What Newt’s Reading | September 16, 2020

What Newt’s Reading Joe Biden's leftward lurch, especially the pick of Kamala Harris, has hurt him in Pennsylvania where fracking is a major source of good paying jobs. - Newt Biden-Harris Have a Big Problem in Pennsylvania By Paul Kengor American Spectator Until recently, polls showed President Trump trailing in Pennsylvania. The multitude of Trump signs popping up all over the state now indicate there’s been a shift in support toward Republicans. This shift follows Joe Biden naming Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris has said she supports a total ban on fracking, an issue on which Biden has changed his position several times. According to the American Petroleum Institute, Pennsylvania could lose more than 550,000 jobs in 2022 if fracking is banned in the United States. Furthermore, Pennsylvania risks exacerbating its current budget crisis by foregoing fracking revenue if Harris’ stated policy goal is realized. Local Democratic politicians, including Rep. Connor Lamb, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, and State Rep. Rob Matzie, emphasize that fracking supports thousands of middle-class jobs and that banning it is not politically tenable. The most recent Monmouth poll of Pennsylvania shows a tight race between Trump and Biden, with a spread of between 1 and 3 points. Democrats could be in trouble if they continue their opposition to fracking. Pennsylvania's mail-in vote was a mess in the primary. We could see a repeat in November. - Newt Mail-Vote Madness in Pennsylvania By The Editorial Board Wall Street Journal Close to half of Pennsylvania’s counties were still tallying votes a week after the state’s June 2 primary. Philadelphia alone had 42,255 votes uncounted on June 11. If this trend continues in November, a closely contested presidential election could lead to havoc, as thousands of mail-in votes will take weeks to count. The US Postal Service’s ability to process all these ballots is doubtful, especially considering that in some states, such as Pennsylvania, residents can request a mail ballot as late as a week before Election Day. The Republican-led state legislature in Pennsylvania is moving a bill that would change the deadline to request a ballot to 15 days before the election, as the Postal Service recommends. But the bill is likely to be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tim Wolf. In response to probable delays in Pennsylvania and other states, some Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Marco Rubio, are attempting to postpone the meeting of electors from Dec. 14 to Jan. 2, raising the possibility that the country may not know its next president by Christmas this year. With some luck, states could fix the issues in their vote-counting procedures, but, in all likelihood, we are looking at a counting mess in November, with the real possibility of legal battles and violence in the streets. The Justice Department said Wednesday that there has been a 50% decrease in homicides in the first seven weeks of Operation Legend compared to the five weeks before the launch of the effort in Chicago. – Newt Barr Gives Operation Legend Update: Chicago Murder Rate Drops by 'Roughly' Half and 2,500 Arrests Made Nationwide By Jerry Dunleavy Washington Examiner In a press conference last week, Attorney General Bill Barr announced that 64 murders had been committed in Chicago in the month of August, down from 108 in July. This marks a nearly 50 percent drop in Chicago’s murder rate after federal law enforcement made 2,500 arrests, bringing charges against 600 defendants, as part of the Justice Department’s Operation Legend. The department reported that 124 defendants in Chicago were charged with federal crimes, including 30 for narcotics offenses, 90 for firearms offenses, and four more for other violent crimes. Barr stated that the Justice Department had dedicated hundreds of its assets, including investigators, analysts, and fugitive trackers, to restore order in Chicago. When asked why the Chicago police did not attend the press conference to present a united front, Barr insinuated that politics was the underlying reason behind their absence and that they had been invited. President Trump has been highly critical of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, calling her “a total disaster” for not maintaining order in her city. The Trump administration was right to end teaching critical race theory to federal employees. It rejects the Anglo-American legal tradition that underpins our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. - Newt The White House Is Right to Ditch Critical Race Theory By Bruce Abramson and Jeff Ballabon Newsweek On Sept. 4, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, issued a directive to remove all “divisive, anti-American propaganda” from government training programs. The directive aims in part to eliminate critical race theory. This move was promptly criticized by the New York Times, which alleged that the Trump administration was ending programs that promoted awareness of racism. Critical theory argues that all social structures, including family and government, represent exercises of power. The theory leaves no place for individual action to improve one’s status in life and argues for the downfall of all social structures as the sole remedy for power-based exploitation. Most importantly, this ideology runs counter to Judeo-Christian moral precepts and the Anglo-American tradition that underlies our founding documents by emphasizing collective power relations instead of individual action. Critical theory also arbitrarily classifies certain demographic groups as “oppressors” and others as “oppressed”, leading to widespread antisemitism as Jews are perceived to be oppressors despite being targets of bigotry. Anyone with a sound moral compass and a modicum of decency will support the Trump administration’s move to block the instruction of critical theory in the federal workplace.President Trump and Jared Kushner have taught the professional diplomats that peace is achieved by power and persistence, not vague words and lofty ideals. - Newt More Arab-Israeli Harmony By The Editorial Board Wall Street Journal President Trump’s appointment of Jared Kushner, a businessman and his son-in-law, as the man in charge of handling Middle East issues in 2017 was roundly mocked by professional diplomats as an example of nepotism that would lead to ineffective diplomacy. However, as Bahrain joins the United Arab Emirates in normalizing diplomatic ties with Israel, those critics should rethink their prior criticisms. Arab states are not normalizing ties with Israel because the Jewish state made concessions to the Palestinians; instead, they seem to be responding to Israel’s rising economic might and the need to check Iran’s imperial ambitions in the Middle East. The Arab League declined a Palestinian request to condemn the Israel-UAE accord as Israelis started making travel reservations to the UAE. Joe Biden’s campaign would do well to understand that peace is created by persistence and the show of strength instead of the repeated articulation of vague ideals. Newt's Latest Podcasts: Order Newt's Latest Book: https://www.gingrich360.com/trump-and-the-american-future