Trump critic loses GOP primary, after Trump endorses his opponent

The Trump brand on the GOP is now overwhelming

Over more than two decades, South Carolina voters forgave U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford for his quirkiness, his infidelity and his lies. But they could not forgive him for his criticism of President Donald Trump.

Sanford lost his first election ever Tuesday, beaten for the Republican nomination for another term in the coastal 1st District around Charleston by state Rep. Katie Arrington.

Less than three hours before the polls closed, Trump endorsed Arrington on his Twitter account with an especially personal shot at Sanford.

"Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina," the president wrote, referring to Sanford's trip to South America in 2009 to have an affair while his unknowing staff in the governor's office told reporters he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Sanford survived that public confession to the affair to win two more terms to the U.S. House. But Arrington made an issue of his criticism of the president, calling him a "Never Trumper."

One of her ads got personal too, saying "it's time for Mark Sanford to take a hike — for real this time."

After declaring victory Tuesday, Arrington asked Republicans to come together. And she reminded them who she thinks leads them: "We are the party of President Donald J. Trump."

Sanford won three terms for U.S. House in the 1990s, then two four-year terms as governor before the affair marred the end of his second term. He returned in 2013 and won a special election to his old U.S. House seat, holding on twice more.

Throughout his political career, Sanford has played up his outsider credentials — both in the U.S. House, where he supported a box to check on federal tax returns to put $3 toward the national debt, and as governor, bringing a pair of squealing pigs to the state House and Senate chamber to protest what he call pork spending.

But Arrington, who works for a defense contractor, has exploited that trait, pointing out Sanford's call for Trump to release his tax returns, his vote against Trump's border wall proposal, and his calling proposed tariffs on alumni and steel "an experiment with stupidity."

Sanford responded that he speaks his mind regardless of party and said he has shown over two decades he is a true conservative. In his remarks Tuesday night, he said: "I stand by every one of those decisions to disagree with the president."

Then there was the Twitter post just after 4 p.m. Tuesday. After attacking Sanford, the president backed Arrington.

"I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!"

Sanford is a second U.S. House member from the South attacked by a challenger for criticizing Trump. In Alabama, U.S. Rep. Martha Roby is in a July 17 runoff against former congressman Bobby Bright. Roby said two years ago that Trump's 2005 lewd comments about women, captured on an "Access Hollywood" microphone, made him "unacceptable as a candidate for president."

Arrington will take on Joe Cunningham, a construction lawyer and yoga studio owner who won the Democratic nomination Tuesday.

The district, which includes Charleston and the southern coast, has not elected a Democrat since 1978.

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Time for Trump’s Choice, Not Obama’s, to Head America’s Global Broadcast Operations

If war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means, public diplomacy is a theater where states use ideas instead of ordnance.

But in this important battlefield, the U.S. is not currently fighting with generals chosen by the commander in chief elected by the American people in 2016. The ideas are still being shaped by officials picked by President Barack Obama, not President Donald Trump.

All of this may be about to change now that the White House has announced its intention to nominate Michael Pack to replace Obama appointee John Lansing as head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency in charge of broadcasting operations in support of freedom around the world.

Pack, a documentary filmmaker, is a former executive with the liberal Corporation for Public Broadcasting and former president of the high-brow conservative Claremont Institute.

But don’t expect “The Resistance” to take Pack’s nomination lying down. Like those World War II Japanese soldiers who held out in Filipino jungles until well into the 1970s, that hardy band of stalwarts continues to refuse to acknowledge Trump’s victory.

The administration must stick to its guns as it steers Pack through the usual traps, most importantly confirmation hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.

For close to a decade now, diplomacy—including the public kind—has been used to promote liberal causes and lifestyles on which the American polity has not yet reached consensus. This use of taxpayer money does not serve U.S. national interests and must stop.

Lansing, a former president of Scripps Network, is one of the key officials who has been shaping public diplomacy during the 500 days of the Trump presidency. Another is Amanda Bennett, head of the Voice of America and also an Obama holdover.

Once confirmed by the Senate, Pack would be expected to sack Bennett, a veteran print journalist, and replace her with someone else in short order.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, with an annual budget of $684 million, oversees not just the Voice of America but other government-financed broadcasters such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Radio and TV Marti, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. They’ve all come under criticism for continuing to promote Obama’s policies and worldview.

Take Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. An independent study carried out under the auspices of the American Foreign Policy Council late last year found that Radio Farda’s broadcasts to Iran made no effort to describe the detrimental effects of the Iran nuclear deal signed by Obama but recently abandoned by Trump.

“Simply put, Iranians were told in detail that the Obama White House supported the agreement, and why. They have not been afforded the same explanations of current administration policy,” the study said.

Voice of America, meanwhile, has run stories undermining the Trump administration’s pro-life and immigration policies, and touting same-sex marriage.

The idea that the estimated worldwide audience of 175 million being reached by U.S. international broadcasting might be lost to liberalism’s message is enough to give some people the vapors.

Which apparently explains why the media hits on Pack keep piling on. An immediate one after the announcement of his nomination came from Hadas Gold, who wrote on CNN’s website that Pack is an ally of Steve Bannon,  Trump’s former chief strategist. The article noted “concern over Pack’s nomination” from “several sources” who supposedly fear that Pack would turn the Voice of America “toward a decidedly more pro-Trump bent.”

“Several staffers at the BBG [Broadcast Board of Governors] have told CNN they plan to leave if Pack is confirmed,” wrote Gold, as if this were somehow a disincentive to the White House to do anything but double down on Pack.

The more staid Foreign Policy magazine followed Monday by describing Pack as a “close ally” of Bannon and wrote that “critics have raised alarm bells over the proposed appointment.”

Both these reports, and others, point out that, under congressional changes Obama signed into law in his last year in office, the governing board would be turned into a less powerful advisory board, giving more power to its new CEO.

Underlying the angst over Trump’s using his power as president to name the heads of agencies is the canard that Lansing and his predecessors have been “more mainstream newsroom leaders” (in the words of Gold) than Pack.

That is somehow hard to square, unless one truly believes that Scripps is more “mainstream” than the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or Claremont Institute. More likely, “mainstream” just basically means “liberal” and Gold basically has substantiated the charge of conservatives who derisively use both words interchangeably.

There’s also the “Bannon ally” charge, shrouded as it is in all manner of innuendo. It seems to be based on the fact that Pack has worked on two documentaries with Bannon (two, in a 35-year career), and that last year Pack wrote this essay for The Federalist that mentioned Bannon.

One of the documentaries dealt with the two biggest battles of the Iraq War, Fallujah and Najaf, and the other with Adm. Hyman Rickover, a Jewish immigrant who was the father of the nuclear submarine. Hardly pitchfork populism, in other words.

Pack’s March 2017 article in The Federalist began by noting of Bannon: “Now that there is a documentarian in the White House, perhaps conservative documentaries can earn some respect—and a revival.”

Most of the article, however, was an accurate precis of how budding American documentary filmmakers are cultivated from university on through channels for distribution, credentialing, networking, and awarding so that they become leftists.

The process, Pack wrote, produces documentaries that “view American history and society solely through the lens of race, class, and gender.” Viewers and the nation, he averred, “would be better served by a diversity of views.”

Providing diversity to that 175 million-strong audience is why you are likely to hear more criticism of Pack. The administration better hang tough.

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Brent Bozell: The Entitled 'Comedy' Elites

What is it about our entertainment elites that makes them think they are so much wiser than everyone else? Why do they seem to think that comedians like Samantha Bee and Donald Trump impersonators like Alec Baldwin are going to save America with their rants?

The arrogance of the late-night "comedians" overflowed when Bee called Ivanka Trump a "feckless c—-." See how Bee's old boss Jon Stewart came rushing to her defense: "You could not find a kinder, smarter, more lovely individual than Samantha Bee. Trust me; if she called someone a ..." (Translation: The person deserve it.)

How hard would it be to find someone kinder and smarter than Bee? Most Americans could do it in 10 seconds. But that's how the vile entertainers stand up for one another. They are the true elites, engorged with self-absorption and disdainful of anyone who misses the point that they are the witty conscience of the country. Standards? They have none. They are above them. Thus, they viciously carve up conservatives in a way they would never dream of talking about their liberal heroes. (Rewind to Bee hugging Hillary Clinton and crying out, "It should have been you!")

Bee's arrogance was self-evident in her lame "apology" that began with a sarcastic "Sorry for breaking America." She shot back at critics: "Look, if you are worried about the death of civility, don't sweat it. I'm a comedian. People who hone their voices in basement bars while yelling back at drunk hecklers are definitely not paragons of civility. ... Civility is just nice words. Maybe we should all worry a little bit more about the niceness of our actions."

"(D)on't sweat it. I'm a comedian" is a Get Out of Jail Free card. They can compare conservatives to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden and Satan, but if you think that's too rough, "I'm a comedian." They can pretend to be policy wonks, and when their "facts" crumble, "I'm a comedian." They can make "jokes" about beheading the president, and that's not vicious ... when done by a comedian.

"Entertainers" like Bee should not have a platform to spew hateful, sexist slurs. Just like Kathy Griffin, she only apologized for her own selfish interest. As Bill Donohue of the Catholic League put it: "A comedian has no more right to obscenely insult people than a cop has a right to randomly beat a person up. Neither should be allowed to take cover hiding behind his status."

Liberals have argued that not only did Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump deserve to be "called out" for their inhumanity but also every vile insult of Donald Trump's family is somehow his doing. A columnist for the Washington Post even held Trump responsible for America's declining birthrate. (Liberals won't bring children into Trump's world.)

What responsibility do they think they bear for our discourse? In 2006, Baldwin wrote in the Huffington Post that then-Vice President Dick Cheney is a "terrorist" and a "lying, thieving Oil Whore. Or, a murderer of the US Constitution." In 2010, Stewart welcomed now-infamous accused sexual harasser Louis C.K. to "The Daily Show" and let him proclaim, "I was going to say that the Pope f—— boys, and I didn't have time." In 2012, Bill Maher welcomed former Gov. Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy by calling her the C-word and a "dumb twat."

Search for any condemnation from Tinseltown.

People like Bee and Maher mistake their rage-filled rants for humor and mistake their emotional contempt for conservative politicians for expertise. Most of all, these deluded leftists can't see how their vicious hot air is the wind beneath Trump's wings.

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56 Lawmakers Ask HHS Probe of Planned Parenthood’s Response to Child Sexual Abuse

A group of 56 lawmakers led by Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., is urging federal officials to investigate the extent to which Planned Parenthood fails to report suspected sexual abuse of minors.

In a letter Thursday to the Department of Health and Human Services, Hartzler and 55 other Republicans ask the agency to probe whether Planned Parenthood, as a recipient of federal Title X funds, “failed in its duty to report suspected child abuse to local authorities and to HHS.”

Hartzler and other signers announced the formal request of an investigation in a press conference Thursday morning at the Capitol.

Their letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar comes less than a week after the pro-life group Live Action released a report alleging Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, covered up evidence of child sexual abuse.

Among the signers are two senators—Joni Ernst of Iowa and James Lankford of Oklahoma. Besides Hartzler, the 53 members of the House requesting the probe include Chris Smith of New Jersey, Mark Walker of North Carolina, and Diane Black of Tennessee.

The Daily Signal previously reported that the Live Action study, “Aiding Abusers: Planned Parenthood’s Cover-Up of Child Sexual Abuse,” alleges that Planned Parenthood has been caught on multiple occasions providing abortions to victims of sexual abuse as young as 12 and 13, failing to report suspected sexual abuse to authorities, and sending victims back to their abusers.

The report singles out situations where it says abusers forced minors to get an abortion because they had become pregnant after rape and sexual abuse, while Planned Parenthood looked the other way.

Title X is a federal grant program for preventive and family planning health services.

In their letter, the lawmakers ask that Health and Human Services specifically investigate and make available:

All records (including from regional offices) regarding any and all incidents of Planned Parenthood Title X recipients’ failure to report suspected sexual abuse of minors in their care;

A record of the steps taken to bring the recipient into compliance each time it was discovered that a Planned Parenthood Title X recipient failed to report suspected abuse, and documentation of the consequences for each recipient that refused to come into compliance; and

Data from Planned Parenthood Title X facilities for the past 10 years showing in the aggregate how many children below their particular states’ age of consent received services that would indicate they were sexually active … as well as the number of reports of suspected child sexual abuse Planned Parenthood made to law enforcement during that same period.

Although a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood declined to comment on the lawmakers’ letter, she referred The Daily Signal to background materials in which media and other critics characterize Live Action’s video report as deceptive, heavily edited, and untrue.

President Donald Trump’s administration released text May 22 for a proposed rule that would force abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood to choose between federal funding and performing abortions under the same roof as other programs.

Conservative lawmakers have sought unsuccessfully to end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. The abortion giant, which received a total of $543.7 million in taxpayer dollars in 2016, contends that none of that money goes toward abortions.

Hartzler and the other signers of the letter to Azar write that Planned Parenthood receives about $60 million a year in Title X funds from taxpayers. It is the country’s largest recipient of the federal family planning funds, they say, and should not be aiding perpetrators of sexual abuse.

“In light of this [Live Action] report and the influx of federal resources to this organization,” the lawmakers write, “we respectfully request that you investigate Planned Parenthood, as well as other current Title X recipients, to determine how widespread the failure of abuse reporting is.”

In an email Thursday night to The Daily Signal, HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley wrote: “We have received the letter and will respond.”

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