Dobre Utro, Russia!

Of the top 10 countries from which this site gets hit, 54% of the hits in the last 30 days have come from Russia. Another 5% come from Ukraine. The USA accounts for just 29% of the traffic.

So, Dobre Utro, Russia! Send me a handwritten email sometime at HHCapitalism@gmail.com and let me know what you like and don't like about the site.

I assume that you understand English, or you wouldn't be browsing the articles here. You may write to me in English, French or Spanish as you prefer. Russian, not so much.

Cheers,
Howard Hyde
Editor

Trump Card: Why He's Right About Muslim Immigration Here

If you denounce Donald Trump for saying he wants to stop Muslim immigration until leaders figure things out you don't realize we're in World War III.

The enemy we are facing is worse than any before. They believe they are sent by God to kill every one who does not believe as they do. And their beliefs are the antithesis of American values: No freedom of religion and speech, no liberty and opportunity for all. Women are subservient. Homosexuals die.

Read the complete article by Robert Wilcox at: RobertkWilcox.com

Trump Goes Too Far, Right?

Donald Trump is not my candidate; never was, isn't now. But after so many rounds of "this time he's done himself in" leading to even higher scores in the polls, I'm taking the safe bet that his latest and most egregious scandal yet, the suggestion that the United States might consider adherence to Islam in determining who to allow into the country, will see him climbing higher still.
First we joked that his candidacy was like a reality TV show or a cartoon villain. Then we thanked him for the enhanced ratings--double the eyeballs ever for a televised Republican candidate debate--and dismissed him. But he didn't go away. He went up. We started to realize that the public distress over the anything-goes-by-executive-fiat immigration policy is far more acute than the comfortable establishment political and media professionals realized; and that as long as no one "better qualified" was willing to take the issue head-on without deference to polite P.C. etiquette, then Trump would continue to, well, trump. Then as the inevitable consequences of Obama's disastrous foreign policy unfolded, Trump remains the only one willing to speak off-script and unfiltered; the anti-candidate.
American are starving for some straight talk about what is going on in the world, in our backyard (Europe) and in our front yard (San Bernardino). Europe is committing suicide; its capital cities are being overrun with hostile elements who have openly proclaimed, and are carrying out in plain sight, the cultural, demographic, political and religious destruction of all that Europe ever was. And the "progressive" American left, led by Barack Obama, is hell-bent on having us follow Europe as swiftly as possible, public opinion be damned. In this crisis no one gives a rat's behind whether the potential leader has the right pedigree or the sophisticated literary polish of Alistaire Cooke. They want someone who tells it like it is where it counts, to the gut. Trump is filling that vacuum with an arctic blast.
It would appear that, according to our confusion of symbols, Hitler's biggest mistake was to neglect to establish Nazism not just as a political regime but as a religion. If he had done that, we might have been powerless to stop him, for to oppose him in any way would be to violate one of our own most sacred constitutional principles, "the free exercise thereof". Tojo, likewise, apparently might have prevailed if only he had bombed Pearl Harbor in the name of Shintoism.
As Americans and westerners, we recoil at the thought of discriminating on the basis of religion. But we need to remind ourselves that we have never shrunk from discriminating against hostile, anti-American, fascist and genocidal ideologies, from Mussolini's Italy to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The Islam that we fear and oppose, the Islam that attacked New York and Washington D.C. on 9/11/2001, Paris last month and San Bernardino last week, is not a religion but a tyrannical political ideology. If we can recognize it as such (before more of us get killed), and find the right words to identify and define it, then we can fight and defeat it with no hazard to our constitutional principles. We may freely and forcefully exclude just as confidently as we would the Ku Klux Klan or anyone waving a Confederate flag.
Readers who wish to challenge me on this definition have two groups of experts that they may consult. The first are all of the ex-Muslims who have put their lives at risk by renouncing Jihad, becoming apostates (a capital offense), and speaking out for the sake of warning the West as to the true nature of this "religion". The second are the Islamic leaders themselves, the recognized and credentialed spokesmen for Islam around the world; the ones who write the fatwas against the apostates. They are willing to tell the truth about themselves even if we are not. They are unequivocal: Islam does not permit any man-made law like the Constitution of the United States to take precedence over Sharia and the Qur'an. Before offering an opinion, let alone a denouncement, of Trump's proposal, every American should read and digest those.
As for the "refugees," almost half of whom are from a dozen Islamic countries other than Syria and 75 percent of whom are military age men, they may be clueless about economics, but they are razor-sharp, clear, and profound when it comes to demographics. The most illiterate Muslim refugee (which is to say, the majority of them) could not explain what supply and demand are, or why they should be expected to work in Germany rather than have clothing, shelter, transportation and halal food provided to them in a Jew-free environment courtesy of the German taxpayer; but they can articulate the compound-interest effect of their own high birth rate on the society that they are supplanting with the eloquence of a lettered professor. Our own college graduates seem to struggle to compete on that score.
Once again, Trump is not my first choice; far from it. But if no one else is willing or able to step up, he will have won it fair and square, no tricks, no gimmicks, no deception. Ted, Marco, Carly, Ben, Mike, your move.

- - - - - - - - -

POSTSCRIPT: Each of the candidates who are hoping to displace Trump need to come up with a new, qualitative distinction that prompt potential primary voters to see their candidacy in a whole new light. I will address myself to Ted Cruz in Particular: Many people like him for what he is and has done, but don't necessarily translate that into perceiving him as George Washington; maybe Alexander Hamilton (who, in case it requires reminding, in spite of appearing on the ten-dollar bill, never became president).
To remedy that weakness, IMHO the principled conservative firebrand maverick senator should start dropping not-so-subtle hints as to which GOVERNORS are on his short list of running mates. If people were to begin conceiving of a Cruz-Walker ADMINSTRATION, or a Cruz-Christie administration, or Cruz-Huckabee, or Cruz-Jindal, or even Cruz-Romney, it would change the game. The people will see a rounded-out team with a depth of governing experience in addition to principled leadership, instead of just "Prez Ted Hotshot".
What are your ideas? How can Rubio, Carson or Fiorina add a decisive dimension to his or her campaign?
Speaking of Carly, rumors of her death may be greatly exaggerated. Her campaign may appear stalled, but that may be merely a function of her not getting the media attention accorded to the others; we don't see enough of her. When she's on, she's brilliant and articulate, with an extraordinary command of details AND the ability to summarize. From the forest to the trees to the leaves, to the mitochondria to the planetary whole, she can tell it.

Mark Steyn's Senate Testimony on Climate Change

"Public opinion, which no longer trusts the Big Climate enforcers to tell them what the climate will be like in 2050, now no longer trusts them to tell them what it was like in 1950."

Read the complete document at: http://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/c6a57a91-8bbd-45f3-9eaa-51cc8f64e9dc/5DDB5BDF028B536F0A1A4E116D144E9D.mr.-mark-steyn-testimony.pdf

Islamic Army Overruns Europe

Has to be seen to be believed. Some viewers -- no, ALL viewers who are European, American, or Australian and not self-loathing and/or suicidal, will find this extremely disturbing. Do not watch this with your children.

See the video at https://www.facebook.com/IrelandFirst2015/videos/642310859242076/.

Gun Control is the Problem, Not the Solution

The liberal reflexive knee-jerk reaction of calling for more gun control before any facts about the San Bernardino shooting were even known is a perfect example of what Evan Sayet calls "not just wrong, but as wrong as wrong can be." Gun control, far from being the solution, is arguably the #1 problem here.

Read the complete article by Howard Hyde at AmericanThinker.com

The Paris "Setback"

The Paris ISIS terror attacks are a grim reminder of what happens when western-and especially American-civilization retreats from leadership in a world where, we seem to have forgotten, the default condition under which most of mankind lives is barbarism.
Liberals and libertarians of the Rand Paul school blame this on George W. Bush. But that accusation based on events of 2003-04 skips over an intermediary period during which conditions had been, if not idyllic, then the least-worst they have been before or since.
Go to your public library and pick up a copy of the New York Times or the Wall Street journal for any day in 2007 or 2008, and you will be hard-pressed to find any front-page mention of Iraq, much less ISIS . The "failure" narrative had lost its bite. The death rate of American soldiers was barely above that of training accidents. Iraq had become the biggest non-issue of the day.
As I wrote on WesternJournalism.com on June 18, 2014, a few short years ago, "We owned the country. We operated the oil fields. Saddam Hussein was dead; his murderous Baath party was defeated; and Al-Qaeda and the jihadis, if not gone, were neutralized. At that point, we could have drafted a Constitution based on the principle of separation of powers such that conflict between Sunnis and Shias and Kurds took a back seat to aggregations of citizens along different dimensions, neutralizing the religious one. We could have supported a leader who was able, ready, and willing by principle and conviction to govern across sectarian lines; we didn't have to settle for the partisan Shia autocrat prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki; and we could have imposed the time-honored practice of term limits (even on the one we chose.) We could have given every adult Iraqi citizen, men and women, equal shares of common and preferred stocks and bonds of a fully privatized formerly national oil industry, giving them a direct stake in the defense of peaceful free-market capitalism and private property rights, as well as a sense of sharing in both the national purpose and its bounty...At the very least, we could have negotiated a realistic and appropriate Status of Forces agreement.
But all of that would be Imperialism and ugly-Americanism, of course. Unacceptable! At the very least, too expensive!"

Too expensive? As Ted Cruz famously said at the last debate, if you think it's expensive defending America, try NOT defending her!"

In a world full of ambitious tyrants, there will always be the need for a powerful and benevolent force in the world to promote peace, stability, human rights and trade. Since the end of World War II, that force has been America-the Pax Americana.

Like it or not, our domain of responsibility, though far from exclusive, includes France, western Europe, Israel and, well, the world. Spitting on the graves of our own soldiers and throwing the ordinary citizens of uncivilized nations who risked their lives to help us under the bus, is not leadership.

To return to a position of strength will probably require a leader willing to tell the American people things they would rather not hear.

See the complete article at: WesternJournalism.com

---

AG writes:
Yes Howard!
Never miss an opportunity to bash a libertarian- it’s the new great American pastime.
Further, never let us allow facts to get in the way of such good rhetoric.
Of course the ISIS attack in Paris is our fault for failing to lead (kill enough people BUT DO IT BENEVOLENTLY).
BTW I did get your hidden message that Rand Paul likely caused the Paris attacks through his weakness and is possibly even a terrorist ISIS sympathizer.

If only W had a few more years…..

We owned the country. We operated the oil fields.

How dare those pesky Iraqis think that Iraq should belong to the Iraqis. Infidels.
How could they actually think they should be allowed to determine their own government, constitution, or share of their national bounty.
You are right that they should take what we give them and be grateful for that.
After all, America knows best! We are the "dear leader" of the world and it is our responsibility to LEAD (by lead we actually mean kill).

I’m glad you agree that Reagan, Eisenhower et al were weak fools to advise against a state of perpetual warfare. America must be STRONG and we must LEAD. (The new GOP platform). Individual rights and freedom are really an anachronism in the dangerous world of 2015 where such fearsome people like Jihad Johnny are hiding under every bed. If only McCarthy were around today he would know what to do. Root ‘em out! Kill em all and let God sort them out! I mean Hitler had a lot of great ideas, he just shouldn’t have done that naughty stuff to the Jews.

We must reshape the world through force into a peaceful utopia where ambitious tyrants are vanquished from history, this is the humane solution and recent history (2007-2008) proves that it is the only viable solution. A thousand points of light! The barbarians are at the gate and these weak liberals and libertarians are, well, WEAK!

Sorry for taking your time, back to work...

Yours always humming Rule Britannia,
AG

---

Howard writes back:
Thank you AG,
For the record, I don't blame Rand Paul for anything ISIS has done. I do call him out for skipping over Obama's actions in assigning causation to our current situation.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Paul a month ago in Washington D.C. at the Wednesday Morning meeting of Americans for Prosperity. He took questions in particular about Syria. While I have my disagreements with him, I respect him for being very well-informed and consistent in his principles.

Cheers,
Howard

---

...which brings us back to:Answering the Libertarian Indictments on Iraq

---

Collective Bargaining Disagreement

A new study reveals that collective bargaining for teachers has a negative effect on future earnings, occupational skill levels and hours worked.
“Students who spent all 12 years of grade school in a state with a duty-to-bargain law earned an average of $795 less per year and worked half an hour less per week as adults than students who were not exposed to collective-bargaining laws. They are 0.9 percentage points less likely to be employed and 0.8 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force. And those with jobs tend to work in lower-skilled occupations.”

Read the complete article by Larry Sand at Unionwatch.org

Jamie Glazov: The Life and Work Of David Horowitz

David Horowitz is significant to CitizenEcon.com because he is one of the very few former radicals turned conservative who have adequately explained in scholarly detail the nature of America's leftists who came to such prominence in the editor of this site's hometown, Berkeley, California.

"Horowitz grew up in a Communist enclave in Queens called Sunnyside Gardens. As a child, he attended the Sunnyside Progressive School, a pre-kindergarten program the Party had set up and, as an adolescent, spent summers at a Party-run children’s camp called “Wo-Chi-Ca,” short for “Workers’ Children’s Camp.” In 1956, when Horowitz was seventeen, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered a secret speech in the Kremlin about the crimes of Stalin. The “Khrushchev Report,” as it was subsequently called, was leaked by Israeli intelligence agents to the public, causing a crisis among the faithful. Party members who had previously dismissed claims by their opponents that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions as “slander,” now had no choice but to admit that the charges were true. They left the Party in a mass exodus that killed the Communist Party as a force in U.S. political life, although for many like Blanche and Phil Horowitz, it was impossible to give up the socialist faith."

Read the full article by Jamie Glazov at FrontPageMag.com

I thought the President said the war was over and the ISIS J.V. team was on the run

They didn't target Charlie Hebdo this time.

They don't hate us because we draw blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. They don't hate us because of our policy in Israel (except to say that they hate the fact that Israel exists). They are not retaliating for any specific military or "Imperial" move on our part, with the possible exception of our retreat from leadership.

Rather, they despise us because of who we are and what we stand for, and they hold us in contempt for the weakness we are showing by allowing them to overrun our countries and our cultures, and for running away when the going gets too easy.

In June 2014 I wrote that, "In the Fall of 2008...a majority of Americans, including a plurality of Republicans, were eager to get beyond George W. Bush and their weariness of his Iraq misadventure. That scorn may soon turn to nostalgia as the American people realize how much has been lost in the squandering of the real gains and opportunities afforded us at the height of our success in Iraq in that year." See: Our Intolerable Success in Iraq.

Are we there yet?

If not, we only have continue on cruise control and wait for it. In Europe, it started with mass, uncontrolled immigration of a culture hostile to western values, leading eventually to neighborhoods governed by Sharia law, "No-Go" zones for westerners in their own cities, and public thoroughfares blocked for mass Islamic prayers. Now we have the simultaneous, coordinated massacre of over 100 French, American and other western citizens.

Recently, we have our first American city (Hamtranck, Michigan) electing a Muslim majority to its city council, ready to be governed by Sharia, and unlawful street-blocking Islamic prayers in Los Angeles.

Twenty years ago, Rudy Guilliani demonstrated how barbarism could be subdued via a policy of zero tolerance for petty crimes. We can still stave off catastrophe if we will simply reassert the confidence of our culture and our constitution.

Please read The Barbarians Are Inside, And There Are No Gates, by Mark Steyn, at: SteynOnline.com.

And: Adios, America!: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole. (Maybe that should be "Wadaeaan, Amrika!"

Brand-new Insights into our Current Circumstances

"The characteristic feature of present-day policies is the trend toward a substitution of government control for free enterprise. Powerful political parties and pressure groups are fervently asking for public control of all economic activities, for thorough government planning, and for the nationalization of business. They aim at full government control of education and at the socialization of the medical profession. There is no sphere of human activity that they would not be prepared to subordinate to regimentation by the authorities. In their eyes, state control is the panacea for all ills...America is faced with a phenomenon that the framers of the Constitution did not foresee and could not foresee: the voluntary abandonment of congressional rights. Congress has in many instances surrendered the function of legislation to government agencies and commissions, and it has relaxed its budgetary control through the allocation of large appropriations for expenditures, which the Administration has to determine in detail."

Those words were written by Ludwig von Mises in 1944. Read more: http://www.rrpec.org/documents/Mises.pdf

Rasmussen: Little Support for Punishing Global Warming Foes

Global warming advocates are calling for the prosecution of groups who disagree with them, and New York State has taken it a step further by investigating Exxon Mobil for refusing to play ball with the popular scientific theory.

But 68% of Likely U.S. Voters oppose the government investigating and prosecuting scientists and others including major corporations who question global warming. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 17% favor such prosecutions. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

Read the complete article at M.RasmussenReports.com

Mark Steyn: Imperialist Warmongering Deniers of the Human Right to Science

The nations of the world have issued their demands for this month's Paris climate conference, and the Government of Bolivia has cut to the chase:

The capitalist system is a system of death. Hence, capitalism is leading humanity towards a horizon of destruction that sentences nature and life itself to death. In this regard, for a lasting solution to the climate crisis we must destroy capitalism.

Yeah, but, as the American media like to say about Trump, where are the specifics?

Oh, don't worry. The Bolivians have a ten-point plan.

Read the complete article at: SteynOnline.com

National Review: Why Businesses Leave California

"For most of the 20th century, California was a place that people and companies moved to in search of opportunity. The Golden State still has its beautiful climate and technically skilled workforce, but today these things are not enough to prevent companies from leaving the state. A new study seeks to quantify the trend of companies fleeing California and determine how, and to what extent, it is caused by California’s hostile business environment."

Read the complete article at: NationalReview.com

Obama Drags Democrats to Lowest Levels in Generations

As I have said many times, rumors of the death of the Republican party have been greatly exaggerated. Republicans now hold more state mansions (32), more state legislatures, and more city halls than we have in decades, perhaps generations. The Democratic bench is thinning and greying. This we have to thank Obama for; the destructive effects of his domestic policies and absence of leadership abroad have achieved a clarity of choice between the parties which has been lacking in prior years.
If you don't believe me, read the New York Times!:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/us/politics/obama-legacy-in-state-offices-a-shrinking-democratic-share.html?_r=0

Post-FoxBusiness Debate Scorecard

Here is the CitizenEcon.com scorecard on the FoxBusiness Republican presidential candidate debate:

Cruz was very strong, but he needs to convince doubters that he can 1) beat Hillary and 2) GOVERN, not just be passionate and smart. The base alone will not suffice. He held his ground, but it remains to be seen whether he gained any last night.

Carson is very likable on a personal level. He needed to demonstrate that he can can play with the big boys and girls, which is to say Rubio and Fiorina, on economics and policy. He fell short. He hasn't read enough of Thomas Sowell or CitizenEcon.com yet.

Trump was more restrained than usual, neither hurt nor helped himself. We may thank him for all the attention and color he has brought to the campaign and to issues that would not otherwise have been brought up, and allow him to settle quietly below Cruz, Fiorina, Rubio, Carson...

Rubio did very well, was very articulate and authoritative all around. His vulnerabilities are 1) He looks like he's 25, and 2) immigration-absolutist conservatives don't trust him. He needs to have a private come-to-Jesus powwow with Ann Coulter, Mark Levin and some Tea Party leaders and convince them that he has seen the light.
Dear conservatives: Whatever Rubio's weaknesses, they pale in comparison to the duplicity and deceit of Obama and Rodham-Clinton. Rubio won't be penning capricious unconstitutional executive orders in the middle of the night.

Bush almost had a few moments of statesmanship in which he might have answered the 64 dollar question posed by Mark Steyn, to wit, why a third Bush in 30 years is indispensable. But he is so verbally clumsy and socially awkward, he gives the impression of being the high school dork who couldn't get a date.

Rand Paul scored a few points, like pointing out that inequality is highest where Democrats are in charge, but his repeated blaming ISIS on W. Bush without mentioning Obama's premature withdrawal calls his judgement into question.

Kasich was HORRIBLE. His rants and interruptions were appalling. Not only were his policy prescriptions wrong, but he was rude and aggressive promoting them.
Kasich should be traded to the Democrats in exchange for Webb. Webb would even be a more acceptable VP to Cruz than Kasich would. And Kasich and Paul should be off the stage, to bring Jindal up to the adult's table. Jindal is under-rated and needs to have his turns.

Carly needed to distinguish herself or her somewhat stalled campaign would be in trouble. She not only shone, but stepped one rung at a time through the debate to come out on top, with her mastery of philosophy, policy, executive experience and issues, especially foreign policy.

Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) Doubles Down on Zero Tolerance for Climate Change Doubters

See these stories and resources and use your own brain:

• Congressman Ted Lieu's Press Release on ExxonMobil Climate Science
  
• Congressman Ted Lieu's Op-Ed Piece at TheHill.com
  
• Climate Change: Where is the Science? By Howard Hyde on AmericanThinker.com
  
• Howard Hyde Interviewed on Climate Change on the Larry Elder Show
  
• Climate Change: The Facts (20+ authors)
  
• A Disgrace To The Profession: The World's Scientists, In Their Own Words, On Michael E Mann, His Hockey Stick And Their Damage To Science, Volume I
  
• Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science, by Ian Plimer
  

Michelle Malkin: Questions About High-Tech Guest-Workers Should Be ‘Centerpiece’ Of GOP Pres. Debate

CitizenEcon.com is not endorsing any one person's opinion here, but this is an important issue that has received insufficient attention.
Possibly the strongest rebuttal, or at least caveat to Malkin's arguments is that the oppressive government footprint, from excessive taxation to Sarbanes-Oxley to Dodd-Frank to Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Equity and Fairness (there's that trigger-warning word) Reform Act (TEFRA), have crippled the economy and screwed America's best and brightest more than immigration policy. American programmers (like the editor of this site) have to compete with low-wage workers whether they are here or in India.

Read the complete article at Breitbart.com.

Dr. Thomas Sowell tops himself -- again.

I have read at least 20 of Dr. Sowell's 40+ books. I didn't think he could get any better, but he just topped himself again. Burn your library and drop out of liberal arts college; you only need one book to understand all of human history, culture, politics, migration, conquest, inequality, geography and economics, and that's Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International perspective.

Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms

"Those who are opposed to the Second Amendment have never received death threats for exercising their rights under the First."

I'll take credit for that if it isn't already taken.
-Howard

French Meteorologist fired from TV Job for Speaking out against Climate Change Fraud

Philippe Verdier, a meteorologist for France Télévisions, has been fired for expressing a dissenting opinion in the Climate Change debate.

Watch these videos before they get censored, and buy his book "Climat Investigation."

The UN Climate Change conference in Paris (Le Bourget) is comming up in just a few weeks.

In French...

(This one with English subtitles:)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3btmnt_philippe-verdier-ouvre-sa-lettre-de-licenciement-philippe-verdier-opens-his-letter-of-dismissal_news

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x384bxg_trailer-officiel-climat-investigation-philippe-verdier_news

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x39qh3k_verdier-je-ne-suis-plus-en-conges-contrairement-a-ce-que-dit-france-televisions_news

War crimes tribunals for climate change “deniers” (like us)?

Nine years ago self-proclaimed “climate hawk” David Roberts was contemplating Nuremberg trials for deniers.

Read the complete article by Mark Steyn on www.steynonline.com.

Fred Thompson Validates the Laffer Curve

Fred Thompson, the actor and senator who passed away this past Sunday at age 73, articulated better than most how and why lower marginal tax rates lead to a more robust economy accompanied by HIGHER revenue to the treasury. Too bad George W. Bush's tax cuts were only temporary.

Read the complete article (renew your subscription) at: The Wall Street Journal.

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Thomas Sowell on the Mission of the Speaker of the House

"Contrary to the thinking -- or lack of thinking -- among today's Republican leaders, Reagan did not go to these Democratic voters and pander to them by offering them a watered-down version of what the Democrats were offering. He took his case to them and talked -- yes, TALKED -- to let them know what his own agenda offered to them and to the country."

Read the complete article by Thomas Sowell at Townhall.com.

Fox News Republican Candidate ... 18?

FoxNews and Facebook did an excellent job of presenting the 17 Republican candidates for President of the United States in their two debate programs last week. What they managed somehow to conceal from the world, through tightly-controlled real-time editing of all video footage and audio tracks, and through mass hypnosis of all the members of the live audience to selectively erase their memories, was that there was an 18th candidate on the stage, responding to all the moderators' questions along with all the others.
While the identity of the 18th candidate couldn't be ascertained by press time, through massive bribery, uh, a modest fee paid to the Chinese and Russian hackers who own Hillary Clinton's email server, we have been able to obtain the original, raw footage and audio. Below is a transcript.

Megan Kelly: Candidate 18, what is your position on Medicaid expansion?
Candidate 18: Medicaid is a failed system. Studies have shown that in terms of actual health outcomes, statistically you are better off having no insurance at all than being enrolled in Medicaid.
Besides, states need to reject all programs that make them beholden to the federal government for goodies. If all federal aid to all states ended tomorrow, we would all be better off. After all, where does all that federal money come from in the first place? It comes from the taxpayers in all of the states! Except that by the time it comes back to your state, it has Washington D.C.'s cut taken out of it and all kinds of strings attached. It's a bad deal that should be categorically as well as constitutionally rejected.

Bret Baer: Candidate 18, is ISIS the fault of Republican Hawks, and what should we do about them?
Candidate 18: Nobody had ever heard of ISIS before Barack Obama said the magic words in December 2011, "Our war in Iraq ends this month", possibly the most preposterous thing ever uttered by an American president. Imagine if Harry Truman had said upon his inauguration on April 12, 1945, "our wars in Europe and Japan end this month", and then immediately began withdrawing troops and canceling any further offensive actions, before victory had been achieved. After all, it wasn't his war; he didn't start it. It would rightly be considered the greatest betrayal of the sacrifice of millions of people and an opening for the resurgence of the Nazis and the Japanese imperialists.
I applaud my colleague Lindsey Graham who has the courage to say what no one wants to hear, which is that we are going to have to put boots on the ground in Iraq again if we don't want to see ISIS's boots in Europe and the United States. As I said, no one wants to hear that, but that is the predicament that Obama's reckless and feckless action has put us in.

Mike Wallace, Jr.: Gentlemen, we’re going to turn now to the subject of the economy, jobs and money and the government. And Candidate 18, I’m going to start with you.
Candidate 18: Chris, reviving our economy isn't all that complicated. Ronald Reagan showed us how to do it, Calvin Coolidge showed us how to do it, and even John F. Kennedy show us how (it's too bad JFK wouldn't have a prayer of getting the Democrat Party nomination today, but I digress). It only requires us to get over the most difficult childish, immature and poisonous fetish from which our society suffers today, and that is is, envy.
You know, it's interesting to note in all the hysteria over Donald Trump -- some hate him, others love him, still others find him amusing as some sort of rodeo clown -- yet very few seriously resent him for his wealth. And yet the Democrats have successfully spooked every rational attempt to the get the government's jackboot off the necks of our job creators and small business entrepreneurs by playing the Envy card, whipping us all into a frenzy of resentment -- not against Steve Jobs or George Soros or Chaim Saban or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett who make billions -- but against your neighbor who may have earned $200,000 this year. "Ooh, tax cuts for the rich, whine, whine, whine!"
Let me tell you something about $200K per year. The overwhelming majority of the people who earned that this year are not part of some permanent, immune hereditary class we call 'The Rich'. It is just as likely as not that last year they made $50K, the year before that they made $100K, and the year before that they lost $75K, had expenses in excess of revenues to the tune of seventy-five thousand dollars. They don't live like government bureaucrats on a guaranteed salary schedule mapped out thirty years in advance. They are entrepreneurs and job creators, the heart and soul and power plant of our economy. They own mom-and-pop repair shops, hardware and grocery stores. They are bakers and hairdressers and wedding planners. A lot of them are liberals, too.
To punish people in their successful years is to punish success itself. Apart from being unfair and demoralizing, it serves no positive economic purpose. It hurts all of us, especially those of us who rely on such people for the creativity that will provide us our next job.
Now, I for one have never earned $200K in a single year. I've had a few up years and a lot of down years and I am sick and tired of hearing the party I once belonged to tell me that if I happen to have an up year, I'm part of the problem, with a target on my back.
For these reasons as president I will propose at the federal level the 9-9-0-0-0 tax plan. One flat, single-digit rate of 9 percent on personal income and on real (inflation-adjusted) capital gains, and that's all. No taxes on corporations (because corporations don't pay taxes, people do), no taxes on Death (because George Soros knows better than Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz where his money should go after he's gone), and no new national sales tax. The complexity and length of the tax return forms should be reduced by 90% or more, not only to make it easier but because most of that information is none of the government's damn business.
If we had the courage and the maturity to do that, we would have growth unmatched by the Asian tigers; Jeb Bush's bold target of 4% may be too modest. And all of the poor people, the blacks, the Hispanics, the women and the handicapped who have been thrown out of the workforce by the Obama-Clinton axis would see their opportunities explode once again. And we would have the strength to deal with the foreign threats that Obama has done so much to exacerbate.

Megan Kelly: Candidate 18, Would you have invaded Iraq in 2004 knowing what we know now?
Candidate 18: History is not kind to people who have short memories. Are we all now nostalgic for the Golden Age of Saddam Hussein? Do we want him back?
There is no question that mistakes were made, and the first was to make WMD the main justification. Saddam Hussein had murdered hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, with particularly horrific genocide reserved for the Kurds. He was in violation of over a dozen UN resolutions. France, Russia and China agreed with us that he had weapons of mass destruction; the man himself was a weapon of mass destruction. Our invasion was justified by his playing footsie with the UN inspectors for years and diverting food aid to his military ambitions. At any time he could have come clean, let the inspectors in and defused the whole situation. He was in control. But he chose defiance over rationality. We went in, took him and his regime out, and after some bumbling, by 2009 we had established the least-worst conditions of any nation in that troubled region. I disagree with Mssrs Trump and Paul that our presence destabilized the region. Yes, we removed a counter-weight to Iran. But WE ARE the best possible counter-weight to Iran. To the contrary, look at the most unstable, tyrannical and wretched places on Earth, and you will be looking at the places where our influence is the weakest.
Our second biggest mistake in Iraq in my humble opinion was that we did not more energetically establish the scaffolding of a free market economy with rigorous registration and defense of private property rights. We should have given equal common shares of stock in the national petroleum company to every adult citizen, male and female, and then sold the enterprise to the highest bidder on the world market, with the proceeds going to the value of the stock and/or its dividends. The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has demonstrated the indispensability of universally recognized private property to poor people in the Third World. We didn't give individual Iraquis a great enough personal stake in the success of the national project.

Mike Wallace Jr.: Gentlemen, we’re turning to a new subject that all of you have been talking about and some of you have been disagreeing about, and that is the issue of immigration. Candidate 18?
Candidate 18: Thank you Chris. I'm glad you mentioned the word 'disagree' because it's true that this issue has been a point of contention within our party. But I think that what we on this stage all agree upon is that the Obama administration has turned a challenge into a disaster. While we in this room have had our differences, we have discussed and debated them honestly. But Obama has not even engaged in debate; he has only issued aggressive and unconstitutional executive orders which have turned the worst possible hazards into present reality. While singing the praises of hard-working, law-abiding immigrants, he has encouraged the worst elements of the immigrant population, thrown the door wide open to welfare abusers and criminals.
There are plenty of classically liberal-minded people on the right, influenced by the Wall Street Journal and the Cato Institute, whom the Administration could have reached out to in order to come to a rational bipartisan agreement. But bipartisanship and sharing credit is not this administration's goal; only demonizing Republicans and packing the voter rolls with a growing population of dependents beholden to the Democratic Party. Their actions have made immigration reform based on the free-market notions of the free flow of goods, services and labor impossible because they have not created the prerequisites of freedom and voluntary exchange, but rather have imposed costs and unfavorable conditions by force upon U.S. Citizens against their will.
I do not support comprehensive immigration reform. I do not support Comprehensive Anything reform. Have we learned anything from Obamacare? The very notion is preposterous: if only we could cram a few more thousand pages and a few more billion dollars worth of pork into a bill that nobody will read but which will be passed at midnight on Christmas Eve, then everything will be perfect -- Not! We can do what we must in short, individual issue bills which get debated honestly in the light of day and are only a few pages each and certainly no longer than the U.S. Constitution itself. How many pages does it take to say 'Build and operate a security Fence'? How many pages are required to propose a new Bracero guest worker program? How many trees have to die to ensure that violent criminals are not give a second, third and fourth chance to murder innocent Americans like Kate Steinle? The next Kate Steinle can't wait for a 3 thousand page bill.
If we want to solve the problems that we associate with illegal immigration, then we have to address larger issues that are not strictly speaking limited to immigration. We achieved welfare reform in 1996. Obama undid it; we have to redo it. We cannot permit people to come to this country merely to live off the hard work of American citizens. We need to stop teaching multiculturalism and Spanish as a first language in our schools. We need to stop printing election materials in foreign languages. We need to teach the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and require a high standard of knowledge of American History as a prerequisite for citizenship. Right now we are encouraging foreigners NOT to assimilate; this has to stop. I agree with my colleague Bobby Jindal who said that immigration without assimilation is invasion. We need to enforce our laws and maintain our standards of civil order from the federal right down to the neighborhood level, without worrying that it is 'racist', 'culturally insensitive' or otherwise politically incorrect to do so. If American values and customs, like English, law and order, peace and quiet, hard work and honest dealing offend you, go back to where corruption and disorder, laziness and deceit are considered virtues.
It's not about comprehensive reform piled into Godzilla bills. It's about the consistent application of the principles that made America the most desirable place on Earth to live in the first place.

Megan Kelly: Candidate 18, would you make abortion illegal even in the case of rape or incest?
Candidate 18: Megan, I think we should be talking first about what is happening in the overwhelming majority of cases and not what is going on in a tiny minority of cases. By couching this conversation in terms of rape and incest, we allowing the left to dictate the terms of the conversation and I don't accept that premise.
The terrible tragedy that has so many Americans upset is that abortion is being used as a casual method of birth control, not just in the first or second trimester, but right up to the moment of birth itself, where a medical profession is compelled to deliberately and forcibly kill a perfectly viable and ready-for-life-outside baby.
We've poured billions of dollars into government-administered sex education with the promise that it would reduce the need for and occurrences of abortion, but abortion has exploded. It is my hope that Americans will watch these videos, and even you've had an abortion yourself, you will find it in your heart to look at those tiny arms and legs, recognize that this is not some undifferentiated tissue mass but a human being, and say that this has gone too far, that we must take steps to reduce this terrible practice. In the civic process of formulating laws and policies there will of necessity be negotiation and compromise; but demagoguing on the most infrequent cases and spewing inflammatory phrases like 'war on women' is not good faith.

Mike Wallace, Jr.: Candidate 18, we've heard from Governor Christie and from Governor Huckabee on Social Security. Your thoughts?
Candidate 18: Well, in defense of Governor Christie, don't shoot the messenger. We have known for decades that Social Security is headed for insolvency because of the fundamental way that it is structured, relying on the current contributions to service the liabilities. It is the kind of Ponzi scheme that gets private citizens like Bernie Madhoff incarcerated, except that the scale of Social Security is like a nuclear bomb next to Madhoff's firecracker. The longer we postpone reform, the more painful those reforms will have to be, including possibly needing to raise the retirement age. George W. Bush had made an attempt at reform, but we didn't want to listen, so we're going to suffer more than we should have.
35 years ago on the very day that Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States, the people of Chile democratically chose to have a private account option added to their failing public retirement system. Under this plan, people own the money they pay into the system; the money isn't used to pay someone else's retirement; it belongs to each individual and earns real interest compounded annually. The system has operated in the black ever since and frankly it puts ours to shame. It was so successful that it has been imitated in several other countries, from Mexico to Poland.
How did they do it? The finance minister of Chile, Jose Piñera, simply followed the free-market principles and advice he got from our own Nobel laureate in economics, Milton Friedman. I think the time is overdue that we took our own rock star economists' advice.

Bret Baer: Candidate 18, your closing statement?
Candidate 18: I would like to close by taking about a few issues that I feel haven't received sufficient attention tonight.
First, Climate Change: this has fallen off of the radar of most Americans, because they rightly don't take it so seriously anymore. But we cannot let down our guard, because the left is hell-bent on implementing policies that are destroying our prosperity and our constitutional Liberty, and which will hurt the poor of this country and of the third world most of all. Make no mistake: Obama's carbon emission reduction goals mean first, $10 per gallon gasoline, then $100 per gallon, then no gasoline at all available at any price. And it is completely unjustified: Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, it is plant food and it is particularly beneficial to crops in places like California that are recovering from drought, because plants that get more CO2 need less water. The climate change hysteria is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon the American public and we need to roll back every policy and regulation that is based upon its erroneous claims.
Closely related to that issue is the need to decommission any and all federal agencies and charter organizations which are unconstitutional and harmful to our economy and Liberty. With respect to climate change, that means the EPA. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which socialize the risks and privatize the profits of mortgage lending, need to go. Canada does not have a Fannie Mae or a Freddie Mac, they have a higher rate of home ownership than the United States, and they did not have a housing market crash to wipe out the life savings of millions of their citizens as we did.
Finally, the Department of Education and with it Common Core are on my chopping block. Neither Barack Obama nor George Bush nor Hillary Clinton nor even Ronald Reagan should be dictating from on high how our education system shall work, what its standards or content should be. States, municipalities and parents are fully capable of managing this themselves thank you very much. Take a close look at the content of what is being force-fed to our kids under Common Core and you will see that what I'm talking about is not just some hypothetical remote hazard; it is a clear and present danger. I call on my colleagues who have expressed sympathy with Common Core to renounce it in the most unequivocal terms.
Thank you.

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An Embarrassment of Riches

Rumors of the death of the Republican Party and brand have been greatly exagerated. Last Thursday 24 million people -- the largest cable news audience ever -- tuned in to watch the Top 10 group of Republican candidates for president make their case and debate each other. That audience was not disappointed. The debates presented to America and to the world a deep bench of intelligent, accomplished, and passionate leaders dedicated to the principles of our great constitution and civilization.
Donald Trump, love him or hate him, helped the ratings, drew in possibly millions of people who otherwise might never think of tuning in to such a show. Republicans are still struggling up the learning curve of Pop culture and star power, and this debate provided an object case study.
As a result of this unprecedented attention, parts of our message that we have been struggling to disseminate finally reached some people we have not been able to connect with before. Millions of people are looking up 'Allinsky' to find out what that's about, thanks to the opportunity given to Ben Carson.

The airing of the J.V. Debate of Seven also provided opportunities for the lesser-advanced candidates to distinguish themselves and move up the ladder. Bobby Jindal is one who deserves more attention. But the runaway winner of the second group, destined for greater things, was Carly Fiorina. She is possibly the most articulate candidate out of all seventeen candidates, with extraordinary command and recall of detailed facts, and the ability to sum up her vision in grand terms without sounding pompous. She devastated Hillary's petty gender-war conceit, and crucified the progressive-socialist Obama-Reid-Pelosi-Clinton regime with such lines as "The potential of this nation and too many Americans is being crushed by the weight, the power, the cost, the complexity, the ineptitude, the corruption of the federal government."

Compare this dynamism with the hostage crisis at the Democratic Party. While the large number of candidates on the Republican side reflects depth and diversity in the best sense of the word, the Democrats seem to be in the throes of a schizophrenic seizure. They MUST crown the 'droopy and shopworn' (thank you Christopher Monkton), untrustworthy and ultimately bereft of any positive accomplishments grandmother of the illegal email and yoga server. But, with Hillary's toxicity reaching the level of a public health hazard, and realizing just how uninspiring -- if not downright repellent -- her personality is, Democrats are desperate to find someone -- anyone -- who might be able take her place, even if that means, according to Mark Steyn, hooking up the electrodes to Joe Biden. To their horror, they realize that they have no one else; they are so invested in the immortality of their anointed one of the Me Generation that they have completely neglected the cultivation and promotion of their next generation of talent. The average age of the Varsity Republicans is 56. Scrape to assemble a squad of 10 plausible Democrats, and the average age is ten years older.

So as Sean Hannity likes to say, let not your heart be troubled.
Just the same, let not your brain be complacent either. This is the beginning, not the end.

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Independence Day through the eyes of John Adams

By Howard Hyde

In July 2011 I hosted a lecture-screening of the 2nd episode of HBO’s series on the American Revolution, John Adams (this episode showing the events and debate leading to the Declaration of Independence), in Spanish, at La Iglesia en El Camino (Church on the Way) in Van Nuys, California. There were about 50 in attendance. During the same week I had been an in-studio guest on a radio program on Univision, guest-hosted by Pablo Kleinman (the regular host would have been Fernando Espuellas).
I chose HBO’s John Adams because it is one of the best Revolutionary War films ever made, presenting in intimate detail the struggle for the founding of our unique nation as seen through the eyes of a heroic couple and their family. I highly recommend it to anyone, immigrant or native, who wants to understand the origins of our nation (I don’t get paid to say this, but I should).
Below is the translation, back into English, of the lecture. Write to me if you are interested in the Spanish version.
I describe in [square brackets] a few of the visuals from the slide show that accompanied my talk.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Good morning and thank you for joining us today.
In anticipation of our great patriotic holiday, Independence Day, which is the Fourth of July, with its festivities and fireworks, we are going to get to know better the men and women who have given us the gift of this day, through the HBO film ‘John Adams’.

[One Dollar bill] You may know George Washington. Well, it was John Adams that nominated Washington to be commander-in-chief of the Continental (Revolutionary) army and years later became President Washington's Vice President.

[2 dollar bill] Perhaps you have heard of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Well it was John Adams that nominated Jefferson to write this document, since Adams did not have time while conducting the verbal debate in the Continental Congress in favor of independence.

[$100 bill] perhaps you know Benjamin Franklin. Adams worked together with Franklin for independence and later in France to get the indispensable support of the French in the war against the British.
For all this I call Adams the greatest of the founders who never got his mug on a dollar bill, or, the greatest lesser-known founder.

[Circa 1770 map of British colonial America] 250 years ago in the 18th century there were on the east coast of North America 13 colonies ruled by King George the Third of Great Britain (or England). The colonies were not proper states, nor were they by any means united. There did not exist at that time any ‘united states’.

The subjects of the British crown lived in these colonies were already well-accustomed to governing themselves without interference. But the king and the British Parliament tried to force the colonies to comply with an increasingly intolerable regimen of taxes, prohibition of trade outside of the British Empire, the obligation to get official stamps and approvals for the most minor articles of commerce; to accept that British soldiers should be quartered in any American’s house that the British might order (soldiers whose numbers grew ever larger). All that without the colonies having a voice or rights or American representatives in the British Parliament. For that the cry "no taxation without representation" was heard with increasing frequency, and tensions between the colonies and Britain increased.

In 1770 John Adams lived in Boston, capital of the colony of Massachusetts. Humble lawyer, son of a farmer, man of principles, family man, Christian of confession and conviction, Adams became known when he defended in court a group of British soldiers accused of murder in what the colonists called the Boston Massacre, but what Adams judged to be a riot or mob disturbance in which the soldiers had acted in self-defense. His defense of the despised soldiers did not at all please the colonists, least of all his own cousin the political activist Samuel Adams.
Adams hoped that his demonstration of justice would be recognized and appreciated by the king and that the heavy hand of the empire would have been lightened. But George III decreed that any trial of British officers accused of capital crimes in America in the future could not take place in the colonies, but only in Great Britain, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The disappointments and provocations continued, and the time the frequency of disturbances like the Boston tea party which tons of English tea were thrown into the waters of the port of Boston in protest against restricted trade with England.

You are going to share John Adams experience of all of these events. And also you work you will get to know John Adams family, his wife and his children. You will see Abigail advising her husband with wisdom, balancing his character defects such as his vanity, his stubbornness and his inability to keep his mouth shut when he should. By John Adams’ own admission, if not for Abigail, instead of becoming one of our most important leaders, he never would have amounted to anything.
In 1774 the good faith between the colonies and the king and Parliament had deteriorated to such a point that Adams, together with his cousin Samuel Adams and representatives of all the 13 colonies began to meet at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, capital of the colony of Pennsylvania, 400 miles from Boston (traveling days and weeks by horse, not hours by Continental airlines!) to discuss their common defense against British tyranny. Such a reunion was unprecedented in the prior 150 years of the colonies.

The citizens of the colonies and their delegates to the Continental Congress were by no means united on the question of how to respond to the tyranny of the king of England, and much less on the question of independence. Some advocated an armed rebellion for separation; others felt, as loyal subjects of the king of England, that they did not want to break with the mother country, or considered that a military confrontation against the most powerful empire in the world which was Great Britain at that time. was destined to fail catastrophically. And so the contentious debate dragged on for more than two years.

Reconciliation between the colonies and the king became less and less possible after military battles between the rebels and the British forces broke out in Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts in 1775, followed by the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston. In October of that year the king declared before Parliament that the colonies were in rebellion and that he was sending a military expedition sufficient to suppress the rebels (which is to say, massive; more than 400 ships).
At that time Adams’ family lived on his farm in the town of Braintree, south of Boston. During the battle of Bunker Hill and the siege, the thunder and flashes of the cannons could be seen from his property.

His wife Abigail managed the farm and cared for their 4 young children during the frequent absences of her husband in Philadelphia. The Adamses were not rich and life was not easy. Because of the blockade of Boston, outside trade was interrupted and the most necessary goods for daily life were in short supply. To make matters worse, infectious diseases were killing many citizens and soldiers, and threatening even Adams’ own family. So while John was debating independence in Philadelphia, Abigail was having herself and her children vaccinated against the Smallpox, which in those days signified risking death; suffering the disease itself during a few weeks.

When it became apparent that there were no doubts about the intentions of the king to impose his will without mercy or compromise over the colonies, Congress united over the question and elected Thomas Jefferson, a wealthy 33 year-old landowner and representative of Virginia, to write the Declaration of Independence.
The document that Jefferson delivered surpassed all expectations. The Declaration not only separated the American colonies from the king of England; it proclaimed universal ideals of human rights, principles that would threaten any despot or tyrannical regime in any country, in any time.
Lamentably, the institution of slavery survived the American revolution not only in the southern states but in the very estates of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and other prominent American revolutionaries. Even so, the Declaration in effect established a civilization irreconcilable with slavery. The full cost of this incompatibility would be paid in full, 87 (“four score and seven”) years later in the Civil War under President Abraham Lincoln.

The Declaration of Independence is more than 1000 words long. But there is one phrase that has become immortal that summarizes all of its meaning. It begins: "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
What was so powerful in these simple words was the fact that no head of state in those days, no king, nor aristocrat, nor Emperor in any way considered such ideas to be self-evident.
It continued: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
This was, and continues to be, the creed of the United States, an imperfect country but among the most free, most prosperous, most just and most enduring that has ever existed in all the world and in all of human history.
[Screen Episode 2, Independence.]

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Howard Hyde Interviewed on Climate Change on the Larry Elder Radio Program

Here is the link to the interview with Larry Elder at the conclusion of the Heartland Institute's climate change conference:
http://www.larryelder.com/programhighlights?date=20150612.

Here is the full transcript:

Larry Elder: Howard Hyde is an ex-liberal, sociologist [sic], progressive Democrat from Berkeley. He edits a website called CitizenEcon.com. He’s also a columnist with FrontPageMag; also, he writes for WesternJournalism.com and AmericanThinker.com. In fact, in American Thinker is where he published his article called, “Climate Change: Where is the Science?” And Howard lives in Southern California, out here, but for the past couple days he’s been attending the D.C. climate change conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute, the think tank that I told you about in Chicago. Howard, are you there?

Howard Hyde: I am there. Thanks, Larry. It’s great to be here.

LE: Howard, thank you very much for joining me and taking the time. This is the twelfth annual conference?

HH: It’s the tenth annual.

LE: And over those ten years, how’s the climate been? [laughs]

HH: [laughs] Well, it’s been pretty much flat, actually. It’s a pleasant, warm day. You know, nothing much to report.

LE: Howard, I got up yesterday morning and I was watching a woman give the weather report and she said, “We have a lot of weather today!” and I— [laughs]

HH: [laughs] Well, how much weather did you have yesterday?

LE: I have no idea! So, Howard, first of all, I’m sure you heard that exchange between Rick Santorum and Chris Wallace of Fox, where Santorum criticized the pope for the pope talking about climate change, and he said he hoped the pope would kind of stick in his lane. Turns out, the pope has a degree in chemistry; Rick Santorum does not. And so, that raises the question of whether or not somebody who’s not a scientist can talk about climate change. Obviously, you can, but what Santorum was basically saying is that the pope was a spiritual leader and ought not be talking about climate change when, in fact, he’s got a degree in chemistry. Question, Howard: what’s your background? Do you have a degree in sciences?

HH: I don’t. I have a degree in music and I work in information technology. But that’s kind of the point. As I wrote yesterday in AmericanThinker.com, ordinary people like you and me, Larry, are easily intimidated from entering into debates with scientists.

LE: How dare you call me ordinary? [laughs] I’m sub-ordinary!

HH: [laughs] Well, you’re extraordinary, Larry—

LE: That’s right!

HH: But you don’t have a PhD, and you don’t speak in incomprehensible charts and graphs and equations and data—

LE: That’s true.

HH: —so you’ve got nothing whatsoever to say about climate.

LE: I got nothing, yeah.

HH: But the fact of the matter is that what’s going on in the climate change debate has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics and power. Scientists who want to investigate alternate theories of climate do not get the research grants.

LE: Howard, there’s a 90% consensus! Ninety percent of all climate change scientists say that man is trashing the planet! We’ve got to do something about it!

HH: And that’s why, out of 12,000 published papers, only forty-one of them actually said that human-induced, carbon dioxide producing, fossil fuel burning, is the cause of climate change. You know, there’s credible evidence that the actual number is 0.3% as it was presented by Lord Christopher Monckton this morning at the conference.

LE: Mmhmm.

HH: 0.3% versus 97%.

LE: All right, Howard, the question, of course, people are going to have is: how does somebody as smart as Obama, as smart as John Kerry, both argue that climate change is a bigger threat to us than even ISIS? They can’t be idiots!

HH: Yeah [laughs], well, I mean, first of all, of course, it’s grotesque for Obama to declare climate change worse than ISIS taking over the Iraq that he abandoned, worse than the economy that’s on life support while he’s strangling it, while the cities that are run by the Democrat’s welfare state have become kill zones and so on and on—I mean, there are so many other real problems that we have. But the fact is, Obama and Kerry and Al Gore and all the rest of them, they’re politicians; they’re not scientists. They’re not after a disinterested pursuit of the truth with open debate and falsification and all that; they’re after an agenda. And their agenda is control, power, the dismantling of capitalism, of fossil fuels, and frankly, the dismantling of our constitutional process of government.

LE: I’m talking to Howard Hyde, he is a[n] editor of the website called CitizenEcon.com, also a columnist with Front Page Magazine, and he just attended the tenth annual conference on climate change, sponsored by the Heartland Institute. You know, Howard, did you see—I’m sure you saw an American, I mean, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

HH: [laughs] Actually, I missed that.

LE: [laughs]

HH: I think I was watching the latest Jurassic Park movie at the time.

LE: Anyway, as you know, he brags and brags and brags, does Al Gore, about the fact that he was inspired by a Harvard professor named Roger Revelle. Roger Revelle was the one who warned him about manmade activity, anthropogenic activity, and all the CO2 in the air. It turns out, Roger Revelle, in the waning years of his life—as you probably know, Howard—renounced Al Gore and said Al Gore was an alarmist, he didn’t believe any of the stuff that Al Gore was saying, and then Al Gore said that he was senile. Now, it seems to me if I’m a climate change guy and Al Gore is bragging about the influence of Roger Revelle and Roger Revelle trashes me, it would cause me to rethink my assumptions. But apparently Roger Revelle didn’t even exist!

HH: [laughs] Well, you know, this whole thing kind of makes for strange bedfellows because, you know, Michael Mann, the author of the infamous hockey stick graph, has been suing Mark Steyn for exercising his freedom of speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution for the last couple of years, and this lawsuit’s going on much longer than it ought to—I mean, it should’ve been laughed out of court on the first day.

LE: Mmhmm.

HH: But in spite of the fact that, you know, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times—I forget the exact list, but it’s a list of not-at-all right-wing organizations, including the ACLU, are on Mark Steyn’s side in this case because they recognize the threat to free speech and the First Amendment. It’s ludicrous.

LE: You know, Mark Steyn has spoken out against the science that allegedly supports climate change and as Howard pointed out, he is literally being sued. Literally being sued. And this is where we are, right here. I even read about a senator from Rhode Island who suggested that using the RICO statute to go after oil companies the way the RICO statute was used to go after tobacco companies because they’re engaged in a conspiracy to deceive the American people. My goodness! A sitting senator suggesting going after CEOs, oil companies, for lying about climate change and using the RICO statutes to do it?

HH: Yeah, I mean, it’s truly frightening what, you know, the descent into persecution that we’re having. You know, many years ago in the Soviet Union there was this agronomist, this scientist, named Lysenko, and he curried favor with Joseph Stalin and he had all the scientists who disagreed with him either sent off to Siberia or literally executed, killed, OK? So, for forty years or something like that, there was one theory of agronomy which was the politically correct theory and if you disagreed with it, you were in deep doo-doo. And the problem is that the theory, in fact, turned out not quite to agree with the laws of Nature and as a result, millions of Russians starved to death because the way they were planting their crops just didn’t work. And, you know, that’s the slippery slope that we’re heading down with this encroachment upon our civil liberties, the First Amendment and this insane rhetoric that you just described.

LE: I’m talking to Howard Hyde, again, editor of CitizenEcon.com, also is a columnist for a number of publications including Front Page Mag. Howard, I’ve been on the air now twenty years, you’re the first one who’s ever used the word “doo-doo” on my show.

HH: [laughs]

LE: I’m impressed.

HH: Well, yeah, OK, that slipped out.

LE: Howard, OK, take the next couple of minutes and tell us, what is the truth? What is the truth about the science? What is the truth about climate change?

HH: Well, the truth is, first of all, that you can’t take something as huge and as complex as the climate, particularly over the next hundred years, and simplify it down to just one variable that happens conveniently to be the thing that the Left is against, which is to say fossil fuels and capitalism and prosperity. Carbon dioxide, as we all learned in kindergarten, is plant food; it makes the plants turn green. As a matter of fact, plants that get more carbon dioxide need less water in order to thrive. Carbon dioxide is a good thing, it’s something we want more of, and there is not a correlation between the rise of carbon dioxide and the rise of heat, there’s just—in the geological record—there’s just as much evidence of the inverse, of carbon dioxide going up and the planet cooling. And, by the way, a cooling planet is a lot more to be feared than a warming planet. Mark Steyn pointed out that 90% of the population of Canada lives within 100 miles of the United States border, and the reason is, it’s so bloody cold up there!

LE: [laughs]

HH: OK? So it would be a good thing for Canada and Greenland, where, you know, Greenland used to be green, right? I mean, that’s how it got its name.

LE: That’s right.

HH: Now it’s kind of iced over. So, you know, carbon dioxide is not one element that controls it all, water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, and water, to my knowledge, by itself is not a pollutant, OK? But neither is carbon dioxide a pollutant. These are not pollutants. So, it’s a lot more complex than that and there’s a great deal of doubt expressed by all the PhDs at this conference and the 9,000 PhDs who find the petition expressing a dissenting opinion that CO2 really has very little to do with it and human activity probably has a slim chance of affecting the climate the way the alarmists are describing.

LE: Mmhmm.

HH: And even if it were so, it would probably not even be such a bad thing. I mean, the Earth has been a lot warmer than it is today, and in the recent geologic past, like a thousand years ago, there was a medieval warming period where, you know, you could grow wine in Great Britain.

LE: Right.

HH: You know, that’s not a bad thing.

LE: I’m talking to Howard Hyde, he edits the website CitizenEcon.com, just finished the tenth annual conference on climate change sponsored by the Heritage Foundation [sic; meant to say Heartland Institute]. Howard, here’s the difficulty that we have: there’s a man named Freeman Dyson, I’m sure you know who he is—

HH: Yes, I’ve been a fan for thirty-five years, actually.

LE: Freeman Dyson is arguably one of the smartest people on the planet. He is a physicist, he’s well liked, he voted for Obama twice, he’s not a right-winger the way Howard and I are, but he has gotten involved in the climate change issue and he says it’s B.S. And when I said this is where we are, Howard, so Freeman Dyson goes to see this movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” with his wife. His wife comes out and turns to him and says, “You’ve lied to me all this time. You’ve lied to me about this.” Now, if Freeman Dyson cannot convince his wife that climate change is crap, how can we?

HH: [laughs] Well, you know, Senator Inhofe was here, he opened the breakfast keynote yesterday, and he pointed out he’s got something like twenty children and grandchildren, and one of his granddaughters came up to him and said, “Grandpa, how come you don’t understand climate change?”

LE: [laughs]

HH: You know, Senator Inhofe is author of a book on climate change.

LE: Right.

HH: He’s the leader in the Senate, you know, opposing the climate taxes and carbon taxes and “Cap and Trade” and all the other schemes. You know, you’d think he, you know, if anything else, he at least knows something about it.

LE: Right.

HH: But his granddaughter, because she’s going to the schools and this is what they’re teaching, they’re not teaching them how to think, they’re teaching them—they’re telling them what to think and how to emote about it.

LE: Mmhmm.

HH: And that’s a scary thing. As you say, Freeman Dyson is not some right-wing, Tea Party nutcase like you and me, OK? [laughs]

LE: [laughs]

HH: My father was a PhD research scientist and he instilled in me the importance of intellectual honesty, of being open to debate, of weighing the evidence, of not publishing your conclusions before you’re certain and before they’ve been peer reviewed and all of that. And I just think, you know, he was a Democrat, he was a John Kennedy Democrat, but he was also a staunch supporter of nuclear power and I’m sure he would be appalled at the collapse of the true pursuit of science and the scientific method that we’re seeing going on today.

LE: Well, Howard, as you probably know, a John Kennedy Democrat could probably get you arrested in seven states nowadays.

HH: [laughs] John Kennedy could never win the nomination of the Democrat Party today.

LE: Not today, not somebody who runs on the campaign of cutting taxes, are you kidding me?

HH: Exactly.

LE: Howard, before you go, you used to be an ex—you used to be a liberal, sociologist [sic], progressive Democrat from Berkeley.

HH: Did I spell that incorrectly? It’s “socialist.”

LE: Socialist, yeah.

HH: Liberal, socialist, progressive Democrat from Berkeley.

LE: Right. And what the hell happened?

HH: [laughs] Well, I was all of that, I was immersed in that climate of Berkeley in the 60s and 70s, with all the radicalism and the Vietnam War protests and the marijuana and everything else, you know, but as I said, I did get something of—about the value of intellectual honesty. And so, I applied that. I wanted to understand these problems about poverty and wealth and pollution and the environment and everything else, and in the process of honestly evaluating alternate theories of how this all works, I came to radically different conclusions. Now, Milton Friedman was an influence with his “Free to Choose” series on PBS—

LE: Right.

HH: Julian Simon of the Cato Institute was a strong influence with his book, “The Ultimate Resource,” and by the way, this is very apropos because Julian Simon debunked 200 years of environmental scares. We’re running out of this, we’re running out of coal, we’re running out of that, we’re running out of oil, we’re running out of food, we’re running out of everything, we’re—you know, we’re all gonna die. But what actually happened was, all these commodities and resources got cheaper and people got wealthier and even though we had a higher population, the people were living better than ever before.

LE: Howard Hyde has been my guest. Website—CitizenEcon.com. My brother Kirk is up next. Howard, thank you very much for taking the time. I appreciate it.

HH: Thank you, Larry.

LE: You got it.

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