Mormon Choir On Trump Inauguration: We Will Perform Despite Opposition

The Daily Caller ^ | 3:42 PM 12/23/2016 | KATIE JERKOVICH 

Pressure is mounting on the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir to not perform at president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony in January, but the choir is not backing down.

In a Friday statement to The Daily Caller, the choir responded to an online petition that wants to the choir not to sing at Trump’s inauguration. The statement said while the group has received “mixed reactions,” it will still perform for the 58th Inauguration in Washington, D.C. just as it has done in the past. (RELATED: Mormon Tabernacle Choir Agrees To Perform At Trump Inauguration)
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and church leaders sing together in the Conference Center during the 186th Annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on April 2, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images
“Response to the announcement has been mixed, with people expressing both opposition and support,” the statement read. “The Choir’s participation continues its long tradition of performing for U.S. Presidents of both parties at Inaugurations and in other settings, and is not an implied support of party affiliations or politics. It is a demonstration of our support for freedom, civility and the peaceful transition of power.”
By Friday afternoon, the petition had garnered more than 7,400 signatures demanding that the group back out because if they perform, it “sends the wrong message to [Mormon] children” about a president-elect’s “words and actions” that they claim do not align with their values.
Sponsored Content 20 Horrifying Photos From The Vietnam War 20 Horrifying Photos From The Vietnam War LifeDaily 93% Of Americans Can't Pass This U.S. History Quiz. Can You? 93% Of Americans Can't Pass This U.S. History Quiz. Can You? Offbeat Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models Hannah Davis, Chrissy Teigen, And Nina Agdal Get Extreme DirecTV Makeovers Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models Hannah Davis, Chrissy Teigen, And Nina Agdal Get Extreme DirecTV Makeovers Fast Company Sponsored Links by “We, as signers of this petition, believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ decision to allow the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to perform at the upcoming presidential inauguration of Donald Trump DOES NOT reflect the values of Mormonism and does not represent its diverse 15+ million members worldwide,” a statement on the petition read. “We also believe that an official LDS organization performing at a presidential inauguration gives the perception that the LDS Church and its diverse 15+ million members worldwide support an incoming president’s agenda, values and behaviors. ”
“The Church’s participation will harm this spectacularly talented and beloved choir’s image, misrepresent the diversity of Mormons worldwide, and sends the wrong message to LDS children as they will perceive the Church’s participation as endorsement of a president whose words and actions do not align with our values.”
On Thursday, a statement on the choir’s website confirmed it would be performing, just as it had for numerous other presidential inaugurations.
“At the request of the U.S. Presidential Inauguration Committee, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has accepted an invitation to sing at the swearing-in ceremony during the presidential inauguration at the U.S. Capitol next month in Washington, D.C,” the choir announced in a statement. “This performance will mark the sixth time the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has sung at an inauguration.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/23/mormon-choir-on-trump-inauguration-we-will-perform-despite-opposition/#ixzz4ThvO1aPq

MSG Says Rockettes Make Choice to Perform at Trump Inaugural (Union rules boycott 'invalid')

Hollywood Reporter ^ | 1:46 PST 12/23/2016 | by Abid Rahman 

The union representing the famed Radio City troupe ruled any boycott of the Jan. 20 event as "invalid" and that all full-time dancers were "obligated" to work. Team Trump's preparations for the presidential inauguration descended into further drama on Thursday when a dancer from the Radio City Rockettes took to social media to express her disappointment in having to perform at the Jan. 20 event and further aired her fear of losing her job if she refused to do so.

Already struggling to attract top talent, the president-elect's inauguration team added two more acts to the roster on Thursday, announcing the Rockettes and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, who will join America's Got Talent star Jackie Evancho on the D.C. stage.
Not long after MSG Entertainment, owners of the Rockettes, confirmed their participation, dancer Phoebe Pearl posted a now-deleted message on her personal Instagram account to express her embarrassment and disappointment.
Donald Trump READ MORE Trump Doesn't Want "A List" Celebs at His Inauguration Pearl said: "I usually don’t use social media to make a political stand but I feel overwhelmed with emotion. Finding out that it has been decided for us that Rockettes will be performing at the Presidential inauguration makes me feel embarrassed and disappointed. The women I work with are intelligent and are full of love and the decision of performing for a man that stands for everything we’re against is appalling. I am speaking for just myself but please know that after we found out this news, we have been performing with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts. We will not be forced! #notmypresident”
The union representing the Rockettes, the American Guild of Variety Artists, also ruled any planned boycott of the inauguration by the dancers was "invalid" according to an email seen by BroadwayWorld. The AGVA email, reportedly written by a high ranking union administrator, went on to say that dancers that "are not full time, [do not] not have to sign up to do this work. If you are full time, you are obligated."
James Dolan, executive chairman of The Madison Square Garden Company of which the Rockettes are part, said in announcing the performance: "The Radio City Rockettes, an original American brand, have performed at Radio City Music Hall since 1932 and, as treasured American icons, have taken part in some of the nation’s most illustrious events such as Super Bowl halftime shows, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parades and presidential inaugurations, including in 2001 and 2005. We are honored that the Rockettes have again been asked to perform in the upcoming inauguration festivities.”
THR reached out to Madison Square Garden Company for further comment and on Friday, the company released a follow-up statement, saying "it is always their choice" to perform.
"The Radio City Rockettes are proud to participate in the 58th Presidential Inaugural," read the statement. "For a Rockette to be considered for an event, they must voluntarily sign up and are never told they have to perform at a particular event, including the inaugural. It is always their choice. In fact, for the coming inauguration, we had more Rockettes request to participate than we have slots available. We eagerly await the inaugural celebrations."
Irving Azoff READ MORE Music Manager Irving Azoff: I Have No "Official" Role in Trump's Inauguration According to a Dec. 8 report in the New York Times, the inauguration festivities are being overseen by Apprentice producer Mark Burnett. Colony Capital CEO Thomas Barrack, Laurie Perlmutter (wife of Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter) and casino mogul Steve Wynn are all serving on Trump's presidential inaugural committee.
The latest drama over the inauguration line-up came hours after Trump took to Twitter to claim that A-list celebrities were falling over themselves to get tickets to the event. “The so-called 'A' list celebrities are all wanting tixs to the inauguration, but look what they did for Hillary, NOTHING,” Trump tweeted.
He added: “I want the PEOPLE!”
Several celebrities threw their support behind the Rockettes by Friday morning. Judd Apatow shared posts from Patton Oswalt and Ghostbusters director Paul Feig, who both shared contact information to reach out to the AGVA and urged others to do the same.

Donald Trump: I don't Need Celebrities at Inauguration, Just 'The PEOPLE' !

The Hill ^ | 12/23/16 GMT | BY PAULINA FIROZI 

President-elect Donald Trump called out “the so-called ‘A’ list” celebrities he says are looking to attend his inauguration in a tweet on Thursday, suggesting he wouldn't want them there.
"The so-called 'A' list celebrities are all wanting tickets to the inauguration,” Trump tweeted. “but look what they did for Hillary Clinton, NOTHING. I want the PEOPLE!”
Few celebrities have confirmed publicly that they would not perform at Trump’s inauguration next month.
uring the tail end of the presidential campaign, Trump ripped Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for having celebrities perform at rallies on her behalf. During a rally in Hershey, Pa., just days before Election Day, Trump commented that he didn’t need any big names to draw a crowd.
He mocked Clinton’s star-studded get-out-the-vote concert that included Beyoncé, Jay Z, Big Sean, J. Cole and Chance the Rapper.
"I hear we set a new record for this building. And by the way, I didn't have to bring J-Lo or Jay-Z — the only way she gets anybody, I am here all by myself. I am here all by myself,” Trump said.
"Just me, no guitar, no piano, no nothing. But you know what we do have? It's all of us, it's all the same — we all have great ideas and great vision for our country."

(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...

Media Guilty of Double Standard on Terror Attacks

Townhall.com ^ | December 23, 2016 | Jonah Goldberg 

Here's a paradox for you. Whenever there's a terrorist attack, the immediate response from government officials and the media is: "Let's not jump to conclusions." Yet when there are breaking reports that Muslim or Arab Americans were allegedly victimized by bigots in some hate crime, the response is instant credulity, outrage and hand-wringing.
This doesn't really even scratch the surface of the double standard. When there's a terrorist incident, there's deep skepticism at every stage of the unfolding story. At first we're told there's no evidence that the attack is terror-related. Then, when reports come in that a shooter shouted "Allahu akbar!" or has an Arabic name, we're assured there's no evidence that the shooter is tied to any international terror groups. Days go by with talking heads fretting about "self-radicalization," "homegrown terror," and "lone wolves." This narrative lingers even as the killer's Facebook posts declaring allegiance to ISIS emerge.
Now, truth be told, I think some of this skepticism is understandable. Often, the media and the pundit class on the left and right are too eager to win the race to be wrong first. It's perfectly proper to not want to get ahead of the facts.
More annoying is the Obama administration's studied practice of slow-walking any admission that the war on terror isn't over, but at least it's understandable. President Obama came into office wanting to end wars and convince Americans that terrorism isn't such a big deal. It seems to be a sincere belief. The Atlantic reported that Obama frequently reminds his staff that slippery bathtubs kill more Americans than terrorism. It took Obama six years to admit that the shooting at Fort Hood was terrorism and not "workplace violence."
Regardless, my point here is that I can understand why politicians and the media want to be skeptical about breaking news events and even why they try to frame those events in ways that fit a political agenda.
The best defense of that agenda isn't the sorry effort to pad the legacy of our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president. It's the desire to err on the side of caution when it comes to stigmatizing law-abiding and patriotic Muslims with the stain of acts of terror in the name of their religion. The media doesn't want to give credence to the idea that all Muslims are terrorists, not least because that attitude will only serve to radicalize more Muslims. As we are often told, ISIS wants peaceful Muslims in the West to feel victimized and unwelcome.
And that brings me back to the media's instant credulity for stories of anti-Muslim bias. This eagerness to hype "anti-Muslim backlash" stories has been around for nearly 20 years, and it has always been thin gruel. According to the FBI, in every year since the 9/11 attacks, there have been more -- a lot more -- anti-Jewish hate crimes than anti-Muslim ones. Which have you heard about more: the anti-Jewish backlash or the anti-Muslim backlash?
Amazingly, the "experts fear an anti-Muslim backlash" stories keep popping up after every Islamic terror attack, despite the fact that the backlash never arrives. To be sure, there have been hateful and deplorable acts against Muslims. But evidence of a true national climate of intimidation and bigotry has always been lacking.
What has not been lacking is evidence that many activists want to convince Americans that such a climate exists. This effort has been old hat for the media-savvy spokesmen of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) for years. But since Donald Trump's election, there has been an explosion of freelance anti-Muslim hate crime hoaxes. A Muslim girl fabricated an attack by three Trump supporters on a New York subway. A young man pulled a similar stunt on a Delta flight this week. False fraud claims by Asian and Hispanic students at various universities have popped up as well. The media, still in the throes of anti-Trump panic, has been quick to credit these hoaxes and grudging in clearing the air when they've been debunked. It's time the media applied at least the same level of skepticism that they reserve for real terror attacks to fake hate crimes. Why? First, because their job is to report the facts. Second, because if they're really concerned about not alienating or radicalizing American Muslims, they shouldn't hype the propaganda efforts of the idiots who are doing exactly that.

Democrats Care About Their Power, Not About Russian Hacking

Townhall.com ^ | December 23, 2016 | David Limbaugh 


Isn't it interesting that it took an electoral barnyard beat-down to get the Democrats interested in Russian hacking? A drubbing by Donald Trump has done wonders to focus their minds.

How ironic that Democrats became apoplectic about Trump's alleged coziness with Russia during the campaign when they've been Russia's apologists for years. They are the ones (through Sen. Ted Kennedy) who clandestinely asked the Russians for help to beat Ronald Reagan in 1984. They are the ones who lambasted GOP 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney for being too tough on Russia. They are the ones (through President Obama) who secretly conspired to "have more flexibility" to negotiate with Russia on missile defense once Obama was re-elected. They are the ones who promised to "reset" U.S. relations with Russia.
But when it was expedient to discredit Trump during the campaign over his favorable comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin, they pretended to fear that Trump would collude with the evil Putin should Trump be elected. A resetting of U.S.-Russian relations looked ominous all of a sudden. It became even more alarming after Trump won the election and announced he would appoint Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. In case you haven't heard, Tillerson has a personal relationship with Putin, and Democrats feigned concern that this could lead to the Trump administration's selling the U.S. down the river -- kind of like what Obama was planning on doing with missile flexibility.
But Hillary Clinton's defeat is what has them most exercised. They've obviously come to expect their party's permanent investiture in the Oval Office, and they were shellshocked at the trouncing they took -- not just at the presidential level but all the way up and down federal and state ballots. In this case, pride certainly preceded the fall.
Surely, you're not too old to remember their hand-wringing when Trump complained the election was rigged -- their outrage that a presidential candidate would undermine the integrity of our "democratic institutions" and the orderly and peaceful transition of power?
Lo and behold, as they are wont to do, the Democrats quickly engaged in the very activity for which they maligned Trump, but the difference was that unlike Trump, they didn't just talk about it; they did it. They launched recount efforts and even tried to pressure presidential electors to abandon Trump in their last-ditch efforts to reclaim the executive branch -- which they will need to do if they want to impose their will on the American people through lawless executive action again.
Though they've failed to upset the integrity of our democratic institutions -- having fallen flat in their recount efforts -- they've now turned to delegitimizing Trump and his presidency before it has even begun. Call it a reverse honeymoon.
How convenient for them that Trump made a few positive comments about Putin during the campaign that they can leverage to prove there is really something between Putin and Trump, which allegedly prompted Putin to interfere in our election to help elect Trump.
They have no proof, mind you, but proof is hardly necessary when you have the liberal media at the ready to manipulate facts to advance a false narrative that will benefit the Democratic Party's cause.
Indeed, another striking irony has unfolded before our eyes. Democrats are outraged that Russians, by allegedly hacking only the Democratic National Committee and exposing Democrats' corruption and deceit, manipulated our electoral process through the selective publication of facts. But isn't that exactly what the liberal media have been doing for the Democratic Party for years?
Republicans don't doubt that Russia tried to hack the DNC and other Democratic-related organizations. They know that the Russians and other foreign governments are incessantly trying to hack into American business and political institutions and that they've been successful more often than we'd like to admit.
But before they lost this election, you couldn't get the Democrats' attention on Russian hacking. "Russia's cyber-attacks are no surprise to the House Intelligence Committee, which has been closely monitoring Russia's belligerence for years," said the committee's chairman, Devin Nunes, in a statement. "As I've said many times, the Intelligence Community has repeatedly failed to anticipate Putin's hostile actions. Unfortunately the Obama administration, dedicated to delusions of 'resetting' relations with Russia, ignored pleas by numerous Intelligence Committee members to take more forceful action against the Kremlin's aggression. It appears, however, that after eight years the administration has suddenly awoken to the threat."
The Washington Examiner's Byron York reports that Republicans don't doubt that the Russians tried to hack the U.S. political process, because they try to hack everything. But Republicans don't believe that the Russians' motive necessarily was to sway the election in Trump's favor. The Russians didn't take Trump's candidacy seriously and assumed Clinton would be the next president. Their goal was to expose her as deceitful and corrupt and, in so doing, reveal the United States as something other than the pristine power it holds itself out to be. "The number-one thing Russians seek to do is to sow doubt about the United States," writes York.
It wasn't that the Russians didn't try to hack the Republican Party and its institutions, as well. They just didn't succeed.
The Democrats don't care about Russian cyberwarfare except when it threatens their power. The Democrats know the country's mood has shifted from Democratic malaise to Republican optimism. Like everyone else, they feel this buoyancy, and they're horrified that Trump may make decisive policy changes in his first 100 days in office, including a repeal and replacement of Obamacare and an introduction of tax and regulatory reform, and an implementation of border security measures.
They simply cannot tolerate this, so they will do everything they can to discredit Trump -- hoping that what they can't stop at the ballot box, they can prevent through distorting the narrative by selective dissemination of the facts. Don't ever forget that projection is their stock in trade.

If you have left-handers in your family, your brain is different!

Arizona Daily Star ^ | Dec 23, 2016 | Thomas Bever 

About half the world's population is right-handed but has left-handed family members. Such right-handers have special neurological organization of language and thought.
This has implications for therapies and our understanding of the genetic bases for language.
Our brain imaging studies show that grammatical knowledge is represented differently if you have left-handers in your family. For example, when it comes to language, everyone’s brain responds to certain language tasks quickly.
But that response is much stronger in the brain's right hemisphere if you have left-handers in your family and stronger in the left hemisphere if you have no left-handers in your family

(Excerpt) Read more at tucson.com ...

12 Days of Christmas

 

The Trump Nail In The Media's Coffin

 Investors Business Daily ^ | Dec. 22, 2016 4:33 PM ET | VICTOR DAVIS HANSON 

President-elect Donald Trump probably will not often communicate with the nation via traditional press conferences. Nor will Trump likely field many questions from New York/Washington journalists.
What we know as "the media" never imagined a Trump victory. It has become unhinged...
...the fading establishment media is now distrusted by a majority of the public, according to Gallup — and becoming irrelevant even among progressives.
Once upon a time in the 1960s, all the iconic news anchors, from Walter Cronkite to David Brinkley, were liberal. But they at least hid their inherent biases behind a professional veneer that allowed them to filter stories through left-wing lenses without much pushback.
When Cronkite returned from Vietnam after the 1968 Tet Offensive and declared the war stalemated and unwinnable, no one dared to offer the dissenting viewpoint that Tet was actually a decisive American victory.
The mainstream-media narrative in 1963 that Lee Harvey Oswald, the Castroite, communist assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was a product of right-wing Texas hatred was completely crazy — but largely unquestioned...
...The New York Times and Christiane Amanpour of CNN said that they could not — and should not — be neutral reporters, given their low opinion of Trump...
...Brian Williams sermonized about the so-called "fake news" epidemic... ..."CNN Newsroom" collectively put up their hands in "hands up, don't shoot" solidarity — echoing a narrative of police murder later proved to be completely false...
...Decades-long journalistic one-sidedness was apparently tolerable when there were no other news alternatives...
...those assumptions are no longer true. News outlets such as The New York Times and NBC have no more credibility than most websites or the National Enquirer.
Is it any surprise that we are witnessing the funeral for traditional journalism as we once knew it?

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...

Was it?

Overuse!

BAH HUMBUG!

GRIFTERS!

BLINDERS!

QUICKLY!

They LIED!

Ambassador

Whose Fault?

HYPER-Media

Directly to jail!

REGRET!

Rigged?

Final Tally Shows Trump BEAT Clinton By 3 Million Votes Outside Of California And New York

dailymail.co.uk ^ | Dec. 21, 2016 

Clinton won California by 4.2 million and took New York by more than 1.6 million. The combined 5.8 million-vote advantage in just those two states was more than twice the size of her overall edge nationwide.

When the dust settled, she lost the rest of the country by 3 million votes.
BIG WIN: Donald Trump won the presidency with broad support of a majority of states in the all-important Electoral College that actually selects America's president and vice president.

SMALL COMFORT: Hillary Clinton collected more votes than Trump but did it by running up the score in California and New York, two very liberal states that were virtually guaranteed to her

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

Sniff test' may be useful in diagnosing early Alzheimer's disease!

Science Daily ^ | 12/21/2016 | University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine 

Tests that measure the sense of smell may soon become common in neurologists' offices. Scientists have been finding increasing evidence that the sense of smell declines sharply in the early stages of Alzheimer's, and now a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease confirms that administering a simple "sniff test" can enhance the accuracy of diagnosing this dreaded disease.
The sniff test also appears to be useful for diagnosing a pre-dementia condition called mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which often progresses to Alzheimer's dementia within a few years.
Neurologists have been eager to find new ways to identify people who are at high risk of Alzheimer's dementia but do not yet show any symptoms. There is a widespread consensus that Alzheimer's medications now under development may not work after dementia has set in.

"There's the exciting possibility here that a decline in the sense of smell can be used to identify people at risk years before they develop dementia," said principal investigator David R. Roalf, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of Psychiatry at Penn.Roalf and his colleagues used a simple, commercially available test known as the Sniffin' Sticks Odor Identification Test, in which subjects must try to identify 16 different odors. They administered the sniff test, and a standard cognitive test (the Montreal Cognitive Assessment), to 728 elderly people.
There seems to be a significant increase in reliability combined with cognitive impairment tests alone for mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...

‘We Should Be Extremely Skeptical’: Here’s The Best Interview Yet On Russian Hacking

The Daily Caller ^ | December 20, 2016 | By Rachel Stoltzfoos 

Liberal journalist Glenn Greenwald questioned the narrative that Russia worked to help Trump win the election in an interview Monday on Fox News, saying he’s “skeptical” of reports from The Washington Post and New York Times on the CIA’s conclusion.
“We should be extremely skeptical of it for multiple reasons,” he said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” referring to reports the CIA is confident Russia meddled in the election with the main goal of electing Trump. The reports are apparently based on second- and even third-hand accounts of intelligence briefings from Obama officials and sources that could even be Democrat Senate staffers.
“You have somebody whose identity is being shielded, describing what the CIA has supposedly concluded, laundering that through The Washington Post,” Greenwald told Carlson. “These are assertions that are being made completely unaccompanied by any evidence whatsoever, let alone evidence that we can touch and rationally review.”
“There’s all kinds of reasons to suspect the CIA statements, including the fact that they’re wrong all the time,” he added. “They’re programmed in a lot of cases to disseminate disinformation, and there’s lots of reasons to view them as political actors, and I think we ought to be highly skeptical. . ."

(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...

what voters were rebelling against

Much ink has been spilled, and much bandwidth spent, on describing Donald Trump’s 2016 victory as a populist revolt. Less attention has been paid to what voters were rebelling against.

There were economic grievances — in the Upper Midwest in particular — but the economy as a whole is slowly recovering. (As Alexis de Tocqueville observed, revolutions tend to occur in times of rising expectations.)

But at its core, the revolution of 2016 was an attempt at restoration — at fixing a broken system.

What broke it? Both parties acquiesced in bank liberalization, open-borders immigration, and Wall Street bailouts.

But the most acute challenge was Barack Obama’s direct attack on the constitutional framework itself. Obama sought to transform America, and believed that the ends would justify the means.

Republicans, hypnotized by race and cowed by the media, put up little fight. So voters took matters into their own hands.

Here are ten of the most serious ways Obama broke the system:

1. The stimulus. On the campaign trail, Obama promised a $50 billion stimulus and criticized George W. Bush for building up the national debt. In office, Obama passed a nearly $1 trillion stimulus, over Republican objections, that failed to keep unemployment from below 8% (as promised), and went largely to pet projects and state and local governments. The profligate spending shocked voters who feared that the country was now on an irreversible path to fiscal ruin. The Tea Party was born.

2. Fast and Furious. The Obama administration smuggled guns across the Mexican border, ostensibly to trace them to drug cartels. Unlike the Bush administration’s Wide Receiver, Obama’s Operation Fast and Furious happened without the Mexican government’s knowledge. The likely goal was to create a pretext for reducing gun ownership in the U.S. It led to the murders of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and hundreds of Mexicans. Afterwards, Obama used “executive privilege” to cover it up.

3. Betraying allies. Obama picked public fights with Israel in a deliberate effort to establish “distance” between the allies. He also broke agreements with the Czechs and the Poles on missile defense, infamously informing the Polish prime minister on the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre. He snubbed the British in ways small (returning a Churchill bust) and big (using the Argentinian term “Malvinas” for the Falklands). And he spied on foreign allies, including Germany’s Angela Merkel.

4. Obamacare. The sweeping plan for “universal” health insurance sought, fundamentally, to make individuals dependent on the state, the better to open the door to even more sweeping changes. But it was the process of passing the bill that caused the real damage. To pass Obamacare, Obama bent and broke procedural rules; lied, repeatedly, about the policy; disguised a tax as a fee; and bullied the Supreme Court into compliance. It was the first major entitlement passed without bipartisan support.

5. Debt ceiling. Few of the Republicans who rode the Tea Party wave in 2010 made an issue out of the debt ceiling. But the Obama administration believed that a confrontation would help it regain full control of Congress. So it picked a fight over the debt, and forced a confrontation in the summer of 2011 that brought the country to the brink of default. Obama scuttled a “grand bargain” with Republicans by demanding higher taxes. The result: a hated budget “sequester” and a credit downgrade.

6. Benghazi. Presidents had lied to the country before about national security incidents: the Iran-Contra scandal, for example, left a stain on Ronald Reagan’s legacy. But no previous American president had abandoned Americans to die abroad without putting up a fight or making a serious effort to punish the perpetrators. In fact, in the heat of battle, Obama went to sleep and flew to a political fundraiser in Las Vegas the next day. It was an unprecedented abdication of his commander-in-chief role.

7. IRS scandal. Encouraged by Obama’s attacks on “dark money” and conservative political donors, the Internal Revenue Service began singling out conservative non-profit organizations for excessive scrutiny, denying them the ability to operate during the crucial 2012 elections, and trying to pry loose private information on their donors, their meetings, and even the content of their prayers. To this day, no Obama administration official has been punished for that horrific abuse of power.

8. AP scandal. Despite the media’s ongoing love affair with Obama, the administration targeted journalists for harassment, surveillance and prosecution. In one case, the Department of Justice seized phone records from the Associated Press; in another, the DOJ searched the emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen and his family. Congress later found Attorney General Eric Holder misled it when he told them in May 2013 he had not been involved in potential prosecution of the media.

9. Iran deal. After resisting sanctions on Iran, and holding off on any real action against the Iranian regime when it faced mass protests in 2009, Obama made a deal with Iran in 2015 that removed most sanctions in exchange for a mere temporary slowdown in the Iranian nuclear program. Worse, he refused to submit it to the Senate for ratification in accordance with the Constitution’s Treaty Clause, and Democrats blocked a weaker effort to submit the deal to an overall congressional vote.

10. Executive action on immigration. Obama abused prosecutorial discretion in 2012 in announcing “Deferred Action for Children of Americans” (DACA) in 2012, even after Congress declined to pass legislation on “Dreamers.” But the real offense came after the 2014 elections, when Obama defied the electorate and announced an “executive amnesty” — “Deferred Action for Parents of Americans” (DAPA) — that he himself said dozens of times was unconstitutional (he lost in the courts).

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.