Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now threatening to enter the presidential race and spend $1 billion of his vast fortune. Bloomberg spent 12 years as Mayor and obviously misses the media limelight.

Although he is two weeks shy of his 74^th birthday, Bloomberg is obviously not interested in retirement. He was originally registered as a Democrat, then became a “liberal Republican,” before settling in as a so-called Independent.

He is under the delusion that he can appeal to centrist voters disgusted with the two party system.  In reality, Bloomberg is a hard core leftist who would severely damage the prospects of the Democratic presidential candidate and hand the White House to the GOP nominee.

In New York, Bloomberg was known as the “Nanny Mayor” because he tried to ban an array of food and drink items for health reasons. He famously declared war on “Big Gulp” soft drinks and tried to ban them from convenience stores, Thankfully, this bizarre episode in limiting personal freedom was overruled in court. Bloomberg was also unsuccessful in trying to set a limit for sodium levels in processed foods. However, he did succeed in outlawing trans fats from restaurants and Styrofoam packaging in single serve food containers.

Mayor Bloomberg was not only interested in controlling what people would eat or drink, he was also a proponent of aggressively banning smoking. Thus, he pushed through new city laws forbidding smoking from not only bars and restaurants, but also public places in New York City.

On the social issues, Bloomberg is completely in line with liberal Democrats on everything. He supports abortion, gay marriage and Common Core educational standards, while he is opposed to the death penalty.

On economic issues, Bloomberg is supposedly a fiscal conservative, but, in reality, he advocates higher taxes. In fact, as Mayor, Bloomberg balanced the budget with $6 billion in higher property taxes.

Even though it angered family members of 9/11 victims, Bloomberg famously supported the building of a mosque on property next to Ground Zero in New York. In an emotional speech backing the mosque, Bloomberg said, “if we don’t build it, the terrorists will win.” Thankfully, the mosque was never built as the developer eventually decided to build a condominium tower.

Bloomberg’s support of the mosque was never popular in New York, but it was consistent with his overall view regarding the threat of radical Muslim. In fact, he is not concerned about the threat of Muslim immigration and believes in open borders and unchecked illegal immigration into this country.

Sadly, he shares President Obama’s obsession with global warming and believes in reducing carbon output.

Bloomberg is also well known for his staunch support of gun control measures such as expanded background checks and barring the sale of certain types of weaponry such as assault rifles. He once said, “I don’t know why people carry guns. Guns kill people.”

On trade, Bloomberg is an internationalist and supports “free trade” and the passage Trans Pacific Partnership.

Finally, Bloomberg is no fan of term limits as he extended his mayoral tenure to three terms in New York City.

In summation, on almost every issue, Bloomberg is a liberal Democrat masquerading as an Independent. As a presidential candidate representing one of the most liberal states in the nation, Bloomberg would definitely siphon votes from the nominee of the Democratic Party. Clearly, on most of the vital issues, Bloomberg agrees with both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

While he is in perfect symmetry with the Democrats on the issues, Bloomberg completely opposes the vast majority of the Republican Party’s platform. In a presidential race, almost no conservative voters would be lured into supporting Bloomberg.

At this juncture in our nation’s history, after eight disastrous years of Barack Obama as President, it is essential that neither a liberal nor a socialist be elected the next President of the United States.

With $1 billion campaign war chest and an almost 100% liberal platform, Bloomberg would practically guarantee the defeat of the Democratic presidential nominee.

For that important reason, Mayor Bloomberg please run for President. The country needs you in the race!

—

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

Pope Francis is a man of great compassion and humility. He shows tremendous concern for the young, the elderly and the sick. He advocates for those who have been forgotten, such as the homeless. He has shunned the luxuries and trappings of his position and performs his duties in a significantly more modest style than his predecessors. These are admirable qualities and set a good example for all Catholics.

While there is much to like about Pope Francis, there is also much to be concerned about. When he starts discussing climate change, immigration or economics, his comments seem based more on leftist ideology than reality.

After concluding his latest trip to Mexico, the Pope entertained questions from reporters. Not surprisingly, he was asked about Donald Trump’s plan, if elected President, to build a wall on the Mexican border and deport illegal immigrants. Sadly, the Pope made provocative comments regarding Trump and, instead of refraining from entering the political debate in this country, jumped right in.

He said, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not getting involved in that. I say only this man is not Christian if he has said things like that.”

In true Trump fashion, he responded and called the comments “disgraceful.” He noted that if ISIS attacks the Vatican, “I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President, because this would not have happened.”

It is quite ironic that the Pope, who is protected by massive walls at the Vatican, criticized a presidential candidate who is calling for similar protection in this country. In fact, the Pope’s response reflects mind boggling hypocrisy.

Of course, in his shocking comments, the Pope not only disparaged Trump, but also the millions of Americans who share his views. A growing number of Americans are disgusted with the lack of border enforcement and want action. They are tired of illegal aliens receiving benefits and taking jobs from law abiding Americans.

Hopefully, the Pope is just misinformed about this real crisis impacting America and does not understand the extent of the crime and illegal drugs crossing the border. During his tenure, the Pope has advocated for more illegal immigrants to be accepted in the United States. Yet, as Trump noted, the Pope does not realize that with illegal immigration comes “the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact” on the United States.

These comments continue a trend of liberal activism that has been apparent during the tenure of Pope Francis. Along with calling for open borders, unchecked illegal immigration and forceful government action on climate change, he has repeatedly criticized capitalism. This simplistic view overlooks the extent of human misery caused by socialism and communism, which is rampant in the Pope’s homeland, Argentina, and many other countries in Latin America.

It would be more appropriate for Pope Francis to direct his barbs at the real tyrants of this region, such as Raul Castro. Yet, the Pope recently visited Cuba and warmly embraced Castro, overlooking his history of political repression and his antagonism against religion. Along with murdering priests, Castro has shuttered religious schools and oppressed believers of all faiths.

Instead of lambasting Castro and the other socialist tyrants of Latin America, Pope Francis focuses his rhetorical fire on advocates of capitalism and politicians such as Donald Trump who want to enhance our national security.

In this case, it was more than just criticism of Trump’s positions on the issues; he also called into question, his Christianity. This attack gave Trump the invitation to respond and defend his faith. He said, “I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”

The Vatican later clarified the Pope’s comments and said it was “not a personal attack.”

In the future, a better approach for the Pope would be to forgo the politics and focus on saving souls and preaching the Gospel. Heaven knows that the world needs that mission fulfilled more than another religious leader playing the role of a liberal politician.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

On Wednesday, Ross Douthat, a columnist for the New York Times, set a new low for his liberal publication. As a supposed joke, Douthat tweeted that the best way to stop Donald Trump was to attempt to assassinate him. He said, “Good news, I’ve figured out how the Trump campaign ends,” and included a link to a scene from the 1983 movie, “The Dead Zone,” which featured an attempted assassination attempt on a deranged political candidate who had visions of running for President.

Douthat claims to be a conservative, but he must be suffering from the same Trump derangement syndrome that afflicted the publication National Review. This formerly consequential magazine devoted an entire edition to blasting Donald Trump and included articles from the likes of talk show host Glenn Beck, who has become so crazed that he participated in a hunger strike to support Senator Ted Cruz and actually compared Trump supporters to Nazis.

This ridiculous behavior among conservatives is embarrassing and somewhat unusual from the supposedly serious National Review. In contrast, it can be expected from someone as emotionally unhinged as Glenn Beck, who often breaks down on his program and starts crying.

Unlike the conservative media, the New York Times is considered by many to be the citadel of American journalism.  In reality, it is a hard left publication that is losing influence on a daily basis. Clearly, the New York Times and the rest of the old guard mainstream news media treats threats against conservatives and Republicans much differently from threats made against liberals.

If Douthat had made such a threat against President Obama, he would have been arrested and faced charges. If Douthat had made the threat against Hillary Clinton, he would have been immediately fired and been the subject of nationwide ridicule. However, since the victim of this reprehensible attack was Donald Trump, the New York Times did absolutely nothing. In fact, it seems that Douthat was not even reprimanded by the “newspaper of record.”

Of course, Americans have the First Amendment and we thankfully have a free press and cherished rights such as free speech. However, news organizations should also have standards and advocating violence against the leading Republican Party presidential candidate should be unacceptable behavior that is never tolerated.

After the initial tweet caused an intensely negative reaction from Trump supporters, Douthat apologized and removed the offensive comment. Nevertheless, the damage had already been done. Trump is a high profile individual with universal name recognition. He is clearly the most controversial presidential candidate in decades. Fortunately, he has Secret Service protection since he reportedly faces death threats on a regular basis. According to his former aide, Roger Stone, Trump wears a bullet proof vest for protection.

This tweet may give lunatics the encouragement to attempt to harm Trump, who is holding large rallies across the country. No other candidate attracts such crowds, so thanks to a lowlife columnist’s assassination joke, the already difficult job of the Secret Service has been made more difficult.

Since his presidential campaign began in June, Trump has dealt with public threats against his life a number of times. In October, a notorious Mexican drug lord, El Chapo, reportedly put a $100 million bounty on Trump’s head. In December, when Trump called for a halt on Muslim immigration into this country, the Internet exploded with death threats against him.

Of course, it is not unusual for drug lords and terrorists to target U.S. presidential candidates, but it is unprecedented for a New York Times columnist to join the fray. If this liberal newspaper, which has seen a significant decline in readership in recent years, had any credibility left, Douthat, a supposed foreign policy expert who supports Senator Marco Rubio and Governor John Kasich for President, would be looking for a job today.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

At a speech in Salt Lake City Thursday, 2012 Republican Party presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney laid out his reasons why Donald Trump should never receive the Republican endorsement. According to Romney, Trump is a “phony” and a “fraud,” that would lose to Hillary Clinton in the fall election.

Romney favors a deadlocked GOP presidential race that withholds the nomination from Trump at the convention. It was only the latest in a series of desperate attacks launched by Republican establishment that has been routed by Trump in 10 of the first 15 states to hold elections.

The establishment sees Trump as a wild card or loose cannon. He is a candidate they cannot control, someone who is funding his own presidential campaign. Trump also is opposed to the Republican establishment on fundamental issues such as amnesty for illegal aliens and the Trans Pacific Partnership.

While Romney was hyper critical of Trump on Thursday, he was more than happy to receive the businessman’s endorsement in the 2012 presidential race. In fact, he appeared with Trump at a news conference and asked Trump to record phone calls for his campaign in six states. In fact, Trump said that Romney would have been happy to “drop to his knees” to receive his endorsement.

Why the change of heart? Romney and his friends in the GOP establishment now realize that Trump is a real threat to win the party’s nomination and they are willing to destroy their White House chances to prevent that from happening.

With Trump at the helm of the Republican Party, the establishment would be finished. Their cozy relationships with lobbyists, special interest groups and the politicians on Capitol Hill would be destroyed.

To save the day for the evil establishment empire, they found their Darth Vader, Mitt Romney. The arrogance displayed in his speech was stunning. No Republican should care what he says about anything. Romney is a three time loser as a politician, who ran a horrible presidential campaign against Barack Obama in 2012. In the last two debates, Romney was neutered and ineffective. He refused to run an aggressive campaign against a heavily damaged Obama and lost a race that obviously he should have won. Such a pathetic politician like Mitt Romney has no standing to lecture anyone about the 2016 presidential race.

Romney’s antagonism against Trump was similar to the scorched earth campaign he ran against Newt Gingrich in the 2012 Florida Republican primary. Gingrich was overwhelmed by a barrage of nasty, inaccurate commercials that aired almost non-stop on statewide television. It was a multi-million-dollar campaign of political personal destruction. This is what is being planned for Trump over the next few days in Florida.

This sordid history shows that Romney and the Republican Party establishment care more about denying a conservative outsider the nomination than winning the presidency.

By blasting Trump, Romney and his establishment cronies are really expressing criticism for the millions of Americans who are supporting Trump. On Super Tuesday alone, Trump received approximately 3 million votes. Romney and his elitist party snobs are expressing outrage that so many Americans are so concerned about the border, trade, jobs and putting this country first.

It is Trump’s populist and nationalist messages that are anathema to the globalist, free trade, big government Republican Party elite. They cannot abide the fact that so many Americans are concerned about these issues and want the borders secure, manufacturing jobs to return to this country and the trade deficit lowered.

We can expect more of this Republican self-destruction in the days ahead. Already, Romney has been joined by 2008 presidential nominee Arizona Senator John McCain who called Trump “dangerous.”

The ultimate goal of Romney and the Republican establishment is to force a brokered convention in July in which Trump will not have enough delegates for the nomination on the first ballot and then delegates will be pressured to abandon Trump on the second ballot and select a compromise nominee like Romney or Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

If that occurs, the GOP’s presidential hopes will be destroyed and the Trump voters, if not Trump himself, will abandon the party in massive numbers. The party elite don’t care for they are quite comfortable losing the White House to the Democrats again, as long as they retain their party positions and power.

They much prefer Hillary Clinton, a scandal ridden liberal, to Donald Trump, the candidate with the most support on the Republican side who is bringing millions of new people to the party. In a world turned upside down, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party leadership are trying to annihilate their leading candidate who has generated the most delegates and by far the most votes. Only the Republican Party could be so stupid.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

The hysteria coming from GOP conservative purists and party insiders about Donald Trump is reaching ridiculous proportions. Talk show host Glenn Beck has compared the Republican frontrunner to Hitler, while Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse has thundered that he will never support Trump if he is the nominee.

The problem for these Trump haters is that he has garnered an impressive 7.5 million votes to date, along with 679 delegates. In the process, he has won 19 states, more than double the number for his nearest competitor, Texas Senator Ted Cruz. He is clearly energizing Americans across the country and winning in every region of the country.

While winning, he is bringing in new voters who have not supported a Republican candidate in decades. The old “Reagan Democrat” coalition of blue collar, working class and union members see Donald Trump as a champion for their values and a candidate with an answer to their ever growing economic woes.

The problem is that the elite of both parties have been perfectly comfortable relegating millions of working class Americans to the dustbin of history. In this campaign, Trump is enticing these voters with his demand to stop illegal immigration, horrible trade deals, corporations abandoning America and millions of jobs being shipped overseas.

As a result of this message, Trump’s support has been growing ever since he entered the race in June. Not only Republicans, but Democrats and Independents have been attracted to his campaign themes and his politically incorrect style. Despite being a first time candidate, he defied convention wisdom and withstood withering criticism and $63 million in vicious attack ads to unquestionably lead the GOP race for the nomination.

This development is not sitting well with the establishment in both the Republican Party and the conservative movement.  To say there is uproar among the elites is an understatement.  Many of these so-called leaders claim they will never support Trump if he is the nominee.

On Thursday, a group convened by Republican blogger and commentator Eric Erickson met in Washington D.C. in a desperate move to stop Donald Trump from securing the GOP presidential nomination.  This effort did not impress former House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who said that the group, “ought to at least be honest and say to people, ‘You know, I’d rather have Hillary Clinton than the Republican nominee,’ because that’s what they’re doing. They ought to just form ‘Lost Republicans for Hillary’ and be honest about the effect of what they’re doing.”

If elected President, Trump will threaten the cozy relationships, high priced contracts and insider deals of the Beltway power brokers. He does not need their money and, if elected, will walk into the White House owing no one. He can truly act for the American people instead of the special interests. It has been decades since the American people have had a truly independent President.

All of this potential change is also too much for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), who has been a total disappointment to conservatives. Ryan is clearly hoping for a contested convention. At this point, he believes that none of the three remaining contenders will have enough delegates to secure the nomination so that a contested convention could “very well become a reality.” Nonetheless, Ryan claims that he is not offering himself as a potential GOP presidential nominee and “unity” candidate, which was the idea floated by former House Speaker John Boehner.

Among current Trump opponents, Ohio Governor John Kasich is remaining in the race to position himself as the establishment alternative if the convention is brokered. Republican delegates are bound to support their candidate on the first ballot, but may switch support on a second ballot.

In the end, the race will likely come down to only two choices, Trump or Cruz, who will eventually be the beneficiary of establishment discontent with the frontrunner. Cruz has already lined up significant establishment support with endorsements from former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, presidential sibling Neil Bush, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Even though the establishment does not like Cruz, they are starting to see him as a better alternative than a wild card like Donald Trump.

While Cruz may do well with party leaders, he has not been able to match Trump’s success at the ballot box. According to Gingrich, Trump is an “unusual phenomenon,” who has “mastered popular communication,” and if elected President “would be an absolute outlier in the trajectory of American politics.”

With 19 trillion in debt, 94 million Americans outside of the workforce, a growing trade deficit, a wide open border, 15.7 million illegal immigrants, a struggling war against Islamic terrorism and anxiety throughout the country, it is time for “an absolute outlier” to be elected President.

To date, Trump is attracting many more voters in the GOP presidential primaries and caucuses than any other candidate. As noted by Florida Governor Rick Scott, “Donald Trump is the will of the people. We need to listen to the people, back his candidacy and win in November.”

The consultants, experts, analysts, party bosses and purists have not gotten anything right in this year’s Republican Party presidential race. What they have gotten wrong and continue to overlook is the popularity of Donald Trump, who has withstood the fiercest political attack in modern history and is still the frontrunner.

These critics should realize that someone with such broad and loyal support deserves the nomination and has a real chance to be elected President. Unfortunately, the sad, but disturbing, truth is that many in the Republican Party leadership would much prefer President Hillary Clinton to President Donald Trump.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

Another week, another campus threatened by the dangerous slogan, “Trump 2016.”

Last week, the students of Emory University in Atlanta needed counseling and mental health evaluations after noticing their campus was polluted by disgusting chalk markings. The offensive words included “Trump,” “Trump 2016,” and “Vote Trump” and they were found on concrete steps and even, heaven forbid, the sidewalk.

Immediately after noticing the horrific chalk graffiti, 50 students demanded a meeting with Jim Wagner, Emory University President, because they felt “genuine concern and pain.” Even worse, Wagner met with the lunatic liberals and promised an “investigation,” which raises the true concern of whether free speech is even allowed on the campus.

This week, a student at Scripps College, an all-female liberal arts college in Southern California, noticed the dangerous phrase “Trump 2016” written on a marker board. Thereafter, student President Minjoo Kim took decisive action and called the police because the slogan was “racist” and obviously expressed “violence.”

Of course, such foul language had never before been seen on the pristine campuses. Never mind that slogans for Democrats and far left groups such as Black Lives Matters frequently have appeared on the Emory University campus. These markings never generated a scintilla of criticism, but the word “Trump” turned the students into piles of mush in need of psychiatric care.

At Scripps College, the offending “Trump” slogan was written on the marker board of a Mexican-American student. According to Kim, this marking was “intentional violence” that indicates “racism continues to be an undeniable problem and alarming threat on our campuses.”

Kim’s language is both hilariously dramatic and completely inappropriate. No one committed “violence” against the student. In fact, no one committed “violence” against the marker board either. Kim wants the offending artist to be “held accountable” since the “mental and emotional health of our students is our top concern.”

If the students of Scripps College cannot handle a word on a marker board, they are not going to be able to deal with the real world. Our colleges and universities are obviously educating millions of young nitwits who lack the courage and common sense of students in previous generations. It shows what unadulterated political correctness is doing to our young people today, a genuine tragedy.

These ridiculous episodes perfectly highlight what is happening to the vast majority of the college campuses of today, which are factories for liberalism and sensitivity training where no serious debate is even allowed. In fact, conservatives are rarely hired as professors or administrators or even allowed to speak on campuses. If one does actually get invited, they are met with howls of angry protests and calls to cancel the engagement.

This is exactly what happened a few weeks ago when conservative author Ben Shapiro was invited to speak at California State University, Los Angeles. He was met by hundreds of student protesters who tried to storm the auditorium and prevent him from speaking. It was such a chaotic scene that he needed police protection to safely leave the event.

Liberals on college campuses today do not want to allow conservatives to give commencement addresses, teach a class, speak or even write a slogan on a sidewalk or marker board. It shows that our college campuses, which should be laboratories for healthy discussion and debate, are actually stifling true intellectual curiosity. These campuses are not bastions of the First Amendment at all, in fact, free speech is discouraged.

A major reason for this oppressive environment is that liberal students, professors and administrators do not have any confidence in their convictions. They realize that if their positions on income inequality, racial justice, climate change or a myriad of other liberal causes are actually challenged by conservative opposition, the weakness of their arguments will be exposed.

It is the educational equivalent of one party rule. In such a sad state of affairs, chalk and markers have become dangerous methods of projecting either unacceptable ideas or even the name of a politically incorrect candidate such as Donald Trump.

In previous generations, America’s young people help defeat the Great Depression, Nazism and fascist tyranny, Today, our young people are captives of a system that is turning them into sniveling cowards afraid to debate and face the challenges of the real world. Alas, these developments do not bode well for our country’s future.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

In many of our history books today, Christopher Columbus did not discover America, instead he was a ruthless white European marauder who brutalized peaceful indigenous people and helped spread disease among their midst.

This type of historical revisionism was on full display this week when one of our greatest Presidents and military heroes, Andrew Jackson, was removed from the front of the $20 bill. Eventually, he will be featured on the back of the bill, while the image of Harriet Tubman, an African American slave who escaped and led hundreds of other slaves to freedom, will adorn the front.

These changes were among many announced by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to promote a more “inclusive” look to our currency. Along with Tubman being added to the $20 bill, Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, and opera singer Marian Anderson will be included on the back of the new $5 bill. Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, all acclaimed women’s rights activists, will be highlighted on the back of the new $10 bill.

It will take over ten years for all of these changes to be completely implemented. However, announcing the new designs was a major step forward for the Obama administration and the culmination of years of planning and public input.

Originally, the image of Alexander Hamilton on the face of the $10 was slated to be removed, however, the nation’s first Treasury Secretary was saved by the popularity of “Hamilton,” a hip-hop musical on Broadway.

Unfortunately, Jackson did not have any rap artists on his side, he just had a history of fighting and sacrificing for his country. While Andrew Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, he lost the battle of political correctness over two hundred years later.

Of course Tubman is a great American who deserves to be honored, but not at the expense of Andrew Jackson, one of the most consequential figures in the history of our country. According to columnist Pat Buchanan, changing the face of the $20 bill “is affirmative action that approaches the absurd. Whatever one’s admiration for Tubman and her cause, she is not the figure in history Jackson was.”

Sadly, in today’s America, Jackson is no longer viewed as a successful two-term President, but as a plantation slave owner who mistreated Native Americans.

Ironically, Jackson is considered the founder of the modern Democrat Party, which hosts fundraisers in his name. The party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner also honors former President Thomas Jefferson, another giant of American history. However, since Jefferson and Jackson were both slave owners, the party of racial pandering has been canceling these dinners all across the country. In this day and age of political correctness our American heroes are now being judged by their country’s moral values two hundred years later.

As military leader, Andrew Jackson successfully fought Indians in Alabama and Georgia and suppressed a British uprising in Florida, seizing the area for his country. In his greatest victory, the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, Jackson led a disorganized and motley army of misfits to a tremendous victory against the most celebrated fighting force in the world, the British Army. In the process, he not only rescued New Orleans from being captured and the Mississippi River from being closed, but he also saved our country from being split in two by the British.

As President, Jackson was a strong fiscal conservative who railed against the national bank and reckless debt. He was the last President to actually run a surplus and pay off the country’s national debt. Ever since that time, we have accumulated $19.3 trillion in debt with no end in sight. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a President once again who believed in paying our country’s bills?

Andrew Jackson also opposed term limits and the power of a financial elite who worked against the interests of average Americans.

He was the original outsider who defeated a political system controlled by power brokers intent on expanding their own influence at the expense of the American people.

In 2016, angry citizens tired of being abused and mistreated are looking for a leader like Andrew Jackson once again. It is quite ironic that he is being demoted from our currency at the exact time he should be promoted as the model for the next President of the United States.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

Everyone knows that liberals control the old media outlets that are rapidly becoming irrelevant. The national print publications and broadcast television networks have historically tilted to the left. In fact, this week, it was no surprise to learn that the Washington Post will assign 20 reporters to investigate every aspect of Donald Trump’s background, hoping to find salacious dirt on the GOP front runner. In contrast, they have shown limited interest in assigning additional reporters to investigate the many scandals swirling around Hillary Clinton.

While the Washington Post is known as a liberal newspaper, many people were shocked this week to learn that Facebook, the social media giant, is also staunchly liberal.

Thanks to an expose by Gizmodo, Facebook’s internal operations involving trending news stories were revealed.

Former news “curators” reported that Facebook suppresses conservative news reports, while promoting stories involving radical leftists. This has a major influence on younger voters, who tend to learn about news stories from Facebook and other social media sites.

After this story broke, the founder and CEO of Facebook, Marc Zuckerberg, defended his website and refuted the allegations. In a personal post, Zuckerberg claimed that there was “no evidence that this report is true.” However, frequent Facebook users can attest that the report of liberal bias is unquestionably true.

As evidence, it is hard to refute that several of Facebook’s top executives are liberals. Zuckerberg is an outspoken supporter of immigration reform and amnesty for illegal aliens. He surely possesses a very negative view of Donald Trump’s call for a border wall with Mexico.

One of Zuckerberg’s top lieutenants is the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, who contributed $2,700 to Hillary Clinton in April. In a Bloomberg interview, Sandberg noted that she was “very supportive of Hillary Clinton,” and would “like to see her as president.”

Ironically, the Facebook executive at the center of this news bias controversy is Tom Stocky, who manages the trending topics section of the site. Last October, Stocky and his wife donated $5,400 to Hillary Clinton.

Thus, the top company executives are either Democrat donors or activists. It certainly does not seem that Facebook is too neutral; in fact, it is a social media cheerleader for Hillary Clinton.

Previously, it was maintained by Facebook that the trending news stories were not manipulated in any manner and were organically ranked by user popularity. Now, if the whistle-blowers are being truthful, we know this to be false. In reality, Facebook editors use their “news judgment” to rank stories and their liberal bias has now been exposed.

This is important to discover so Americans can realize they are being maneuvered to the ideological left on Facebook. Undetected, the liberal bias can have a huge impact on the political direction of the nation since Facebook is used by more than half of our population, 167 million Americans.

The Facebook informers cited a number of topics of interest to conservatives that were suppressed in the trending topics section. One of the most important stories purposely downplayed on Facebook involved the congressional investigation into Lois Lerner, the former IRS executive charged with unfairly targeting conservative groups for her agency’s scrutiny.

While conservative stories were being censored, stories involving liberal organizations and issues were being “injected” into the list of trending topics. For example, news stories involving the racially charged group Black Lives Matter were placed above more popular stories on the website.

One of the Facebook informants told Gizmodo that “Facebook got a lot of pressure about not having a trending topic for Black Lives Matter. They realized it was a problem, and they boosted it in the ordering. They gave it preference over other topics.”

The Facebook coverage is one explanation why Black Lives Matter received so much publicity and became so politically powerful. In fact, one of the business executives who endorsed the movement was Marc Zuckerberg. In February, he wrote a letter to Facebook colleagues praising the controversial organization.

If Zuckerberg and his top executives are liberals, it should come as no surprise to Americans that the trending topics section of the website also has a left wing bias. Of course, they deny any ideological bias, but so does the Washington Post and we all know that is pure hogwash.

Henceforth, Americans should be under no illusions about Facebook or other social media sites. It should be assumed that all of them have a liberal bias until it is proved otherwise.

While social media sites are new in some respects, in the important area of objectivity, they tend to project the same liberal bias as the old media. In rare occasions, true objectivity can be found in both the old and new media, but, sadly, not on Facebook.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

It is sad that so many of our young people today are clueless about our country’s distinguished history. In a troubling story this week that generated national headlines, a 22-year-old Home Depot employee, Krystal Lake of Staten Island, New York was pictured at work wearing a hat that read, “America Was Never Great.”

The disturbing image sparked an explosion of online comments from across the nation with people expressing both support and opposition to her political message. A Home Depot spokesman responded to the controversy by claiming that her hat was in violation of their company policy and that “no one on our management team saw her wearing the hat, otherwise they would have had her remove it immediately.”

The real reason for Lake’s hat was to show opposition to Donald Trump, who has made the slogan “Make America Great Again,” a major part of his campaign. Lake wore the hat to “send a message” that America’s greatness was “a lie.”

In an interview with the Staten Island Advance, Lake said that she does not like Trump because he will “automatically write you off” if you are not in a favored group, presumably white males. Without citing any evidence or providing any examples, Lake claims that Trump “caters to one type of group of people and disregards everyone else.” This is probably a major surprise to the many minority employees of the Trump Organization.

Lake revealed that she is a supporter of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont), which should shock no one. Sanders also holds a pessimistic view of America and believes the only way we can be great is for government to pay for everyone’s healthcare costs and college tuition. To pay for this massive government expansion, Sanders wants to target the “top 1%” and make “Wall Street” accountable.

While Lake wants to believe nonsense from Bernie Sanders, she refuses to believe that her country has a proud history. She needs to learn that we were blessed with brilliant Founding Fathers who drafted a U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights which guarantee freedoms that are only dreamed of in many nations.

Her country is the one that defeated Imperial Japan and Nazism in World War II and saved the world from tyranny. Amazingly, we rebuilt Germany and Japan after the war and continue to provide them with military protection today.

This wonderful country is the only that paved the way for space exploration and was the first one to land a man on the moon. Our scientists have developed vaccines for deadly diseases and continue to pioneer the latest advancements in medical research.

Under Ronald Reagan’s leadership, the United States of America brought down the Iron Curtain and relegated Soviet communism to the dustbin of history. In the process, we freed millions of people from the grips of an evil ideology.

In any natural disaster or terrorist incident, the United States of America is always the first country to show support through government aid and private donations. Our government provides more foreign aid than any other country and the American people are the most generous in the world, helping those suffering from disaster, famine or disease. Whenever there is a tragedy, the world can count on Americans to volunteer their time and donate their hard earned money to support those in need both at home and abroad.

Unlike other countries, the United States does not look to occupy foreign lands. For example, in the first Gulf War, we expelled Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army from Kuwait, but did not conquer that country. We accomplished our mission and came home.

During the “war on terror,” our taxpayers have spent trillions of dollars rebuilding both Iraq and Afghanistan, while fighting jihadists who hate freedom and want to impose a barbaric caliphate on the world.

While our “nation building” has gone astray and our troops have remained in the region too long, our aims to spread democracy have been noble. The problem is that the “war on terror” has failed to defeat militant jihadism, while the country has paid a tremendous price in the thousands of Americans killed and the hundreds of thousand wounded, many with very serious injuries.

Thus, if elected President, Donald Trump wants to focus on our problems in this country, such as a poor economy, an open border, crumbling infrastructure, etc. He wants to renegotiate poor trade deals and military alliances so that Americans are no longer abused.

It is time to “Make America Great Again,” but we can only do that by changing course, not pursuing more socialism such as the policies advocated by Bernie Sanders.

Sadly, Ms. Lake is unaware of our proud history and what needs to be done to restore our country’s greatness. She does not appreciate our many freedoms and American exceptionalism.

To truly understand our uniqueness, she should visit some foreign countries and see how we compare. Without question, we have the greatest people in the world, and in 2016, it is time we elected the type of political leadership that is worthy of our country.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

It happened again last week at DePaul University in Chicago, IL. Another conservative speaker was harassed by liberal activists. In this case, Breitbart contributor Milo Yiannopoulos was not allowed to finish his presentation to a group of students. He was bullied and threatened and his speech was literally shut down by a group of Black Lives Matter activists. In fact, one of the free speech haters ripped a microphone from the hands of the student interviewing Yiannopoulos.

Ironically, the protest leader was Edward Ward, a local church minister who claimed that the presentation was “hate speech” that needed to be halted. During the raucous protest, one of the activists threatened to punch the speaker if he did not stop talking.

While the event was ruined by these protesters, DePaul University campus security looked on and refused to intervene. Amazingly, Breitbart paid for the event security and is rightfully asking for their money back.

In response to the fiasco, the sponsoring organization, the DePaul University College Republicans, issued a statement. “Regrettably, militant protestors decided to hijack the event. Loud whistles, threats of violence and straight up suppression of speech. There was no discourse, no Q&A, just fascism. Additionally, DePaul security’s response to the thuggery was utterly shameful. We spent thousands of dollars and countless hours to get the proper security and put this event on, but when security was actually needed, they did nothing. At a minimum, DePaul University administrators should apologize and hold those responsible for the fiasco responsible for their behavior.”

The scared security staff at DePaul are no different from the scared campus administrators across the country who refuse to criticize hateful liberal activists. For example, last November at the University of Missouri, liberal activists forced the President and Chancellor to resign over supposed inaction about questionable “racist” events on campus. In February, at the University of California, Los Angeles, demonstrators disrupted a speech by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. They tried to storm the stage, pulled the fire alarm and did everything possible to prevent a conservative message from being presented to the students.

It is not just conservative speakers who are motivating these liberal protests. In recent weeks, students at Emory University in Atlanta and Scripps College in Claremont, California went ballistic when the name “Trump” was displayed on their campus. In one case “Trump” was written on a sidewalk and steps and in the other case it was written on a student’s white board. In both incidents, campus police were called, but unlike the event this week at DePaul University, they responded and investigated.

To clarify, it is not a crime to write the name “Trump” on a white board, but it is a crime to disrupt an event, threaten violence and forcibly rip a microphone away from an interviewer.

Today, the liberal activists own the conversation on college campuses. They have the vast majority of professors and administrators on their side. Liberal celebrities and politicians are invited to give commencement speeches and are welcome on campus throughout the school year, while conservatives are treated like an enemy and completely shunned. If they do happen to receive a rare invitation, they are besieged by hateful activists who are not interested in civil discourse and debate.

Colleges are supposed to be laboratories for ideas where debates are encouraged and a diverse set of viewpoints are welcome. Today, only liberalism is allowed and our students are not being educated, but indoctrinated.

The real losers are the parents who pay exorbitant tuition, and especially the students who are not allowed to investigate issues and explore different ideas. They are expected to follow the liberal orthodoxy without question.

With this type of background, it is no wonder that so many young people are ill equipped to succeed in the “real” world where contrary opinions are allowed and critical thinking is actually valued.

Universities are doing a very poor job preparing their students for post-college life. Too many of them are not only saddled with thousands of dollars in student debt, but also a bevy of unworkable liberal ideas that have never been challenged.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

After five decades, the World Golf Championship will move next year from the National Doral golf course in Miami, Florida to a golf course in Mexico City. Since the Doral course is owned by the certain GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, this decision smacks of political correctness.

At least most objective observers would surmise that politics played a role in this decision; however, such a motive was denied by PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem, who claimed that the tournament was unable to line up enough financial backers. According to Finchem, “It is a sponsorship issue. We value dollars for our players. So we make decisions that are in the best interests of our players.”

If the PGA is mostly concerned about money than why would they move the tournament from the course of a billionaire? It would seem that a billionaire like Trump would have been able to help the PGA line up sponsors. If only Finchem and the PGA would have worked with Trump, there is little doubt that sponsors would have been secured.

After being questioned by reporters, Finchem asserted that politics was not involved in “any way, shape or form.” In reality, the sponsorship excuse was a poor cover story. It is clear that the decision was made for purely political reasons. Finchem, a pathetic pawn of liberal activists, moved the tournament because Trump is a lightning rod for controversy and made several harsh, but truthful, comments about some of the illegal aliens pouring across our country’s border with Mexico.

According to the “PC” police, Trump is also anti-Hispanic because he wants a border wall with Mexico and wants to crackdown on illegal immigration. Moving the tournament to Mexico is a great way for the PGA to pander to Hispanic activists and show love to this supposedly aggrieved group.

In fact, it is the second tournament that the PGA has moved from a Trump course. Last July, the PGA moved the Grand Slam of Golf from Trump’s Los Angeles area course. The move was made right after Trump entered the presidential race and faced blistering criticism for his remarks about illegal immigration. Instead of standing by one of their hosts, the PGA quickly pandered in the face of criticism and yanked the Grand Slam of Golf from Trump. Ultimately, the event was canceled when the PGA could not locate an appropriate venue as a replacement. The PGA deserved the embarrassment for their hasty decision to cave under pressure from radical activists.

After learning that another professional golf tournament had been moved from one of his courses, Trump quipped that tour should make sure they have “kidnapping insurance” to protect the players in a country overrun by notorious drug cartels. The boneheaded commissioner said that the tour probably did offer the kidnapping insurance, but that “it’s something we might not want to advertise.”

For a variety of reasons, moving the event to Mexico makes no sense. Most importantly, there could be serious security concerns about playing the tournament in Mexico City. Players could very well become targets for the drug cartels and the bands of criminals that run rampant in Mexico.

Logistically, moving the tournament to Mexico will also be a challenge for players because the event preceding the World Golf Championship is in Florida. Players will be inconvenienced by forcing them to travel to Mexico City.  The decision to move was made without much, if any, input from golfers, who mostly vote Republican, according to anonymous surveys. In fact, two-time US Open champion Andy North claimed that many players may skip the tournament altogether now that it has been moved to Mexico.

With this change of venue, the PGA has now been exposed as another liberal, politically correct sports organization. It joins the ranks of the NFL that features Black Lives Matter supporter Beyoncé during the Super Bowl halftime show and the NBA that wants to move the All-Star game from Charlotte North Carolina because of the state’s new law regarding transgender bathrooms.

Ironically, the new host of the tournament will be Ricardo Salinas, a billionaire who was fined $7.5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission and banned from serving in a leadership position with any U.S. listed company for five years. These actions result from a settlement arranged after he was charged in 2005 in a “complicated case of self-dealing,” according to Golf.com.

The PGA must view the baggage of Ricardo Salinas as less troubling than Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Thus, this was not a choice motivated by good business sense, but by political correctness. In today’s world, “PC” decisions are made to placate radical activists and media commentators, regardless of what fans or players want.

Sadly, it is a “Brave New World” and the commissioners of sports leagues are just as infected as the leaders of media, business, government, higher education and the other pillars of our society. These outrages will continue until the silent majority of people who are disgusted by this political correctness rise up and say “enough is enough.”

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

After his victories on Tuesday, Donald Trump has accumulated more primary votes than any other GOP presidential candidate in history. With 13.4 million votes in this election cycle, Trump garnered over 3 million more than Mitt Romney in 2012 and 1.4 million more than the previous record holder, George W. Bush in 2000. What is truly astounding is that he did it against 16 opponents, most fully aligned with the party establishment.

In his campaign for the nomination, Trump won 36 states and accrued 1,542 delegates, more than 300 over the total needed to become the Republican standard bearer. His nearest competitor, Sen. Ted Cruz, has only 559 delegates, barely one-third Trump’s total.

His victory was even more amazing considering the fact that he spent very little of his own money, but had to withstand malicious attacks by his opponents. According to Joshua Green of Bloomberg News, Trump was targeted by $62 million in attack ads during the primary season. This level of negative campaign advertising is unprecedented in a presidential primary campaign and far exceeds the total amount spent in the 2012 campaign.

Over the past year, Trump has also faced almost monolithic opposition from Republican Party and congressional leaders. In fact, it took several meetings and Trump surpassing the delegate totals needed for victory for House Speaker Paul Ryan to issue a very lukewarm endorsement of the presumptive nominee.  The tepid support did not last long for Ryan followed that up this week with a vicious denunciation of Trump as a racist because of his complaints about federal district court Judge Ernesto Curiel.

Ryan is a typical establishment Republican Party leader who despises what Trump represents, the grassroots. Thus, despite Trump’s historic level of popular support, GOP elitists are still plotting to deny him the nomination. Some are meeting with disgruntled loser Mitt Romney at a Utah ranch this weekend to design anti-Trump strategy. Others, such as talk show host Hugh Hewitt, are calling for a delegate revolt at the Republican convention. Still others, such as pathetic commentator and publisher Bill Kristol, are hoping for a white knight to appear on the scene to save the country from a Trump presidency.

What are these Trump haters afraid of? Many claim that they don’t like his brash style and his controversial comments. Others believe that Trump is not a true conservative. However, in reality, most of the Trump haters are just afraid that they will lose control of the Republican Party, their contracts, their access, in effect, their power.

His party antagonists also have stark policies differences with Trump and are afraid he will pursue the policies he articulated on the campaign trail, namely to build a border wall and end these horrible trade deals. Most of the GOP establishment supports open borders and international trade deals, despite evidence that shows our manufacturing base has been decimated and countless jobs have been lost to foreign countries.

For so-called conservative purists, Trump is a charlatan, spewing lies on his way to the nomination. They overlook that Trump has promised to appoint only conservative Supreme Court Justices and even released a list of Federalist Society endorsed judges that he will choose from.

Trump has promised to rebuild the military, support the Second Amendment, cut taxes, end Obamacare, make our country energy independent, reform the Veterans Administration and get tough in the war against ISIS. On the issues that count, he is in line with the majority of Americans, while his opponents in the Republican Party and Hillary Clinton are clearly out of step.

Unlike Romney, the weak 2012 GOP nominee who was afraid to attack Obama, Trump will not be bashful about condemning Hillary. In a speech on Monday, he will outline her many questionable and corrupt activities.

It is truly sad that so many within the Republican Party actually want Trump to lose. Some probably have ambitions to run for President in 2020, like House Speaker Paul Ryan. While others are opposed to Trump’s border, immigration and trade policies and would be perfectly comfortable with Hillary Clinton as President.

Hillary will maintain the status quo and be a caretaker for a socialist federal government. Trump will be the real change agent, which is why he has garnered so much opposition among the Beltway elites.

So far, he has prevailed against incredible opposition and has a real chance to be elected in November. If he does, Donald Trump will usher in the type of change that this country desperately needs, leading a political revolution of middle class  Americans that is long overdue.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

After Donald Trump clinched the GOP presidential nomination, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was not satisfied. He spent weeks withholding his official endorsement, while preaching the need for “unity.”

After meeting with Trump a number of times, Ryan gave a very lukewarm endorsement of the businessman turned politician in his hometown newspaper. In an editorial for the Janesville Gazette, Ryan wrote that Trump would be able to work with Congress to “help improve people’s lives.”

Soon thereafter, Ryan was stabbing Trump in the back, doing the bidding of the liberal media and Hillary Clinton. In fact, Ryan is being more helpful to Hillary Clinton than any Democrat on Capitol Hill. Right after endorsing Trump, Ryan told the Associated Press that he hopes the campaign “improves its tone.” Instead, Ryan should have been criticizing the “tone” of protesters who burn the American flag, as well as taunt and punch innocent Trump supporters at the candidate’s rallies. Unfortunately, Ryan has been silent about those brutal attacks on the 1^st Amendment rights of Trump supporters. He is much more interested in damaging the presidential chances of the maverick GOP businessman.

In the aftermath of Trump’s statement that the Mexican heritage of federal district court Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s may be the reason for his “biased” handling of the Trump University class action lawsuit, Ryan unleashed a furious assault on his supposed choice for President. He called Trump’s remarks “absolutely unacceptable,” and “the textbook definition of a racist comment.” With such friends as Paul Ryan, Trump certainly doesn’t need any enemies.

These incendiary comments gave the liberal media plenty of fodder to label Trump a “bigot,” “racist” and “white supremacist” who hates minorities. Of course, these charges are ridiculous for Trump has employed thousands of minorities and truly helped them in ways much more tangible than anything political hacks like Hillary Clinton or Paul Ryan have ever done.

The Ryan assault has been a calculated and planned effort to undercut Trump as he tries to unify the party in advance of the GOP convention in Cleveland. Clearly, Ryan wants to insure that Trump loses so he can run for President in 2020 as the establishment’s candidate. In an interview with Meet the Press to air on Sunday, Ryan told Republicans to “follow their conscience” on whether to support the ostensible GOP nominee or not. This was a crystal clear invitation to convention delegates and members of the House Republican Caucus to retract their support for Trump.

At a news conference on Thursday, Ryan said that it was “not my plan” to withdraw his endorsement of Trump even though he continued to conduct media interviews and denigrate the presumptive GOP nominee.  After the Orlando terrorist attack, Trump rightly reiterated his support for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration into this country; however, Ryan expressed his disapproval of such a plan, which has the support of 64% of Republican voters nationwide. In fact, in a Huffington Post interview, Ryan suggested that he may “sue” a President Trump if he proceeds with the Muslim ban or the effort to build a border wall.

The threat of a lawsuit is just another indication that Ryan agrees more with Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. Along with supporting more Muslim immigration and opposing a border wall, Ryan is aligned with Hillary Clinton on a host of other issues as well. In fact, The Washington Post outlined at least five areas that a President Hillary Clinton and a Speaker of the House Paul Ryan could find common ground. In contested matters such as amnesty for illegal immigrants, criminal justice reform, international trade deals, hawkish foreign policy, and using the government to fight poverty, Ryan and Clinton share similar views.

In effect, the Speaker and Mrs. Clinton are ideological soul mates. Ryan likes to bash Trump as a candidate who needs to change his positions and “tone,” but the one who really needs to change is Ryan, who is out of step with the majority of Republican voters on many important issues such as trade and immigration.

If Trump gets elected, he will certainly not champion the establishment agenda of Speaker Ryan. Thus, it is pretty obvious, for personal and political reasons, the candidate the Republican House Speaker really wants to be elected President of the United States is liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

It is hard to believe that Attorney General Loretta Lynch is actually making her predecessor, Eric Holder, the race bating liberal, look good. It is quite an accomplishment to be worse than Holder, but Lynch has achieved that goal in record time, especially with her lame brained response to the terrorist attack in Orlando.

In the early morning hours of the Pulse nightclub attack, Jihadist Omar Mateen made it quite evident in his 911 calls and his maniacal ravings to police negotiators that he killed 49 innocent people as an act of faithfulness to the Islamic State terrorist organization. In his 911 call, he proclaimed a “pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.” This unambiguous vow to the leader of the Islamic State should have eliminated any and all doubt about what was motivating Mateen. Without question, he killed the gay nightclub patrons as an act of jihad; however, that was not the conclusion of the Attorney General. Amazingly, Lynch said that Mateen’s motives “may never be known” and that he may have had many reasons for killing 49 innocent people. As a result, Lynch claimed that it would be difficult to “narrow it down to one motivation.”

This is willful ignorance by Lynch as Mateen tried very hard to make his motives crystal clear. For example, he told police negotiators that he was an “Islamic solider.” Thus, in the aftermath of the attack, the nation should have entered into a robust discussion on how to defeat Islamic terrorism at home and abroad. Instead, ever since the Orlando attack, the nation plunged into a discussion about various gun control measures and ways to reduce hatred toward the gay and lesbian community.

The Orlando attack was not about guns or gays; it was about Islamic jihad. Ironically, one of the best ways to help protect the gay and lesbian community in this country is the train them how to use weapons for self-defense and limit the number of refugees entering the country from Muslim countries. Both of these positions are anathema to liberal Democrats like Loretta Lynch who, after the San Bernardino jihadist attack, actually threatened to prosecute anyone who spoke out against radical Islam. In fact, Lynch said that anti-Muslim rhetoric was her “greatest fear.”

The greatest fear for Lynch and everyone in the Obama administration should be the Islamic terrorist acts like the one committed in Orlando. Yet, Lynch seems oblivious to the threat of radical Islam and refuses to identify the harsh reality our country is facing. In her Orlando speech this week, the Attorney General even admitted that she lost track of Mateen’s wife, a possible accomplice to the murders. Lynch said that Mrs. Mateen may be traveling, but “I do not know exactly her location now.” To say this clueless response is not reassuring is the understatement of the century.

Lynch and her boss, President Obama, are constantly giving the American people platitudes about fighting “extremism” and not radical Islamic terrorism. To make matters worse, Lynch said the answer to terrorism is to show “compassion, unity and love” to terrorists. In other words, kill our enemies with kindness.

Undoubtedly, the savage Islamic terrorists are laughing at this feeble response. The nation should be on war footing with a clearly defined enemy, not the nebulous threat of “extremism,” whatever that means.

To Lynch and Obama, Christians, Jews, gays and other minority groups are just as likely to commit terror attacks as Muslims, but the evidence shows otherwise. From the attacks in Fort Hood, Texas to the massacre in San Bernardino, CA to the Orlando killings, the one constant in all of these incidents has been the involvement of radical Islamic terrorists.

It would be refreshing to see our President and Attorney General accept reality and convey the seriousness of the radical Islamist threat to the American people. Instead, along with the liberal media, the administration has been focusing on gay rights and, especially, gun control.

Hopefully, there will not be another terrorist action for many years; however, reality tells us that there will be another one very soon. It is time to accept this bitter truth, deal with it by protecting ourselves and stop living in the fantasy world of political correctness.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

– Rahm Emanuel, former Obama Administration Chief of Staff

It did not take long for President Obama to use the tragic police ambush in Dallas to push his gun control agenda. In fact, in his first statement on the shocking murder of 5 police officers, Obama introduced the issue. After condemning the “senseless murders” of the police officers, the President said, “We also know when people are armed with powerful weapons; unfortunately, it makes attacks like these more deadly and more tragic. And in the days ahead we’re going to have to consider those realities as well.”

One reality the President should consider is that his words matter. Earlier in the week, the President condemned the controversial police shootings of black men in Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights, Minnesota. On his Facebook page, Obama said, “a nation, we can and must do better to institute the best practices that reduce the appearance or reality of racial bias in law enforcement.” He also noted that all Americans should “recognize the anger, frustration and grief that so many Americans are feeling” over the incidents and added that “Michelle and I share those feelings.”

These observations, according to Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, only exacerbated the already tense relations between the African American community and police officers. In fact, Clarke believes that Obama created more of a problem by pouring “gas on the situation with his dog whistle message” about the incidents.

This is a typical response from President Obama as he has been condemning the police ever since he took office. Back in 2009, he lashed out at Cambridge, Massachusetts police for acting “stupidly” in an incident involving Harvard Professor Louis Gates. After more information was divulged, the President had to backtrack and famously held a “beer summit” with the police officer and the professor to resolve the issue.

Several days after Michael Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, the President expressed his condolences for the “heartbreaking” death and noted that the Justice Department was going to investigate the issue. Eventually, Officer Wilson was completely exonerated for his actions, though he lost his job and faced death threats. One year later, when Kate Steinle was killed by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco, the President was silent, delivering no statement of support or any condolences for her family.

In recent months, there have also been numerous incidents in which police officers have been tragically killed in the line of duty. Very rarely has the President commented on these incidents, such as the recent case in Harvey, Louisiana in which Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Deputy David Michel, Jr., a white man, was killed by a young black man who should have been in prison. This case may have been racially motivated. Not only did the President ignore it, but also the national news media gave the case almost no attention. If the racial roles had been reversed, there is little doubt it would have received massive coverage from the news media.

Sadly, the attack in Dallas is the latest in a growing number of incidents involving police officers being targeted by criminals motivated by groups such as Black Lives Matter. In the view of William Johnson, Executive Director of the National Association of Police Organizations, the Obama administration’s “continued appeasements at the federal level with the Department of Justice, their appeasement of violent criminals, their refusal to condemn movements like Black Lives Matter, actively calling for the death of police officers, that type of thing, all the while blaming police for the problems in this country has led directly to the climate that has made Dallas possible.”

This is a strong condemnation from a top official with a respected police organization. In essence, Johnson believes that Obama has fostered a negative attitude toward police, which has contributed to more violence toward our nation’s police officers.  Clarke agrees and believes that Obama is “armed with powerful words and he’s (using) the words irresponsibly. It fuels this sort of anger toward the American police officer and I wish he’d knock it off.”

Unfortunately, there is little hope that the President will change between now and the end of his term next January. Nonetheless, we should all hope and pray that these cowardly attacks on innocent police officers end. The vast majority of police officers do a tremendous job under incredibly difficult conditions. They deserve our praise and thanks for confronting a criminal element that is growing bolder and more dangerous every day.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

The Great Flood of 2016 has devastated 40,000 homes across the state of Louisiana. Sadly, 13 people have lost their lives in this historic storm, which produced up to 31 inches of rainfall in some areas over the course of four days. This is more rainfall than the City of Los Angeles experiences in four years. It was a storm that was so intense that it only happens once every one thousand years.

Emergency officials claim that the Great Flood of 2016 is the worst natural disaster in this country since Hurricane Sandy in 2012. After that storm, President Obama famously met with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to show support for the region.

This time it is a much different scenario. Despite the magnitude of the disaster, President Obama has not visited the region. In fact, he has not even stopped his vacation at Martha’s Vineyard or playing golf. The images of our golf obsessed President enjoying his favorite pastime while his fellow citizens are in such pain is quite troubling to say the least.

Over the course of almost two terms, Obama has played more than 300 rounds of golf. This compares to President George W. Bush who played only two dozen rounds of golf during his two terms in office. In 2005, Bush was roundly criticized for his tardy response to the disastrous Hurricane Katrina. No one can forget the images of Bush looking out of the window of Air Force One at the devastation below. However, at least he flew over the region and eventually visited the area multiple times before the end of his presidency. In contrast, Obama has not even ended his expensive vacation and his golfing with Hollywood stars.

The media crucified Bush for his delayed response in 2005, but are giving Obama a pass this year. Even Democrat Governor of Louisiana John Bel Edwards had to cover for Obama maintaining in an interview on MSNBC that he did not want a presidential visit at this time. He claimed it would divert resources that were needed for the recovery. However, back in 2005, during an even worse disaster, no one came to Bush’s defense. He was pilloried mercilessly for not immediately visiting the New Orleans area.

An Obama visit would have been helpful because it would have highlighted the needs of the region. This area has suffered a tremendous blow considering that so many of the victims did not have flood insurance as their houses had never flooded before. Unlike so many of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the victims of this disaster live in areas that are above sea level and are not considered flood zones.

At least Donald Trump and Mike Pence visited Louisiana, showing leadership and concern and giving the thousands of victims some much-needed attention. Even with the incredible magnitude of the disaster the national media has moved on from the Louisiana flood and the story is not generating headlines any longer. With Trump and his running mate in the state, it guarantees that the plight of the many victims of this horrible natural disaster will receive more media coverage.

Trump’s visit will also spur more donations to the agencies that are providing vital resources to the many thousands of victims who need help. By expressing his sympathy and personal concern, he is also giving a boost to people who have lost everything and are in tremendous pain. He is also acting presidential, a trait that has been in short supply for the past eight years.

While Trump was on the ground in Louisiana, Hillary Clinton was literally phoning it in, calling the Governor and tweeting a link for donations. She will visit the state next week, as will President Obama, finally. Clearly, Trump shamed both of them into scheduling a trip to Louisiana. It is quite sad that Obama’s first reaction was not to personally visit the region and see the damage in person, but to continue his golfing vacation.

The victims of this horrific storm deserved the full attention of their President, instead they received visits from his underlings and saw images of Barack Obama riding around in a golf cart while their homes were literally under water. This whole episode has brought back painful memories of Obama’s pitifully slow response to the BP oil spill disaster in 2010.

Some Louisiana residents speculate that the reason for the President’s negligence is that this is a state that votes Republican. It is highly doubtful that a similar catastrophe in a “Blue State” would have been handled by the President in the same way.

Who knows the real motivation for his inattention to Louisiana, but at least we do know some good news, Obama leaves office in five months.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

It has been 267 days since the Democrat Party presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, held a news conference. This type of press stonewalling is unprecedented for a presidential candidate in modern American political history.

The American people have a right to know where presidential candidates stand on important issues and how they respond to various controversies. While her GOP opponent, Donald Trump, has held numerous and extensive news conferences in recent months, Hillary Clinton has employed a hide and go seek strategy with the press. Sadly, she has refused to engage the national news media in an open and honest manner and, in the process; shown tremendous disrespect for the American people.

The press should be outraged over such poor treatment, but they follow a different set of rules for Hillary Clinton. She is an exception as the first woman to be a major political party’s presidential nominee. She also merits special treatment because she is a liberal and a politician with the last name of Clinton, a hallowed name among so-called American journalists.

The old image of tough investigative reporters is a vestige of the past. The vast majority of today’s journalists are merely liberal cheerleaders trying to cause problems for conservative candidates and help the Democrat Party in every possible way. Over the years, numerous surveys of journalists have confirmed the unmistakable liberal bias; however, this year it is more blatant. In fact, Jorge Ramos of Univision, whose daughter worked in the Obama administration, claims that “neutrality is not an option” since Donald Trump is so “polarizing and disrupting.”

With the press as her staunchest advocates, Clinton has been free to ignore them. In a few instances, Mrs. Clinton has agreed to be interviewed. For example, she appeared on some friendly programs with non-threatening hosts such as Jimmy Kimmel or Chris Wallace of Fox News, but such encounters have been few and far between. She will not appear on a program with an aggressive reporter peppering her with tough questions. In contrast, Donald Trump is on television almost nightly answering questions from a wide variety of reporters and anchors.

Clinton’s condescending attitude toward the press was on full display Thursday. After delivering a blistering 30-minute speech attacking Trump before a relatively small crowd in Reno, Nevada, Clinton refused to answer questions from the press. Instead of offering some real answers, Hillary offered chocolates to the lapdog journalists who supposedly cover her activities.

The fact that she thought she could buy off reporters with chocolate candies is more than comical. It shows her utter lack of respect for today’s political journalists. Her obvious stalling tactics have worked for almost nine months, during which time her campaign has been rocked by multiple scandals.

From Benghazi revelations to email disclosures to the latest corruption uncovered at the Clinton Foundation, Hillary has many raging controversies and brewing scandals that she needs to address. Instead of providing the American people some real answers and the truth, Hillary Clinton has given the media total silence until yesterday when she supplied not answers, but chocolates.

Clinton is not only avoiding questions about potential corruption and illegal activity; she is also avoiding nagging questions about her health and her stamina. While Trump does multiple rallies per week, Hillary has a very limited schedule with plenty of rest between events. As evidence, she will not be doing another public event until next Wednesday.

With only 73 days until the election, Hillary Clinton had not provided satisfactory information about her health, her emails or her promises made to Clinton Foundation donors. Unfortunately, there are no Sam Donaldson type reporters today demanding she answer these questions. The media watchdogs are gone, replaced by liberal lapdogs who spend all of their time attacking Donald Trump.

It is clear that Hillary Clinton does not believe the public has a right to know the truth. Her attitude seems to be that the American people are her subjects who should be thankful and not question her authority. If elected, she’ll provide bread and chocolates and no more.

Unless the American people wake up and prevent this nightmare, the era of Queen Hillary could be upon us.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

It was no surprise that the Commission on Presidential Debates which has a board of directors filled with liberal Democrats and establishment Republicans would pick liberal moderators for the presidential debates this year. They do it every four years in an attempt to help the Democrat presidential candidate. For some inexplicable reason, Republican presidential nominees agree to this biased treatment.

Four years ago, moderator Candy Crowley of CNN impacted the vital second debate and refuted Mitt Romney’s statements about Obama’s response to the Benghazi terror attack. She later admitted she was wrong, but the damage was done and Obama was boosted. In fact, all of the 2012 debate moderators were card carrying liberals.

In this election cycle, the debate moderators are all card carrying liberals, except for Chris Wallace of Fox News, who is a fair minded Democrat. As expected, the liberal moderator of Monday night’s debate, Lester Holt of NBC News, performed superbly for Hillary Clinton.

In fact, he did everything possible to assist Hillary Clinton. For example, he interrupted Donald Trump 41 times, but interrupted Clinton a mere seven times. He also allowed Clinton to filibuster continually on issues without directly answering questions.

Incredibly, Holt did not inquire about Hillary’s bungling of the Benghazi terror attack and her lies in the aftermath. Holt also neglected to delve into the Clinton Foundation scandal or Hillary’s obvious health problems. Clinton’s email scandal was only mentioned in passing by Donald Trump and Holt gave it only a few seconds of coverage, as an aside.

While completely giving Clinton a pass on her many controversies, he asked Trump almost every tough question he could possibly include in the debate. He pressed him on his failure to release his tax returns, his supposed mistreatment of women, and the controversy over the release of President Obama’s birth certificate.

Although he grilled Trump, Holt failed to address vitally important questions that impact millions of Americans. Nothing was asked about the Affordable Care Act, or the critical questions of illegal immigration and border security. He did not ask the candidates how they will restore a military that has been decimated during the Obama years. Not surprisingly, he interrogated Trump about his claim to be opposed to the war, but did not ask Clinton if she regretted supporting the war in Iraq.

Interestingly, Neil Cavuto of Fox News backed up Trump’s claim to be opposed to the war in Iraq. After the conclusion of the debate, he aired a clip of their interview in January of 2003, before the war started. In that interview, Trump expressed great reservations about the war and said there should be more focus on the economy.

During the debate, Holt talked about homegrown terror, but did not question Clinton about her failure in stopping the advance of ISIS. Instead, Holt addressed a multitude of liberal talking points. He asked about “income inequality,” and why Trump wants to give the wealthy tax cuts.

As expected, Holt mentioned race relations and the racial overtones of “stop and frisk,” a policy that Trump supports. However, he mistakenly claimed that “stop and frisk” was unconstitutional. Holt also focused on police relations with the black community and the assertions there are too many biased officers who engage in racial profiling.

The only liberal talking point that Holt failed to mention was climate change and Trump brought that up to ridicule Clinton’s statement that it is the greatest threat facing the world.

As an objective moderator and journalist Holt failed even more miserably than Candy Crowley did in 2012. Nonetheless, he delivered a magnificent audition for the position of Press Secretary should Clinton win the White House.

For those still skeptical of bias, on Friday, the Commission on Presidential Debates made an incredibly convincing admission. In a one sentence statement, the supposedly objective group acknowledged that “there were issues regarding Donald Trump’s audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall.”

This week, Trump complained about his microphone, but it was dismissed as sour grapes from the debate loser. Now, his comments should not be so easily disregarded. He said, “my mic was defective within the room…I wonder, was that on purpose?”

Yes, Donald, as with the selection of moderators, it was on purpose! At this point, he must say only one more thing to this prejudiced commission. In fact, he should give his signature response which made him a household name in America, “you’re fired.”

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

Back in 1992, political consultant James Carville coined the phrase “the economy, stupid” as one of the three top campaign messages for the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. While it was initially designed for only the Clinton staff, it eventually became the overall message of the campaign and the main rationale why the incumbent President George H. W. Bush should be defeated. Of course, it worked and Bill Clinton was elected President over an incumbent who enjoyed a 90% approval rating the year before the election.

Twenty-four years later, we are on the threshold of another presidential election in which voters are concerned about the economy.  In the last two presidential debates, there will be liberal moderators and an audience surely stacked with Democrat operatives. Regardless of the actual biased questions, GOP nominee Donald Trump should continually steer the conversation back to the economy, his strongest issue and the most important concern for American voters.

Our economic problems were highlighted in the September labor report which showed only 156,000 new jobs were created. This level of job creation was below expectations and led to an increase in the unemployment rate to 5%, in reality, a fictitious rate that does not account for the Americans who are working several part time jobs and those workers who can’t find employment that matches their skill set. The broader unemployment rate of 9.7% is a more accurate reflection of a country which also has 94.2 million Americans who are outside of the labor force.

Other economic factors are a concern as consumer spending was flat last month and businesses delayed investments in new equipment and machinery. In this uncertain economic environment, it is still believed that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December after keeping them artificially low for nine years.

This false economy of low rates and the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policies have kept Wall Street happy, but has done very little for Main Street. The United States is a country with stagnant wages and a dearth of quality high paying jobs that allow Americans to support their families. It is a major reason why only 62.9% of Americans own homes, a 51 year low. The home ownership rate has been plunging ever since Barack Obama became President. Since the financial crisis of 2008, credit is much harder to obtain and housing prices are increasing much faster than incomes. Even low mortgage rates have not succeeded in turning around the downward trend in home ownership. Buying a home used to be a major part of achieving the American dream, but, today, it is an unattainable fantasy for millions of people struggling in this economy.

To deal with the nation’s economy, Hillary Clinton vows to continue the policies of Barack Obama. In fact, she is pledging to be even more progressive than Obama. She promises to raise more taxes and expand government even more, with free college tuition and expanded Obamacare. In contrast, Trump promises to cut taxes, restructure “bad” trade deals, end Obamacare, and expand domestic oil exploration. Unlike Clinton, Trump vows to protect coal industry jobs, and fight foreign competitors to return more manufacturing jobs to the country.

Even the most optimistic analysts agree this is a lackluster economy. For example, the last report on economic growth indicated the nation’s economy grew at an anemic rate of only 1.2% in the second quarter of 2016. This was approximately half the level of growth expected by most economists. The report is especially troubling since the economy only grew by .8% in the first quarter and .9% in the last quarter of 2015. An economy in full recovery should be growing at 3% or more, so the American economy is sputtering at best with our current recovery being the nation’s weakest since 1949.

While some Americans are finding jobs, many others are getting left behind in the Obama economy.  Today, there are approximately 47 million Americans in poverty, including an astounding 45 million people receiving food stamps.

With such economic woes, will Americans want to stay the course and elect Hillary Clinton or vote for change and support Donald Trump? In a recent Rasmussen poll, 64% of Americans believe the nation is on the “wrong track,” but Hillary Clinton still maintains a 4% lead over Donald Trump, according to the Real Clear Politics national poll average. It is the controversies, comments and style of Donald Trump that has overshadowed real concerns about the economy and Hillary Clinton’s various scandals.

To redirect Americans to the important issues, it is essential that Trump use the opportunity of the last two debates to highlight the real plight of average Americans, not the Wall Street tycoons who contribute to Hillary’s campaign.

If voters begin to appreciate the actual state of the economy today, they may reject Hillary Clinton and a continuation of the Obama policies and vote for Trump. However, a majority of voters will only support him if they feel comfortable about his temperament, judgment, leadership abilities and policies.

In the final two debates, he has a superb opportunity to make his case as a change agent, a job creator and an advocate of economic policies that will restore the American dream. He must forgo the trivia and avoid the traps set by Hillary and the moderators and focus on the essentials, the issues like the economy that really matter to the American people.

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

In October of 1991, then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas faced a contentious Senate hearing that focused on allegations made by a former subordinate, Anita Hall. She claimed that Thomas sexually harassed her in several ways, including making references to a pubic hair on a coke can and supposedly praising a porn star.

The Senate Judiciary Committee spent days reviewing these allegations and were on the verge of rejecting Thomas for the position. When Thomas was finally given a chance to address the committee, he responded with justifiable anger. He lambasted the Senators and blasted the entire proceeding with a very effective and indignant retort. Thomas said, “This is a circus. This is a national disgrace, and from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”

This show of outrage allowed Thomas to turn the tables on the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Eventually, Thomas survived and was confirmed, but he has never been given the respect he deserves as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. To this day, he is discriminated against as a conservative African American. For example, the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. gives plenty of attention to Anita Hill and other radicals like avowed communist Angela Davis, but ignores Thomas, the only African American member on the nation’s highest court. This is truly a disgrace, but, of course if Thomas was a liberal, he would be given the royal treatment by the museum.

The high-tech lynching of Thomas was replicated in 2011 by the media when African American businessman Herman Cain was the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. After several good performances in the debates boosted Cain to the top of the polls, allegations surfaced in the media that he sexually harassed several women. Immediately, Cain was under siege and his poll numbers collapsed. Although he denied the charges and called the campaign against him “a witch hunt,” the damage was already done and his campaign was toast. After his exit from the race, the women in question disappeared as well. Cain was effectively eliminated not by verifiable evidence of wrongdoing, but by suspicious allegations alone.

Obviously, Thomas and Cain suffered greatly from unfair and unproven attacks; however, their treatment was nowhere near as bad as the kind of hell that 2016 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is enduring in this campaign. He is facing his own type of high-tech lynching in this presidential race.

Although he is not an African American, Donald Trump does share some characteristics with Thomas and Cain. Like Thomas and Cain, he is a conservative who thinks for himself and has “different ideas.” As Thomas faced attacks for not kowtowing to “an old order,” Trump is taking on something very similar, an entrenched establishment in many different areas. His campaign is simultaneously opposed by the political establishment in both parties, international financial and political powers, the media elite, and the clear majority of the Wall Street financial power brokers.

While his opponent, Hillary Clinton, has universal Democratic Party support and is receiving campaign assistance from the President, Vice President, First Lady, former adversary Senator Bernie Sanders and almost every elected official in her party, Donald Trump is literally standing alone against these powerful forces arrayed against him. One result has been almost universally negative media coverage of his campaign.

A report by the Media Research Center (MRC) showed that between July 29 and October 20, the broadcast networks news programs devoted more time to Trump than Clinton. Nevertheless, the researchers found that the Trump coverage was an astounding 91% negative. Trump rightly calls this this type of media treatment “greatest pile-on in American history.”

The MRC report indicated that the media was much more interested in the allegations of groping and inappropriate sexual behavior of Trump toward women than the various Clinton scandals involving her emails, the Clinton Foundation, the Benghazi terror attack, her health problems or the WikiLeaks disclosures. This analysis was prepared after the MRC reviewed 588 news stories on the broadcast news shows during the 12-week investigation.

The broadcast news report followed another amazing study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity, which found that 96% of all media professionals who donated to either presidential campaign supported Hillary Clinton. This type of bias even extends to Fox News as millions of Americans noted after the showdown this week between host Megyn Kelly and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich blasted Kelly for her obsession with the allegations against Trump and said she was “obsessed with sex” instead of being interested in important issues of public policy.

In these final days of the race, the media has their marching orders, “destroy Trump.” It will be difficult to completely suppress the bombshell news that the FBI is reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, but the media will still find plenty of time to highlight women making very old and dubious allegations against Trump. The entire presidential campaign has been a sad commentary on the state of our corrupt and biased media today.

Fortunately, more Americans are becoming aware of this high-tech Trump lynching. Hopefully they will discount the drumbeat of negative messages that are all around them and make an important commitment to support Trump and “Make America Great Again!”

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.