Reprinted with permission of the Courier-Journal
Here's the link Previous efforts to cut and paste it ran in to formatting issues -- I will try to fix later.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
My C-J Column on Campus Free Speech
Reprinted with permission of the Courier-Journal
Here's the link Previous efforts to cut and paste it ran in to formatting issues -- I will try to fix later.
Monday, April 24, 2017
POTUS's Kind Surprise
One of my childhood friends, Claudia Tenney, was recently elected to Congress for NY-22. Claudia is a strong constitutional conservative.
She was at the White House last week as part of an Executive Order signing ceremony, and had a few minutes to visit with President Donald Trump.
Claudia's son, Trey, is an Annapolis graduate scheduled to deploy to Iraq, yesterday I believe. When Trump heard this, he called Trey to thank him for his service and wish him Godspeed.
It was so unexpected. It's true that his mother is a Congresswoman. But she is just one of 435, and a freshman.
Trump's thoughtfulness reveals a side of him not normally portrayed in the mainstream media. There is so much more to him as a person than the left understands. Thankfully, however, the American people get it.
God bless you both, Trey and President Trump.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Good For Trump on Syria Strike and MOAB
There has been some anxiety on the right about President Donald Trump's surprise bombing of Syria and then using the Mother of All Bombs ("MOAB" on Isis strongholds in Afghanistan.
I was relieved to see an American president acting like an American president again. Trump said he'd bomb the sh** out of Isis, and he kept his promised.
The Syrians lied to the Obama administration. As recent horrific pictures showed, the Assad regime did not get rid of its chemical weapons. That was a blatant, repeated lie to among others, America's secretary of state. We have a national security interest in countries not lying to our government about their possession of chemical weapons.
The pictures of the children dying from exposure to chemical gas called for a response on a visceral level. The lies to our government about the destruction of chemical weapons also called for a response. The two wrongs dovetailed into something that Trump was right to address forcefully.
I take seriously Sen. Rand Paul's concerns about the U.S. waging unconstitutional wars. There is no reason for Congress to fail to decline war in instances like Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf wars. Certainly those conflicts dragged on long enough that there was plenty of time.
But the strikes in Syria and the MOAB bombing in Afghanistan were in and out -- not protracted wars. A Congressional Declaration of War would have destroyed any element of surprise. And I think the bombings are also distinguishable because we did not send in troops.
Without analyzing precedents on the war powers act, these limited bombings strike me as constitutional.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Elaine Chao on Politico Podcast
Politico has started a new podcast called Women Rule and the latest episode features Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. I recommend it -- particularly to young women looking to get ahead in male dominated industries.
Chao discusses immigrating to America as an eight year old who spoke no English and didn't know how to use a fork. Although I have heard Chao talk about this experience before, I am always struck by how much her family overcame, and their courage in coming here; Chao's mother stayed back in China with Chao and two of her sisters for three years before they were able to join her husband in America.
It's just extraordinary that Chao rose to serve four different presidents, two as a member of the cabinet. Her family illustrates the American dream. It never fails to encourage me.
Chao had some interesting insights in working in places where she was the only woman. She didn't like sports and therefore could not participate in the banter that preceded the work of meetings. And she decided that because she really was not interested, she would not try to learn a little something about sports and fake it; she was authentic to her own interests.
She was able to become included by virtue of her mastery of subjects like transportation and finance. Subject mastery, Chao observed, is empowering. Women tend to prepare more than men, Chao noted, and that has been her style as well.
Chao advised younger women to not be afraid of making a mistake, particularly misspeaking. In part, that comes from Chao's view of America as a land of second chances. It also reflects her observation that Americans are not like Asians -- who choose words deliberately and listen to others with the expectation they did likewise. In America, there's a good chance no one will remember the mistake, Chao said.
In addition to insights about her leadership style, Chao gives some tidbits about her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Kentuckians will not be surprised to hear what a considerate spouse he is. Still, it's hard to comprehend the Senate Majority Leader doing laundry.
Tic Toc on Obamacare
The Wall Street Journal points out that we are literally running out of time to repeal and replace Obamacare; thank goodness that talks appear to be reviving.
A few points worth highlighting from the Journal:
- HHS Secretary Tom Price has considerable authority to make improvements while the House wrestles with the long term solution. Price can use legal waiver authority to give the states freedom to experiment with alternatives to Obamacare. No, the changes would not be permanent if done in this manner, but if they work, it would make for a stronger argument to make them permanent in legislation.
- Here's where the time crunch comes in; insurers are designing their 2018 products, which will require state approval this summer. More and more insurers will come to the conclusion that they would rather leave a locale than try to service it under existing Obamacare rules. That means less choice (or even no choice) for consumers.
Friday, April 7, 2017
Congratulations, Justice Gorsuch!
He will be an outstanding justice. His intellect is unquestioned. He's conservative. And as a friend who worked with him at the Department of Justice recalled, he is a kind and decent man.
Another friend who works for Concerned Women of America told me that CWA knocked on literally millions of doors to get Trump elected -- all because of the Supreme Court vacancy.
When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a referendum of the open seat, he changed the course of the election and of history. To all those Dems who are still whining about Merrick Garland, if the Dems had won, Hillary Clinton could have renominated him. Nothing was stolen here. McConnell made the open seat the central question of the election, and the Dems lost.
Live long and prosper, Justice Gorsuch.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Fentanyl is the New Heroin
The U.S. "Drug Czar" Richard Baum. recently sent a terrifying letter to Congress about fentanyl. That's the synthetic opioid that is increasingly being mixed with heroin, and causing numerous overdose deaths Louisville.
According to Baum's letter as covered by the Wall Street Journal, fentanyl is pouring into the U.S. from Mexico, Canada and even by mail from China.
Fentanyl is so powerful that just two milligrams will kill a person. It's 50 times more powerful than heroin. Federal officials seized 668 kilograms of fentanyl last year -- enough to kill every man, woman and child in our country.
Fentanyl is also appearing in counterfeit prescription pain pills that are sold as something less potent than fentanyl; the consumer thinks she's getting one thing and ends up with fentanyl instead, without knowing it. What a nightmare.
Why GOP Needed to Nuke 'Em
Politico has a good piece by Josh Holmes, whom many Kentuckians will remember as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's Chief of Staff.
As Josh, points out, Mitch's decision to invoke the nuclear option was set in motion years ago by Sen. Chuck Schumer.
ICYMI: My C-J Column on Cutting Federal Funds for Public Radio, TV
I actually like some of the content on PBS and would happily subscribe to watch Downton Abbey. Here's my column, reprinted with permission of the Courier-Journal.
There are a lot of things that poor people cannot afford. That’s why we need economic policies to allow people who want to work hard to escape poverty — not policies to make poverty more comfortable.
Nightmare on Elm Street is not a film one associates with public broadcasting and as best I am aware, it has never aired on that august network. Yet its villain, Freddy Krueger, is an apt mascot for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB): Both survive despite repeated attempts to kill them.
Many Republican presidents and presidential candidates have called to end federal support of public broadcasting since President Lyndon Johnson established it fifty years ago. The Trump administration’s proposed budget would end public funding for PBS and NPR.
It’s true that PBS has broadcast some wonderful programs over the years. I grew up watching Zoom and Masterpiece Theater. More recently, I watched every episode of Downton Abbey.
The success of shows like Downton Abby, however, demonstrate why federal tax dollars need no longer subsidize PBS, and its radio equivalent, NPR. Downton Abbey’s popularity was so immense that it could have charged a subscription. Further, each episode was preceded by tony infomercials for Viking Cruises or Ralph Lauren. The airing of Downton Abbey could have been funded with additional advertising.
When PBS was established in the late 1960’s, the public was generally limited to the three major networks. PBS added a fourth choice. Because these networks were broadcast over a finite spectrum, we could not have the hundreds of channels that cable offers.
MORE DISCUSSION OF BUDGET CUTS
PBS was intended to provide programming that could not be found elsewhere. With so many avenues to air content today, it is inconceivable that some other network or channel would have failed to pick up a show like Downton Abbey; it would have been shown with or without PBS. Just as HBO now airs Sesame Street. Netflix likewise has tapped into the love for Downton Abbey by producing original series such as The Crown.
When Julia Child taught Americans how to make beef bourguignon on PBS, it was groundbreaking television. Now we have entire cable channels devoted to the culinary arts. PBS may have discovered Julia Child, but cable replicated the success of the French Chef with a new generation of celebrity chefs.
The free market has taken the best of PBS and not only emulated it but democratized it to serve a broader array of tastes.
Public Broadcasting was predicated on the anti-capitalist and elitist assumption that we need bureaucrats to select programming that is good for us, that will educate us and refine our sensibilities.
Technology, however, has made the public broadcasting model obsolete. Given today’s proliferation of cable channels, plus streaming from services like Netflix and Amazon, the market can provide content that formerly came from PBS.
Fifty years ago, it made sense for the government to subsidize radio and television stations for rural areas that would otherwise not have a station. Now those customers are moving online to download content. Even remote areas are finally getting high-speed internet service, which will lead to more educational and entertainment options than public broadcasting ever could provide. That’s a better use of federal tax dollars than funding the CPB.
Some will argue that poor people cannot afford cable or the internet and their children will be disadvantaged if they cannot watch PBS. Although Sesame Street teaches pre-school skills, so do many books available for free at the library. There are a lot of things that poor people cannot afford. That’s why we need economic policies to allow people who want to work hard to escape poverty — not policies to make poverty more comfortable.
The federal government spends $445 million a year on public broadcasting. That’s 0.01 percent of the federal budget. As a portion of the federal budget, it’s a pittance. The same argument was made about earmarks: It’s not much money, so why bother eliminating them.
That’s the wrong way to think about the federal budget. The first question should be whether the budget item is so important to America that we should borrow the money from China to pay for it. The second question should be whether the budget item is an appropriate role for government — something that the private sector cannot or will not do instead of (or even better than) the government. Public broadcasting fails these tests.
But given that federal support of the CPB constitutes less than seven percent of PBS’s budget and less than one percent of NPR’s budget, these organizations should be able to survive without federal funding. Perhaps all those threats of cuts over the years have weaned the CPB from reliance on federal tax dollars.
Those who don’t mind paying a portion of their taxes to the CPB can donate to it. Hopefully, upcoming tax cuts will free up money for all of us to make donations wherever we see fit. Or buy more polo shirts and take more cruises to fund the CPB the American way: through advertising.
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