The ‘Legacy of Slavery’ Is an Excuse for Social Degeneration

By Thomas Sowell — October 7, 2015

http://www.nationalreview.com/

Getty Images By: Hulton Archive

One of the secrets of successful magicians on stage is directing the audience’s attention to something that is attractive or distracting, but irrelevant to what is actually being done. That is also the secret of successful political charlatans.

Consider the message directed at business owners by Senator Elizabeth Warren and President Barack Obama — “You didn’t build that!”

Assuming for the sake of argument that a man who owns a business simply inherited it from his father, what follows? That politicians can use the inherited resources better than the heir? Such a sweeping assumption has neither logic nor evidence behind it — but rhetoric doesn’t have to have logic or evidence to be politically effective.

The conclusion is insinuated, rather than spelled out, so it is less likely to be scrutinized. Moreover, attention is directed toward the undeserved good fortune of the heir, and away from the crucial question as to whether society will in fact be better off if politicians take over more of either the management or the earnings of the business.

The question of politicians’ track record in managing economic activities vanishes into thin air, just as other things vanish into thin air by a magician’s sleight of hand on stage.

Another of the magic feats of political rhetoric in our time is to blame “a legacy of slavery” for problems in the black community today. The repulsiveness of slavery immediately seizes our attention, just as effectively as the attractiveness of a magician’s scantily clad female assistant or the distraction of a flash of light or a loud noise on stage.

Here again, rhetoric distracts attention from questions about logic or evidence. The “legacy of slavery” argument is not just a convenient excuse for bad behavior, it allows politicians to escape responsibility for the consequences of the government policies they imposed.

Although the Left likes to argue as if there was a stagnant world to which they added the magic ingredient of “change” in the 1960s, in reality there were many positive trends in the 1950s, which reversed and became negative trends in the 1960s.

Not only was the poverty rate going down, so was the rate of dependence on government to stay out of poverty. Teenage pregnancy rates were falling, and so were rates of venereal diseases like syphilis and gonorrhea. Homicide rates among non-white males fell 22 percent in the 1950s.

In the wake of the massive expansion of the welfare state in the 1960s “war on poverty” program — with the repeatedly announced goal of enabling people to become self-supporting and end their dependence on government — in fact dependence on government increased and is today far higher than when the 1960s began.

The declining rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal diseases in the 1950s both reversed and rose sharply in the wake of the 1960s “sexual revolution” ideas, introduced into schools under the guise of “sex education,” which claimed to be able to reduce teenage pregnancy and venereal diseases.

Black labor-force participation rates, which had been higher than white labor-force participation rates in every census from 1890 to 1960, fell below white labor-force participation rates by 1972, and the gap has widened since then. Homicide rates among non-white males reversed their decline in the 1950s and soared by 75 percent during the 1960s.

None of this was a “legacy of slavery,” which ended a century earlier. But slavery became the rhetorical distraction for the political magicians’ trick of making their own responsibility for social degeneration vanish into thin air by sleight of hand.

Political charlatans are not the whole story of our social degeneracy on many fronts. “We the people” must accept our own share of the blame because we voted these charlatans into office and went along with their ever-increasing power over our lives.

When it came to charlatans taking ever-larger amounts of our own money to finance ever more big-government programs, we stood still like sheep waiting to be sheared. We remained as meek as sheep when they turned schools into places to propagandize our children to grow up accepting more of the same.

All the while we had the power to vote them out. But we couldn’t be bothered to look beyond their magic words. Even now, many are too absorbed in their electronic devices to know or care.

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His website is www.tsowell.com. © 2015 Creators Syndicate Inc.

RELATED: The Scapegoat for Strife in the Black Community

RELATED: The Inconvenient Truth about Ghetto Communities’ Social Breakdown

The Problem Isn't Guns Or White Men

Ann Coulter | Oct 07, 2015

http://townhall.com/

Chris Harper-Mercer posted a photograph of himself holding a gun online (PA)

The media act as if they're performing a public service by refusing to release details about the perpetrator of the recent mass shooting at a community college in Oregon. But we were given plenty of information about Dylan Roof, Adam Lanza, James Holmes and Jared Loughner. 

Now, quick: Name the mass shooters at the Chattanooga military recruitment center; the Washington Navy Yard; the high school in Washington state; Fort Hood (the second time) and the Christian college in California. All those shootings also occurred during the last three years.

The answers are: Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, Kuwaiti; Aaron Alexis, black, possibly Barbadian-American; Jaylen Ray Fryberg, Indian; Ivan Antonio Lopez, Hispanic; and One L. Goh, Korean immigrant. (While I'm here: Why are we bringing in immigrants who are mentally unstable?)

There's a rigid formula in media accounts of mass shootings: If possible, blame it on angry white men; when that won't work, blame it on guns.

The perpetrator of the latest massacre, Chris Harper-Mercer, was a half-black immigrant, so the media are refusing to get too specific about him. They don't want to reward the fiend with publicity!

But as people hear details the media are not anxious to provide, they realize that, once again: It's a crazy person. How long is this going to go on?

When will the public rise up and demand that the therapeutic community stop loosing these nuts on the public? After the fact, scores of psychiatrists are always lining up to testify that the defendant was legally insane, unable to control his actions. That information would be a lot more helpful before the wanton slaughter.

Product manufacturers are required by law to anticipate that some idiot might try to dry his cat in the microwave. But a person whose job it is to evaluate mental illness can't be required to ascertain whether the person sitting in his office might be unstable enough to kill?

Maybe at their next convention, psychiatrists could take up a resolution demanding an end to our absurd patient privacy and involuntary commitment laws.

True, America has more privately owned guns than most other countries, and mass shootings are, by definition, committed with guns. But we also make it a lot more difficult than any other country to involuntarily commit crazy people.

Since the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s, civil commitment in the United States almost always requires a finding of dangerousness -- both imminent and physical -- as determined by a judge. Most of the rest of the world has more reasonable standards -- you might almost call them "common sense" -- allowing family, friends and even acquaintances to petition for involuntarily commitment, with the final decision made by doctors.

The result of our laissez-faire approach to dangerous psychotics is visible in the swarms of homeless people on our streets, crazy people in our prison populations and the prevalence of mass shootings.

According to a 2002 report by Central Institute of Mental Health for the European Union, the number of involuntarily detained mental patients, per 100,000 people, in other countries looks like this:

-- Austria, 175

-- Finland, 218

-- Germany, 175

-- Sweden, 114

-- England, 93

The absolute maximum number of mental patients per 100,000 people who could possibly be institutionalized by the state in the U.S. -- voluntarily or involuntarily -- is: 17. Yes, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, there are a grand total of 17 psychiatric beds even available, not necessarily being used. In 1955, there were 340.

After every mass shooting, the left has a lot of fun forcing Republicans to defend guns. Here's an idea: Why not force Democrats to defend the right of the dangerous mentally ill not to take their medicine?

Liberals will howl about "stigmatizing" the mentally ill, but they sure don't mind stigmatizing white men or gun owners. About a third of the population consists of white men. Between a third and half of all Americans have guns in the home. If either white men or guns were the main cause of mass murder, no one would be left in the country.

But I notice that every mass murder is committed by someone who is mentally ill. When the common denominator is a characteristic found in about 0.1 percent of the population -- I think we've found the crucial ingredient!

Democrats won't be able to help themselves, but to instantly close ranks and defend dangerous psychotics, hauling out the usual meaningless statistics:

-- Most mentally ill are not violent!

Undoubtedly true. BUT WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT ANOREXICS, AGORAPHOBICS OR OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVES. We were thinking of paranoid schizophrenics.

-- The mentally ill are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence!

I'll wager that the percentage of the nation's 310 million guns that are ever used in a crime is quite a bit lower than the percentage of mentally ill to ever engage in violence.

As with the "most Muslims are peaceful" canard, while a tiny percentage of mentally ill are violent, a gigantic percentage of mass shooters are mentally ill.

How can these heartless Democrats look the parents of dead children in the eye and defend the right of the mentally deranged to store their feces in a shoebox, menace library patrons -- and, every now and then, commit mass murder? 

Yes, Obama does want to take your guns

By Katie Pavlich - 10/05/15 04:55 PM EDT

http://thehill.com/

(Getty Images)

Within hours of the killings at Umpqua Community College in Oregon last week, President Obama stepped to the White House lectern, admittedly without all the facts of the case, to shamelessly politicize the tragedy. 

“Somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize,” he said. 

Perhaps Obama’s open politicizing of the issue wasn’t the worst part, but instead it was his intellectual dishonesty when it comes to the “common-sense” gun laws he wants implemented. 

“What’s become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation. Right now, I can imagine the press releases being cranked out: We need more guns, they’ll argue. Fewer gun safety laws. Does anybody really believe that? There are scores of responsible gun owners in this country — they know that’s not true. We know because of the polling that says the majority of Americans understand we should be changing these laws — including the majority of responsible, law-abiding gun owners,” the president said. “We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.”

“We have seatbelt laws because we know it saves lives. So the notion that gun violence is somehow different,” Obama added, “that our freedom and our Constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners all across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do everything they do under such regulations doesn’t make sense.”

The so-called “common-sense” and “modest” laws in Britain and Australia Obama refers to aren’t common-sense or modest at all, but rather require extreme confiscation and bans. 

In 1996, the Australian government confiscated hundreds of thousands of personally owned firearms as part of their new “common-sense” gun control laws. In 1997, British citizens were forced to turn over their handguns for destruction. The prettier and more expensive versions were confiscated and placed in museums. Is this what Obama is suggesting should happen to the estimated 300 million firearms owned by American citizens? Is that what he means by “common sense,” “modest regulation” and “changing our laws?” 

Of course it is. 

It should be noted that after the Britain handgun ban was implemented, crime committed with guns skyrocketed and the ban has done little to reduce overall homicide rates. The same has been shown for homicides committed with firearms in Australia after the 1996 National Agreement on Firearms. 

“The Government’s latest crime figures were condemned as ‘truly terrible’ by the Tories today as it emerged that gun crime in England and Wales soared by 35% last year. Criminals used handguns in 46% more offences, Home Office statistics revealed,” the Daily Mail reported in 2003. “Firearms were used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the 12 months to last April, up from 7,362. It was the fourth consecutive year to see a rise and there were more than 2,200 more gun crimes last year than the previous peak in 1993. Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871.”

In 2009, the United Kingdom was found to be the most violent country in Europe.

Despite Obama’s claim that pro-Second Amendment groups want less gun safety, the opposite is true. In fact, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) have dedicated millions of dollars, thousands of hours and numerous different resources to gun safety programs and will continue to do so for years to come. 

Since 1988, the NRA has offered its Eddie Eagle program to parents and children as a gun safety resource. Since 2003, the NSSF has partnered with more than 15,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states to hand out more than 36 million firearm safety kits. As a result of these programs, we’ve seen a 22 percent reduction in fatal firearms accidents over the past decade. Because of this reduction, fatal firearms accidents now make up less than 1 percent of all fatal accidents in the United States. 

Further, the NSSF has worked with local state governments in an effort to properly enter mental health information into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, preventing the mentally ill from getting their hands on a firearm.

Anti-gun groups, most of which are funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have done little to promote or fund real gun safety programs. While these groups spend millions to exploit tragedy and to infringe on the Second Amendment rights of Americans, the NRA and the NSSF spend millions to keep Americans and their rights safe. 

If President Obama had his way, the United States would be just like Britain and Australia, where handguns were confiscated and remain banned with little to show for it. Thankfully, the Second Amendment and the American people will not stand for it. 

Pavlich is the news editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.

IRANIAN TERRORIST ATTACK AGAINST U.S. REVEALED

How Bill Clinton concealed it from the public and U.S. intelligence.

Arnold Ahlert

http://www.frontpagemag.com/

October 7, 2015

Khobar Towers Bombing (7/25/96)  

A bombshell report by the Washington Times reveals that fecklessness in the face of terror isn’t a condition exclusive to the Obama administration. "Bill Clinton’s administration gathered enough evidence to send a top-secret communique accusing Iran of facilitating the deadly 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist bombing,” the Times states, "but suppressed that information from the American public and some elements of U.S. intelligence for fear it would lead to an outcry for reprisal, according to documents and interviews.”

Nineteen American servicemen were killed in that attack and another 372 people were wounded when a tanker laden with plastic explosives was driven into the parking lot and detonated next to the eight-story dormitory used for U.S. Air Force personnel assigned to the Gulf. A U.S. indictment was issued in 2001 charging 13 Saudis and a Lebanese man with the crime for which then-Attorney General John Ashcroft blamed Iran, stating they "inspired, supported and supervised members of Saudi Hezbollah.” Yet no Iranian officials were named or charged, nor was the Iranian government accused of any legal responsibility for the atrocity.

According to memos obtain by the Times, the intelligence demonstrating Iranian involvement in the attack was characterized as extensive and credible. It included interviews by the FBI of a half-dozen Saudi co-conspirators who told the agency their passports were provided by the Iranian embassy in Damascus. They further revealed they reported to a top Iranian general, and received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), according to FBI officials.

The Times further notes the revelation about what former President Clinton knew has taken on "new significance” due to the August announcement that Ahmed al-Mughassil, described by the FBI in 2001 as both head of the military wing of Saudi Hezbollah and the alleged leader of the attack, had been captured. According to the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, al-Mughassil was arrested in Beirut and transferred to Riyadh. U.S. officials contend his capture has revealed new evidence of Iran’s and Hezbollah's complicity in the attack—as well as Clinton administration efforts to shield both from responsibility.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh minced no words describing what occurred. “The bottom line was they weren’t interested,” he stated during an interview. "They were not at all responsive to it. They were looking to change the relationships with the regime there, which is foreign policy. And the FBI has nothing to do with that. They didn’t like that. But I did what I thought was proper.”

Freeh insists that when he initially sought help from the Clinton White House to gain access to the Saudi suspects, he was repeatedly turned down. When he went around the Clinton and succeeded in bringing the evidence to light, it was dismissed as “hearsay,” and a request was made not to disseminate it to others because the administration was endeavoring to improve relations with the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror. Freeh was also dismissed as a partisan when he revealed the same allegations in a book he wrote a decade ago about his time with the bureau. The same Clinton defenders further insisted the evidence obtained by Freeh was inconclusive.

“But since that time, substantial new information has emerged in declassified memos, oral history interviews with retired government officials and other venues that corroborate Mr. Freeh’s account, including that the White House tried to cut off the flow of evidence about Iran’s involvement to certain elements of the intelligence community,” theTimes reports.

The chief piece of evidence cited by the paper is a damning memo sent in 1999 by Clinton to newly-elected Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Clinton stated the American government "has received credible evidence that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), along with members of Lebanese and Saudi Hizballah were directly involved in the planning and execution” of the bombing. Clinton insisted the United States viewed the evidence “in the gravest terms,” and though the atrocity had occurred before Khatami’s election those responsible “have yet to face justice for this crime.” Clinton further stated "the IRGC may be involved in planning for further terrorist attacks against American citizens,” and that such a possibility remains a "cause of deep concern to us.” 

The 2001 indictment was issued after Clinton left office, and whatever doubt remained about Iranian involvement in the crime was shattered in 2006, when U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that Iran was responsible for the bombing, and ordered the Iranian government to pay $254 million to the families of 17 Americans who died. "The totality of the evidence at trial . . . firmly establishes that the Khobar Towers bombing was planned, funded, and sponsored by senior leadership in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Lamberth wrote.

Following the linkage of Iran to the attack, Clinton had initially ordered the military to come up with plan for a retaliatory strike, and gave the CIA the green light to pursue “Operation Sapphire” aimed at disrupting Iranian intel operations in several nations. Yet just like our current president, Clinton believed the election of the ostensibly more moderate Khatami would produce a thaw in the U.S./Iranian relationship leading to Iran aiding the investigation, and renouncing terror.

Iran pushed back with a vehement denial—and a threat to publish Clinton’s cable to Khatami. Clinton officials were scared such a revelation would force the president’s hand. “If the Iranians make good on their threats to release the text of our letter, we are going to face intense pressure to take action,” wrote top Clinton aide Kenneth Pollack in a Sept. 15, 1999 memo.

As the evidence linking Iran to the crime piled up, the administration was backing down, speculating that Saudi Arabia was fanning a Shia-Sunni confrontation and that it would be better to work with the new Iranian regime rather than dealing with the possibility of engendering a wider war against terror, according to former aides. Thus, despite the State Department and FBI getting increased cooperation from the Saudis with regard to Iranian involvement, the flow of information suddenly stopped. “We were seeing a line of traffic that led us toward Iranian involvement, and suddenly that traffic was cut off,” said career intelligence officer Wayne White, who served as deputy director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia.

When White tried to get the intel flowing again, he discovered “the stream had been cut off by Sandy Berger, and the original agency producing the intelligence was struggling to work around the roadblock,” he said. Berger was Clinton’s top security aide—and the man who was fined $50,000 following his 2008 conviction for illegally removing highly classified documents from the National Archives, some of which he intentionally destroyed.

White’s account was confirmed to the Times by several U.S. officials “with direct knowledge of the matter” including Freeh, who also revealed he tried to get around Berger by contacting former President George H.W. Bush, who had a good relationship with the Saudis. "I explained to him what my dilemma was and asked if he would contact the Saudis. And he did,” Freeh revealed. White noted that intel analysts didn’t want Iran involved in the attack because of the serious long-term ramifications it would engender for America. But when the evidence became irrefutable, he was disgusted with the administration’s politically-motivated reaction. “You cannot provide your intelligence community selective intelligence without corrupting the process, and that was an outrage,” he declared.

It is an outrage allegedly reprised by the Obama administration, which has been accused by 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military’s Central Command of doctoring their reports in an effort to downplay the danger ISIS and the Syrian branch of al Qaeda presented. The same Obama administration got equally traitorous Democrats to sustain a filibuster against the Iran deal in Congress. The GOP abetted the outrage, allowing a vote to proceed despite the law requiring all parts of that agreement, including Iran’s “side deals” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to be part of the process. Their cowardice was exemplified by Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who refused to invoke the nuclear option and force a vote on what is arguably the most important national security issue of our time. 

Exactly like Bill Clinton, who also promised us the Agreed Framework of 1994 would prevent a nuclear North Korea, Obama is embracing appeasement with Iranian Islamo-fascists responsible for far more American deaths than the Khobar Towers attack. Beginning with the 1979 hostage crisis, during which Americans were beaten and placed in solitary confinement, Iran has precipitated numerous instances of aggression, including kidnapping and murder, against America. The terror timeline is highlighted by 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, killing 17 Americans and the Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines. Moreover their involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq cost at least 500 American soldiers their lives, according to Congressional testimony presented last July by current Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford. And one is left to wonder if Iran’s propensity for killing Americans was part of the equation to which our contemptible Secretary of State John Kerry referred, when he admitted the part of the Iranian deal that frees up billions of dollars for their use will be devoted to “nefarious activities.”

Like the Clinton administration before them, the Obama administration is indulging the fantasy they can improve relations with terrorist thugs whose contempt for America hasn’t diminished an iota in 37 years. And as these revelations from the Washington Times indicate, Bill Clinton and his apparatchiks were every bit as dishonest as Barack Obama and his equally duplicitous underlings when it came to pursuing an agenda utterly inimical to American interests and security. Make no mistake: both men have demonstrated a willingness to countenance the murder of their fellow countrymen in pursuit of appeasement. Times have changed. The unconscionable nature of the Democratic/progressive mindset with regard to America’s enemies remains a constant.

 Tags: Bill Clinton, Bombing, Iran, ISIS, Terrorism

Arnold Ahlert is a former NY Post op-ed columnist currently contributing to JewishWorldReview.com, HumanEvents.com and CanadaFreePress.com. He may be reached at atahlert@comcast.net.

Taking over for St. Paul's Vince Flynn, he kept it vintage Mitch Rapp

By Mary Ann Grossmann
mgrossmann@pioneerpress.com
http://www.twincities.com/
October 3, 2015


Vince Flynn (AP)

How do you step into the shoes of a best-selling author like the late Vince Flynn?

"With mixed fear and trepidation," admits Kyle Mills, who took on the job of writing "The Survivor," the thriller Flynn was working on when he died in 2013. It is the 15th in Flynn's series featuring CIA counterterrorist operative Mitch Rapp, one of the most iconic characters in contemporary popular fiction.

Mills has received positive feedback for "The Survivor," which is good because all of Flynn's Rapp novels were New York Times best-sellers with more than 20 million copies sold worldwide. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were fans and Bush invited Flynn to the White House several times. King Abdullah II of Jordan hosted Flynn in his palace and requested each new Rapp book.

Taking over a series is not a new challenge for Mills, of Jackson Hole, Wyo. Besides writing 12 thrillers of his own, Mills completed two books in the late Robert Ludlum's Covert-One series.

Even though Mills wrote almost all of "The Survivor," Flynn's name dominates the book's cover, and that's the way Mills wants it.

"With Vince's book, my goal was to write so seamlessly, no one would be able to tell my writing from Vince's," Mills said. "I approached it as 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.' "

Mills and Flynn, who lived in the St. Paul area all his life, had careers so similar it's as though Mills was meant to take over the series. He remembers meeting Flynn once, briefly, but he can't recall when or where.

"I've been a Vince Flynn fan from the beginning," Mills said in a phone conversation. "I'm about a month older than he was and we started our careers at the same time. We both published our first books in 1997 and got positive reactions. And he gave me a terrific quote for the jacket of one of my books. Vince's career path is mine on steroids to some extent -- more fans, bigger advances, more marketing, but nothing I'm not familiar with."

Lysa Flynn, Flynn's widow, said she never talked with her husband about someone taking over his book because he was sure he was going to beat his prostate cancer.

"There was no Plan B," she recalled.

Since Flynn kept his professional writing separate from his family time, Lysa didn't know much about how his team in New York decided to continue the series or how much of his original manuscript they had seen.

"I certainly have mixed feelings about knowing someone else is writing Vince's books. I had to get used to that idea," she said. "But I'm comforted by knowing Vince was comfortable with someone writing a book with him because he was talking with (author) Brian Haig about doing a series together.

And I remember him talking about Kyle and how much he liked his writing."

TAKING THE JOB

Mills isn't sure who decided he should write "The Survivor" and two future Rapp books. The decision involved negotiations between his agent; Flynn's longtime agent, Sloan Harris; and Flynn's estate, represented by Lysa.

"I was asked for ideas about where I'd go with the book," Mills recalled. "I re-read Vince's most recent book, 'The Last Man,' and he'd left enough clues that it was obvious where the new one needed to go. We had long discussions about our philosophy for the series and we were largely on the same page. I wouldn't do anything crazy anyway."

Before Mills started writing "The Survivor," he re-read all the Rapp books, which begin in 2010 with "American Assassin." Along the way, he took some 150 pages of notes.

"Vince left one short chapter of 'The Survivor,' about 2 1/2 pages, which was probably intended to be chapter one," Mills said. "I assumed he would have left a bunch of research and an outline because that's what I would do. But Vince didn't work that way. He hated outlines."

Mills finally wrote a prelude and made Flynn's pages chapter one. (It is poignant that the last sentence in that chapter -- "He's a survivor" -- might be the last words Flynn ever wrote.)

All the familiar characters return in "The Survivor," including beleaguered CIA chief Irene Kennedy. Rapp and Kennedy are dealing with the release of classified documents sent from beyond the grave by Rick Rickman, a former CIA golden boy who stole the information before Rapp killed him. Now, the agency is threatened by videos of Rickman revealing secrets that could endanger CIA agents around the globe and bring down the entire agency. It's a race between Pakistan and the Americans to find out where the videos are being released, and Rapp has to use the skills of his whole team to stop an old adversary.

There is one death, which won't be revealed here, that might surprise readers. But Mills is confident Flynn felt it was time for this character to leave the world honorably.

Kyle Mills (Atria Books)

IMMERSED IN FOREIGN CULTURES

Mills' father, who was in the FBI, was legal attache to the United Kingdom and director of Interpol so the family moved often. Mills grew up in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland and Wyoming, as well as England and other foreign countries.

"I was a Bureau kid, similar to being an Army brat," he said, adding that he absorbed a lot of information about the FBI, CIA, Special Forces and other organizations.

In an eerie coincidence, Mitch Rapp joined the CIA after the love of his life died in the Pan Am 103 airplane crash over Lockerbie, Scotland, and Mills' father was the FBI's lead man in the investigation of that terrorist attack.

Mills was a student at James Madison University in Virginia when Tom Clancy visited the family in London while he was researching his second book. They invited him for supper, and Clancy and Mills' dad became good friends.

While Mills was in college, he "avoided English classes like the plague," concentrating on business and economics. He also became enamored of rock climbing, an obsession he still has.

"I was working for a little bank in Jackson Hole, spending my days making business loans and my afternoons and weekends climbing," he recalled. "For some reason, it finally occurred to me that I'd never actually tried to be creative. Maybe I could make something from nothing."

After Mills failed at building furniture, his wife suggested he write a novel. Eight months later, he finished "Rising Phoenix" (1998), first in his series featuring maverick FBI Special Agent Mark Beamon.

Because Mills has lived in foreign countries, he enjoys immersing himself in other cultures and that helped him write "The Survivor," in which characters from several nations offer differing views of the U.S.

"I always find political stuff interesting," he said. "I like the complexity of the world, something my books have embraced but Vince kept away from. My characters have always been more flawed; his were black and white. His greatest gift was creating characters you really hated and wanted them to get theirs."

WHAT'S NEXT FOR MITCH?

Mills knows his next two Rapp books will have to be somewhat different from what Flynn might have written.

"Thrillers have to be written about what's going on at the time. That's what drives the plot. There was no ISIS when Vince was writing, no Iran deal," he said, pointing out that the U.S. no longer has ground troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq that gave Flynn's books such immediacy.

Mills is sure there are better times ahead for Rapp, who has been through the loss of his wife, a house that burned and many killings. Mills thinks it's time for Rapp to move on. Flynn probably felt the same way.

"I was talking to a guy who said, 'You gave Mitch his humanity back,' " Mills recalled. "Rapp has gone through different periods. I thought, poor guy, his life is dark. He's trying to pull it together in 'The Survivor,' realizing he's drinking and smoking too much, with no women around. He's trying to find something that's not running around the world killing people. I want him to have a tiny bit of happiness."

Mary Ann Grossmann can be reached at 651-228-5574.

CELEBRATING FLYNN'S LEGACY

Vince Flynn, who lived in the St. Paul area his entire life, was 47 when he died of prostate cancer. At his funeral at the St. Paul Cathedral the pews were filled with people paying tribute to a man much admired and loved as warm, caring and generous. Despite hobnobbing with presidents and interviewing top U.S. security officials, Flynn stayed humble and grounded in Minnesota and his family.

He never expected to be a writer when he was growing up in Apple Valley with six siblings and struggling with dyslexia. After graduating from St. Thomas Academy and the University of St. Thomas he sold Jell-O and cereals to grocery stores and wholesalers. As long as he could remember he wanted to be a jet pilot, but that dream crashed when he was 27 and the Marines turned him down because he'd had a couple concussions when he was a kid.

"That was the most sobering day of my life," he recalled in a 1997 Pioneer Press interview. "Besides flying, my other passion was writing an espionage novel." He did that while bartending at O'Gara's on Snelling Avenue.

Flynn's debut novel, "Term Limits," was a techno-thriller he self-published and sold out of the trunk of his car. He was soon signed by Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster, and Mitch Rapp was born in 2010 in "American Assassin."

The national launch of "The Survivor," Flynn's last book, will take place Tuesday at St. Thomas Academy.

The launch will feature discussions by Flynn's only editor, Emily Bestler, senior vice president and editor-in-chief of Emily Bestler Books, and Flynn's agent, Sloan Harris, as well as media personalities Joe Soucheray, Dan Barreiro and Tom Barnard, Flynn's brother Tim and his childhood friend Tom Tracy. Moderator will be Flynn's friend WCCO-TV anchor Frank Vascellaro.

In the audience will be his widow, Lysa, to whom he was married for 13 years, and their children: Dane, 20, is a sophomore at the University of St. Thomas majoring in sports writing; and daughter Ingrid, who will be 15 this month, and a freshman at Visitation, where Ana is an eighth grader.

The event was suggested by David Brown, Atria Books deputy director of publicity, in cooperation with Lysa. Brown traveled with Vince Flynn off and on through eight book tours.

"Vince was very special to me and we thought relaunching Mitch Rapp should be a big special event and not just a regular book signing," Brown said. "The most appropriate place was the building named after him at St. Thomas."

St. Thomas headmaster Matthew Mohs and the board of directors were happy to oblige.

"Obviously as a school we are not typically in the business of hosting book-release events," Mohs said, "but Vince was such an important part of our community. The way David Brown pitched the idea was as a celebration of Vince's life and legacy. We know Vince's books touched a number of people and we recognize our school had a strong influence on him. It's a nice way to be involved in a tribute to a man who deserved it."

IF YOU GO

What: Kyle Mills reads at national release celebration for Vince Flynn's "The Survivor"

When/where: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Vincent J. Flynn Hall, St. Thomas Academy, 949 Mendota Heights Road, Mendota Heights. (He also will read at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Barnes & Noble, 3225 W. 69th St., Edina.)

Cost: $150-$50 (proceeds benefit St. Thomas Academy)

More information: cadets.com/vinceflynn

KYLE MILLS' BOOKS

"Rising Phoenix," "Storming Heaven," "Free Fall," "Burn Factor," "Sphere of Influence," "Smoke Screen," "Fade," "The Second Horseman," "Darkness Falls," "Lords of Corruption," "The Immortalists."

VINCE FLYNN'S MITCH RAPP NOVELS:

"American Assassin," "Kill Shot," "Transfer of Power," "The Third Option," "Separation of Power," "Executive Power," "Memorial Day," "Consent to Kill," "Act of Treason," Protect and Defend," "Extreme Measures," "Pursuit of Honor," "The Last Man."

The Jack Kemp Model for Republicans

GOP candidates in 2016 would do well to echo his message of growth, prosperity and hope.

By Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes

http://www.wsj.com/

September 27, 2015

Jack Kemp in 1992 (AP)

Jack Kemp never became president, but the country desperately needs a leader like him now. When Kemp died in 2009, two themes dominated tributes to his career as a star quarterback, congressman, cabinet secretary and candidate for vice president and president. Conservatives called him one of the most influential politicians of the 20th century who never made it to the White House. He was “among the most important Congressmen in U.S. history,” as a Wall Street Journal editorial put it. Liberals declared that the Republican Party needed, but didn’t have, a Kemp: a leader who cared about the poor, who wanted to make the GOP attractive to minorities and working-class voters, who never went negative and regularly worked across party lines.

Both evaluations were accurate. And both are relevant as the GOP struggles to find its 2016 presidential candidate. Republican voters—Democrats and independents, too—are looking for someone who, instead of raging at the status quo, will shake up Washington, make the economy grow again and restore hope in America’s future. A candidate working from the Kemp model could do all of that.

Kemp was a pivotal political leader because, as the foremost exponent of supply-side economics, he persuaded his party and later Ronald Reagan to adopt his tax-cut plan, known as “Kemp-Roth.” The top tax rate on individual income dropped in 1981 to 50% from 70%. Then Kemp helped pioneer tax reform, and the top rate fell in 1986 to 28%. Middle-income taxpayers enjoyed similar cuts.

After an era of “stagflation” and malaise in the 1970s, Reaganomics produced more than two decades of prosperity, restored American morale, undermined the Soviet empire and converted much of the world, for a time at least, to democratic capitalism. Kemp deserves a significant amount of credit.

Kemp first got into tax policy to help his suffering Rust Belt constituents in Buffalo, N.Y. He was all about economic growth, and believed in government policy to encourage work, savings, investment and productivity. Kemp insisted growth was the key to economic strength and national unity. Robust growth would help everyone rise—rich, middle class and poor. In a stagnant or contracting economy, he said, “politics becomes the art of pitting class against class: rich against poor, white against black, capital against labor, Sunbelt against Snowbelt, old against young.”

The present era resembles the miserable 1970s. Growth is glacial. Incomes are stagnant. The country’s mood is sour. Divisions are widening. In 1979 only 12% of Americans thought the nation was headed in the right direction. Now it’s around 30%. And politicians are pitting class against class: the “1%” against the “47%”; white workers against Mexican immigrants. The public is furious with Washington, and no wonder. Polarized Republicans and Democrats do nothing for them.

Jack Kemp shook things up—but with dramatic ideas about policy, not by pitting outsiders against insiders. The Republican establishment resented the gall of a backbencher’s butting into tax policy. Democrats hated tax-cutting, even though Kemp kept reminding them that President John F. Kennedy first proposed lowering the top rate to 70% from 90%. Special interests were furious when Kemp proposed reducing their tax breaks. He once wrote Reagan’s deficit-hawk budget director, David Stockman,demanding to know why Mr. Stockman wanted to raise taxes on working people and cut food stamps, Medicaid and Head Start, but keep subsidies and tax breaks in place forBoeing, Exxon and Gulf Oil.

What Republicans need today, following the Kemp model, is big ideas, not demagoguery. They ought to be debating the best way to restore growth, prosperity and hope—what voters care about most—not insulting one another over appearances and poll standings.

Some candidates are trying. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Marco Rubio have put forward interesting economic plans. Even Donald Trump says he will have a tax plan shortly. Mr. Bush’s tax reform initiative, with its top rate of 28%, is especially Kemp-like. Unlike Kemp, today’s Republicans can’t ignore deficits, debt and the need for entitlement reform, all drags on growth. But if they followed Kemp, they’d cut farm subsidies, ethanol requirements, sugar quotas, carried interest and other corporate welfare at the same time as they trim Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Kemp also shook things up for the reasons liberals extolled him. He infuriated Republicans when he opposed California’s anti-immigrant Proposition 187 in 1994, and he always favored, besides border control, a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants with clean records. He was the polar opposite of Donald Trump, while sharing Mr. Trump’s high energy. Kemp never disparaged opponents, even when they deserved it—as Bill Clinton did on political ethics in 1996, when Kemp ran for vice president and refused to be Bob Dole’s attack dog.

Many Republicans thought he was too fixated on the plight of the poor. What he advocated was a war on poverty by conservative means: education choice, and lower taxes and fewer regulations to attract investment to blighted neighborhoods. He wanted welfare policies to be, as he said, “a trampoline, not a trap.” But most of all, he demonstrated that he cared about the poor. Some 2016 candidates do, too. More should.

Kemp thought that the GOP should, and could, once again be the “party of Lincoln.” Being pro-civil rights was only part of it. It was famously said that Kemp, as a football player, had showered with more African-Americans than most Republicans had ever met. But Kemp also shared Lincoln’s other big idea, that the essence of America was the “right to rise”—for everybody—through talent and effort. Neither Lincoln nor Kemp favored income redistribution, but they both thought government had a role in helping people climb the ladder. Lincoln favored public investment in infrastructure and education. Kemp wanted lower tax rates.

The Republican Party and the country do need another Jack Kemp. The GOP debates and primaries ought to be about finding one.

Messrs. Kondracke and Barnes are co-authors of “Jack Kemp: The Bleeding Heart Conservative Who Changed America,” out on Tuesday from Sentinel.

Remembering Jack Kemp – “Bleeding Heart Conservative”

Christopher N. Malagisi | Oct 01, 2015

http://townhall.com/

In Part 1 of 2 of our special interview with both Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, we discuss their new book on the iconic Jack Kemp! Today’s interview is with Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of The Weekly Standard, and long-time Fox News all-star panelist.

Congratulations Mr. Barnes and Mr. Kondracke on your new book, The Bleeding-Heart Conservative Who Changed America! You became a household name after consistently appearing on Fox News’ All-Star Panel on Special Report with Brit Hume. You two had debated each other for years! How did you find yourself writing a book together about, of all people, Jack Kemp?

The book was Mort’s doing and he did most of the reporting. Midway through, he asked me to join him as co-author and I agreed. It was a great opportunity. I knew Kemp very well and had written about him often.

Mort was great to work with. He is a journalist I admire and have known since we both covered the Gerald Ford presidency. We spent decades appearing together on TV chat shows. I was delighted to find that Mort converted to supply-side economics.

What three takeaways would you like readers to leave with after reading your book, and how can the legacy of Jack Kemp help us in today’s toxic political environment?

One, Kemp taught himself free market economics. Other political figures should copy him since many falsely believe that government action is the answer to economic trouble.

Two, leadership matters. Kemp put together a movement that led to a quarter century of prosperity. It was crucial that he was a dynamic actor, not just a thinker.

Three, Kemp didn’t favor outreach to minority and immigrant communities merely to aid the Republican Party. He knew they belonged in the “Party of Lincoln.” Today, a new supply-side revolution is desperately needed. That means serious income tax rate cuts, as proposed by Paul Ryan and Jeb Bush.

Would it be a fair assumption that Jack Kemp was the impetus of what would become Reagan’s Supply-Side Economics policy? And should Kemp get the actual credit for leading the congressional battles for Reagan’s big tax cut proposals in congress?

Reagan was inclined to cut taxes, but all tax cuts are not the same. So-called targeted tax cuts would not have revived the economy or America’s spirits. In addition, waiting for the deficit to shrink before cutting taxes would have prolonged stagflation.

“Growth” was Kemp’s favorite word. He always chose growth in a choice between cutting tax rates to promote growth and attacking the deficit. He persuaded Reagan to champion a particular kind of tax cut, including across-the-board reductions in income tax rates. That made all the difference. Kemp was a leader in getting those passed, but in 1981, President Reagan’s influence was even more powerful.

Jack Kemp was also a famous quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. What leadership skills do you believe he brought to the political arena from his experiences playing professional football?

The quarterback leads his team in football. He takes responsibility. He’s in charge. His teammates follow him, and must be confident the he will carry them to victory. He alone is expected to bring about a better future.

Kemp held no position of power in Congress, but he had a big idea – tax rate cuts to spur economic growth – and took charge in imposing his idea on the nation. He didn’t wait until he chaired a committee or was president. Quarterbacks don’t wait. They overpower their opponents, and implement the changes they see fit.

Many people have forgotten the 1996 presidential race where Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole. But one of the interesting highlights of the race was Dole’s selection of Jack Kemp to be his Vice Presidential running mate, even though the two were not particularly fans of each other, and had even run against each other for president in 1988. Why was Jack Kemp selected to be Dole’s VP running mate in 1996?

Kemp was picked to balance the ticket as a younger, bolder, more dynamic running mate. Vice presidential candidates are supposed to attack the opposing party’s presidential nominee, and Kemp was ill-suited for this. He declined to carry out that task, thus failing as a running mate.

What was your favorite moment or debate you had with your co-author, Mort Kondracke, when you were both on Fox News’ All-Star Panel on Special Report with Brit Hume?

Spending. Mort thought the government should do something “nice” if it could. I believe the government ought to do only what’s necessary for prosperity and the nation’s security. I’d say Mort and I agreed on more than we disagreed. Immigration reform and support for the contras in Nicaragua are two examples of agreement.

What books, authors, or conservative-themed books, influenced your political philosophy and outlook on life?

I read Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative as a teenager and loved it. More recently, I’ve been influenced by George Gilder’s books on economics, especially Wealth and Poverty. The greatest book of the 20th century was Witness by Whitaker Chambers. Chambers saw the conflict between communism and Christianity. It was, and to some existent, still is.

- See more at: http://www.conservativebookclub.com/13689/author-interviews/remembering-jack-kemp-bleeding-heart-conservative-author-interview-fred-barnes#sthash.kmUQ7c4F.dpuf