Amending the Constitution

For the past several decades, and especially over the past eight years, there have been growing calls by liberals and conservatives alike for an Article V convention of states to propose amendments to the Constitution. Article V of the Constitution states,

“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress…”

Substantive reasons for calling a convention differ among those on the Right and Left; historically, liberals have wanted to enshrine in the Constitution greater powers for the federal government and certain guaranteed rights for various favored groups, although since the 1970’s they have largely preferred to work through the courts and avoid amending the Constitution altogether. Conservatives, meanwhile, have sought to clarify portions of the document to make it more difficult for activist judges to stray from the text and original understanding of the Constitution, as well as to impose a few good-government policy reforms—namely, a requirement for Congressional term limits and a Balanced Budget Amendment.

I support both these proposals, and others. But I worry when I see more and more conservatives endorsing a convention of states to bypass the normal amendment process. The Constitution should only be amended when absolutely necessary, and a convention carries with it great risks—one of the primary reasons why none have been held since the one in 1787 that gave birth to the Constitution.

There is nothing in the text of Article V, or anywhere else, to definitively limit the power of a convention to propose amendments. Such a gathering, once called to order, could in theory discuss any changes to the Constitution—a Balanced Budget Amendment or term limits, to be sure, but also a repeal of the First or Second Amendments, an enshrining of the administrative state as a fourth branch of government, an outright rejection of federalism, or a dramatic expansion of the powers of the legislative and executive branches. All would be on the table, once an attending state moved to discuss such changes.

Proponents of a convention argue that any given state could, when passing a resolution calling for a convention, stipulate that only certain topics may be discussed. But the constitutionality of such a move, or the ability of some states to enforce it against others who might wish to propose amendments outside those restrictions, has never been tested. Considering the stakes involved—a wholesale, formal rewrite of the entire Constitution, potentially transforming our nation beyond recognition—the risk of a convention is just too great.

The Constitution is a brilliant document, written by geniuses. It is also flawed, as are all things created by man. The Framers understood that, which is why an amendment process was added in the first place, and there are certain issues for which the process is undoubtedly necessary. But a convention of states is a process of last resort, an escape hatch to be used only in times of emergency. As serious as things are today, they are not that serious, and hopefully never will be.

The Good Thing About Having No Candidate to Support

For the first time in my life, I truly have no candidate to support in a presidential election. I truly see no effective difference between the two major party nominees. I will likely vote for Gary Johnson, as I believe him to be the most honest, trustworthy, and overall best candidate currently running (although Evan McMullin is an appealing choice as well), but I carry no emotional attachment for either Johnson or his party, and disagree with both on a substantial number of issues. Realistically, either Trump or Clinton will be the next president, and it can be sobering and slightly depressing to stay on the sidelines.

The silver lining, however, is that I no longer feel any constraints on pointing out the flaws of one candidate or another, simply because I hope for a certain outcome. Both are terribly flawed candidates. Previous candidates I have supported, for both national and state office, have had flaws as well, but because I wanted them to win and saw them as infinitely better than the alternative I would often hold onto those opinions which could negatively affect the outcome I preferred.

This election, however, all of us who remain #NeverTrump and #NeverHillary can regain some intellectual honesty we may have lost over the last few election cycles. Neither of the two major candidates want or need our support, and most of the minor party candidates have significant flaws, as well. This election gives us a chance to truly voice our opinions, tell it as we see it, and hopefully regain some independence from the opinions and pressures of others in the process.

Policy Spotlight: Immigration

It’s fair to say that immigration has become one of the central issues for debate this election, and while I heavily dispute the notion that Donald Trump is the sole or primary reason for that debate, as he and many of his supporters would like to believe (such a key issue had enormous salience in politics long before Trump came along and suddenly noticed the issue, which is the reason he did so in the first place), it has became a mainstay of discussion regardless.

Which is both good and bad, from the perspective of those seeking enforcement and reform of the national immigration system. Good, because the issue is at least being discussed, and becoming more acceptable for discussion—and bad because despite all the talk, much of what is currently being proposed is incoherent, contradictory, or simply bad policy.

A strong, coherent immigration policy would be focused on three distinct stages: enforcement & reform, verification, and finally normalization. In the first stage, the border would be strictly secured, through a combination of increased border patrols, a physical barrier where appropriate (whether a wall or fence, take your pick), and various technological measures such as drones to deter additional illegal immigration. Measures would need to be taken to deter the popular use of tunnels by drug smugglers and human traffickers, as well, and the Coast Guard would also need to be strengthened to protect against attempted entries by sea. Visa overstays, another serious problem, must be cracked down on as well.

Beyond simple enforcement of existing immigration law, however, new security precautions must be put into place. First and foremost, sanctuary cities are a serious threat to the safety of millions of Americans, and steps must be taken to stop the policy nationwide. Use of E-Verify by businesses to check immigration status during the hiring process should be made mandatory. Immigration from certain suspect countries determined to have a high level of terrorist activity should be reduced or halted altogether, a need demonstrated by the fact that most of the recent perpetrators of terrorist attacks in the United States originated in a handful of countries in which Islamic radicalism is common (however, this is entirely different from attempting to ban members of an entire religion from entering the country). And legal immigration as a whole should be reduced to better match historical levels, allowing new and recent immigrants a chance to more fully assimilate.

There are several more steps that must be taken for the federal government to fully regain control of immigration once more, but once these are achieved Stage Two should come into play—verification. All of the enforcement measures I outlined above, as well as any changes to additional federal law, must be independently verified as actually being implemented, with results readily accessible by the public. For too long, existing enforcement mechanisms for immigration have been ignored, even more so in recent years with President Obama’s unilateral and publicized—indeed widely praised—decision to no longer execute immigration law still on the books. Before any other change is made to national immigration policy, there must be concrete evidence that this carefree attitude has changed.

Finally, and only after both Congress and the public have been convinced that the law is in fact being faithfully executed, there may be a healthy and honest debate about the status of those still in the country illegally, who have not been deported or left voluntarily. Whether that ultimate status would include full citizenship or amnesty, a form of legalization, or something else would be open for debate at that time. But it must be the final step in reforming the national immigration system. There can be no comprehensive bill as long as there are still flaws in border security and immigration enforcement, whether by statute or simple government inaction.

Of course, Hillary Clinton promises to continue Barack Obama’s policy of selectively enforcing the law, while Trump changes his immigration proposals by the week, and sometimes by the day. The list of disappointments and missed opportunities in 2016 also grows by the day.

Is This Election Strange, or the New Normal?

If there’s one thing every single person can agree on in politics—Republican or Democrat, liberal, moderate, or conservative—it’s that this is a weird election. Even Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters (and it’s also obvious that this wouldn’t be such a weird election without Trump in the mix) admit freely how crazy it is. The differences of opinion only come in when debating why it’s just so strange.

The real question becomes, Is this an aberration? Is 2016 truly destined to go down in the history books as the most monumental of crazy elections, on the largest stage imaginable? Or is this year merely beginning a trend, with Trump as the primary catalyst, that will lead to future candidates also calling their political opponents ugly, low-energy, stupid, and anything else that pops into their head at any given moment. Will it lead to the old political rulebook being torn up, burned, and buried forever, to be replaced with a brave new world in politics?

The answer to that question lies in whether or not the Trump movement and Trump political brand will outlive Trump’s candidacy itself, and the answer to that question is probably not. National politicians have a long history of believing that they can leverage their personal popularity into a sustained populist movement, and such politicians from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama have been proven wrong. Nearly every other rule has been shredded this election, but as of yet there is no reason to believe Trump can extend his newfound movement beyond himself.

A few state-level results from the primaries back up this assertion. Senate candidates in Florida and Colorado, who attempted to replicate the Trump model of insulting opponents without Trump’s high name recognition, were badly defeated. And in North Carolina, Rep. Renee Ellmers—one of the few candidates Trump endorsed in a primary—lost badly, losing by over twenty points. Sad!

I continue to believe that only Trump could have pulled off what he has this past year, and that any other candidate who had said and done the exact same things would have plummeted in the polls and quickly dropped out. Trump’s name recognition, combined with a unique ability to get away with far more than any candidate would generally have a right to, and a political climate ripe for just such a candidate, forced an exceptional occurrence. There will (likely) never be another Donald Trump, and without Trump this election would go from bizarre to simply maddening.

Voting Has Officially Begun

Forty-six days before Election Day, presidential election voting has officially begun. Starting today, voters in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Vermont will be able to vote in-person at local election offices. (Several other states have already begun mailing absentee ballots.) From now on, a few more states will begin early voting every week, until two-thirds of the country will have begun voting by the last week in October. Some election analysts have estimated that at least 40% of voters will cast ballots before Election Day.

Meanwhile, Monday will see the first of three scheduled presidential debates.

There are many valid arguments for and against early voting, but one serious drawback few people discuss is that it essentially locks in a vote over a month before Election Day—this year, before three presidential debates, one vice-presidential debate, and who knows how many scandals and breaking news stories, any of which could affect a voter’s decision on whom to support.

One of the best and most recent illustrations of the dangers of early voting can be seen in the results of the Arizona GOP presidential primary. Marco Rubio, following his disastrous finish in the Florida primary on March 15, dropped out of the presidential race. But even though Arizona’s primary was held a week later, on March 22, because of early voting (which had started a month beforehand), Rubio still managed to earn just over 13% of the vote, or over 70,000 votes—not enough to change the overall results, but still a significant number of people who would presumably have rather voted for a candidate still in the race.

I’ve known for months exactly who I intend to vote for in this election, and at this point I can’t imagine anything changing my mind. But I’ll wait to cast my ballot until November 8, because—especially in this election—you never know what could happen, to change the calculus in an instant.

Why Don't We Talk About Spending?

Remember when nearly all political debate centered around government spending? Everyone was talking about the national debt hitting $17 trillion. Thousands of people were in the street, and thousands more online, demanding an end to the stimulus and fundamental reforms to Medicare and Social Security before they went bankrupt. Fiscal cliffs and balanced budgets and sequestration were the talk of Washington.

And now? Any talk of reforming entitlements, apart from expanding them, is verboten. The GOP, supposedly the party of fiscal sanity and restraint, has nominated for president a man who considers Medicare and Social Security off limits entirely, and even Paul Ryan has seemingly given up his quest for meaningful entitlement reform for the time being. Proposals for a Balanced Budget Amendment, the center of debate just four years ago, suddenly seem antiquated and out of step with the times.

Meanwhile, the national debt has surpassed $19.5 trillion, the budget deficit is nearly $600 billion, and Social Security and Medicare are both expected to cease being able to fully pay for benefits within the next two decades—Medicare by 2028 and Social Security by 2034.

So why are so few people talking about the issue now, when the situation is if anything even more serious than it was four years ago?

Part of the reason is that so much has happened over those four years to shift the political conversation. Illegal immigration has surged, and President Obama in turn has introduced far-reaching and unconstitutional executive orders to legalize many of those immigrants. Gun control, too, has become a much greater issue, as has race relations and accountability in the law enforcement community. On the international stage, terrorist attacks around the world, coupled with the rise of ISIS, the continuing civil war in Syria, and the greater assertiveness of Putin’s Russia have all served to shift attention elsewhere.

But another important factor is that many Republican voters and Tea Party members—especially older voters, who have been the grassroots force behind many fiscally conservative proposals—have proven themselves to not, in fact, be especially conservative on such issues. This was proven most vividly during the primaries, when many such voters abandoned conservatives champions like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in favor of Trump, who didn’t even bother to pretend to be a fiscal conservative. Instead, he loudly promised to protect entitlements, Social Security, and Medicare for everyone, and condemned anyone who sought entitlement reform as hating the poor and elderly. A classic liberal argument—and many voters bought it.

Many of those same older voters never cared much for entitlement reform—at least not their entitlements. It was always easier to fight against the stimulus, against wasteful government programs that never directly affected them. But when it came time to discuss Social Security and Medicare, those topics were largely off the table for those voters, even when conservatives made clear that any restructurings would only affect future retirees, and were necessary for the programs to stay solvent.

Absent an energetic voting bloc that consistently pushed for broad-based entitlement reform, the novelty of cutting spending in Washington quickly wore off. There will always be support for eliminating waste and pork-barrel spending. But much of the national spending problem is driven by current and proposed entitlements—and despite any protests they might make to the contrary, many older Republican voters are just as opposed to reform as Democrats.

Policy Spotlight: Assisted Suicide

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post discussing the twin issues of abortion and the death penalty, and the liberal hypocrisy inherent in the debates over both. Until just the past couple decades, it was these two issues that primarily made up the pro-life debate, with much of the attention and debate in more recent times focused on the former.

But assisted suicide has been slowly emerging as a third hot-button life issue, particularly since Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide with a narrowly-approved ballot referendum in 1994. Since then, Washington, California, and Vermont have also legalized the practice, with five other states currently considering legalization.

Assisted suicide is less clear-cut, from a strictly conservative/libertarian view, than either abortion or the death penalty. Whereas the former is undeniably the killing of an unborn child, who has done nothing to deserve death, and the latter is the killing of a convicted criminal, who has done everything to deserve it, assisted suicide involves a person choosing to end their own life, and seeking medical help to achieve that end. The only person dying in a scenario of assisted suicide has consciously chosen that fate.

But a key indicator in any debate over a given policy is the words its opponents and detractors use to describe that policy. In the abortion debate, proponents of the measure hate using the word abortion, despite its medical and technical accuracy, and always attempt to shift the focus of the language used to debates over “choice”. When discussing the death penalty, in contrast, both supporters and opponents are not afraid of using the words “death penalty”. That accurately describes the issue, and I’ve yet to hear another term for it gain widespread use by either side.

But in assisted suicide, as in abortion, proponents again attempt to play language games, preferring to use the term “medical aid in dying” whenever possible—this despite the fact that “assisted suicide” is an accurate representation of what exactly takes place. This should be an instant red flag.

There are several serious problems with all assisted suicide proposals, beginning with the fact that, contrary to the assumptions of pro-legalization activists, there is more than one person involved. Nearly all of the individuals who consider suicide have family, friends, or someone in their life that would undoubtedly be hurt by their choosing death as preferable to life. Additionally, doctors participating in assisted suicide would be active participants in a purposeful death—something that strikes at the very core of the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm”, let alone the moral center of many doctors, particularly over an extended period. On libertarian grounds alone, then, assisted suicide manifestly goes beyond a strictly personal choice, harming the fabric of the community as a whole.

Obviously assisted suicide proposals are bad in other ways as well, namely the fact that those who pursue suicide are automatically writing off what could be an extremely beneficial and productive life. Even those diagnosed with terminal cancer or another life-threatening disease have the potential to achieve great things, and many who are only given six months to live by their doctors could in fact continue on for many more years—years easily lost through assisted suicide. And, though proponents of the measure argue that only a very few people will ultimately choose to go through with it, records from Oregon and other states which have legalized assisted suicide show that the number of people choosing to end their life is large, and increasing year by year.

Assisted suicide is a dangerous policy that fundamentally harms the individual, their family, their doctor, and their community as a whole.

The Russian Threat

It’s like something out of a dystopian, Cold War-era novel—two major American presidential candidates, either of whom have a realistic chance at becoming the leader of the free world, and both are indebted to Russia.

On one side, there is Donald Trump, a candidate who seems unable to go more than a few weeks at a time without heaping lavish praise upon Vladimir Putin as a “strong leader”, praise that may in fact be the most consistent policy issue of the entire campaign. And the lovefest goes beyond mere words—the hiring of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort being the most notable example. Manafort, of course, had extraordinarily close ties to pro-Russian elements in Ukraine, and worked closely with pro-Russian former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for a decade. Other ties between Russia and Trump exist, as well, including evidence that Russia has significant investments in the Trump Organization—something confirmed by Donald Trump, Jr. in 2008. And, of course, Trump’s frequent questioning of the importance of the NATO alliance.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton attempts to portray herself as the Mitt Romney of the 2016 election, calling out Trump on his Russian ties and openly discussing the likely role Russian hackers had in the DNC leak from earlier this summer. But she herself has a multitude of troublingly close ties to the Kremlin, if never going so far as to openly praise Putin himself. She has been an active participant in Barack Obama’s open appeasement of Russia over much of the past eight years, from the Russian “reset” to the toothless response to the Russian seizure of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine.

Moreover, shady connections between the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, and Russia in the Uranium One deal, as well as other instances, discredit Clinton as being any sort of strong voice against Putin’s continued powermongering.

The simple fact is that in this bizarre election, a little more than two decades after the end of the Cold War, both major party candidates will likely seek to further appease Russia if elected. It is a certainty that Putin will attempt to further expand his influence in the Middle East, sow further discord in Ukraine, and tighten his grip on Crimea, and neither Trump nor Clinton will effectively challenge him on those scores. Should Putin, emboldened, begin to look further abroad, to say the NATO allied Baltic nations, there is no guarantee that either Trump or Clinton would stand firmly with our allies there as well. In this respect, both will only continue and expand on the Obama legacy.

Why Did No Major Independent Candidate Emerge?

One of the enduring mysteries in a campaign season full of them: Why, in a year when both major parties nominated candidates who are both historically unpopular with the general electorate, did no major independent candidate emerge, à la Ross Perot in 1992 or 1996?

Sure, we’ll get our fair share of third-party and independent candidates on the ballot: Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Evan McMullin… But none of those command high name recognition, a particularly unique campaign platform, or the massive financial resources needed to wage a successful presidential campaign. Two of those, Johnson and Stein, are retreads from the 2012 election, doing far better this time around merely as the unwitting beneficiaries of widespread animosity toward the two major-party candidates. And Evan McMullin, while a decent man who would make a good president, is hardly a household name, even in intensely political households.

After it became clear that Donald Trump had a reasonably good chance at winning the nomination, the narrative turned from “Will Trump run as an independent?” to “Will someone run as an independent against Trump?” For a while, the answer looked like it would be yes—and someone well-known at that, a sitting or former governor or Senator (Gary Johnson, a Libertarian who last held elected office over a decade ago, doesn’t count). Rumors flew that Mitt Romney would enter the race, or Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, or John Kasich.

But no one ever did.

Many of the reasons why lie with the prospective candidates themselves, and are impossible to guess at fully. But running for president is a demanding task, even when supported by the full resources and infrastructure of a major national party. Running as an independent, and building a national ground operation and fundraising infrastructure from scratch, is doubly difficult. And, for any Republicans who were current officeholders—or who hoped to seek office again in the future—following through with an independent bid almost certainly doomed from the beginning would have seemed to be a career-ending move.

Considering all that, it seems to me that there would have been only one Republican who could have reasonably embarked on a serious independent bid for the Presidency, without risk of political suicide, and who would have had a reasonable chance at success to boot—Mitt Romney.

Having run for president twice already, once as the Republican nominee, he would have already had built-in name recognition. Being retired from public office would have meant that he needn’t have worried about any potential sanctions from the RNC down the line. He would have been able to build, through his high name recognition and multitude of contacts, a national infrastructure in relatively short order. And he would have had a realistic chance at winning, or at the very least getting on the debate stage—a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted in May showed Romney receiving 22% of the vote nationally, with Clinton at 37% and Trump at 35%.

As to why he ultimately chose not to run, only Romney himself can answer that, but I assume it was basically the same reasoning that led him to pass on running in the primaries last year—he had had enough of running for President, believed it simply wasn’t meant to be, and wished to give other, younger candidates an opportunity. Whatever the reasoning, though, his passing on an independent run exacerbated the trend of major national figures turning down the chance of running against Trump in the general election—and likely deprived the #NeverTrump movement of its one real chance to actually win the election.

I Still Think Clinton Will Win, But It'll Be Close

How an election can change in just a few weeks. Roughly two weeks ago, Hillary Clinton commanded a roughly six-point lead in the two-way RealClearPolitics polling average, and a four-point lead when Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were included. Her lead in the Electoral College was commanding, and seemingly insurmountable.

Two weeks later, Clinton is still ahead. But she now leads by just two and a half points in the two-way race, and by a similar margin in the four-way race—still the candidate to beat, but in a race far closer than many could have imagined in the aftermath of her triumphant acceptance of the Democratic nomination a month ago.

State polling results tell a similar story, with statistical ties in Florida and Ohio, and a somewhat narrowing race in Pennsylvania and possibly Virginia. New polls out last week from reliably Democratic Northeastern states like New Jersey and Rhode Island show a much closer gap than expected, though Clinton still holds a strong single-digit lead there.

Despite all this, Clinton is still ahead in both national polls and the Electoral College, and state-level polling still shows struggles for Trump in Arizona and Georgia especially, as well as North Carolina. If Clinton were to win all three of those states it would offset any potential lose of Pennsylvania, Florida, or Ohio. And, while Clinton continues to lose ground due to the twin scandals of her personal email server and evidence of cronyism at the Clinton Foundation—as well as her blanket smears of Trump supporters—Trump continues to hurt himself by attacking Republicans like Jeff Flake and consistently praising Vladimir Putin.

I’ll admit, my suggestion from July that Clinton pursue a “Fifty-State Strategy” now seems premature. I somehow underestimated the hyper-partisanship of today, which ensures that even a candidate as fundamentally flawed as Donald Trump has the ability to keep the race reasonably close. Of course, Clinton’s own historic unpopularity, combined with the reluctance of the electorate to give the same party control of the White House for twelve straight years, also helps Trump immeasurably. (It’d be fascinating to see by how much Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio would be ahead right now, had one of them won the nomination instead.)

I still think that, in the end, Trump will lose a race that literally any of the sixteen other Republican candidates in the primary could have won. Trump’s own unpopularity, combined with Clinton’s innate appeal to many voters as the first woman president, will eventually put her over the top. But either way, it should be close.

The Supreme Court in the 2016 Election

One of the very few good things about this election cycle is the emphasis that candidates for both President and the Senate have placed on the Supreme Court, and on the importance of nominating and confirming good justices. As important as the Court is, and has always been, the past few elections have all focused on issues like the economy or national security, with the judiciary getting little more than a passing mention in debates. While I wish it hadn’t taken the death of one of the greatest Supreme Court justices of the past century to drive the point home, it is important for voters to remember that the federal government has three branches, and the judicial branch is just as important, if less noticed, than the other two.

And, because this is 2016, that’s where the good news ends. Hillary Clinton’s judicial nominees would be far to the Left, and embrace a “living Constitution” judicial doctrine in which the words of the Constitution itself cease to have any meaning. The nomination of even one such justice to fill Scalia’s seat would be enough to form a liberal majority on the Court for the foreseeable future, and as both candidates love to point out, there could well be several additional vacancies over the next four years.

This is the part where Trump comes in, waving his list of potential Court nominees and saying, “All you conservatives, you have to vote for me because of the judges.” And the list he released in May was strong, with many reliable conservatives.

The problem is that the list was released by Donald Trump—absolutely nothing he says or does is binding. The day after releasing The List, he admitted that he also reserved the right to nominate someone else. The List was not comprehensive—as he had been arguing earlier that same week—but rather merely illustrated the type of justice he would probably appoint. In effect, not very different from his prior grand promises to appoint “the best judges” and “the best people.”

 And then you remember how Trump also said, last year, that his liberal, pro-abortion sister would make a “phenomenal” Supreme Court justice. And how many problems Trump has had with the Constitution in the recent past, from eminent domain and “opening up” libel laws to executive power and Article XII—all coupled with the fact that he also tends to hire people who are personally loyal to him alone. The prospect of a Trump appointment to the Supreme Court begins to look less and less appealing.

Gary Johnson, meanwhile, has promised to appoint judges who pay attention to “original intent” (his words), and in general has displayed a far better grasp of the Constitution, and the limitations of the federal government, than either Clinton or Trump. True, William Weld has voiced support for both Stephen Breyer and Merrick Garland as recently as last month. But compared to what both Clinton and Trump have said in the past with regard to the Supreme Court this is a minor comparison—even before we get to the part where, as Vice President, Weld would have no formal say in the appointment of judges.

So, to sum up—one candidate for President openly seeks to appoint extreme left-wing justices who support the idea of a “living Constitution”. Another candidate seems to believe that the ideal justice would place personal loyalty above all else, even when Constitutional principles like checks and balances, freedom of the press, and religious liberty stand in the way. And only one candidate regularly espouses Constitutional principles and has consistently promised to appoint strict originalist justices to the Court.

Remembering September 11th

Yesterday was the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. A decade ago, it would have seemed unthinkable that anyone would ever need to be reminded of that fact. And yet, fifteen years after the worst terrorist attack in world history, and the deadliest single attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, it seems as if more and more people need to be reminded of what exactly happened that day. Or rather, they know on an intellectual level what happened, but they’ve forgotten what it felt like, or forced themselves to forget.

We spent the first few years remembering, vowing each time to never forget those feelings of pain, loss, and anger—and afraid of another attack, just as devastating. Then, around the ten-year anniversary, people began wondering aloud why it was becoming so easy to forget those feelings, and why people were becoming so comfortable in their forgetfulness.

Today, some of that still goes on, but even those questions become fewer. Each year seems to bring fewer tributes on the nightly news, and fewer people willing to remember aloud.

On one level I suppose that’s to be expected. FDR said that the Pearl Harbor attacks would be a “day which will live in infamy”, but each decade also brings fewer remembrances, as those who lived through that day and its aftermath continue to die off. I’ll be honest: I usually have to look up which day it actually was. The eighth of December? The ninth? It seems like ancient history now, to me and many others.

But 9/11 still feels raw. The perfect recollection of everything that happened that day. The feeling of not fully comprehending what was going on, but seeing all the adults somewhere between worried and terrified and trying not to show it. As with those who lived through Pearl Harbor, nearly everyone alive on September 11, 2001 will never truly be able to forget that day.

And we shouldn’t, because that day changed the country, and the world, forever. We shouldn’t try to forget, because that day is part of our history, both the pain and the heroism of many who gave their lives, especially the first responders in the Twin Towers, and the passengers and crew members of United Flight 93. That day also displayed to the world some of what truly makes America great.

Go here for a list of all those who died in the attacks.

November Outlook (Part 3): The Governors

This is part three of a three-part series examining the 2016 Congressional and gubernatorial elections. For Part 1, go here. For Part 2, go here.

The twelve gubernatorial races, as usual, are the forgotten races of this presidential election. Unlike both the presidential race—America’s only true national election—and the races for House and Senate seats, which, though held within specific jurisdictions, have at least an indirect effect on the direction of the country as a whole, elections for governor are truly local. Furthermore, as the vast majority of gubernatorial races are held during midterm elections, those elections held in the shadow of the presidential contest often go nearly unnoticed by the national media.

Nevertheless, winners of the gubernatorial elections have just as much—if not more—of an influence over Americans’ everyday lives, particularly should the federal government begin to move toward the original, federalist model of the Constitution. And even in these truly local races, the effects of national debates can be seen, this year more than ever.

As generally happens in gubernatorial and other local races, both parties’ nominees are competitive in states not being seriously contested at the national level, and only three states can be considered safe for either party: Delaware, where Democratic nominee John Carney looks certain to succeed term-limited Governor Jack Markell; North Dakota, where state Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem will succeed retiring Governor Jack Dalrymple; and Utah, where incumbent Gary Herbert is leading the Democratic nominee by an average of thirty points in polls.

That leaves nine states where the race for governor is either being actively contested, or where there is potential for an upset, based on individual candidate strength, a state’s overall partisan lean, or another factor. I’ll briefly summarize each of these below.

Missouri: With most polling resources being focused on the presidential and Senate races, there hasn’t been much data for any of the gubernatorial elections, but the most recent polling in Missouri seems to give Democratic nominee Chris Koster an edge over Republican Eric Greitens. The state has leaned Republican over the last decade, especially at the presidential level, but the closeness of the presidential, Senate, and gubernatorial contests in Missouri this year makes it an open question whether that trend is reversing, or if this is yet more evidence of the harm Donald Trump does to down-ballot Republican candidacies.

New Hampshire: A toss-up, pure and simple. An open seat in a swing state, this could go either way, especially since New Hampshire is the only state to have not yet held primaries. But if the polls are right and Hillary Clinton wins the state by a large margin, she could have a large coattail effect for the Democratic nominee.

Vermont: This should be an easy win for Sue Minter, the Democratic nominee, but just two years ago the incumbent Democratic governor won reelection with only 1.2% of the vote, narrowly beating his Republican opponent in one of the bluest states in the nation and likely contributing to his decision not to run for another term. That stunningly slim margin may have been unique to those candidates and that year, but Vermont—like many other states—has shown a willingness to vote for parties at the local level they would never support for Congress or the Presidency.

West Virginia: Yet another state that enjoys voting for different parties for state and federal office. Democratic nominee Jim Justice currently holds a small but stable polling lead over his Republican opponent, although in this case two factors may work in the Republican’s favor—the rapid trend away from Democrats in the state, over just the past decade; and, ironically, the presence of Donald Trump on the ticket, who is popular in the state and could create a coattail effect for Republican Bill Cole even should Trump lose nationally.

Indiana: This race was always going to be close, with Governor Mike Pence’s narrow victory in 2012 and tepid approval ratings. The Democrats renominated the man who kept the race so close in 2012, John Gregg, but Pence’s withdrawal from the race following his nomination as Vice President, and his replacement on the ballot by Eric Holcomb, complicates things even more. The polling currently indicates a tossup.

Oregon: Another close race, according to the latest polls. This is actually a special election, following Governor John Kitzhaber’s resignation in 2015, just three months after winning reelection. He won that race by five points, and his initial election in 2010 by just two points, increasing the likelihood of another close race this time around. Current Democratic governor Kate Brown will likely pull off a win, due to Oregon’s status as a blue state, Hillary Clinton’s place at the top of the ticket, and the talent of many Oregon Republicans for losing winnable elections, but it should end up being close.

Montana: There’s no current polling of Montana, so how the race stands now is anyone’s guess. But incumbent Democratic Governor Steve Bullock is seeking reelection in a red state, and that fact by itself makes the road for him more difficult. Add the fact that he won office in 2012 by just one percentage point, and it’s probable that this will be another close race—although the Republican nominee, businessman and activist Greg Gianfonte, was selected after several high-profile officials passed on the race, and Bullock will likely pull out a win in the end.

Washington: Incumbent Democrat Jay Inslee currently has a small but stable lead over Republican Bill Bryant, although several close statewide elections over the past few years—including Inslee’s own election in 2012—have proven that Democrats should take nothing for granted. Still, Inslee will likely succeed in winning another term.

North Carolina: Easily the most competitive, and most talked-about, gubernatorial race in the country this year, the lead has fluctuated for months. Roy Cooper, the Democratic nominee and state Attorney General, has led Governor Pat McCrory in the past five polls, although most of those leads have been within the margin of error. This is also the one gubernatorial race featuring a candidate who has shown himself to be a man of deep conservative principle, repeatedly standing up for policies he believed in even as others warned of a political price. Hopefully McCrory will emerge victorious to continue steering the state in a conservative direction.

So, to sum up: Most incumbents running for reelection, with the exception of McCrory, look likely to keep their jobs, although the margins in many of those elections will likely be a little too close for comfort. The rest of the races feature a variety of candidates little-known nationally, who will likely do little to change their states in any substantive way. A few governor’s mansions could flip parties, changing the national tally, although Republicans will almost certainly keep their historic majority.

Yet again a case of retaining the status quo, regardless of many individual outcomes—except for the election in North Carolina, a race featuring strong ideological contrasts in a season where such contests are exceedingly rare.

November Outlook (Part 2): The Senate

This is part two of a three-part series examining the 2016 Congessional and gubernatorial elections. For Part 1, go here.

With the 2016 election likely to preserve the status quo in the House, most attention on Congressional races has been focused on the Senate side. There control for either party come 2017 is much less assured, with Republicans defending many more seats than Democrats—but also doing an exceptional job of keeping electoral disaster contained to the presidential ticket.

There are thirty-four Senate races this year, but only about ten are generally seen as competitive. Of those, all but one are seats currently held by Republicans. In Nevada, Republican nominee Rep. Joe Heck has been statistically tied with Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in the last several polls, and if he were to win the seat of retiring Harry Reid it would be a tremendous symbolic victory, as well as going a long way toward retaining control of the Senate.

Despite Donald Trump’s abysmal polling in many swing states, Republican Senate candidates are generally keeping their races close. Rob Portman looks increasingly likely to win in Ohio, with the DSCC cancelling ad buys. Kelly Ayotte is staying even with Democrat Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, even though Clinton is leading Trump by double digits in the state. Marco Rubio’s reentry in the Senate race in Florida makes it more likely that seat will stay red as well, and Pat Toomey as a small lead over his Democratic challenger in Pennsylvania.

There are five Senate races that would be keeping me awake at night if I were a Republican strategist: North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri. In Illinois, Sen. Mark Kirk looks like a goner against a top Democratic recruit in a blue state, even after disavowing Trump, but the attempt to keep that seat red was always going to be an uphill battle. And in Wisconsin, Sen. Ron Johnson has been a strong voice for conservative principles, but again, running in a blue-leaning state in a presidential year, with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket and former Senator Russ Feingold as an opponent, Johnson would have struggled even had he run on a voting record as moderate as Kirk’s. Both Johnson and Kirk seem likely to lose in November.

The three races that could truly decide control of the Senate, and also depend on Trump’s performance to a large degree, are North Carolina, Arizona, and Missouri. None were seen as likely to be competitive in 2014, but all three states demonstrate how much can change in two years. John McCain’s race in Arizona has been getting a lot of attention, but even though Roy Blunt in Missouri and Richard Burr in North Carolina haven’t received much attention yet from the national media, both the polls and a general sense on the ground among members of both parties point to close races in the final two months of the campaign.

From a conservative standpoint, it wouldn’t be a great loss if either McCain, Burr, or Blunt lost. None have exactly been known to stand for principle, all are considered members of the Republican establishment, and all rolled over and accepted Donald Trump early on in the primary process when there was still a chance at denying him the nomination. The only honest argument that could made for hoping for their reelections would be that their victories would dramatically increase the chances of a Republican Senate majority in 2017, a majority that could be important in checking the power of President Hillary Clinton.

Of course, seeing how successful that majority has been in stopping liberal excesses under a lame-duck Barack Obama, and how eager all three have been in the past to compromise conservative principles, that argument quickly becomes less convincing.

Overall, then, the Senate in 2017 will likely be little changed from the Senate today. I personally don’t believe McCain, Burr, or Blunt will actually lose (as things currently stand), but one or all of them could be in for a long, agonizing night in November.

As far as whether Republicans in general will keep the Senate, it’s basically a coin flip at this stage—although again, a Republican Senate in 2017 would be almost identical in composition to the one today, which has consistently failed to fight Obama on just about anything.

The only non-incumbent conservative to win a Senate primary this year was Darryl Glenn in Colorado, who the incumbent Democrat currently leads by a wide margin. Coupled with Ron Johnson’s likely defeat, about the only bright spots to be seen on the Senate map are in Florida, where Rubio thankfully changed his mind about reelection and will continue to be a semi-reliable conservative voice in Congress; Kentucky, where Rand Paul is virtually guaranteed another term; and Utah and Texas, where, barring some sudden resignation, both Mike Lee and Ted Cruz will continue to be two of the clearest voices for conservatism in decades.

As with the House, 2016 will likely shape up to be a largely status-quo election, although with Cruz, Lee, Rubio, and Paul in the Senate, it’s obvious that the status quo could be a lot worse.

November Outlook (Part 1): The House

The end of Labor Day marks the traditional beginning of general election campaigning—news to anyone who’s been watching the campaign dominate the daily headlines for months. Still, with state-level primaries nearly complete and two months until Election Day, now is as good a time as any to look at where the races for governor, Senate, and House of Representatives stand—races that get far less media attention, but are just as important as the presidential election in shaping the next four years. Today I’ll give an overview of the House elections, with installments on the Senate, as well as this year’s twelve gubernatorial races, coming later this week.

The short version: Regardless of who wins the presidency, Republicans (as of now) look likely to keep the House, but this has not been a good year for conservatives, anywhere on the ballot. Just two non-incumbents with widespread conservative backing, Jim Banks in Indiana’s Third District and Warren Davidson in Ohio’s Eight District, won their primaries. Davidson’s victory in a special election was particularly sweet, as he now holds John Boehner’s old seat and upon taking office promptly joined the Freedom Caucus, the group largely responsible for Boehner’s resignation.

Still, solid conservative challengers lost primaries for House seats in Florida and Georgia, and Tim Huelskamp, a solid conservative incumbent, lost his primary to an establishment-backed challenger. Meanwhile, several other principled incumbents, most notably Rod Blum in Iowa’s First, face difficult general elections.

The more comforting news is that many other conservative congressmen look all but assured of winning another term, including the vast majority of Freedom Caucus members. The most likely scenario (again, as of right now) is basically a status quo election in the House, with Republicans retaining control, although probably losing a few states from an historically large majority, and the number of conservative members holding steady. Of course if Trump begins tanking even more, that outlook could quickly sour.

The major disappointment for 2016, then, isn’t so much a dramatic loss in the number of seats held by either Republicans or tried-and-true conservatives, as much as it is a failure to live up to expectations. This was supposed to be the year when a large batch of energetic new Congressional recruits would join forces with a constitutional conservative presidential ticket to shake up Washington. Keeping the status quo for another two years is by no means the worst possible outcome, but it—coupled with the loss of Rep. Huelskamp—is yet another disappointment in a year already full of them.

Ann Coulter and the Mob Mentality

If this election has shown us anything, it is how willing many on the Right are to abandon nearly everything they once claimed to stand for, and make fools of themselves attempting to defend Donald Trump. The past eight years saw a similar display on the Left, as many Democrats swallowed their own words about Bush in order to defend Obama. Now it’s the turn of many of those same commentators, who pointed out the hypocrisy of the Left, to expose their own hypocrisy for the world to see.

And few have fallen as quickly, or as far, as Ann Coulter, who once relentlessly mocked liberals for their fetishizing of Obama. Now she is one of the most fervent members of the Cult of Trump, even saying last year, “I don’t care if [Trump] wants to perform abortions in the White House after this immigration policy paper.” She enthusiastically defends nearly everything he says or does, while attacking any conservative who refuses to fall in line behind him.

Ironic, because in Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America, her 2011 book that predates the Trump insanity, she decries many of the same things she now embraces—namely, mob rule and groupthink. If anything could be described as a cult-like mob, of the sort she opposed so fiercely in 2011, it would be a Trump rally.

Take Chapter Two, for instance—“American Idols: The Mob’s Compulsion to Create Messiahs”. Virtually everything in the chapter could be applied to the Trump campaign, with “Donald Trump” replacing “Barack Obama” and “Bill Clinton”. As she states on page 18, “Being rational individuals, conservatives don’t turn their political leaders into religious icons. Liberals, by contrast, having all the primitive behavior of a mob, idolize politicians.” A page later, after giving more examples of various media personalities comparing Obama to rock stars and rainbows: “It is impossible to imagine any conservative describing any Republican in such teeny-bopper patois.” And on page 22: “Perhaps conservatives aren’t looking for a savior on the ballot because they already have one. …the cultlike [sic] worship of politicians, common to mobs, is peculiar to Democrats.”

It’s impossible to gather together a comprehensive list of all the things the Ann Coulter of 2016 has said to contradict the Ann Coulter of 2011 (I would imagine her new book, In Trump We Trust, is a convincing attempt, although I haven’t had the stomach to read it). But examples are easy to track down online, and include this nearly unbelievable, apparently un-ironic quote from just last week: “My worship for him is like the people of North Korea worship their Dear Leader—blind loyalty. Once he gave that Mexican rapist speech, I’ll walk across glass for him. That’s basically it.”

Not much you can add after something like that. What would the Coulter of 2011 have to say today?

It would be easy to go on, deconstructing every sentence of Demonic and comparing statements from then and now, but I think the point has already been made. Ann Coulter was once a hard-hitting conservative icon, not afraid to tell the truth or hold liberals in either party accountable. But the rise of Donald Trump has turned her into a member of the very mob she once ridiculed, who eagerly cajoles and threatens others to join the Trumpian collective, all while eagerly worshipping her own version of the Anointed One.

The Iraq War Was Justified

The 2003 invasion of Iraq seems just as unpopular as ever, thirteen years after the bombing of Baghdad. You would be hard pressed to find any political commentator, candidate, sitting member of Congress, or general member of the public willing to say, on record, that the invasion was the right decision. The best you’d be likely to find are those who try to thread the needle, expressing something along the lines of “based on what we were told at the time, the invasion made sense.” And typically, both Clinton and Trump have flipped on the issue, going from supporting the war when it began to quickly turning against it the moment it became politically expedient to do so.

What’s been largely absent from the conversation is a firm argument that the Iraq invasion was the right course of action, both then and now. It was, and if I were a member of Congress at the time, knowing everything we know now, I would still support the decision to invade.

An important qualifier: This is not to say that the war was conducted perfectly from beginning to end. Mistakes were undoubtedly made, mistakes that if avoided could have saved lives and resources. But the overall objective of the war—to remove Saddam Hussein from power and end any WMD program the Iraqis might then be operating—was laudable and continues to make the world a safer place, for both America and her allies.

Donald Trump actually managed to get it right back in 2002. Responding to a question from Howard Stern on whether he supported the proposed war, Trump said, “Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly.”

Ideally, coalition forces would have advanced to Baghdad and removed Saddam back in 1991 during Desert Storm, rendering the 2003 invasion unnecessary. But that didn’t happen. What did happen is that Saddam spent the next decade slaughtering his own people, bankrolling terrorism and compensating the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and thwarting the repeated efforts of U.N. weapons inspectors to investigate the Iraqi biological weapons program.

Contrary to persistent rumors spread by some on the Left that Iraq never had a WMD program, Saddam’s government admitted as much many times over the years following Desert Storm. In addition to the several formal acknowledgements of the existence of a biological weapons program between 1992 and 1998, there were also several pieces of circumstantial evidence, consisting of weapons inspectors being periodically blocked from inspecting certain areas, sometimes by force—and culminating in the 1998 ejection.

In addition, since the initial invasion some previously undisclosed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have been uncovered, including sarin gas. Based on these facts alone, the arguments for invading Iraq begin to look stronger.

But the subsequent geopolitical effects of the war also raise new questions about the wisdom of the invasion—namely, the rise of ISIS.

Maybe ISIS would never have existed, or been considerably less powerful, had Saddam not been removed from power. Many have certainly argued that the Middle East as a whole would be more stable today with a single dictator, rather than the numerous terrorist groups, including ISIS, now flourishing in Iraq and Syria. But those arguments ignore the clear threat Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed—by virtue of prior experience, based on everything from his willingness to obtain and use WMDs against Iraqis, to the assassination plot against George H. W. Bush in 1993, to the stonewalling and eventual ejection of the U.N. weapons inspectors. The subsequent discovery of chemical weapons stockpiles only adds further weight to the argument that Saddam was a clear threat, to both the United States and regional allies such as Israel, and needed to be taken out.

And Saddam’s removal improved U.S. national security in other ways, as well. Most notably, and yet rarely reported, is the fact that Moammar Gadhafi, fearing that Libya might be the next country the United States invaded, voluntarily disclosed and began shutting down his own WMD program—only a few months after the initial invasion of Iraq had concluded.

Democrats, Donald Trump, and much of the media would like America to fully buy into the notion that the Iraq War was a manifestly bad decision from start to finish, but the truth is that the war made the United States, and the world, a safer place. The subsequent conduct of the war could have undoubtedly been better—in particular, a more detailed plan for rebuilding the country, as well as a more gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces, could well have prevented much of the turmoil of today—but the invasion itself was the right thing to do.

Policy Spotlight: Abortion and the Death Penalty

There was one notable contrast between the 2016 Democratic and Republican platforms on which few media outlets commented—the former’s support for abortion rights and opposition to the death penalty, and, conversely, the latter’s opposition to abortion and unequivocal support for the death penalty.

This dichotomy is nothing new for many individual members of both parties, as well as (of course) many independents, but this year is the first time that a major party has officially disavowed the death penalty in their platform, making it a significant illustration of a broader point. The key difference between the two parties (generally speaking) on issues of life now becomes, “At what points in life is non-natural death acceptable?” One party supports death at the very beginning of life, where the other party supports death only as punishment at the end of life.

Both abortion and use of the death penalty involve the taking of a human life. Both are considered by their respective detractors to be among the great moral evils of modern times. And both are even argued, again by their respective detractors, to disproportionally harm minority communities. But while anti-death penalty activists are celebrated for attempting to save innocent human lives, pro-life or anti-abortion activists are often ridiculed and attacked as opposing "a woman's right to choose." A fetus becomes a mere collection of cells, to be disposed of on a whim. And meanwhile, a convicted murderer earnestly argues for another chance at a productive life, while news outlets wonder what this man or woman might achieve, if not for the evil of a life taken before its time.

Whether liberals realize their hypocrisy is debatable. Some may well recognize it and sweep any realization of it out of their conscious mind, while others could truly believe that there is a difference between the two, and that abortion is truly a woman's unrestricted freedom, while the death penalty is an absolute moral evil in a world where most evil is relative.

There is a difference, but one directly opposite the liberal narrative. Abortion is the murder of an innocent human being, whose only sin is to exist, with unique brain waves, fingerprints, and heartbeat. The death penalty is the ultimate punishment for the worst criminal offenses, something not to be carried out lightly but necessary for justice to prevail.

The true moral evil is condoning the death of the innocent child, while allowing the mass murderer to escape true justice.