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For Mon., Nov. 27, 2017
~All Gave Some~Some Gave
All~God Bless America
This Email Just Blew The Lid Off The Trump-Russia Collusion Investigation
The anti-Trump media was buzzing like bees over the latest allegations of collusion with Russia.They thought they finally found the smoking gun that proved the Trump campaign coordinated with Moscow to rig the 2016 election.
And then one email blew the lid off the investigation.
Documents turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee alleged to show Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner received an email about a “Russian backdoor overture” from intermediaries acting on behalf of Aleksander Torshin, an elected official who supposedly has ties to Vladimir Putin.
The media took this as evidence that Russian officials were looking for ways to penetrate the Trump campaign so they could compromise them or collude with them.
But this story quickly fell apart.
Kushner rejected the meeting.
And the emails proposing the encounter were on behalf of the owner of a Pennsylvania pipe fitting company who also did work on Christian and veterans advocacy.
The Daily Caller reports:
An offer of a “Russian backdoor overture” that made its way to Jared Kushner last year was initiated by a devout Christian with concern for veterans and not Russian operatives devising a plan to collude with the Trump campaign.
Johnny Yenason, the owner of a Pennsylvania-based pipefitting company, says that it was his Christian and veterans advocacy work that prompted him to reach out in May 2016 to Aleksander Torshin, the deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, and his associate, Maria Butina.
That outreach effort, which made its way from Yenason to a friend of his named Rick Clay and then to members of the Trump campaign, became the subject of intense scrutiny last Friday after the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Kushner, a White House senior adviser and Trump’s son-in-law, accusing him of improperly withholding the email exchange…
… But in interviews with The Daily Caller this week, Yenason directly disputed that Torshin or Butina made any outreach to the Trump team.
Yenason says that while Clay’s email — entitled “Russian backdoor overture and dinner meeting” — does suggest that Torshin sought a session with Trump, Clay “misstated” his message to the campaign.
“Rick’s email may have stated that, but that was not communicated to me in any of the requests or emails that I exchanged with [Butina and Torshin],” Yenason said.
The Daily Caller reports it reviewed Yenason’s email correspondence with the Russians and there was no evidence the Russians tried to dupe him into participating in an intelligence operation.
Yenason said he met Torshin in 2016 at a National Russian Prayer Breakfast and they spoke about their Christian principles.
He wanted to invite Torshin and his associate, Maria Butina, to speak at a fundraising event he was hosting for the Hershel Woody Williams Medal of Honor Foundation, which was to be held the day before Trump spoke at the National Rifle Association Convention.
Both Butina and Torshin were lifetime members of the NRA, and Butina ran a gun rights group in Russia.
This is where Yenason reached out about a meeting between the Russians and Trump.
He forwarded along their bios and the answer came back that the Trump campaign had rejected the meeting.
This story is another in a long line of overhyped stories with sensationalized headlines about meetings and secret emails between the Trump campaign and Russia.
But the reports crumble to dust under even the slightest scrutiny.
President Trump’s Lawyers Are Violating His Sixth Amendment Rights
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees every American citizen the right “to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.”
If President Donald Trump winds up in the crosshairs of Special Counsel Robert Mueller on some charge unrelated to the Russia conspiracy theory — or if, after next year’s election, he faces a Democratic House determined to impeach him, he might well consider suing his lawyers for violating his rights.
That is because the White House lawyers have proved singularly incompetent in defending President Trump, the administration, and the American people from the whims of a runaway investigation that has little to do with the original question of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Instead, the Special Counsel’s inquiry has become a prosecutorial free-for-all, and a political weapon used to deny the legitimacy of the Trump presidency.
Ty Cobb, a lawyer who was brought to the White House specifically to deal with Mueller’s Russia investigation, predicted boldly in August: “I’d be embarrassed if this is still haunting the White House by Thanksgiving and worse if it’s still haunting him by year end.” He also added: “I think the relevant areas of inquiry by the special counsel are narrow.”
He has been proven wrong on both counts — so perhaps it is time for “embarrassment” and “worse.”
On Thanksgiving Day, it emerged that attorneys for former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn had stopped sharing information with the White House’s legal team, meaning that it was likely Flynn had decided to cooperate with Mueller. It was entirely foreseeable that he would, given that Flynn’s legal interests were so different from the president’s — especially after he failed to report his work for the Turkish government as required by law.
Somehow the White House legal team seems to have imagined that Flynn would do what was in the president’s best interests, even though he was abruptly fired and essentially thrown under the bus. Nor do they seem to understand that the Special Counsel is at war. He is a consummate “swamp” creature who was hired because of a deliberate act of political revenge, and he is protected by all of Trump’s worst political enemies on both sides of the aisle.
Cobb reportedly clashed with White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II over how much to cooperate with the Special Counsel. Cobb, a veteran Washington lawyer and consummate insider, assumed that the probe could be handled the way many legal conflicts are handled in the D.C. “swamp” — with the right meetings, the right words, the right handshakes. He urged cooperation with the probe — even if it meant letting underlings take some heat.
McGahn reportedly took a different view, according to the New York Times. He “supports cooperation, but has expressed worry about setting a precedent that would weaken the White House long after Mr. Trump’s tenure is over.” And he was also worried about his own involvement: he knew that he himself was a potential target of the Special Counsel, given his advice to the president in the decision to fire former FBI director James Comey.
Cobb foolishly imagined the Special Counsel was only interested in Russia. And once it was clear that Mueller was exceeding his mandate, Cobb was too invested in cooperation to do what needed to be done — namely, to mount an all-out assault on the Special Counsel’s office, pointing out its excesses and its own conflicts of interest, given Mueller’s and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s involvement in Uranium One, their own Russia scandal.
Worse, neither Cobb nor McGahn seems to understand the dangerous environment in which they are operating. In September, they infamously discussed the investigation while eating lunch outdoors at a popular D.C. restaurant, where they were overheard by Times reporters at a neighboring table. That is inexcusable even for lawyers in an ordinary setting; it is far worse when representing a White House deeply loathed by many in the nation’s capital.
Rather than surround himself with elite “swamp” layers, Trump would be enjoying better legal representation if he simply walked down to the local courthouse and hired a no-name defense lawyer hawking his services — a street-fighter who would find every way to protect his client, who would have no conflicts and no qualms about sticking it to the prosecution, who had no reputation to lose and would therefore put victory ahead of everything else.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Shaky Allegations Against Roy Moore Are Not Enough to Disqualify Him
by JOHN NOLTE
Hal Yeager/AP Photo
Any commentary I have thus far made about the Roy Moore scandal has been on social media, and that has centered primarily on mocking the media’s hypocrisy while also noting my thoughts on individual aspects of the story. The big question, though, the question of whether or not the allegations add up to something serious enough to knock Moore out of Alabama’s Senate race, I have saved until now.
It may no longer be fashionable to wait for all the facts before expressing an opinion, but when it comes to something as deadly serious as a man’s reputation and allegations of child molestation, call me a fuddy-duddy.
From my vantage point, the issue comes down to four allegations:
Beverly Young Nelson claims that in 1977, when she was just 16 and Moore was 30, he attempted to assault her.
This one is easy. The yearbook she and her attorney Gloria Allred dramatically waved around as proof of the relationship is an obvious forgery. Please note that I am not couching my words about this forgery; there is no “apparent” or “probable” leaving myself some wriggle room.
I believe the yearbook is forged, and that blows all of Young’s credibility, as does the fact that once the veracity of the yearbook was called into question, after trying to talk around the obvious discrepancies, Allred disappeared; she went dark.
At best, Allred and Nelson might be trying to frame a guilty man. Regardless, this claim is not worth spit.
Tina Johnson claims that in 1991, while exiting Moore’s law office, he groped her butt.
I do not know whether or not to believe Johnson. If Moore did this, it was, of course, wrong. But the punishment needs to fit the crime, and I am not willing to destroy a man over the disputed allegation of a 26 year-old butt-grab.
Moreover, this is the freshest allegation against Moore. So far, no one has claimed Moore did anything untoward since 1991. This also matters.
Leigh Corfman alleges that in 1979, when she was just 14 years-old, a 32 year-old Moore molested her in the woods.
This allegation is the most credible. I found Ms. Corfman quite credible during her Todayshow appearance Monday, and said so.
But since Tuesday, a big hole has been blown in her story, which was first reported by the left-wing Washington Post. And I should add that one of the primary reasons I withheld my overall opinion on this matter was due to the fake news factory that is the Washington Post. My default position, and for good reason, is to assume anything published by the Post damaging to a Republican is a lie — because it usually is.
Corfman told the Post that her encounter with Moore “set the course for [her] doing other things that were bad.” She said this included “drinking, drugs, boyfriends, and a suicide attempt when she was 16.”
Contemporaneous court records, however, document that the exact opposite was true, that Corfman was a major discipline problem prior to her alleged encounter with Moore. Moreover, documents from 1980, the year after the alleged incident, show that her “disciplinary problem has improved greatly.”
There are some smaller discrepancies in her story, not enough for me to write Corfman off entirely, but in a very dramatic, made-for-TV fashion, Corfman is blaming all the miseries in her life on Moore when the evidence directly contradicts that.
In good conscience, there is just not enough here for me to destroy an entire man over.
While Single and in His Early 30s, Moore Dated and Sought Dates with Teenage Girls
When my wife and I met, she was 36. I was 19. We started dating the following year and have now been together 31 years. (I pursued her, by the way — relentlessly.) Therefore, I am a bit of a hypocrite when I say that the instinct to be uncomfortable with the idea of a 30 year-old man dating 16 and 17 year-old girls is a good one. I share that discomfort.
Nevertheless, the age of consent in Alabama is and was 16. That is a decision the people of Alabama have made, which means that even if Moore did seek to date girls as young as 16, there was nothing illegal about it.
More importantly, though, is the fact that 40 years ago in the South, the idea of a 30 year-old man looking for a much younger wife was not at all uncommon. In other words, this behavior was not only legal, it was not a violation of social mores.
Again, because I share people’s discomfort in this regard, what I am about to say is not meant to be inflammatory or insulting, but I think the zeal to destroy Moore over this is based in large part on provincial ignorance (and hypocritical partisanship — which I will get to next).
The first 27 years of my life were spent in the small towns and an inner-city in the Midwest. Since then, I have lived ten years in Los Angeles and 15 years in the South. Along with my wife’s Mexican heritage, this exposure to all kinds of people has taught me that good and decent Americans have slightly different mores, and the difference in the case of Moore’s alleged dating habits is slight. If these girls were two or three years older, no one would be talking about them.
On top of that — and this is where I finally begin to engage in that awesome sport of whataboutism — to be lectured to by Democrats and media elites on this issue is beyond laughable. This legion of sick freaks feigning moral horror over a 30-year-old man legally dating a 16 year-old girl is the height of partisanship.
Never forget that these are the same people who are okay with seven-year-olds choosing and changing their gender; kindergartners losing their innocence by way of lessons about homosexuality; instructions in Teen Vogue about anal sex; and 12-year-old girls being exposed to a penis owned by a mentally ill man in a dress.
Please, you sick freaks, spare me your outrage.
Summation
Excuse me for speaking a hard truth, but all victims should NOT be automatically believed. (See: Mockingbird, To Kill a.) Yes, they should be taken seriously, but then their accusations must be fully and fairly investigated. Unfortunately, our media disagrees.
As it is with all things, when it comes to Roy Moore, our blazingly dishonest media are not seeking to inform or illuminate. Rather, they are using the Moore scandal as yet another weapon in a relentless and highly partisan campaign of emotional blackmail meant to define just who is and is not a good person.
Just as the media do with guns, abortion, homosexuality, Obamacare, and Trump, all of their coverage is geared towards pressuring you to agree with them because if you do not agree with them, that means you are an immoral and indecent person.
Well, sorry to disappoint my media betters, but I am an American, and as an American — whether it is left-wing gay activist Bryan Singer or Roy Moore — the benefit of all this reasonable doubt goes to the accused.
Good Americans do not destroy a whole person over decades-old, hotly disputed allegations released just in time to sway a crucial election, especially when those allegations do not stand up to a reasonable fact check.
More facts may become known within minutes of my publishing this. More accusers might come forward. I reserve the right to change my mind.
But as of right now, right at this very moment, there is not enough there there to justify the annihilation of a fellow human being.
News You Can Use
By Onan Coca
Good Morning! We here at Constitution.com want you to get your day started right, which is why we’ve decided to help you catch the morning’s news highlights. We know that you’ve got a busy day ahead and you may not necessarily have time to surf the web looking for the things you need to know, so we’ve gone ahead and done that for you.
We’ve gathered a short list of some of what we think are the most important headlines of the day and placed them all right here for you.
So without further ado, here’s the News you can Use for Saturday, November 25, 2017.
Hey! Here’s an idea! Let’s give former IRS chief Lois Lerner a taxpayer funded vacation home where she can feel safer and be under armed guard 24-7.
Merkel and Germany are collapsing under the weight of their bad immigration policies and their dangerous refugee plans.
The left has made a living by faking their feminism, but now the string of sexual assaults and deplorable behavior is forcing them to come clean about what they really believe.
The fall of Weinstein could be bringing a new cultural revolution to America, one where powerful men are no longer given free rein to trample the rights of others for their own sexual appetites.
Linda Tripp is NOT buying the media’s hand-wringing remorse over what they allowed Bill Clinton to do, so many years ago. In fact, it seems like the media’s latest turn towards justice is simply an attempt to find a new way to undermine President Trump.
Giving thanks for freedom and remembering the many men and women who have died in their struggle to attain it.
This is how Democrat insiders are currently rating the 2020 Presidential field. Let’s just say that the field isn’t very enticing.
A year after a devastating 2016 defeat, Democrats are craving new faces with fresh ideas. Yet many of their leading contenders for the White House in 2020 are politicians who have been around for decades.
There’s also no clear standout in the potential field.
“You have a bunch of Celine Dions but there’s no Beatles,” said Phil Singer, a Democratic strategist who served as press secretary on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run.
The post-Obama gun sales dip has hurt gun retailers. In fact, famed Remington Outdoor may be forced into default because of the downturn in sales.
New Video Shows African Migrants Being Sold as Slaves
Outraged has been sparked after footage surfaced, showing African migrants being sold as slaves in Libya. The men are smuggled in with hopes of starting a new life, only to be betrayed by the people smuggling them in.
In the video released by CNN, you can both hear and see a slave auction taking place, as young men from Niger and other sub-Saharan countries are bought to be farm workers for about $400 (£300) a piece.
The African Union (AU) President Alpha Conde of Guinea is calling for protections over the “despicable” trade “from another era”.
Conde said, “These modern slavery practices must end and the African Union will use all the tools at its disposal,” Mr Conde said.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been working to gather information on the illegal slave auctions. IOM’s Chief of Mission for Libya Othman Belbeisi believes that the migrants are being priced and sold based on their abilities.
“Apparently they don’t have money and their families cannot pay the ransom, so they are being sold to get at least a minimum benefit from that,” he continued, “The price is definitely different depending on your qualifications, for example if you can do painting or tiles or some specialised work then the price gets higher.”
Tens of thousands of migrants, many of them from West Africa but also Bangladesh, Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea, are being held in camps and warehouses on the Libyan coast, hoping to reach Europe.
When the warehouses become overcrowded, or if migrants are unable to pay traffickers for the boat journey towards Italy – where many are rescued by NGO-operated vessels – they are sold.
The existence of modern-day slave markets has been known for months, with testimony from the International Organisation for Migration and other humanitarian agencies, but last week CNN obtained video footage of one such auction.
In scenes reminiscent of the 19th century, when the slave trade was rife, auctioneers advertised a group of West African migrants as “big strong boys for farm work.” The auctioneers referred to the migrants in Arabic as “merchandise”.
Tim Tebow working out, preparing for Year 2 in pro baseball
By PETE IACOBELLI
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Tim Tebow’s goal going forward is simple: Play ball!
Professional baseball, to be more specific.
The former Heisman Trophy winner and NFL quarterback said Friday that he spends three-to-five days each week training for baseball, getting himself ready for Year 2 of his pro career in the New York Mets organization.
“I didn’t take any time off,” he said Friday.
Tebow gets the work in around his off-the-field job as a college football analyst for the SEC Network, which takes him to schools throughout the Southeastern Conference from September until January.
The TV gig has not dulled Tebow’s desire to make a mark in baseball, where he spent this past season with two Class A clubs, Columbia in the South Atlantic League and Port St. Lucie in the Florida State League — both in the Mets system.
“Loved it from the first at bat to the last at bat, it was a great experience,” Tebow said.
Tebow, 30, was a good high school baseball player and on track to get looked at by Major League teams until he chose to play football at Florida. He was part of two national title teams with the Gators, became a first-round NFL draft pick and spent three seasons with Denver and the New York Jets. Looking for a challenge, Tebow relaunched his baseball career with a tryout camp in 2016 and was signed by the Mets soon after.
“I think the other thing I really enjoy is I love competing,” Tebow said. “So baseball is fun because you get to play every night.”
Tebow’s stats were not exactly eye-popping — he hit .226 in 126 combined games with the two teams and had eight home runs, 52 RBIs and 126 strikeouts — but he believes he made huge strides from his first game to his last and can build on that next season.
“I don’t even feel like remotely close to the same player (in April) from fundamentals, pitch recognition, the outfield, running bases,” Tebow said. “That was the first after dropping (baseball) for 12 years. I was learning on the fly.”
Tebow remembered how he would work on his skills with minor league coaches or Mets roving instructors that he had not practiced in earnest in a dozen years.
“It’s not just being able to do it, it’s being able to do it as fast as possible,” Tebow said. “And that’s how you make the jump to the next level.”
Tebow’s charisma and popularity made him a must-see attraction in minor league baseball. Fans filled parks, home and away, to catch a glimpse of Tebow in the outfield or at bat as a designated hitter.
There were even fans at the taping of Tebow’s “SEC Nation” show Friday wearing his No. 15 Columbia Fireflies jersey.
He didn’t provide any detail his training regimen, only saying he would hit as often as possible. There will be no organized instructional league this offseason before spring training starts.
“You look at what you need to work on and it’s working on those things,” Tebow said. “Because it’s really hard to balance competing at a high level with learning and building on fundamentals.”
Tebow said he’s got a strong relationship with New York Mets general manager Sandy Alderson and all the coaches he’s worked with so far. His next stop is spring training with the focus on improvement.
“Don’t focus on the end result. Don’t focus on where you are right now,” he said. “Focus on this is what I’ve got to do to get better.”
Trump Administration Has New Chance to Target Abortion Funding
By Joe Crowe
(AP)
The Trump administration has a new chance to oppose funding of abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood and others, according to The Hill.
The Department of Health and Human Services will set the terms for Title X grants, a federally funded family health program that conservatives have opposed. The terms for the grants are expected to differ widely from the conditions set by the Obama administration, The Hill reported.
"This is the administration's first attempt to really kind of redefine what they want the family planning program to look like," said Audrey Sandusky of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.
"We anticipate some attempt to undercut the program," Sandusky said in The Hill's report.
Anti-abortion advocates hope that the Trump administration will bring back regulations that barred Title X providers from offering referrals and counseling related to abortion, or from encouraging or promoting abortion as a family planning option, the website reported.
"The best thing for healthcare and for women is that the receive (family planning services) in a setting that's devoid of the possibility of Planned Parenthood pushing quote-unquote options, when what they're doing is referring them to the abortion facility," said Steve Aden, chief legal officer at the Americans United For Life, according to The Hill.
Federal dollars such as Title X cannot be used to pay for abortions, but critics say that the money could still indirectly fund abortions by going to Planned Parenthood or other abortion providers, The Hill reported.
Changing the Title X terms would not keep Title X funds away from Planned Parenthood or other groups. "It would mean, though, that the Title X family planning program would have to be physically and financially separate from an organization's abortion activities," said David Christensen, Family Research Council vice president of government affairs, in The Hill.
"It's clear women's access to reproductive health care is very much in this administration's sights," said Kinsey Hasstedt, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, The Washington Post reported.
Keystone XL Pipeline Is the Best Way to Produce Reliable Energy for the U.S.
Activists ignore the fact that fossil fuels are still the most efficient and affordable way to power our world
The Keystone pipeline has been a source of controversy for more than a decade now. Angry protesters see its planned delivery of fossil fuels as one more step toward climate Armageddon. But proponents counter that the overall pipeline is simply a necessary, effective means of transporting crude oil to the refineries that produce market-ready gasoline for millions of Americans.
Not many people realize that segments of the Keystone Pipeline have been in operation for several years now, and are already delivering crude oil to refineries in both Illinois and Texas. But those routes are lengthy and indirect. More recently, the pipeline’s owner, TransCanada, has pushed for a shorter, more direct path — the Keystone XL — that would run diagonally through Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Earlier this week, the Nebraska Public Service Commission (NPSC) voted to approve Nebraska’s share of that route. The 3-2 decision clears the final major regulatory hurdle needed to complete the project, though environmental groups may appeal the decision.
Keystone XL pipeline clinches final approval in Nebraska
Not many people realize that segments of the Keystone Pipeline have been in operation for several years now, and are already delivering crude oil to refineries in both Illinois and Texas. But those routes are lengthy and indirect. More recently, the pipeline’s owner, TransCanada, has pushed for a shorter, more direct path — the Keystone XL — that would run diagonally through Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Earlier this week, the Nebraska Public Service Commission (NPSC) voted to approve Nebraska’s share of that route. The 3-2 decision clears the final major regulatory hurdle needed to complete the project, though environmental groups may appeal the decision.
Keystone XL pipeline clinches final approval in Nebraska
Overall, TransCanada has been tarred as the evil actor in a long-simmering debate over the pipeline's necessity and utility. But in recent years, TransCanada has agreed to move the pipeline's proposed path away from environmentally sensitive wetlands known as the Nebraska Sandhills. And this week's NPSC decision further shifted the pipeline away from the Sandhills area.
In practical terms, Keystone XL will aid the expansion of both U.S. and Canadian oil production. This is significant since booming oil and gas extraction is now helping to lift a struggling U.S. economy. But environmental activists who oppose the pipeline miss a fundamental point when decrying oil and gas development. They argue that increased fossil fuel consumption is inherently damaging, while simultaneously overlooking the benefits it provides in terms of affordable, reliable energy.
There are two issues at hand. The first is the assumption that the use of fossil fuels through projects like the Keystone Pipeline will necessarily drive further global warming. But there's nary an activist around who can address some fundamental concerns about presumed, man-made climate change — that carbon dioxide actually loses the ability to absorb heat as its concentration increases in the atmosphere, or that solar output increased dramatically during the past century.
Related: Trump Energy Policy May Finally End the Rule of OPEC
Unaware of even these basic climate contradictions, however, Keystone opponents continue to protest the pipeline as a direct, tangible manifestation of man's contribution to global warming. But this leads to a second problem, since many activists simply brush aside the benefits offered by the use of plentiful, reliable energy.
Fossil fuels remain the most efficient and affordable means of both generating electricity and powering the day-to-day needs of a healthy, First World standard of living. The cars that take us to work also transport the injured and ill to hospitals. And the electricity that powers our lights and refrigerators also pumps and treats clean municipal drinking water. But even more important is the concurrent removal and treatment of massive quantities of sewage and wastewater each day, keeping cities safe from disease and staving off the proliferation of bacterial parasites that afflict the developing world.
There's hardly a perfect system for ensuring human survival. But reality inevitably intrudes when calculating the trade-offs necessary to keep large populations alive, healthy, and safe. The Keystone XL pipeline is indeed an industrial product. It's a long, monolithic pipeline that will stretch hundreds of miles through rural lands. There could be leaks or spillage during its presumed, 50-year lifespan. But the pipeline's developers aren't hoping to despoil nature. And they're incorporating digital technology to monitor every phase of the pipeline's construction and use in as safe a manner as possible.
The American people need to weigh the cost of keeping America's lights on, and of motors running each day, of delivering tons of refrigerated foods to major metropolitan areas. They need to consider the quantities of medicine consumed, the hospitals and schools heated in winter, and air-conditioned in summer. The Keystone XL is one more necessary step toward ensuring the safe, modern lifestyle to which all humans aspire. The pipeline is an imperfect, but necessary, part of this path toward a healthier, safer America.
There are two issues at hand. The first is the assumption that the use of fossil fuels through projects like the Keystone Pipeline will necessarily drive further global warming. But there's nary an activist around who can address some fundamental concerns about presumed, man-made climate change — that carbon dioxide actually loses the ability to absorb heat as its concentration increases in the atmosphere, or that solar output increased dramatically during the past century.
Related: Trump Energy Policy May Finally End the Rule of OPEC
Unaware of even these basic climate contradictions, however, Keystone opponents continue to protest the pipeline as a direct, tangible manifestation of man's contribution to global warming. But this leads to a second problem, since many activists simply brush aside the benefits offered by the use of plentiful, reliable energy.
Fossil fuels remain the most efficient and affordable means of both generating electricity and powering the day-to-day needs of a healthy, First World standard of living. The cars that take us to work also transport the injured and ill to hospitals. And the electricity that powers our lights and refrigerators also pumps and treats clean municipal drinking water. But even more important is the concurrent removal and treatment of massive quantities of sewage and wastewater each day, keeping cities safe from disease and staving off the proliferation of bacterial parasites that afflict the developing world.
There's hardly a perfect system for ensuring human survival. But reality inevitably intrudes when calculating the trade-offs necessary to keep large populations alive, healthy, and safe. The Keystone XL pipeline is indeed an industrial product. It's a long, monolithic pipeline that will stretch hundreds of miles through rural lands. There could be leaks or spillage during its presumed, 50-year lifespan. But the pipeline's developers aren't hoping to despoil nature. And they're incorporating digital technology to monitor every phase of the pipeline's construction and use in as safe a manner as possible.
The American people need to weigh the cost of keeping America's lights on, and of motors running each day, of delivering tons of refrigerated foods to major metropolitan areas. They need to consider the quantities of medicine consumed, the hospitals and schools heated in winter, and air-conditioned in summer. The Keystone XL is one more necessary step toward ensuring the safe, modern lifestyle to which all humans aspire. The pipeline is an imperfect, but necessary, part of this path toward a healthier, safer America.
Terry Jarrett is an energy attorney and consultant who has served on both the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Missouri Public Service Commission.
Sex Scandals Reveal How The Left Uses Shame To Destroy Morality
Shame, we are now told, is back in vogue, particularly if directed towards sexual harassment. Yet the Left has been appropriating shame to serve its ideological objectives for generations.
By Casey Chalk
“Name It. Shame it. Call it out.” Thus has actress Rose McGowan urged all those who have suffered sexual harassment and refrained from speaking out. With the #MeToo movement now in full throttle, individuals everywhere are coming out of the shadows to publicly humiliate sexual predators, no matter how high the pedestal upon which such harassers sit.
Shame, we are now told, is back in vogue, particularly if it’s directed towards those deemed a threat to sexual consent. The truth, however, is that the Left has been appropriating shame to serve its ideological objectives for generations. The focus on sexual harassment — albeit long overdue — is yet the latest manifestation of liberals’ unprincipled approach to morality.
A Short History of Liberal Shame Campaigns
Psychoanalyst Joseph Burgo, writing for the Washington Post, observes that the #MeToo movement is a bit ironic, given that “shame has increasingly come to be viewed as a repressive force whose shackles must be thrown off.” Indeed, the progressivist agenda counsels everyone to “feel no shame,” whether they be “gay or transgender or overweight; having had an abortion; having survived rape or childhood sexual abuse; or struggling with mental illness or addiction.”
Yet, Burgo argues, “shame may also serve as a force for good when we direct it at behavior damaging to the social fabric.” It sure can — and it has. Although Burgo doesn’t say it, the Left has engaged in aggressive public shaming programs for years.
Burgo continues: “A fear of being publicly shamed encourages adherence to the rules and standards that enable us to live together in a civilized way. When we turn shame upon individuals who violate those standards, we press them to desist.” Sound familiar? How about the decades-long public shaming of smokers?
I remember this ad from the 1990s that compared smokers to chimpanzees. Since then, surveys have found smokers to be considered “outcasts,” “persecuted,” “lepers,” “under-class,” and “blacklisted.” A 2008 survey in New York City found most respondents agreed that ‘‘most people would not hire a smoker to take care of their children,’’ and that ‘‘most non-smokers would be reluctant to date someone who smokes.” A significant minority of respondents even agreed that smoking was a “sign of personal failure.” In 2004, Huffington Post featured an article titled, “Why Smokers Must Be Shamed.”
I also remember the puritanical morality inculcated in me and my fellow grade-school students regarding recycling. We all learned — with explicit teacher approval — to wag our fingers and scold anyone who failed to properly dispose of his paper and plastics. Seattle in 2015 took this to a new level when it instituted a public shaming policy for those who failed follow its recycling laws. The city of Savannah, Georgia, engaged in a similar public shaming campaign to stop littering.
Of course, smoking (habitually or in excess) is bad for one’s health; littering damages the beauty and well-being of our country, and recycling is an objective good in which everyone should participate. The point is that the #MeToo campaign is nothing new — liberal media and organizations for years have crafted public shaming into an intricate science.
This goes well beyond smoking and recycling. The Left pursued an aggressive, ad hominem public shaming campaign against North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory for his stance on transgender bathrooms. That particular operation recruited big business and the NCAA to its cause, while protesters accosted him and called him a bigot. Liberals did much the same in Houston on the same issue.
The Left’s Double Standard
Let’s return to Burgo’s initial commendation of shame: “shame may also serve as a force for good when we direct it at behavior damaging to the social fabric.” As noted above, liberals have certainly employed shame for certain pet causes, usually related to environmentalism or the sexual revolution. Herein lies the double standard.
Sociologists such as W. Bradford Wilcox at the University of Virginia for decades have noted the tremendous damage divorce — another project of the sexual revolution — has done to America’s social fabric. Children exposed to divorce are more likely than their peers in intact marriages to suffer from serious social or psychological pathologies. Adolescents with divorced parents are more likely to drop out of high school when compared to children from intact families. Adolescent girls with divorced parents are three times more likely to become teen mothers, while their male counterparts are twice as likely to spend time in prison.
The effects of divorce are a huge drain on our nation’s wealth and resources. If the United States enjoyed the same level of family stability today as it did in 1960, one sociologist has estimated that the nation would have 750,000 fewer children repeating grades, 1.2 million fewer school suspensions, approximately 500,000 fewer acts of teenage delinquency, about 600,000 fewer kids receiving therapy, and about 70,000 fewer suicide attempts every year. Wilcox’s research has found similar detrimental effects caused by cohabitation.
Yet our culture, media, and dominant institutions have not only abandoned any kind of shame attached to divorce, cohabitation, or other deleterious side-effects of the sexual revolution (e.g. abortion on demand, pornography); we promote them as an intrinsic part of our freedom to pursue our own life goals and self-actualization.
Curiously, the only elements of the sexual revolution mainstream culture seems focused on attacking are those perceived to violate consent — harassment, rape, etc. Even here the hypocrisy runs deep: children from divorced families don’t consent to broken homes; the approximately 650,000 American babies aborted every year don’t consent to their conception or subsequent murder; and most parents have not consented to a culture where children are exposed on average to pornography at the age of 11.
The Bitterest Irony
Burgo’s article goes on to provide a methodology for appropriately applying shame. It must not only humiliate, “it should leave room for those who have violated our standards to experience remorse and then to make amends.” The ultimate goal is to “ease the shaming” and allow violators of our culture’s mores to reintegrate into society. Shame, public penance, forgiveness, and reintegration. This also should sound familiar.
Prior to the secularization and atomization of Western society, this is the way our communities, either through the judicial system or churches, dealt with crimes against society. As First Things contributor Marc Barnes notes, citing Cambridge University historian Helen Mary Carrel, the majority of medieval punishments “were administered by small communities who took responsibility for their own criminals. Shaming punishments — like shaving the head of an adulteress or dunking a crooked merchant in the river — worked, and they worked because a person really could be shamed to have broken the peace of an actual community of neighbors.”
Today our public shaming methods obviously need not be identical to these, but can at least include other more modernly acceptable methods of expressing disapproval. Moreover, for many centuries, those who violated church rules were expected to publicly confess their sins and do penance, then were ultimately reintegrated into the Christian community.
Ironically enough, far removed from the Enlightenment and its attempts to remove the shackles of institutional religion’s influence on society, modern experts are (seemingly unknowingly) taking their cues from the tactics of pre-modern Christian societies. Forms of shame — both public and internal — are now good and useful. So is public penance and ultimately, forgiveness (although one wonders why darlings of the Left like Al Franken are being forgiven so quickly). If only liberals had a principled means of applying shame, we might actually be able to cooperate on a vision of the common good for all Americans.
Casey Chalk is a graduate student at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Theology at Christendom College.
Casey Chalk is a graduate student at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Theology at Christendom College.
G’ day…Ciao…
Helen and Moe Lauzier
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