Bob Barr in Townhall.com

The Starbucks Corporation, which is credited with bringing premium coffee into the American mainstream, died this week as a parody of its former self, and following a long battle with acute Kumbaya-ism. The coffee chain was 47.

Founded in 1971, the Seattle-based coffee company began as a supplier of premium roasted coffee and coffee equipment. In 1982, Howard Schultz was hired as director of retail operations and marketing, and after briefly leaving the company to start a chain of Italian-style coffee cafés, Schultz eventually acquired Starbucks in 1987; pivoting the company to its current business model. By the time the company went public five years later, it operated 165 stores in the U.S. and Canada.

At the time of its death, Starbucks operated more than 25,000 stores worldwide.

Though its rapid growth is attributable to Schultz’s extraordinary business acumen and vision in the marketplace, Schultz also is responsible for the chain’s untimely demise. An obsessed patron of the liberal occult (such as the belief in an invisible and unknowable force called “unconscious bias”), Schultz relentlessly injected his personal, left-wing agenda into the DNA of the company.

While this strategy might at first have been innocuous, perhaps even commendable, including such tactics as offering full health benefits to all employees, and investing into numerous philanthropic endeavors, Schultz inevitably fell into a devastating cycle of political correctness, taking down with him the coffee empire he built.

Precipitating factors to its fall started years ago with Starbucks’ experimentation in rabid liberalism, but a post-mortem suggests an incident occurring in April to be the pivotal moment in which its Kumbaya disease went from curable, to terminal.

In this incident, the manager of a Philadelphia Starbucks store made a terrible lapse in judgment by calling police on two African-American patrons who asked to use the restroom while waiting on a third member of their group to arrive. The men reportedly declined to purchase any beverages while they waited, which violated a “loose” store policy for restroom use.  The men refused to leave, saying they were there to meet their friend, a real estate developer, who was on the way.  All this led the manager to call police – a decision Starbucks (rightfully) said never should have been made.

Rather than responding to the incident with an immediate apology and disciplining the manager, it is now believed to be Schultz’s addiction to political correctness that drove him to overreact in such a manner that set into motion events that would be the company’s ultimate undoing.

On Tuesday, 8,000 Starbucks stores and offices across the United States closed (at no small expense) for training on race relations and “unconscious bias” – the aforementioned term for racism, which individuals do not know lives within them. Though experts warned this type of employee re-education, if it even makes a lasting difference on a largely transient workforce, “has mixed effects” and “can even backfire,” Schultz pressed forward in spite of these potential consequences.

Also found to be a contributing factor to its death, in the days preceding this training, Starbucks, at Schultz’s direction, announced a change to its store policy, henceforth allowing anyone to loiter on its property and use its restroom facilities regardless of whether they make a purchase. “We don’t want anyone at Starbucks to feel as if we are not giving access to you to the bathroom because you are less than; we want you to be more than,” Schultz feverishly stated in what had become a regular manner of mixing nonsensical liberal gobbledygook with major business policies.

With investors already concerned by ominous indicators like the chain’s dwindling afternoon sales, when according to reports coffee consumption rises at this time, Schultz’s liberal delusions did little to quell the fears that he had lost touch with reality. It seems Starbucks’ remaining customers, who had not already abandoned “corporate coffee” in favor of local stores on the same liberal principles ironically possessed by Schultz, were also unmoved by the decision to turn their favorite places for meetings or to study, into homeless encampments because of a moral duty to society.

With its lifeforce drained, and failing to be replenished by Schultz’s empty vision of making people “more thans” by giving them restroom keys, maybe-probably-but-not-really making store employees less racist through one-day training classes, and stripping managers of their autonomy to run individual stores as needed, the brand we once knew as Starbucks coffee quietly expired.

Starbucks is survived by Schultz; the empty shell of a once visionary business leader; and, a bizarre corporate manifesto in which coffee chains should not really sell coffee, but instead “nurture the human spirit.”

Condolences may be sent to @Starbucks via social media in the form of hashtags about lost causes.

Townhall.com

America is nearing the point at which graduating high-school seniors have never known a United States not at war.  These young people will have never boarded a commercial aircraft without first submitting to uniformed strangers wearing blue gloves scanning their belongings and touching their bodies.  They have never engaged in an electronic communication free from potential eavesdropping by government-run super computers.

This strange new world is the direct result of the fear-of-terrorism that has gripped the United States since September 11, 2001; and if many in the United States Congress have their way, this state of affairs will be further enshrined in a resolution that will place our country on what amounts to a de factoperpetual war footing. The vehicle chosen for this action is a “new and improved” Authorization for the Use of Military Force (“AUMF”) to replace two earlier versions that have been stretched beyond any reasonable recognition by three Presidents.

The joint resolution now awaiting consideration in the Senate was crafted by lame duck Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee and Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine (D-VA).  It would replace the 2001 Authorization that empowered President George W. Bush to pursue those responsible for the 9-11 attacks (but which has been mis-cited and mis-used ever since to justify all manner of foreign and domestic government actions, including warrantless surveillance of citizens’ electronic communications).  The new version also would replace the 2002 AUMF that justified Bush’s invasion of Iraq without the constitutionally-required congressional Declaration of War.

If the intent of those supporting this new AUMF is to reduce the latitude presidents now enjoy in committing American forces in combat abroad, or to somehow restrict the government’s power to engage in constitutionally-problematic actions such as warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens, the Corker-Kaine resolution does not come close to meeting either goal. Where the previous AUMFs were stretched to justify fights far beyond 9-11 and Iraq (their stated purposes), this new one identifies five entities (and an unlimited number of “associated forces”) against which the U.S. President may at any time employ military force anywhere on Planet Earth.

Defenders of what is essentially a perpetual war authorization cite a requirement in the pending Resolution for the President to submit a quadrennial report about military operations covered under the AUMF.  This is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.  Presidents regularly ignore such reporting requirements, and Congresses rarely hold administrations accountable for such failures.  Moreover, in this instance, the only way the Congress could stop military action with which it disagrees, would be to pass legislation in opposition; the president would then veto the legislation, secure in the knowledge that only in the rarest of instances will Congress override such veto.

Making matters worse – but consistent with historical precedent — the new AUMF comes without any “sunset clause,” which would force Congress and the President to at least debate the issue of committing the country to military action.

Whereas the earlier two AUMFs required presidents and Congresses to engage in at least semantic gamesmanship in order to fit their desired policies within the four corners of the legislation; this new version will demand not even such minimal effort.  The Corker-Kaine Resolution discards even the barest fig leaf of legal or constitutional justification; it will gift the current and future presidents a prospective rubber stamp for whatever they decide to do in the name of “fighting terrorism” at home or abroad.

No rational person would question that fighting America’s enemies since 9-11 has become exponentially more complicated as borders have disappeared, and as technology has greatly magnified the ability of even individual actors to cause great harm in any city in any country across the globe. And none but die-hard pacifists would deny that the government must maintain a robust ability to defend against such threats.

In decades past, however, presidents, Congresses, and the American people possessed at least a measurable understanding of the need for checks and balances on the government when acting to meet serious national security challenges.  It was that social contract that prevented and at times corrected abuses of unbridled power.

If the American people now choose to dispense with those checks and balances by way of this new Authorization for the Use of Military Force, then we will have moved perhaps irreversibly toward a state of perpetual war.  Thus would America more closely resemble an elective monarchy than the representative democracy sought to be enshrined in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers.

Townhall.com

Like all services the government provides, incarcerating the estimated 1.5 million inmates in America’s prison system sooner or later falls victim to the laws of scarcity. There is only so much room for so many prisoners; there are only so many people willing to work for minimal wages in high-risk prison environments; and budgets for all of it are not infinite (already topping $80 billion at all three levels of government).

One might hope that lawmakers in Washington finally would be ready to address the problems manifest in our over-criminalized society and our already over-crowded prisons, by passing legislation that starts to reform rather than enlarge penalties and prisons.  Sadly, this is far from clear.

While many Democratic lawmakers and a growing number of their Republican colleagues in recent years have endorsed meaningful reforms to our bloated and antiquated criminal justice system, their efforts have met stiff resistance from hardline conservatives whose only response to crime is harsher sentences and more prisons.

On the Republican side of the aisle, criminal justice reform efforts have been encouraged by local success of such reform in 30 states including Georgia, Texas, and South Carolina.  Reforms measures adopted in those and other states have resulted in substantial drops in incarceration rates and criminal recidivism. 

Now, one such reform bill, modeled after these state-led successes, will soon be taken up by the U.S. House, after passing the House Judiciary Committee last week. But its fate, unfortunately, remains uncertain.

The FIRST STEP Act (H.R.5682) is far from incorporating the sweeping changes necessary for fixing the deeply-rooted problems in our criminal justice system, of which overcrowding is but one symptom. Nevertheless, it is a genuine “first step” in the long road to a comprehensive criminal justice overhaul.

The need to relieve the pressure cooker environment of mass incarceration is driving much of the support behind this effort.  However, and as the legislation’s sponsors make clear, measures to reduce incarceration rates and to give ex-felons at least a fighting chance to become productive members of civilian society, must at the same time not endanger the public.  This is where the reality of sensible criminal justice reform meets the irrational rhetoric of the hard right.

The FIRST STEP bill approaches this balancing act by allowing offenders identified as low-risk for recidivism to earn time credits and be permitted to serve the duration of their sentences outside the prison walls; in home confinement, halfway houses, or community supervision. Jason Pye, Vice President of Legislative Affairs at FreedomWorks, one of the organizations leading in this fight, describes the provisions included in FIRST STEP as “the lowest hanging fruit of criminal justice reform.”

Viewed thusly, FIRST STEP should be an easy “yes” vote for members on both sides of the aisle – reducing prison overcrowding, saving taxpayers money, and paving the way for non-violent offenders to reenter the civilian workforce.

Unfortunately, even the very limited and specific scope of FIRST STEP has been twisted and tortured by “Jail, Baby, Jail!” Republicans in the House and Senate; who continue to deny the reality of our current system, while offering no meaningful alternatives. 

Despite the ease with which similar reforms have passed at the state level (often led by Republican governors), which Pye ascribes to the universal recognition that anti-recidivism programs are a fundamentally positive way to reintegrate previously-jailed individuals back into society, congressional opponents of FIRST STEP have deliberately mischaracterized its provisions in order to drive fear into the hearts of constituents back home.

It is difficult to fathom what it is that these Republicans find so abhorrent about even minimal reform of our criminal justice system. Republicans at the state level, including former Texas Governor Rick Perry (now President Trump’s Secretary of Energy), talk glowingly and accurately about the impact of their reforms; especially noting the savings to taxpayers.  And, it is important to note that Perry’s reforms in Texas went much further than the basic reforms in FIRST STEP.

Perhaps these “Just Say No” Republicans are confusing the common-sense prison reform supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, with the radicalism of Black Lives Matter; or, perhaps they lack even the most basic degree of compassion for non-violent, low-level offenders to ever again reenter society and contribute to their families and communities. Whatever the case may be, their close-mindedness continues to present a very real impediment to the win-win for taxpayers and ex-offenders that would result from passage of the FIRST STEP Act and its signing by President Trump.

If Trump and the leaders at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue really press for passage of this legislation, and push back against the stubborn emotionalism of its detractors, American society will reap significant benefits at virtually no cost to safety or justice.

Townhall.com

After several hours walking the exhibit hall last Saturday at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Dallas, Texas (which I attended as a member of the Association’s Board of Directors), I sat down to watch and read the news accounts of the event, which brought together some 88,000 men, women and children. Watching and reading many of the media’s description of the convention, I was struck by the vast disconnect between those commenting on the event from the outside, and those attending the event on the inside.

The convention itself was marked – as it is every year – by complete civility with not a hint of any violent or even unruly behavior. Convention goers came from across America, including from Florida where, just two months before a deranged criminal went on a murder spree at a Parkland high school. Attendees came to Dallas to socialize, to inspect the latest products offered by the firearms and hunting industries, to hear from political leaders, and generally to show support for our country and the Constitution.

Yet, if one were to believe many of the reports by outside interests, it would be easy to conclude that the 2018 NRA Convention was a gathering of irresponsible, murder-sympathizing automatons whose only goal in life is to squeeze the trigger of a machine gun and laugh fiendishly while doing so. That anti-NRA narrative has been voiced in recent years by groups such as the Bloomberg-financed “Everytown for Gun Safety” and the gun-hating “Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.”

This year, the ranks of the Blame-the-NRA-for-Everything movement has been joined by a cadre of high schoolers led by one David Hogg; whose profanity-laced rhetoric is matched only by his lack of understanding of, or concern for, facts or history. The mainstream media, of course, gleefully offers these post-Millennial adolescents a regular forum from which to criticize the NRA and its supporters.

Predictably, outside pundits criticized the speeches by the NRA leadership as over-the-top in terms of substance and style.

Make no mistake — the speeches by the leaders of the NRA were a clarion call to the Association’s membership and supporters everywhere. Neither they nor President Trump (who attended, along with Vice President Pence) pulled any punches in calling out the distortions and prejudices regularly displayed by the mainstream media, Bloomberg’s forces, and liberal politicians when it comes to the Second Amendment.

If people think the NRA is overstating the challenges currently facing the Second Amendment and its supporters, think again. In a recent opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times, former Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens argued for the outright repeal of the Second Amendment. The former Justice obviously still is smarting from the High Court’s 2008 opinion upholding the Second Amendment as guaranteeing the individual right to possess a firearm. Stevens’ dissent in that opinion reflects the view favored by countless other gun-control advocates, who long had hoped that the Court would adopt their interpretation of the Amendment as protecting some amorphous collective right to own a firearm.

Stevens’ sour-grapes editorial will, of course, be waved around by Bloomberg’s crowd and others who refuse to blame the real culprits for gun violence; factors that were on tragic display in the Parkland incident – poor police training, lack of physical security measures, failure to follow-up by federal law enforcement, poor parenting, and more. Notwithstanding Stevens’ wrong and already-rejected analysis of the Bill of Rights, the fact remains that no less a legal “expert” than a former Supreme Court Justice now has publicly advocated for the outright repeal of the Second Amendment. In this environment, it is hardly an “over-reaction” for the NRA and its supporters to pointedly and repeatedly voice concern.

In the final analysis, it is not Hogg and his young band that today concern the NRA and the tens of millions of Second Amendment advocates. The real adversaries are the heavily-financed, well-organized, and technologically-proficient purveyors of the false gun-crime narrative — Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, and others. These false prophets will use whatever tools appear on their radar with which to further their anti-firearms agenda; but it is they who pull the strings.

It is crucial for the NRA to stay its charted course and not be drawn off track or off message. And there is no better person to lead that effort right now than Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North (ret.), the incoming President of the National Rifle Association of America.

The American Spectator

The only thing missing is Robert Mueller’s involvement.

“CMS” is the acronym for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the agency responsible for managing the massive federal Medicare and Medicaid programs. In North Carolina, an unfolding scandal with allegations of Corruption, Money and Sexual misconduct may give a whole new meaning to “CMS.”

The saga involves that state’s Democratic Governor (Roy Cooper), his hand-picked director of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (Dr. Mandy Cohen), and at least one Republican state legislator.

The political backstory to this tale begins with Cooper surprising the pollsters and his opponent — incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory — in November 2016 by winning a narrow victory. Through deft sleight-of-hand, and taking advantage of a quirk in state law, Cooper arranged an early swearing-in for himself just minutes after midnight on January 1, 2017. That legerdemain allowed Cooper just 12 days laterto appoint Cohen, at the time Obama’s Chief Operating Officer of Medicaid, to head the North Carolina DHHS before Barack Obama left office.

Thus was set the stage for the Cooper Administration to bring to a screeching halt what had been one of his predecessor’s top priorities — rolling back years of reckless spending by North Carolina Democrats. One of McCrory’s main targets had been Medicaid spending in the state; which had come to swallow nearly $15 billion of North Carolina’s $23 billion annual budget.

The runaway Medicaid spending had placed North Carolina in a financial bind, with little cash for anything else. Thus, in 2015 McCrory and the Republican state legislature passed a law that would limit Medicaid spending, remove management of the program from the state Health Secretary and contract it out to private companies, and prohibit further expansion of the program; all steps permitted under federal law.

As soon as Cooper had himself sworn in early, he immediately submitted a request to the Obama Administration to illegally expand Medicaid and maintain government control of the program.

A week later, and not by coincidence, the Obama Administration declared it would expedite approval of Cooper’s expansion. The very same day, Cooper announced he would name Cohen who, as the responsible CMS official in the Obama Administration, hadjustapproved Cooper’s illegal Medicaid expansion request.

The only speed bump encountered by the Cooper-Cohen team was the result of quick thinking by North Carolina Senate President Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, leading to a federal court order blocking the scheme until the Trump Administration took office and shut it down. Undeterred, Cooper set out to expand Medicaid anyway; by undercutting the Republicans’ 2015 law.

Any good corruption story needs money, and here there was plenty to be found. As the newly minted state Health Secretary, Cohen cleverly rebranded the state law from Medicaid “reform” (read, “reduction”) to Medicaid “transformation” (that is, “expansion”). This “transformation” magically expanded Medicaid coverage and services via more than 13 new concepts.

The next step for Cohen was to gain access to the vast Medicaid money then being managed not by the government bureaucracy she now ran, but by an independent Managed Care Organization (MCO). The MCO in question here, Cardinal Innovations, had been created under state law by Republicans, to more efficiently administer the program and to prevent Democrats from endlessly expanding it. Cardinal had done just that; so well, in fact, that in 2016 the Charlotte-based MCO was recognized as one of the best Medicaid health plans in the country for its quality of care and low cost to taxpayers. That success notwithstanding, Cohen set out to take control of Cardinal.

First, Cohen needed to clear out Cardinal’s CEO, Richard Topping, a former George W. Bush appointee, who is considered to be one of the GOP’s few experts in Medicaid. Next, Cohen used the power of her state post to disband the Cardinal board and pack it with Democrats loyal to her and Cooper. The new and compliant leadership included Carmen Hooker-Odom, who had been health Secretary to disgraced former Governor Mike Easley; and Bryan Thompson, a lawyer who had twice been charged with defrauding the elderly.

So much for the corruption and the money. The allegations of sexual misconduct come in through a side door, via a Republican supporter of Cohen, State Sen. Tommy Tucker. Tucker’s distaste for Cardinal was apparent at a March 26, 2018 news conference he attended and referred to Topping as a “rat.” The reason for such animosity comes into focus upon digging a bit deeper.

Tucker’s presence at the news conference reminded people that Cardinal was formerly was known as Piedmont, a healthcare provider that treated patients in Tucker’s district. In 1999, Tucker served on Piedmont’s board. In December of that year, he became embroiled in allegations of sexual misconduct involving a female board member. Tucker was an elected official; the woman a local government employee. As Alice in Wonderland observed, things become “curiouser and curiouser.”

The Chairman of the Cardinal board ousted by Cohen, Lucy Drake, was also on that Piedmont board with Tucker. It was Drake who had challenged Tucker on the sexual misconduct allegations, and demanded that he be removed from that board. In January of 2000, Tucker was notified by Richard Stone, another elected official, that if Tucker did not resign, Stone would hold an open meeting on the allegations against him. On January 31, 2000, a mere 56 days after having been reappointed to the Piedmont board for a second term, Tucker resigned.

As this saga continues to unfold in the courts, and in the political arena, the real losers are the people of North Carolina; both those who rely on the Medicaid safety net for vital care, and the state’s taxpayers who once again are funding expansionist spending by conniving Democrats uncaring about laws or ethics.

Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, Updated

Bob Barr

5/2/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

As the little girl in the movie “Poltergeist” declared, “They’re baaaack.”  This time, however, it is not evil ghosts reappearing to make us shiver, but real-life leftists transforming their mid-20th century social movement centered on college campuses and anti-war rhetoric, to one far more subtle and multi-pronged. Hillary Clinton’s college mentor, socialist Saul Alinsky, the Rasputin behind that 1960’s movement, drafted the roadmap for the radical Left to achieve its transformational goal of socializing America.  They fell short of their goal, but only with regard to the timeline.  Now, in this early 21st century, Alinsky’s manifesto is being updated and expanded; and one of its prime implementers may surprise you.

The non-profit community, long a meeting place for far-left sympathizers and Democrat do-gooders, now is in the vanguard of defining and implementing what Alinsky defined more than four decades ago as “Rules for Radicals.”

Alinsky’s 13 rules, combining psychology with political activism and brutal single-mindedness, is an undeniable masterpiece when it comes to neutralizing one’s opponents. Yet, as timeless as Alinsky’s rules may appear, they are not indelible.

Today’s liberals have, with some exception, evolved passed the raw violence of predecessors like the Weathermen, a late-60s urban terrorist group. Instead, the new weapon of choice is more cleverly camouflaged and dangerous. Riding on the coattails of post-modernism forced on us by university professors and pandering politicians, is the notion that objective “truth” is fiction, and that facts are simply a matter of shaping perspective. 

It seems fitting then that a 14^thRule should be added to Alinsky’s original 13: “Truth is what you make it to be.”  Facts no longer are the “stubborn things” of an earlier age, but simply concepts to be defined by their presenter.

The act of lying with the intent to deceive is as old as the story of man. What makes today’s deception so different is the intentional manipulation of truth as a strategy for political gain; a process so convincing,apparently, that even those who spin the falsehoods come to believe their new “reality.” After all, the goal is not to create a believable fiction, but to so tweak and distort the underlying facts that the fiction becomes the new truth. And, while it may seem only the most sociopathic could handle the mental and moral burdens of pursuing this tact in furthering a political cause, the Rule is more mainstream among the Left than we should hope.  And here is where the non-profit community comes into play. 

In last month’s edition of Nonprofit Quarterly, a publication well-regarded and widely-read in the non-profit sector, contributor Susan Nall Bales details a new roadmap for “revolution” based upon the successes of the Parkland High School students who made headlines advocating for gun control. In it, Bales calls for reframing the debate about guns to focus less on facts, and more on “crafting of explanatory stories,” which “connect the dots for people and give them a complete story about how the world works that they can share with their social circles.” In other words, treat “facts” are secondary to the overall narrative you wish to create, as long as it is compelling and persuasive.

Perusing Bales’ article, the dots become more clearly connected in understanding today’s myriad of social movements on the Left; movements driven not by logic or reason, but by a sense of pure emotional superiority.  For the Parkland Kids, the objective facts on gun control, gun crimes, and complexities of stopping mass shootings, are of minor importance; as they did not fit theirnarrative that kids are sent to school every day to be slaughtered because the National Rifle Association has all of Congress in its pocket. It was a story they sold well to the public; at least until the public realized that while students demanded the rest of the nation surrender their Second Amendment rights, the simple requirement of wearing clear backpacks was somehow a grave injustice to their First Amendment rights.  

Bales would likely only fault them for failing to stick to the original script.

And, while we might remain optimistic that society as a whole would be able to recognize and reject this truth-bending, consider how easy Michael Bloomberg’s non-profit, anti-gun organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, has been able to drive the national debate about mass shootings by propagating demonstrably false information about school shootings, which is then soaked-up and reproduced by the Mainstream Media. Despite the reality that people are objectively far safer from gun violence than in the 1990s, the public has been intentionally lead to believe another far-scarier reality as a direct result of Everytown’s alternative truth-telling, because that is more supportive of its agenda. 

While much of the non-profit world focuses right now on gun violence, this simply reflects the fact that it is an evergreen subject currently in the headlines.  The Left’s real agenda encompasses far more than gun control; and its use of the non-profit community — with fingers in so many pies and flush with dollars — to further that transformation, is a tactic that would make Alinsky proud.