4-17-18 Expert Guests for Your Show

1. David Horowitz: Exposing the Left

2. James Hirsen: Hollywood’s Largest Union Responds to the Sexual Harassment Scandal

3. Lowell Ponte: Post-Castro Cuba

4. Tudor Dixon: How Companies are Spying on Kids Through School-Issued Devices

5. Sally Pipes: Bailouts Won’t Fix Obamacare’s Fundamental Flaws

Exposing the Left

By David Horowitz

Ruling Ideas: The Final Volume of a Magisterial Series

When I began the project of describing this movement in the 1980s, the emergence of the left as a mainstream force in Amer­ica’s political life was fairly recent and inadequately understood. Conservatives in particular often failed to appreciate the anti-American animus of the left and its apocalyptic goals. At the same time, conservatives imprudently accepted the left’s deceptive claims to be “liberal” and “progressive,” ascribing to it idealistic intentions that masked its malignant designs. The contents of these volumes were conceived as a corrective to these false and disarming impressions. This is the ninth and final volume of my writings about progressivism, a movement whose goals are the destruc­tion of America’s social contract at home and the defeat of American power abroad. [more...]

Hollywood’s Largest Union Responds to the Sexual Harassment Scandal

By James Hirsen

The entertainment industry appears to be engaging in a superficial public relations campaign in response to the systemic sexual harassment crisis, which has severely tarnished the once-golden Hollywood brand. What has followed the initial Weinstein related expose is a host of harassment and sexual misconduct allegations involving actors, producers, directors, and other high-profile individuals. Many of the alleged incidents are said to have taken place in hotel rooms. In a number of instances, women who believed they were attending a business meeting were instead subjected to various levels of improper behavior. The continued use of hotel rooms for meetings has finally led SAG-AFTRA, which is the largest labor union in Hollywood representing actors, performers, broadcast journalists, and other entertainment professionals, to actually do something. [more...]

Post-Castro Cuba

By Lowell Ponte

Cuba was once the third most prosperous nation in the Western hemisphere, before Fidel Castro replaced capitalism with a communist dictatorship that turned it into one of the poorest, with an average monthly salary of $31. Fidel died in 2016 at age 90. The Castro dynasty ends this week when Fidel’s younger brother, former head of the secret police Raul Castro, retires after 10 years as Cuban President. (He will remain head of the Communist Party.) His hand-picked successor is said to be Miguel Diaz-Canel, who turns 58 this week, a committed Communist whose past is almost unknown to the press. This is the way most revolutionary dictatorships slide into the dustbin of history. The charismatic founder holds his new government together by invoking what they shared during the revolution. [more...]

How Companies are Spying on Kids Through School-Issued Devices

By Tudor Dixon, CEO of Lumen Student News providing unbiased news to America’s middle and high school students

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent appearance before Congress is raising the public’s awareness about how the world’s largest technology companies handle users’ sensitive personal data, but the brewing controversy runs far deeper than most parents and students realize. Lawmakers grilled Zuckerberg in April about how third-party app developers managed to extract personal information on tens of millions of Americans. What they didn’t discuss: How Facebook and other tech giants including Google, Apple, Microsoft and others collude with the U.S. Department of Education and local schools to build a massive database of information on students that’s exempt from federal privacy protections. [more...]

Bailouts Won’t Fix Obamacare’s Fundamental Flaws

By Sally Pipes, President & CEO of the Pacific Research Institute

Senate Republicans are complaining about Obamacare again. But this time, they’re upset that the federal government isn’t spending enough money to prop up the health law’s insurance exchanges. Over a dozen GOP senators, nearly all of whom repeatedly campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare, tried to include a $60 billion bailout for exchange insurers in the recent omnibus spending bill.  The bailout was ultimately stripped from the bill because Democrats and Republicans couldn’t agree on language to prevent the funds from subsidizing abortions. But the GOP’s efforts to shore up Obamacare are disgraceful. Premiums on the exchanges are soaring because of the health law’s onerous mandates and regulations. Throwing more taxpayer dollars at the exchanges won’t fix this fundamental problem. [more...]