The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1035770
The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, October 3, 2018 C-11 OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg A new report from Gallup should sober up those expecting a "blue wave" in the November elections. According to this recently re- leased report, the percent of Americans saying they have a "fa- vorable" view of Republicans now stands at 45 percent, up from 36 percent. Favorability for Demo- crats stands at 44 percent, exact- ly where it was last September. This is the highest favorabili- ty for Republicans since January 2011, when it stood at 47 percent just after Republicans gained con- trol of Congress in the 2010 mid- term elections. Of particular interest are large gains for Republican favorabili- ty among men — now at 50 per- cent, up from 37 percent a year ago — and middle-income house- holds ($ 30,000 to $74,999), now at 49 percent, up from 36 percent a year ago. Republican favorability has even increased among women — 40 percent now compared to 35 percent last September. It makes complete sense that Republican favorability among voters should be surging and that Democrat favorability should be languishing. How could the shameful carni- val that Democrats have created around the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh not hurt them? One of the most common mis- takes made today is to think that political process — that is, democ- racy — is what makes us free. No, it is law. It is law that protects life, liber- ty and property. Rule of law, which is honored, respected and applied "…In this world you will have trou- ble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" [John 16:33]. Christians are warned that the world in which they live is governed by unseen forces and sinful men: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spir- itual hosts of wickedness in the heav- enly places." As far as the United States is con- cerned, sinister elements have com- bined to keep the typical person in a state of anxiety and near panic with the major culprits being the media [the 24 hour news cycle] and de- structive identity politics. At the center of the 21st Century is the news cycle, the Internet, and social media which transform our anxiety into a panic. As one blogger wrote, "Almost everything we see on the Internet seems cal- culated to make us anx- ious. Fear mongering sells. "We're all going to be chipped and put into FEMA concentra- tion camps." This drum- beat of fear seems cal- culated to paralyze and to prevent action. Main- stream T V news is a lita- ny of conflict, sickness, and disaster. Turn the channel, and you have the dramas, an orgy of sex, violence, and greed also calculated to make you anxious. Then there are the commercials parading beautiful women and products to tempt you." Much of what we see and hear dai- ly erodes our ability to understand our world to the point that any new thing is considered normal. What is normal or true? Jesus proclaimed, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." The mes- sage of the Gospel is the Good News of sal- vation, and liberty from sin remains the antidote from the effects of a world gone mad. None- theless, fewer and few- er are listening. For conservatives, it is easy to pin the cause on the last guy who occu- pied the White House, but the ero- sion of the bands that hold our na- tion together has been an outgrowth of the 1960s where every social con- Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Kavanaugh show will help Republicans Vote suppression can be found in every state Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond Finding serenity in an anxious world Your information is on the dark web My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. I was going through some inter- esting articles on an A ARP Bulle- tin newspaper. The topic was titled "Inside the Dark Web." It caught my attention because of a caption that says- "Take a look: Deep within the internet is a secretive place where criminals buy and sell private infor- mation." Just a few days ago, I tested my friend's comment about finding in- formation on any person. I mean any person. It shocked me, that the wealth of information on any one you would like to check or investigate is available through search websites. The A ARP article I read explained how crooks and criminals gather information, then steal them or sell them or share them. It told stories of how victims get floods of solici- tations once they are targeted, and how lives can be destroyed once they are victimized. And the assault can be relentless. The article was four pages long and quite detailed. As I kept read- ing, I began to fear doing any inter- net business and personal activities anymore—like doing banking, pay- ing online, doing e mails, buying items online, researching consum- er reports, etc, etc. Why did I say that I have this fear? Because I know there are groups of tech savvy and smart individu- als whose job is to gather informa- tion and analyze patterns of behav- ior, buying habits, credit ratings, Continued on page 11 Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 The Weekly by Alden Heuring Everybody get together Minority View by Walter E. Williams University corruption Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 I'm thankful that increasing at- tention is being paid to the dire state of higher education in our country. Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has just published "The Diversi- ty Delusion." Its subtitle captures much of the book's content: "How Race and Gender Pandering Cor- rupt the University and Under- mine Our Culture." Part of the gender pandering at our universi- ties is seen in the effort to satis- fy the diversity-obsessed Nation- al Science Foundation and the Na- tional Institutes of Health, each of which gives millions of dollars of grant money to universities. If uni- versities don't make an effort to di- versify their science, technology, engineering and math (known as STEM) programs, they risk losing millions in grant money. A UCL A scientist says, "All across the country the big question now in STEM is: how can we promote more wom- en and minorities by 'changing' (i.e., low- ering) the require- ments we had previ- ously set for gradu- ate level study? " Mac Donald says, "Mathe- matical problem-solv- ing is being deemphasized in favor of more qualitative group projects; the pace of undergraduate physics education is being slowed down so that no one gets left behind." Diversity-crazed people ignore the fact that there are systemic dif- ferences in race and sex that in- fluence various outcomes. Males outperform females at the highest levels of math; howev- er, males are overrep- resented at the lowest levels of math compe- tence. In 2016, the number of males scor- ing above 700 on the math portion of the SAT was nearly twice as high as the num- ber of females scor- ing above 700. There are 2.5 males in the U.S. in the top 0.01 percent of math ability for ev- ery female, according to the jour- nal Intelligence (February 2018). In terms of careers, females are more people-centered than males. That might explain why fe- Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker It's October, and that means time to get your costumes ready for All Saint's Eve! This year, my wife, Jill, worked very hard to put together a list of costumes for large groups, and I have stolen her ideas for your entertainment. Enjoy! First, for a group of five: the Bennett sisters from Jane Aus- ten's Pride and Prejudice. You've got Lizzie, Mary, Kitty, Lydia and Jane, each with their own ap- proach to Victorian-era gender re- lations. Don't forget to cinch your corsets and plump your petticoats before hitting the streets to trick- or-treat! If you're a group of six, that's a perfect number for the main cast of the original Pokémon television series, graciously brought over- seas and butchered in translation by 4Kids Entertainment. You've got Ash Ketchum (get it? Catch Em?) with his trademark backwards rally cap and his part- ner Pikachu; Misty and her sunglasses-wear- ing pal, Squirtle; and Brock with one of his many kinda-rock-look- ing Pocket Monsters. For a group of three, replace the Pokémon with plushies, or make your small children be the plushies. For a group of seven, the obvi- ous choice is the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros from George R.R. Martin's probably-never-going- to-be-finished mag- num opus, A Song of Ice and Fire. You can spend as much mon- ey as you want, quite literally, getting the details of each coat of arms just right, but hitting the basic color scheme and symbol will at least get points for effort. Just don't be surprised when lit- erally everyone wants to be the Stark's Direwolf. For eight there is really only one choice: Snow White and the Sev- "Nobody has found any wide- spread instances of voter fraud." That's MSNBC host Katy Tur, expressing what passes for con- ventional wisdom on the left. They constantly tell us that efforts to pursue voter ID and similar mea- sures are aimed not at election se- curity, but at suppressing the vote. But those who peddle such a view probably haven't heard of Lizaida Camis, who was recent- ly charged by federal officials with "promoting a voter bribery scheme." Her case took place in New Jer- sey, which allows mail-in voting. Voters simply have to complete an application and submit it to coun- ty officials. That's where Ms. Camis came in. She's charged with approach- ing at least three voters with an of- fer of money for votes. According to voter-fraud expert Jason Snead: "Camis went to the voters' homes after they received their mail-in ballots, in some cases ex- plicitly instructed them to vote for specific candidates, and then col- lected the ballots. Camis then told the voters they could pick up a $50 check from the Hoboken office of a company that, per the complaint, 'purportedly provided payroll ser- vices' to local campaigns." Ms. Camis hasn't been convict- ed, but many who have engaged in this type of fraud have been. The Heritage Foundation's vot- er-fraud database (www.heritage. org/voterfraud) lists more than 1,140 examples. That's not open cases, by the way, or mere allegations. No, that's more than 1,140 proven instances, with nearly a thousand criminal convictions. And the list is growing all the time. "As alarming a figure as 1,140 is, it may be the tip of the iceberg," Mr. Snead writes. "The real scope of voter fraud in Ameri- can elections is unknown, and like- ly far larger." Sounds like voter fraud is more than just a little bit "widespread," doesn't it? And remember, many elections are decided by a very thin margin. It doesn't take much to tilt a par- ticular race in one direction or the other. Many cases involve the misuse of absentee ballots. According to election-law expert Hans von Spa- kovsky, who served two years with the Federal Election Com- mission, these types of ballots are "extremely vulnerable" to fraud. Take two cases from the Heri- tage database. The first involves Ben Cooper, the former mayor of Appalachia, Virginia. He and 14 co-conspirators went to prison in 2004 for the largest voter fraud conspiracy in the state's history. Cooper and his accomplices traded beer, cigarettes, and pork rinds for votes. They also stole ab- sentee ballots out of the mail. The second involves another for- mer mayor, Ruth Robinson, who at- tempted to rig her own re-election in Martin, Kentucky. Their main targets: Poor and disabled resi- dents, who they threatened with eviction from public housing if they didn't sign absentee ballots already filled out by Robinson. Remind me again: Who's trying to suppress the vote here? You can find examples like these in every state. Yet efforts to put in place even the simplest policies to increase election security is met with stiff resistance and cries of "disenfranchisement." What an ironic charge. These cases add up — and they make a difference. The Pew Cen- ter on the States estimated in 2012 that 24 million voter registrations, one out of every eight, were inac- curate. That's a serious threat to election integrity. The threat of election fraud comes from outside of our bor- ders as well. That's why Ameri- cans should welcome President Trump's new executive order al- lowing the sanctioning of foreign individuals who attempt to influ- ence our elections. The order is designed to push back against na- tion-state actors who would target Scandal and politics Lucid Moments by Bart Stinson Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 Sex scandals are nothing new in American politics. Dating back to Al- exander Hamilton, at least, sexual disgracing has been a weapon in the partisan political arsenal. No gener- ation has been spared. The rain has fallen on Republi- cans and Democrats alike until re- cent decades, and even today ran- dy Democrats aren't completely im- mune to sexual disaster, especially if it involves criminality, workplace harassment or ongoing abuse. For- mer Rep. Anthony Wiener, for exam- ple, is currently sitting in a peniten- tiary for sending obscene images of himself to a 15 -year-old girl. Former president Bill Clinton was disbarred in his home state and im- peached in the House of Represen- tatives, not for adultery with an in- tern, but for perjury in civil litiga- tion. I have relatives who, to this day, dismiss his impeachment as an out- come of prudish Republicans' obses- sion with sex. But Clinton was a Yale Law graduate and former attorney general of his home state. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was depriving ordinary Ar- kansas women of their day in court. For garden-variety adultery, there's been a disproportionate increase in Republican scandals. This is partly the legacy of pornographer Larry Flynt who, as recently as 2007, took out ads in The Washington Post offering bounties up to $1 million for "docu- mented evidence of illicit sexual or intimate relations with a Congress- person, Senator or other prominent officeholder" that could be verified and published in Hustler magazine. A gold-framed photograph of Pres- ident Clinton and Flynt sat atop the tycoon's desk in his Beverly Hills of- fice during a 2016 interview. Wheth- er the president's staff actively coor- dinated with Flynt to deploy his re- sources against impeachment is dis- puted, but it is beyond dispute that Flynt served as the president's junk- yard dog. Dan Moldea, hired by Flynt to investi- gate the president's antagonists, has claimed that the Fly- nt investigation and exposure of Rep. Bob Livingston and Rep. Bob Barr doused the fires of impeachment. Livingston, who had been selected to replace Newt Gin- grich in the following Congress, abruptly announced he would resign his seat and return to private life. "The shock waves of the Livings- ton resignation spread far beyond the West Wing," the New York Times recalled afterward, "and had a sober- ing effect on members of Congress of both parties who might have been contemplating calling on Mr. Clinton stepping down in the aftermath of