RUTHFULLY YOURS

Liberalism is a dirty word in today’s left. You hear it most often as an insult, neoliberalism, hurled by the hard left against anyone accused of insufficient hostility to free enterprise and other open systems. If you trust the free market and individual judgement over state regulation, you might just be a neoliberal.

And neoliberals are the biggest enemies of the left.

Liberal has become a slur on the illiberal left which is intolerant of open and tolerant systems. The defining symbol of the illiberal left is the campus safe space where no free speech is allowed. Safe spaces take the college, once the symbol of a liberal commitment to the free exchange of ideas, and invert it into a space that is safe from the free exchange of ideas under a warm and fuzzy name.

The safe space isn’t a campus eccentricity. As the riots from Berkeley to Boston show, using violence to silence free speech isn’t just something overzealous college kids do. It’s what the left does now. And sympathetic lefty mayors of cities put on the same show of helplessness as university administrators.

When the New York Times runs multiple editorials attacking the very idea of speech, one such op-ed claimed that some forms of speech were stressful and therefore a form of violence, it’s not college kids.

It’s the illiberal left.

After Trump’s win, the left reacted by finding fault with an excessively open society. The media blamed “Fake News” spread on social media for his victory and pressured Facebook, Twitter and Google into agreeing to its let its fact checkers decide what was and wasn’t legitimate. It wasn’t censorship, they insisted. It was social responsibility. And social responsibility is how censors justify what they do.

Meanwhile the latest wave of blacklists seeks to shut down organizations and silence individuals.

The post-election paranoia over Fake News and Russia, and the blacklisting surge have a common underlying theme. Our society is too open. Something has to be done to securely shut it down.

Free speech has the same problem as free enterprise. It assumes that we should trust people.

Potential donors to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) need to ask themselves, to what use their money will be put?

In the months leading up to the U.S. presidential election in November 2016, a former director of the World Jewish Congress decried the direction in which the new head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was taking the international human rights group. In a series of columns, Isi Leibler — a prominent Australian Israeli — blasted ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, for turning the 100-year-old organization, whose mission is to monitor and expose anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, into a platform that “represents an echo chamber of left-wing Democratic politics.”

Leibler first took issue with Greenblatt’s April 2016 address to the far-Left Jewish organization J Street, backed by anti-Israel billionaire George Soros.

Leibler wrote that Greenblatt “incorporated [in his speech] criticisms of Israel that were thoroughly inappropriate…[and] indirectly gave a seal of approval for the Obama administration to impose solutions on future borders that could dramatically compromise Israel’s security.”

Ironically, Greenblatt’s rebuttal, in the form of a letter to the editor of The Jerusalem Post, illustrated Leibler’s point. He not only defended J Street, referring to the people in the audience as “a group of deeply thoughtful college students whose commitment to Israel is genuine and whose passion on the issues is impressive;” he claimed that he had not been morally equivocating Israel and the Palestinians.

Columnist Isi Leibler blasted Jonathan Greenblatt (pictured above), CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and a former adviser to President Obama, for turning the 100-year-old organization, whose mission is to monitor and expose anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, into a platform that “represents an echo chamber of left-wing Democratic politics.” (Image source: Erik Hersman/Flickr)

In a subsequent piece, Leibler called Greenblatt to task for having “lost the plot, behaving as though he remained employed by the Obama administration.” Leibler cited the ADL’s July 13, 2016 statement “welcoming the Republican Party platform on Israel,” but expressing “disappoint[ment] that the platform draft departs from longstanding support of a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict… the only viable way to secure Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state.”

Leibler wrote:

“One can disagree about a two-state policy, but for an American Jewish organization which must remain bipartisan and should be concentrating on anti-Semitism to issue such a statement breaches all conventions. It is totally beyond the ADL’s mandate to involve itself in such partisan political issues.”

Yet this is just what Greenblatt did. In a September 13, 2016 article in the journal Foreign Policy, he contested a video clip of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointing to the Palestinian Authority’s outright refusal to have even a single Jew reside within the boundaries of a future Palestinian state. In the piece, titled “Sorry, Bibi, the Palestinians are not ‘ethnic cleansing’ Jewish settlers,” Greenblatt wrote that Netanyahu “chose to raise an inappropriate straw man regarding Palestinian policy toward Israeli settlements.”

Far more questionable, however, has been the ADL’s support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement — a group established in 2013 to counter police brutality against African Americans, but that quickly mushroomed into a full-fledged “intersectional” anti-American, anti-white, anti-Israel, pro-radical Palestinian organization.

About this, too, Greenblatt made what critics claim is a convoluted statement — saying that the ADL has no “official relationship with the body of activists who claim membership in this effort,” and attributing its “anti-Israel — and at times anti-Semitic — positions” to a “small minority of leaders within the Black Lives Matter movement.”

American progressives have fnally gone all the way to a totalitarian vision, demanding control over not just your behavior, but your thoughts and beliefs. This as the price of simply living without being attacked.

And hats off to Erick Erickson for naming it first. The former RedState honcho and Never-Trumper called it right, and no, I’m not talking about his near-demonic hatred of President Trump.

Last year, Erickson released a book with a title he popularized: You Will Be Made to Care: The War on Faith, Family, and Your Freedom to Believe. The book is a summation of an argument Erickson has long made. As the sexual left makes progress on its biggest projects — same-sex marriage, transgenderism acceptance, pronoun wordplay — they are increasingly unwilling to brook resistance.

Do you believe in traditional marriage but don’t care that gays marry? Think it’s OK teenagers take hormonal injections to swap genders but it’s not right for your kids? Don’t really give a hoot about someone who identifies as “xe”?

Well, too bad, sucker. The new dispensation doesn’t care for your waffling. Going forward, your private beliefs must align with your public stance. No exceptions made or allowed.

In short: You will be made to care

Erickson’s warning was just vindicated in a tweetstorm by Zack Ford, the flamboyant correspondent for the liberal blog ThinkProgress.

Ford, who is prone to pique-filled tantrums, is the site’s LGBTQ editor. His beat consists of sniffing out any hint of pro-heterosexual bias and lambasting it as bigoted, backwards, and tyrannical. He’s a proud atheist who doesn’t hesitate to cite science when it’s convenient. But, nota bene, he believes men menstruate and become pregnant.

In response to an essay by Bethany Mandel in The Federalist, Ford had a bigger meltdown than Sex in the City fans when Mr. Big dumped Carrie at the altar. In her piece, Mandel admitted to once being a supporter of gay marriage, but the liberals’ Torquemada-inspired campaign for transgenderism inclusion among children has changed her mind. Feeling hoodwinked, Mandel pointedly wrote, “The Left has shown the totalitarian manner in which it exacts support, or at least silence, from everyday Americans.”

Ford wasn’t having any of it, no siree. Even though Mandel was an “ally” during the fight for same-sex marriage, her opinion that grates upon the “Approved Position” on transgenderism is hereby invalid. “What [Mandel] argues that [sic] she should be ALLOWED to believe what she believes, even though those odious beliefs harm others,” Ford tweeted. “Indeed,” our hysterical scribe continued, “she is a quintessential example of claiming free speech to justify her bigotry.”

Then came the kicker: “You’ll be ‘made to care,’ because intolerance harms people and is unjustified and the rest of us want the world to be a better place.”

Since Hillary is setting records as a sore loser harridan with he book tour, I thought this column from 2016 says it best….rsk

Who are the haters? Who are the autocrats? Who are the serial abusers of power?

Only one presidential candidate has wielded the sledgehammer of government against personal enemies.

Only one presidential candidate has exploited a spouse’s public office to exact revenge on political dissenters.

Only one presidential candidate has a quarter-century track record of taxpayer-subsidized demagoguery and class warfare.

And, as the most recent undercover investigation by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas revealed this past week, only one presidential candidate has been directly linked to a scheme to foment chaos and violence at her opponent’s rallies.

Ignore the kindly grandma with the “Stronger Together” backdrop warbling about her happy family and singing the praises of diversity and inclusion. Look beyond the carefully manufactured semblance of bipartisanship and moderation.

Remember history — or rather, “herstory.”

Hillary Clinton isn’t just a nasty woman. She’s a ruthless hatemonger devoted wholly to two corrupt pursuits while on the federal teat: tearing down and cashing in.

To clueless millennials, “bimbo eruptions” might sound like a Trumpism. But it was vintage Team Hillary’s misogynistic moniker for horndog Slick Willie’s accuser outbreaks in the 1990s.

Respect for women? This is the snarling elitist who attacked Gennifer Flowers, a paramour of her cheating husband, as a “failed cabaret singer” whom she would verbally “crucify” if she had the chance.

Just how vindictive can Crooked Grandma be? Ask the people who know her best. David Watkins, a former top administrative aide from Arkansas in the Clinton administration, laid out the then-first-lady’s central role in the crony-motivated White House travel-office firings.

The Clintons’ old pal, Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, had pushed for wholesale dismissal of travel-office staff in favor of their connected friends.

“We both know that there would be hell to pay,” Watkins informed chief of staff Thomas McLarty, if “we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady’s wishes.”

Indeed, Hill unleashed hell. Watkins was sacked under the guise of punishment for using a government helicopter as transportation to a golfing event — something that’s a privilege for presidents, not peons.

He was far from alone. Bill and Hill’s IRS (two for the price of one, don’t forget) targeted conservative think tanks and nonprofits. Bill and Hill’s FBI improperly and illegally accessed the files of countless citizens who inconveniently ruined the Clinton narrative.

And the woman who just weeks ago mauled millions of Trump supporters nationwide as “irredeemable” and “deplorable” is a pro at sweeping demonizations.

What a way to peddle books.

Hillary Clinton, the woman who lost the White House to a candidate who never competed seriously for so much as a school-board seat, took to the airwaves to slander the man who crushed her political dreams.

President Donald J. Trump’s inaugural address was “a cry from the white-nationalist gut,” the Duchess of Chappaqua proclaimed on Sunday while pitching What Happened, her brand-new, blame-all extravaganza about why her Oval Office bid crashed and burned. As she further pronounced in an audience that she granted to CBS News: “What an opportunity to say, ‘Okay, I’m proud of my supporters, but I’m president of all Americans.’ That’s not what we heard at all.”

Wrong!

In a case of he said/she said “he didn’t say,” President Trump uttered nearly verbatim the very words that Hillary accused him of not expressing. Consider these direct quotes excerpted from President Trump’s remarks, immediately after taking the Oath of Office:

We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people. . . .

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans. . . .

So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:

You will never be ignored again.

Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.

Together, We Will Make America Strong Again.

We Will Make America Wealthy Again.

We Will Make America Proud Again.

We Will Make America Safe Again.

And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again.

Funny, President Trump’s inclusive, unifying inaugural address contains the words “we” 49 times, “I” thrice, and “white” exactly once: “It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.”

Donald Trump’s deal with the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling for three months and fund $15 billion in disaster relief has delighted the Dems and infuriated Republicans. “Trump got rolled!” was the refrain, said in disgust by one side and exultation by the other, since the Dems gave up nothing for the deal. The president seemed to rub salt in the Republicans’ wounds when he called the Senate minority leader and House minority leader “Chuck and Nancy.” The old NeverTrump claim that Trump is neither a true Conservative nor a Republican appeared prescient.

Leaving all that aside, the move probably will satisfy a majority of voters. The vote in the House before the meeting was 316-90, suggesting that the most democratic branch of government, and hence most accountable to the people, had an idea that such a move is what the people want. Later, the presumably more sober and judicious Senate agreed with an 80-17 vote. The old lesson of democracy is still valid: politicians succeed by giving people what they want. Ignoring vox populi is a surefire way to get tossed from office.

Raising the debt ceiling is an especially revealing moment in our democratic politics. The problem is critical: Common sense and simple mathematics tell us our runaway debt, deficits, and entitlement spending will in a few decades hit our economy like a Cat 5 hurricane. But the electorate’s fondness for these programs makes them nearly untouchable.

Nearly two-thirds of the annual budget goes to “mandatory” spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on $20 trillion of debt, along with some of the 83 social welfare programs. This spending will continue to grow as the population ages and interest costs return to normal levels. Social Security illustrates the problem. Its unfunded liability for the next 75 years is $12.5 trillion, an increase of 166% from just ten years ago. Social Security is losing money every year, $54 billion in 2016. In ten years that deficit will reach $215 billion in real dollars. Today, the “trust fund” financing the program is made up of Treasury debt, which means the feds have to borrow more money or raise taxes when the bonds are cashed in to pay recipients. It’s sort of like using one credit card to make a payment on another.

If left unreformed, programs like Social Security and Medicaid will hit the demographic wall: right behind the 75 million Boomers are nearly 76 million Millennials. Increasing longevity means that benefits for more people will be paid out for more years. We can’t grow ourselves or tax ourselves out of this looming disaster. Programs have to be reformed (higher employee contributions and retirement ages, and means-testing benefits), and more importantly, cut.

This problem is well known, amply documented, often decried, and seldom addressed meaningfully. Deficit and debt hawks blame politicians for pandering to the people, especially Democrats who think the “rich” don’t “pay their fair share,” and have secret vaults of money they’ve unjustly finagled from the people, even though the collective wealth of the country’s some 540 billionaires couldn’t fund the federal government for one year. Weak-kneed Republicans go along, afraid of their constituents and the progressive media that will Scrooge them royally every time a modest reform––such as cutting just the rate of increased spending for a program––is put on the table.

Watch the C-SPAN interview, click here.

Adam Andrzejewski discusses OpenTheBooks, a watchdog organization he founded that tracks government spending at the federal, state, and local levels.Brian Lamb’s inquiries dug into our OpenTheBooks’ mission, vision, data capture and oversight reports. It’s a robust body of work that we are very proud of – there was a lot to discuss over the course of an hour.

In the interview, we had an opportunity to tell our organization’s story from the beginning and explain the vision behind our lifelong commitment to government oversight.

Have you ever wondered how OpenTheBooks conducts its oversight? Adam Andrzejewski explained the process we use to hold government accountable.

Brian Lamb asked hard questions about our federal oversight reports. Here’s a list of our reports covered in the interview:

Ivy League, Inc. – The government’s $42 billion subsidy of the Ivy League schools. Watch the segment. Read the report.

The National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities – Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal arts and humanities grants flowing to asset-rich organizations, not the starving artist. Watch the segment. Read the report.

The Veterans Affairs Scandal Two Years Later – Spending $20 million in luxury art while sick veterans die waiting to see a doctor.
Watch the segment. Read the report.

Farm Subsidies & The Big Dogs – Millions of dollars in federal farm subsidies to urban areas where there are no farms.
Watch the segment. Read the report.

Fortune 100 Companies – $1.2 trillion in federal contracts and grants to the Fortune 100. Watch the segment. Read the report.

Lawyered Up 2017 – 36,000 federal lawyers enforcing the regulated states of America. Watch the segment. Read the FY2015 report.

Watch our interview now posted online:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?432472-1/qa-adam-andrzejewski

Will America, nine months into Donald Trump’s unexpected presidency, continue to chase its tail while a nuclear Korea looms, tax and immigration reform are pending, and the country is torn apart by identity politics—or will it return to sanity?

Presumably, special investigator Robert Mueller is focused mainly on whether former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, or ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, or members of the Trump family, or Trump himself colluded with agents of the Russian government.

Allegedly, either individually or in combination, they racketeered for money or business opportunities or for inflated honoraria—in exchange for abetting Russia’s efforts to hack information from the Clinton campaign affiliates that would vault Donald Trump to the White House.

Ostensibly, Mueller would be looking for suspicious bank deposits, sudden increases in cash spending, or any of the other tell-tale signs of quid pro quo profiteering. By extension, he would be pursuing leads that might show how such efforts actually altered the election, in a way that Barack Obama on the eve of the election—and a purportedly assured Clinton victory—suggested was impossible.

So far little seems to have turned up in nearly a year of intensive press and political probing—other perhaps than the lurid Christopher Steele/Fusion GPS file accusing Trump of criminal conspiracies along with a host of sexual perversions. But that dossier apparently was paid for by opposition candidates and even may have been purchased by the FBI. Its preposterousness and weird origins have turned attention back to the authors and financiers of this calibrated smear document.

As Mueller continues this inquiries (if the history of special counsels and investigators is any indication, the time, money, and effort expended is inversely related to the number of successful convictions), several investigations are underway on the other side of the aisle.

Unmasking the Unmaskers
The House Intelligence Committee at some point may turn over its findings to the attorney general to ascertain whether John Brennan, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and other high Obama intelligence, cabinet, and diplomatic officials were requesting covert intelligence findings on American citizens, having their names unmasked, and then leaking them to pet reporters. The Obama team’s activity apparently spiked during the 2015-2016 campaign season and may well have been directed at perceived political opponents. If ­­so, the leaking likely constituted criminal activity—and would represent a violation of government trust not seen in decades. The committee may also finally take a careful look at the Steele file to ask what exactly was the relationship between this political hit job and James Comey’s FBI—and those implications are every bit as serious as the unmasking mess.

Meanwhile, the FBI and Capitol police are scrutinizing former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her former information technology team, headed by Imran Awan and various members of his family. Imran, et. al., allegedly engaged in bank and procurement fraud, and may have been peddling classified government information.