Eva Brann--The Imaginative Conservative

In 2015, Dr. Eva Brann, a tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis, published a 12-point essay titled “Reflections on Imaginative Conservativism” declaring: “The imaginative conservative’s practical project is survival without loss of soul.” After reading that, I ordered her book on the topic, "Then and Now," which begins with Herodotus. Still seeking to learn more, I went to Annapolis, to ask Dr. Brann in person how Imaginative Conservatism works....

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/eva-brann-the-imaginative-conservative-conservative-imagination-trump-1539384109

Tucker Carson's "Ship of Fools": How a Selfish Ruling Class is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution

Like Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson believes you should show that you can clean up your room before you “save the planet.” He holds views similar to Bill Clinton’s “Double Bubba” 1992 platform, calling for good jobs at good wages. But he says Democrats are now a Party of the Rich, whose liberal “meritocrats” became the “establishment” they pretended to despise.

Read the whole thing in TheLatest.com:  https://thelatest.com/tlt/tucker-carson-ship-of-fools-how-selfish-ruling-class-bringing-america-brink-revolution-democrats-ruling-class-trump-1538784201

The Trump Doctrine Promises to "Make the UN Great Again"

This week’s most important news took place on Monday in New York when President Trump unveiled his "Trump Doctrine" at the UN General Assembly, not in Washington over whether Brett Kavanaugh groped Christine Blasey Ford at a party some thirty-six years ago.

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/the-trump-doctrine-promises-make-un-great-again-trump-united-nations-foreign-p-1538176137

Is Judge Kavanaugh the Republican Emmett Till?

 

Those who "believe all women" have forgotten the lesson of Emmett Till, falsely accused of sexual harassment by Carolyn Bryan in 1955.

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/is-judge-kavanaugh-republican-emmett-till-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-harrass-1537541376

Trump’s Shanksville Speech Provides the Answer to 9/11

In contrast to a Bush-Obama legacy of despair and loss, Trump’s 9/11 Shanksville Flight 93 National Memorial address is a bold call to action: “Free people are never at the mercy of evil because our destiny is always in our hands. America’s future is not written by our enemies. America’s future is written by our heroes.”

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/trump-shanksville-speech-provides-answer-9-11-trump-flight-93-shanksville-1536983494

Conservative Surrender Fueled "Crisis in the Humanities"

The current “Crisis in the Humanities,” illustrated by Benjamin Schmidt’s graph, is that students are “voting with their feet” to pursue STEM instead of Liberal Arts. He says this is due to economic pressures, but a contributing factor was Conservatives who steered students into STEM to escape PC indoctrination—thus ceding the Humanities to those who wished to “subvert the dominant paradigm.”

Read the whole thing at The Latest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/conservative-surrender-fueled-crisis-humanities-political-correctness-humaniti-1536363216

In 2018 Congressional Elections: US Constitution is at Stake

Bottom Line:

In "Seven Days in May," Kirk Douglas saved President Lyman from a coup. However, today's elite may care more about “saving the planet” than preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution.That’s why in the 2018 elections, more than the Presidency of Donald Trump is on the ballot…the US Constitution is at stake.

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com (https://thelatest.com/tlt/us-constitution-stake-2018-elections-trump-resistance-revolution-1535755640)

Coulter's RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind

Bottom line:

Resistance is Futile! is not a screed, but rather a carefully documented study of media duplicities and double-standards, written with humor and panache.

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com (https://thelatest.com/tlt/ann-coulter-resistance-futile-the-media-laid-bare-trump-media-ann-coulter-1535144594).

Thank you Sen. Nelson, Sen. Rubio & Cong. Gaetz!

Public Domain photo by Michael Strasser, DVIDS

For inserting this section into the 2019 John McCain National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Trump at Fort Drum, New York on August 13th:

2867.

Plan to allow increased public access to the National Naval Aviation Museum and Barrancas National Cemetery, Naval Air Station Pensacola

Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy shall submit to the congressional defense committees a plan to allow increased public access to the National Naval Aviation Museum and Barrancas National Cemetery at Naval Air Station Pensacola.

My letter of application to the University of Virginia's Miller Center

I learned today from The Washington Post that two professors have quit the University of Virginia's Miller Center in protest against the hiring of former Trump administration official Marc Short to teach about the Presidency.

It seemed this presents an opportunity to call the bluff of self-described "nonpartisan" academics by asking to fill one of the two now-empty slots, in order to add some more political diversity to the faculty and fellows... since I'm pretty sure the number of pro-Trump professors on staff is pretty low right now. After all, even President Bushes 41 & 43 all but endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and kept bashing Trump after Election Day.

So, I went to the Miller Center website, and sent them a letter on their contact form:

Dear Miller Center,

I see from the press that 2 faculty members have resigned from your nonpartisan Institute because of the Mark Short appointment. I guess that creates two openings for pro-Trump scholars to further balance your faculty, so I’d like to apply. Here is a link to my 2017 documentary on Pres. Trump: https://thetrumpeffectmovie.blogspot.com.  

I have a Ph.D., M.F.A., taught at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School for 15 years,  was a Fulbright Scholar at UWED in Tashkent, Uzbekistan,  an ACCELS visiting professor at RGGU in Moscow, Russia, a Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation, regional finalist for the White House Fellowship, president of THIS for Diplomats, on the board of the Voltaire Society of America & Arts Club of Washington, producer-director of “Who Shall Live and Who’s Shall Die?”,  author or  editor of a number of books and articles including “PBS: Behind the Screen,” “Masterpiece Theater and the Politics of Quality,” “The National Endowments: A Critical Symposium,”  and currently teach at UMUC. 

My cell phone is xxx-xxx-xxxx if you have any questions. 

I look forward to the opportunity to add more intellectual diversity to the Miller Center, and hope to hear from you soon in this regard. 

Thank you for your consideration. 

Yours sincerely,
Laurence A. Jarvik, Ph.D.

I don't expect to receive a job, or even an answer, just wanted to put on record that any shortage of pro-Trump faculty is most probably not a bug but a feature at the University of Virginia, as well as that any imbalance in the faculty more likely by design than by accident...ironic, since Trump Winery is just down the road from campus, and one might think the UVA might want to add President Trump to Jefferson and Monroe as local heroes for their Center for the Study of the Presidency.

After Helsinki's Trump-Putin Summit, The Russia Card is Still America's Trump Card

The recent Helsinki Summit between Presidents Trump and Putin, and subsequent media controversy, reminds me that it is still the case that the Russia Card is America's Trump Card, as I wrote in a 2017 post for this blog. For Russia has been a constant factor in American electoral politics for the last few decades. 

I thought of this background as I watched the Helsinki press conference.

However, what I saw in the video did not match most media reports in the United States. 

Instead of Putin besting Trump, as pundits declared, I saw a strong and confident President Trump towering head and shoulders over a shorter and suppliant President Putin.

This reality is reflected in the official Kremlin photo to the left. Trump is much taller, and much bigger, than Putin. Indeed, even his tie is bigger than Putin's.

In my opinion, in Helsinki Russia seemed to be asking for a "reset" of its own, a counterpoint to Hillary Clinton's failed initiative in the Obama administration.

Given the correlation of forces, it would be a mistake of historic proportions, in my opinion, to not to "give peace a chance" by attempting one more time to negotiate a "New Deal" between Moscow and Washington. If anyone can negotiate such an agreement, it would be the author of "The Art of the Deal." America has no better negotiator in our bullpen.

Indeed, the election of President Trump provides an opportunity for improved relations which in many ways mirrors the election of President Yeltsin in 1991, for in many ways Trump is America's Yeltsin.

At the time of Yeltsin's accession to power, there was bipartisan support from both Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republican Leader Bob Dole for improving relations with Russia to help Yeltsin move the country into the modern world. 

Although the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and subsequent breakup of the formerly "nonaligned" state, provided a thorn in the side to mutual relations, both the United States and Russia made great progress on many fronts, from nuclear non-proliferation to our joint space launches. 

President Yeltsin toured the USA to great applause, and American firms were welcomed into the former Soviet Space. Yeltsin even visited farms in Kansas with Senator Dole.

That this Golden Age of sorts turned sour, was perhaps inevitable, based on mutual misunderstandings and miscalculations. At the time, the balance of power was so unfavorable to Russia, that resentful accommodation by Moscow replaced negotiated mutually beneficial agreements --which could probably have been worked out, had Washington not labored under ideological delusions of "The End of History" and "The Unipolar Moment." 

If Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" had been the guidebook instead, President Clinton might have worked out a Yalta 2.0 which favored American interests such that NATO might have become unnecessary--for Russia could have served as an American ally to balance the rise of China.

Unfortunately, NATO expansion, pressures from the EU, the Arab world, and domestic American political calculations made that deal un-doable in the 1990s. By 2001, relations were raw once again.

The 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks presented another opportunity for a new deal. President Putin, convinced that Al Qaeda was the same enemy he had fought in Chechnya, assisted President Bush with American anti-terrorism efforts, opened Russian supply routes to Afghanistan, sold Russian helicopters, and invited President Bush to V-E Day ceremonies in Moscow--which he willingly attended no doubt to send a signal of resolve to Osama Bin Laden. 

Yet again, obstacles surfaced, as disputes over former Warsaw Pact states appeared impervious to negotiation, flared into violence in Georgia and Ukraine, as "color revolutions" began to dash renewed hopes of a rapprochement. Russia was stronger than in the 1990s, but had not rebuilt her military or economy. Another opportunity for a deal more favorable to the United States had been missed.

The election of Barack Obama, twice over more anti-Russian candidates McCain and Romney, opened yet another opportunity to make a deal.

By 2008, Russia was stronger than at the turn of the millennium, but still not in full form. Once again, there was a chance for a "reset," symbolized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's  now infamous button gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

As many remember, Obama had mocked Romney's anti-Russian attitude, with a memorably dismissive zinger in a 2012 debate:

Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat. Because a few months ago, when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. Not al-Qaida. You said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. Because, y’know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

However, Obama's "Arab Spring," overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yankuovych, and support for anti-Putin protests by "Pussy Riot" and Alex Navalny in Moscow did little to improve relations, much less reset them. Russian annexation of Crimea and American passage of the Magnitsky Act added fuel to the fire, which erupted into hot proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, eventually leading to relations so unfriendly they were immortalized in a Putin-Obama "stare down" at the 2016 G20 Summit.

Sadly,  in the aftermath of the Helsinki Summit, opponents of President Trump have made the Russia Card an obstacle once more... by accusing him of everything from "failing to stand up to Putin" to "treason." 

Perhaps, though, this third time may prove a charm for President Trump, for the Russia Card cannot be understood out of context. For the Russia Card is about a great deal more than Russia--it is the flip side of the "Muslim Card" which Trump deployed very successfully against Hillary Clinton and President Obama during the 2016 election. Attacks on Russia are often diversionary tactics designed to steer attention away from Islamic terrorism.

This pattern seems to be repeating itself in media coverage of the Helsinki Summit. Buried in the noise about pledging faith in the intelligence community is news that President Trump and Putin discussed joint efforts to fight Islamic terrorism. President Trump mentioned cooperation in this regard at the July 16th joint press conference:

The President (Putin) and I also discussed the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism.  Both Russia and the United States have suffered horrific terrorist attacks, and we have agreed to maintain open communication between our security agencies to protect our citizens from this global menace.

Last year, we told Russia about a planned attack in St. Petersburg, and they were able to stop it cold.  They found them.  They stopped them.  There was no doubt about it.  I appreciated President Putin’s phone call afterwards to thank me.

I also emphasized the importance of placing pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear ambitions and to stop its campaign of violence throughout the area, throughout the Middle East.

As we discussed at length, the crisis in Syria is a complex one.  Cooperation between our two countries has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives.  I also made clear that the United States will not allow Iran to benefit from our successful campaign against ISIS.  We have just about eradicated ISIS in the area.

We also agreed that representatives from our national security councils will meet to follow up on all of the issues we addressed today and to continue the progress we have started right here in Helsinki.

Today’s meeting is only the beginning of a longer process.  But we have taken the first steps toward a brighter future and one with a strong dialogue and a lot of thought.  Our expectations are grounded in realism but our hopes are grounded in America’s desire for friendship, cooperation, and peace.  And I think I can speak on behalf of Russia when I say that also.

Interestingly, Russophobes who hated the Trump-Putin summit also tend to oppose fighting Islamic terrorism, or even calling it "Islamic terrorism." 

Among them are Trump critics like former CIA Director John Brennan, reportedly a convert to Islam when he served in Saudi Arabia, as well as a declared supporter of Communist  Presidential candidate Gus Hall in 1976.

People like Brennan, or Hillary or Obama, tend also to oppose President Trump's travel ban, "extreme vetting," or efforts to add the Muslim Brotherhood to the list of terrorist organizations. 

Likewise, they expressed little public objection to the foreign connections Huma Abedin, whose parents were active in the Muslim Brotherhood, and had alleged links to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, serving as a top aide to Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, nor to the Clinton Foundations ties to repressive Islamist regimes. Nor did they object when the so-called "Arab Spring" installed Islamist governments in the Middle East.

They take advantage of lingering resentments among Republicans who are still anti-Russian because Russia was once Communist. When these Republicans see Putin, they see him a Communist commissar, a former KGB officer,  a "thug." When they see Russia, they see it as if it were still the Soviet Union--even though Russia voluntarily withdrew from its former Soviet satellites, allowed some of them to join the EU, and dissolved the USSR.

On the other side, leftist Democrats have lingering resentments that Russia rejected Communism. They are as strongly hostile to Putin as Stalin was anti-Trotsky. When they look at Putin, they see a turncoat KGB agent who sold out to capitalism, suppresses LGBT causes on behalf of Russian Orthodoxy, and who encourages the very Russian nationalism that the USSR suppressed with its "Friendship of Peoples" doctrine (Soviet multiculturalism), therefore another kind of "thug" (like Cuba calls its refugees from Communism "gusanos"--worms).

Compounding the problem has been the taboo on public discussion of Islamist terrorism in both Europe and the United States (there is no such taboo in Russia). Since discussion of the actual enemy has been repressed, it is my belief that anti-Russian sentiments have actually been symptoms of psychological displacement--unable to criticize the actual enemies of the United States, the public has been licensed to oppose imaginary enemies, such as Russia, "Global Climate Change," Israeli treatment of Palestinians, and "White Privilege."

Yet good relations with Russia could change the dynamic of international relations in our favor, given the manifest failures of America's pro-Islamist foreign policy. With Russia as a full and equal partner in American foreign policy, the West could make short work of Islamic terror. Russia has a proven track record of success, little discussed in the USA--in Chechnya, of all places, where Putin ground Islamists to dust on the orders of Boris Yeltsin. The same sort of Russian tactics are working in Syria...just as they worked against Hitler during World War II.

It is clear from the failure of American policies since 9/11 that only an alliance with Russia can defeat Islamic terrorism. 

Helsinki presents America with that opportunity—an opportunity which supporters of Islamic Terror are apparently desperate to torpedo by any means necessary. For almost two decades the United States has struggled and failed to respond to 9/11 while simultaneously fighting Russia in Ukraine and Syria. All President Trump is doing is prioritizing the struggle against Islamic Terrorism as the most important fight of our times. It is common sense, which is why Putin and Trump can agree to work together. 

They realize that past policies have failed, and want to try something new that might work—given the record of Russian-American cooperation in the past, which includes Nunn-Lugar de-nuclearization, joint space missions, the peaceful transition of the USSR from Communism, and victory over the Nazis during World War II. 

If one looks clearly at what is happening in Great Britain or the European Union today,  the lesson is clear:

We must accept Russia as an ally in the struggle against Islamic terrorism, or surrender to an Islamic Caliphate.

FIDEL CASTRO & THE LITTLE RED HEN: "Acts of Repudiation" in Cuba and the USA

by Agustin Blazquez  with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

The parallels are uncanny – and unnerving.  A mob descending on the home of a classical guitarist in Castro’s Cuba – his only crime: wanting to leave the country – and the in-your-face harassment of Trump officials today.

“This street belongs to Fidel!”  A short preview of the documentary Act of Repudiation depicts a horde of people in communist Cuba attacking the home of the guitarist, his wife, and three young daughters over 11 days.

And thus we see that the current wave of vitriolic demonstrations of intolerance in the U.S. today is an old tool of Marxist philosophy used by all left-wing regimes in history.

In Castro's Cuba, the tool was used so frequently it had a name:  “Act of Repudiation”.

Decades of Marxist philosophy served up by academia, media, and Hollywood have set the stage for the spectacles we are witnessing in the U.S. today: the public harassments Congresswoman Maxine Waters is demanding.

Acts of Repudiation are a communist/fascist technique used by the former Soviet Union, its satellites, and Hitler's National Socialist Nazi Party, as well as the Ku Klux Klan.  The Acts are designed to intimidate, terrorize, neutralize, and silence anyone who stands in the way.

For those who still have not connected the dots due to so much misinformation and propaganda from the mainstream media, I want to clarify:  Marxism is the root of Communism, the Nazi National Socialist Party classified as Fascist, Socialism, collectivism and today’s “progressivism”.

All of these ‘ism’s’ are variants of left-wing Marxist philosophy.

The last one – progressivism -  is just a ruse using a benign sounding word to deliver uninformed people to the same thing, a totalitarian society, the ultimate objective of all flavors of left-wing political theory.

This spread of Marxism in the U.S. has distorted "liberalism" into the antithesis of liberty, and diverted the Democrat Party into foreign left-wing ideology which is the opposite of America’s classical liberal founding and the U.S. Constitution.

For decades now, many Democrat members of Congress are members of the Democratic Socialists of America or other proto-communist groups.  They are part of the international communist network.  Communist Russia has been interfering in U.S. affairs for decades through the Communist Party USA.

Although well aware, the rest of the members of the Democrat and the Republican Parties are complicit in their silence as is the mainstream media and even supposedly critical pundits.

But the Democrat Party has descended so far to the left and has become so intolerant, fanatic and prone to violence that for quite a number of years I have been calling them “Demonrats.”  They are no longer an American party and they obviously don't protect and defend the security of the citizens.

The control of our academic world by Marxist professors is invalid in a democratic republic!  They are reprogramming new generations of Americans.  The end result is a new generation so uninformed that they have no idea where Socialism will lead.

All Marxist derivatives lead directly to an all-powerful government where a ruling elite and bureaucracy dictate all aspects of our private and public lives.  Their goal is global government with a mighty ruling elite at the top and the workers at the bottom.

The corrupt and deceptive mainstream U.S. media--with some exceptions--participate in the "resistance” and complicate matters by facilitating hate and glorifying Acts of Repudiations in public and private places.

What that despicable Congresswoman Maxine Waters espouses--‘confront, harass, create a crowd, and push back’--is nothing clever, new, or original.  It is a tired, old, Marxist technique trotted out whenever logic fails and hysterical emotion is substituted for reason.  [Editor’s Note: Maxine Waters has long supported communist causes and has numerous ties to communist and socialist groups.]

If the same intolerant, hysterical, and violent atmosphere continues in the U.S. today, we are all in for a rude awakening.  America as we have known it will be no more.

Down with the worms! Kill the kulaks! Sieg heil!

Originally published on The Spider & The Fly under the title "ACTS OF REPUDIATION - DOWN WITH THE WORMS! - ‘Confront, Harass, Create a Crowd, and Push Back!’ at http://www.spider-and-the-fly.com/acts-of-repudiation.html.
© 2018 ABIP by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton, reprinted by permission of the author.

Wyman Insitute Report: US Holocaust Museum Exhibition Distorts FDR's Historical Record

A study by eight leading Holocaust historians has found that a new exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum distorts and minimizes President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s abandonment of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.

The study, titled “Distorting America’s Response to the Holocaust,” is a comprehensive analysis of the museum’s recently-opened exhibit, “Americans and the Holocaust.” 

To view the study, click here.  To receive a copy in the mail, call the Wyman Institute at 202-434-8994.

The 70-page report, published by the Wyman Institute, features chapters by leading scholars in the field of American responses to the Holocaust:

— Dr. Rafael Medoff (Wyman Institute) describes the variety of excuses that the exhibit uses to rationalize President Roosevelt’s refusal to provide meaningful aid to Jewish refugees.

— Prof. Laurel Leff (Northeastern University) explores the exhibit’s portrayal of the Roosevelt administration as a prisoner of public opinion.

— Prof. Bat-Ami Zucker (Bar-Ilan University) examines the exhibit’s shabby treatment of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, a vigorous advocate for Jewish refugees.

— Prof. Stephen H. Norwood (University of Oklahoma), who authored two of the chapters in the study, considers the exhibit’s failure to report either the Roosevelt administration’s welcoming of Nazi warships in the 1930s, or American universities’ collaboration with Nazi-controlled universities.

— Prof. Paul R. Bartrop (Florida Gulf Coast University) reviews the exhibit’s inadequate depiction of the 1938 international refugee conference at Evian.

— Prof. Monty N. Penkower (Machon Lander Graduate School) analyzes the exhibit’s portrayal of the 1943 Bermuda Conference on refugees.

—Stuart Erdheim, an expert on the Allies’ failure to bomb Auschwitz, explores the exhibit’s flawed treatment of that issue.

— Shuli Eshel, the director of a film about Holocaust rescue advocate James McDonald, scrutinizes the inexplicable omission of McDonald from the new exhibit.

— Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin (Schechter Institutes) and Noam Sachs Zion (Shalom Hartman Institute) probe the exhibit’s failure to include the interfaith protests organized by American rabbinical students during the Holocaust.

Deborah Bernick on "Disobedience: The Sousa Mendes Story"

“DISOBEDIENCE”
The Sousa Mendes Story
Defying unjust laws in order to save the lives of refugees.
By Deborah Bernick

On June 21st, I saw a remarkable film – “DISOBEDIENCE: The Sousa Mendes Story” --about the extraordinary Portuguese Consul in France in 1940 named Aristides de Sousa Mendes. The showing was sponsored by the Portuguese Embassy in DC. TRY TO SEE IT! (details below)

Sousa Mendes personally issued thousands of transit visas which allowed an estimated 30,000 refugees, including Jews and others, to escape Nazi-controlled France and enter Spain & Portugal in order to board boats to freedom in North and South America. It was the largest diplomatic rescue mission of World War II. Descendants alive today number in the tens of thousands.

For his acts of conscience, Sousa Mendes was horribly punished by the dictator of Portugal, Antonio Salazar. Why? Because he had disobeyed an authoritarian leader in order to save the lives of foreigners of all social classes & religious backgrounds. !!!

Those he saved included the creators of Curious George (Margaret and H.A. Rey), artist Salvador Dali, actor Robert Montgomery, several Rothschilds, and members of the Habsburg royalty of Austria. Also, the actor Michel Gill (House of Cards) and two actors in the film Casablanca (Marcel Dalio and Madeleine Lebeau). 

Sousa Mendes never regretted his actions, though he was stripped of his diplomatic status and died in poverty. Many of those he rescued never knew the name of their savior until Yad Vashem in Israel recognized him as Righteous Amongst the Nations in 1966. He was an unsung Portuguese Wallenberg or Schindler. 

In the past two decades, the government of Portugal has begun celebrating Aristides de Sousa Mendes as a national hero, and his family home is in the process of being restored. But his story needs to be told much more broadly in the US, Europe, and the Americas. It is especially relevant today -- as we confront governmental restrictions on potential immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented entrants. 

My friend Larry Jarvik accompanied me to the film. His Dutch-Jewish mother Lissy received a Portuguese transit visa as a 16-year old stranded in France with her family in 1940. Larry and his mom (now 94) retraced her 1940 journey from France to Portugal on a “Journey on the Road to Freedom” trip sponsored by the Sousa Mendes Foundation. This 11-day trip from Bordeaux to Lisbon is open to Holocaust educators (broadly defined) and visa recipient families. It will next be held in June-July 2019. http://sousamendesfoundation.org/journey-on-the-road-to-fr…/

CHECK OUT THE 4-MINUTE TRAILER FOR THE FILM. It’s quite gripping! http://sousamendesfoundation.org/disobedience-the-sousa-me…/ You can arrange showings at your synagogue, church, community group, college, ethnic or professional organization. (2009, French, with English subtitles). 

For background, email: info@sousamendesfoundation.org  

Crowdrise campaign:  https://www.crowdrise.com/visastofreedom

And if you know anyone whose parents or grandparents got out of Europe via ships from Portugal to the US, Brazil, Panama or anywhere else during WWII -- the Foundation is doing exciting research to track down Sousa Mendes-visa descendants. Many have been found via ancestry.com and articles in local newspapers. 

**THE FILM IS AVAILABLE TO ALL. WATCH THE TRAILER!!
http://sousamendesfoundation.org/disobedience-the-sousa-me…/

F. H. Buckley: A Political Philosopher for the Age of Trump

 

I recently had an interesting lunch with F. H. Buckley, George Mason University law professor, political philosopher, and author of THE REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE: How We Tried to Ban Corruption, Failed, and What We Can Do About It and THE REPUBLICAN WORKERS PARTY: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy, and Why It Was Just What We Needed, among other works...

Which reminded me that I had promised to review his latest books...

So here goes:

THE REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE (Encounter Books, 2017) is an interesting attempt to deal with the problem of corruption in American politics, from a prominent conservative political philosopher, so therefore is well worth reading...My quibble is that it reflects a certain Canadian-centric perspective that takes as given that Canada is less corrupt than the United States. Not every American would agree with that premise, which unfortunately undercuts many good points--especially the critique of campaign finance legislation--made by the author in this serious study.

Yet, if Canadian PM's Justin Trudeau's fake eyebrows aren't enough to convince one that something's rotten in Canada, one might also note that President Clinton's business partner in Clinton Foundation deals, as well as the "Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative," is a Canadian businessman: Frank Giustra. Likewise, President Clinton was reportedly romantically involved with Canadian Member of Parliament and millionaire, Belinda Stronach. 

So I remain unconvinced that Canadians are more virtuous than we are, although I am persuaded they may have a tendency to appear "holier-than-thou."

My other nitckpick concerns the omission of Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's 1873 novel about American politics, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today which set the bar pretty high for writings on the subject. No study of corruption in the US Capital is complete without a discussion of that classic novel of Washington, which still is a tale of today. 

Other than those minor reservations, the book is well worth reading, serious, scholarly and indeed thought-provoking, with some solid case studies...even if you aren't persuaded that Canada is a better and more honest land than the good old USA.

THE REPUBLICAN WORKERS PARTY (Encounter Books, forthcoming September 2018) is in my view a much better book, perhaps because it is more focused on the nuts and bolts of the last election.

Buckley is able cite persuasive evidence of what went wrong with the Republican (and Democratic) Party, and forecasts what might happen in 2020. Buckley clearly believes that Donald J. Trump is President of the United States of America in large measure because the Democratic Party abandoned the working class -- and Trump was able to bring them into his camp.

Well, that's my take-away from this provocative and insightful book. Every Republican in Washington, indeed every Democrat, should read it for that revelation alone.  

Now, this isn't the first time such a thing has happened. It happened with President Reagan. It happened with President Nixon. There are just not enough members of all the country clubs and Episcopalian congregations in the country to elect a President. But each time the working class was admitted, the GOP Establishment pushed them out soon afterwards. 

Republicans would take their votes, but they didn't want to rub shoulders with their social inferiors--or more importantly, give them their fair share of the spoils. 

Well, in my opinion, that's not exactly a winning formula in electoral politics, and Buckley has figured it out. 

All the GOP needs to do to continue winning is to keep working-class voters in the Republican Big Tent. That means delivering "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs..." as we say in Washington. It means delivering higher wages. It means not demeaning or insulting voters by calling them names. And it means listening to their concerns.

Bottom line: President Trump didn't win because of Russian interference--he won because of the American working class.

Not really very hard to understand the winning formula, so simple that even a Canadian can perceive it, perhaps due to his outsider's eye. 

However, as  the rabid response of "Never-Trumpers," Libertarians, and GOP Establishment types to the victory of Donald J. Trump in 2016 indicates,  the incorporation of the American working class into the Republican Party may be easier said than done.

So, even having been persuaded by F.H. Buckley's masterful political analysis in THE REPUBLICAN WORKERS PARTY, it may still be appropriate to recall Bettye Davis' advice in All About Eve: 

"Fasten your seatbelts..."

MEMO TO SENATOR BILL NELSON: Three Ways to Fix the Public Access Problem at Barrancas National Cemetery

As a follow-up to the last post on public access problems at Barrancas National Cemetery, I sent the following letter to Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL):

June 16th, 2018

The Honorable Bill Nelson

US Senate

716 Senate Hart Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Nelson:

RE: National Defense Authorization Act amendment #2489 (To require a plan from the Navy to allow increased public access to the National Naval Aviation Museum and Barrancas National Cemetery at Naval Air Station Pensacola). 

Thank you for this much-needed amendment. I am very grateful for your action in this regard and am sure American veteran’s families appreciate your support.

However, a veteran Naval Flight Officer friend (who is also a Washington lawyer) told me the there is a very good chance Navy brass could ignore your NDAA amendment #2489 and do nothing, unless there is continuing attention and pressure over time. He believes any "no can-do" response needs to be pre-empted, since there is no deadline or penalty clause in the amendment.

So, at his suggestion I propose three simple and inexpensive solutions to counter possible excuses for inaction or delay. Here they are:

1. Additional checkpoints to separate Barrancas visitors from the rest of the base…there is already one behind the Naval Aviation Museum, so this has been done before;

2. Shuttle bus to remote parking lot, would prevent car bombs and unaccompanied vehicular access…this is already used at Arlington Cemetery;

3. Acceptance of US passport or TSA Global Entry at gate in addition to driver’s license…either of these could make visitor identification certain.

I hope you can use these points to turn your excellent legislation into lasting results. Please feel free to have your staff contact me if there are any questions or concerns in this regard.

Again, thank you for your commitment to facilitate public access to Barrancas National Cemetery!

Sincerely yours,

Laurence Jarvik

Encl. My blog post on Barrancas issue, FYI.