'Justice' is the word

I found it ironic that Merriam-Webster chose the word ‘justice’ as its word of the year for 2018. They said in a statement, “The concept of justice was at the center of many of our national debates in the past year: racial justice, social justice, criminal justice, economic justice.” Then they mentioned some newsworthy events in which they say justice played a role. The Mueller investigation was the most prominent one. They cited the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as another.

Neither case radiated much justice. We’ve been told for 19 months now that there was some sort of collision between President Trump and the Russians. Now we’re bogged down in a debate over whether or not hush money to a mistress constitutes a campaign contribution. If so, what kind of campaign work did Stormy Daniels do for the money? 

Then there’s Brett Kavanaugh. Not much justice there. Oh yes, he made it onto the Supreme Court, but at what cost? His entire life was dragged through the mud. He was made out by the left to be a rapist. His family was put through untold torture and humiliation just because the Democrats in the senate couldn’t get past the notion that the president of the United States, whoever he is, gets to pick whomever he chooses for the court, so long as they’re qualified. And Justice Kavanaugh most certainly is. Michael Avenatti, the creepy porn lawyer for Stormy Daniels, surfaced during the hearings with supposed bombshell allegations against Kavanaugh that proved to be totally unfounded. Still, the damage was done. Justice?

Too many people measure justice by whether or not they get their way. One of the dictionary definitions of ‘justice’ is “the administering of deserved punishment or reward.” Kavanaugh may have technically gotten the ‘reward,’ but confirmation to the Supreme Court is not about the individual justice. It’s about seating the court with qualified jurists. Where’s the deserved punishment? Christine Blasey Ford had not one shred of evidence, and those whom she claimed were witnesses had no recollection of the event in question. Was there any downside for her? Quite the contrary. She walked away with a hefty payday from crowd sourcing and is probably in negations for a huge book deal.

You want to know what justice really is? Justice is allowing the person the American people elected as their president to do his job. Chuck Schumer actually had the audacity to tell President Trump that elections have consequences. This from a leader who just lost the senate…again. The president reminded him that elections do have consequences, and that’s why we’re doing so well. 

Justice is a wall. The wall the American people wanted when they elected Donald Trump president. 

Justice is bringing to a close this endless harassment of the president over Russia. Despite the perjury traps and convictions totally unrelated to Trump, the relentless pursuit of impeachment continues.

Justice is allowing Supreme Court nominees to answer civil questions about their qualifications and not have their reputations torched in the process.

Justice is abiding by an election without snowflakes melting down like it was Armageddon.

Justice is media coverage of a president that isn’t 92 percent negative just because those reporting it hate him.

Merriam-Webster based their choice of ‘justice’ in part on how many people searched for the word on their site. A spokesman for the company said people didn’t look up the word because they didn’t know how to spell it. They were looking for its true meaning. Perhaps that’s because they don’t recognize it in today’s political landscape.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Why Trump didn't break campaign finance laws

Anybody who thinks President Trump will ever be convicted of breaking campaign finance laws by paying off two women with whom it’s alleged he had affairs is dreaming. What he did is not a crime. Not even close. That’s not to say that he won’t be indicted. The Trump-haters are just liable to do anything.

But Michael Cohen pled guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, didn’t he? He did, but he pled guilty to a crimeless crime. There are two important points why what Trump did was not a crime. First, the money paid out was paid from his personal account. Second, the money was moving away from the candidate, not toward him. In other words, no one donated to his campaign illegally by his paying off alleged mistresses.

The prosecutors in the Cohen case said that Cohen and Trump criminally conspired to illegally influence the campaign. The fact is Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal conspired to influence the election. It wasn’t necessarily illegal. It’s called dirty politics. By now we’re used to October surprises.

Allow me to frame this in a way that’s easy for everyone to understand. Had Karen McDougal come forward with leaked medical records that showed Trump had a heart condition no one would be questioning his right to pay her to keep that information quiet. The fact that this case involves sex makes it juicy copy for the mainstream media, but it does not change the basic principles of the case. A private citizen has every right to protect his privacy. Being a candidate for president doesn’t change that. Bill Clinton understood this when he refused to release his medical records.

If failing to allow your personal life to become public is somehow misconstrued as illegally influencing a political campaign then name me one presidential candidate who hasn’t broken the law. And if the assumption is that any private matter that may influence voters has to be made public then good luck finding willing candidates to run.

I hear pundits all the time saying a case like this has never been adjudicated. Perhaps they’ve forgotten all about John Edwards. He was indicted for spending over a million dollars in campaign funds to keep a mistress quiet. Even though this was campaign money, the prosecutors could not get a conviction. That clearly appeared to be a violation of the law if for no other reason than he didn’t properly report the campaign expense. Still, he was let off the hook.

As the mainstream media obsess over nailing Trump on campaign finance charges, whatever happened to Russia? I thought that was the focus of the Mueller investigation. Notice how Mueller punted this to the Southern District of New York. One would suspect if Mueller ever thought he could get a Trump conviction on campaign finance infractions he would’ve kept the case in house. The fact that he didn’t speaks volumes.

I have been one of the staunchest believers that President Trump should leave the Mueller investigation alone. Now I’m not so sure. We’re hearing rumblings of Mueller heading for Trump family finances. His head is bobbing back in forth in the driver’s seat he’s so far off the main road. If he takes a detour to Trump Tower I wouldn’t blame the president one bit for pulling the plug.

We have to keep separated in our minds the Mueller investigation and the SDNY investigation. They’re not the same. The prosecutors in New York seem hell-bent on doing everything within their power to make Trump look bad. Let’s hope Robert Mueller is taking a higher road.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Gene editing is no longer science fiction

While everyone was focused on the border, some shocking news emerged from China. A scientist there laid claim to the first in utero genetically edited babies. If true, this is a huge breakthrough with gargantuan ramifications.

Over twenty years ago I envisioned a novel in which the doctor not only found the elusive gay gene (if there really is such a thing, but this is science fiction), he developed a technique to change it in utero. It was eventually published as a novel some twenty years later as The God Players. In the novel gay rights activists join forces with Christian fundamentalists to stop the procedure. The gay rights folks have an obvious aversion to it, and the fundamentalists are opposed to anyone playing God (thus the title).

From the Associated Press

There was nothing like this when I first conceived of the book. Now it appears to be reality. The upside is we may be able to cure horrible diseases like spina bifida before the child is ever born. The downside is the misuse of this technology to create super-humans. Hitler’s master race, if you will. The question is what should be done about it?

That’s something the characters in the book wrestle with. There’s no clear-cut answer. Imagine the genetic disorders that could be cured while the child is still developing in the womb. “Special needs” would essentially be a thing of the past. What a blessing to those afflicted with these diseases as well as their families. But how do you balance that with the temptation to create the perfect child?

One would think it would be a simple matter of limiting gene therapy to diseases. But what constitutes a disease? That’s the dilemma faced in The God Players. Is homosexuality a disease? Lawyers for the scientist argue that it is. They argue that anything that veers too far from nature can be considered a disease. They argue that sex, at its basic level, is for procreation, thus arguing that anything that runs counter to that can be considered a disease.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that homosexuality is intertwined with a person’s personality. They argue that some of our greatest art and literature may not have happened had the scientist been there to change the genetic makeup of people like Michelangelo or Oscar Wilde or Tchaikovsky.

It’s an interesting argument and makes for an intriguing courtroom battle, but the day of reckoning is here. This is no longer a thrilling plot line for a novel. It’s real, and we have to deal with it. What are we going to do?

We can begin by limiting gene therapy to diseases, but inevitably altering the genes of a homosexual baby will be just the first argument. How about a baby prone to be short. How about one who’s redheaded? Or left-handed? Nothing against you short left-handed redheads, but you’ve heard the arguments that tall, blond, and right-handed is more desirable. I’m not making that argument here. I’m just pointing out all sorts of normal traits that could be changed by people who find them less than desirable. Then where does that leave us?

How about this one? Suppose someone claims it’s a disadvantage to be born black and science can fix that? Scary, isn’t it? 

This problem isn’t going away. With the reported advancement in China it’s only going to accelerate. Even if we as a society decide its not a road we want to go down, what about another Hitler taking control of this technology? Hmmm. I may have just stumbled upon my next novel.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Ivanka and Hillary: They're both wrong

A public records request has revealed that Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of e-mails regarding government business from her personal e-mail account. This has prompted cries of “Lock her up!” from the left and defense of the violation from the right. Allow me to be the adult in the room.

First, it’s unconscionable that anyone in government, on the right or the left, is so unaware about government e-mail protocol that this could happen. Least of all the daughter of the man who made this a major campaign issue in the 2016 election. One would think that after the media attention of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails that everyone in the Trump administration would make doubly sure they were following the letter of the law. Apparently they didn’t. This is an embarrassment to the president and Ivanka should face the consequences just like anyone else.

There are two major distinctions between Ivanka’s scandal and Hillary’s. First, Ivanka wasn’t using a private server. Using one would appear to be a deliberate attempt to deceive. The second distinction—and this is a big one—is that there’s no evidence at this time that anything Ivanka e-mailed through her private account was classified. The fact that a secretary of state did that is monumental.

But what’s interesting is how the left circled the wagons around Hillary and are now demanding full prosecution of Ivanka. That reeks of hypocrisy. They had completely moved past Hillary’s debacle and now are fixated on Ivanka’s. That’s part of what’s wrong with today’s political discourse. It’s all about “gotcha” as long as the one being “got” ain’t their own.

And this applies to the right as well. While it’s proper to draw distinctions between the two cases, it’s not at all fair to ignore Ivanka’s and point to Hillary’s. Especially someone who should’ve known better. She claims to have not understood the protocol. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Another related story got very little traction in the press. Turns out James Comey used his personal e-mail to conduct official FBI business, as we learned from another Freedom of Information request. That story got virtually no play in the mainstream media. Anyone who looks at this objectively would have to concede that the FBI director doing this is certainly more serious than an unpaid advisor to the president. It also brings more into focus Comey’s actions in July of 2016 when he made the unilateral decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton despite revealing that she had sent or received 110 classified e-mails to and from her private servers. Yes, that’s plural because they discovered more than one. Perhaps prosecution of such a crime hit a little too close to home for Mr. Comey.

Letting someone skate because the investigator found himself in a similar situation does not mean that someone is innocent. It only means she wasn’t prosecuted at the time. The more serious laws Hillary may have broken have a statute of limitations of ten years. That means if laws were broken during her first year as secretary of state the clock is winding down on prosecution.

The solution to all of this is we investigate both Hillary and Ivanka. And I would throw James Comey in the mix while we’re at it. If either of those three is found to have violated federal statutes then they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Hiding from the law should not be determined by what position you hold in government. Nor should it be determined by who your daddy is.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Trump was right about California wildfires

I’ll be the first to admit that President Trump’s tweet about forest management in the midst of a wildfire catastrophe was not the most artful thing to do. However, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s right. Governor Jerry Brown blames ‘climate deniers’ for the devastation. The truth is he had a chance to minimize the destruction, but he chose instead to bow to extreme environmentalists.

It’s instructive to understand what causes wildfires. It’s not spontaneous combustion because the earth is warming. An estimated 90 percent of wildfires are caused by humans. This includes campfires left unattended, cigarettes being tossed out of automobiles, and arson. The remaining ten percent are caused either by lightning or lava. The environmentalists will claim that wildfire devastation is exacerbated by drought. That’s certainly true, but California’s droughts these days are mere blips compared to historic droughts.

Scott Stine is a professor of geography and environmental studies at Cal State East Bay. He told the Mercury News, “We continue to run California as if the longest drought we are ever going to encounter is about seven years. We’re living in a dream world.” There have been multiple droughts over the last 1,000 years that have lasted 10 to 20 years. There was a drought around 850 AD that lasted 240 years. After a 50-year respite, another one lasted 180 years.

Contrary to what the alarmists tell you about this being the driest time in California’s history, Professor Stine says the past century has been among the wettest in the past 7,000 years.

Perspective is what so many knee-jerk environmentalists lack. They get locked in a world they can only remember, or a world that goes back to when the first records were kept. That’s a tiny world compared to the big picture. The longest droughts in recent California history occurred between 1928 and 1934, and another between 1987 and 1992. The problem is as more people overbuild California the property loss is naturally going to be greater.

Here’s why President Trump is right when he tweeted, “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.” The policy from the U.S. Forest Service used to be quite simple. When a forest became too difficult to walk through it was thinned. They cut out underbrush and made space between large trees. Strategic logging was employed that not only made the forests less prone to wildfires, it actually made the Forest Service profitable. This all began to change in the ‘70s and accelerated during the ‘90s under President Bill Clinton. The Rio Earth Summit was the big turning point where prevention of forest management kicked into high gear and war was declared on the timber industry.

The Roadless Area Conservation Policy directive put a stop to nearly all logging and roadbuilding, not to mention coal, gas, oil, and other mineral leasing on 58 million acres of land. President George W. Bush tried to reinstitute common sense forest management but was stymied by a federal judge.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) told Canada Free Press that the forest service used to auction off national forest timber. He said this not only saved the forests, it helped the local economy. That has “all but dried up,” he said.

And Jerry Brown vetoed a 2016 bill that passed unanimously in the California Assembly and Senate that would’ve given locals more say-so when it comes to fire prevention.

Liberal politicians continue to run California into the ground, and, in typical fashion, they always blame somebody else.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Telling the truth about illegal aliens is not racist

The accusations of racism have been taken to a whole new level. Now it’s racist to run an ad featuring a convicted illegal alien cop killer bragging about his crime. This is where we are in America. The networks pulled a Trump ad just before the midterms that featured Luis Bracamontes, convicted of killing two cops, saying in a courtroom, “Only thing that I regret is that I just killed two.” CNN’s Wolf Biltzer called it a “rather racist ad.” NBC said in an e-mail, “After further review, we recognize the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible.” Fox News and Facebook pulled the ad as well.

Illegal alien cop killer Luis Bracamontes

Luis Bracamontes broke into our country. Two police officers would be alive today had we kept him out. The point of the ad is we have another caravan of potentially illegal aliens heading to our border. How many Luis Bracamonteses are among them?

Not fair, you say? Most of these people are fleeing poverty and violence? You would be right, but how many among them are criminals? DHS has already positively identified over 270 convicted criminals among them. Some news outlets have identified MS13 gang members and people who admit to having been deported from our country, some multiple times. Identifying a threat to our country is not racism.

If the people who support the caravan truly believe that most of the people in the caravan are decent people then they should welcome legal entry into the country. The truth is most will not be granted asylum because poverty, in and of itself, is no precondition. In fact, Mexico has already offered the caravaners asylum. They are out of Honduras. They are out of harm’s way. Why not take Mexico up on the offer? Because organizations like People Without Borders, who are coordinating the trek north, are not interested in the safety of these people. Their goal is to push the amnesty issue in America. Their goal is to push the agenda of open borders.

This economy is so red hot right now that we have more job openings than people to fill them. We’re told it’s the first time that’s happened since they started keeping records. Common sense would tell you that we’re going to have to import labor to fill the rest of those jobs. Most people have no problem with that. How do we do it? By allowing hordes of illegal aliens to stream across the border, or do we do this in an orderly fashion by matching laborers to jobs and making sure criminals are not taking those jobs? It’s just common sense.

Two-thirds of the people coming across our border from Mexico come legally. That’s a very important point to remember. If two-thirds can come the legal way, what’s up with the other third?

For anyone who thinks illegal aliens should be allowed to come to this country the wrong way I have a question for you. Do you believe a planeload of passengers from Paris should just get off the plane at JFK and bypass customs? If not, why not? What’s the difference between bypassing the border checkpoint at JFK and bypassing the border checkpoint at Laredo, Texas? Spoiler alert: There isn’t a difference. 

Illegal immigration is a public safety issue, pure and simple. No reasonable person can believe that allowing illegals to stream across the border without going through background checks is a safe thing to do. And no reasonable person can believe an ad that points that out is racist.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Why call them fake news? Because they are.

Temperature. The left seems to be obsessed with it. No, not the global temperature, although they still flog that dead mule from time to time. The political temperature. They want you to believe pipe bombs and synagogue shootings are all the fault of President Trump. They’re not. And they use these mentally disturbed people to try and stifle his pointed concerns with inaccurate reporting in the media. Even Fox News has wondered aloud why the president won’t tamp down his criticism of ‘fake news.’ The reason is because fake news stories are one of the biggest threats to our country.

On the same day that Jim Acosta berated White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders for not having the “guts” to name names in the fake news media, a commentator on his own network was saying that Donald Trump had “radicalized more people than ISIS.” Think about that statement for a moment. The insinuation was Trump is responsible for the pipe bombs and the synagogue shooting. He’s no more responsible than Bernie Sanders was for one of his campaign workers shooting Steve Scalise on a baseball field. And, by the way, the synagogue shooter hated Trump because of Jews in his administration. That alone should put to rest accusations of anti-Semitism against the president. But it won’t.

Even before the pipe bomber was caught, the liberals were using the hashtag MAGABomber on Twitter. No one used #BernieShooter when Scalise was shot. Why? Because we understand that mentally deranged people on either side are not representative of those they supposedly support.

Eric Holder has said, “When they go low, we kick them.” Maxine Waters has encouraged her followers to hound and harass people they disagree with “in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station.” She screams, “They’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” And they talk about the political temperature.

When crazy people scale the White House fence and try to enter the mansion carrying a dangerous weapon there’s no call from the left to tamp down the rhetoric against Trump.

He has called the fake news media the enemy of the people, and they are. No, not all the media, and not every reporter at every left-leaning network. Those who pose as journalists, but in reality are activists, are doing the public a grave disservice. The reason Sarah Sanders didn’t take the bait from Jim Acosta and list the fake news media is because she would’ve been there all day.

Reporting that Trump instructed Michael Flynn to meet with the Russians before the election was fake news. In fact, the entire Trump/Russia collusion story has been fake news. After two years there’s nothing to show for it. George Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in jail for lying to the FBI about communications with a Russia-linked professor. After meeting behind closed doors with Congress, it now appears the professor was set-up from the government to try and link him with Russia. Papadopoulos is now considering withdrawing his agreement with the government concerning his case.

Justifiably criticizing your opponents has no connection whatsoever with deranged people who resort to violence. For President Trump to refrain from pointing out what his opponents are doing wrong just because of some crazy people would be admitting that his words have some connection to their actions. They don’t.

If the mainstream media want to lower the temperature, they can start with telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about President Trump. If they want him to stop calling them fake news then stop running fake stories.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Democracy equals mob rule

Jonathan Alter, the liberal pundit on BSNBC (one of the hundreds) said if the Republicans keep Congress “you can kiss democracy goodbye.” I sure hope so. We don’t live in a democracy. We live in a representative republic. Our founding fathers believed a democracy would be a disaster. The word “democracy” does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

James Madison voiced his disdain for ‘pure democracy’ in the Federalist Papers. “Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

In short, a democracy is mob rule. I have long believed that those who use “democracy” as shorthand for a representative republic—on both sides of the aisle—meant no harm. Now I’m not so sure. If a democracy is mob rule then that appears to be exactly what the liberals these days crave. Mob has a negative connotation. That’s why CNN and BSNBC have banned the word from their airwaves when directed at the crazed liberal mobs that lost their minds over the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. The networks childishly speak of “the m-word” as if it’s too offensive to even be uttered. They reserve the word for the white supremacists in Charlottesville, but not the Antifa thugs who confronted them. History has proven that President Trump’s condemnation of bad actors “on all sides” was spot on.

Mob rule is what minorities (in numbers, not race or ethnicity) resort to when they don’t get their way. Intimidation and threats are the tools of desperate people who see any chance of their being part of the power structure slipping away. That’s what we’re witnessing right now. Mobs descend on Republican politicians and cabinet members in public places in an attempt to scare them into submission. Some will ultimately acquiesce just to get their lives back. Compromise in the face of such thuggery is the most dangerous thing they can do.

The radicals who blur the lines of civility, decorum, and even gender are the rabble. They’re not the majority. Their only hope is fear. They have already succeeded to a large degree in changing the language through political correctness. The most chilling words are when someone says to you, “You just can’t say that anymore.” Anymore? So we used to be able to say it until the word Nazis grabbed the American media by the throat and threatened to brand them unhip and counter-progressive if they didn’t carry their water.

There’s more on the line on November 6 than just control of Congress. Much more. We have a chance to put a stake in the heart of much of what ails this country. Liberals in Congress are already proposing legislation if they win. They want to repeal all of Trump’s tax cuts and start writing checks to the poor. Corey Booker wants to give poor kids $50,000 when they reach adulthood. Instead of creating an economy where people can earn their own way they want to destroy that economy and hand out cash. Why? Because it’s the only thing that makes them relevant with voters.

Once the people realize they don’t need the government to succeed it’s over. Nothing quells an unruly marxist mob like success. And one more election just might do it.

So Jonathan Alter is right. If the Republicans manage to hold onto the House and Senate we could very well “kiss democracy goodbye.” And good riddance.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The Democrats' last gasp

The midterm elections are just around the corner. A lot is riding on November 6. The Republicans are hoping to strengthen the Trump agenda. By the Democrats’ own admission, this may be their last gasp at power. Why? Because the prosperity under President Trump is undeniable. That’s evident by the ads being run by Democrat candidates. They don’t put forth any bold ideas. They’re running on fear. Historically, that hasn’t been a wise bet.

We are living in a time of nearly unparalleled prosperity. Unemployment is at a 50-year low. Black and Hispanic unemployment are at historic lows. Unemployment for women hasn’t been this low in 65 years. The tax cuts mean more jobs, more money in the pockets of taxpayers, and an economy that’s on fire. If the Democrats aren’t able to take back the House or the Senate or both and slow down Trump’s agenda there’s no telling how good the economy will be next year. If the economy remains on fire into 2020 it’s doubtful the American people are going to be pushing for change in the White House.

The Democrats need to turn 23 seats in the House to take control of Congress. That’s a hernia-inducing lift by anybody’s calculation. The so-called pundits have picked ten bellwether seats that could portend the results of the election in November. One of them is the eighth congressional district in Minnesota. This is a union-heavy district that has gone to the Democrats all but two years since World War II. At the end of September the Democrat, Joe Radinovich, was leading by one point. In the latest poll conducted by the New York Times, the Republican, Pete Stauber, is up by 16 points! It’s funny, the so-called experts are no longer calling this a bellwether district.

I understand that MN-8 is just one congressional district, but does it give us a peek into November? That question is easier answered by understanding what’s happened in that district since the end of September. Two things: Kavanaugh and tariffs. These were two issues the Democrats were sure they could win with. The Kavanaugh plan was to ambush him with spurious accusations on the eve of the confirmation vote. We all saw how that played out. The Democrats unwittingly handed the Republicans a club with which to beat them about the head and shoulders.

Tariffs were supposed to be the other easy mark for the Democrats. After all, the Republicans are so big on free trade yet they advocate punishing our trading partners with a tax on American consumers. That was supposed to be the narrative. Then came the soybean issue. The Democrats were certain Trump had stepped in it, and the Republicans right behind him, when the EU slapped a tariff on soybeans in retaliation for Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs. The Dems put all their soybeans in one basket and Trump kicked it over. After a general freak-out over soybeans and the European Union, Trump threatened to tariff cars coming from the EU. One can only imagine that Germany, which leads the EU in automobile exports, screamed at the European Commission to do something. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was on the first flight to Washington and the next morning was standing beside President Trump in the Rose Garden to announce an agreement to work toward zero tariffs on soybeans.

Voters in districts like MN-8 are loving it. The Dems have underestimated Trump just like they did in 2016. If MN-8 is typical, November 6 could be rough day for the Democrats.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Where does #MeToo go after Kavanaugh?

I’m sitting here wondering how all of the pink hat ladies can reconcile the fact that they so opposed Justice Kavanaugh because of some unsubstantiated claim of sexual assault yet they turned out in droves to support Hillary Clinton who has a long history of covering up for an alleged predator. It does really make one question the sincerity of the movement. And to see Hillary herself in interviews day after day saying we have to believe the women. Not one interviewer confronted her with the ugly truth that she was in charge of “bimbo eruptions” while her husband was running for president and after he won.

The Democrats aren’t through with Brett Kavanaugh. They vow to impeach him if they take control of Congress. All the more reason that these people shouldn’t be anywhere near the keys of power. Someone needs to remind them that you can only be impeached for conduct while you’re in office. That goes for justices and presidents. In other words, they can’t reach back in the histories of Kavanaugh and Trump and remove them from office. Chances are if they ignore their own inconsistencies on sexual assault they’ll ignore the Constitution too.

I was told of a conversation with a drunk millennial recently. The night after Kavanaugh’s confirmation he insisted “the bastard is guilty.” When pressed on what he was guilty of he eventually had to confess that he hadn’t followed the story and didn’t really know what he was accused of. But whatever it was, he was guilty.

Both sides engage in this type of judgement against the other all too often. We all have our preconceived notions and we all make our assumptions. However, when it comes to something like sexual assault it is totally irresponsible to assume guilt. Should we #BelieveSurvivors? If they’re really survivors of sexual assault, sure. That’s the problem. We have no idea how many of these unsubstantiated claims are made up. We have no idea how many of these women screaming at senators claiming they’re “survivors” have actually survived anything. That’s not to diminish the horror that victims of sexual assault have gone through. Quite the contrary. Those who have been proven to be victims deserve our deepest sympathy and their attackers deserve our fiercest rage. But just claiming someone did something is not—and should not be—good enough for victim status.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the whole Kavanaugh circus it’s that there’s now a new standard when it comes to sexual assault. If you’re accusing a conservative, you’re automatically believed. If you’re accusing a liberal, then the burden of proof is on you. We saw this with Bill Clinton. We saw this in the midst of the Kavanaugh hearings with Rep. Keith Ellison. Here’s a guy with far more evidence against him than Kavanaugh, yet a lawyer from a law firm that gave $500,000 to Democrats says she could find no evidence against him.

The left tried to tell us that normal standards of proof didn’t apply to Brett Kavanaugh because this wasn’t a trial, it was a job interview. OK, let’s go with that. So you’re saying that anybody who applies for a job can be immediately disqualified if someone just accuses him of something?

When this #MeToo movement first started I joked with a female conservative activist friend of mine on the air about this being a conspiracy to silence men. She laughed. She’s not laughing any more. Make no mistake about it, this is a war against men. Specifically white men. No one should be silenced through false allegations.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

More than Kavanaugh, this is for November

The Democrats insist that the confirmation proceedings surrounding Brett Kavanaugh are not a trial. They could not be more wrong. But it’s not a trial of Brett Kavanaugh. This is the trial of the Republican Party writ large. That’s why I went against the grain of many of those on my side of this issue to call for an FBI investigation even before Sen. Jeff Flake did. This is seen as capitulation by many. In actuality it’s a necessary step toward justice.

By noon on the day of the infamous dueling testimony of Dr. Christine Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh it was clear Kavanaugh’s nomination had taken a torpedo under the water line. To simply ignore Dr. Ford’s testimony or hope its impact would subside was folly. Her testimony was compelling. That’s not to say that the events as she described them were believable, but she, herself, was. How can that be? How can someone be lying and simultaneously believable? There are multiple explanations.

Some believe that something traumatic happened to Dr. Ford. Could it be something really did happen? If so, how could she so vividly remember the details of the layout of the inside of the house yet have no idea where the house was? I haven’t given up on the theory of false memory syndrome. We may never know. The inconsistencies of her testimony, however, did not erase the doubt about Brett Kavanaugh in many people’s minds.

Kavanaugh’s testimony was equally compelling. The left attacked him for being so forceful, but if you had been accused of the atrocious crimes he was accused of you would lash out too. Kavanaugh’s testimony may have tilted public opinion back toward him, but it did not undo the damage that had been done that morning by Dr. Ford’s testimony. So why is public opinion so important? Because this is not just about another seat on the Supreme Court. This is about November. And that’s why Republicans should not only have welcomed an FBI investigation, they should have insisted on one.

You lawyers know testimonial damage when you see it. Kavanaugh took a direct hit, and thus so did the Republican Party. When such damage is done you don’t simply clean up the debris and move on, you have to repair the damage.

What will an FBI investigation accomplish? If you’re a Republican you hope it accomplishes two things. First, it must corroborate what the Senate Judiciary Committee already uncovered. That being that Dr. Ford has one memory of the night in question, the witnesses she identified have an entirely different account. In other words, it’s not he said/she said, it’s she said/they said. The second thing the Republicans hope to accomplish is to get the FBI’s seal of approval stamped on the facts as we know them. Peter Strzok notwithstanding, the majority of Americans still have a tremendous amount of faith in the FBI.

The Democrats already are learning this can blow up in their faces. A recent poll in Missouri shows half the voters are now less likely to re-elect Democrat Claire McCaskill because of her opposition to Judge Kavanaugh. Her GOP opponent has slipped ahead by two points. In Tennessee, senate candidate Phil Bredesen is afraid to take a side. This is not quite going as the Democrats had envisioned.

If Republicans allow Lindsey Graham to make a point-by-point presentation of the FBI’s findings to the Senate just prior to the vote then this thing’s over. If several Democrats end up voting in favor of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation then so, perhaps, is November.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

It's open season on men

The #MeToo movement has gotten out of hand. Brett Kananaugh’s accusers are to believed, but Rep. Keith Ellison’s accuser—with far more evidence—is totally ignored. Not only ignored by the same leftists who want to crucify Kavanaugh but by the complicit left-wing media.

Part of this is our fault. We allow the New York Times and the Washington Post to drive the narrative. CNN says it’s a hot story and we just go along. 

Let me tell you what’s a hot story. A sitting member of the Senate, Democrat Mazie Hirono from Hawaii, tells men to “shut up.” She said, “Guess who’s perpetuating all these actions. It’s the men in this country.” The men in this country? The left has long lectured the rest of us about profiling and stereotyping. Now we’re going to put all the men in one deplorable basket? It’s obvious how inflammatory that would be if a male member of the Senate had told all the women to just “shut up,” but how about saying that to all black people? Or all Hispanics?

We’re told not to stereotype, but that’s exactly what the #WeHateMen movement is doing.

I’m no psychologist, but I see a pattern with these liberal women who hate all men. Most are in relationships with a horrible guy, someone who’s treating them like dirt, and for some reason they stand there and take it. Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, and many other so-called feminists draw their anger from their personal relationships with men. Lord knows where Sen. Hirono’s anger comes from, but how would you like to be married to her?

In a piece for the Washington Post, Northeastern University professor of sociology, Suzanna Danuta Walters asked “Why can’t we hate men?” She said, “Maybe it’s time for us to go all Thelma and Louise on their collective butts.” In other words, it’s time to start killing men. She then tells men, “Don’t run for office. Don’t be in charge of anything. Step away from the power. We got this. We have every right to hate you. You have done us wrong.” Obviously another woman who’s been in a horrible relationship. It’s not hard to imagine the never-ending outcry if such a broad stereotype were ever applied to any other group. 

But enough is enough. It’s time for men—and the women who love them—to fight back.

Should we believe every woman who comes forward with an allegation of sexual abuse against a man? The leftists, like Sen. Kamala Harris, tell you yes. #BelieveSurvivors. The short answer is absolutely no. We should not automatically believe every woman who comes forward with an accusation. Need I remind you of the UVA gang rape accusation against the fraternity? Completely made up. Mattress Girl at Columbia? Made up. The Duke Lacrosse team gang-rape allegation? Made up. 

There are certainly many cases of men who abuse women. They are not the norm. Nobody I know condones such behavior. However, every woman who ever slept with Harvey Weinstein to get a part in his movies is not a victim. As his lawyer put it, he didn’t invent the casting couch.

The irony is such independent and powerful women choose to portray themselves as powerless victims when they do something despicable to advance their careers. Monica Lewinsky’s now a victim? Please.

The days of simply being able to step forward, levy an accusation, and destroy a man have got to come to a stop. The presumption of innocence is still a cornerstone of our judicial system. That doesn’t change just because you’re a man.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Politicizing Puerto Rico and Hurricane Maria

President Trump caught a lot of grief for questioning the mortality numbers out of Puerto Rico concerning Hurricane Maria. Politifact said Trump was wrong. Why? Because the death toll that curiously jumped from 64 to 2,975 is “based in science.” Based in science? How about a body count? It shouldn’t be that hard, but the estimate didn’t come from bodies in the ground. It came from an estimate conducted by George Washington University.

There’s an old joke that 67 percent of statistics are made up on the spot. There’s no doubt that the inflated numbers in Puerto Rico were designed to make this particular disaster “Trump’s Katrina.” What the left-wing media chose to ignore as they reported on the numbers they say are not in dispute is the malfeasance on the ground in Puerto Rico. Large pallets of supplies sent to help the hurricane victims sat rotting and never got to their intended destination. When Mayor Cruz appeared on TV with a ‘NASTY’ t-shirt the situation on the ground in Puerto Rico had undoubtedly turned political. This was her chance to do something for the ‘resistance.’ What she did was use her own people as pathetic pawns to score points against Trump.

At least CBS News reported that “donated food sent to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria were left to rot in a parking lot of a government facility.” They said, “about 10 containers filled with non-perishable supplies sat at the government facility for 11 months.” If the death toll in Puerto Rico is actually dramatically higher, it’s no doubt due to the ineptitude of the people on the ground tasked with distributing much-needed supplies.

The New York Times, which themselves put the death toll at 1,000, savaged the president for questioning the GWU numbers. They came up with 1,000, but if somebody else says it’s essentially three times that then, yeah, let’s go with that. Again, they take the numbers at face value without questioning them.

It’s only when you start to peel back the layers of the study that you find the flaws. The GWU study counted indirect deaths like people having trouble refilling prescriptions. Any increase in diabetes deaths over the prior year were blamed on the hurricane. One would assume under this methodology that if a plane went down carrying Puerto Rican refugees to Florida that number would be counted too. They even counted increases in suicide and Alzheimer’s disease!

The left is famous for taking unrealistic numbers at face value if they advance their cause. Who can forget the 97 percent consensus among climate scientists that humans are causing the earth to warm. That claim has been totally discredited numerous times but continues to be stated as fact by the left.

Congressman Steve King’s office did a study several years back trying to determine how many Americans are killed by illegal aliens. Through news reports and government statistics they arrived at 25 Americans per day, on average, killed by illegal aliens. The left-wing media went after King’s numbers with a vengeance. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t question them. They should, but they should also question numbers coming from the left. But they don’t.

As the saying goes, figures don’t lie, but liars figure. Both the right and left will continue to use statistics to further their cause. It’s up to us as consumers of this data to question everything, especially if the figures don’t pass the smell test. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

This ain't Obama's economy

It was 2016 when then-President Obama told us to forget about it. Manufacturing jobs are not coming back. Now they’re coming back and he’s out on the campaign trail taking credit for it. Remember when Obama said GDP growth would never top 3 percent again? There was never a quarter during his presidency when it did. In fact, he was the first president to never have a year of growth topping 3 percent. Now it’s at 4.1 percent. And now Obama’s trying to take credit for it.

In the meantime, the Democrat talking points have turned to the 25th Amendment. This is the amendment in the Constitution that gives the vice-president the power—with the consent of congress—to remove the president because he’s no longer mentally fit to hold office. Let me tell you something. With an economy booming like this, anybody who wants get rid of Trump is nuts. Maybe we should start proceedings against all these members of congress with Trump Derangement Syndrome. It has to be a clinical diagnosis by now. So many people have it.

I’ve told you before, if you’re expecting these crazy people on the left to go quietly into the night you’ve got another thing coming. The more successful Trump is, the more deranged they become. Here’s what we’re looking at. We’re looking at a distinct possibility that the economy does so well and so many people get off the government dole that the Democrats will never seize power again. They see November as possibly their last chance.

They don’t have the economy to run against, unless their only strategy is the feeble attempt to give Obama the credit. The only card they have left to play is ‘Trump is unstable.’ They can’t really point to domestic policy to make their case so they claim his foreign policy is reckless and dangerous and we have to get him out before he blows us all to kingdom come.

And then Kim Jong Un chimes in saying he’s planning on de-nuking before the end of Trump’s first term. So much for kingdom come.

Oh, but the tariffs are going to destroy the economy. So far, so good on that front. Economists tell us there aren’t any ill effects because of the tariffs. At least not yet. But we’re being mean to our allies. Our “allies” have been hosing us economically for decades. Remember when Trump was spatting with the EU over auto imports to the U.S.? And he put the tariffs on the EU automobiles? And remember when the EU threatened to tariff soybeans and everybody freaked out? Then Trump upped the ante and vowed to increase steel and aluminum tariffs and raise the auto tariffs even further. That European Commission goomer was on a plane to the White House so fast it would make your head spin. In the end, the European Union pledged to import more soybeans from the U.S. than before. That’s how you do it, son.

See, the United States is the biggest market for a lot of countries in the world. Germany is the third largest exporter to the U.S. and they drive that train at the EU. If Germany ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. And when you start to monkey with their car exports to the U.S. you can bet they light a fire under the European Commission to do something and do something quick.

China is the leading exporter to the U.S. followed by Canada. And you can bet those two will make a deal quick. Oh, but Trump’s crazy.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Losing R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the left

Aretha Franklin’s funeral may have set a record for the longest celebrity eulogy. There were heartfelt tributes to the Queen of Soul. There was a long list of celebrities who came to pay their respects. Then there were the controversial moments, like when one reverend seemed to move his hand too close to Ariana Grande’s breast. Jesse Jackson, of course, chose to turn the event political when he chastised the crowd for lining up to see Aretha yet not showing up at the polls in Michigan in the 2016 presidential election. He also recognized Maxine Waters for the “work” she’s done, which was taken to mean her tireless rants against President Trump.

Al Sharpton lectured Trump on showing some R-E-S-P-E-C-T when several days before on his television show he didn’t even know how to spell it.

The event was marred with the presence of known racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan sitting on the stage with Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. One can only imagine if David Duke had spoken at the funeral of a white singer.

But none of that drew even a peep from the family. It was the words of Rev. Jasper Williams, Jr. that drew gasps of horror. The reverend described children in a home without their father as “abortion after birth.” He told the crowd,”Black lives must not matter until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves.” A Franklin family member called the remarks “very, very distasteful.”

So, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton bashing Trump from the pulpit and giving face time to one of the most famous racists of our time wasn’t distasteful, but a pastor urging black folks to stop killing each other was? It’s a sad commentary on where we are as a country.

First of all, Aretha’s funeral should’ve been about Aretha. The race-baiters and their divisive rhetoric should’ve been stopped at the door. The fact that the family allowed them to speak sullied the event. But if you’re purposely making it a political event by inviting lightning rod figures to speak then you shouldn’t be shocked by anything that’s said. And you certainly shouldn’t be shocked by someone naming the problem for what it is.

We have an epidemic of black-on-black crime in this country. Half of all murders are committed by primarily black males. Over 90 percent of their victims are also black. It’s easy for white folks to ignore the problem. Chances are it will never affect them, but part of our American family is hurting. It’s going to take the majority to change it. It’s not at all helpful when blacks themselves not only ignore the problem but are outraged by anyone who doesn’t.

Colin Kaepernick divides a country with his refusal to stand for our national anthem and is rewarded with a Nike ad. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we start a dialogue on how to solve the problem? If you think the judicial system is racist and turning loose black convicts from prison until prisons looks like America is the solution then you obviously don’t understand the problem. And kneeling is not the solution. It’s actually part of the problem too. It’s whistling past the graveyard. 

Rev. Williams had the courage to speak the truth to a room full of people who weren’t ready to hear it, in front of men like Sharpton, Jackson, and Farrakhan whose rhetoric has largely contributed to the problem. And it’s Rev. Williams who’s the embarrassment? We have a long way to go.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.