The media divide over President Trump’s Speech at the UN

Anti-Trump people didn’t like President Trump’s UN speech, however, reasonable observers said that he did a pretty good job. 

Newsday, the paper out here in Long Island had the following headline describing Trump’s Speech: “President Trump’s divisive view of the world”. They went on to say, “Even looking through the prism of other incendiary speeches delivered by other world leaders at the United Nations, it was remarkable to hear an American president address the General Assembly yesterday and threaten to “totally destroy” another nation,” which is of course North Korea. 

Newsday went on to write “While there is nothing wrong with wanting to project toughness, trying to out-bully a bully is risky business. But we simply don’t understand enough about the state of play to know whether Trump’s threat was unwise. We don’t know what actions are planned, under way or already taken, in the military or cyber arenas. We do know that one real danger is that after it perfects its nuclear and missile technology, impoverished North Korea might try to sell it to other rogue states or independent actors. That is truly scary.” Ok, so why is being a tough guy against that being divisive? If Newsday understands the danger, what do you want to do? Newsday provided no solutions to Trump’s North Korea plan. 

The Wall Street Journal had this to say about Trump’s speech, “The President abandoned any nuance, even by his standards in denouncing the rogue regimes of North Korea and Iran. He was especially unabashed in describing North Korea’s offensives, calling it a depraved regime.” 

The Wall Street Journal goes on to say, “the threat to destroy the North offended the foreign affairs cognoscente who view Mr. Trump as a barbarian and at first hearing the rocket man reference to Kim Jong Un does sound like an insult better left to teenagers left in the school yard. Then again, Mr. Trump inherited the North Korean nuclear crisis and is trying to get a cynical world’s attention, but he intends to do something about it.” 

My view on this is that if Kim Jong Un attacks the United States or one of our allies, it will be war against his regime. He needs to know that and that was the message that Donald Trump gave to the World.

President Trump & Hillary Clinton criticize each other over North Korea

President Trump tweeted his response Wednesday to Hillary Clinton's criticism of his address to the U.N. General Assembly: "After allowing North Korea to research and build Nukes while Secretary of State (Bill C also), Crooked Hillary now criticizes.” 

In an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" Tuesday night, Clinton opined that calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "Rocket Man" wasn't the way to handle the threat posed by Pyongyang, and she told Colbert what she thought Mr. Trump should have said. 

"I thought it was very dark, dangerous, not the kind of message that the leader of the greatest nation of the world should be delivering," she said. "While of course, when you face dangerous situations, like what is happening in North Korea, to make it clear, your first approach should always be diplomatic."

"We view this as dangerous to our allies, to the region, and even to our country," she said. "We call on all nations to work with us to try to end the threat posed by Kim Jong Un, and not call him 'Rocket Man' -- the old Elton John song -- but to say it clearly: We will not tolerate any attacks on our friends or ourselves."  

Clinton's advice was that diplomatic efforts should be made first in dealing with the North. 

"When you face dangerous situations like what is happening in North Korea, to make it clear, your first approach should always be diplomatic," Clinton told Colbert. 

In 1994, the Clinton administration announced the Agreed Framework with North Korea, which provided for a nuclear-free peninsula in exchange for massive amounts of energy assistance from the United States. The Bush administration initially came out with a hardline stance toward the nation before softening its approach -- including removing the nation from its list of state sponsors of terror in 2008 -- in exchange for access to North Korea's nuclear facilities. 

The Obama administration also tried diplomacy, and North Korea agreed to halt its nuclear missile program in 2012 in exchange for food aid. 

For the liberals who think that Obama did such an excellent job on foreign policy, now we can see that nothing was accomplished during those 8 years, which is why we have missiles flying over Japan.

Trump’s Increasing Approval Rating

President Trump's approval rating is ticking upward following his response to two major hurricanes and his bipartisan negotiations with Democratic leadership, according to a new poll.  

Trump's approval rating now stands at 43% in a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released early Wednesday. 51% of those polled do not think Trump is doing a good job. 

Trump had an approval rating of 39% in last month's POLITICO/Morning Consult poll after his controversial response to the racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va. 

The president's favorability rating has improved among Republicans and independents, according to the pollsters.  

80% of Republicans now approve of Trump in the newest poll, compared to just 73% last month.  

Trump also saw a 5-point increase among independents, from 35% to 40%. His approval rating is unchanged among Democrats, Politico noted.  

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll of 1,994 registered voters was conducted on September 14-17. Its margin of error is 2 percentage points.

President Trump is pushing to revive the Republican healthcare overhaul

Senate Republicans have until Sept. 30 to pass their latest legislation, from Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, with 50 votes plus Pence as the tie-breaker. On Oct. 1, the start of a new fiscal year, the threshold reverts to 60 votes — an impossible hurdle since there are 52 Republicans and the Democratic caucus is solidly opposed. 

Pence, who was in New York with Trump and other senior administration officials to attend the U.N. General Assembly meeting, returned to the Capitol to tell Republican senators: "Now is the time. We have 12 days," according to a media pool report from Air Force Two. 

Trump and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, both phoned Pence during his flight from New York. Graham told reporters on Pence's plane that Trump had called him on Monday evening to urge action.  

Graham said Tuesday he has made an alliance with "Darth Vader" — referring to former Trump advisor Steven K. Bannon — for support to see the bill to passage. Bannon, who was portrayed as the villain on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," is back to running the website Breitbart, which is influential among conservatives, after being pushed out of the White House. 

"I have got Alan Greenspan, Jeb Bush and Steve Bannon" behind this bill, Graham said. "If anyone can do better, I'd like to meet them."

One Fifth of College Students Say Violence Against Controversial Speakers is Acceptable

A disturbing new poll shows that a full 19% of college students think that it is acceptable to use violence to disrupt a speaker who is saying "offensive and hurtful" things on campus. This number is slightly higher among students who identify as Republican compared to Democrat students (22 to 20%), and is significantly higher among male students (30%) versus females (10%). 

The survey was conducted by John Villasenor, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution as well as a professor at UCLA. Villasenor asked 1,500 undergraduate students at 4-year colleges and universities in 49 states and D.C. to answer some First Amendment-related questions and found some surprising results.  

The poll also found that nearly 40% of students do not believe that the First Amendment covers "hate speech" (which it does), and that slightly over half of the students surveyed believe that it is okay to shout down a speaker who is making controversial comments so that they cannot be heard. Unlike the question that concerned the use of violence to stop a speaker, this question found that significantly more Democrats (62%) were in favor of this technique compared to Republicans (39%).  

"The survey results establish with data what has been clear anecdotally to anyone who has been observing campus dynamics in recent years: Freedom of expression is deeply imperiled on U.S. campuses," Villasenor concludes. 

In other words, Brookings found that the increasingly radical and anti-conservative atmosphere fostered by faculty and administrators, who are overwhelmingly left-leaning, is bearing its inevitable fruit. 

The poll was taken over the last two weeks of August. 

Professors offer students extra credit to determine their level of ‘white privilege’

Students at San Diego State University have the opportunity to earn extra credit by determining their personal level of “white privilege.” 

Sociology professor Dae Elliot of San Diego State University has offered her students the opportunity to earn extra credit by filling out a form that reveals their unique level of “white privilege.” The form was inspired by the work of educator Peggy McIntosh, who helped popularize the concept of “white privilege” in the late 1980s. 

The examples of white privilege listed on the form include:

• I can choose blemish cover or bandages in flesh color and have them more or less match my skin.
• I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
• I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
• I can enroll in a class at college and be sure that the majority of my professors will be of my race. 

At the end of the quiz, students were also made aware of other forms of privilege, such as “gender, sexual orientation, class, and religion,” as well as asked to define any more types they can think of. 

Students were instructed by Professor Elliott to add up their scores, with a higher score meaning they had a high level of privilege and a lower score meaning they had a lower level of privilege. 

To earn the extra credit, students were told to also answer a series of questions given to them by the professor. They are: “Were you surprised by your score, or did it confirm what you already knew? Why is privilege normally invisible and what does it feel like to make it visible? Do you think this exercise is different for white students than for students of color? For black students than for Asian, Indian, Latino/a students, or other students of color?” 

Elliot told The College Fix that the exercise not only allowed students to earn extra credit but served as a healthy way to help students see from perspectives other than their own.

“Only through processes that allow us to share intersubjectively, weigh all of our perspectives according to amount of shareable empirical evidence can we approximate an objective understanding of our society,” she said. “It may never be perfect, in fact, I am sure we will always be improving but it is a better response if we are truly seekers of what is truth, what is reality. In a society that values fairness, our injustices that are institutionalized are often made invisible.” 

San Diego State University College Republicans President Brandon Jones condemned the exercise, calling the extra credit assignment “another attempt by the Left, and Professor Elliot, to divide America.” 

“The Left’s political goal is to ensure that minorities in America perpetuate that their primary problem is white racism. This only furthers the portrayal of minorities in America as victims and does nothing to help contribute to their advancement in society,” Jones added.

Mail Time!

• Mr. Trump’s speech at the UN was a kind that should be given by the World’s superpower. Straight to the point, strong, no apologies, it’s something that left nothing to the imagination when it came to Mr. Rocket Man’s future or lack thereof in case he persists to play around with fire. What a breath of fresh air and welcome change compared to the nonsense that 44 (Obama) dished out on a regular basis.

• Dallas wishes to consider erasing Franklin, Jefferson, Washington from the public arena. Does that mean they will likewise also erase Sam Houston from their public places including renaming the city of Houston? 

• Bill, I thought you were fantastic in your interview with Matt Lauer on the “Today” show. I have zero interest in watching “Today” so I’m thankful that you posted the interview on your website and Facebook. I’m proud of you. 

• Bill, I’ve been a Premium Member for a couple of months and would like to thank you for explaining issues and events in a concise, straightforward manor without the hyperbole mumbo-jumbo and bias that appears to be the new norm in network broadcasting. On the podcast you said that you think the health care proposal by the Republicans would let the individual states determine coverage, do you believe the bill will exclude coverage minimums or do you think the states will determine what they cover and what they will provide?

UPCOMING TOUR DATES & LOCATIONS

• On Saturday (9/23), Miller and I are going to be in Tampa, FL, at the Amalie Arena!
• This Friday (9/22), Miller and I will be in Baltimore, MD, at the Royal Farms Arena!  

Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence is out, so pick up a copy today!

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