Encounter Broadsides
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(4)
What's So Bad About Cronyism?
by Jay Cost
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Cronyism is a serious problem in the United States, but unfortunately it is still not very well understood. In this new essay, Jay Cost explains what it is, and why we should be so worried about it. By mingling private and public interests, cronyism costs us hundreds of billions of dollars per year and threatens to transform our republic into an oligarchy, where the rich dominate the middle class. Worse, modern cronyism has become embedded into the laws themselves, so politicians in Washington assume that such corruption is just the way things should be. To confront the dangers of cronyism, reformers need to think outside the box, paying special attention to how the political process functions.
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(3)
Obama and the Crash of 2013
by Peter Ferrara
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Most people do not know that already enacted in current law for 2013 are increases in the top tax rates of virtually every major federal tax. That is because the tax increases of Obamacare become effective that year, and the Bush tax cuts expire, which Obama has refused to renew for the nation's small businesses, job creators and investors. Also by 2013 Obama's regulatory tsunami will be building to a crescendo of increased costs on the economy. And the Fed, now committed to maintaining loose monetary policy through the election, will be reversing course right after to head off inflation, which will add to the contractionary effects on the economy. The result will be one whopping, horrendous, record shattering recession, unless America changes course. In this explosive Broadside, former Reagan White House policy advisor Peter Ferrara exposes the final calamitous consequences of Obama's assault on prosperity
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(2)
The Case Against Ranked-Choice Voting
by Trent England
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Trust in American institutions is at historic lows. The answer from the Progressive Left? Make voting and counting ballots even more complicated.
Ranked-choice voting is their latest fad to remake elections. It makes voting harder: longer lines, more mistakes, and lower turnout. And it makes election administration so complicated that, in 2022, one California county certified the wrong winner in a school board race.
In this Broadside, two election experts explain what ranked-choice voting is, who is behind it, and why it threatens the integrity of our elections.
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(8)
How The Obama Administration Has Politicized Justice
Reflections On Politics, Liberty, And The State
by Andrew C. McCarthy
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
With the Obama Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder's direction, Americans are learning what really happens when law-enforcement power is co-opted by politics. In this eye-popping Broadside, Andrew C. McCarthy shows that the biggest beneficiaries have been jihadists. For the past eight years, a group of lawyers volunteered their services to America's enemies. Now, the Justice Department is rife with some of those same lawyers as it enhances due process for terrorists and feeds the international Left's call for war-crimes charges against President Obama's political adversaries. Just consider how the administration has disclosed national defense secrets during wartime or granted the 9/11 mass murderers a civilian trial. The department, moreover, is working to tighten the Democratic Party's grip on power, ignoring the Constitution and green-lighting election fraud and abuse.
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(8)
How Progressive Cities Fight Innovation
by Jared Meyer
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Technology continues to unlock new ways for Americans to live and work. To illustrate these changes, this broadside explores the promise of online platforms such as Uber and Airbnb. Unfortunately, instead of embracing innovation, many cities insist on applying antiquated regulations or completely banning these new services to protect special interests-at the expense of workers and consumers. These fights go far beyond the sharing economy. To promote the benefits of new technology, it is time for states to step up and overrule cities when local policies threaten innovation. If cities are going to remain a driving force for economic progress, then states need to save so-called progressive cities from themselves.
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(6)
How Obama Is Transforming America's Military From Superpower To Paper Tiger
The Truth About China In The Twenty-First Century
by Jed Babbin
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Barack Obama has made it clear that he thinks the world would be a better and more peaceful place if the United States were too weak to affect the course of events. Obama, along with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, has slashed missile defense, dramatically reduced investment in future military technologies, and broken promises to our allies. In addition, Obama is transforming our military into a politically correct force that no one will want to join. In this incisive Broadside, Jed Babbin analyzes Obama's military strategy and shows how he has pursued a consistent course of action that defines him and his overriding objective – to reduce America from a superpower to a paper tiger. These are not the policies of a president who wants America to be strong, safe, and secure. But they are the policies that define Barack Obama. ENCOUNTER BROADSIDES: a new series of critical pamphlets from Encounter Books. Uniting an 18th-century sense of political urgency and rhetorical wit (think The Federalist Papers, Common Sense) with 21st-century technology and channels of distribution, Encounter Broadsides offer indispensable ammunition for intelligent debate on the critical issues of our time. Written with passion by some of our most authoritative authors, Encounter Broadsides make the case for liberty and the institutions of democratic capitalism at a time when they are under siege from the resurgence of collectivist sentiment. Read them in a sitting and come away knowing the best we can hope for and the worst we must fear.
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(3)
Liberty And Civilization
The Western Heritage
by Roger Scruton
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
An essential volume of essays commissioned by the American Spectator and edited by the philosopher Roger Scruton, Liberty and Civilization examines the intellectual and spiritual traditions of our belief in individual liberty, from its Judeo Christian origins on through Enlightenment philosophy. As we are confronted by belligerent atheism at home and jihadist Islam abroad, Liberty and Civilization is an invaluable tool for understanding why it is critical that we defend the cultural, religious, and intellectual institutions that have made our civilization great. As one would expect from the American Spectator, the responses are both fiery and edifying, representing a broad swath of American conservative thought. The essayists include Paul Johnson, Anne Applebaum, Robert Bork, Robert P. George, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Roger Scruton.
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(5)
Moore vs. Krugman
by Stephen Moore
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
What happens when a leading conservative economist goes mano a mano with today's most influential exponent of left-liberal economics, over free markets versus government interventionism? Here are highlights of that showdown between Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation and Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate. Moore and Krugman sparred over eight major economic issues in our national debate – from whether the policy response to the crisis of 2008 was successful, to the outlook for Obamacare, to the "red state / blue state" divide. The contest was cordial and spiced with wit. (Does air conditioning explain the migration from blue to red states? Is Houston still uninhabitable? )This high-powered matchup illuminates a clash of worldview that leads to opposing policy prescriptions. More important, it will help you draw conclusions about which economic policies work.
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(4)
Obama's Radical Transformation Of America: Year One
The Survival Of Socialism In A Post-Soviet Era
by Joshua Muravchik
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
In only one year, Obama has saddled Americans with a skyrocketing deficit that will leave future generations deeply in debt; a health-care plan that prescribes a cure worse than the illness; catastrophically expensive environmental schemes; and a foreign policy that appeases enemies and punishes friends. In this frank and insightful Broadside, Joshua Muravchikanalyzes these and Obama's other misguided efforts to "fundamentally transform" America during his first year in office.
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(0)
The Surge
A Military History
by Kimberly Kagan
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Understanding the role of combat in the Iraq war is essential for both the American people and the U. S. military. Recognizing the objectives of both sides and the plans developed to attain those objectives provides the context for understanding the war. The Surge is an effort to provide such a framework to help understand not only where we have been, but also what happens as we move forward.
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(5)
What President Obama Doesn't Know About Guantanamo
by Thomas Joscelyn
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
On January 22, 2009, President Obama issued an executive order calling for the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to be closed within one year. It was one of the new president's first acts in office. The President explained that closing Guantanamo would return America to the "moral high ground" and restore "the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war. "In this explosive new Broadside, Thomas Joscelyn explains why President Obama's executive order was pure folly. He reveals that the President made his decision to shutter Guantanamo before he or his advisers knew the first thing about the detainees, how to handle their complex cases, or about the valuable intelligence America gained from the men detained at Gitmo-intelligence that saved lives.
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(3)
President Obama's Tax Piracy
Custer, Pickett And The Goats Of West Point
by Peter Ferrara
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Starting on Jan. 1, 2011, President Obama's economic recovery policy will begin the implementation of comprehensive, across-the-board tax rate increases for every major federal tax, along with some completely new taxes. Yet Obama and Congressional Democrats seek even more tax increases. In this insightful Broadside, Peter Ferrara shows that while President Reagan's tax policies created a 25-year economic boom, the Obama tax tsunami will sink the economy further if it is not stopped. It will produce a double-dip recession in 2011, if not a full economic crash. President Obama's tax policies are effectively tax piracy, and they are more likely to lose revenue and leave bigger federal deficits and debt for the country.
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(3)
The Inequality Hoax
by James Piereson
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
The controversy over inequality has gathered steam with the publication of Thomas Piketty's new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, a dense work of economic history that documents the rise of income inequality in recent decades and sets forth an agenda of taxation to deal with it. Piketty's treatise has turned into a rallying point for those favoring income redistribution and higher taxes on the rich. In this Broadside, James Piereson explains how Piketty's book is flawed and advances a narrow understanding of the market system. While misjudging the era in which we are living and misunderstanding the sources of inequality, Piketty's book proposes solutions that will make matters worse for everyone the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor alike.
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(8)
Islam And Free Speech
by Andrew C. McCarthy
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
In January 2015, Muslim terrorists massacred cartoonists and writers at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, proclaiming to be avenging Islam's prophet. The rampage, which included the murders of hostages at a kosher market, prompted global leaders and throngs of citizens to rally in support of free expression. But was the support genuine? In this Broadside, Andrew C. McCarthy explains how leading Islamists have sought to supplant free expression with the blasphemy standards of Islamic law, gaining the support of the U. S. and other Western governments. But free speech is the lifeblood of a functioning democratic society, essential to our capacity to understand, protect ourselves from, and ultimately defeat our enemies.
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(4)
The Cure for Obamacare
by Sally C. Pipes
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
This Broadside will look at the changes that can be made to halt the full implementation of the law over the next few years, including repealing parts of the act that are unpopular with members of both parties. These parts are the medical device tax, IPAB, the new 3.8 percent tax on unearned income, to name a few. Also covered will be potential reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, two major entitlement programs that, if not reformed to ensure sustainability for those who really need these programs, will be bankrupt by 2024. There are a number of important lawsuits that will come before the courts this year on issues such as the exchanges, employer and individual mandates, and the contraception mandate. These will be highlighted and their potential impact on the law will be discussed. Finally, there is the issue of defunding the Medicaid expansion and the federal tax subsidies which, unless changed, will add tremendously to the cost of health care in this country. With the current fiscal crisis, these programs must be scaled back. Like welfare reform, the battle to bring about meaningful health care reform is a long-term fight. We must not give up. The election of 2016 will be very important for the future direction of health care. A reform plan will be offered. If Obamacare is not repealed and replaced, the U.S. will be on the road to a single-payer, "Medicare for All" system such as exists in Canada. We, too, will face long waiting lists, rationed care, and a lack of access to the latest technology and treatments. Examples will be given. America will be on the "Road to Serfdom" and there will be no off-ramp.
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(3)
Government Unions and the Bankrupting of America
by Daniel DiSalvo
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Government-workers unions have been political juggernauts in the U.S. since the unseen collective-bargaining-rights revolution of the 1960s and '70s. These unions are different and more powerful than those that battle owners and managers in the private sector. To advance their interests, unions in the public sector have created cartels with their political allies, mostly in the Democratic Party, to the exclusion of the taxpaying public. In this Broadside, Daniel DiSalvo shows us how this government takeover happened and tells us what can be done to protect the public interest. The fiscal consequences have already proven dire and threaten the long-term power and prestige of the United States on the world stage.
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(7)
Why Redistribution Fails
by James Piereson
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Democratic presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, along with progressive economists like Thomas Piketty and Paul Krugman, have made a case for redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor as a means of reducing inequalities in income and wealth. Meanwhile, public opinion polls show that voters reject programs of redistribution in favor of policies designed to promote overall economic growth and job creation. While voters are concerned about inequality, they are more skeptical of the capacity of the government to do anything about it without making matters worse for everyone. In this Broadside, James Piereson explains why the voters are right and the progressive politicians and economists are wrong. As he demonstrates, the progressive case is based upon a serious fallacy: it assumes that the government is actually capable of redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor. For reasons of policy, tradition, and constitutional design, this is not the case. The United States currently has one of the more progressive income tax systems in the industrial world but it does little to redistribute income from the wealthy to the poor. One reason for this is that, though the government spends vast sums on programs to aid the poor, most of these funds flow to providers of services rather than to the poor themselves. Thus, whatever one may think of inequality, redistributive tax and spending policies are unlikely to do much to ameliorate it but will instead line the pockets of providers and advocates who wield great influence in Washington.
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(0)
Obama And America's Public Sector Plague
by Edmund J. McMahon
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Public-sector employees enjoy much more generous pay and benefit packages than private-sector workers, including guaranteed pensions and retiree health benefits whose long-term costs threaten to break the backs of state and local taxpayers. In this provocative Broadside, E. J. McMahon explains how the policies of the Obama administration have shielded most state and local government employees from the worst effects of the Great Recession. President Obama's stimulus bill helped most states and local governments continue raising average employee pay even at the depths of the downturn. In the name of promoting "economic recovery," the president wants to spend tens of billions more to prop up government payrolls and preserve cushy employee benefits. Meanwhile, public-sector labor unions are exploiting their influence in Washington in an bid to expand and strengthen their power throughout the country. The president's push for more federal spending to preserve the status quo in state and local government is a wasted opportunity to promote much-needed structural reform.
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The Judiciary's Class War
by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
The terms Front-Row Kids and Back-Row Kids, coined by the photographer Chris Arnade, describe the divide between the educated upper middle class, who are staying ahead in today's economy, and the less educated working class, who are doing poorly. The differences in education-and the values associated with elite schooling-have produced a divide in America that is on a par with that of race. The judiciary, requiring a postgraduate degree, is the one branch of government that is reserved for the Front-Row Kids. Correspondingly, since the Warren era, the Supreme Court has basically served as an engine for vindicating Front-Row preferences, from allowing birth control and abortion, to marginalizing religion in the public space, to legislative apportionment and libel law, and beyond. Professor Glenn Reynolds describes this problem in detail and offers some suggestions for making things better.
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(6)
The Bad Science and Bad Policy of Obama's Global Warming Agenda
by Roy W. Spencer
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
As the U.N. moves closer to a new global warming treaty, it is time to examine the calls for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The health and welfare of humanity has benefited from access to fossil fuels, and any drastic move to limit that access must have extraordinary evidence to support it. While alternative energy technologies will increasingly be relied upon in the face of dwindling fossil fuel supplies, leading climate researcher Dr. Roy W. Spencer argues that the free market is the best mechanism for solving the problem. In addition, Dr. Spencer addresses the new science that suggests that our modern fears of anthropogenic global warming might well be unfounded, because the climate system itself might be responsible for causing what is now known as "climate change."
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Operation Drain the Swamp
by Adam Andrzejewski
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
President Donald J. Trump said he wants to "drain the swamp." But is it a swamp or an ocean? It's about time the American people had some hard facts regarding the federal bureaucracy. In Operation Drain The Swamp, we expose all of it. We showcase who receives how much, where they work, and what they do. Most importantly, we reveal how much these bureaucrats cost the American taxpayer. During the 2016 presidential election, the supporters of Donald Trump on the right – and even those supporting Bernie Sanders on the left – felt that the "system was rigged" for insiders. Now, we highlight the facts and stories to prove it. In Operation Drain The Swamp, we offer a step-by-step guide to civil service reforms.
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How The Obama Administration Threatens To Undermine Our Elections
by John Fund
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
One of the easiest ways to increase public cynicism about elections is to change the rule book to make the laws governing how we vote more vague and less rigorous. "Reforms" have been passed amid claims they would increase voter turnout. They haven't - but they have made it easier to commit absentee ballot and other fraud. In this explosive broadside, John Fund exposes the new package of reforms being pushed by Obama and liberals in Congress. First, the White House has declared it will exercise oversight of the Census next year, compromising the apportionment of Congressional seats and federal dollars. On top of that, liberals in Congress are pushing for "universal voter registration," a reform that is already used in a half dozen states but has only resulted in serious fraud. Making it easier to vote is a worthy goal. But pushing dubious measures puts the very foundation of our democracy at risk.
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(5)
Why America Needs School Choice
by Jay P. Greene
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Expanding school choice and competition is the single most important action we can take to improve America's schools. Although school choice faces strong opposition from powerful teacher unions and their entrenched political allies, expanding choice via vouchers, charters, and tax credits has repeatedly been shown to improve student achievement, reduce segregation, promote civic values, and facilitate other productive reforms. This eloquent Broadside outlines the case for school choice and shows how it is the most appealing strategy for anyone serious about educational reform.
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(1)
The Human Factor
Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture
by Ishmael Jones
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
George W. Bush's presidency was poisoned by a lack of human source intelligence on 9/11, Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Carter was humiliated by the hostage crisis in Iran. The Bay of Pigs was President Kennedy's greatest blunder. Vietnam ended the Johnson presidency and Korea ended Truman's. In each case, American blood and treasure were spent; and in each case, a lack of reliable intelligence played a great role. CIA officers are, needless to say, skilled and accomplished professionals. Unfortunately, the organization they inhabit is stifling, misguided, and careless. In the darkness of secrecy, with unlimited tax dollars and little or no accountability, the CIA bureaucracy has mutated into a leviathan that serves its own aims. From 1989 to 2002, Ishmael Jones carried out continuous field assignments for the CIA, pursuing WMD targets in the Middle East and Europe and terrorist targets in the Iraq War. Appalled by the stifling layers of bureaucracy and unable to reform the agency from within, Jones resigned with an unblemished record and this astonishing story to tell. The Human Factor is the story of a deep-cover agent facing both the day-to-day obstacles of survival and ludicrous challenges from his own agency's impenetrable bureaucracy. If the CIA is to be fixed - and for our own security it must be - The Human Factor may constitute the first step in that direction.
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Obama Health Law: What It Says and How to Overturn It
The Left's War Against Academic Freedom
by Betsy McCaughey
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
The fight against ObamaCare is just beginning. The new health law, signed on March 23, 2010, destroys our constitutional rights. For the first time in history, the federal government will dictate how doctors treat their privately insured patients. That will affect you, no matter what brand-name health plan you have. Worse, some hospitals will stop taking Medicare. Where will seniors go? Advocates for women's rights need to reassess ObamaCare. Whether you are a man or a woman, pro-choice or pro-life, you lose freedom and privacy. In 1994, Betsy McCaughey read the 1,362-page Clinton health bill, warned the nation of its dangers, and made history. In this eye-opening Broadside, she dissects the 2,700-page health legislation, shows how it will affect you and your family, and presents a battle plan to overturn it. "We cannot falter now," McCaughey says. "With the Constitution on our side, freedom will prevail."
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Trump vs. the Media
by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
How bad is the problem of media bias? The answer can be summed up in a few words: President Donald J. Trump. Whether you love him or hate him, there's no question that Trump gained a huge amount of support for his willingness to criticize the media in harsh and unsparing terms. The media seems baffled by the fact that it's lost the trust of the American people. It has responded by being extraordinarily defensive and doubling down on histrionic attacks. However, the American system has always depended on a strong and trusted media to hold those in power accountable. Journalist Mollie Hemingway looks at the impressive list of media failure that led us to this unique moment and asks, Is it possible for the media to recover its credibility before it's too late?
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Against the Obamanet
by Brian C. Anderson
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
The Internet is a platform of ceaseless innovation that has transformed our lives in a remarkably short time. And the United States has led that revolution: of the 15 largest websites in the world, 10 are American. But all that is now under threat. In February 2015, the Federal Communications Commission imposed extensive regulatory controls on this vibrant digital universe in an effort to mandate "network neutrality." In this Broadside, Brian C. Anderson explains how the FCC's power grab for "neutrality" could be devastating for the most dynamic sector of the U.S. economy. Network neutrality is at odds with everything that made today's Internet the market cornucopia that it is, and we must protect it from the encroach¬ments of Washington in order to foster its further growth.
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How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting The U.S. Economy
by Stephen Moore
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
In his first nine months in office Barack Obama has pursued the most aggressive government expansionist agenda since Franklin Roosevelt's new deal was launched in 1933. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel summarized the Obama first-year game plan best: "An economic crisis is a terrible thing to waste." So far, we have seen multi-trillion dollar bailouts in housing, banking, insurance, and auto industries, the stimulus plan, cap and trade, a $1. 2 trillion health care bill, and of course, the $4 billion cash for clunkers program. None of this has worked. Now, six months after the stimulus progam, we sit at 9. 4% unemployment. Two million more Americans are jobless. The debt has exploded like a cork from a bottle of champagne. We are now told that the Obama agenda will cost $9 trillion in debt as it plans to spend $42 trillion over the next decade. In this riveting broadside, Stephen Moore explains this rotten story of Washington arrogance and malfeasance, and reveals exactly why Obamanomics failed.
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How Obama is Transforming America Through Immigration
by Mark Krikorian
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
President Obama and his allies have made no secret about their immigration goals: easy amnesty, loose enforcement, and ever-higher levels of legal immigration. One prominent labor leader has boasted that continued mass immigration "will solidify and expand the progressive coalition for the future." In this penetrating Broadside, Mark Krikorian lays out the details of Obama's open-borders approach to immigration and its political consequences. Krikorian, one of the leading critics of current immigration policy, examines the Administration's record of weakening enforcement and describes how legislation crafted by the president's supporters in Congress would ensure new waves of illegal immigration. Krikorian also explains how continued high levels of immigration, regardless of legal status, would progressively move the United States in the direction of more government and less liberty.
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Obama's Betrayal of Israel
by Michael Ledeen
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Yasser Arafat's incremental conquest of Israel was learned at the feet of the North Vietnamese in 1970. The Vietnamese told the Arab leadership that they accepted the fact that victory in Vietnam would take many years, during which it would be necessary to temporarily accept the division of the country into two states, while they worked for a shift in the balance of power. In this, the Vietnamese were smart enough to permit the Americans to save face. They had no intention of respecting the agreements they signed with the United States; the point was to provide political cover for the American retreat. Today, Barack Obama is giving the Arabs the same opportunity as Nixon gave the Vietnamese. Obama told a Muslim audience in Cairo in the first months of his administration that America's support for Israel was "unbreakable," even as he moved to compel Jerusalem to cede even more territory to its enemies. In, this new broadside, Michael Ledeen asks why the Obama administration has chosen this course, and examines what this betrayal means for Israel and the world at large.
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The Truth About Gun Control
by David B. Kopel
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Who is sovereign in the United States? Is it the people themselves, or is it an elite determined to rule citizens who are seen as incapable of making choices about their own lives? This is the central question in the American gun-control debate. In this Broadside, David Kopel explains why the right to keep and bear arms has always been central to the American identity and why Americans have always resisted gun control. The American Revolution was sparked by British attempts to confiscate guns. After the Civil War, the U. S. changed the Constitution to defeat the nation's first gun-control organization, the Ku Klux Klan. When Hitler and Stalin demonstrated how gun registration paves the way for gun confiscation, which paves the way for genocide, Americans resolved to make sure it never happens here. Gun control is not an issue of left vs. right or urban vs. rural. The right to bear arms is crucial to prevent large-scale tyranny by criminal governments and small-scale tyranny by ordinary criminals and to protect our Constitution.
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How Obama Has Mishandled the War on Terror
Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged
by Michael Bernard Mukasey
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
IN this illuminating Broadside, former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey shows how Barrack Obama has taken the war on terror from the adult realities of George W. Bush, where hard choices were faced and made, and the nation kept safe, to an adolescent fantasy world where we can at once be nobler than the law requires and safer than we were before. Obama rejects as an unnecessary sacrifice of our ideals the stern measures adopted by his predecessor, and offers instead to limit our intelligence gathering and provide terrorists with better conditions than common criminals, in the name of lofty idealism. Instead of protecting Americans, he builds castles in the air and invites us to stay safe by living in them.
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The Fallacy Of Net Neutrality
by Thomas W. Hazlett
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
"There is little dispute that the Internet should continue as an open platform," notes the U. S. Federal Communications Commission. Yet, in a curious twist of logic, the agency has moved to discontinue the legal regime successfully yielding that magnificent platform. In late 2010, it imposed "network neutrality" regulations on broadband access providers, both wired and wireless. Networks cannot (a) block subscribers' use of certain devices, applications, or services; (b) unreasonably discriminate, offering superior access for some services over others. The Commission argues that such rules are necessary, as the Internet was designed to bar "gatekeepers." The view is faulty, both in it engineering claims and its economic conclusions. Networks routinely manage traffic and often bundle content with data transport precisely because such coordination produces superior service. When "walled gardens" emerge, including AOL in 1995, Japan's DoCoMo iMode in 1999, or Apple's iPhone in 2007, they often disrupt old business models, thrilling consumers, providing golden opportunities for application developers, advancing Internet growth. In some cases these gardens have dropped their walls; others remain vibrant. The "open Internet" allows consumers, investors, and innovators to choose, discovering efficiencies. The FCC has mistaken that spontaneous market process for a planned market structure, imposing new rules to "protect" what evolved without them.
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Neither Beast Nor God
The Dignity Of The Human Person
by Gilbert Meilaender
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Appeals to "human dignity" are at the core of many of the most contentious social and political issues of our time. But these appeals suggest different and at times even contradictory ways of understanding the term. Is dignity something we all share equally, and therefore the reason we all ought to be treated as equals? Or is it what distinguishes some greater and more admirable human beings from the rest? What notion of human dignity should inform our private judgments and our public life? In Neither Beast Nor God, Gilbert Meilaender elaborates the philosophical, social, theological, and political implications of the question of dignity, and suggests a path through the thicket. Meilaender, a noted theologian and a prominent voice in America's bioethics debates, traces the ways in which notions of dignity shape societies, families, and individual lives, and incisively cuts through some common confusions that cloud our thinking on key moral and ethical questions. The dignity of humanity and the dignity of the person, he argues, are distinct but deeply connected-and only by grasping them both can we find our way to a meaningful understanding of the human condition.
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Twisting Title Ix
by Robert L. Shibley
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
This is the story of how Title IX, a 1972 law intended to ban sex discrimination in education, became a monster that both the federal government and many college administrators treat as though it supersedes both the U. S. Constitution and hundreds of years of common law. It's a story about the victims of this law - men and women both - and of the unaccountable government bureaucrats at the Departments of Education and Justice who repeatedly prioritize an extreme brand of politics over free speech, fundamental fairness, and basic human decency. But while help may come too late for many of the present victims of Title IX abuse, there are still measures that colleges and courts can take to curb these abuses until Congress acts - or we see a Presidential administration that cares more about restoring justice and the rule of law than it does about sex and gender politics.
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Why Obama's Government Takeover Of Health Care Will Be A Disaster
by David Gratzer
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
If Barack Obama has his way, the American health care system is headed for a train wreck. In this vital expose, Dr. David Gratzer reveals how a government takeover by Washington will put a massive new bureaucracy between doctors and patients, create rationing, and kill the spirit of innovation that has made American high tech medicine a world leader in the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Dr. Gratzer, a first-hand witness of the failures of Canada's healthcare system, shows why socialized medicine will make America sick. Examining the realities of existing health care in this country, Dr. Gratzer reveals how basic free market reforms can revive the private system we already have, without ruining the patient / doctor relationship, stifling scientific advances, and further devastating our economy.
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Why America Must Not Follow Europe
by Daniel Hannan
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Daniel Hannan, a British Conservative Member of the European Parliament, calls on Americans to avoid Europe's future. He traces the common roots of British and American liberty, and describes how both countries are losing their inheritance as government crowds out the private sphere. He calls for a renewed commitment to the Anglosphere: the alliance of free, English-speaking nations which has preserved freedom in our time.
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Checking Progressive Privilege
by Carrie L. Lukas
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Progressives have taught us that it doesn't take overt discrimination to make society unfair. Privilege afforded to different groups-such as whites, males, and heterosexuals-can infect our cultural institutions, creating unfair burdens for other groups.
But one form of privilege has been overlooked: progressive privilege. Today, the progressive worldview is depicted as what is normal, right, and worth celebrating by our cultural institutions. Conservatives are marginalized and stereotyped in entertainment, news, academia, and throughout our culture.
Progressive privilege isn't just unfair to conservatives; it has warped our entire political environment and made our country more divided. Recognizing progressive privilege is the first step to ending it, so that we can have a fairer, more truly inclusive society.
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Khashoggi, Dynasties, and Double Standards
by Joseph P. Duggan
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
As 2018 ended, an orchestrated propaganda campaign paralyzed U.S. foreign policy. The trigger was the killing in Istanbul of Jamal Khashoggi, a member of Saudi Arabia's wealthy and politically powerful oligarchy. Mainstream media and misguided, melodramatic politicians hoodwinked millions by portraying Khashoggi as a martyr for press freedom and democracy. The real Khashoggi was nothing of the sort. President Trump's efforts to restore realism to foreign policy must contend not only with Democrats but also with naïve Republicans who reject the national-interest realism of Jeane Kirkpatrick, author of "Dictatorships and Double Standards."
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How the EPAs Green Tyranny is Stifling America
by Rich Trzupek
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
The relationship between environmental regulation and economic growth has gone from dysfunctional to disastrous under the leadership of Barack Obama's USEPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson. Jackson's EPA has assumed broad new powers and promulgated sweeping new regulations unlike anything that America has seen since the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were signed into law forty years ago. While much of the public has focused on the EPA's plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the Agency's power grab extends into far more areas of society and the economy than fossil fuel use alone. Rich Trzupek explains why Obama's EPA is different and more dangerous, than any other since the Agency was created forty years ago. From the oceans to consumer products, from the manufacturing line to the showroom floor, the tentacles of this EPA are silently creeping into more and more parts of our lives as Lisa Jackson smilingly assures the nation that everything the EPA does generates revenue rather than costing industry billions of dollars and America hundreds of thousands of jobs.
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Life, Liberty, & the Defense of Dignity
The Challenge for Bioethics
by Leon Kass
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
At the onset of Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, Leon Kass gives us a status report on where we stand today: 'Human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic 'enhancement,' for wholesale redesign. In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills. For anyone who cares about preserving our humanity, the time has come for paying attention.' Trained as a medical doctor and biochemist, Dr. Kass has become one of our most provocative thinkers on bioethical issues. In Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, he has written a book that grapples with the moral meaning of the new biomedical technologies now threatening to take us back to the future envisioned by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. In a series of mediations on cloning, embryo research, the sale of organs, and the assault on mortality itself, Kass questions the wisdom of trying to break down the natural boundaries given us and to remake the human body into an instrument of our will. He also attempts to chart a course by which we might avoid the dehumanization of biotechnical 'recreationism' without rejecting modern science or rejecting its genuine contributions to human welfare. Leon Kass writes profoundly about the limits of science and the limits of life, about what makes us human and gives us human dignity. Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity.
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A Century Of Palestinian Rejectionism And Jew Hatred
by Sol Stern
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has launched an international campaign to achieve recognition by the United Nations for an independent Palestinian state. Abbas and his international supporters claim that only Israel (with the United States) stands in the way of this act of historical justice, which would finally bring about peace in the Middle East. In this eye-opening Broadside, Sol Stern debunks the Palestinians' claim and shows that Abbas has been lying about the origins and history of the conflict. Palestinian leaders have rejected partition plans that would have given them much more land for their independent state than the Jews were offered for theirs. Rather than being the innocent victims of a dispossession" at the hands of the Israelis, the Palestinians rejected reasonable compromises and instead pursued their aim of getting rid of the only Jewish state in the world.
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The Dependency Agenda
by Kevin D. Williamson
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
Each year, the United States spends $65,000 per poor family to fight poverty" in a country in which the average family income is just under $50,000. Meanwhile, most of that money goes to middle-class and upper-middle-class families, and the current U.S. poverty rate is higher than it was before the government began spending trillions of dollars on anti-poverty programs. In this eye-opening Broadside, Kevin D. Williamson uncovers the hidden politics of the welfare state and documents the historical evidence that proves Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society" was designed to do one thing: maximize the number of Americans dependent upon the government. The welfare state was never meant to eliminate privation; it was created to keep Democrats in power.
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The Next Pandemic
by Betsy McCaughey
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
America is suffering from two public health crises. One is caused by a virus. The other, a brutal economic shutdown, is something we have brought on ourselves. Both the virus and the shutdown are deadly. But many more Americans will likely die from getting laid off than from the virus.
The shutdown wasn't caused by the virus. It was a frantic response to America's unpreparedness. For more than two decades, a dozen official reports sounded the alarm. The career pols and federal bureaucrats did nothing. Message to Washington DC: No more commissions and televised hearings. It's time to act.
In this incendiary Encounter Broadside, Betsy McCaughey shows how to battle the next pandemic without an economic shutdown, including technologies to make workplaces healthier, protections for hospital workers, and severing dependence on China for medical supplies.
Despite the suffering, there's a reason for optimism. America will be ready for the next pandemic.
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The Fracturing of the E.U.
by Bruce S. Thornton
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
The long-simmering crises challenging the European Union have worsened with the 2008 financial crisis, the influx of Middle East refugees in 2015, several bloody terrorist attacks, and England's departure from the E.U. in 2016. Yet these are all the wages of persistent flaws in the idea of the Union itself. Excessive regulations, welfare, and taxes impede economic growth. Centralization of power in Brussels has created a "democracy deficit" and lessened autonomy and freedom. Populations are shrinking, and unvetted and unassimilated migrants have increased crime and terrorist attacks. All these problems reflect the lack of any unifying set of beliefs and principles that could unite 27 diverse cultures and peoples. Europe is fractured and adrift, its peoples unsure for what they should fight or die for.
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Trump vs. the Leviathan
by Chris Buskirk
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
The success of the Trump presidency will be judged in large part on his ability to reduce the size and scope of the deep state. The unelected, unaccountable permanent bureaucratic leviathan that winds itself around the body and squeezes its life out must be dismantled if Trump's legacy is to be a permanent restoration of republican government. Fortunately, his administration is doing that. Quietly and without fanfare he is reducing oppressive regulation and reining in what has become the fourth, all-powerful branch of government. There is much yet to be done, but less than two years in, President Trump has taken steps to return power to its rightful home-the sovereign American citizen.
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It's Time to Let America Work Again
by Andrew F. Puzder
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
As we begin the process of reopening our economy, it is critical that we get back to work. The economic shutdown was intended to slow the spread of a lethal virus, not to permanently sacrifice our freedoms-and certainly not to expand government power and "fundamentally transform" America.
During the shutdown, we've learned what that transformed America would look like, and it is ugly. With millions of people out of work and dependent on government-lacking the dignity of a job, the security of a paycheck, or the opportunity for a better future-depression and despair are creating an "epidemic within the pandemic" of suicides and drug and alcohol addiction.
While there are risks, if we follow safety protocols and protect the vulnerable, we can safely reignite our economy as we undo the lockdown, eliminate policies that discourage work and enact policies that encourage hiring and growth. It's time to reject the transformation to permanent government dependence and return instead to individual freedom and prosperity.
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The Growth Deficit
by James Piereson
Part of the Encounter Broadsides series
During the 1980s and 1990s, European economies went through a period of slowing economic growth and high unemployment, what some economists described as "secular decline." On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States enjoyed a robust recovery during those years by reducing taxes, eliminating regulations on business, and tightening monetary policy. Now, after two decades of subpar growth, the question is whether or not the American economy has entered into its own era of secular decline.
This Broadside examines this troubling development, recognizing that there are no easy solutions to the problem. Lacking workable solutions, Americans will have to adjust to a future of slow economic growth, with all that implies for inter-generational progress, American strength abroad and political conflict at home.