is worth a library
of arguments. Share what Jesus means to you and what God has done for you
and how He has changed your life. Let Jesus be real to you. Sanctify God in your
heart. Strengthen your faith by staying in contact with God through prayer,
reading and listening to His word, and sharing your faith with other believers as
well as non-believers. Your faith will be as much caught as it will be taught.
Remember 1 Peter 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready
always to give an answer to everyone who ask you to give a reason of the hope
that is in you, with meekness and fear.”
Adrian Rogers: Does a Loving God Believe in Capital Punishment? [#2183] (Audio) Kenneth D. Williams was executed at 11:05 pm in Grady, Arkansas on April 27, 2017. In this post I want to take a short look at Adrian Rogers’ sermon THE BIBLE AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT and then look at the life of Kenneth […]
On 11-15-05 Adrian Rogers passed over to glory and since it is the 10th anniversary of that day I wanted to celebrate his life in two ways. First, I wanted to pass on some of the material from Adrian Rogers’ sermons I have sent to prominent atheists over the last 20 years. Second, I wanted […]
Francis Schaeffer I remember like yesterday hearing my pastor Adrian Rogers in 1979 going through the amazing fulfilled prophecy of Ezekiel 26-28 and the story of the city of Tyre. In 1980 in my senior year (taught by Mark Brink) at Evangelical Christian High School, I watched the film series by Francis Schaeffer called WHATEVER HAPPENED […]
My good friend Rev. Sherwood Haisty Jr. and I used to discuss which men were the ones who really influenced our lives and Adrian Rogers had influenced us both more than anybody else. During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and […]
Clips of Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer from the film “With God on our side” ______________________ I grew up in Memphis going to Bellevue Baptist Church and Adrian Rogers was our pastor and he had a great impact on me. He had a lot to say on the issues of the day and that included […]
______________ Francis and Edith Schaeffer pictured below: _____________ Milton and Rose Friedman pictured with Ronald Reagan: My heroes in 1980 were the economist Milton Friedman, the doctor C. Everett Koop, the politician Ronald Reagan, the Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer, the evangelist Billy Graham, and my pastor Adrian Rogers. I have been amazed at how many […]
How can I know the Bible is the Word of God? by Adrian Rogers ________________________ _______________________________________ How can I know the Bible is the Word of God? How Can I Know the Bible is the Word of God? By Dr. Adrian Rogers Overview The historical, scientific, and prophetic accuracy of Scripture, along with its life-changing […]
Adrian Rogers: How You Can Be Certain the Bible Is the Word of God [#1725] (Audio) What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? Adrian Rogers ___________ I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the Word […]
Adrian Rogers: An Old Testament Portrait of Christ Published on Jan 27, 2014 I own nothing, all the rights belong to Adrian Rogers (R.I.P.) & his website http://www.lwf.org. Story of Abraham is told. ______________________________________ Adrian Rogers: Why I Believe in Jesus Christ Adrian Rogers: The Biography of the King Published on Dec 19, 2012 Series: […]
Adrian Rogers: 3 Truths to pass on to the next generation Published on Feb 7, 2013 Just a few weeks before Glory ___________________ Adrian Rogers pictured below: ________________________________ Adrian Rogers, ‘rising star of Memphis,’ elected 35 years ago by David Roach, posted Wednesday, May 21, 2014 (5 months ago) NASHVILLE (BP) — Thousands of […]
I have read articles for years from Dan Barker, but recently I just finished the book Barker wrote entitled LIFE DRIVEN PURPOSE which was prompted by Rick Warren’s book PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE which I also read several years ago.
Dan Barker is the Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, And co-host of Freethought Radio and co-founder of The Clergy Project.
On March 19, 2022, I got an email back from Dan Barker that said:
Thanks for the insights.
Have you read my book Life Driven Purpose? To say there is no purpose OF life is not to say there is no purpose IN life. Life is immensely meaningful when you stop looking for external purpose.
Ukraine … we’ll, we can no longer blame Russian aggression on “godless communism.” The Russian church, as far as I know, has not denounced the war.
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In the next few weeks I will be discussing the book LIFE DRIVEN PURPOSE which I did enjoy reading. Here is an assertion that Barker makes that I want to discuss:
The same is true with the existence of the historical Jesus. As I write in Godless, I think the probability of the existence of a historical person named Jesus, the founder of Christianity, is very low. I don’t think it is zero, but I definitely think it is below 50 percent—maybe I would put it around 20 percent or 30 percent. Although I might be wrong, I am comfortable calling Jesus a myth. Bart Ehrman disagrees.5 Ehrman is also a former preacher, like me, now a nonbeliever, and a biblical scholar who wrote Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.
I enjoyed your friend Richard Dawkins’ book Outgrowing God which is one of my favorite books that Dawkins has written.
However, there are some some weak parts of the book. For instance, on page 21 Dawkins wrote:
The balance of probability, according to most but not all scholars, suggest that Jesus did exist. Of course we’d know for sure if we could be certain the four gospels of the New Testament were historically true. Until recently, nobody doubted them. There’s even a proverbial phrase in English, ‘gospel truth’, meaning as true as true can be. But the phrase rings rather hollow today after studies in the 19th and 20th century scholars.
Let me answer that with his sermon from Adrian Rogers:
Who is the Man Called Jesus Christ? – Acts 10:34 part 1LWF: Who is the Man Called Jesus Christ? – Acts 10:34 part 1 Jesus Christ is a historical fact, yet some people doubt that He ever even lived let alone that He is God.Now the truth is that only the ignorant think that way.Without even considering the Bible, Jesus Christ is a historical fact.From secular history, Flavius Josephus, one of the greatest historians of all time, and a great man of the first century: a student, a priest, a military commander, and a diplomat in addition to being a great historian.He’s been described as one of the most distinguished and learned Jews of his day. He wrote a great 21 volume history titled, The Antiquities of the Jews.This compendium tells the story of the Jews and the history of the world from Creation to the destruction of Masada.He’s the historians’ historian, so historians go to this historian when they want to understand what these times were like.Andhe commented on the times of the Lord Jesus Christ in one of these volumes and wrote about the social unrest in Judea when Pontius Pilate was the Roman procurator around AD 26-36.
So here’s a paragraph from the historian Flavius Josephus and not from the Word of God. He says, and I quote,“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man for he was a doer of wonderful works. A teacher of such men as have received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. And when Pilate at the suggestion of the principle men among us had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first ceased not to do so, and the race of Christians so named from him are not extinct even now.”
So that was written by a Jewish historian. Not one of the writers of the Bible or a Christian.And notice what he said about Jesus.He said he was a wise men.He said he was a miracle worker.He said that he was a teacher.He said that he was crucified unto Pontus Pilate and that he was the founder of a race of people known as Christians.
Now there’s another historian, Citonious, who was the official historian of the imperial house of Rome.InAD 49, he wrote an account at the request of the emperor, Claudius, who had banished all of the Jews from the city.And this is what he said. “He expelled the Jews from Rome on account of the riots in which they were constantly indulging at the instigation of Christus (another name for Christ).”Now he’s not suggesting that Chritus was ever in Rome in person he was referring to the introduction of his spiritually radical teaching. So here’s a pagan historian who was writing about a man named Christ.Then another historian, named Tassatus, was the Roman governor of Asia.Now recall that Ceasar Nero, in about AD 64, when the city of Rome burned, was accused of burning the slums in Rome so he could rebuild the city of Rome.Then Nero, blamed it on the Christians to shift the blame.
And here’s what Cornelius Tassatus, this noted historian, wrote, and I quote:“To dispel the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and treated with the most extreme punishments some people popularly known as “Christians,” whose disgraceful activities were notorious. The originator of that name—Christus—had been executed when Tiberius was emperor by order of the procurator, Pontius Pilate.”
So all of these secular historians had to deal with this man named Jesus.Plyniums the governor of Bethania also known as Pline the younger, was a contemporary of both Tassitus and Sitonius.And he was also a historian. He says, and I quote:”I have asked the accused themselves if they were Christians. (Now there are some people who, if they were named Christians would be put to death.) and they said “Yes.” I asked them a second and third time, warning them of the penalty if they persisted. I ordered them to be led off to the execution, and what was their crime? They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before sunrise and reciting an antiphenal hymn to Christ as God and binding themselves with an oath, not to commit any crime but to abstain from all acts of theft, robbery, and adultery. From breaches of faith, from repudiating of trust when called upon to honor it.”
Now we just read some snatches of history from secular historians, contemporaries of those who were living at the time of Christ, and contemporaries immediately after this time, and they all speak of Jesus Christ as an historical fact.Now remember that these were not Christians, in fact they were enemies of the faith, but they all had to reckon with Jesus Christ as both you and I must do.So let me just put it down big and plain and straight: Jesus Christ was and is an historical fact.
In his “Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy,” J. Barton Payne itemized 127 Messianic predictions involving more than 3,000 Bible verses, with a remarkable 574 verses referring directly to a personal Messiah! My book “The Messiah in the Old Testament” examined 65 direct prophecies about the Messiah. These incredible promises formed one of the most central themes of the Old Testament: the coming Messiah.
The word Messiah or Anointed One (or in Greek, Christ), is taken from Psalm 2:2 and Daniel 9:25-26. The term took its meaning from the Jewish practice of anointing their priests and kings. But this term was applied in a special sense to the future Ruler who would be sent from God to sit on the throne of David forever. He is the One that God distinctly identified many years ahead of His arrival on earth, as Acts 3:18 affirms: “But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ [Messiah] would suffer” (NIV).
Likewise, according to 1 Peter 1:11, the Old Testament prophets predicted “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (NIV). The Messiah’s coming was not a secret left in a corner, but the repeated revelation of God to His people in the Old Testament.
Here are some of the definite clues about this coming that God gave in the Old Testament:
The Messiah would be the seed/offspring of a woman and would crush the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15).
He would come from the seed/offspring of Abraham and would bless all the nations on earth (Genesis 12:3).
He would be a “prophet like Moses” to whom God said we must listen (Deuteronomy 18:15).
He would be born in Bethlehem of Judah (Micah 5:2).
He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14).
He would have a throne, a kingdom and a dynasty, or house, starting with King David, that will last forever (2 Samuel 7:16).
He would be called “Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Everlasting Father,” “Prince of Peace,” and would possess an everlasting kingdom (Isaiah 9:6-7).
He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, righteous and having salvation, coming with gentleness (Zechariah 9:9-10).
He would be pierced for our transgression and crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5).
He would die among the wicked ones but be buried with the rich (Isaiah 53:9).
He would be resurrected from the grave, for God would not allow His Holy One to suffer decay (Psalm 16:10).
He would come again from the clouds of heaven as the Son of Man (Daniel 7:13-14).
He would be the “Sun of Righteousness” for all who revere Him and look for His coming again (Malachi 4:2).
He is the One whom Israel will one day recognize as the One they pierced, causing bitter grief (Zechariah 12:10).
The prophesies about the Messiah were not a bunch of scattered predictions randomly placed throughout the Old Testament, but they form a unified promise-plan of God, where each promise is interrelated and connected into a grand series comprising one continuous plan of God. Thus, a unity builds as the story of God’s call on Israel, and then on the house of David, progresses in each part of the Old Testament.
However, this eternal plan of God also had multiple fulfillments as it continued to unfold in the life and times of Israel. For example, every successive Davidic king was at once both a fulfillment in that day as well as a promise of what was to come when Christ, the final One in the Davidic line, arrived. Each of these successive fulfillments gave confidence that what was in the distant future would certainly happen, because God was working in the fabric of history as well. And although the promise was made to specific persons, such as Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, it was cosmopolitan in its inclusiveness. What God was doing through Israel and these individuals was to be a source of blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3).
Some insist that the Messiah whom Christians revere is not the same one that Jewish people also look forward to meeting. Some years ago, I had an opportunity to be part of a televised debate with a rabbi who is a Jewish New Testament scholar around the question, “Is Jesus the Messiah?” The rabbi explained the Jewish point of view: “Evangelicals believe the Messiah has two comings: one at Christmas and one at His second coming. We Jews believe He will only come once, at a time of peace on earth just as the prophet Zechariah declared in Zechariah 12-14. Since we still experience wars, Messiah has not yet come.”
I responded, “It says in Zechariah 12:10 that ‘They will look on me.’ Who is the one speaking here?”
He replied: “The Almighty, of course.”
I responded, “It says, ‘They will look on me, the one they have pierced.’ How did He get pierced?” He answered that he did not know. I said, “I have an idea. It was at Calvary.” He did not counter with any further argument.
The Bible is saying that on that future day of His Second Coming, Jews and Gentiles will personally see the One who was pierced for the sins of the world. In other words, that “future day” will not be the first time they have seen Him. So even the Old Testament, it turns out, anticipated two comings of the Messiah: one at His birth and another when He comes as triumphant king at His Second Coming.
What would this world be like without the Messiah? What would Christmas be like without the fulfillment of all those ancient promises and the prospect of Messiah’s coming yet once more as King of kings and Lord of lords? His arrival has made the difference between light and darkness itself. Think what His triumphal appearance once more will mean to this world. Everyone, including all of nature itself (Romans 8:20-21), will let out a burst of praise such as has never been heard: Here comes the King Himself, our Lord and our Savior! Joy to the World!
Take a look at this piece of evidence from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop at this link!
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
_________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his death […]
25 These are more proverbs of Solomon, collected by the advisers of King Hezekiah of Judah.
2 It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them.
3 No one can comprehend the height of heaven, the depth of the earth, or all that goes on in the king’s mind!
4 Remove the impurities from silver, and the sterling will be ready for the silversmith. 5 Remove the wicked from the king’s court, and his reign will be made secure by justice.
6 Don’t demand an audience with the king or push for a place among the great. 7 It’s better to wait for an invitation to the head table than to be sent away in public disgrace.
Just because you’ve seen something, 8 don’t be in a hurry to go to court. For what will you do in the end if your neighbor deals you a shameful defeat?
9 When arguing with your neighbor, don’t betray another person’s secret. 10 Others may accuse you of gossip, and you will never regain your good reputation.
11 Timely advice is lovely, like golden apples in a silver basket.
12 To one who listens, valid criticism is like a gold earring or other gold jewelry.
13 Trustworthy messengers refresh like snow in summer. They revive the spirit of their employer.
14 A person who promises a gift but doesn’t give it is like clouds and wind that bring no rain.
15 Patience can persuade a prince, and soft speech can break bones.
16 Do you like honey? Don’t eat too much, or it will make you sick!
17 Don’t visit your neighbors too often, or you will wear out your welcome.
18 Telling lies about others is as harmful as hitting them with an ax, wounding them with a sword, or shooting them with a sharp arrow.
19 Putting confidence in an unreliable person in times of trouble is like chewing with a broken tooth or walking on a lame foot.
20 Singing cheerful songs to a person with a heavy heart is like taking someone’s coat in cold weather or pouring vinegar in a wound.[a]
21 If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them water to drink. 22 You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads, and the Lord will reward you.
23 As surely as a north wind brings rain, so a gossiping tongue causes anger!
24 It’s better to live alone in the corner of an attic than with a quarrelsome wife in a lovely home.
25 Good news from far away is like cold water to the thirsty.
26 If the godly give in to the wicked, it’s like polluting a fountain or muddying a spring.
27 It’s not good to eat too much honey, and it’s not good to seek honors for yourself.
28 A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls.
There are some people who make excuses for their anger. They say, “It just runs in my family.” They are like a loaded shotgun with a hair trigger. Anytime they are jostled, they blast away. Then they say, “Oh, well, my anger only lasts a little while.” Well, so do tornadoes, but look at what damage they can cause!
Let’s see what the Bible, particularly the book of Proverbs has to say about being quick to get angry:
* “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression. The king’s wrath is as the roaring of a lion; but his favour is as dew upon the grass” (Proverbs 19:11-12).
* “A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife” (Proverbs 15:18).
* “Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbor hath put thee to shame” (Proverbs 25:8).
When you are quick to get angry, you can lose so much — your job, friends, children, wife, health, testimony — there is nothing more debilitating to your Christian testimony than for you to fly off the handle.
Confess Our Anger If we repress our anger rather than confess it, our anger can do all kinds of damage. You may say that you’re not angry but your stomach will keep the score. So, the first thing you must do to control your anger is to confess it to the Lord. Tell Him, “There’s something moving in me I don’t like. And I need You to take control of me and prevent me from acting uncontrollably or unrighteously.”
Someone has well said that if you repress anger it is like lighting a wastebasket, putting it in a closet, and closing the door. It may burn itself out or it may burn the house down. If you want to get control, the very first thing you need to do is open the closet door and say. “There it is, Lord. It’s in there. Put out the fire.”
Consider Our Anger When you take a step back from your anger and begin to seek understanding from the Lord, He will show you the answer. It is so important to analyze the source of your anger, so you don’t go off half-cocked. Psalm 4:4 says, “Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.”
God promises He will show us the way if we will seek Him. “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye” (Psalm 32:8). And don’t look around at the world to see how they are handling it, look to God. Romans 12:2 says, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
Control Your Anger Now, you’re ready to work on controlling your anger. You say, “I can’t control it.” Oh, yes you can. One day you may be having one of those discussions that can be heard about two blocks away and suddenly the phone rings. One of you stomps over to the phone, jerks it off its base, and says, “Hellooooo.” Now, don’t tell me you can’t turn it on and off. You can! Proverbs 29:11 says, “A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.” Fools spout off anything and everything, but a wise man can choose to control his tongue.
There it is, confess, consider, and control. Now, I don’t guarantee that you will no longer struggle with anger, but if you can get down these basics, you are well on your way. For further study, you may want to look at ordering one of the following sermons at the LWF bookstore (http://www.lwf.org), which target residual affects of anger, including bitterness, an unforgiving spirit, and more:
2027 The Blight of Bitterness Heb. 12:14
1272 How to Turn Bitterness into Blessings II Kings 2:19
1425 Forgiveness Matt. 18:21-35
1694 The Freedom of Forgiveness Matt. 6:9-15
If you feel you have an anger issue that needs immediate professional attention, we recommend that you contact one of the following national Christian counseling referral agencies:
Rapha Christian Counseling 1-800-383-4673 New Life Counseling 1-800-NEW-LIFE (639-5433) American Association Of Christian Counselors 1-800-5-COUNSEL
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Tagged Gene Bartow, John Wooden | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. It is tough to guard your […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. What does it mean to fear […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Uncategorized | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 6-8 | Solomon Turns Over a New Leaf Published on Oct 2, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 30, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 6-8 | Solomon Turns Over a New Leaf Published on Oct 2, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 30, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 4-6 | Solomon’s Dissatisfaction Published on Sep 24, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 23, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider ___________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Tom Brady “More than this…” Uploaded by EdenWorshipCenter on Jan 22, 2008 EWC sermon illustration showing a clip from the 2005 Tom Brady 60 minutes interview. _______________________ Tom Brady ESPN Interview Tom Brady has famous wife earned over 76 million dollars last year. However, has Brady found lasting satifaction in his life? It does not […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers: How to Be a Child of a Happy Mother Published on Nov 13, 2012 Series: Fortifying Your Family (To read along turn on the annotations.) Adrian Rogers looks at the 5th commandment and the relationship of motherhood in the commandment to honor your father and mother, because the faith that doesn’t begin at home, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular humanist man […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers – How to Cultivate a Marriage Another great article from Adrian Rogers. Are fathers necessary? “Artificial insemination is the ideal method of producing a pregnancy, and a lesbian partner should have the same parenting rights accorded historically to biological fathers.” Quoted from the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, summer of 1995. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Tom Brady “More than this…” Uploaded by EdenWorshipCenter on Jan 22, 2008 EWC sermon illustration showing a clip from the 2005 Tom Brady 60 minutes interview. To Download this video copy the URL to http://www.vixy.net ________________ Obviously from the video clip above, Tom Brady has realized that even though he has won many Super Bowls […]
The Incredible Steven Weinberg (1933-2021) – Sixty Symbols
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On May 15, 1984 Francis Schaeffer passed away and on May 15, 1994, the tenth anniversary, I wrote almost every living Nobel Prize winner (in Science categories) the following letter and I included a cassette tape. Today I have enclosed a CD copy of that audio cassette for you.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s I was a member of Bellevue Baptist in Memphis where Adrian Rogers was pastor and was a student at Evangelical Christian School (ECS) from the 5th grade to the 12th grade where I was introduced to the books and films of Francis Schaeffer. During this time I was amazed at how many prominent figures in the world found their way into the works of both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and I wondered what it would be like if these individuals were exposed to the Bible and the gospel. Therefore, over 20 years ago I began sending the messages of Adrian Rogers and portions of the works of Francis Schaeffer to many of the secular figures that they mentioned in their works.
Thank you for your time. I know how busy you are and I want to thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher,
P.O. Box 23416, Little Rock, AR 72221, United States, cell ph 501-920-5733, everettehatcher@gmail.com
To Professor Weinberg, From Everette Hatcher on March 17, 2018, I enjoyed this book on the life of Craig Venter & thought it would interest you too since it is filled with the names of scientists who you probably know
CRAIG VENTER, JOHN SULSTON, FRANCIS COLLINS, HAMILTON SMITH AND JEAN WEISSENBACH
I recently enjoyed reading your books in the past and now I have read about several of your friends in the book A LIFE DECODED BY J. Craig Venter. Venter talks about those who were involved with the Wellcome Trust, the Sanger Centre, Celera Genomics and the National Institutes of Health because they all were involved in the Human Genome Project. Venter started off the book with a quote from someone you hold in high esteem.
We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with
all his noble qualities . . . still bears in his bodily frame the indelible
stamp of his lowly origin. —Charles Darwin
Did you know that Charles Darwin struggled his whole life attempting to get to a place where he was at peace with the idea that all this was a result of just time and chance, but he never was satisfied on that point.
Another person mentioned in that book is Ham Smith and I actually had the opportunity to correspond with him back in 1994 when I sent him a recorded message, and I have enclosed the letter Smith wrote back to me in 1994. Did you know that Ham Smith’s son is an evangelical? On the tenth anniversary of Francis Schaeffer’s passing, May 15, 1994, I sent out to several hundred prominent skeptics an evangelistic letter that told about Schaeffer’s life. This same letter included the audio recording entitled “Dust, Darwin, and Disbelief,” by Adrian Rogers and Bill Elliff. That recording started off with the song DUST IN THE WIND by the group KANSAS for the simple reason that if we accept that we are the result of chance then all we are is DUST IN THE WIND.
Let start off by quoting Francis Schaeffer from his talk In the spring of 1968 which centered on the Autobiography of Charles Darwin:
Nevertheless you have EXPRESSED MY INWARD CONVICTION, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is NOT THE RESULT OF CHANCE.* But THEN with me the HORRID DOUBT ALWAYS ARISES whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
Can you feel this man? He is in real agony. You can feel the whole of modern man in this tension with Darwin. My mind can’t accept that ultimate of chance, that the universe is a result of chance. He has said 3 or 4 times now that he can’t accept that it all happened by chance and then he will write someone else and say something different. How does he say this (about the mind of a monkey) and then put forth this grand theory?… But how can he say you can’t think, you come from a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s conviction, so how can you trust me? Trust me here, but not there is what Darwin is saying. In other words it is very selective.
Evidently Darwin was telling his friends that he was an agnostic and that he did not think that God had anything to do with it but it was all left to the hands of chance. Is that the way you are reading this?
The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted. The world is not a result of blind chance, but we all were put here for a purpose by God. If you want to investigate the evidence concerning the accuracy of the Bible then I suggest you read Psalms 22which was written about a thousand years before the crucifixion events it described. Furthermore, when King Davidwrote those words the practice of stoning was the primary way of executing someone in Israel.
Hamilton Smith above, and Craig Venter with Smith below
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May 31, 2018
Professor Steven Weinberg
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Physics
2515 Speedway Stop C1600
Austin, TX 78712-1192
Office – (512) 471-4394
FAX – (512) 471-4888
email: weinberg@physics.utexas.edu
Notice: Messages will not be read unless the subject line gives the subject of the message in plain text. Attachments will not be opened unless the sender is known to Professor Weinberg.
Saw him on that show on May 26, 2017 (make sure letter is dated after that)
Neil deGrasse Tyson — Charlie Rose
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Yes, and it’s not just gravity, but all the forces of nature. There is a philosophical idea, and it’s not unfounded. You go back 150 years, there was magnetism, there was electricity. And these were two forces we were playing with. And we said wait a minute, these are manifestations, different sides of the same coin, so we stapled the two words together and got electromagnetism. And then we found out that the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism were the same in the early universe. That got a Nobel Prize in 1978. In fact, two of the three Nobel laureates are graduates of my high school, the Bronx High School of Science. That school has eight Nobel laureates among its graduates, seven of which were in physics. So they found out that they merged as one. So we now call it the electroweak force. So now we have the electroweak force, the strong force, and gravity. And it’s been tough mixing gravity into these, and no one has done it successfully yet, but we got top people working on it.
New letters on Allan Standage, Fred Hoyle (11-14-16) and Max Planck
Physicist Steven Weinberg, January 28, 2008. Credit: Larry Murphy, The University of Texas at Austin. Used with permission.
“Whatever the final laws of nature may be, there is no reason to suppose that they are designed to make physicists happy,” renowned theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg once wrote. Despite this assessment, Weinberg, who passed away last week at the age of 88, appears to have been a physicist who lived a happy—or at least deeply meaningful—life.
Weinberg’s cousin gave him an old chemistry set that sparked his love of science from an early age. He was the first in his family to attend college and earned a bachelor’s degree at Cornell University and a doctorate in physics at Princeton. He was captivated by the question of whether the four known forces of nature—gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force (responsible for particle decay), and the strong force (responsible for binding fundamental particles of matter together)—were manifestations of a single force of the universe.
His curiosity led him to write a brief (three-page) article, “A Model of Leptons,” published in Physical Review Letters in 1967, that now ranks among the most cited research papers in history. In his paper, he predicted the behavior of particular subatomic particles and helped unify the electromagnetic and weak forces into what is now known as the electroweak force. The work provided a foundation for the Standard Model—a physics theory that describes how known elementary particles in the universe behave. Later, in 1979, together with Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam, he was recognized with a Nobel Prize.
Unusual for scientists of his stature, Weinberg worked to ensure that science was not only accessible but enthralling and entertaining to nonexperts. His 1977 book, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, described the universe’s evolution within minutes of the Big Bang. “The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of a tragedy,” he wrote. He is the author of hundreds of scholarly articles and numerous popular books. He held anyone who was curious about science, including nonexperts, in high regard. “You have to keep in mind that you are writing for people who are not mathematically trained but are just as smart as you are,” he said.
Weinberg also cultivated a longtime commitment to curbing nuclear proliferation, which was evident in his New York Review of Booksop-eds, his service as a consultant to the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and his book, Glory and Terror: The Growing Nuclear Danger.
In 2009, Weinberg accepted the Bulletin’s invitation to join our Board of Sponsors, on which he served until his death. The Board of Sponsors was established by Albert Einstein and first chaired by Robert J. Oppenheimer. Board members, who are among the worlds’ most accomplished science and security leaders, are consulted on key issues, including setting the Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock. Today, the board has 30 members, including 12 Nobel laureates.
Steven Weinberg offered unfailing support to the Bulletin, introducing us to new audiences and speaking out about the importance of nuclear issues for the general public,” Kennette Benedict, former executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, wrote. “With a quick wit and authoritative voice, he waded into controversial matters, engaging other experts and lay audiences alike without fear or favor. We will miss his lively intellect and generous spirit.”
Weinberg’s passing was announced by the University of Texas, where he worked as a physics and astronomy professor for nearly four decades. He is survived by his wife, Louise, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and daughter, Dr. Elizabeth Weinberg.
“Although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama,” he once told PBS, “if the only drama we’re starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves.”
Steven Weinberg Discussion (1/8) – Richard Dawkins
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Whatever Happened To The Human Race? (2010) | Full Movie | Michael Hordern
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The Bill Moyers Interview – Steven Weinberg
How Should We Then Live (1977) | Full Movie | Francis Schaeffer | Edith …
Steven Weinberg Discussion (2/8) – Richard Dawkins
RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!!
Steven Weinberg – Dreams of a Final Theory
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Steven Weinberg Discussion (3/8) – Richard Dawkins
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Steven Weinberg, Author
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age
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Steven Weinberg Discussion (4/8) – Richard Dawkins
I am grieved to hear of the death of Dr. Steven Weinberg who I have been familiar with since reading about him in 1979 in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? by Dr. C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer. I have really enjoyed reading his books and DREAMS OF A FINAL REALITY and TO EXPLAIN THE WORLD were two of my favorite!
C. Everett Koop
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Steven Weinberg Discussion (5/8) – Richard Dawkins
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Francis Schaeffer : Reclaiming the World part 1, 2
The Atheism Tapes – Steven Weinberg [2/6]
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The Story of Francis and Edith Schaeffer
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Steven Weinberg – What Makes the Universe Fascinating?
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
_________________
Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto:
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I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the 1st video below in the 50th clip in this series are his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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Steven Weinberg: To Explain the World
I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
Adrian Rogers: Innocent Blood #1004 proverbs 6:16-19, 24:11-12
Proverbs 24 New Living Translation
Proverbs 24New Living Translation
24 Don’t envy evil people or desire their company. 2 For their hearts plot violence, and their words always stir up trouble.
3 A house is built by wisdom and becomes strong through good sense. 4 Through knowledge its rooms are filled with all sorts of precious riches and valuables.
5 The wise are mightier than the strong,[a] and those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger. 6 So don’t go to war without wise guidance; victory depends on having many advisers.
7 Wisdom is too lofty for fools. Among leaders at the city gate, they have nothing to say.
8 A person who plans evil will get a reputation as a troublemaker. 9 The schemes of a fool are sinful; everyone detests a mocker.
10 If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small.
11 Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die; save them as they stagger to their death. 12 Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.” For God understands all hearts, and he sees you. He who guards your soul knows you knew. He will repay all people as their actions deserve.
13 My child,[b] eat honey, for it is good, and the honeycomb is sweet to the taste. 14 In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, you will have a bright future, and your hopes will not be cut short.
15 Don’t wait in ambush at the home of the godly, and don’t raid the house where the godly live. 16 The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.
17 Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall; don’t be happy when they stumble. 18 For the Lord will be displeased with you and will turn his anger away from them.
19 Don’t fret because of evildoers; don’t envy the wicked. 20 For evil people have no future; the light of the wicked will be snuffed out.
21 My child, fear the Lord and the king. Don’t associate with rebels, 22 for disaster will hit them suddenly. Who knows what punishment will come from the Lord and the king?
More Sayings of the Wise
23 Here are some further sayings of the wise:
It is wrong to show favoritism when passing judgment. 24 A judge who says to the wicked, “You are innocent,” will be cursed by many people and denounced by the nations. 25 But it will go well for those who convict the guilty; rich blessings will be showered on them.
26 An honest answer is like a kiss of friendship.
27 Do your planning and prepare your fields before building your house.
28 Don’t testify against your neighbors without cause; don’t lie about them. 29 And don’t say, “Now I can pay them back for what they’ve done to me! I’ll get even with them!”
30 I walked by the field of a lazy person, the vineyard of one with no common sense. 31 I saw that it was overgrown with nettles. It was covered with weeds, and its walls were broken down. 32 Then, as I looked and thought about it, I learned this lesson: 33 A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— 34 then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.
Proverbs 6:16-17 says, “These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood…”
Every day in America, thousands of innocent babies will be slain as a result of the grizzly abortion industry. They will have no chance or trial; no jury or lawyer to argue their case, and they will be executed in a cruel and inhumane way. No matter the vocabulary social engineers use to soften it, abortion snuffs out innocent lives. A baby is not an extension of the mother’s body; this child is a new life, and the object of God’s love and affection.
God determines when life begins, not the Supreme Court. And in Jeremiah 1:5, God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
Abortion transgresses the Golden Rule, which is to do to others as you want others to do to you (Matthew 7:12).It also goes against our God-given natural instinct to protect the unborn. To destroy that instinct is to go against God. Abortion is also primarily rooted in selfishness and greed.
No matter the explanations we receive from those who advocate for “choice,” we must stand our ground. We must speak up for the unborn child who cannot speak for himself.
We must also forget our self-righteousness and have more compassion toward unwed mothers. We should so-cover them in grace and prayer that our judgment never chases them into the abortion clinics.
Finally, we must pray fervently that God will have mercy on us and give us time to repent.
Adrian Rogers says, “I’m living for that day when we have a revival of righteousness in America. I want to believe it’s coming—that God, not any preacher or president, will do something in America; God is our only hope!”
Apply it to your life
We must stay informed about the shedding of innocent blood in this nation. As we work for and pray for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion, let us also see to it that sexual morality is being taught at home and in the church. Pray that God will have mercy upon us and give us space to repent.
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Tagged Gene Bartow, John Wooden | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. It is tough to guard your […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. What does it mean to fear […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Uncategorized | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 6-8 | Solomon Turns Over a New Leaf Published on Oct 2, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 30, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 6-8 | Solomon Turns Over a New Leaf Published on Oct 2, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 30, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 4-6 | Solomon’s Dissatisfaction Published on Sep 24, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 23, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider ___________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Tom Brady “More than this…” Uploaded by EdenWorshipCenter on Jan 22, 2008 EWC sermon illustration showing a clip from the 2005 Tom Brady 60 minutes interview. _______________________ Tom Brady ESPN Interview Tom Brady has famous wife earned over 76 million dollars last year. However, has Brady found lasting satifaction in his life? It does not […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers: How to Be a Child of a Happy Mother Published on Nov 13, 2012 Series: Fortifying Your Family (To read along turn on the annotations.) Adrian Rogers looks at the 5th commandment and the relationship of motherhood in the commandment to honor your father and mother, because the faith that doesn’t begin at home, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular humanist man […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers – How to Cultivate a Marriage Another great article from Adrian Rogers. Are fathers necessary? “Artificial insemination is the ideal method of producing a pregnancy, and a lesbian partner should have the same parenting rights accorded historically to biological fathers.” Quoted from the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, summer of 1995. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Tom Brady “More than this…” Uploaded by EdenWorshipCenter on Jan 22, 2008 EWC sermon illustration showing a clip from the 2005 Tom Brady 60 minutes interview. To Download this video copy the URL to http://www.vixy.net ________________ Obviously from the video clip above, Tom Brady has realized that even though he has won many Super Bowls […]
Sen. Chuck Schumer slammed President Trump on Wednesday for soaring gas prices — blaming his decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran for higher costs that he said will burn away the GOP tax cut.
“Gas prices will roughly cancel out the 2018 consumption boost from the tax cuts,” Schumer said at an Exxon gas station on Capitol Hill.
“That’s right, whatever meager benefit working families may have seen from Trump’s tax scam for the rich has been wiped out by the gas prices that President Trump is responsible for.”
Schumer argued that Trump’s move earlier this month to reinstate economic sanctions on Iran spooked oil markets, sending prices through the roof.
AAA predicts Americans this summer will pay the highest prices at the pump since 2014.
The average US price Wednesday was $2.947 a gallon.
The Trump administration referred The Post’s requests for comment to the Treasury Department, which did not immediately respond
The U.S. inflation rate by year is the percentage of change in product and service prices from one year to the next, or “year-over-year.”
The inflation rate responds to each phase of the business cycle. That’s the natural rise and fall of economic growth that occurs over time. The cycle corresponds to the highs and lows of a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), which measures all goods and services produced in the country.
Key Takeaways
The U.S. inflation rate by year reflects how much prices change year-over-year.
Year-over-year inflation rates give a clearer picture of price changes than annual average inflation.
The Federal Reserve uses monetary policy to achieve its target rate of 2% inflation.
In 2022 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation reached 7%, its highest rate in decades.
Business Cycle: Expansion and Peak
The business cycle runs in four phases. The first phase is the expansion phase. This is when economic growth is positive, with a healthy 2% rate of inflation. The Federal Reserve (“the Fed”) considers this an acceptable rate of inflation.1 On August 27, 2020, the Fed announced that it would allow a target inflation rate of more than 2% if that will help ensure maximum employment. It still seeks a 2% inflation over time but is willing to allow higher rates if inflation has been low for a while.2
As the economy expands past a 3% rate of growth, it can create an asset bubble. That’s when the market value of an asset increases more rapidly than its underlying real value.
The second phase of the cycle is known as the“peak.” This is the time when expansion ends and contraction begins.
Business Cycle Phases.
Business Cycle: Contraction and Trough
As the market resists any higher prices, a decline begins. This is the beginning of the third, or contraction, phase. The growth rate turns negative. If it lasts long enough, it can create a recession.
During a recession, deflation can occur. That’s a decrease in the prices of goods and services. It can often be more dangerous than inflation.
As the economy continues its downward trend, it reaches the lowest level possible for the circumstances. This trough is the fourth phase, where contraction ends and economic expansion begins. The rate of inflation begins to increase again, and the cycle repeats.
During recessions and troughs, the Fed uses monetary policy to control inflation, deflation, and disinflation.
The Effect of Monetary Policy
The Fed focuses on the core inflation rate, which excludes gas and food prices. These volatile prices change from month to month, hiding underlying inflation trends.
The Fed sets a target inflation rate of 2%. If the core rate rises much above that, the Fed will execute a contractionary monetary policy. It will increase the federal funds rate, which is the interest rate when banks lend to each other overnight. Historically, this action reduces demand and pushes inflation lower.
The Fed can also lower the federal discount rate, which makes it cheaper to borrow money from the Fed itself. This is an attempt to increase demand and raise prices.
Other tools that the Fed uses are:
Reserve requirements (the amount banks hold in reserves)
Open market operations (buying or selling U.S. securities from member banks)
Reserve interest (paying interest on excess reserves)3
U.S. Inflation Rate History and Forecast
The best way to compare inflation rates is to use the end-of-year consumer price index (CPI), which creates an image of a specific point in time.
The table below compares the inflation rate (December end-of-year) with the fed funds rate, the phase of the business cycle, and the significant events influencing inflation. A more detailed forecast is in the U.S. Economic Outlook.
Year
Inflation Rate YOY4
Fed Funds Rate*5
Business Cycle (GDP Growth)67
Events Affecting Inflation8
1929
0.6%
NA
August peak
Market crash
1930
-6.4%
NA
Contraction (-8.5%)
Smoot-Hawley
1931
-9.3%
NA
Contraction (-6.4%)
Dust Bowl
1932
-10.3%
NA
Contraction (-12.9%)
Hoover tax hikes
1933
0.8%
NA
Contraction ended in March (-1.2%)
FDR’s New Deal
1934
1.5%
NA
Expansion (10.8%)
U.S. debt rose
1935
3.0%
NA
Expansion (8.9%)
Social Security
1936
1.4%
NA
Expansion (12.9%)
FDR tax hikes
1937
2.9%
NA
Expansion peaked in May (5.1%)
Depression resumes
1938
-2.8%
NA
Contraction ended in June (-3.3%)
Depression ended
1939
0.0%
NA
Expansion (8.0%
Dust Bowl ended
1940
0.7%
NA
Expansion (8.8%)
Defense increased
1941
9.9%
NA
Expansion (17.7%)
Pearl Harbor
1942
9.0%
NA
Expansion (18.9%)
Defense spending
1943
3.0%
NA
Expansion (17.0%)
Defense spending
1944
2.3%
NA
Expansion (8.0%)
Bretton Woods
1945
2.2%
NA
Feb. peak, Oct. trough (-1.0%)
Truman ended WWII
1946
18.1%
NA
Expansion (-11.6%)
Budget cuts
1947
8.8%
NA
Expansion (-1.1%)
Cold War spending
1948
3.0%
NA
Nov. peak (4.1%)
1949
-2.1%
NA
Oct trough (-0.6%)
Fair Deal, NATO
1950
5.9%
NA
Expansion (8.7%)
Korean War
1951
6.0%
NA
Expansion (8.0%)
1952
0.8%
NA
Expansion (4.1%)
1953
0.7%
NA
July peak (4.7%)
Eisenhower ended Korean War
1954
-0.7%
1.25%
May trough (-0.6%)
Dow returned to 1929 high
1955
0.4%
2.50%
Expansion (7.1%)
1956
3.0%
3.00%
Expansion (2.1%)
1957
2.9%
3.00%
Aug. peak (2.1%)
Recession
1958
1.8%
2.50%
April trough (-0.7%)
Recession ended
1959
1.7%
4.00%
Expansion (6.9%)
Fed raised rates
1960
1.4%
2.00%
April peak (2.6%)
Recession
1961
0.7%
2.25%
Feb. trough (2.6%)
JFK’s deficit spending ended recession
1962
1.3%
3.00%
Expansion (6.1%)
1963
1.6%
3.5%
Expansion (4.4%)
1964
1.0%
3.75%
Expansion (5.8%)
LBJ Medicare, Medicaid
1965
1.9%
4.25%
Expansion (6.5%)
1966
3.5%
5.50%
Expansion (6.6%)
Vietnam War
1967
3.0%
4.50%
Expansion (2.7%)
1968
4.7%
6.00%
Expansion (4.9%)
Moon landing
1969
6.2%
9.00%
Dec. peak (3.1%)
Nixon took office
1970
5.6%
5.00%
Nov. trough (0.2%)
Recession
1971
3.3%
5.00%
Expansion (3.3%)
Wage-price controls
1972
3.4%
5.75%
Expansion (5.3%)
Stagflation
1973
8.7%
9.00%
Nov. peak (5.6%)
End of gold standard
1974
12.3%
8.00%
Contraction (-0.5%)
Watergate
1975
6.9%
4.75%
March trough (-0.2%)
Stop-gap monetary policy confused businesses and kept prices high
1976
4.9%
4.75%
Expansion (5.4%)
1977
6.7%
6.50%
Expansion (4.6%)
1978
9.0%
10.00%
Expansion (5.5%)
1979
13.3%
12.00%
Expansion (3.2%)
1980
12.5%
18.00%
Jan. peak (-0.3%)
Recession
1981
8.9%
12.00%
July trough (2.5%)
Reagan tax cut
1982
3.8%
8.50%
November (-1.8%)
Recession ended
1983
3.8%
9.25%
Expansion (4.6%)
Military spending
1984
3.9%
8.25%
Expansion (7.2%)
1985
3.8%
7.75%
Expansion (4.2%)
1986
1.1%
6.00%
Expansion (3.5%)
Tax cut
1987
4.4%
6.75%
Expansion (3.5%)
Black Monday crash
1988
4.4%
9.75%
Expansion (4.2%)
Fed raised rates
1989
4.6%
8.25%
Expansion (3.7%)
S&L Crisis
1990
6.1%
7.00%
July peak (1.9%)
Recession
1991
3.1%
4.00%
Mar trough (-0.1%)
Fed lowered rates
1992
2.9%
3.00%
Expansion (3.5%)
NAFTA drafted
1993
2.7%
3.00%
Expansion (2.8%)
Balanced Budget Act
1994
2.7%
5.50%
Expansion (4.0%)
1995
2.5%
5.50%
Expansion (2.7%)
1996
3.3%
5.25%
Expansion (3.8%)
Welfare reform
1997
1.7%
5.50%
Expansion (4.4%)
Fed raised rates
1998
1.6%
4.75%
Expansion (4.5%)
LTCM crisis
1999
2.7%
5.50%
Expansion (4.8%)
Glass-Steagall repealed
2000
3.4%
6.50%
Expansion (4.1%)
Tech bubble burst
2001
1.6%
1.75%
March peak, Nov. trough (1.0%)
Bush tax cut, 9/11 attacks
2002
2.4%
1.25%
Expansion (1.7%)
War on Terror
2003
1.9%
1.00%
Expansion (2.9%)
JGTRRA
2004
3.3%
2.25%
Expansion (3.8%)
2005
3.4%
4.25%
Expansion (3.5%)
Katrina, Bankruptcy Act
2006
2.5%
5.25%
Expansion (2.9%)
2007
4.1%
4.25%
Dec peak (1.9%)
Bank crisis
2008
0.1%
0.25%
Contraction (-0.1%)
Financial crisis
2009
2.7%
0.25%
June trough (-2.5%)
ARRA
2010
1.5%
0.25%
Expansion (2.6%)
ACA, Dodd-Frank Act
2011
3.0%
0.25%
Expansion (1.6%)
Debt ceiling crisis
2012
1.7%
0.25%
Expansion (2.2%)
2013
1.5%
0.25%
Expansion (1.8%)
Government shutdown. Sequestration
2014
0.8%
0.25%
Expansion (2.5%)
QE ends
2015
0.7%
0.50%
Expansion (3.1%)
Deflation in oil and gas prices
2016
2.1%
0.75%
Expansion (1.7%)
2017
2.1%
1.50%
Expansion (2.3%)
2018
1.9%
2.50%
Expansion (3.0%)
2019
2.3%
1.75%
Expansion (2.2%)
2020
1.4%
0.25%
Contraction (-3.4%)
Impact of COVID
2021
7.0%
0.25%
Expansion (5.9%)
Forecast
2022
2.3% (est.)
0.30% (est.)
Expansion (3.8%)
FFR midpoint projection
2023
2.2% (est.)
1.0%
Why the Inflation Rate Matters
The inflation rate demonstrates the health of a country’s economy. It is a measurement tool used by a country’s central bank, economists, and government officials to gauge whether action is needed to keep an economy healthy. That’s when businesses are producing, consumers are spending, and supply and demand are as close to equilibrium as possible.
A healthy rate of inflation is good for both consumers and businesses. During deflation, consumers hold on to their cash because the goods will be cheaper tomorrow. Businesses lose money, cutting costs by reducing pay or employment. That happened during the subprime housing crisis.
In galloping inflation, consumers spend now before prices rise tomorrow. That artificially increases demand. Businesses raise prices because they can, as inflation spirals out of control.
When inflation is steady, at around 2%, the economy is more or less as stable as it can get. Consumers are buying what businesses are selling.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How is inflation measured?
There are several ways to measure inflation, but the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics uses the consumer price index. The CPI aggregates price data from 23,000 businesses and 80,000 consumer goods to determine how much prices have changed in a given period of time. If the CPI rises by 3% year over year, for example, then the inflation rate is 3%. The Fed, on the other hand, relies on the price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE). This index gives more weight to items such as healthcare costs.
What is the highest inflation rate in U.S. history?
Since the introduction of the CPI in 1913, the highest rate of annual inflation in the U.S. was 17.8% in 1917. The 1970s saw the longest period of sustained high inflation rates.9
How do you hedge against inflation?
Because inflation causes money to lose value over time, hedging against it is an important part of any sound investing strategy. Investors use a diversified portfolio with a variety of asset types to offset inflation and ensure that the overall growth of their portfolio outpaces it.
The Fed should pay attention to Milton Friedman’s wisdom.
By John Greenwood and Steve H. Hanke
June’s inflation index jumped 5.4% from a year ago, the highest reading since August 2008. The experts were surprised. Clearly, Federal Reserve watchers never bothered to consult Milton Friedman. Lost is a core Friedman dictum: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”
In his Feb. 23 testimony to Congress, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that the growth in the money supply, specifically M2, “doesn’t really have important implications.” The experts, the press and the bond vigilantes were as quick to unlearn monetarism, if they ever had learned it, as Mr. Powell. Reporting about U.S. inflation rarely contains the words “money supply.” We are repeatedly told that the most recent upticks in inflation are anomalous and “transitory.”
Wrong. The inflation upticks aren’t temporary and were predictable, driven by an extraordinary explosion in the money supply. Since March 2020, the M2 has been growing at an average annualized rate of 23.9%—the fastest since World War II. There is so much money out there that banks don’t know what to do with it. Via reverse repurchase agreements, banks and money-market funds are lending money to the Fed to the tune of $860 billion. That’s unprecedented.
According to monetarism, asset-price inflation should have occurred with a lag of one to nine months. Then, with a lag of six to 18 months, economic activity should have started to pick up. Lastly, after a lag of 12 to 24 months, generalized inflation should have set in. That’s the standard monetarist sequence, and it’s been followed to a T.
To get a handle on what the recent money supply explosion implies for inflation, consider a monetarist model for determining national income. That famous model was displayed on Milton Friedman’s California license plates. It’s compact: MV=Py, where M is the money supply, V is the velocity of money (the speed at which it circulates), P is the price level, and y is real gross domestic product.
Plug numbers into the model and solve for M, and money supply (M2) should be growing at around 6% a year for the Fed to hit its inflation target of 2%. With M2 growing at nearly four times the “ideal” rate since March 2020, inflation is baked into the cake, and it’s likely to persist. By the end of the year, the year-over-year inflation rate will be at least 6% and possibly as high as 9%.
Some who like to throw cold water on monetarism argue that the velocity of money has collapsed and will mitigate the inflationary impact of the rapid growth of the money supply. While velocity did collapse with the onset of Covid, it’s on track to pick up until the end of 2024. Consequently, velocity will grease the monetary wheels. That’s why inflation might hit the high end of our forecast range.
Mr. Powell and his colleagues should start paying attention to the money supply. Money matters. Indeed, it dominates.
Mr. Greenwood is chief economist at Invesco in London. Mr. Hanke is a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University.
In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount. I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?” and “Created Equal” and From Cradle to Grave, and – Power of the Market.“If we could just stop the printing presses, we would stop inflation,” Milton Friedman says in “How to Cure Inflation” from the Free To Choose series. Now as then, there is only one cause of inflation, and that is when governments print too much money. Milton explains why it is that politicians like inflation, and why wage and price controls are not solutions to the problem.
In this episode Friedman notes, “Inflation is just like alcoholism. In both cases when you start drinking or when you start printing too much money, the good effects come first. The bad effects only come later.
That’s why in both cases there is a strong temptation to overdo it. To drink too much and to print too much money. When it comes to the cure, it’s the other way around. When you stop drinking or when you stop printing money, the bad effects come first and the good effects only come later.”
Pt 3
Germany, 1945, a devastated country. A nation defeated in war. The new governing body was the Allied Control Commission, representing the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. They imposed strict controls on practically every aspect of life including wages and prices. Along with the effects of war, the results were tragic. The basic economic order of the country began to collapse. Money lost its value. People reverted to primitive barter where they used cameras, fountain pens, cigarettes, whiskey as money. That was less than 40 years ago.
This is Germany as we know it today. Transformed into a place a lot of people would like to live in. How did they achieve their miraculous recovery? What did they know that we don’t know?
Early one Sunday morning, it was June 20, 1948, the German Minister of Economics, Ludwig Earhardt, a professional economist, simultaneously introduced a new currency, today’s Deutsche Mark, and in one fell swoop, abolished almost all controls on prices and wages. Why did he do it on a Sunday morning? It wasn’t as you might suppose because the Stock Markets were closed on that day, it was, as he loved to confess, because the offices of the American, the British, and the French occupation authorities were closed that day. He was sure that if he had done it when they open they would have countermanded the order. It worked like a charm. Within days, the shops were full of goods. Within months, the German economy was humming along at full steam. Economists weren’t surprised at the results, after all, that’s what a price system is for. But to the rest of the world it seemed an economic miracle that a defeated and devastated country could in little more than a decade become the strongest economy on the continent of Europe.
In a sense this city, West Berlin, is something of a unique economic test tube. Set as it is deep in Communist East Germany. Two fundamentally different economic systems collide here in Europe. Ours and theirs, separated by political philosophies, definitions of freedom and a steel and concrete wall.
To digress from inflation, economic freedom does not stand alone. It is part of a wider order. I wanted to show you how much difference it makes by letting you see how the people live on the other side of that Berlin Wall. But the East German authorities wouldn’t let us. The people over there speak the same language as the people over here. They have the same culture. They have the same for bearers. They are the same people. Yet you don’t need me to tell you how differently they live. There is one simple explanation. The political system over there cannot tolerate economic freedom. The political system over here could not exist without it.
But political freedom cannot be preserved unless inflation is kept in bounds. That’s the responsibility of government which has a monopoly over places like this. The reason we have inflation in the United States or for that matter anywhere in the world is because these pieces of paper and the accompanying book entry or their counterparts in other nations are growing more rapidly than the quantity of goods and services produced. The truth is inflation is made in one place and in one place only. Here in Washington. This is the only place were there are presses like this that turn out these pieces of paper we call money. This is the place where the power resides to determine how rapidly the amount of money shall increase.
What happened to all that noise? That’s what would happen to inflation if we stop letting the amount of money grow so rapidly. This is not a new idea. It’s not a new cure. It’s not a new problem. It’s happened over and over again in history. Sometimes inflation has been cured this way on purpose. Sometimes it’s happened by accident. During the Civil War the North, late in the Civil War, overran the place in the South where the printing presses were sitting up, where the pieces of paper were being turned out. Prior to that point, the South had a very rapid inflation. If my memory serves me right, something like 4% a month. It took the Confederacy something over two weeks to find a new place where they could set up their printing presses and start them going again. During that two week period, inflation came to a halt. After the two week period, when the presses started running again, inflation started up again. It’s that clear, that straightforward. More recently, there’s another dramatic example of the only effective way to deal with rampant inflation.
In 1973, Japanese housewives going to market were faced with an unpleasant fact. The cash in their purses seemed to be losing its value. Prices were starting to sore as the awful story of inflation began to unfold once again. The Japanese government knew what to do. What’s more, they were prepared to do it. When it was all over, economists were able to record precisely what had happened. In 1971 the quantity of money started to grow more rapidly. As always happens, inflation wasn’t affected for a time. But by late 1972 it started to respond. In early 73 the government reacted. It started to cut monetary growth. But inflation continued to soar for a time. The delayed reaction made 1973 a very tough year of recession. Inflation tumbled only when the government demonstrated its determination to keep monetary growth in check. It took five years to squeeze inflation out of the system. Japan attained relative stability. Unfortunately, there’s no way to avoid the difficult road the Japanese had to follow before they could have both low inflation and a healthy economy. First they had to live through a recession until slow monetary growth had its delayed effect on inflation.
Inflation is just like alcoholism. In both cases when you start drinking or when you start printing too much money, the good effects come first. The bad effects only come later.
That’s why in both cases there is a strong temptation to overdo it. To drink too much and to print too much money. When it comes to the cure, it’s the other way around. When you stop drinking or when you stop printing money, the bad effects come first and the good effects only come later. That’s why it’s so hard to persist with the cure. In the United States, four times in the 20 years after 1957, we undertook the cure. But each time we lacked the will to continue. As a result, we had all the bad effects and none of the good effects. Japan on the other hand, by sticking to a policy of slowing down the printing presses for five years, was by 1978 able to reap all the benefits, low inflation and a recovering economy. But there is nothing special about Japan. Every country that has had the courage to persist in a policy of slow monetary growth has been able to cure inflation and at the same time achieve a healthy economy.
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms. I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside is the largest horde of gold in the world. Because the world was on a gold standard in 1929, these vaults, where the U.S. gold was stored, […]
George Eccles: Well, then we called all our employees together. And we told them to be at the bank at their place at 8:00 a.m. and just act as if nothing was happening, just have a smile on their face, if they could, and me too. And we have four savings windows and we […]
Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1 FREE TO CHOOSE: Anatomy of Crisis Friedman Delancy Street in New York’s lower east side, hardly one of the city’s best known sites, yet what happened in this street nearly 50 years ago continues to effect all of us today. […]
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 3 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: If it […]
Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 2 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Groups of concerned parents and teachers decided to do something about it. They used private funds to take over empty stores and they […]
Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 1 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Friedman: These youngsters are beginning another day at one of America’s public schools, Hyde Park High School in Boston. What happens when […]
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other […]
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 2 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are […]
Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan Liberals like President Obama (and John Brummett) want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present. This is a seven part series. […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 3 OF 7 Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. For the past 7 years Maureen Ramsey has had to buy food and clothes for her family out of a government handout. For the whole of that time, her husband, Steve, hasn’t […]
Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7) Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave Abstract: Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare. First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social Security Act […]
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
Roger Kimball is editor and publisher of The New Criterionand publisher of Encounter Books. He earned his B.A. from Bennington College and his M.A. and M.Phil. in philosophy from Yale University. He has written for numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times Book Review, and is a columnist for The Spectator World, American Greatness, and The Epoch Times. He is editor or author of several books, including The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America, The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art, Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education, and Vox Populi: The Perils and Promises of Populism.
I can tell you a few things about her, though. For one thing, she did not have a wild reputation, so I think that if she’s nominated, the Senate hearings will have to find something else to complain about. She was an English major and served on the Honor Council, a student body that enforced our honor code against lying and cheating (a great feature of academics at Rhodes that allowed us take-home tests in many classes). We were both in Mortar Board, an honor society. She wasn’t a political activist and was never a member of the College Republicans (I was, and we had a much larger membership than the College Democrats).
Amy at the homecoming game senior year
Candid photo in the social room (the ironing board refers to another picture)
L to R: Me, Amy Barrett, and my daughter
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