From the print edition of The New American

By Selwyn Duke

“I shall resign the presidency, effective at noon tomorrow.” So said President Richard Milhous Nixon on August 8, 1974, as he made history in a way he neither dreamt nor desired, becoming the first and only American chief executive to resign from office. His was the most prominent scalp claimed by the Watergate affair, the country-rending event that, wrongly no doubt, is the political scandal by which all other political scandals are now measured. This includes the current Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)-abuse story, which House Judiciary Committee member Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) said in January was “worse than Watergate.”             

Being only six years old when the Watergate scandal broke, it meant little to me. You know, as a child, you hear the name, think about actual water and a gate and then go back to playing with your toy soldiers. But while prior to June 18, 1972, “the Watergate” meant little more to most adults than it did to mini-me, it would soon become one of American history’s most famous apartment complexes. 

Read the rest here. 

By Selwyn Duke

President Trump’s decision to place tariffs on imported steel and aluminum has been accurately hailed as a “promise kept.” But is it also an example of a political system broken and a constitution violated? This question is not just a rhetorical criticism of the president, but implies something far worse: a whole ruling class out of touch with fundamental governing principles.

Much has been said, and screamed, about the wisdom or lack thereof of imposing tariffs. But whether the levies represent economic wisdom or whimsy, little has been said about an even more important matter: Who actually has the legitimate constitutional power to impose them?

This may seem an academic question, but there’s a reason why some of us stress adherence to the Constitution: It is the contract the American people have with one another, the guarantor of our rights and freedoms. Render it null and void via repeated violation, make it fashionable to play fast and loose with its provisions, and those rights and freedoms are in jeopardy — even those we hold most dear.

Now, on tariffs the Constitution is crystal clear, stating…

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By Selwyn Duke 

It was said they didn’t exist. It was said that anyone who talked about them was an “Islamophobe” driven by blind bigotry to oppose Muslim migration. But now the primary author of Muslim migration into Europe has, apparently, joined the ranks of the Islamophobes.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted that no-go zones do, in fact, exist.

The confession was made in an interview with German broadcaster n-tv as Merkel advocated tough-on-crime policies.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

According to many gun-control advocates, 18-year-olds are too immature to handle guns — but are mature enough to advise us on gun policy. Thus we’re told we must “listen to the voices” of the young Parkland shooting survivors. Not only that, we’re not to question or oppose them because they’re young, they’re survivors and, by golly, because it’s absolutely devastating to the anti-gun agenda!

There’s something truly reprehensible about this situation, and it’s not conservatives criticizing the positions of activist Parkland students such as David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez. It’s that liberals are using the students as human props and human shields, letting them throw the punches and then condemning the assailed if they dare defend themselves.

Well, sorry, but as I wrote years ago in “The Grieving Activist,” if you want to grieve, grieve.  If you want to play politics, play politics.

But my sympathy for grieving ends when the use of grief as a political battering ram begins.

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By Selwyn Duke

This is too funny. Justin Trudeau, the eye-candy, two-brain-cell wonder of a Canadian prime minister, was on an eight-day visit to India with his family. So Justin, being the good little virtue-signaling leftist he is, decided it would be a good idea to impress his hosts by dressing in over-the-top traditional Indian garb. Well, he certainly did make an impression. As the Daily Mail reported:

Justin Trudeau has been ridiculed on social media by Indians for his 'tacky' and over the top outfit choices while on his first visit to their nation as Prime Minister.   

While many praised his clothing during the first two days of his trip, patience was wearing thin by the time he attended a Bollywood gala on Tuesday night, before the tide turned against him on Wednesday.

Ministers, authors, journalists and ordinary Indians lined up to mock him on Wednesday, saying his wardrobe was 'fake and annoying'. 

“Fake and annoying”? Well, at least Justin — a man who said he wants to raise “feminist” sons and recommends that “peoplekind” be used instead of “mankind” — gave his hosts an accurate impression.

The Mail also related, “Leading the criticism was Omar Abdullah, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, who tweeted on Wednesday saying Trudeau's preening was 'all just a bit much.'”

“'We Indians do not dress like this every day[,] sir, not even in Bollywood,’” he wrote.

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By Selwyn Duke

Unlike after other mass school shootings, the movement from Parkland to propaganda has had tremendous lasting power. The tragedy’s wake has seen sustained news coverage and energized anti-Second Amendment protests, ostensibly due to organic “student activism.” Yet post-shooting leftist anti-gun appeals and young students willing to facilitate them are nothing new. What is new is that the Democrats just recently suffered a devastating political one-two punch.

Not long ago Democrats were licking their chops at the prospect of a November midterm sweep. Since then, however, two momentous things have occurred: Both the Trump-Russia-collusion narrative and the Democrats’ generic congressional poll numbers have collapsed. To right this listing ship, leftists need a new issue, and fast, and they may think they’ve got it: gun control.

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By Selwyn Duke

Just so we know our tax money isn’t wasted, special counsel Robert Mueller recently handed down vanity indictments against 13 nationals and three entities of the Russian persuasion for, essentially, “trolling” before, during, and after the 2016 election. But what of the far worse election meddlers? These are people who, like the Russkies, engaged in “information warfare” during campaigns. Like the Russkies, they tried to sow discord and foment unrest via “Astroturf” operations. Unlike the Russians, these people actually admitted to doing the above — and stealing votes — on hidden camera. And unlike the Russians, who cannot be extradited, these meddlers are not beyond the law.

Read the rest here. 

By Selwyn Duke

The Parkland massacre hasn’t faded from the news as previous school shootings had. This is mainly due to surviving students' gun-control activism, but is this movement itself merely a result of manipulation by unseen, well-funded professional agitators?

Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. certainly suspects as much, tweeting today “that media appearances and an activism campaign from students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School against gun violence had ‘George Soros’ fingerprints all over it,’” reports The Hill.

Read the rest here. 

By Selwyn Duke

It was ruled constitutional in 2013 — but then unconstitutional in 2018. Yet it, the Pennsylvania congressional districts map, hasn’t changed in the last five years. Nor has the Keystone State’s constitution. What’s different is Pennsylvania's Supreme Court; it now has three more Democrats and has decreed that the judges’ own redistricting map, which gives a relative advantage to Democrats, must be implemented.

As Politico reported, “Democrats’ hopes of winning the House this fall got a boost Monday with the release of a new congressional-district map in Pennsylvania that could help the party pick up several seats in the battleground state.”

This, along with redistricting challenges in other states, could facilitate a congressional power shift that helps derail President Trump’s agenda.

Read the rest here. 

By Selwyn Duke

Kermit the Frog sang “It’s not that easy bein’ green” — and it’s apparently not that easy being a green of the warmist persuasion, either. Because while the recent decades’ decline in frog populations has been blamed on “global warming,” it turns out there’s another culprit, perhaps the most embarrassing one the warmists could imagine.

University of Utah professors Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran provide some background at their blog “West Hunter,” writing, “Starting in late 80s, herpetologists began noticing that various kinds of frogs were declining and/or disappearing. There was & is a geographical pattern: Wiki says ‘Declines have been particularly intense in the western United States, Central America, South America, eastern Australia and Fiji.’”

Researchers were befuddled by this, say Harpending and Cochran, because many of the frog declines couldn’t be attributed to human impact (deforestation, mining, etc.), as they were in remote areas such as the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in Costa Rica.

So, unsurprisingly, scientists glommed onto fashionable new hypotheses.

Read the rest here.