When we talk about “pro-life” in our national discussion about abortion, “life” is understood to be about the unborn child in the mother’s womb.
But it would serve us well to expand our understanding about what “pro-life” means.
We should understand that respecting the sanctity of life is key to the values and behaviors in general that sustain and nourish all our lives today and create the necessary conditions for our future.
A just-released report from the National Center for Health Statistics, a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports that the total number of births in the United States in 2018 was down 2% from 2017 and is the lowest number of births in the country in 32 years.
It also reports that the general fertility rate—the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15-44—was also down 2% and is at a record low.
The total fertility rate needs to be 2,100 births per 1,000 women to keep our overall population at steady state—not shrinking. It now stands at 1,728 per 1,000 women.
If the alternative to “pro-life” is so-called “pro-choice,” the mindset of legal abortion on demand, the latter is capturing, and destroying, American society. We are choosing to extinguish ourselves.
It turns out that “reproductive freedom,” the banner under which “pro-choice” operates, translates into the freedom to not reproduce.
University of Southern California demographer Dowell Myers calls the declining birthrates we are witnessing a “barometer of despair.”
Birthrates decline, according to Myers, when people are not optimistic about the future.
How about the general collapse of the marriage institution?
In 1960, 72% of Americans 18 and above were married. By 2016, this was down to 50%.
At a conference at the Vatican in 2014, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, called marriage “the single most humanizing institution in history.”
He said that life begins “when male and female meet and embrace.”
“Morality,” he continued, “is the love between husband and wife, parent and child, extended outward to the world.”
A society in which sanctity of life is respected is a society that appreciates that we are all part of something larger than ourselves. When we lose this awe, this appreciation for the sacred, we disconnect from one another and disappear into our separate selves.
Love, marriage, children, and our future begin to recede.
It’s a spiritual tragedy with profound and destructive practical implications for society.
The Census Bureau projects that in 2035, for the first time, the number of Americans over the age of 65 will exceed the number of Americans under 18.
As society ages, the number of retirees per each working American increases—what is called the dependency ratio.
We are already seeing the implications with huge deficits in our Social Security and Medicare programs, where payroll taxes finance retirement and health care costs of the elderly.
A healthy pushback is starting to occur at the nation’s grassroots.
States are getting aggressive to stop the destructive abortion culture. Most recently, Alabama and Georgia have enacted laws making abortion that is legal under federal law illegal in the state.
This puts state law on a collision course with federal law.
Whether this will wind up at the Supreme Court with a revisiting of the Roe v. Wade decision remains to be seen.
We should be praying it will happen.
The current abortion culture that has been defining America since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 is part and symptomatic of an America whose future is in danger.
We must fight for restoration of a pro-life culture in our country that respects the sanctity of life and will restore the American family, children, and our future.
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-05-22 17:41:222019-05-22 19:11:30Alabama and Georgia Abortion Laws on Right Track
A mob of eight to 10 males wielding hammers descended upon bystanders at the East Bank Light Rail station on Friday night injuring several, according to recorded police dispatch audio.
The incident was apparently reported to 911 just before 10 p.m. on Friday according to the audio and other social media police scanner reports. A 9:48 p.m. Facebook post on 2nd Precinct Minneapolis Crime Watch page said that University of Minnesota (U of M) police were requesting assistance from Minneapolis police (MPD) and Metro Transit police for “a group of 8-10 males chasing people with hammers” and that some people were injured. A Facebook post a minute later on Minneapolis Scanner page said that the three police departments were responding to “multiple [911] calls” about “10-12 Somali teen males armed with hammers chasing people,” also with “several injuries reported.” Both Facebook pages regularly post summaries of police scanner audio.
EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Vlad Tepes Bloghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngVlad Tepes Blog2019-05-21 07:30:252019-05-26 05:53:09Group of Somali Males with Hammers Attack People in Minneapolis
As I listened to President Trump deliver his Rose Garden comments on the dramatic shift from the current and antiquated family based to a new and modern merit based immigration plan I understood that the President’s plan rewards success. The Trump Administrations plan would:
End chain migration.
End the visa lottery.
Make immigrants learn English and take a Civics examination before being issued a visa.
Reward success (those immigrants with college degrees, those who have a job or are wanting to start a company in America).
Still provide entry to those who are actually seeking asylum.
Build the wall, but with a door open to those who wish to legally become American citizens.
President Trump is clearly thinking outside of the box Congress has placed America and American workers in. The Trump plan is pro-immigrant, pro-American and pro-growth.
Watch President Trump’s remarks on modernizing our immigration system for a stronger America:
RELATED VIDEO: 1995 Barbara Jordan Press Conference on Legal Immigration Recommendations. The Immigration Act of 1990 mandated the creation of a bipartisan commission to examine the impacts of immigration on the United States and to make recommendations for future policy. The Commission, chaired by the late Barbara Jordan, issued its final report in 1997, but Barbara Jordan held a press conference in 1995 releasing the Commission’s recommendations on legal immigration. The Jordan Commission called for an end to Chain Migration, the end of the Visa Lottery, and an annual immigration flow of 550,000 new immigrants per year with a focus on highly-skilled workers, the nuclear family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, and the U.S.’s fair share of refugees and asylees (50,000/year).
TRANSCRIPT
Rose Garden
2:35 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Please. Thank you. Thank you very much.
We’re here on this very beautiful spring day in the Rose Garden to unveil our plan to create a fair, modern, and lawful system of immigration for the United States. And it’s about time. (Applause.)
If adopted, our plan will transform America’s immigration system into the pride of our nation and the envy of the modern world. Our proposal builds upon our nation’s rich history of immigration, while strengthening the bonds of citizenship that bind us together as a national family.
Throughout our history, we have proudly welcomed newcomers to our shores. Out of many people, from many places, we have forged one people and one nation under God, and we’re very proud of it. (Applause.) We share the same home, we share the same destiny, and we pledge allegiance to the same, great American flag. (Applause.)
Our policies have turbo-charged our economy. Now, we must implement an immigration system that will allow our citizens to prosper for generations to come.
Today, we are presenting a clear contrast: Democrats are proposing open borders, lower wages, and, frankly, lawless chaos. We are proposing an immigration plan that puts the jobs, wages, and safety of American workers first. (Applause.)
Our proposal is pro-American, pro-immigrant, and pro-worker. It’s just common sense. It will help all of our people, including millions of devoted immigrants, to achieve the American Dream.
We are grateful to be joined this afternoon by a tremendous number of people from the House, the Senate, and my Cabinet. And I love you all, but I won’t introduce you all because I’ll be here all day long. (Laughter.) But you’re all here.
Our plan achieves two critical goals. First, it stops illegal immigration and fully secures the border. And, second, it establishes a new legal immigration system that protects American wages, promotes American values, and attracts the best and brightest from all around the world.
The proposal begins with the most complete and effective border security package ever assembled by our country — or any other country, for that matter. (Applause.) It’s so important.
This plan was not developed, I’m sorry to say, by politicians. We have a lot of politicians. But you respect the people and you know the people that have developed this plan. It was designed with significant input from our great law enforcement professionals to detail what they need to make our border — which is 100 percent operationally secure. One hundred percent.
Everyone agrees that the physical infrastructure on the border and the ports of entry is gravely underfunded and woefully inadequate. We scan only a small fraction of the vehicles, goods, and all of the other things coming across, including people. And, sadly, the drugs pour across our border. We’re going to stop it.
Investment in technology will ensure we can scan 100 percent of everything coming through, curbing the flow of drugs and contraband, while speeding up legal trade and commerce. It’s the most heavily traded — monetarily — border anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close.
To make certain that we are constantly making the upgrades we need, our proposal creates a permanent and self-sustaining border security trust fund. This will be financed by the fees and revenues generated at the border crossings itself.
Importantly, we’re already building the wall, and we should have close to 400 miles built by the end of next year, and probably even more than that. It’s going up very rapidly. (Applause.)
And I want to thank the Army Corps of Engineers. They’re doing a fantastic job on the wall. And that’s a wall that is desperately needed.
As we close the gaps in our physical framework, we must also close the gaps in our legal framework. Critical to ending the border crisis is removing all incentives for smuggling women and children. Current law — (applause). That’s right. That’s right. Women and children. People have no idea how bad it is unless you’re there, and unless you are a member of law enforcement. They see it every day, and they can’t believe what they see.
Current law and federal court rulings encourage criminal organizations to smuggle children across the border. The tragic result is that 65 percent of all border-crossers this year were either minors or adults traveling with minors. Our plan will change the law to stop the flood of child smuggling and to humanely reunite unaccompanied children with their families back home — and rapidly. As soon as possible. (Applause.)
We must also restore the integrity of our broken asylum system. Our nation has a proud history of affording protection to those fleeing government persecutions. Unfortunately, legitimate asylum seekers are being displaced by those lodging frivolous claims — these are frivolous claims — to gain admission into our country.
Asylum abuse also strains our public school systems, our hospitals, and local shelters, using funds that we should, and that have to, go to elderly veterans, at-risk youth, Americans in poverty, and those in genuine need of protection. We’re using the funds that should be going to them. And that shouldn’t happen. And it’s not going to happen in a very short period of time. Have to get this approved.
My plan expedites relief for legitimate asylum seekers by screening out the meritless claims. If you have a proper claim, you will quickly be admitted; if you don’t, you will promptly be returned home.
Crucially — (applause) — our plan closes loopholes in federal law to make clear that gang members and criminals are inadmissible. These are some of the worst people anywhere in the world — MS-13 and others. Inadmissible. Not coming in. We’re taking them out all the time by the thousands, a year, but they come in. They are no longer admissible. And for criminals already here, we will ensure their swift deportation. (Applause.)
We will keep our communities safe. Americans can have complete and total confidence that under this plan, the borders will finally be fully and totally secured. (Applause.)
And I know a number of our Republican friends and others — Lindsey, I see you sitting right there, and Steve, you’re working on a plan — an immediate plan. A smaller plan, but a very immediate plan to stop it as of this afternoon. So, as fast as you can get something done. This is the big, beautiful, bold plan, but we need something very quickly. And if you can get it done, that would be fantastic. Okay? Thank you. (Applause.) Appreciate you working on it.
A topic of less discussion in national media, but of vital importance to our country, is our legal immigration system itself. Our plan includes a sweeping modernization of our dysfunctional legal immigration process. It is totally dysfunctional. The system will finally be fair, transparent, and promote equality and opportunity for all.
Every year, we admit 1.1 million immigrants as permanent legal residents. These green card holders get lifetime authorization to live and work here and a five-year path to American citizenship. This is the most prized citizenship anywhere in the world, by far.
Currently, 66 percent of legal immigrants come here on the basis of random chance. They’re admitted solely because they have a relative in the United States. And it doesn’t really matter who that relative is. Another 21 percent of immigrants are issued either by random lottery, or because they are fortunate enough to be selected for humanitarian relief.
Random selection is contrary to American values and blocks out many qualified potential immigrants from around the world who have much to contribute. While countless — and you wouldn’t believe how many countries, like Canada, create a clear path for top talent. America does not.
Under the senseless rules of the current system, we’re not able to give preference to a doctor, a researcher, a student who graduated number one in his class from the finest colleges in the world — anybody. We’re not able to take care of it. We’re not able to make those incredible breakthroughs. If somebody graduates top of their class from the best college, sorry, go back to your country. We want to keep them here.
Companies are moving offices to other countries because our immigration rules prevent them from retaining highly skilled and even, if I might, totally brilliant people. We discriminate against genius. We discriminate against brilliance. We won’t anymore, once we get this passed. And we hope to get it passed as soon as possible. (Applause.)
Some of the most skilled students at our world-class universities are going back home because they have no relatives to sponsor them here in the United States. And that’s the only way. We want these exceptional students and workers to stay, and flourish, and thrive in America. (Applause.) Thank you.
As a result of our broken rules, the annual green card flow is mostly low-wage and low-skilled. Newcomers compete for jobs against the most vulnerable Americans and put pressure on our social safety net and generous welfare programs.
Only 12 percent of legal immigrants are selected based on skill or based on merit. In countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — and others — that number is closer to 60 and even 70 and 75 percent, in some cases.
The biggest change we make is to increase the proportion of highly skilled immigration from 12 percent to 57 percent, and we’d like to even see if we can go higher. (Applause.) This will bring us in line with other countries and make us globally competitive.
At the same time, we prioritize the immediate family of new Americans — spouses and children. The loved ones you choose to build a life with, we prioritize. And we have to do that. They go right to the front of the line. Right to the front of the line, where they should be. (Applause.)
America’s last major overhaul of our legal admissions policy was 54 years ago. Think of that. So a major update — and that’s what this is: merit system and a heart system — is long overdue.
The millions of legal immigrants who have come to America over the past half century are now cherished members of our national family. Going forward — (applause) — it is their interest, and in their interest, and their children’s interest, to adopt a green card system that promotes a rising standard of living for all of our citizens.
Three in four new jobs at the end of last year went to Americans previously out of the workforce. Our economy is better probably than it ever has been in the history of our country. (Applause.) And because of that great economy, we’re able to do things that nobody ever thought possible before, and that’s what we’re going to do for immigration, finally.
Wages are rising but our current immigration system works at cross-purposes, placing downward pressure on wages for the working class, which is what we don’t want to do.
Last year, we also passed historic criminal justice reform. (Applause.) And we had tremendous backing — bipartisan — from Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals. I guess we could also use the word “progressives.” A new word that’s come about.
Americans with criminal records are getting a second chance at life in higher numbers than ever before. Unfortunately, the current immigration rules allow foreign workers to substitute for Americans seeking entry-level jobs. So, foreign workers are coming in and they’re taking the jobs that would normally go to American workers.
America’s immigration system should bring in people who will expand opportunity for striving, low-income Americans, not to compete with those low-income Americans. (Applause.)
Our proposal fulfills our sacred duty to those living here today, while ensuring America remains a welcoming country to immigrants joining us tomorrow. And we want immigrants coming in. We cherish the open door that we want to create for our country, but a big proportion of those immigrants must come in through merit and skill. (Applause.)
The White House plan makes no change to the number of green cards allocated each year. But instead of admitting people through random chance, we will establish simple, universal criteria for admission to the United States. No matter where in the world you’re born, no matter who your relatives are, if you want to become an American citizen, it will be clear exactly what standard we ask you to achieve. It will be made crystal clear. (Applause.)
This will increase the diversity of immigration flows into our country. We will replace the existing green card categories with a new visa, the Build America visa — which is what we all want to hear. (Applause.)
Like Canada and so many other modern countries, we create an easy-to-navigate points-based selection system. You will get more points for being a younger worker, meaning you will contribute more to our social safety net. You will get more points for having a valuable skill, an offer of employment, an advanced education, or a plan to create jobs.
We lose people that want to start companies, and, in many cases, they’re forced to leave our country; go back, usually, to the country where they came from; and they’ll start up companies, and some of those companies are among the biggest and most successful companies today in the world. They could’ve started them right here in the United States, where they wanted to do it in the first place. Now they’ll have a chance. (Applause.)
Priority will also be given to higher-wage workers, ensuring we never undercut American labor. To protect benefits for American citizens, immigrants must be financially self-sufficient.
Finally, to promote integration, assimilation, and national unity, future immigrants will be required to learn English and to pass a civics exam prior to admission. (Applause.)
Through these steps, we will deliver an immigration system that respects, and even strengthens, our culture, our traditions, and our values.
Four months ago, I had the honor of participating in a swearing-in ceremony for new Americans, right here in the Oval Office. It was a beautiful reminder that American citizenship is the most precious gift our nation has to offer. When we swear in new citizens, we do more than give them a permit; we give them a history, a heritage, a home, and a future of limitless possibilities and potential.
Our nation used to pride ourselves on this capacity: our unique ability to instill the spirit of America into any human heart, into any human being. Many of the Democrats have claimed to be for these concepts at different times in their careers and, in many cases, in very recent history. And I hope that they will end up joining me and all of the people gathered together today in putting politics aside, putting security and wages first, and pursuing these historic reforms. It’s time. (Applause.)
And if for some reason — possibly political — we can’t get the Democrats to approve this merit-based, high-security plan, then we will get it approved immediately after the election, when we take back the House, keep the Senate, and, of course, hold the presidency. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
But wouldn’t it be nice to do it sooner than that? (Laughter.) But it’s not a very long time, is it? Sixteen months.
One of the reasons we will win is because of our strong, fair, and pro-America immigration policy. It’s time to restore our national unity and reaffirm our national purpose. It is time to rebuild our country for all Americans.
Together, we will create an immigration system to make America safer, and stronger, and greater than ever before.
Thank you. God bless you all. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you.
END
2:59 P.M. EDT
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2019-05-17 06:38:292019-05-18 06:50:14VIDEO: President Trump’s Merit Based Immigration The Right Plan for America
The Left is coming for you, giving a modern day context to the quote misattributed to Marxist Leon Trotsky, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Ah, yes, war is always interested in you — the war the Left has unleashed on Western civilization through the civilization’s institutions.
And what exactly is the Left using the war to get of yours? Very simple: your soul. Only with the understanding of war — war for your soul, meaning spiritual warfare played out in the daily decisions of a society — does any of the current madness make sense.
Men pretending to themselves that they are women, competing in female sports and shattering records; corporations saying they will no longer accept the understanding of a so-called “binary world” where there are just two sexes; social media giants blowing up the accounts of virtually any person willing to challenge the lunacy of the Left — this is all being done to force a new world down everyone’s throats. And don’t think this isn’t coming, indeed, hasn’t already started to come to a neighborhood near you.
Take, for example, the recent defeat of the Religious Freedom Law in Texas. That law would have protected business owners with publicly stated religious opinions from adverse government action.
The proposed law, House Bill 3172, got the nickname the “Chick-fil-A Bill” because when the fast food company wanted to open some more stores in San Antonio city airports, the city council refused to grant the necessary permits because of the business owners strongly held and stated opinions about homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
The bill was killed not on its merits, but by parliamentary lobbying tactics by the state’s homosexual lobby group. There was a justified uproar about the case once it became wider known and Texas lawmakers said it was the perfect example of why the law was necessary so that governments could not penalize businesses because of their political or moral or religious views.
But that understanding of fairness only seems to apply to the Left — at least as far as the Left is concerned. Could you imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would on the Left occur if the shoe was on the other foot?
And for the record, although you probably could already guess, the Texas Catholic Conference, the state’s bishops, had nothing to say on the matter. Yep, the Catholic conference, in what seems like it should have been a “no-brainer” was completely dumb-struck on the issue of religious freedom.
The Left is relentless and shameless. And they will not stop until they have either converted you or eradicated you — and if not you, then your children.
These are not just political policy-type considerations or prudential societal decisions, these are, at their very core, spiritual matters which determine a person’s eternal destiny.
This is why all of this, no matter the arena, no matter the matter, must be fully vetted and placed under a microscope — a spiritual microscope.
In the end, it’s all about spirituality, spiritual truth, meaning whether a soul is saved or damned. Yep, day by day, they are coming for you, and to date, your spiritual fathers have offered little by way of defense, and in frequent cases, they have sold you out, owing to their own perversions or willful neglect.
What Catholics need to come to terms with is that many of the bishops are actually supportive of the Democratic Party’s worldview.
And since that worldview is diametrically opposed to Christ, well, now you see the disaster which has befallen the Church.
We need to all see and understand and tell our loved ones that the Left wants your children, and you, out of the picture. And given the current rate of success of the Left since this plan was rolled out, it would appear around just another five years or so until they have almost completely won.
Will everyday Catholics step up and save civilization?
EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Church Militanthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngChurch Militant2019-05-16 14:06:592019-05-16 14:07:41VIDEO: The Vortex — They’re Coming for You
John Durham, known for prosecuting FBI agents connected to infamous mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, is now a fourth attorney general’s pick to lead a special investigation into suspected government misconduct.
The Justice Department confirmed to media outlets that Attorney General William Barr named Durham, now U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, to look into why and how department and FBI officials began investigating associates of President Donald Trump before the 2016 election.
Durham’s resume includes investigating the mafia and crooked politicians.
Attorneys general from the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations all previously appointed Durham to lead special investigations.
The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>
Barr reportedly selected him to head the probe weeks ago, as the FBI came under intensified scrutiny for spying on one Trump campaign adviser and sending a confidential informant to talk to another.
In the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report clearing the Trump campaign of conspiracy with Russia to influence the election, many Republican lawmakers called for an investigation into how the probe of Trump and his team commenced.
Two known incidents loom large: The FBI obtained a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to put Trump campaign aide Carter Page under surveillance. The FBI also sent a confidential informant to talk to George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide, in a bar. The woman told Papadopoulos that her name was Azra Turk, and he later described her as “flirtatious.”
Here are six things to know about the prosecutor picked by Barr.
1. Career Prosecutor
Durham, 68, began his career as a Connecticut state prosecutor working from 1978 to 1982 in the New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office.
A registered Republican, he next served in nonpolitical positions through 35 years in the U.S. District of Connecticut, based in New Haven.
From 1982 to 1989, Durham supervised the New Haven field office of the Boston Strike Force in the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. For the next five years, he was chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Haven.
From 1994 through 2008, he served as deputy U.S. attorney, and then, through 2017, as counsel to the U.S. attorney.
Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, appointed Durham as acting U.S. attorney for Connecticut in October 2017, and Trump nominated him for the post the next month. He took office in February 2018.
2. Busting Mafia-FBI Connection
In 1999, then-Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Durham to investigate corruption in federal law enforcement in Boston.
He examined whether two Boston mob figures, Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, had corrupted the FBI agents whom they served as informants.
Durham’s investigation led to a 10-year prison sentence for retired FBI agent John Connolly Jr., found guilty of helping the two gangsters avoid prosecution.
As part of this investigation, Durham produced documents showing four men had been framed by FBI agents and convicted of murder in the 1960s. Two died in prison, but two others won a $100 million civil judgment against the Justice Department.
3. Special Probes of CIA and Terror Detainees
In 2008, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Durham as a special prosecutor to conduct what turned into a three-year probe of the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes. He didn’t recommend any prosecutions.
In an overlapping probe, then-Attorney General Eric Holder named him as a special prosecutor to investigate alleged mistreatment of terror suspects by CIA interrogators and government contractors.
The second probe came after the Justice Department released a report noting possible past abuse by CIA interrogators. Durham concluded by closing most of the cases, but called for continued inquiries into the deaths of two prisoners.
4. Devoted Catholic, Red Sox Fan
Despite handling high-profile cases, Durham typically keeps a low profile.
Earlier this year, according to The Day newspaper in New London, Connecticut Deputy Chief State’s Attorney Leonard C. Boyle noted the only reason that Durham would make a public speech to a crowd at the University of St. Joseph, a Roman Catholic school in West Hartford, Connecticut.
“Other than an overwhelming commitment to the cause of justice, the two great devotions of John’s life are his Catholic faith and his family,” Boyle said of Durham.
Durham and his wife Susan have four sons and eight grandchildren. He reportedly is a big Boston Red Sox fan.
The New Republic, a liberal magazine, wrote of Durham in 2011 that he “earned a nonpartisan, camera-shy, ‘white knight’ reputation.”
5. Public Corruption
Durham led some of the biggest public corruption cases in Connecticut.
Among them was the case of Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland, a Republican who resigned in 2004 after federal prosecutors found he illegally took gifts from state contractors. Rowland pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in prison for offenses committed as governor.
Durham also led an investigation of Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, a Democrat, who was convicted on racketeering and bribery charges in 2003. Ganim spent six years in prison.
6. Lauded by Democrats
Democrats recently excoriated Barr for even using the word “spy” to talk about actions by the Obama administration’s FBI and Justice Department against the Trump campaign before the presidential election in November 2016.
However, Democrats could have a difficult time in attacking Durham.
Confirmed as U.S. attorney in February 2018 by a voice vote in the Senate, he had gained praise from Democrats when Trump nominated him.
Among these admirers were two of Trump’s biggest critics, Connecticut’s two Democratic senators—Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy. The two men had recommended Durham to serve as U.S. attorney.
“John Durham has earned immense respect as a no-nonsense, fierce and fair prosecutor, and we are pleased that the White House has agreed with our recommendation that he serve as United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut,” a joint statement by Blumenthal and Murphy said. “As an Assistant United States Attorney, John Durham has proven himself time and time again in some of the most challenging and sensitive cases.”
It looks like Barr has found just such another case for Durham.
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-05-15 06:53:382019-05-15 06:53:386 Things to Know About the Prosecutor Investigating Spying on Trump Campaign
Francisco Molina, a social worker for more than 12 years in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, grew dissatisfied with his government employee union and tried to resign from it last summer rather than continue to pay dues. State law wouldn’t let him leave the union, and taking a stand cost him his job.
Although he used to be a shop steward for Service Employees International Union Local 668 and lobbied on the union’s behalf in both Harrisburg and Washington, Molina says, he had decided to break with the SEIU in response to actions he viewed as hostile to free speech rights.
Molina, who was a social services aide in the Lehigh County Office of Children and Youth Services, says he also discovered that fellow union leaders did not provide rank-and-file members with accurate information.
“When I joined the union, I didn’t agree with their principles or values,” Molina, 52, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “But I wanted to make a difference with myself and my co-workers, and I felt that if I got involved, I could make some changes from within as a shop steward.”
“But my personal values never matched the union’s,” Molina said. “The further I got up the chain of command, I realized it was all an illusion and that what they were presenting to the rank and file was not true.”
When SEIU Local 668 asked Molina and co-workers to sign a new membership card in January 2018, he balked after carefully reviewing the language on the card.
Molina, who has three daughters with his wife of 32 years, says he refused to sign because he would be obligated to pay dues regardless of his membership status.
“Even if I wanted to go work for someone else, the union would have the ability to take money straight from my personal account if I had signed,” he told The Daily Signal.
SEIU Local 668 declined to comment for this report.
‘A Pre-Emptive Campaign’
It’s not just that leaders of public sector unions in Pennsylvania are reluctant to allow Molina and other members to resign, but that a state law locks in government employees to pay union dues against their will.
Now a federal court could rule that unconstitutional, or state legislators could amend the law to secure free speech rights.
A section of state law specifies that public employees may resign union membership only during a 15-day window before their contracts expire.
Public sector unions such as the Service Employees International Union stipulate that Molina and other members must submit a resignation letter by certified mail within that 15-day window.
But this “maintenance of membership” provision of Pennsylvania’s Public Employees Relations Act 195 doesn’t require unions to inform workers of the resignation window. And the state’s public payroll systems automatically deduct union dues from paychecks until employees, including Molina, find a way to unwind themselves from membership.
Even then, government workers who choose not to belong to unions have been required to pay “fair share” fees to keep their jobs.
What this means for Pennsylvania civil servants such as Molina—who differ with union leaders on a range of policy questions—is that they must spend part of their work day paying for political activism by the union that they don’t support.
“They had this emergency mandatory meeting in January [2018], where they said the old [membership] cards were invalid and we had to sign new ones,” Molina said of Local 668. “What they were doing was a pre-emptive campaign to avoid the legal ramifications of an unfavorable ruling in the Janus case.”
In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2018 that “agency shop” laws requiring nonunion government workers to pay union fees violate the First Amendment rights of those who object to the political agenda of the union.
Alito made the point that individuals are not just free to speak, but also free to “refrain from speaking” and to “eschew association for expressive purposes.”
The labor laws at issue in the Janus case violate the “constitutional command” protecting citizens against government coercion, Alito argued: “Compelling individuals to mouth support for views they find objectionable violates that cardinal constitutional command, and in most contexts, any such effort would be universally condemned.”
Lawmakers Respond
Rep. Greg Rothman, a Republican state lawmaker from Pennsylvania’s Cumberland County, introduced a bill to amend the law to allow government employees to resign from a union anytime they like, without a window to do so or any other restrictions.
“The public sector unions in Pennsylvania are extremely political, and collectively they are probably the biggest spender on political campaigns in the state,” Rothman said in a phone interview, adding:
They take political positions, which may not in a lot of cases represent the political views of their workers. Part of the First Amendment isn’t just about what I can say, but what someone says on my behalf, and you shouldn’t have your money going towards opinions that aren’t your own. You should also have a right to resign from an organization that doesn’t reflect your views, and you should not be required to be part of an organization in order to have a job.
Rothman’s bill, HB 506, is one of several that seek to turn the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling into law by amending existing Pennsylvania statutes.
State Rep. Kate Klunk, a York County Republican, introduced a measure, HB 785, that would require public sector employers to notify workers of their rights.
“The notice requirement is very simple and the onus is all on the public sector employer—be it the school district, municipality, or state government—to inform nonunion members that they are not required to make a payment to the union unless they affirmatively consent to do so,” Klunk told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
“The unions have no express duty in any of these notices, as it’s only the employer that’s required to send out these notices. This is not pro-union or anti-union. This is just about telling employees what their rights are.”
As an attorney, Klunk has expressed concern that Pennsylvania will continue to face costly litigation until state laws are changed to conform with the Supreme Court ruling that struck down mandatory union dues.
Pennsylvania at Epicenter
The Janus ruling provided Molina with the opening he had sought to make a clean break.
In letter dated July 16, 2018, Molina resigned from SEIU Local 668. Although he wanted to quit the union before the high court’s decision, he knew he would have been compelled to pay “fair share” fees as a nonmember.
In his letter, Molina informed the SEIU that he wanted the deductions of dues to stop immediately. But they didn’t.
“Even after the Janus ruling, they continued to take dues out of my paycheck,” Molina said of the union. “According to their definition, after I resigned, I would been a nonunion member. There were others who resigned, but I was the most outspoken. I encouraged other workers to read the new cards carefully.”
The SEIU rejected Molina’s resignation letter, arguing that he had to remain a member under the “maintenance of membership” provision that applies to his contract.
Molina continued to protest, and was dismissed from his Lehigh County government job last summer, a few weeks after resigning from the union. Before 2004, he had worked in the private sector but didn’t belong to a union.
In January, Molina filed a lawsuit against SEIU Local 668, challenging the union’s refusal to allow him to resign and alleging that the union violated his constitutional rights under the First and 14th amendments.
“Under my contract, it says if I don’t pay my dues, the union can ask for my termination,” Molina told The Daily Signal. “That’s what I believe ended up happening in the end. I was terminated. I cannot work as a civil servant again for the state of Pennsylvania until this case is resolved.”
The Fairness Center, a nonprofit, public interest law firm based in Harrisburg, represents Molina.
“What Francisco [Molina] did for himself here was wonderful because he refused to sign a card that would have locked him into paying union dues regardless of his membership,” said David Osborne, president and general counsel of the Fairness Center. “He read the language and decided it didn’t make sense for him. So, what this case is about is a statute in Pennsylvania called ‘maintenance of membership’ that gives unions the right to keep members from resigning for years at a time.”
The Legal Landscape
The Fairness Center filed a separate but related class action lawsuit against Local 668 on behalf of public employees, challenging the “maintenance of membership” law on constitutional grounds. Both cases fit into a larger national picture.
The Daily Signal sought a response from SEIU Local 668 on the specifics of this article. The union responded to the request, but declined to comment.
Two other organizations—Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit, public interest law center based in Illinois, and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation—also entered the fray in Pennsylvania to challenge the legality of the continued deduction of union dues that have cost government workers thousands of dollars.
This was a significant development because the two legal advocacy groups partnered to represent Mark Janus, a child support specialist for Illinois state government, in the Supreme Court case that overturned mandatory union dues for government workers.
Liberty Justice Center has filed two lawsuits, one in Lebanon County on behalf of four mental health workers, and another in Philadelphia on behalf of a caseworker for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.
Both of the center’s lawsuits cite the high court’s ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees in arguing against the deduction of unions dues on First Amendment grounds. Both cases also challenge the unions’ current standing as the exclusive representative of the government workers who sued.
For its part, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation took up the case of a school bus driver in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District who is asking for a refund of union fees that were withdrawn from his paycheck after he resigned his union membership.
The foundation filed suit against Teamsters Local 312 and the school district on behalf of the bus driver, who resigned from the Teamsters after the Janus ruling. The foundation also set up a website called MyJanusRights.org.
‘A Real Pushback’
The lead plaintiff in the Janus suit has some advice for unions that he shared with The Daily Signal.
“The public sector unions have been spending money on litigation, fighting the Janus decision and fighting workers that are resigning,” Janus said in an email. “Wouldn’t that money be better spent on representing their membership in matters that would better provide for the unions’ original purpose?”
Janus added:
It is cumbersome to resign from public sector unions. Now there is a real pushback by the public sector unions to prevent workers from leaving, in spite of the Janus ruling. What they are doing is denying these workers their First Amendment rights.
Meanwhile, the Fairness Center continues to cut its own path with active Janus-related litigationagainst AFSCME Council 89 and AFSCME Council 13, both in Pennsylvania.
Another active case that could have reverberations across Pennsylvania concerns a liquor store clerk, John Kabler, who alleges that Local 1776 of the United Food and Commercial Workers gave him false information and misled him into joining the union. Kabler also claims union leaders resisted his efforts to resign, and in March the center filed suit against the union on his behalf.
The public interest firm also settled some Pennsylvania cases in which the union agreed to allow their client to resign without paying more union dues. But these settlements were reached before the constitutionality of the “maintenance of membership” statute faced judicial scrutiny.
Charles Mitchell, president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a free market think tank based in Harrisburg, said he thinks he knows why.
“There’s a reason why unions like AFSCME and SEIU are relying upon maintenance of membership rules and the window periods in Pennsylvania,” Mitchell said in a phone interview. “It’s because it’s the next obvious piece of coercion available to them.”
“I think it’s very clear that these restrictions are not consistent with workers’ rights and with the First Amendment,” he said. “I also believe one of the many people in Pennsylvania challenging these restrictions will be successful. The Janus opinion is extremely important, and Mark Janus is a hero.”
While the Fairness Center continues to apply pressure in court, Mitchell sees another ace in the hole available to proponents of labor reform in the form of the new legislative proposals.
“There are many lawmakers who are now standing up and saying our laws are inconsistent with the Janus decision and we need to fix them and inform workers of their rights,” he said. “They are doing this despite all the money and influence available to public sector unions, and that’s a very positive development.”
Klunk, the Republican lawmaker from York County, would like to see her bill become law this year. Although Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has received political support from organized labor, Klunk says she is hopeful the governor will allow the bill to move forward.
Even if Wolf doesn’t the sign the measure, it could become law without his signature if it passes both houses of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
“Right now, we are clogging up our courts with additional cases over an issue that has already has been settled at the federal level before the Supreme Court,” Klunk said. “This benefits no one, and my bill in its current form repeals an unconstitutional provision of our state law. Wolf is the governor of all the people, not just the unions, and he could sign the bill or choose not to sign it and let it become law.”
The Daily Signal contacted Wolf’s office by phone seeking comment for this story and emailed his press secretary, J.J. Abbott, asking whether the governor has a position on the legislative proposals to amend Act 195.
The Daily Signal also asked Abbott whether the governor had any concerns about the costs of litigation attached to a labor issue that already had been settled at the federal level. Abbott had not responded by publication time.
SEIU Local 668 has filed a motion seeking dismissal of Molina’s case. Osborne, head of the Fairness Center, said he expects the court to make a ruling on the union’s motion within the next month.
“The union has to bear a very heavy burden to demonstrate the case is mute and they will no longer violate the law,” Osborne said. “I don’t think there is any way the union can bear that burden.”
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-05-14 06:15:592019-05-14 06:18:30He Tried to Quit His Union. The Law Didn’t Let Him, and He Lost His Government Job Instead.
It’s not just high-profile anti-leftist political commentators such as Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson and Laura Loomer who are being banned from Facebook and de-platformed elsewhere.
Facebook has forced a well-known Christian apologist off their platform for things he posted years earlier — such as death and rape threats he received and even a famous anti-Nazi picture — after repeatedly being reported by online by Muslim activist group targeting Christians.
Apologist Dr. David Wood finally gave up Facebook because every time a suspension finished he was suspended again almost immediately, within hours, for older and older posts and for longer and longer periods. He was effectively banned through the use of rolling suspensions.
You can watch his explanation here on YouTube, at least until they boot him.
Let’s be clear, compared to the garbage fire of content on Facebook and Twitter, Wood’s criticisms are as soft and cuddly as the media’s coverage of President Obama, cute kitty cuddly.
Here are a few of the posts he was suspended for:
✞ Posting a threat from someone who wanted to rape his mother in front of him;
✞ Posting another threat from someone who wanted to rape his wife in front of him with the vilest of language throughout. Wood posted “Feel the love, the religion of peace” and a screenshot of the post and he was suspended;
✞ Posting another threat from someone who wanted to “chop chop chop” his head off;
✞ Posting a historical photo showing Hitler with one of his ideological allies — including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a Muslim leader. This is a famous photo;
✞ Posting another old black and white historical photo of a lone man who famously stood in a crowd refusing to give the Nazi salute while everyone around him did. All he wrote was “Be this guy.”
For each of these offenses, his posts were hidden from view, he was informed that “This post goes against our community standards” and was suspended. Community standards.
The theme in all of the threats was that they came from self-identified Muslims on Twitter or Facebook because Wood is critical of Islam. Those accounts seem to remain in good standing.
The group that has organized to get Wood and several other Christians banned is called Cyber Jihad, and they bragged about it on YouTube. The Islamic group openly targets and reports Christians who say anything negative about Islam (Wood tends to remind listeners that Mohammed married a 9-year-old girl, and this is still practiced in parts of the Muslim world.)
The Cyber Jihad group has also gone after other Christians, such as Sam Shamoun and Al Fadi, for posting about Islam.
Of course about anything can be said about Christianity because Christians do not seek to shut down the free speech of Muslims, atheists or anyone else critical. In fact, horrific things can be posted about Jesus Christ, and there will rarely be any response by Facebook or the other social media giants.
But if you post something negative about the Prophet Mohammed, expect to get a visit from the Facebook thought police, or Twitter censors.
EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2019-05-10 16:38:092019-05-10 16:50:03Cyber Jihadists Are Getting Christians Banned On Facebook
When the head of Twitter’s public policy department told the Senate he’d do more on conservative censorship, making it worse wasn’t what most leaders had in mind! Unfortunately, that’s exactly what seems to be happening — to pro-lifers, Trump supporters, and even popular parody accounts. Three weeks ago, Carlos Monje Jr. was apologetic for the mistakes Twitter had made. A month later, he has a lot more to be sorry for.
Their stories are different, but several victims of Twitter’s bias have one thing in common: no one explained why. Mike Morrisson, who’s been running a popular “AOC Press” account as a joke, said he was banished from the platform on Monday night. “I still don’t really know why,” he wrote in Human Events. “I have my suspicions, but no one’s really tried to explain it to me.” His parody of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had over 80,000 followers. “It was pretty funny, even if I do say so myself.” Apparently, Twitter wasn’t laughing — which is more than a little hypocritical, since social media has made mocking the president a cottage industry.
But there are some dark implications of this conservative blackout, Morrisson warns. “This is a nation which reveres, at its core, the rights of individuals to express themselves politically, lawfully.” The fact is, he goes on, “as we move closer to the 2020 election, a number of high-profile, high follower, conservative accounts are being banned. In total, we have lost access to millions, maybe even tens of millions of impressions over the past few days. This is election interference.”
Pro-life activist Ryan Bomberger, whose Radiance Foundation has been offline 16 days (and counting), was at least told his posts were “hateful.” Why? Because he had the audacity to call out Muslim Congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for downplaying 9/11. “She describes an act of war as ‘some people did something’? #IlhanOmar is not a victim. The 2,980 Americans who were slaughtered by Muslim terrorists were the victims. American Muslims lost no more civil liberties than we ALL did after #September11 thanks to the #PatriotAct.”
After he was booted off the supposedly public platform, Ryan sounded the alarm on Townhall, “So now historical revisionism is part of Twitter’s mission statement?… Instead of seeing the terrorism as the ‘hateful conduct,’ they deemed a tweet denouncing terrorism as ‘hateful conduct.'” This is just the beginning, he prophesied. Only to be proven right when his friend (and FRC’s) E.W. Jackson was blocked the same day. Then, One America News host Jack Posobiec’s Twitter account “@MAGAphobia” suspiciously vanished. What was his crime? Tracking the harassment of Donald Trump supporters. “I started @Magaphobia as an acc[ount] to track violence against Trump supporters all in one place.” Almost a half-million people followed it.
Or did follow. “Today,” he announced, “Twitter banned it.” But if you’re hoping to hold Big Tech accountable for their prejudice, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told me yesterday on “Washington Watch,” good luck. These companies — like Twitter — have virtually guaranteed immunity under the current system.
“Here’s the thing, Tony. One of the reasons they got so big — and they got so rich — is they get a special deal from the government. They get treated differently than newspapers or television stations or radio stations… They have their own deal [from the government] where they don’t have to be liable [in] the same way all of those other media outlets are. In exchange for that, they’re supposed to be neutral forums to allow for the free exchange of ideas — but they’re not doing that.
And here’s my bottom line. If they’re not going to allow there to be a free exchange of ideas — if they’re going to act like the editorial page of the New York Times — than they ought to be treated like the editorial page of the New York Times and subject to the same laws that every other newspaper and publisher is.”
If that’s what Twitter, Google, and Facebook are going to do, he went on, then they should be just as liable as everyone else. “They shouldn’t get the special rules they’re getting.” What we’re coming to, Senator Hawley said, “is a time of reckoning, where the social media giants have to decide: are they going to be truly neutral platforms for people… or are they going to continue to discriminate against conservatives on the basis of political speech?”
“It’s a big thing to kick someone off the platform,” Twitter’s Vijaya Gadde has said. And he’s about to find out how big, if it continues.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
Venezuela is in a state of turmoil. After 20 years of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, or PSUV), its economy is collapsing. As Venezuelans have tried to vote the PSUV out of office, its leader, Nicholas Maduro, has responded by creating a rival body to the National Assembly made up exclusively of government supporters and rigging the country’s May 2018 presidential election. Left with no alternative, members of the opposition have taken to the streets where they have been met with merciless brutality by the socialist government’s forces.
The Three Stages of Socialism in Venezuela
Venezuela is only the latest country to go through the cycle all socialist countries go through. In his excellent new book, Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies, Kristian Niemietz of the Institute of Economic Affairs describes the process:
1. The honeymoon period…during which the experiment has, or at least seems to have, some initial success in some areas…During the honeymoon period, very few dispute the experiment’s socialist character.
2. The excuses-and-whataboutery period. But the honeymoon period never lasts forever. The country’s luck either comes to an end, or its already existing failures become more widely known in the West…It ceases to be an example that socialists hold against their opponents, and becomes an example that their opponents hold against them.
During this period, Western intellectuals still support the experiment, but their tone becomes angry and defensive.
3. The not-real-socialism stage. Eventually, there always comes a point when the experiment has been widely discredited, and is seen as a failure by most of the general public. The experiment becomes a liability for the socialist cause, and an embarrassment for Western socialists.
This is the stage when intellectuals begin to dispute the experiment’s socialist credentials, and, crucially, they do so with retroactive effect…At some point, the claim that the country in question was never “really” socialist becomes the conventional wisdom.
When we look at the chaos in Venezuela, it is worth remembering that, not so long ago, it was proof of socialism’s success.
Stage 1: An Anti-Capitalist President
In 2002, Hugo Chavez became president of Venezuela. Historically high oil prices allowed him to unleash a wave of government spending. He intervened extensively in the economy. Things were going well, and people were seduced. Here was “real socialism” in opposition to capitalism. In 2007, Naomi Klein wrote:
The staunchest opponents of neoliberal economics in Latin America have been winning election after election. […] [C]itizens had renewed their faith in the power of democracy to improve their lives. […]
Latin America’s mass movements […] are learning how to build shock absorbers into their organizing models. […] [T]he progressive networks in Venezuela are […] highly decentralized, with power dispersed at the grassroots and community levels, through thousands of neighborhood councils and co-ops. […]
The new leaders in Latin America are also becoming better prepared for the kinds of shocks produced by volatile markets. […] Surrounded by turbulent financial waters, Latin America is creating a zone of relative economic calm and predictability, a feat presumed impossible in the globalization era.
Two years later, Noam Chomsky, once a groveling apologist for Pol Pot’s genocidal Cambodian communists, wrote:
[W]hat’s so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela is that I can see how a better world is being created […] The transformations that Venezuela is making toward the creation of another socio-economic model could have a global impact.
Stage 2: Government Crackdown
But the good times came to an end. Oil prices fell from their peak back to the level they were at when Chavez took office. Production collapsed. The economy crashed. People protested. Maduro, Chavez’s anointed successor, cracked down. We were now in Stage 2.
In 2014, as the protests of ordinary Venezuelans were met with government violence, George Ciccariello-Maher of Jacobin magazine asserted:
[T]hose seeking to restore the feudal privileges of the deposed Venezuelan ancien régime have attempted to harness largely middle-class student protests to depose the Maduro government […] Well-heeled domestic elites (whose English shows no trace of an accent) have taken to Twitter and the international media […] [T]he reactionary opposition takes to the streets, fueled by a racial and class hatred.
True, he admitted, the government was acting brutally, but, he continued:
If we are against unnecessary brutality, there is nevertheless a radically democratic form of brutality that we cannot disavow entirely. This is the same brutality that ‘dragged the Bourbons off the throne’ […] This was not brutality for brutality’s sake […] It is instead a strange paradox: egalitarian brutality, the radically democratic dictatorship of the wretched of the earth. Those smeared today […] are in fact the most direct and organic expression of the wretched of the Venezuelan earth.
The regime you’re defending is literally mowing down civilians in the street today, as you well know, and the summary execution of protesters has been documented by human rights groups, as you well know. Yet here you are, still grifting.
George Ciccariello-Maher
✔@ciccmaher
“mowing down civilians”… man, Oz, you’re the gift that keeps giving…
Stage 3: Shifting the Goalpost
We soon entered the third stage. In 2017, Ciccariello-Maher claimed Venezuela’s problems were a result of the country not being socialist enough.
There is no coherent understanding of revolution that doesn’t involve defeating our enemies as we build the new society. […] We cannot defeat such dangers without weapons […]
No one would claim that the Venezuelan masses are in power today, but the past twenty years have seen them come closer than ever before. Their enemies and ours are in the streets, burning and looting in the name of their own class superiority […]
The only path forward is to deepen and radicalize the Bolivarian process […] The only way out of the Venezuelan crisis today lies decisively to the Left: […] in the construction of a real socialist alternative.
As Niemietz notes, with Venezuela we are currently transitioning from Stage 2 to Stage 3. Venezuela is now retroactively becoming “not real socialism.” Noam Chomsky now writes:
I never described Chávez’s state capitalist government as ‘socialist’ or even hinted at such an absurdity. It was quite remote from socialism. Private capitalism remained […] Capitalists were free to undermine the economy in all sorts of ways, like massive export of capital.
Time and again, socialists have hailed some country or other, from Soviet Russia to Venezuela, as the harbinger of a bright new dawn, only to slither away when it collapses, denying that it was ever actually what they had told you it was; it was “never real socialism.” They have been very successful with this.
As a result, from failure to dismal failure, the theory of socialism sails on, untainted by the horrible practical results of its application and always finding a new country to wreck. Socialists should not be allowed to get away with this when it comes to Venezuela.
EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2019-05-08 14:04:592019-05-08 14:07:08The Three Phases of Socialism
Back in October, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told an audience at Harvard University that if the Democrats retook the House, one of her top legislative priorities would be to pass the misnamed Equality Act, a bill that would impose radical sexual ideology on the nation.
Democrats took the House, and Pelosi wasn’t bluffing. She’s now pushing a bill that would undo some of the most significant achievements of the Trump administration. Here’s how.
The Equality Act adds the phrase “sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)” to our nation’s civil rights laws that ban discrimination on the basis of race. This means the law would suddenly treat people as racists if they dare to dissent from the left’s ideology on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
Here are the major Trump victories that the Equality Act would undo.
1. The Equality Act would force employers to cover abortion, and medical professionals to perform or assist in performing abortions.
When the Obama administration tried to force this same policy in its very last months in office, a federal judge declared it unlawful. When the Trump administration came into office, the Trump Justice Department agreed with that judge and did not appeal his ruling, which placed a 50-state injunction on that regulation.
Should the Equality Act become law, this abortion policy would become the law of the land, undermining President Donald Trump’s significant pro-life record.
2. The Equality Act would force employers to pay for sex “reassignment” procedures in their health insurance plans, and require medical professionals to perform them.
Think Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor, but only worse. If a health care plan covers mastectomies in the case of cancer, but not in the case of “reassignment,” the Equality Act would deem this illegal “discrimination.” So, too, if a doctor chooses to perform mastectomies in the case of cancer but not for sex “reassignment” purposes. That doctor would be guilty of illegal “discrimination.”
Thankfully, when the Obama administration attempted to impose this mandate, a federal judge struck it down, and the Trump administration agreed with the judge and did not appeal the ruling. Should the Equality Act become law, it would undo Trump’s policy of protecting the freedom of medical doctors to not perform “reassignment” procedures if they deem them bad medicine.
3. The Equality Act would force all schools and businesses to open their women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and sports teams to boys who “identify as” girls and to men who “identify as” women.
The Obama administration imposed this transgender mandate on schools in all 50 states, and thankfully the Trump administration reversed the misguided policy during its first weeks of office. But, should the Equality Act become law, it would override the Trump policy and would threaten the privacy, safety, and equality of women and girls across the country.
4. The Equality Act could be used to force the military to pay for “reassignment” procedures and force the military to accept recruits suffering from gender dysphoria who are not combat-ready.
The Trump administration has implemented a careful, nuanced policy that allows people who identify as transgender to serve in the military—provided they no longer suffer from gender dysphoria and serve in accordance with their biological sex. But should the Equality Act become law, this Trump policy could be deemed “discrimination.”
5. The Equality Act would force faith-based adoption agencies to either violate their conviction that every child deserves both a mother and a father or to stop serving children in need altogether.
Thankfully, the Trump administration has taken initial steps to protect adoption agencies from these misguided policies. Additional steps are needed. But if the Equality Act became law, it would force all adoption agencies in all 50 states to either violate their convictions or close their doors.
6. The Equality Act would force a variety of small business owners to violate their beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender.
Thankfully the Trump administration has supported these small business owners as their cases proceeded through the court system. But should the Equality Act become law, it would bring the full force of the federal government against these small business owners, treating them as violators of federal civil rights law.
7. The Equality Act, in general, threatens the freedom of speech, freedom of association, and free exercise of religion rights of countless people.
Anyone who believes we are created male and female, and that male and female are created for each other, will be at risk. This means Orthodox Jews, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Latter-day Saints, Muslims, and people of no particular faith tradition but who take science seriously will be on the wrong side of federal civil rights law.
Thankfully, the Trump administration has championed freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, and the rights of conscience. All of this would be at risk should the Equality Act become law.
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
Earlier this month, President Trump placed Kevin McAleenan in charge of the Department of Homeland Security. The president fired his previous DHS chief, Kirstjen Nielsen, because he said he wanted to go in a tougher direction. As the new acting secretary, McAleenan is facing the largest wave of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border in a decade. 100,000 migrants were detained just last month. So we went to McAllen, Texas, one of the busiest sections on the border, to see for ourselves. We were surprised how many families were crossing, where they were detained and how quickly they were released. We asked Secretary McAleenan how he plans to manage the crisis and navigate what may be the most difficult job in Washington.
It is worth noting that 60 Minutes described the situation as a “crisis” a reality denied by many Democrats.
The 60 Minutes team was given access to the McAllen Border Patrol Station where, at the time, was housing 551 aliens who were being processed after they crossed into the United States.
Here is an excerpt from the 60 Minutes report:
Chief Patrol Agent Rudy Karisch says they are struggling to care for the increasing numbers of families.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What are the agents having to do to deal with this new population that’s coming across?
Agent Rudy Karisch: Forty percent of my workforce right now is dedicated to the processing, to the care and feeding, to the hospital watch. So that takes that 40 percent away from their border security mission.
Thus the ability of the already beleaguered U.S. Border Patrol to secure our porous and dangerous southern border has been diminished by 40%.
Those who study history, specifically World War II know that “D-Day,” also known as “Operation Overlord” was only successful because of a diversion created by the Allies known as the “Calais Deception” that was officially labeled “Operation Fortitude.”
General George Patton was put in charge of a phantom division that consisted of inflatable tanks and trucks that from the air, created the elaborate but false illusion of a large contingent of soldiers preparing to attack Germany at the Pas-de-Calais rather than at Normandy where the attack would actually be mounted.
The Germans were thus conned into splitting up their defensive forces, leaving Normandy vulnerable to the Allies on June 6, 1944.
Today our Border Patrol and, indeed, the entire immigration system, is being inundated by huge numbers of illegal aliens forcing the Border Patrol to deploy many of its agents to assignment that remove them from the primary mission of securing vast stretches of unsecured border.
Consequently, stretches of our southern border suffer a lack of resources to prevent the un-inspected entry of aliens and like narcotics and other contraband, including potentially weapons.
While the media focuses on “migrant families” seeking entry to flee poverty and violence in their home countries, they ignore that not all families are actually families but may be committing fraud. In fact, DHS is now sending ICE agents to the border who have expertise in identifying fraud documents because children are being, in a manner of speaking, “re-cycled” arriving at the border with adults who claim to be their parents. Once released in the United States, the children are sent back to Mexico where they then return to the border with another set of “parents” who have no relationship to them.
Additionally aliens from all over the world, not just from Latin America have been entering the United States without inspection along the dangerous southern border, all too many from “Special Interest Countries,” that is to say countries that are associated with radical Islamist terrorism.
Case in point: On April 30, 2019 the Justice Department issued a press release, Jordanian National Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Bring Aliens into the United States, which noted that in 2017 the smuggler smuggled aliens from Yemen, a “Special Interest Country” into the United States without inspection from Monterrey, Mexico to Piedras Negras in Texas.
As I reported in a previous article, on January 29, 2019 the Senate Intelligence Committee conducted a hearing on Worldwide Threats that was predicated the “World-Wide Threat Assessment,” that was issued by Daniel Coats, the Director of the Office of National Intelligence, which oversees the U.S. intelligence community. Additional witness included the heads of the FBI, CIA and other agencies.
The threat assessment warned about the dangers posed by transnational gangs such as MS-13 and went on to report:
TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME
Global transnational criminal organizations and networks will threaten US interests and allies by trafficking drugs, exerting malign influence in weak states, threatening critical infrastructure, orchestrating human trafficking, and undermining legitimate economic activity.
Drug Trafficking
The foreign drug threat will pose continued risks to US public health and safety and will present a range of threats to US national security interests in the coming year. Violent Mexican traffickers, such as members of the Sinaloa Cartel and New Generation Jalisco Cartel, remain key to the movement of illicit drugs to the United States, including heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and cannabis from Mexico, as well as cocaine from Colombia. Chinese synthetic drug suppliers dominate US-bound movements of so- called designer drugs, including synthetic marijuana, and probably ship the majority of US fentanyl, when adjusted for purity.
On December 9, 2018 The Hill, posted an article, “Iran: US sanctions will open doors to ‘drugs, refugees and bombs and assassination’ in west.”
The article focused on the remarks of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made on December 8, 2018 at what was described as an “Anti-terrorism event” in Tehran. Rouhani said that if nations continued to adhere to the boycott against Iran that was reimposed by President Trump over the bogus Iranian nuclear deal that had been negotiated by the Obama administration, that Iran would not be able to continue its purported efforts to combat drug trafficking.
Rouhani stated, “I warn all those who boycott, that if our abilities in fighting drugs and terrorism in their origins is undermined, you will not be able to survive the debris of drugs, refugees and bombs and assassination.”
On April 17, 2018 the House Committee on Homeland Security, Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee, conducted a hearing on the topic, “State Sponsors Of Terrorism: An Examination Of Iran’s Global Terrorism Network.”
The prepared testimony of one of the witnesses, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, included this alarming excerpt:
In recent years, Hezbollah’s Latin American networks have also increasingly cooperated with violent drug cartels and criminal syndicates, often with the assistance of local corrupt political elites….
This toxic crime-terror nexus is fueling both the rising threat of global jihadism and the collapse of law and order across Latin America that is helping drive drugs and people northward into the United States. It is sustaining Hezbollah’s growing financial needs. It is helping Iran and Hezbollah consolidate a local constituency in multiple countries across Latin America. It is thus facilitating their efforts to build safe havens for terrorists and a continent-wide terror infrastructure that they could use to strike U.S. targets.
How many more “dots” need to be connected before Congress cooperates fully with President Trump’s efforts to end the madness?
EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Michael Cutlerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMichael Cutler2019-05-07 08:09:382019-05-07 08:09:38JIHAD AT THE BORDER: How the border crisis facilitates the entry of terrorists.
Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib both supported Hamas and the other Gaza terrorists in their onslaught against Israel.
The United States declared Hamas a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. In 2007, Hamas declared its intention to to destroy America and called on Allah to annihilate every American.
At press time, Palestinian terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jiahd have fired over 700 rockets into Israel in 48 hours, killing four and injuring at least 234, not including the trauma the rocket barrage the has brought upon the Israeli civilian population – including children.
In support of the Palestinian terrorists, Omar tweeted:
How many more protesters must be shot, rockets must be fired, and little kids must be killed until the endless cycle of violence ends?
The status quo of occupation and humanitarian crisis in Gaza is unsustainable. Only real justice can bring about security and lasting peace.
Cycle of violence? In the past year, Israel’s southern communities have endured a constant volley of incendiary devices – mainly balloons filled with explosives – from Gaza that have burned fields, greenhouses and homes, causing untold destruction.
Occupation and humanitarian crisis? Israel left Gaza in 2005, but has continued to supply goods, services and medical supplies to the people of the Gaza Strip who chose to be governed by Hamas in a democratic election. In the midst of this latest missile barrage, Israel still allowed a fuel shipment from Israel into Gaza “to avoid a humanitarian crisis.”
When Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, communities left their hothouses intact, representing what could have been a thriving business for the Palestinian people as it had been for the former Jewish farmers of the Strip. The hothouses were promptly burnt down by baying mobs along with the synagogues that were also left behind.
Massive economic assistance by world powers, which has poured into Gaza by the millions over the years, has been hijacked by Hamas for its terror operations.
A “ceasefire” has supposedly been reached. That usually means that Israel ceases and Hamas fires. In this case, Islamic Jihad – a terror group in Gaza that is, for all practical purposes, a subsidiary of Iran – has said that they will not abide by any ceasefire agreement and has vowed to shoot missiles into Tel Aviv.
President Trump has offered his unwavering support to Israel and its right to defend itself.
Once again, Israel faces a barrage of deadly rocket attacks by terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We support Israel 100% in its defense of its citizens….
At the same time, National Security Adviser John Bolton announced on Sunday, May 5, 2019, the second day of the conflict that America was deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in response to a “number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran.
The White House said the move was intended “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”
Israel will prevail. However, in the following tweet, the president is right in his assessment for the people of Gaza, some of whom have been brave enough – most likely desperate enough – in recent weeks to protest living under the thumb of Hamas terrorists in the Strip.
Once again, Israel faces a barrage of deadly rocket attacks by terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We support Israel 100% in its defense of its citizens….
….To the Gazan people — these terrorist acts against Israel will bring you nothing but more misery. END the violence and work towards peace – it can happen!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Clarion Projecthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngClarion Project2019-05-06 19:03:172019-05-06 19:07:18Omar, Tlaib Support Gaza Terrorists in Onslaught Against Israel
I’m Michael Voris coming to you from Jerusalem on our final day in the Holy Land as we wrap up production from here on our documentary on the Eucharist — and quickly, because so many have asked, you can preorder a copy of the final production by just clicking on the provided link.
It was here, in Jerusalem, about a 10-minute walk from where we are right now, that Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate asked his question of Our Lord: What is truth?
Enemies of Christ deny truth, they deny its existence as anything beyond whatever is expedient. Pilate denied it, even having truth Himself standing right in front of him.
Caiaphas denied it when he tore his robes in response to Our Lord’s truthful acclamation that He was, in fact, the Messiah and the Son of God.
And so it has gone down through the centuries even to our own day. And it doesn’t even matter what given waters the enemies of Christ may swim in — politics, media, religion — all His enemies are liars.
Which of course stands to reason because it was right over there, on the Temple Mount, where Islam’s Dome of the Rock now stands, that Our Lord brutalized the Jewish leaders for their rejection of truth in His own person.
He railed at them, naming them as offspring of the serpent and saying they were enemies of the truth because their father was the devil, who is the father of lies.
That is pretty severe language all by itself, but when coming as a judgment pronounced on you by the Son of God, it is a horrifying condemnation. Those who lie, who participate in lying to obscure or deny the truth, are the offspring of the devil.
And this isn’t just some historical or even biblical reality rooted in nostalgia or biblical scholarship. This is real today.
Consider CNN with its constant stream of fake news — meaning lies and distortions to get at Donald Trump. And that includes MSNBC, or The New York Times and so forth, the lot of them that want to get at it Him.
And why do they want to get at him? Because he represents to them — rightly or wrongly, a moral America — the head of a political grassroots movement that if successful would completely undo their liberal 1970s America which has ruled the country for nearly half a century. That vision of America was built on lies.
Roe v. Wade was built on the lie that Jane Roe, whose real name was Norma McCorvey, was gang raped by black men. Only decades later did it come out that that was a lie invented by Roe lawyer Sarah Weddington.
Weddington recently sat next to Andrew Cuomo as he signed the most wide-ranging abortion law in world history into effect earlier this year — more lies.
Joe Biden’s entire political career is built on lies — perhaps the biggest one coming to light is he is a creeper, not just friendly “Uncle Joe.”
He has manhandled so many women in public and done creepy things, like smelling their hair, that he has earned the nickname “The Handyman.”
Yet, the hypocrisy of the Left in giving him a pass because he supports child slaughter is revolting — revolting, but telling. They are willing to sacrifice some of their pretended sacred principles in order to keep abortion the sacrament they have raised it to.
So too the news media will do anything to avoid calling Islamic terrorists, Islamic terrorists — more lies.
The horror of what happened in Sri Lanka on Easter was dutifully reported by the fake news corrupt media as being the fault of “religious extremists” — oh yeah, which religion? To simply pin it on “religious” extremists, condemns all religions.
Why would the media not report the full truth of this, especially when they know it. Because it’s better for them to lie by omission if they want to keep up the pretense that Islam is the religion of peace.
They need to keep that narrative going so they can use it against Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.
So too, those on the Left who keep yammering on and lying about man-made climate change. The climate changes. It has since creation. Man does not make the climate change.
The Left — the media, politicians, elitists and so forth — are all engaged heavily in lies because they want to bring about a new order for the world where Jesus Christ is excluded from it.
Islam is based on a lie, Freemasons lie, socialists and Marxists lie, the media lies, Democrats lie, Planned Parenthood lies, all of them enemies of Christ because He is the truth, and they reject truth and the world and civilization created in the West by His Catholic Church after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Pilate, a representative of that empire, you might say got this whole ball rolling, this denial and rejection of truth for the sake of political expediency. It happened right over there, on the Temple Mount the first time, and as we know, it wouldn’t be the last.
Those dedicated to Christ say the truth. You cannot love Christ and not also love the truth, for He is the truth. Truth is sometimes hard to hear. Dealing with its consequences is often hard to bear.
But if you want to spend eternity with truth, you better start living in correct association with Him here on earth. Call out lies. Call out falsehoods. Do it every time you encounter them.
Calling out the enemies of Christ is really, after all, only calling out their father, the devil. That’s what children of the light do. They attack the darkness.
Ending our time here in the land where Our Lord instituted the sacrament of His body and blood, for our whole crew, and Church Militant supporters who made this trip possible for the production of our documentary on the Eucharist, this is Michael Voris.
EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Church Militanthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngChurch Militant2019-05-03 18:54:232019-05-03 19:14:46VIDEO: The Vortex — Enemies of Truth
David Carlin: The former Veep is a liberal Catholic. It will be interesting to see how many bishops will offer corrections to his non-Catholic positions.
Joe Biden, a Democrat who happens to be a Catholic, is now officially running for President of the United States. And he’s doing so in an effort to save what he calls the “soul” of America.
His assumption seems to be that there are two (more or less Platonic) Ideas of America currently struggling for dominance, the true Idea and the false Idea. I suppose he sees himself and his views as symbolizing the true America, while he sees Donald Trump and his views as symbolizing the false America.
If Biden is to be the Democratic candidate, he will, of course, have to embrace and endorse the beliefs and values that currently prevail in the Democratic Party, and these beliefs and values include the following:
1. Abortion is a fundamental human right.
2. Homosexual behavior is a fine thing for people who are born that way; and anybody who disagrees is a homophobic bigot.
3. Same-sex marriage is a fundamental human right.
4. The U.S. Constitution, thanks to the theory of substantive due process, protects all human rights; and it’s up to any five members of the U.S. Supreme Court to decide what is, or what is not, a human right.
5. Non-liberal whites are almost always racists.
6. It is a great duty of the U.S. government to protect those among us who are most oppressed; namely, blacks, other persons of color, women, undocumented migrants, Muslims, homosexuals, transgender persons, and criminals (including drug dealers) who have committed no violent crimes.
7. When the rights of churches or religious individuals collide with the rights of the above-listed victim groups, the former must give way to the latter.
8. When the rights of parents collide with the rights of their transgender children, the former must give way to the latter.
9. Almost all our social ills can be cured, or at least significantly mitigated, by actions of the federal government.
Lest anybody think that the above is an invidious description of the Democratic belief system given by a person who is a lifelong Democrat-hater, let me assure the reader that I once possessed very strong Democratic credentials. I think I first thought of myself as a Democrat on that day when I was about eight-years-old and my father explained to me, “The Republicans are the party of rich people. The Democrats are the party of poor people, like us.”
Later in life I became a politician in my home state of Rhode Island. I served twelve years (1981-93) as a Democrat in the R.I. Senate, two of those as majority leader. In 1992, I was the (losing) Democratic candidate in my district for the U.S. House of Representatives.
By that date, it was clear that my party had become a pro-abortion party. Yet I, a pro-life Democrat, still hoped that the party’s anti-Christian momentum could be reversed. That, as it turned out, was quite foolish.
Increasingly, cultural enemies of Christianity have gained ideological dominance in the party. From abortion they moved on to homosexuality and same-sex marriage; more recently they have advanced to transgenderism; and, in the future, they will almost certainly move on to assisted suicide: first to voluntary euthanasia, later to involuntary.It is with regret that I say it, but my old and dearly loved party has become a party of atheistic anti-Christianity. This is Biden’s party, and if he doesn’t embrace its values he won’t get its nomination.
Some people may object to what I’ve said. They may point out that today’s Democratic Party still contains many Christians and is far from being a party made up solely of atheists. True . . . and beside the point.
Many persons who identify as both Christians and Democrats are simple souls who imagine that their party, because it has the same name it had in the good old days of FDR and JFK, is the same party it has always been. They don’t understand, or they won’t allow themselves to understand, how radically their party has changed.
But those people are followers, not leaders. The ideological leadership of the party is in the hands of persons who may be called Secular Progressives. These people are atheists and near-atheists. By “near-atheists” I mean agnostics, religiously indifferent people, and liberal Protestants (in contrast to Evangelical Protestants).
If liberal Protestants are Christians, it is in a Pickwickian sense of that word only. For more than a century now, liberal Protestantism, in an attempt to “save” Christianity for persons with a modern mentality, has been shedding one element after another of Christian belief.
Having shed almost all Nicene doctrines, they have more recently, under the impact of the sexual revolution, dropped all traditional Christian sexual morality plus the ancient Christian taboo against abortion. Nowadays liberal Protestantism, while not quite full-fledged atheism, is far closer to atheism than it is to traditional Christianity.
Liberal Catholicism, while drifting in the same direction, got its start later than liberal Protestantism, and so has not yet traveled quite so far down the road to atheism as has its elder brother. Its main project at the moment is to persuade the Church to remove its age-old condemnation of homosexuality. To all appearances, it has had considerable success with this project, not just among tolerant laypersons, but even among many priests and some bishops.
When Joe Biden tries to exploit the “fact” that he’s a Catholic, it will be interesting to see how many Catholic bishops will denounce his spurious appropriation of the faith. If the denunciation is nearly universal, it will be a sign that the Church in America is recovering its health. If not, it will be sign that we are still sliding downhill.
This story has been in my queue for a couple of weeks and am finally getting to it.
What is so galling about the news is that our law enforcement has spent time and (our) money to investigate a crime and now incarcerate a man for something that has nothing to do with us.
We apparently ‘welcomed’ a Yemeni family to live in the Buffalo, NY area who brought all of their cultural/religious baggage to America (and even went ‘home’ for awhile) and we get to straighten out the mess the ‘new Americans’ created.
By the way, Yemen is one of the countries now on Trump’s so-called Muslim ban list!
I first saw this short press announcement at the U.S. Justice Departmentwebsite and then looked for more news.
BUFFALO, N.Y. – U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Yousef Goba, 45, of Yemen, who was convicted of making extortionate threats to harm and kidnap a minor, was sentenced to serve 41 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy C. Lynch, who handled the case, stated that between February 2015 and April 2015, Goba contacted an individual who resided in Western New York (the victim) through both telephone and text messages. During those communications, Goba threatened to kidnap and injure the victim’s minor child. The minor child went to Yemen with her mother in September 2013. While in Yemen, the minor child, her mother, and siblings lived with Goba for a period of time. When the mother wanted to move from Goba’s residence, the defendant refused to let the minor child leave and threatened that he would have the minor child marry a Yemeni man, if money was not paid to him. On April 8, 2015, during a call recorded by the FBI, Goba demanded that the victim pay him $11,000 as well as money for other expenses for the release of the minor child.
I checked around and found this story from Buffalo Newsthat includes additional information….
….including the fact that Goba is the brother of a Yemeni man convicted on terrorism charges right after 9/11.
Child extortion plot stretching from Lackawanna to Yemen sends man to prison
The girl’s mother, who has since divorced her husband and remarried, took the children to Yemen in September 2013 to live temporarily so the father could save money while working here. [And, we are expected to believe that?—ed]
The following summer, after spending time with the father’s family in Yemen, the mother and children moved in with Goba. When they tried to leave, the defendant allowed the mother and other children to depart, but not the girl, the prosecution maintains. [So this woman moves in with a man not her relative, but the brother of a convicted Islamic terrorist?—ed]
The government also claims Goba threatened to marry off the girl to a Yemeni national willing to pay for her, and that Goba sent the father a photo of the girl pointing to a wedding cake and a second picture of her with a ring on her finger.
In pleading to extortion, Goba said he was just trying to get the father to reimburse him for the money he spent providing for the family while they lived with him in Yemen. He was arrested in New York City in 2015 as he returned to the United States.
Goba is the brother of Lackawanna Six member Yahya Goba, but sources said there appears to be no connection between Goba’s case and his brother’s involvement with the Lackawanna Six.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Ann Corcoranhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAnn Corcoran2019-05-02 15:17:162019-05-03 19:18:59Yemeni Man gets Prison Time for Extortion Plot Involving a Child Bride
