Obama’s Legacy of Demagoguery and Divisiveness The “Ferguson effect” takes its toll on the African-American community while race relations are at a nadir. Ari Lieberman

When Obama assumed office in 2009, there were high hopes that the first African American president with bi-racial parents would be able to bridge the racial divide and foster unity in the country. Those hopes were soon dashed. Nearly eight years later, the nation is more polarized than ever, as devastating race riots grip large metropolitan cities with alarming frequency.

Instead of offering hope, Obama gave us demagoguery. Instead of fostering unity he stoked and encouraged divisiveness. Instead of providing concrete solutions, he issued speeches laced with empty rhetoric and platitudes. Instead of calming the nation in times of crisis, he engaged in race baiting.

The first test of Obama’s seriousness in addressing race relations came just six months after being sworn in. Police officers in Cambridge Massachusetts received a call of a possible burglary in progress and responded. When arriving at the scene, they found Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. trying to force his way into his house through a malfunctioning door. The police were unfamiliar with his identity and asked for identification to establish residency. Gates instantly became irate, indignant and uncooperative. It went downhill from there. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct, though the charges were later dropped.

An event that was essentially a misunderstanding and a local matter was suddenly thrust into the spotlight and propelled to the national stage. You see, Gates, an African American, cried racism. He also happened to be pals with Obama. Obama could have told Gates to work things out with the police or file a complaint with the Civilian Complaint Review Board if he felt slighted. Instead, Obama stoked the flames of hate by publicly siding with Gates, claiming the police “acted stupidly.”

Before ascertaining the facts, Obama rushed to judgment and immediately condemned those entrusted with safeguarding our security. His asinine response would set the administration’s tone for the next seven years. Obama later backtracked on his rush to judgment and offered the arresting police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, a beer but the damage had already been done. The only thing that the African American community took away from the encounter was that the police acted “stupidly,” thus reinforcing preexisting negative perceptions so prevalent within that community.

There is no doubt that some level of tension exists between various police departments and members of the African American community but the president has a responsibility to calm frayed nerves and foster understanding and outreach. Instead, Obama has done the opposite. Race-baiting, tax cheats and serial liars like Al Sharpton are frequent guests of the White House. According to official records, Sharpton visited the White House on more than 100 occasions and that number excludes official administration visits to him.

Trump Takes on Holt and Hillary …and the whole system. Daniel Greenfield

Donald Trump’s main opponent in the first presidential debate wasn’t Hillary Clinton. It was NBC anchor Lester Holt. Hillary, with forced smiles as brittle as china and an eerie fake laugh, continued her primary debate strategy of repeating canned talking points while waiting for the moderator to knock off her opponent. Hillary wasn’t there to debate, but to once again seem like the only possible option.

Holt’s job was to make her seem like the only possible option by targeting Trump.

There were fears that Lester Holt would be another Candy Crowley. That was unfair to Crowley. The entire debate was structurally biased. Its general topics were framed in narrow left-wing terms, instead of discussing the economy and moving the country forward, Holt defined the topics as class warfare and racial divisiveness. Even national security was narrowed down to Obama’s favorite battlespace, cyberspace, rather than the actual battlefield.

Trump was hit with repeated personal attacks and gotcha questions by Holt, who then took to arguing with him over the facts. Hillary, despite having been under investigation by the FBI, received only a perfunctory offer from Lester Holt to comment on her emails after Trump had raised the issue.

But Holt’s overt bias also proved to be his undoing. Candy Crowley had been effective because her interjection into the debate between Obama and Romney had come as something of a surprise. Holt made his agenda clear at the outset. And it also made him easy to ignore, as Trump frequently did.

Like small boys jumping into a mud pile, media personalities had been urging each other on for weeks to abandon even the pretense of objectivity and just go after Trump. That’s what Holt did in his awkward and impotent way. And it proved to be ineffective as he quickly lost control of the debate. Holt, like the rest of his media cohort, had failed to understand that overt bias makes them less effective.

Hillary’s role in the debate was to grit her teeth and smile awkwardly, then deliver a few scripted attacks and lines that would allow her media allies to hail her as the winner. It was an easy job that she botched.

Debate Wrap-Up: Media Bashing of Lauer Has Desired Effect as Lester Holt Lets His Bias Fly Candy Crowley in a suit. By Stephen Kruiser

Forget everything you read or heard about Lester Holt being a Republican. After Matt Lauer dared to ask Hillary Clinton a couple of very fair questions at the Commander-in-Chief Forum and was savaged by the likes of WaPo, The New York Times and MSNBC, Lester Holt made sure that he didn’t end up being the story in the MSM tomorrow.

The first part of the debate was actually all right for Holt, but the wheels flew off when they got to how each candidate would handle healing the racial divide in the U.S. Holt went for the birther issue with Trump, which isn’t off the table but has very little relevance to what faces our next president. Had Hillary brought it up it would have been fine. For Holt to interject it during what was supposed to be a substantive discussion on race relations made it seem as if he were being fed questions directly from Clinton HQ.

Holt then hit Trump with a question about him saying that Hillary didn’t have a presidential “look,” which obviously just served as a platform for Hillary to call Trump a sexist. It was George- Stephanopoulos-are-you-going-to-ban-contraception bad.

His final question asked the candidates if they would both accept the will of the voters in November, which is the kind of thing one might find precocious and adorable if asked by a third grader but was groan-worthy coming from a grown man.

The number of vulnerable areas he pressed Hillary about was zero so I can’t give you any examples of those.

Having said all that, Trump still could have done much better. He seemed like he was trying to cover ALL the ground with every answer. That meandering took away a lot of his bite. He would have been better off picking three or four really vulnerable areas (emails, Benghazi, etc.) and hammering away at those until she became irritated and imperious, as she always does. I know the press loves to talk about him being easily provoked, but she may still have the thinnest skin in this election. He wouldn’t have to push her buttons too many times to get her into the “We are not amused…” zone. CONTINUE AT SITE

U.S. Murders Increased 10.8% in 2015 The figures, released by the FBI, could stoke worries that the trend of falling crime rates may be ending By Devlin Barrett

Murders in the U.S. jumped 10.8% in 2015, according to figures released Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation—a sharp increase that could fuel concerns that the nation’s two-decade trend of falling crime may be ending.

The figures had been expected to rise, after preliminary data released earlier this year indicated violent crime and murders were climbing. But the double-digit increase in murders dwarfed any of the past 20 years, in which the biggest one-year jump was 3.7% in 2005.

In 2014, the FBI recorded violent crimes of all types narrowly falling, by 0.2%. In 2015, the number of violent crimes rose 3.9%, though the number of property crimes fell 2.6%, the FBI said.

Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said a key driver of the jump in murders may be increasing distrust of police in major cities where controversial officer shootings of African-American residents have led to protests.

Members of minority and poor communities may be more reluctant to talk to police and help them solve crimes, part of the “Ferguson effect”—a term used by law-enforcement officials referring to the aftermath of the killing of an unarmed, black 18-year-old man in Ferguson, Mo., by a policeman in 2014.

Some law-enforcement officials, including FBI Director James Comey, have said that since the Ferguson shooting and protests, some officers may be more reluctant to get out of their patrol cars and engage in the kind of difficult work that reduces street crime, out of fear they may be videotaped and criticized publicly.

“This rise is concentrated in certain large cities where police-community tensions have been notable,’’ said Mr. Rosenfeld, citing Cleveland, Baltimore, and St. Louis as examples. The increase isn’t spread evenly around America, he pointed out, but centered on big cities with large black populations.

In all, there were 15,696 instances of murder and nonnegligence manslaughter in the U.S. last year, the FBI said.

The Sino-Russian Axis Joint naval exercises show a common strategic purpose: Push the U.S. out.

China and Russia completed an eight-day joint naval exercise in the South China Sea last week, and this time the location was also the message. The two autocracies are expanding cooperation and offering each other support in their territorial disputes, a trend that could fuel instability from East Asia to Central Europe.

Days before the drill, which focused on antisubmarine warfare and what a Xinhua dispatch called “island-seizing,” Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping held their 15th bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hangzhou. Mr. Putin announced support for Beijing’s aggressive sovereignty claims in the South China Sea and opposition to “any third-party interference,” an unsubtle reference to the United States.

Mr. Putin’s kowtow to Beijing carries some risks. Vietnam, which angrily opposes China’s behavior, is a major buyer of Russian arms and grants Russian forces access to runways and the strategic port of Cam Ranh Bay. Mr. Putin talked up ties with Hanoi and its neighbors when he hosted a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Sochi in May, but cozying up to Beijing sends the opposite signal.

Mr. Putin also has plenty of reason to distrust China, which undermines his influence in Central Asia, asserts itself in the Arctic and may have designs on Russia’s Far East, where some two million illegal Chinese migrants work as miners, fishermen and farmers because Russia lacks the labor to tap its natural resources. Russian trade with China has fallen below expectations in recent years, and the $400 billion, 30-year bilateral gas deal signed in 2014 is stalled over pipeline construction.

Yet Mr. Putin is tilting toward Beijing anyway. He doesn’t have a better buyer for his gas and still hopes to hit $200 billion in bilateral trade by 2020, up from $68 billion last year.

A Drug Cartel at the FDA A new rule will produce a lawsuit rush and raise prices for generics.

The anaphylactic political shock over EpiPen prices continues, and last week a House committee dragged in the company CEO. But some outrage should land on the Food and Drug Administration, which won’t approve a generic stinger that would end Mylan’s monopoly power. Instead, the agency is finishing regulation that will restrict competition precisely as patients are demanding cheaper medicines.

The FDA will next year complete a new rule on labeling generic drugs, which are chemically no different from brand-name versions but sell at an average 80% discount. One reason generics are so much cheaper is that the drugs are approved under an expedited FDA process and bear identical labels to branded equivalents—side effects and so on. The FDA would allow generic producers to alter their own labels to include “up-to-date” safety risks, as the agency puts it.

That sounds innocuous, but here’s the fine print: Generic producers would be exposed to a crush of new lawsuits. The Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that generic drug makers are shielded from torts that accuse a company of failing to warn consumers of risks. The reason for the dispensation is that generic producers are not at liberty to tweak their labels. The FDA’s rule would skirt that precedent, and the law: The 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act requires branded and generic drugs to be identical “in all respects—including labeling,” to borrow from a 2014 letter from Congress to the FDA.

Unleashing the trial lawyers would increase generics spending by $5.6 billion in 2017, and the figure reaches $8.6 billion in 2024, according to a report by Alex Brill of Matrix Global Advisors. Consumers will pay for legal fees and settlements through higher drug prices. Small companies may not be able to absorb the expense. Even large firms will suffer because he industry sells its generic products near marginal cost. The result is likely to be less of the competition that drives down prices: A patient pays a mere 20% of the brand-name cost when eight generic firms are battling for market share, an FDA analysis found.

The Secrets of Cheryl Mills If there was no evidence of criminal activity, why all the immunity? By William McGurn

Why did Cheryl Mills require criminal immunity?

This is the irksome question hanging over the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s home-brew server in the wake of news that Ms. Mills was granted immunity for her laptop’s contents.

Ms. Mills was a top Clinton aide at the State Department who became Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer when she left. She was also a witness, as well as a potential target, in the same FBI investigation into her boss’s emails. The laptop the bureau wanted was one Ms. Mills used in 2014 to sort Clinton emails before deciding which would be turned over to State.

Here’s the problem. There are two ways a witness can get immunity: Either she invokes the Fifth Amendment on the grounds she might incriminate herself, or, worried something on the laptop might expose her to criminal liability, her lawyers reveal what this might be before prosecutors agree to an immunity deal.

As with so much else in this investigation, the way the laptop was handled was out of the ordinary. Normally, immunity is granted for testimony and interviews. The laptop was evidence. Standard practice would have been for the FBI to get a grand-jury subpoena to compel Ms. Mills to produce it.

Andrew McCarthy, a former U.S. attorney, puts it this way: “It’s like telling a bank robbery suspect, ‘If you turn over that bag, I’ll give you immunity as to the contents’—which means if the money you robbed is in there, I can’t use it against you.”

The Mills immunity, which we learned of on Friday, has unfortunately been overwhelmed by the first Trump-Clinton debate. But the week is still young. On Wednesday, Congress will have an opportunity to put the Mills questions to FBI director James Comey when he appears before the House Judiciary Committee.

Back in July, Mr. Comey must have thought he’d settled the issue of Mrs. Clinton’s emails with a grandstanding press conference in which he asserted “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against her based on what the FBI had found. In so doing, he effectively wrested the indictment decision (and any hope for political accountability) from the Justice Department. Plainly even his own agents weren’t buying, given that Mr. Comey later felt the need to issue an internal memo whining that he wasn’t being political. CONTINUE AT SITE

Fact-Checking: Hillary’s ‘The FBI Has Exonerated Me’ Claim By Andrew C. McCarthy

It’s amusing to listen to flacks for Hillary Clinton, a pathological liar, plead with Lester Holt that he must play activist debate moderator, ready to pounce on Donald Trump’s misstatements. The Clinton campaign, when not reviewing immunity agreements, has put out a “Seven Deadly Lies” script in hopes of enticing Mr. Holt to go all Candy Crowley this evening.

Personally, I’d far prefer no moderator to an activist one. Correcting the adversary’s misstatements and turning them to one’s advantage is the debater’s skill – you’re not supposed to need the moderator’s help, you’re supposed to show us you can handle it on your own.

When I was a prosecutor, it was par for the course for defense lawyers to misstate the record in closing arguments to the jury. To leap out of one’s chair and scream, “objection” when this happened was both unsatisfying and risky. Usually, the most you’d get would be a tepid admonition from the judge that “the jury’s recollection of the evidence” – not the lawyers’ – is what matters. But if the judge did try to correct the record, there was always the danger that the judge would either get it wrong (in which case the prosecutor is in the awkward position of having to correct the judge and thus make the defense lawyer look good), or appear to be bullying the defense lawyer – which could engender the jury’s sympathy.

I always preferred to let the lawyers say what they wanted to say. I knew I’d get my turn to rebut. In so doing, I’d not only be able to show the jury that the defense lawyers had made misleading arguments; it would also be the perfect opportunity to argue that people only try to spin you when they know the truth destroys them – which became the launch point for repeating my three or four best facts. That is, the adversary’s falsehoods didn’t hurt me; they were a chance for me to make them look bad while reinforcing my own case.

In any event, I don’t know how interested people are in Mrs. Clinton’s favorite “deadly lie,” the fact that Trump has been disingenuous in claiming he opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. A number of us pointed this out during the GOP primary campaign (see, e.g., here), to no effect. Moreover, Clinton voted for the Iraq war and then became part of the withering Democratic campaign to undermine it. To me, that seems a lot more consequential than Trump’s comparatively uninformed and irrelevant meanderings on the subject. (By “comparatively uninformed and irrelevant,” I mean that Clinton, by comparison, (a) was a member of the Senate serving on the Armed Services Committee, who was thus keenly aware of the alarming intelligence regarding Saddam Hussein; and (b) famously accused General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker of lying about progress in Iraq after the surge.) It seems to me that Clinton’s harping about Trump’s stance on Iraq only calls attention to her own wavering – which even many Democrats have rebuked.

One lie I would like to see fact-checked, though, is Clinton’s repeated one – which she’s certain to rehash this evening, namely: The FBI’s year-long investigation “exonerated” her of wrongdoing in the email scandal.

In point of fact, the FBI merely drew the conclusion that Clinton should not be charged with a crime. Even if we assume for argument’s sake that this was a valid conclusion (in fact, it is hugely suspect), finding that someone should not be indicted is far from exoneration. CONTINUE AT SITE

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Defends U.S. Syria Policy No ‘Plan B,’ U.S. still considers the cease-fire deal to be ‘the best way forward,’ administration says By Felicia Schwartz

Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday faulted the Russian government for continued violence in Syria and for the accompanying collapse of a diplomatic process aimed at eventually solving the more than five-year-long civil war.

“The cause of what is happening is Assad and Russia wanting to simply try to pursue a military victory,” Mr. Kerry told reporters during a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian regime, supported by Russia, on Monday pressed ahead in eastern Aleppo with an offensive that has killed hundreds and come under fierce criticism from the U.S. and other world powers.

Mr. Kerry, despite growing frustration, said he would continue to try to repair a cease-fire deal with Russia that took effect Sept. 12 and collapsed about a week later.

“It would be diplomatic malpractice” not to pursue talks, Mr. Kerry said.

The chief U.S. diplomat said Russia and Mr. Assad “seem intent on taking Aleppo and destroying it in the process,” which he said doesn’t create good faith toward a negotiation process.

“We will have to see whether or not anything can develop in the next days that indicates a different approach from the Russians and from the regime,” Mr. Kerry said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia is concerned that “terrorists” are using the truce to regroup, replenish their arsenals and prepare for more attacks. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said the cease-fire “is not dead yet.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon made note of an uptick in violence in and around Aleppo, as well as in Hama and east of Damascus.

“We have unfortunately seen only an increase in hostilities in recent days,” said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. CONTINUE AT SITE

What We Learned in Scandinavia About Migrants. Sweden failed. Norway succeeded—in part because it did what Trump does: Listen. By Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo

Mr. Cotton is a Republican senator from Arkansas. Mr. Pompeo is a Republican congressman from Kansas.

We recently visited Norway and Sweden to understand more about the European migrant crisis. What we saw provides important lessons for the American immigration debate.

More than 1.5 million people have relocated to Europe over the last two years. Many are refugees from Syria, Iraq and other war-torn lands. Many are simply economic migrants leaving poorer nations. This mass migration has strained European societies and upended European politics with populist insurgencies.

Though economically and demographically similar, Norway and Sweden have adopted sharply different approaches to the policy and politics of immigration, and have reaped sharply differing outcomes.

Starting in 2015, Norway adopted an immigration policy it has termed “strict but fair.” The Norwegians agreed to accept 8,000 migrants from other European nations, though they weren’t obligated to do so.

Norway also established measures to stop uncontrolled migration. It imposed new border controls featuring a border fence, increased waiting periods for residency and deportation of ineligible migrants. It also reduced migrant benefits to match those offered by its neighbors. Norway even advertised in foreign nations, warning that migrants who do not face war or persecution will be deported.

The result? Asylum applications in Norway fell 95% between the last quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.

Norway is far from hardhearted. It has welcomed refugees for decades and its foreign policy prioritizes conflict resolution and humanitarian relief. But Norwegians understand that an open-border policy would strain their resources, disrupt the integration of other recently arrived immigrants, and undercut the legitimate desire of Norwegians to preserve their nation’s culture and character.

Also significant: Norway’s political system has effectively accommodated a broad spectrum of views on immigration. The Progress Party, the traditional home for immigration skeptics, has won the second- or third-largest share of seats in the Norwegian Parliament since the 1990s. Rather than shun Progress, as has happened to similar parties in many European countries, mainstream leaders welcomed it into the political debate and, eventually, into the governing coalition. As one government leader explained to us, “In Norway, we discuss every issue and concern. Nothing is out of bounds.”

Contrast this with Sweden’s approach. Sweden threw open its doors in 2013, offering Syrian refugees permanent residency. Asylum applications from across the world—not just Syria—spiked. Sweden has since received more than 280,000 migrants, and counting. That is by far the most migrants per capita of any EU nation and akin to the U.S. adding the population of Michigan. These migrants are disproportionately poor, young, male, undereducated, conservatively Muslim and possess virtually no Swedish-language skills.

This radical policy occurred with little debate because political correctness pervades Sweden. They even have a term for the phenomenon: åsiktskorridor, or “the opinion corridor.” Any questions about the economic, fiscal and cultural impact of an immediate influx of migrants clearly lay outside the corridor; asking them could result in accusations of xenophobia or racism.

But these questions are real and they reflect legitimate concerns for the Swedish people. Because conventional political parties didn’t respond to public concern, a controversial immigration-restrictionist party, the Sweden Democrats, more than doubled its vote share in the 2014 elections and became the third-largest party in parliament. The left and the right refused to work with the Sweden Democrats, creating a hamstrung minority government.

Faced with growing public dissatisfaction, the Swedish government finally relented and imposed border controls and other restrictions this summer. But not before committing more than 7% of its 2016 budget to migrant services, with costs set to steadily increase. No one knows where the new money will come from, where many of the recent migrants will live or work, or what the ultimate social impact will be.

Sweden’s failures have been repeated in Germany, France, Austria and elsewhere. Immigration was the key issue driving British votes to leave the European Union

The parallels to the U.S. immigration debate are clear. For years, a bipartisan elite consensus has favored the mass immigration of unskilled and low-skilled workers into America coupled with the legalization of millions of illegal immigrants already here. Only one thing has stopped these elites from their desired immigration policy: Two-thirds to three-quarters of Americans consistently oppose any increase in immigration. CONTINUE AT SITE