Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team were blindsided by the latest details to emerge about a 2017 sexual-assault allegation against Pete Hegseth, increasing their frustration with the man nominated to lead the Pentagon, according to people familiar with the matter. The transition team, which hadn’t been told about the original allegation before announcing Hegseth, was surprised again late Wednesday night when the Monterey, Calif., city police released a report...

A newly released police report from 2017 alleges that Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News host and nominee for secretary of defense, blocked the woman who accused him of sexual assault from leaving the hotel room and took her phone before the encounter that he denies was anything but consensual. Hegseth, 44, who President-elect Donald Trump selected to be the next defense secretary, told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied wrongdoing. The...

Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary, met with senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday as new details emerged about an alleged sexual assault that took place in 2017. Hegseth was accompanied in his meetings by Vice President-elect JD Vance, an Ohio senator, as they seek to secure support among Republican senators for the former Fox News host's expected nomination. Trump selected the 44-year-old Army veteran — who served in Iraq...

The demand to clean the swamp is picking up in volume. Examples? Over there in The Hill is a swamp history lesson that reaches all the way back almost 120 years to the arrival of Theodore Roosevelt in the White House. Penned by Michael Patrick Cullinane, the Lowman Walton chair of Theodore Roosevelt Studies at Dickinson State University and a public historian of the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Cullinane writes: After his 1904 landslide victory, Theodore Roosevelt asked New York banker Charles Keep to investigate government waste, personnel management, procurement, accounting practices, and inter-agency communication. Better known as the Keep Commission, it uncovered widespread inefficiencies. This is to say, long, long ago in American history there was a president who realized the problems inherent with growing government. Ever since, there has been an increasing recognition that, in the words of Ronald Reagan, “a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take everything you have.” The withdrawal of now-former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as the Trump nominee for attorney general only spotlights the serious problem at the Department of Justice. Writing in the New York Post, conservative Miranda Devine notes that: The first priority of the Trump administration’s new attorney general and FBI director will be to dismantle the ideological weaponization of the DOJ and FBI that has crushed the best people, forced the rest into silence and betrayed the American people. National Review has highlighted just one example of this weaponization. In 2022, they ran this headline to a suddenly current story: “Pro-Life Activist Arrested After SWAT Team Raids Home with Guns Drawn in Front of ‘Screaming’ Children.” Only a week ago, incoming first lady Melania Trump was in the news when she refused to head to Washington with her husband to make the traditional outgoing-ingoing first ladies meeting with the outgoing first lady Jill Biden. Why? The New York Post reported this (with bold print for emphasis supplied): Melania Trump declined an offer to head to the White House Wednesday and meet with Jill Biden, citing the Biden administration’s raid on Mar-a-Lago as part of the federal government’s investigation into classified documents. “She ain’t going,” a source familiar with Melania’s decision told The Post. “Jill Biden’s husband authorized the FBI snooping through her underwear drawer. The Bidens are disgusting,” the source said. Over in the Wall Street Journal, the perceptive Dan Henninger asks this question in the headline: “Can Trump Bust Up the Beltway? Bureaucracies kept winning because no one paid attention to them. Until now” Exactly. Now, whether it’s the Department of Justice sending FBI agents to invade the home of a pro-life activist, terrorizing his kids, or sending FBI agents to raid Mar-a-Lago and ruffle through Melania Trump’s underwear drawer — not to mention turning the Department of Justice on Trump himself — the conduct and size of federal bureaucracies is, in fact, going to be drawing more attention in the Trump era. Taking the long view, it is crystal clear that the understanding of the danger of sprawling Washington bureaucracies has been growing for a very long time. As noted, all the way back in 1905, President Teddy Roosevelt had started to pay attention to the problem. In the Trump era, that growing attention to the Big Government problem is surfacing with the Cabinet nominations of Matt Gaetz to head the Department of Justice, Pete Hegseth to the Department of Defense, Robert Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to head the National Intelligence Agency. Gaetz, targeted by critics, has now withdrawn. But the problems at the Department of Justice still remain and require a new attorney general who will stop the weaponization of the Department by left-wing activist bureaucrats. As Henninger points out: No one has been paying attention to this problem … until now. And clearly, the problem has the personal attention of the president-elect. That personal attention will be both needed and — in conservative circles at least — welcome.   READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Trump v. Washington Three Cheers for Pete Hegseth The Media Targets Trump — Again The post Draining the D.C. Swamp Picks Up Steam appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Joe Biden should pardon Donald Trump. There are many reasons to do so — legacy, magnanimity, and governance. There is also… revenge. Nothing would better pay back the Democrat elite who did Biden in. Still trying to process the Nov. 5 seismic shock, it’s easy to forget that President-elect Trump still faces four criminal cases. While all are in a sort of limbo, all are still there. Considering that several Democrat governors have already pledged to defy an administration that won’t be in office for another two months, expect Democrats to resume their lawfare strategy — either through these four cases or others. Biden should therefore pardon Trump. Now. Last week, in their cordial two-hour meeting, Biden spoke about a smooth transition; nothing would make it smoother than a full presidential pardon as that transition gets underway. For starters, it would be a gracious gesture, a signal that the time for campaign rhetoric is over. It would also be good for Biden’s legacy, which has suffered increasingly over the last four years. It would atone for some of the vitriol Biden himself has unleashed on his former opponent — and his opponent’s supporters. And it would be good for governance too: removing the specter — at least in these four cases — that presidents can be legally pursued for acts in office. A pardon would also be fitting revenge for what Biden has suffered at the hands of the Democrat elite. It is tempting to say that Biden owes the Democrat elite nothing. However, he actually owes them for quite a lot. And that debt stretches back, long before this summer. (READ MORE: Democrats Double Down on Elitism) In 2016, despite two terms of loyal service as vice president, Obama denied Biden his support for the Democrat’s presidential nomination, instead passing him over for Hillary Clinton. Four years later, Biden was the Democrat’s perpetual other choice in the race for the presidential nomination. After Biden secured the nomination, his curious choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate — the contender who failed first but only after flaying him as a racist in a debate — seemed a sop to the Democrat’s woke sensibilities, even as the elite needed Biden’s moderate image to sell their party to America. Once in office, Democrat elites demanded lefty policy after lefty policy, even as these drove Biden’s popularity downward and made him all the more dependent on the left. Of course, all this pales in comparison to the Democrat elite’s unprecedented coup this summer. Despite being the incumbent president and having won the nomination again, Biden was turned on and ignominiously turned out by his supposed political allies and the establishment media. Who knows what threats were made to drive Biden out, but assuredly Biden does. And remembers. As Biden watched his legacy suffer, he also had to watch as Kamala Harris was coronated in his place. Harris’s total federal experience barely equaled just one of Biden’s six Senate terms; she had never run in a single presidential primary, let alone won one. Biden had to watch as the establishment media who drove him out went gaga for Kamala. He had to watch as money flooded her coffers and A-list celebrities crowded her rallies. Then he watched as Harris went down in defeat to a man he had beaten four years earlier. And now, having given Harris the nomination and watched her lose, Biden must endure calls by some for him to step down from office to give Harris the presidency itself. While with others in the Democrat elite, he must listen to them blame him for Harris’s loss. Biden has had to endure much from the Democrat elite over the last eight years and especially the last four months. What better payback for those who stabbed him in the back than to pardon Trump now? Because the Democrat elite will resume their lawfare campaign as soon as they can. This will resume as guerrilla legal actions and full-frontal assaults — as they did after the 2018 midterms — if they regain power in Congress. With the stroke of a pen, Biden could undo all this and all those who undid him. A Biden pardon of Trump works on many levels. It would enhance a legacy now tarnished. It would make him look above politics — a plus for someone who has been mired in it and besmirched by it. There are many reasons and many justifications. But Biden doesn’t need another beyond the one that the Democrat elite have given him in spades, and over many years. It would be the perfect Parthian shot as he prepares to leave the White House that Democrat elites have done everything to drive him from. Revenge is said to be a dish best-served cold. Nothing would give Democrat elites a better taste of their own medicine than a pardon of Donald Trump — because nothing would leave a more bitter taste in their mouth. READ MORE from J.T. Young: Democrats Double Down on Elitism What the ‘Garbage Controversy’ Says About Democrats Americans’ Justified Media Mistrust J.T. Young is the author of the new book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, and OMB, and representing a Fortune 20 company.   The post Biden’s Perfect Payback appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom purchased a $9 million Bay Area home marketed as an “extraordinary luxury residence” offering “resort-style living.” The timing of his exodus from the state capital, which came just a week after the election, strongly suggests that Newsom’s sights are shifting from governing California to laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign. The home — located in the elite Marin County town of Kentfield, which lies north of San Francisco — is a full 90 miles from the California capitol. Newsom has explained the move by stating that he wishes to ensure continuity for his children’s education. His daughter Montana recently enrolled at the Branson School in Marin County, where tuition costs $62,590 per year. This is far from the first time Newsom has given low priority to being in the state capital. When he was lieutenant governor, he said that he spent “Like one day a week, tops” in Sacramento. He then added that being lieutenant governor was “just so dull.” During his governorship, he has frequently traveled across the country on trips — such as his tour of red states — that have drawn ire for resembling presidential campaign stops rather than gubernatorial duties. Newsom’s wealth stems from his ownership in PlumpJack Group, a business empire of wineries, hotels, and restaurants he founded with funding from the billionaire Gordon Getty. When Newsom was elected governor, there was pressure on him to sell his businesses to avoid a conflict of interest, but he instead transferred the assets into a blind trust managed by a longtime family friend. To address the concerns and temper criticism over retaining ownership, Newsom promised to release his tax returns annually. Yet Newsom has repeatedly refused to release his tax returns, and the most recent filing he has released is from 2020. In response to a CalMatters request for his tax returns following his luxury home purchase, Newsom’s spokesman refused. Additional financial concerns are all the more reason for Newsom to release his tax returns. For instance, during his tenure as lieutenant governor, Newsom’s wife received a $290,000 annual salary from the nonprofit organization she founded. The charity was funded by a number of corporations with business interests in California, including AT&T, Comcast, Kaiser Permanente, and Pacific Gas & Electric, and donations increased markedly upon Newsom’s 2015 announcement that he was seeking the governorship. His wife continued to receive a salary of $150,000 per year from the charity upon Newsom’s elevation to the office. In the wake of Trump’s election, Newsom has quickly sought to position himself as the leader of the opposition against Trump — which of course sets himself up to seek the Democratic nomination to the presidency. Two days after the election, Newsom called a special session of the state Legislature to “safeguard California values.” In his proclamation calling the session, the governor noted his past record for leading the opposition against Trump during the former president’s first term. The governor also listed the potential “consequences” of a Trump presidency, including an “assault on reproductive freedom” and “undoing clean vehicle policies,” and pledged to “mitigate the impacts of actions by the incoming Trump Administration.” When Newsom was inaugurated to his first term as governor in 2018, he pledged to “offer an alternative to the corruption and incompetence in the White House.” Now, for his final two years as governor, he will likewise seek to make himself Trump’s most prominent opponent so as to win the presidency come 2028. He may be governor of California, but his focus will be 90 miles away, entirely consumed with his path to the White House. Ellie Gardey Holmes is the author of Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power.  READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: Biden Desperately Tries to Save His Legacy Did Kamala’s Abortion Obsession Alienate Americans? The post Newsom Trades Sacramento for $9 Million Luxury Living appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

With President-elect Donald Trump due back in the White House come January 20 — and with Republicans clinching majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives — the New Right is ascendant. This election proves that 2016 wasn’t just a flash in the pan but a spark of definitive realignment in the conservative movement. Now, as factions on the Right jostle for position in the governing coalition, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts puts social conservatives front and center.  Roberts’s newly released book, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, distills the priorities of the populist Right for popular readership. If Project 2025 was Heritage’s encyclopedia of granular policy positions, Dawn’s Early Light is both an articulation of our need for radical policy innovation and a rallying cry to action.  Roberts doesn’t mince words. “It’s time to fight fire with fire,” he writes in the book’s opening paragraphs. Surveying the landscape — both literal and metaphorical — of modern America, he settles on fire as his framing metaphor. Just as controlled burns aid in forest renewal and preempt bigger, uncontrollable blazes, Roberts encourages conservatives to clear out the “deadwood” of institutions that have stopped serving the common interest of the American people. Where conservatives have previously focused on the Right vs. Left divide in American politics, Roberts argues that a populist paradigm is more apt. After all, he explains, Democrats and Republicans alike hollowed out America’s industrial base under the auspices of free trade, erected obstacles to family formation, and basked in the glib glow of “Uniparty” globalism. Trump’s electoral victories are a repudiation of the elites and a vindication of earlier Uniparty critics like Pat Buchanan.  In the emerging populist coalition, Dawn’s Early Light heralds a new future for social conservatism. During the Cold War, social conservatives found common cause with economic libertarians and foreign policy hawks to defeat the Soviet Union. Roberts understands that this anti-communist fusionism was necessary, but it was also temporary. When that fusionism defined the Right, social conservatives were already the least popular members of the coalition. Over the last four decades, their concerns have been brushed aside or undercut by the right-of-center establishment. Today, however, social conservatism is the only leg of the proverbial three-legged stool to remain squarely outside the Uniparty.  Centering his vision for the new conservative coalition on a “family-first fusionism,” Roberts sees the opportunity for social conservatives to be a driving force in today’s populist realignment. To this end, Dawn’s Early Light surveys a range of topics — economic obstacles to family formation, education, big tech, trade, immigration, and foreign policy — that complement the existing legacy of social conservatism on hallmark issues like abortion or religious liberty. By building a winning electoral coalition, Trump is giving the Right a chance to deliver policy wins with genuinely popular benefits. Social conservatives don’t stand to reap lopsided benefits from their political activism — everyone benefits when housing is affordable, when addiction rates are lower, and when America isn’t reliant on foreign countries for essential goods. (RELATED: Trump v. Washington) In this new family-first fusionism, social conservatives are uniquely positioned to provide a coherent intellectual framework for the ascendant populist movement composed of traditionalists, tech bros, and disenchanted Democrats-gone-MAGA. Though social conservatism has been stuck taking one step and two steps back in recent decades, Roberts envisions a future of definitive change. That Sen. JD Vance wrote the book’s forward speaks to the central relevance of Roberts’s project in the coalition.  With a wink and a nod, Roberts acknowledges that his call is radical in the truest sense, acknowledging the word’s entomology: “radix” is Latin for “root.” And a return to the roots of American identity — the preeminence of family life, religious piety, and a frontier spirit of independence and self-government — is exactly what Dawn’s Early Light articulates for the future of conservatism. (RELATED: Saving the Country with Russ Vought) Roberts also knows that his work will be characterized as radical (read: insane) by critics who are too invested in the reigning cultural hegemony to recognize common sense. Already, the usual suspects have produced pearl-clutching reviews warning of “weird vibes and pyromania,” “paranoid, Stalinist tactics,” and “conspiracy theories.” Understandably, the members of the Uniparty are disturbed by a brazen critique of the Uniparty.  But one progressive reviewer cuts through the hysteria to sound the alarm for the American Left:  What should worry the left is Roberts’ moral certainty. Gone are the flaccid paeans to the supremacy of the free market; in their place is a conviction to march through America’s institutions with a flamethrower. The right is intellectually insurgent while the Democratic Party is mired in a muddled post-mortem. This moral certainty challenges right-of-center orthodoxy while breathing fresh air into stale promises to cut taxes and trim down bureaucratic bloat. And, as the New Right looks to the future, that moral certainty is a reminder of Cicero’s wisdom: what is right and what is in America’s interest are ultimately one and the same.  At several points throughout Dawn’s Early Light, Roberts quotes Gustav Mahler, who said, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire.” The flame needed to kindle the controlled burn of populism is none other than the fire of American tradition, passed down from one generation to the next.  Decades of Uniparty have dimmed that fire, but the pilot light is still on — and Roberts’ book is the oxygen needed to fan the flames of renewal. Mary Frances (Myler) Devlin is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.  READ MORE by Mary Frances Devlin:  Dissatisfied Democrats Voice Frustrations With Party Line on Transgender Issues Florida Turns the Tide for Social Conservatism Despite Massive Spending Gaps  Tuning In to the Gender Gap Election The post Kevin Roberts’s Fiery New Fusionism appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

President-elect Trump ran on a national security platform that promised a return to peace through strength, and within days of his re-election, the world is already responding. Qatar ejects the Hamas leadership while the terrorists beg for peace. After four years of chaos, Mexico says it will finally stop migrants at the U.S. border. China and Russia both make overtures in pursuit of reduced tensions between their states and ours. The European Union pledges to buy natural gas from America instead of from Russia. And this is all happening two months before Trump even takes the oath of office. It’s clear that the world — friends and foes alike — responds to strong American leadership, and they all know Trump will bring it. Ronald Reagan, the original peace through strength president, also well understood this dynamic. His legacy offers important lessons for the new Trump team to emulate: Keep the economy strong. It is the center of gravity and the source of American strength. Trump’s domestic economic agenda seeks to rebuild the U.S. economy through deregulation, tax cuts, and sound money, just as Reagan used the same methods to grow it beyond the point where the Soviet Union could compete. Maintain the means to keep the peace. Reagan understood the old adage: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Now as then, the United States must build up its defense industrial infrastructure, increase the size and strength of the Navy to deter Beijing, and modernize its nuclear deterrent. The best way to avoid going to war is to make it too costly for adversaries to contemplate. Restore pride in the military. Reagan inherited the “hollow forces” of the post-Vietnam era and left office with the world’s most capable, cohesive, and deadly fighting forces. Trump must likewise rescue the DEI-damaged military, encourage national pride to rebuild enlistment and refocus the services to the sole mission of winning our nation’s wars. Use force judiciously but boldly. Reagan, whether liberating Grenada or intercepting the Achille Lauro hijackers, showed what was possible with bold, limited, but decisive, use of force. Trump showed in his first term a similar instinct, destroying the ISIS caliphate and taking out Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qasem Soleimani. We can expect to see similar actions in the second term. Stand up to Iran. In Reagan’s time as now, the Islamic regime in Tehran is a threat to international peace. When Iran and its proxies threatened international shipping, Reagan responded with the Persian Gulf reflagging operation and sinking Iranian frigates and gunboats. Trump should resurrect the “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran and take direct action against threats to global peace from Iran’s proxies. Pursue energy independence. Reagan knew that energy was the key to the U.S.’s economic growth and global security. In Trump’s first term, the United States became the world’s top energy producer and can reclaim that crown in the second term by exploiting both U.S. natural resources and technological superiority in emerging energy innovations. Restore public diplomacy. Reagan understood the power of ideas and empowered his friend Charlie Wick to make the U.S. Information Agency a force for spreading the inspiring message of the American dream to a global audience. Trump can likewise restore the corrupt and ineffective U.S. Agency for Global Media to make it a forceful tool for promoting American messages of peace and prosperity. Continue the mission against totalitarianism. The most important thing Reagan brought to the White House was his vision of the outcome of the Cold War. As Reagan put it, “We win. They lose.” Today, the United States is in a new Cold War with communist China, and Trump can bring that same clarity of mission, not only to the competition with China but also to every country that seeks to damage U.S. global interests. Renew American confidence. Reagan came to power when the United States had been humiliated in war, suffered economic shocks, and Americans were told their best days were behind them. So, too, is it today. As Reagan once did, Trump can rekindle pride in the American mission, certainty in our national strength, and confidence in the country’s future. Ronald Reagan was an outsider to Washington, derided as too old and too extreme, and yet left office with the United States in its strongest global position since the end of World War II. Donald Trump faces similar challenges and is entering his second term with hard-won lessons from the last eight years. This new term is an opportunity to pivot from a limited national security strategy seeking merely to manage U.S. decline to one that sets the terms of American interests, and then boldly proceeds to pursue them. Dr. James S. Robbins is dean of academics at the Institute of World Politics and author of the forthcoming book Forging Peace Through Strength: Ronald Reagan and the Cold War. READ MORE from James S. Robbins: Red Faced Over Red Lines The Myth of Student Protest The Clock Is Ticking on TikTok The post Reagan’s 9 Lessons for Trump in Pursuing Peace Through Strength appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Although Republicans won resounding political victories across the country this November, there is one area where conservatives consistently lost: abortion. Seven of 10 state-level pro-abortion laws passed — including in four states that Donald Trump won —and Florida’s pro-choice law only failed to pass because it fell just short of the 60 percent share of the vote required for passage. This raises the question: Why are conservatives losing the abortion argument in this country, even when they are winning in so many other areas? No large-scale social phenomenon is caused by a single factor. However, one thing looms large in this explanatory window: Progressives have created a blind spot in increasingly large portions of the country about the reality of what an abortion is. Somehow, liberals have managed to disconnect one of the two central figures in an abortion — the fetus — from the narrative altogether. A generation of people has grown up thinking of abortion as a purely political issue without considering the most basic physical fact that defines it. However a fetus is construed, there is no denying that it is alive — and that an abortion kills it. But liberals do not talk about it that way. A visit to Planned Parenthood’s information about abortions on its website is instructive. In this detailed description of abortion, there is no mention of the word “fetus” at all. Instead, the fetus is referred to like this: “[A] doctor or nurse uses medical instruments and gentle suction to take the pregnancy out of your uterus.” A fetus’ existence is reduced to literally nothing. You don’t kill a fetus — you take the pregnancy out of your uterus. Because liberals have for so long controlled much of the educational system and methods of information distribution, this language has created a blind spot in the American populace. Abortion is your right, they say. Abortion is safe, they say. But what is it, medically speaking? Well, classrooms and social media have conspired to allow us to accept a massive medical procedure without talking in depth about what it is. Liberals haven’t just tried to implicitly train the country to ignore the death of the fetus; they have actively tried to suppress people they disagree with on the subject. For example, here in western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh passed a law that explicitly targets the speech of conservative crisis pregnancy centers. (These laws are not unique to Pennsylvania. Kamala Harris infamously pursued similar initiatives against crisis pregnancy centers as attorney general in California.) Among other things, it warns that any statement released through any means cannot be used if it is “deceptive, whether by statement or omission, and that a limited services pregnancy center knows or reasonably should know to be deceptive.” This is a shocking violation of free speech on two separate grounds. First, it is so broad that anything the excessively progressive city government of Pittsburgh considers “reasonable” can be prosecuted under the law. For example, one of the things that the progressive think tank the Alliance — on whose authority a lot of this argument rests — claims is “misinformation” is the idea that abstinence has positive benefits, explicitly singling out religious perspectives as a “vehicle for medical disinformation and ideological messaging.” So now we are not allowed to say we think abstinence is a good idea? Second, this censorship contains one of the hallmarks of authoritarianism (see my book Liberal Bullies for more details): Group-based asymmetry. Even if one grants that it is legal to suppress someone’s viewpoint as “misinformation,” why specifically pass a law to target crisis pregnancy centers? It is noteworthy that by the dangerous “omission” standard, most liberal groups would fail the test very clearly. Nowhere in the document from the Alliance trashing crisis pregnancy centers could I find a single description of what a fetus is, or what the medical procedure actually does to the fetus. This seems like an important omission. Do you imagine that liberal city governments will target pro-abortion groups for this omission of an obvious fact that seems quite relevant to the medical procedure? I’m not holding my breath. I care deeply about both the health and the freedoms of women. Contrary to common tropes from the Left, I do not want to take away certain rights without reasonable cause. Contrary to what some might assert, I have no ill will toward women who have had abortions. All I want for them is healing, love, and grace. But truth is not the enemy of grace; it is in fact its needed partner. It’s time that we reclaimed that truth ground by unashamedly shining a light on the most undisputed fact about what an abortion does: It kills a fetus. All our national discussions about the issue must start and end with that fact, and we mustn’t let the country get away with pretending otherwise. No matter the attempted censorship, no matter the names they call us, we must work through argument and reason (presented with kindness and compassion) to remove this American blind spot. READ MORE: Did Kamala’s Abortion Obsession Alienate Americans? Florida Turns the Tide for Social Conservatism Despite Massive Spending Gaps The Republican Party Erred in Abandoning Its Pro-Life Platform The post America’s Abortion Blind Spot: How Liberals Convinced Americans to Ignore the Fetus appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“The University of California is eyeing a looming budget gap of half a billion dollars next year,” reports CalMatters, and to fill the gap the university is “relying in part on its out-of-state undergraduates,” whose costs will be increased. In their quest for a balanced budget, UC bosses might cut back on overhead. A good place to start would be the diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracy, which never should have been established in the first place. In 1996, state voters passed Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which banned racial and ethnic preferences in state education, employment, and contracting. As Thomas Sowell noted in Intellectuals and Race, the predicted disaster never occurred and the number of African-American and Hispanic students graduating from the UC system went up, including a 55 percent increase in those graduating in four years with a GPA of 3.5 or higher. State politicians and “educrats” maintained that the measure somehow harmed “diversity” and in due course set up a professional caste of DEI bureaucrats to impose the same kind of preferences CCRI banned. For the DEI officials, it was highly profitable. Consider, for example, Dania Matos, UC Berkeley’s vice chancellor for the Division of Equity and Inclusion. She bags $364,446 in total pay and benefits, and UC Berkeley alone employs 150 professionals and 250 additional students to fight “systemic inequities.” All 10 University of California campuses deploy DEI officers, who cost big dollars but add no educational value. Eliminating them all would help balance the budget, and the system might take a look at salaries in general. Consider UC Berkeley Chancellor Richard Lyons, who pulls down a whopping $946,450. In September, the University of California Board of Regents approved salary boosts, in the neighborhood of 30 percent across the board, jacking up the salary range for the 10 campus chancellors to between $785,000 and $1.2 million. The countless vice chancellors, provosts, deans, and such could doubtless use some cutting in salary and numbers. UC budget balancers might also track down pots of money that have escaped scrutiny. Consider former University of California President Janet Napolitano, also the former Arizona governor and Department of Homeland Security director, who came on board in 2013. In 2017, California State Auditor Elaine Howle discovered that Napolitano, while raising tuition and fees, was hiding a slush fund of $175 million that she used to shower perks on staff. Napolitano’s office “intentionally interfered with investigators” but the UC president faced no criminal charges and stayed in office until 2020. So far nothing like that from current UC President Michael V. Drake, who got a $300,000 raise in September, bringing his base pay to $1.3 million. The former UC Irvine chancellor and UC vice president for health affairs is a “strong advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion.” So on Drake’s watch, cuts in the DEI overhead or executive salaries are unlikely, and that places UC plans in jeopardy. As CalMatters notes, with the $500 million budget gap looming, the University of California system has been pouring “tens of billions of dollars” into seismic retrofitting, new classrooms, and medical centers, without “the funding to build or renovate most of what it needs.” The bill for the system’s construction projects comes to $53 billion, and hiking tuition for out-of-state undergrads to $52,536 won’t get it done. “California’s public university system is a bloated jobs program,” contends Katy Grimes of the California Globe. “The students are clearly secondary.” As students, parents, and taxpayers might recall, in 2020, California voters rejected Proposition 16, which would have overturned Proposition 209. Contrary to popular belief, CCRI did not eliminate “affirmative action.” The UC can still lend a hand on an economic basis but cannot reject or accept students on the basis of race or ethnicity. Meanwhile, Janet Napolitano, the UC president who stashed away $175 million, recently served on a panel to investigate the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Californians can be forgiven for questioning her qualifications for the task. Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. READ MORE from Lloyd Billingsley: Election Aftermath in California Government Efficiency Is a Tall Order for Musk California’s Identity Problem The post Oh Say Can UC? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.