RUTHFULLY YOURS

For a change, we come not to bury a college president but to praise him. His name is Robert Zimmer, and nearby the University of Chicago president defends the educational and societal virtues of free speech on college campuses. Let’s hope he wears body armor to the next faculty meeting.

Mr. Zimmer’s public coming out is all the more notable because it appears to be part of a university-wide message. The school’s dean of students, Jay Ellison, has written a letter to incoming freshmen noting that the desire for “safe spaces” from discomfiting speech or ideas will not override the academic community’s interest in rigorous debate.

“Members of our community are encouraged to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn, without fear of censorship,” Mr. Ellison wrote for tender millennial ears. “You will find that we expect members of our community to be engaged in rigorous debate, discussion, and even disagreement. At times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort.”

This is so refreshing we want to keep going. Mr. Ellison’s letter adds that Chicago’s “commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

The letter comes with a monograph by dean John Boyer discussing the university’s “history of debate, and even scandal, resulting from our commitment to academic freedom.” Maybe Chicago’s example will inspire spinal infusions at the likes of Rutgers, the University of Missouri, and even the timorous souls at Yale.

As President Obama ends his second term, he’s leaving plenty of political parting gifts. The latest is a 35% single-year increase in the federal budget deficit, and a rising trajectory of spending and debt as a share of the economy. Hillary Clinton’s campaign promise of more “stimulus” spending next year suddenly looks a lot more politically problematic.

That’s the story you haven’t read from the Congressional Budget Office’s latest fiscal and economic outlook released this week. For the 2016 fiscal year that ends next month, CBO now forecasts that revenues will rise by only $26 billion while outlays will increase by some $178 billion. The federal deficit will therefore rise from $438 billion to $590 billion, the biggest deficit since 2013.

The revenue shortfall reflects the decline in corporate profits and slower economic growth; the second quarter was revised down to 1.1% Friday. Meanwhile, outlays will rise 5% thanks in large part to the automatic spending drivers of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (which has soared thanks to ObamaCare). Net interest outlays will rise 11% this fiscal year despite historically low interest rates as overall debt continues to increase.As a share of the national economy, debt held by the public—the kind the Treasury must repay—will increase to 76.6% this fiscal year. That’s the highest share of GDP since 1950 when the debt burden was winding down after World War II. It was 52.3% in President Obama’s first year in office, and it usually is flat or falls during an economic expansion.

No such debt reduction is on the horizon now. Thanks to ObamaCare and his refusal to reform entitlements, Mr. Obama has set the federal fisc on an even uglier path long after he’s left for a tour of the world’s great golf courses. CBO says spending will keep rising and so will debt as a share of GDP—to 77.2% in 2017, 79.3% in 2021 and 85.5% in 2026. (See the nearby chart.) All of this assumes no change in current policy and no economic recession. The odds of the latter are close to zero.

One intriguing question is whether Mr. Obama has planned it this way. One of his abiding goals has been to reorient federal spending away from defense toward more income redistribution and social spending. He has achieved that to some extent during his eight years in office, but his spending wedge will grow even more pronounced as the years go on. Budget room for defense will shrink as the entitlement state expands. He is Europeanizing the U.S. military budget.CONTINUE AT SITE

On August 24, 2016 Reuters published an astonishing headline, “U.S. seeks Latin American help amid rise in Asian, African migrants.”

This is the sort of headline that might be expected on April First — for the April Fool’s edition of the news. Unfortunately, this is not a bogus headline, but it most certainly is a bogus tactic crafted by the Obama administration.

The borders of the United States are America’s first line of defense and last line of defense against international terrorist organizations and transnational gangs. However, whenever our government or members of such volunteer organizations as the Minutemen have attempted to stanch the flow of illegal aliens and contraband from Mexico into the United States, the government of Mexico has reacted swiftly and derisively.

Yet Obama is now reportedly seeking assistance from the government of Mexico and has, in the past, sought assistance from Panama and other Latin American countries.

What you need to consider as you read the Reuters account is that the Tri-Border Region of Brazil harbors terror training camps and that members of Hezbollah, Hamas and likely al-Qaeda and ISIS are present in that lawless and dangerous region of the country.

The report claims that illegal aliens from Asia, Africa and the Middle East first head to Brazil to pick up altered or counterfeit passports before heading to the United States. Whether or not they are getting their passports from the Tri-Border Region of Brazil is open to speculation. But the dangers that this poses to our national security cannot be over-emphasized.

I delved into the issue of the dangers of the Tri-Border Region of Brazil in a recent FrontPage Magazine article, “Released Gitmo Detainee Goes Missing in Latin America: How Obama’s dash to release terror suspects from Guantanamo threatens U.S. national security.”

The August 24th report published by Reuters begins this way:

Washington is seeking closer coordination with several Latin American countries to tackle a jump in migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who it believes are trying to reach the United States from the south on an arduous route by plane, boat and through jungle on foot.

“The [American Bar Association] wants to do exactly what the text calls for: limit lawyers’ expression of viewpoints that it disapproves of. … state courts and state bars should resist the pressure to adopt it.” — Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and Washington Post columnist.

The language of Resolution 109 is “so broad it could mean anything… a kind of a speech code that restricts perfectly acceptable speech… anything you say might offend someone and therefore you can be punished for it.” — Ilya Shapiro, Cato Institute.

The ABA declined to answer questions for this article, as did the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU, which calls itself “our nation’s guardian of liberty,” and touts itself as fighting for “your right… to speak out – for or against – anything at all,” has not issued any statements or press releases about the model rule revision.

The struggle between free speech and speech codes that are intended to prevent harassment and discrimination appears set to leap from college campuses to law offices around the United States.

On August 8, 2016, the American Bar Association (ABA) approved resolution 109, which curtails freedom of speech. The approved resolution amended its model rule of professional conduct 8.4. It prohibits

“conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.”

The official comment explains:

“discrimination includes harmful verbal or physical conduct that manifests bias or prejudice towards others. Harassment includes sexual harassment and derogatory or demeaning verbal or physical conduct.”

The model rule is non-binding, but has potentially great influence on professional conduct rules that state courts require lawyers to follow. Should state courts adopt the change, lawyers found to violate it could be sanctioned and possibly disbarred. Because professional rules are legally binding on lawyers, the prospect that states may regulate “verbal conduct” implicates First Amendment concerns.

The ABA declined to answer questions for this article, as did the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU, which calls itself “our nation’s guardian of liberty,” and touts itself as fighting for “your right… to speak out – for or against – anything at all,” has not issued any statements or press releases about the model rule revision.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/a-soldiers-soldier
A Soldier’s Soldier by Colonel Kenneth Allard (U.S. Army, Ret.)

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/soldier-down-general-vessey-rest-in-peace?f=commentary
Soldier Down . . . General Vessey, Rest in Peace. by Ambassador Henry F. Cooper

Not quite seventeen, this “soldier’s soldier” volunteered to become a Minnesota National Guardsman and received an Anzio battlefield commission in World War II and the Army’s second highest medal for valor, the Distinguished Service Cross, in Viet Nam. He led the U.S. and U.N. Forces in Korea and opposed withdrawing U.S. Forces which cost him the Army Chief of Staff post under President Jimmie Carter-an implicit rebuke cast aside when President Ronald Reagan appointed him as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and after his retirement and return to Minnesota into other important posts. President George H.W. Bush awarded Gen. Vessey the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. A life of service with unquestionable integrity.