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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Thursday, August 31, 2017

It's Time For a Twenty Eighth Amendment!

By Rich Kozlovich

Editor's Note: I originally published this on Friday, June 26, 2015, but with current events I've decided to publish this again. And I've decided to run this at least once a year.

Yesterday Mark J. Fitzgibbons penned this article, Sotomayor's 4th Amendment Time Bomb regarding “A painfully slim 5 – 4 ruling this week by the Supreme Court in City of Los Angeles v. Patel”. He writes, “The court struck down a Los Angeles ordinance that allowed police officers to inspect hotel guest registries for any or even no reason, and without a warrant. The ruling that the Fourth Amendment applies to businesses and that statutes may be declared unconstitutional on their face is consistent with principles as old as, and even older than, the Constitution.” But he also notes that “Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s majority opinion is also a blueprint for a major power grab for the administrative police state” because “her majority opinion even seems to suggest that police departments may be given power to approve their own searches using administrative subpoenas instead of going to judges to obtain warrants”.

Administrative subpoenas? Is she serious? This isn’t something that should even be an option!   The article goes on to explain why say it’s Constitutionally inappropriate for administrative subpoenas to be issued by federal bureaucrats saying, “Justice Frank Murphy’s short but powerful and prescient dissent from his all-Democrat appointed colleagues is spot on”:

"I am unable to approve the use of nonjudicial subpoenas issued by administrative agents. Administrative law has increased greatly in the past few years, and seems destined to be augmented even further in the future. But attending this growth should be a new and broader sense of responsibility on the part of administrative agencies and officials.

Excessive use or abuse of authority can not only destroy man's instinct for liberty, but will eventually undo the administrative processes themselves. Our history is not without a precedent of a successful revolt against a ruler who "sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people."

Perhaps we are too far removed from the experiences of the past to appreciate fully the consequences that may result from an irresponsible though well meaning use of the subpoena power.

To allow a nonjudicial officer, unarmed with judicial process, to demand the books and papers of an individual is an open invitation to abuse of that power. It is no answer that the individual may refuse to produce the material demanded. Many persons have yielded solely because of the air of authority with which the demand is made, a demand that cannot be enforced without subsequent judicial aid. Many invasions of private rights thus occur without the restraining hand of the judiciary ever intervening.

Only by confining the subpoena power exclusively to the judiciary can there be any insurance against this corrosion of liberty. Statutory enforcement would not thereby be made impossible. Indeed, it would be made easier. A people's desire to cooperate with the enforcement of a statute is in direct proportion to the respect for individual rights shown in the enforcement process.

Liberty is too priceless to be forfeited through the zeal of an administrative agent."

Does Sotomayor, who actually described herself as the “wise Latina”, really understand that?

The founding fathers created lifetime appointments for federal judges because they wanted them to be unafraid about losing their jobs for unpopular decisions. There were some differences between then and now. First of all there were few federal judges and nowhere in the Constitution does it outline exactly their duties. Originally the Supreme Court handled very common cases. Their authority developed over time and they pretty much created their own parameters of responsibility.

Secondly the federal government was amazingly small compared to today and everyone pretty much thought it would stay that way. However the passage of the 16th amendment (income tax) and 17th Amendment (popular elections of Senators) pretty much laid the foundation destroying the checks and balances between the branches of government and the vision of a limited central government, which the founding fathers believed was essential to individual liberty. They couldn't have been more right.

Although it’s true judges can be removed by impeachment. It’s also true the federal judiciary is filled with political hacks that have made decisions that can’t be construed as anything but high crimes. The high crimes of the Constitution means a “crime of high office”,which can simply mean they’ve failed to perform the duties they have sworn by oath to perform. It’s clear the federal judiciary no longer believe they have to "solemnly swear (or affirm)they will administer justice……under the Constitution and laws of the United States." They’re clearly not following the Constitution, and they clearly don’t believe they need to “preserve and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic” since they are Constitution’s greatest enemy. If that’s so – and it is – and it’s so obvious – and it is – why aren’t more judges impeached? Because getting a two thirds majority to vote for conviction from the Senate is almost impossible.

As historian Dr. Clarence Carson wrote: "Jefferson doubted that the fear of impeachment was little more than a paper tiger, or as he put it frequently in private correspondence, “not even a scarecrow.” He put the danger this way: “We already see the power, installed for life, advancing with a noiseless and steady pace to the great object of consolidation. [“The engine of consolidation,” he had said, “will be the federal judiciary . . . .”] The foundations are already deeply laid by their decisions for the annihilation of constitutional state rights, and the removal of every check, every counterpoise to the engulfing power of which themselves are to make a sovereign part.”

Has this occurred? It should be obvious to the most casual observer that it has and the Supreme Court’s recent decision King v. Burwell is a clear example the federal judiciary has become an out of control law unto themselves. Justice Scalia’s scathing dissent is a simple, direct and easy to understand intellectual tour-de-force demonstrating how far they’ve sunk in their efforts to overturn the balance of power created by the Constitution.

Scalia states:  “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare ……the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites…

He went on to say: “Words no longer have meaning …..Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved……

He observes: The Court tries to palm off the pertinent statutory phrase as “inartful drafting.’ This Court, however, has no free-floating power ‘to rescue Congress from its drafting errors.’”…..“The Court’s decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people’s decision to give Congress ‘[a]ll legislative Powers’ enumerated in the Constitution. They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making laws and mending them.”…..

Demonstrating just how dangerous the federal judiciary has become: “More importantly, the Court forgets that ours is a government of laws and not of men. That means we are governed by the terms of our laws, not by the unenacted will of our lawmakers. ‘If Congress enacted into law something different from what it intended, then it should amend the statute to conform to its intent.’ In the meantime, this Court ‘has no roving license … to disregard clear language simply on the view that … Congress ‘must have intended’something broader.”…

He states what should be the understanding of all federal jurists: “Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act’s limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges.”

If the Constitution is going to really be the document that governs government, and is the real and legitimate law of the land, it's in serious need of reinforcements. It’s time for a 28th Amendment that would impose strict term and age limits on the federal judiciary.

There are three levels of the federal judiciary- the District level, the Appeals level and the Supreme Court. Each level should have a ten year limit with a review after five years requiring a majority approval by the Senate. At each level each nominee would have to go through the same process, even if nominated to a higher court before they finish their term in a lower court. If their tem runs out and they’re not nominated to a higher court they may be nominated at some point in the future. No jurist can return to a lower court if their term runs its course at a higher level, and no jurist can ever be appointed to a court if their nomination to any court has ever been rejected by the Senate. No jurist may serve after the age of seventy.

Here’s the fix! Abolish the FED, repealing the 16th and 17th Amendments and pass a 28th amendment. Everything else will fall into place.

Oh, one more thing.

Biased Federal Judge Tosses Texas Voter ID Law, Again

Hans von Spakovsky August 30, 2017

Some judges are determined to strike down election integrity laws, no matter what.  How else can you explain last week’s irrational decision handed down by federal District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos? A President Barack Obama appointee, Ramos is at least consistent. This was the fifth time she has rejected a voter ID law for Texas.   Her 2014 rebuff of the original version of the Texas law made it clear that she believes all voter ID laws are based solely on the desire to discriminate, not improve the integrity of the election process.

Now you know why the plaintiffs went shopping to her federal court to bring the statewide challenge.


In 2014, Ramos ruled that the law discriminated against minority voters—ignoring clear evidence that this is not the case. Minority turnout had actually increased in the 2013 state election, the first election held with the new ID law in place.  What makes Ramos’ latest ruling so odd is that the amended law not only followed all guidelines set out by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, it also contained provisions that Ramos herself had found acceptable as an interim remedy for the November 2016 election......To Read More....

My Take - Anyone who has read Larry Klayman's book, WHORES: Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment, or Mark Levin's, Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America, the federal judiciary is filled with incompetent political hacks who sacrificed law for ideology long before they were appointed to the federal bench.  All of which makes the argument there needs to be a Constituional Amendment to place age and term limits on the federal judiciary.  It's Time For a Twenty Eighth Amendment!




Angela Merkel Says She Wouldn’t Change the Way She Handled the Refugee Crisis

Jon Stone, Independent, August 29, 2017
Angela Merkel has said she has no qualms about her decision to open Germany’s doors to refugees in 2015, arguing that the policy was “humane” and a reaction to an emergency situation.  German Chancellor said she was convinced that she had made the right decision to allow safe passage – for which she took a political hit in Germany and which appears to have driven the rise of the right-wing populist AfD party.

“All important decisions of the year 2015 I would make again,” she told German publication Welt, referring to the decision to allow refugees free passage into Germany.   She said the policy was justified in that year because of the emergency situation during that particular period.  “At that time, Germany had acted in a very difficult and humane manner,” she added.......To Read More.....

My Take - One of the things that becomes apparent for those who follow leftists, along with their policies is - the left has some real difficulties with truth, history and consistency - except in one area.  The left is consistently stupid.  What is shocking is how stupid are the German people when it's clear she's going to be returned to her leadership role as Chancellor.   She's literally destroying German society and they like her. 

 Just how stupid is that?

Well, there's an economic downturn on the horizon and when that happens - we're going to see civil wars all over Europe, the EU will cease to exist, and the current multicultural socialists will be replaced with nationalist socialist, and bloodshed will be what ushers in that change. 

Hard to believe?  Why?  It's happened many times in the past and since people will always be people - it will happen again - the only question is when. 

Disagreeing with Liberal Socialism, Despising Marxist Socialism

August 30, 2017 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I wrote last week about evil of totalitarian ideologies such as communism and fascism and pointed out that both antifa and Nazis should be treated with complete disdain and ostracism.

And that led me to find common ground with my left-of-center friends, even though I don’t like many of their policies.
I don’t like redistribution…programs are financed with taxes and that the internal revenue code is enforced by coercion…if you catch me in a cranky mood, I’ll be like the stereotypical libertarian at Thanksgiving dinner and wax poetic about what’s wrong with the system. That being said, I much prefer the coercion found in western democracies compared to the totalitarian versions of coercion found in many other parts of the world. At least we have the rule of law, which limits (however imperfectly) capricious abuse by government officials. …our Constitution still protects many personal liberties, things that can’t be taken for granted in some places. Moreover, there is only a trivially small risk of getting abused by the state in western nations because you have unpopular views. And there’s little danger of persecution by government (at least nowadays) based on factors such as race and religion. This is what makes liberal democracy a good form of government (with “liberal” in this case being a reference to classical liberalism rather than the modern version). Unfortunately, there are some people in America that don’t believe in these principles.
Now let’s look at an aspect of this issue from a left-of-center perspective.

Writing for the New Republic, John Judis analyzes the different types of socialism. He starts with some personal history of his time as a socialist activist.
In the early 1970s, I was a founding member of the New American Movement, a socialist group… Five years later, I was finished with…socialist organizing. …nobody seemed to know how socialism—which meant, to me, democratic ownership and control of the “means of production”—would actually work… Would it mean total nationalization of the economy? …wouldn’t that put too much political power in the state? The realization that a nationalized economy might also be profoundly inefficient, and disastrously slow to keep up with global markets, only surfaced later with the Soviet Union’s collapse. But even then, by the mid-1970s, I was wondering what being a socialist really meant in the United States.
He then notes that socialism has made a comeback, at least if some opinion polls (but not others) and the campaign of Bernie Sanders are any indication.
…much to my surprise, socialism is making a comeback. The key event has been the campaign of self-identified democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who almost won the Democratic nomination and is now reputedly the most popular politician in America. Several opinion polls have also found that young people now think favorably of socialism and ill of capitalism… For the first time since the ‘60s, socialism looks like a politics with a future in the United States.
But Judis notes that it’s unclear what socialism means.
The old nostrums about ownership and control of the means of production simply don’t resonate in 2017. …In the 2016 campaign, however, Sanders began to define a socialism that could grow… I think there is an important place for the kind of democratic socialism that Sanders espoused.
He says there are many flavors of socialism, but ultimately puts them in two camps.
There is no scientific definition of socialism… It’s a political tradition with many different flavors—Marxist, Christian, social-democratic, Fabian, Owenite, Leninist, Maoist. In looking at the choices facing American socialists now, …a choice between a socialism rooted in Marx’s apocalyptical promise of revolution, or the abolition of capitalism and a socialism that works more gradually toward the incorporation of public power and economic equality within capitalism. One could be called “Marxist socialism” and the other “social democratic”—or, to borrow from John Maynard Keynes, “liberal socialism.”
And “liberal socialism” basically means capitalism combined with European-style redistributionism.
In Western Europe, …socialists were forced to define their objectives more clearly. And what has emerged is a liberal conception of socialism. …social democracy has probably reached its acme in the Nordic countries, where the left has ruled governments for most of last half-century. …That’s not Marx’s vision of socialism, or even Debs’s. In Europe, workers have significant say in what companies do. They don’t control or own them. Private property endures. …private capital is given leave to gain profits through higher productivity, even if that results in layoffs and bankruptcies. But the government is able to extract a large share of the economic surplus that these firms create in order to fund a full-blown welfare state.
Which means “liberal socialism” is, well, liberalism (the modern version, i.e., statism, though Thomas Sowell has a more unflattering term to describe it).
By the standards of Marxist socialism, this kind of social democracy appears to be nothing more than an attenuated form of capitalism. …But…As the Soviet experiment with blanket nationalization showed, it can’t adjust to the rapid changes in industry created by the introduction of automation and information technology. …the market is a better indicator of prices than government planning. …the older Marxist model of socialism may not even be compatible with popular democracy. …What’s the difference between this kind of socialist politics and garden-variety liberalism? Not much. …American socialists need to do what the Europeans did after World War II and bid goodbye to the Marxist vision of democratic control and ownership of the means of production. They need to recognize that what is necessary now—and also conceivable—is not to abolish capitalism, but to create socialism within it.
For what it’s worth, the leftists I know are believers in “liberal democracy,” which is good, and they also are believers in “liberal socialism,” which is good, at least when compared to “Marxist socialism.” Sort of like comparing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to Nicolás Maduro and Kim Jong Un.
I disagree with Obama and Clinton, of course, and I would argue that what they want is bad compared to small-government capitalism.

But I utterly despise the totalitarian regimes in Venezuela and North Korea.
Let’s conclude by highlighting a key difference between “liberal socialists” and supporters of small government. My leftist friends are content to allow capitalism so long as they can impose high taxes on “economic surplus” to finance lots of redistribution.

They think that such policies don’t cause significant economic harm. I try to explain to them that punishing success and subsidizing dependency is not a good recipe for long-run prosperity. And I also tell them that demographic changes make their policies very unsustainable.

But at least these decent people on the left are not totalitarians. So when I look at this amusing image from Reddit‘s libertarian page, I agree that everyone who supports big government is a collectivist of sorts. But “Social Democracy” (assuming that’s akin to “liberal socialism”) is not really the same creature as the other forms of collectivism (assuming “social justice” is akin to antifa).



Which is why this image is more accurate.



The bottom line is that Nordic-style big government is misguided, but state-über-alles totalitarianism is irredeemably horrible.

Mueller and Chuck

I believe this "Chuck" depicted here is little Chucky Schumer


Big Labor Exploits Harvey

Proceeds from 'Hurricane Relief Fund' will go to labor organizing

BY:

Big Labor is looking to exploit the devastation of Hurricane Harvey to raise money for its organizing efforts in Texas.  The Texas Organizing Project Education Fund, a labor-affiliated group looking to make inroads in right-to-work Texas, launched the Hurricane Harvey Community Relief Fund in the wake of the flooding that has devastated the Houston area. The donation page says the fund will "move the material aid the most vulnerable hit by Harvey," but that "material" goes beyond standard humanitarian aid. Donations, the page says, will help the SEIU-funded group organize workers.
"Your donation is vital to ensuring that we have the resources we need to organize and fight for Texans devastated by Hurricane Harvey," the page says.......To Read More...

Sacrificing the Children

By Tabitha Korol August 30, 2017

In April of this year, The Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) LearningMedia featured “Dying to be a Martyr,” a classroom experience about the Middle East for students, ages 9 through 12.  Taxpayer-funded educational material, provided at no cost, includes some historical documents, but delivers a strictly one-sided Islamic view of the religious and territorial conflict, without regard to suitability, accuracy or entirety.

As reported by The Blaze that same month, the premise was how religions can unite or divide people, why individuals and groups sometimes turn to tactics of terrorism, and how terrorism affects our world. The Blaze also discovered that more than 200 US-government-approved textbooks are used in the UNRWA schools, in Gaza, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), and east Jerusalem; they ignore Israel’s existence and holy sites; ignore all historical connection of Jews to the land; and encourage Moslem students to kill Israelis and become martyrs.

Instead of attempting to provide these children with a precious opportunity for a better education and decent future, PBS uses our tax dollars to keep them illiterate............To Read More....

Kathy Griffin says she’s “No Longer Sorry” about Faux-Beheading Trump

By Onan Coca August 30, 2017

D-List Celebrity Kathy Griffin seems to be attempting to worm her way back into the public conscience just a few months after being shunned for disgusting faux-beheading of President Trump.
You may remember in the days after her “joke” she made the rounds tearfully apologizing for her bad judgment, promising anyone who would listen that she realized how disgusting what she’d done was.

Apparently, Griffin has since decided that the cultural tide has turned in her favor and that most Americans are now cool with violence because she’s retracting her apology and blaming Trump for her bad taste........To Read More....

My Take - And we're surprised she's now recanting her recantation.  Griffin is now, has always been,  and will always be a bottom feeder.  The only thing she regretted was her loss of potential income and the possibility the FBI or Secret Service might be coming after her.  It's illegal to threaten the President of the United States, and it clearly was her intent to inflame people to undertake this murderous task.  She still needs to be prosecuted.....and then we'll really see the tears flow with another recantation of her recantation of her first recantation. 

Back to School Blues: Visiting a Private School and a Public School Makes Betsy DeVos an Enemy of Teachers?

Even though it remains mainly an idea, school choice continues to terrify the monopolists.

Hunt Lawrence and Daniel J. Flynn August 30, 2017, 1:01 pm
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited a public school and a private school in Florida on Tuesday. The representatives of teachers at one type of school took it as a declaration of war of sorts upon them that DeVos paid a visit to the other type of school.

“It’s no surprise that Betsy DeVos will be visiting a private school among her stops in Tallahassee,” Florida Education Association President Joanne McCall reacted in a statement. “She has long shown her opposition to public schools, her support for unfettered vouchers and for-profit charter school chains and her desire to privatize all education in this nation.”

The distorted lens that sees trips to public and private schools as an insult to the government-funded institutions strikes as analogous to the notion that supporting vouchers for the minority of parents who choose private schools amounts to a desire to shutter public schools......To Read More...

My Take - Once again we have a failure of definition leading to a lack of clarity.  The first question that should be asked is: Whose money is it?  It's the taxpayers money.  The second question that needs asking is:  Whose children are they?  They are the taxpayers children.   The Third question that needs asking is:  Whose the better judge of what's good for their children - the parents, the teachers, the teacher's union or politicians? 

This has gone long past deciding as to which is better - private or public - we already know public education in America stinks.  Are there expectations?  Yes - but so what?  Let the parents look over the educational scene in their area and make the decision where and how their money should be spent.

These politicians, teachers and teacher's unions need to understand once and for all - this isn't your money, these are not your kids, these schools don't belong to you, public education wasn't created for your benefit.  These schools belong to the taxpayers for the benefit of their children and teachers are nothing more than hired help.  Hired help salutes, says - yes sir - and does as their told.  Unless they're a part of this corrupt cabal of educators and their political allies.   It's time they found out otherwise.  Vouchers are a good start.


 

Mathematic Discrepancies in Chiraq Point to EVEN MORE Dem Voter Fraud

By Andrew West August 28, 2017

The 2016 U.S. presidential election, while fraught with peril, will likely go down in history as a cautionary tale for those who attempt to hoodwink American voters. The entire debacle was an arduous exercise in political malfeasance, right up until the point in which Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States.

The corruption of the democrats in 2016 will go down in history as one of the most vile acts in the legacy of American politics, as candidate Bernie Sanders was colluded against by opponent Hillary Clinton and her cabal of corruptible cohorts within the ranks of the DNC. Furthermore, a litany of secretive information about the entire Clinton organization was revealed via Wikileaks, after an anonymous whistleblower relayed a great deal of information to the site from within the email servers of the campaign.

This leaker, believed to have been DNC staffer Seth Rich, was then mysteriously murdered in what D.C. police are unbelievably purporting was a “botched robbery” in which nothing was stolen...........“More than 14,000 votes were cast in Chicago during the 2016 general election than there were voters to cast them..............Illinois is merely one of at least eleven states in which similar discrepancies have been discovered in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s attempted rigging of the 2016 election........To Read More......

Politico Tweets Classless Cartoon Portraying Texans as Religious Hillbillies


In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, a number of vile and reprehensible actions and reactions have occurred, many emanating from within the storm’s path. There have been numerous reports of looting in the greater Houston metropolitan area, along with unbelievable accounts of these same looters opening fire on civilian rescue squads and firefighters alike, making the recovery of stranded Americans nearly impossible at times.  Price gouging has been another concern, as reportedly reputable businesses turn to greed in order to cash in on the plight of the state.

At the same time, outside media sources have been errant in their duties as well, eschewing their journalistic responsibilities in order to chase ratings and ad revenue.  CNN has been the number one offender, unsurprisingly, as one Harvey survivor and mother decided that, FCC be damned, she would give the insensitive liberal network a profanity-laden piece of her mind live on air yesterday.

Now, Politico has joined the fray, tweeting out a link to an insensitive and vile political cartoon that displays affected Texans in an absurdly negative light........To Read More.....

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Political Correctness Run Amok - or - Only an Intellectual Could Think This Was Smart

Jesus Christ and Mary are the latest victims of the mass statue-removing frenzy.

By Rich Kozlovich

On August 29, 2917 Katherine Timpf posted an article, Catholic School Removes Jesus, Mary Statues Because They’re ‘Alienating’ to Non-Catholics, saying:
"The San Domenico School, the first Catholic school in California, has removed all but 18 of its 180 religious statues in an effort to be more “inclusive” and “forward looking.” Several parents have complained about the decision, according to Marinij."
She goes on to note:
 "Articulating an inclusive foundation appears to mean letting go of San Domenico’s 167-year tradition as a Dominican Catholic school and being both afraid and ashamed to celebrate one’s heritage and beliefs,” one of these parents, Shannon Fitzpatrick, told the news source. “In our time here, the word ‘Catholic’ has been removed from the mission statement, sacraments were removed from the curriculum, the lower-school curriculum was changed to world religions, the logo and colors were changed to be ‘less Catholic,’ and the uniform was changed to be less Catholic,”
Of course the first question I had was - If all of this "Catholicness" was so offensive to students of other faiths - why is it 80% of the student body isn't Catholic?  Apparently they and their families weren't offended.  Apparently - it seems to me - they wanted their children to be a part of this institution because it was Catholic.  Or is that too obvious for this school's board to grasp? 

They're now justifying this action because this school is "an “independent” as well as a “Catholic” school".  Well, this of course puts a different light on the subject!  Right?   Wrong!  It's a school that was a Catholic school and is now an education center run by Catholic heretics, and if I miss my guess - it will soon find it's going to be independent of a large number of students. 

Whether one is a Catholic or not, whether one is a Christian or not, whether one is an atheist or not - this should be disturbing as it shows just how easily it is for heresy to seep into a religion, or any group for that matter, and destroy the values of a particular society and replace it with semi-religious secularism. 

It's easy to agree with Dan Greenfield's article  - The Left's Values Are Our State Church - when he says leftism is now the state sponsored - and in some cases - imposed religion.   Catholics, Jews and Protestants all have their heretics - the Republicans have their RINO's - and the United States has the Federal Judiciary - all undermining the values that made our society great.

Make no mistake about this - this isn't about "offending" others.  This is about Political Correctness run amok.  Political Correctness is fascism masquerading as concern for common decency.  PC is dangerous because it imparts stupidity by destroying the ability to define an issue properly.  And it's definition that leads to clarity.  Without clarity of thought there can be no decisive thinking or action.

Since they pulled this stunt after everyone signed up for this year's enrollment - it will be interesting to see what happens next year.  If what happens what I think is going to happen - this school's board will soon have clarity imposed on them. 

Definition leads to clarity.  Clarity leads to understanding.  Understanding leads to good decision making.  Fire the heretics, replace the RINO's, impose term and age limits on the federal judiciary and all elected officials.  Because good decision making leads to harmony!

 

For Russia, an Opportunity in US Sanctions

By Ekaterina Zolotova Aug 29, 2017

The standoff between the West and Russia got more complicated when Washington imposed new sanctions against Moscow. The Europeans were quick to criticize the sanctions. Germany’s foreign minister raised concerns about U.S. intentions, France questioned the sanctions’ legality, and the European Commission president made threats that he later had to walk back. Suddenly, to the Kremlin, the sanctions looked less like a setback and more like an opportunity. If Russia can play the victim, it may be able to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the EU, more sympathetic as Brussels may prove to be.

There’s just one problem: Sanctions are just one way the U.S. is pushing back against Russia.

Russia has long been a major supplier to the European energy market. Put another way, Russia’s economy depends on its sales to Europe’s energy market. So Moscow took notice when recently the U.S. delivered its first shipment of liquefied natural gas to Lithuania, a country that at its nearest point is just more than 400 miles (650 kilometers) from Moscow. In fact, U.S. natural gas shipments have been appearing all over Europe lately in the wake of the American shale gas boom. This is the sort of encroachment that Russia is compelled to respond to. The challenge for Moscow is to do so without appearing threatening to Europe and thus pushing it closer to the United States. One place it might be able to do that is the Caucasus, specifically around Georgia and its breakaway republics, the very place where Russia announced its return to history in 2008............  For Russia, an Opportunity in US Sanctions appeared first on Geopolitics | Geopolitical Futures.

My Take - It's going to take the world a few more months to grasp the importance fracking in the U.S. is going to play in the world's geopolitics - and maybe the U.S. Congress a bit longer - but that day is coming - just as soon as the 2018 election blood bath is over.  As for Russia and Putin - they get it already, and Putin is doing what he's doing in order to just survive.  But he and Russia are toast as a world power.  He'll continue playing with the little kids in the Middle East as the big bully on the block - but that's about it - and they're toast also, and we can thank fracking for that. 



 

Because of Unresolved Issues such as Carried Interest and Revenue Neutrality, Will GOP Tax Reform Effort Become a Cluster-You-Know-What like Obamacare Repeal?

August 29, 2017 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty


While I realize there’s zero hope of ripping up America’s awful tax code and getting a simple and fair flat tax, I’m nonetheless hopeful that there will be some meaningful incremental changes as part of the current effort to achieve some sort of tax reform.

A package that lowers the corporate rate, replaces depreciation with expensing, and ends the death tax would be very good for growth, and those good reforms could be at least partially financed by eliminating the state and local tax deduction and curtailing business interest deductions so that debt and equity are on a level playing field.

All that sounds good, and a package like this should be feasible since Republicans control both Congress and the White House (especially now that the BAT is off the table), but I warn in this interview that there are lots of big obstacles that could cause tax reform to become a disaster akin to the Obamacare repeal effort.



Here’s my list of conflicts that need to be solved in order to get some sort of plan through Congress and on to the President’s desk.
  • Carried interest – Trump wants to impose a higher capital gains tax on a specific type of investment, but this irks many congressional GOPers who have long understood that any capital gains tax is a form of double taxation and should be abolished. The issue apparently has some symbolic importance to the President and it could become a major stumbling block if he digs in his heels.
  • Tax cut or revenue neutrality – Budget rules basically require that tax cuts expire after 10 years. To avoid this outcome (which would undermine the pro-growth impact of any reforms), many lawmakers want a revenue-neutral package that could be permanent. But that means coming up with tax increases to offset tax cuts. That’s okay if undesirable tax preferences are being eliminated to produce more revenue, but defenders of those loopholes will then lobby against the plan.
  • Big business vs small business – Everyone agrees that America’s high corporate tax rate is bad news for competitiveness and should be reduced. The vast majority of small businesses, however, pay taxes through “Schedule C” of the individual income tax, so they want lower personal rates to match lower corporate rates. That’s a good idea, of course, but would have major revenue implications and complicate the effort to achieve revenue neutrality.
  • Budget balance – Republicans have long claimed that a major goal is balancing the budget within 10 years. That’s certainly achievable with a modest amount of spending restraint.
  • And it’s even relatively simple to have a big tax cut and still achieve balance in 10 years with a bit of extra spending discipline. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there’s very little appetite for spending restraint in the White House or Capitol Hill, and this may hinder passage of a tax plan.
  • Middle class tax relief – The main focus of the tax plan is boosting growth and competitiveness by reducing the burden on businesses and investment. That’s laudable, but critics will say “the rich” will get most of the tax relief. And even though the rich already pay most of the taxes and even though the rest of us will benefit from faster growth, Republicans are sensitive to that line of attack. So they will want to include some sort of provision designed for the middle class, but that will have major revenue implications and complicate the effort to achieve revenue neutrality.
There’s another complicating factor. At the risk of understatement, President Trump generates controversy. And this means he doesn’t have much power to use the bully pulpit.

Though I point out in this interview that this doesn’t necessarily cripple tax reform since the President’s most important role is to simply sign the legislation.



Before the 2016 election, I was somewhat optimistic about tax reform.

A few months ago, I was very pessimistic.

I now think something will happen, if for no other reason than Republicans desperately want to achieve something after botching Obamacare repeal.


Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The Left's Values Are Our State Church

Posted by Daniel Greenfield 5 Comments Monday, August 28, 2017 @ Sultan Knish Blog

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

The First Amendment assumes that the proper sphere of government is policies, not values. And so it protects the right of political participation and prohibits a state church that would define values.

The government had the right to decide to go to war with France. It did not have a right to decide what you should believe. Politics extended into the realm of policies, not beliefs.

But as religious belief declined, politics replaced it as the repository of moral and ethical values. This transformation began on the left. The left was the least religious in the traditional sense. And the most likely to build up an ideology of secular values with which to displace traditional religious values.

The last century witnessed an extensive effort to scrub religious values out of government. But this effort was matched by an equally comprehensive project to replace them with the left’s own values. Unlike the wall between church and state, there were few legal safeguards against writing values into legislation if they were irreligious ones. The church was deemed to be the true threat. Not the state.

But the end result looks very much like an establishment of religion. Even in the church sense.

The values written into the legislation reflect those of certain churches, but not others. When nuns are forced to pay for birth control and Christian photographers with traditional beliefs are compelled to participate in gay weddings, the government is picking religious establishment “winners and losers”.

The winners are roughly on the religious left and the losers on the religious right.

Unitarians win, Baptists lose. Quakers win, Mormons lose. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) triumphs over the Presbyterian Church in America. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America prevails over the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. It’s hard not to see this as an establishment of religion.

This isn’t about doctrinal battles or gay marriage. It’s about the culture war fallout from the left’s power to write its values into law and into the codes of conduct that hold sway in in private organizations.

We take the truth of our values on faith. They are a matter of subjective conviction, not objective fact. To those who believe in them, they appear to be the absolute truths of the enlightened. But they cannot be proven to be true in any meaningful way. You either believe in them. Or you don’t.

Google fired James Damore for questioning a tenet of its beliefs. That is in theory illegal. The search engine monopoly created forums in which employees were meant to discuss these very issues. Damore was not fired for expressing his views at work, but for politely expressing the “incorrect” view.

California law protects employees fired for both religious and political views. But the “hostile workplace” pretext that led to Damore’s firing is an example of how the left’s values are the basis of legislation. Much as “public accommodation” civil rights protect the demand to participate rather than the right of religious dissent, the protection of minority participation is at the heart of the left’s bid for equality. But this has never truly been a matter of law, but of values. The law mandates the elimination of obstacles. It does not demand that values winners and losers be chosen to achieve equality. That is a leftist bias.

The left defends imposing its values by force through outrage at selective “suffering” on the one hand and abstractions about the empowerment of participatory equality on the other. Ultimately though it cannot defend its values without reference to those values. That is typical of belief systems.

The left’s secular religion functions as a theocracy. It promises salvation through Socialism, warns that human sin will destroy the world through global warming and is engaged in a perpetual struggle against those who do not share its values. It wages war on religious freedom because it is a kind of religion.

There can be no political freedom where there is no religious freedom. Religion is more encompassing than politics can ever be. Politics addresses which policy best accomplishes a particular goal. Religion tackles the question of what the goal should be. If you don’t have the freedom to determine your own goals, then your ability to choose policies is as meaningless as some European elections.

Leftist systems seek to create “democratic” arenas in which we are free to disagree on policies, but not goals. They do this by writing values into the system so that only one sort of goal is deemed acceptable.

Deviations from the goal are not acceptable. Questioning the goal is heresy. And leads to sanctions.

Trump Derangement Syndrome, Google’s firing of James Damore and the violent attacks on conservative speakers are all examples of what happens when the goals are blasphemously challenged.

Politics is far more likely to turn violent over values rather than policy. That is why the Founders wanted politics to be confined to policy rather than values. We can rationally debate policy, but we can’t debate values. We can argue over what we feel to be true, but the revelations of our deepest selves cannot be proven. And when they are challenged, anger, hostility and even violence quickly follow.

The First Amendment helped build a system where our representatives debated what we should do, rather than what we should think. Politicians were meant to get things done, not argue dogma. The culture war we are in is less about what we should do than what we should think. The violent confrontations and clashes are not really about campus safe spaces or Confederate memorials, but how we should see ourselves. The confrontations are meant to be both polarizing and clarifying.

They’re a religious war. The left has established its religion. And violence against heretics swiftly follows.

America is in the midst of an ugly conflict because our political system was hijacked by the Church of the Left. The legislative and judicial hijacking of our system has turned our politics into a culture war. To end the conflict we must return to a true understanding of the First Amendment. It is not the role of government to tell us what to think or what to believe. And any government that embarks on such a totalitarian enterprise will tear apart our society and destroy our way of life.

As the left is doing.

Not Even Paltrow's goop Is Above The Law

By Julianna LeMieux — August 25, 2017

Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle company, Goop, may think that the products they sell are helpful but others disagree. The controversy has evolved into a formal complaint filed against Goop - a move that starts the legal ball rolling down Goop's vaginal egg lined path.

The complaint was made by two California district attorneys along with the non-profit Truth in Advertising (TINA). They claim that Goop has made “unsubstantiated, and therefore deceptive, health and disease-treatment claims to market many of its products.”.......Infertility - Trauma - Inflammation - Arthritis - Insomnia - Uterine prolapse - Hormone imbalance - Eczema - Psoriasis - Acne - Fevers - Depression - Anxiety - Panic attacks - Migraines - Hypertension - Autoimmune diseases - Cancer - Nerve pain - Constipation.........To Read More....

Why Would the EU Put the Kibosh on Bayer's Acquisition of Monsanto?

By Alex Berezow — August 23, 2017

Last year, Bayer announced its intention to purchase (in cash!) Monsanto. This posed something of an existential dilemma for anti-GMO movements like March Against Monsanto and the Non-GMO Project, which would have to pick a new bogeyman in their war against biotechnology. Making matters worse, Bayer is consistently ranked as one of the world's most reputable companies.

But the acquisition may not go through. Multiple media outlets have reported that European Union regulators are skeptical of the merger. Why?

One's initial impulse might be that the EU simply doesn't like GMOs (which is true), so it will make an example of Monsanto by blocking its acquisition by Bayer. But that doesn't appear to be the case. According to the Wall Street Journal, the EU approved mergers between DuPont and Dow Chemical as well as Syngenta and ChemChina, albeit after various concessions were made. (Both DuPont and Syngenta sell GMOs.).....To Read More.....

My Take - I'm not overly worried about so-called monopolies - provided they're not imposed by the government.  As for airline regulations - are we so sure these are truly unregulated?  If that's so - why isn't there more and better competition?  When Standard of New Jersey pretty much cornered the oil market under Rockefeller - he caused the price of oil to drop dramatically, and his service was top notch.  Why?  Because if a legitimate monopoly comes into existence they must maintain price, quality and service or someone will come along and take it from them.  I'm of the opinion only government sponsored and maintained monopolies are abusive, maybe I'm wrong, but as for EU claims of concern - they're nuts in almost everything else - so why should we think this is any different?

Cartoon of the Day

John Kasich Teaming Up with Democrat for Independent Presidential Run in 2020?

By Onan Coca August 25, 2017

The simple fact that this is a story is evidence enough to confirm that Ohio Governor John Kasich (R-OH) is the RINO we all thought he was. According to recent reports Kasich and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (D-CO) are deep in discussions about forming a bipartisan ticket for an Independent run at the White House in 2020.

The two men have made a series of appearances together with the major theme being about what state’s can do to improve healthcare for their citizens. However, Axios has learned that there may be something much bigger going on than just joint appearances, the two men may actually be considering joining forces in a Presidential bid......To Read More......

My Take - Wow!  Am I shocked?  No!  I've met Kasich and I can assure you he suffers from a serious case of weird compounded by a massive infection of hubris. 

When he was running for Governor he claimed conservatism was his philosophy but the Republican party was his vehicle.  In his second term when promoting Obamacare he claimed he has the right to define conservatism as he saw fit.  Then he defined his brand of conservatism by declaring he had to support Obamacare because God told him to.  According to him, Matthew chapter 25, is "a call for more entitlement spending".  And those who don't agree will have to answer to God for it. 

We now know a few things for sure about Kasich.  He's definately not a conservative.  He's weird, he's arrogant, he's a left wing nut, he's a bad theologian and a heretic.  But he wants to be President of the United States because he clearly thinks Trump is unfit, and maybe being an independent is going to work for him.  

My prediction?  If you think he's gone off the leftist rails now - he's going to make Bernie look sane.....and I don't think he's going to run as an independent - I think he's going to change parties and run as a Democrat.    And the Democrats will be in such disarray - they may accept him.

Personal Accounts Are the Best Way to Ensure Safe and Secure Retirement Income

August 28, 2017 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
 
Most people understand that there’s a Social Security crisis, but they only know half the story.

The part of the crisis they grasp is that the program is basically bankrupt, though I doubt many of them realize that the long-run shortfall is a staggering $44 trillion.

The part of the crisis that generally is overlooked is that the program is a lousy deal for workers. They pay record amounts of tax into the system in exchange for a shaky promise of a modest monthly check. For all intents and purposes, they are being charged for a steak, but they’re getting a hamburger (with Medicare, by contrast, people are charged for a hamburger and they receive a hamburger but taxpayers pay for a steak that nobody gets).

For groups with lower-than-average life expectancy, such as poor people and minorities, Social Security is even worse. They pay into the system throughout their working lives, but then they don’t live long enough to collect a decent amount of benefits.

I narrated a video that was partly focused on how people could have more retirement income if we shifted to a system of personal retirement accounts, but this video from Learn Liberty directly addresses this issue.



By the way, I have one minor complaint with this excellent video. Social Security is not forced savings. There’s no money set aside. Yes, there’s a “trust fund,” but it contains nothing but IOUs. And if you don’t believe me, see what the Clinton Administration wrote back in 1999.

It would be more accurate to say the system is a pay-as-you-go, tax-and-transfer entitlement.


But I’m digressing, so let’s focus on some potential good news. Americans actually have a pretty good track record of saving for their own retirement. Indeed, total pension assets (measured as a share of economic output) in the United States rival those of nations that have mandatory private retirement systems.

So it presumably shouldn’t be that difficult to transition to a private retirement system in America.

Which was a key takeaway from a column in the Wall Street Journal last week by Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute. He starts with a pessimistic observation on how major politicians have addressed the crisis.
During last year’s presidential campaign, the candidates promised not to cut Social Security benefits (Donald Trump) and even to increase them (Hillary Clinton). …the Trump administration should reconsider its pledge not to cut Social Security benefits. The program is 25% underfunded over the long term, the Congressional Budget Office projects.
But the good news is that many Americans already are saving for retirement, so it wouldn’t be disruptive to extend personal retirement accounts to the entire population.
…private plans such as 401(k)s have allowed more people than ever to save for retirement…61% of workers… Contributions to private plans have…risen from an average 5.8% of wages in 1975 to 8% in 2014. …in 1984 only 23% of households received benefits from private retirement plans. By 2007 that had risen to 45%. Moreover, during the same period the benefits that the median household received from private plans rose by 141% above inflation, versus only 25% for Social Security benefits.
This is a system that should be expanded, with a prudent transition from a bankrupt Social Security system to a safer and more lucrative system of personal retirement accounts.

And that would be a much better outcome than what the current system will give us.
…Scandinavian-level tax rates or multi-trillion dollar unfunded entitlement liabilities.
P.S. Responding to those who worry about stock market downturns and the implications for retirement income, my colleague Mike Tanner showed that even people retiring after the 2008 crash would have been better off with personal retirement accounts.

P.P.S. You can enjoy some Social Security cartoons here, here, and here. And we also have a Social Security joke if you appreciate grim humor.

 

Loony Maxine Waters Continues Descent into Dementia with Latest Trump Claims

By Andrew West August 27, 2017

There are few politicians in Washington more universally shunned for their antics than California’s Maxine Waters. The democratic representative has been attempting to make a name for herself by jumping headfirst onto the “resistance” bandwagon, spending more time on attacking the President than she ever has on legislating or working for her ultraliberal constituents in her home state......To Read More....

My Take - Shunned?  Perhaps when it comes to actually getting anything worthwhile accomplished, but not as the Democrat social paradigm.  She's their spiritual leader.  Can you name one Democrat who has come out to condemn her insane rants?  Has there even been one Democrat who has the courage to even attempt to ameliorate her insane rants? 

Republicans and their Democrat allies can't wait to attack the President, but every one of them fear Maxine.  Make no mistake about this - Maxine is the Mother Superior of the Democrat Party.  She is their voice and face.  Get used to it because she will be there as long as she likes - and presumably she's the best her district has to offer......which is a clear demonstration her constituents aren't the brightest pebbles in the brook.  She's also the gift that keeps on giving.  Even better than Nancy Pelosi who's clearly being enveloped with dementia. 

Fox's Boothe: 'When Will Democrats Denounce Antifa?'

By Joe Concha The Hill August 28, 2017


Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe on Monday slammed Democratic lawmakers for not denouncing anti-fascist protest groups after violence broke out between pro- and anti-Trump demonstrators in Berkeley, Calif.

"So many people came together to denounce what we saw in Charlottesville with those neo-Nazi groups, those white supremacists," said Boothe on "America's Newsroom."

"Unfortunately, we're not seeing that same rebuke of groups like antifa."

Boothe called out House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who represents a district close to Berkeley, and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) for not rebuking the militant far left protesters publicly.... Continue Reading.....

Back to School 2017

By Mary Grabar, August 28, 2017:

No doubt, one of the big topics in classrooms as students come back is going to be the march of the "Nazis" and the threat to democracy by President Trump. National Public Radio, Education Week, and the National Education Association, are offering resources. USA Today had an article filled with helpful tips for teachers. Not surprisingly, these resources come from such places as the racist Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the anti-Semitic Facing History and Ourselves, and the sophistic Atlantic Magazine. Read this recent "Legal Insurrection" blog post to see how SPLC is exploiting Charlottesville to further enrich themselves.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has made its white principals wealthy, especially founder Morris Dees, through false allegations of racism, is racist. By redirecting attention from poverty in communities of color in the South, to charges of nebulous "hate," the SPLC does its part to perpetuate poverty and hatred.

The curriculum and workshops put out by Facing History and Ourselves routinely trivialize the Nazi Holocaust by equating the slightest infraction or display of insensitivity to the horrors against the Jews under Hitler.

On college campuses, activists disguised as professors are organzing students, even as they undergo orientation. They did so when their candidate lost the presidential election, as many will recall, as does Dissident Prof who was greeted with chants about "hate" in the village square of Clinton by the snowflakes bussed down from campus. (They walked down the hill from campus, but not up.)

So the ever-reliable Chronicle of Higher Education (which hardly ever discusses issues concerning education), provided college administrators helpful tips in an article titled "University Leaders Should Plan for Another Year of Campus-Speech Protests. Here's How." The article leads with the sentence, "When polarizing speakers come to campus, there's no way to guarantee violence won't ensue." Notice, dear readers (and students), how the issue is framed. Notice the passive construction of the sentence. The blame implicitly is put on the speakers who are "polarizing."

How do we determine what is "polarizing"? Why those who inspire protests. It's what we call circular logic. As we all know from last year, such speakers have names like Charles Murray and Heather Mac Donald, both in reality mild-mannered scholars (the latter I know from personal interaction) who present a lot of statistics on important topics such as the lag in educational achievement and crime in black neighborhoods. Oooh, but to speak of such things is ra-cisssst. Better to simply let gangs slaughter innocent little girls doing homework than to speak of such matters. If such slaughter were to end just imagine how many professors specializing in the "schools-to-prison-industrial-complex" research would be out of work.

For those surprised by what happened in Charlottesville recently when a motley and idiotic band of white supremacists decided to march through town and one of their obviously disturbed individuals decided to retaliate against the anti-hate counterprotestors who were assaulting them (sadly killing one woman), should not be. Campuses have been scouring their pasts for any relationship to slavery or discrimination for years now. As University of Viriginia President Teresa Sullivan told interviewers, such "conversations" about removing statues have been going on since 2013. (Such "conversations" require hours and hours of meetings, so account for pages and pages of "service work" for professors striving to attain advancement.)

No one bothers to ask the custodial crew if they ever suffered from seeing such fixtures of long-dead Confederate generals on a daily basis.

Still, the Mob is wielding power and the Confederate statues (and portraits) are coming down on campuses across the Southland. Inside Higher Ed, today, offers a "round-up" of such activity.

All the hullabaloo is to disguise the fact that most professors agitating for such removals are woefully ignorant of history. For a real historical perspective, please read AHI Senior Fellow Lee Cheek's articles and interviews, accessible through the website of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (also the place where the Dissident Prof makes her home).
And since teachers will be teaching about how to spot "fake news," let's have a lesson on New York Times spin. This newspaper, in an article "trending" on Facebook, took Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker to task for telling his reporters to refrain from "commentary" when reporting on President Trump. In a memo, he asked reporters to "'stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism.'"

The final edits were presented. The Times saw the removal of the reporter's comment that the Charlottesville protests were "reshaping" Trump's presidency as a sign that the Journal was going "soft" on Trump. So was the description of the speech as "'an off-script return to campaign form' in which the president 'pivoted away from remarks a day earlier in which he had solemnly called for unity."

The New York Times' idea of fair coverage can be seen in their article about the speech in Phoenix:
PHOENIX — President Trump, stung by days of criticism that he sowed racial division in the United States after deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Va., accused the news media on Tuesday of misrepresenting what he insisted was his prompt, unequivocal condemnation of bigotry and hatred. 
After declaring, “What happened in Charlottesville strikes at the core of America,” Mr. Trump delivered a lengthy, aggrieved defense of his statements after the Aug. 12 violence that left one woman dead and the nation reeling at the images of swastikas in Thomas Jefferson’s hometown. 
Notably, he omitted blaming 'both sides' for the violence as he had on Aug. 15. Those remarks had prompted intense criticism, including from fellow Republican leaders, for seeming to equate the hate groups and the protesters who turned out to oppose them.
Now if the Dissident Prof were still teaching in our institutions of higher learning, she might include  such an article for a lesson on rhetoric.

To begin, the President was "stung by days of criticism." Really? How do they know he was "stung"? Did anyone interview him about how he felt? To all appearances, he was not stung at all, but justifiably angered by reporters overlooking the violence perpetruated by masked, weapon-yielding counter-protestors.

Notice the hint of skepticism by reference to "what he insisted" was his condemnation of hatred and bigotry. Are the quotation marks there to support the notion that we should doubt what he said? How about a link to his actual words?
Trump's speech was "a lengthy, aggrieved defense of his statements after the Aug. 12 violence that left one woman dead and the nation reeling at the images of swastikas in Thomas Jefferson's hometown."
The "nation reeling"? Really? Where do they get this information? No one was "reeling" around me. How about you?

And "notably" President Trump refrained from referring to "both sides" because we know that even when we have footage and first-hand reports of violence by "counter-protestors" that that is justified violence. It was justified in March 2016 against ordinary Americans going to a campaign rally in Chicago. In these reporters' minds it is all the more justified because a few dozen kooks decide to sport swastikas. Violence is justified by the actions, symbols, or presence or political opponents, in other words. Therefore, it is not really violence, so the President was wrong to say that both sides were violent.

It gets even better. Times reporters dig up rarely used adjectives to report "the facts." Like this:
In an angry, unbridled and unscripted performance that rivaled the most sulfurous rallies of his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump sought to deflect the anger toward him against the news media, suggesting that they, not he, were responsible for deepening divisions in the country.
If real teaching were going on, you'd have rhetorical analyses of such spin by normally atheistic New York Times reporters conjuing up images of hell. You'd also have students reading George Orwell.